The Anglo-Norman succession debate of II26: Prelude to Stephen's anarchy

On 1 January 1127 Henry 1 made his magnates and prelates swear to accept his daughter Maud as heiress to England and Normandy. In the months prior to the oathtaking, certain identifiable curiales ～ Robert earl of Gloucester, Brian fitz Count, and David king of Scots - seem to have been supporting Maud's candidacy. Others, including Roger bishop of Salisbury and his kinsmen, appear to have opposed her and perhaps to have supported Henry's nephew, William Clito, as heir. The factions resurfaced at Henry's death in December 1135. William Clito having died in the meantime, Roger of Salisbury became one of Stephen of Blois' earliest and strongest supporters. Maud's former friends, Robert of Gloucester and Brian fitz Count, were temporarily immobilized by a violent break between Henry and Maud in the closing months of Henry's reign, but they, along with King David, subsequently became Maud's most active and consistent champions. The two factions differed neither in socioeconomic background nor in ideology. It was not a question of old baronial families on one side and newly-risen curiales on the other, but simply of differing personal allegiances originating in the divisions among Henry's courtiers in 1126.     

Robert,earl of Gloucester,and the daughter of Zelophehad

Robert, earl of Gloucester, the leader of Mathilda's party in England during Stephen's reign, has a good press because the main source for his activities is his admirer, William of Malmesbury. This article re-assesses Robert's role and character by concentrating on chroniclers other than Malmesbury and on charter evidence. It finds, by these methods, that Earl Robert may have been in some ways an attractive man, but that he was also a practised curialist, a ruthless factionalist, a plunderer of church lands, and a man who made acquisition of his neighbours' lands one of his main objects. New evidence is presented to account for his behaviour in the crucial months at the end of 1135 and beginning of 1136 when Stephen made himself king. Robert is found to have had little choice but to cross to England because his lands in the southern Marches were under threat from a Welsh rising. His alienation from Stephen in the next few years is traced to a failure at court against his rivals, the Beaumont group. His subsequent private war against the Beaumonts in Dorset and Worcestershire is further evidence against Malmesbury 's portrayal of him as a man of pure principle. conduct of the war against Stephen after 1139 can be shown to have had serious flaws. The result was a rebellion against him by his own sons and the repudiation of his methods (if not his acquisitions) by his successor Earl William. Evidence is presented that Earl William sparked off the movement amongst the magnates to draw up private treaties to contain the Anarchy. In view of all this, it is not surprising to find indications that Earl Robert lacked any real commitment to the claims of his half-sister, the empress.     

Orderic Vitalis and Rober of Bellême

The Norman monastic chronicler Orderic Vitalis's treatment of Robert of Bellême, the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman magnate and overmighty subject of the English kings, William II and Henry I, is discussed and compared with evidence from other sources. A contrast is drawn between Orderic's eagerness to portray Robert as a villain and his apparent acceptance of the misdemeanors of Henry I, who is presented favourably because of the period of relative peace following Henry's deposition in 1106 of his brother, the Norman duke, Robert Curthose. Orderic downplays the work of Henry's predecessors, Robert Curthose and William II, and in Robert of Bellême creates a counterweight to his picture of the just king Henry I. His negative assessment of all Robert's actions therefore needs to be adjusted and it is suggested that other modern interpretations based on his work may need similar re-examination and revision.     

Richard of Cornwall's candidature for the German throne and the christmas 1256 parliament at Westminster

Some months after the death of the German king William of Holland in 1256, Richard of Cornwall, with obvious help from King Henry III (but not initially with the support of the pope), decided to enter the contest for the German throne. His methods, including the use of his funds on a large scale, are well known, but Richard and Henry also contrived to deceive the English magnates about their plans. They told the barons at a meeting at the end of the year 1256 that Richard had already been elected king (which was manifestly untrue) and that only their consent was missing. This was a device to foil the expected resistance by the magnates, who were already opposing Henry's increasingly costly Sicilian adventure.     

William Rufus: myth and reality

The commonly accepted view of the reign of William II (1087–1100) is a political myth, primarily the work of Eadmer, who depicted the king as the villain against whom St Anselm strove to impose the revolutionary Gregorian reform programme in England. Henry I, moreover, denigrated his brother's regime as a cover for furthering William's harsh but constructive policies. Eadmer's writings were quarried by subsequent twelfth-century writers in the mainstream of the English monastic historical tradition, who added their own literary embellishments. Nineteenth-century historians uncritically accepted these accounts and Henry I's gloss on the reign. They then contributed moral judgements of their own, which passed without qualification into modern secondary works.This paper re-evaluates William II's political and governmental achievements, and his ecclesiastical policy. His character is considered in the light of recent work on twelfth-century intellectual and psychological attitudes, and the accounts of more favourable chroniclers. It is concluded that the king developed his father's strong policies in every direction with considerable success, making possible the more publicized but essentially imitative work of Henry I. William's expansion and consolidation of national frontiers, his legal and financial developments, and his maintenance of royal control over the Church are revealed under the distortions of ecclesiastical and Henrician historiography.     

St Anselm and the English investiture controversy reconsidered

The Investiture Controversy in England has generally been viewed as a two-sided contest between king and pope. But in reality the struggle was between three parties — king, pope, and primate. St Anselm, devoted to his duties as God's steward of his office and its privileges, worked against both King Henry I and Pope Paschal II to bring into reality his idea of the proper status of the primate of all Britain. Anselm had a vision of a political model which he conceived as God's ‘right order’ in England, and all his efforts were directed toward fulfilling this vision.The Investiture Contest may be divided into two parts. The first phase began when Anselm was thwarted by Henry I's duplicity in the archbishop's attempt to force the king to accept the decrees of Rome at the height of a political crisis. Anselm may have seen these decrees as beneficial to the Canterbury primacy. From 1101 to 1103, Anselm wavered between supporting either party completely, meanwhile securing from Paschal all the most important privileges for the primacy of Canterbury. Each time Paschal refused to grant a dispensation for Henry, as Anselm requested, he granted Anselm a privilege for the primacy. Thus Anselm's vision of the primate as almost a patriarch of another world, nearly independent of the pope, was fulfilled by 1103.At this point, Anselm abandoned his vacillation between king and pope, and worked seemingly on behalf of Paschal, but in reality on behalf of the Canterbury primacy. During this second phase, Anselm's political adroitness becomes clear by a correlation, never before made, between the church-state controversy and Henry's campaign to conquer Normandy. By careful maneuvering and skilful propaganda, Anselm forced Henry to choose between submitting to the investiture decree or failing in his attempt to conquer Normandy. At the settlement, a compromise was worked out, Henry conceding on investitures, and Paschal conceding on homage. But investiture was only secondary to Anselm. He ended the dispute not when Henry submitted on investitures, but only when he had gained from Henry concessions which made the primate almost a co-ruler with the king, as his political vision demanded. Only after a public reconcilliation with his archbishop did Henry feel free to complete the Norman campaign.Thus the Investiture Controversy was a three-way struggle. Both king and pope compromised, each giving up some of their goals. But Anselm emerged from the contest having won nearly all his political objectives.     

Duke Richard of York's intentions in I450 and the origins of the wars of the roses

The return of Richard, duke of York, from Ireland in 1450 represents his first overt attempt to remedy certain grievances. His criticism of the Lancastrian régime eventually brought him leadership in the Wars of the Roses. The grivances of 1450 are contained in two bills addressed to Henry VI. At first, the duke harboured personal grievances — fear of attainder and having his claim to the throne bypassed, resentment at his counsel being ignored and his debts unpaid — which were exaguerated by unsertainty and the king's readiness to believe the worst. Richards apreciation of the widespread hostility towards the government and the disarray of the king's Household after Suffolk's murder enabled him to convert grievances into public criticisms in his second bill. He encouraged investigations into official oppression in southeastern England, and his supporters may have stimulated risings there to demonstrate support for him. Compared with Henry's nervous reaction to York's first bill, he firmly checkmated the pretensions of the second, and Yorks achievement in 1450 was limited. But he had taken a first step towards appealing for support by converting personal grievances into a general bid for sympathy. Whether he aid so for personal or public motives — or both — remains an open question.     

The development of the chapter of the diocese of Exeter 1050–1161

At the same time as Bishop Leofric (1046–1072) transferred the seat of his cathedral from Crediton to Exeter in 1050, he introduced the rule of Chrodegang as the basis for the government of his church. The rule itself, therefore, is the best guide to the way the canons lived during Leofric's episcopate. During the episcopates of Leofric's successors (Osbern 1072–1103, William Warelwast 1107–1138, Robert I 1138–1155, Robert II 1155–1160) evidence from a variety of sources allows us to perceive some changes in the administration of the rule and aspects of the development of the chapter. It is with these changes and developments that this paper is concerned.     

The Norman invasion of Gwent: a reassessment

Shortly after the Norman conquest of England, William fitz Osbern was created earl of Hereford. Most historians suggest he overran all Gwent east of the Usk before his return to the continent in 1071. This article will argue that his occupation of Gwent was more limited and was possibly confined to the territories claimed by Harold Godwinson, once earl of Hereford, before his death at Hastings. Instead, the accession of William Rufus in 1087 is seen as the context for a new aggressive policy towards South Wales. In the next fifteen years, Gwent and its neighbouring kingdoms of Morgannwg and Bucheiniog were overrun by William's marcher lords.     

Book Reviews

Book review in this Article The Idea of Progress in Classical Antiquity. Ludwig Adelstein. Technology in the Ancient World. Henry Hodges. Greek Burial Customs. Donna C. Kurtz The Romans. Donald R. Dudley. Emperors and Biography: Studies in the Historia Augusta. Sir Ronald Syme. Ducal Brittany, 1364–1399: Relations with England and France During the Reign of Duke John IV. Michael C. E. Jones. Monarch and Community: Political Ideas in the Later Conciliar Controversy, 1430–145O. Antony Black. The Croatian-Slavonian Kingdom, 1526–1792. William J. Griswold Eastern Europe: Politics, Revolution, and Diplomacy. Henry L. Roberts. Dynamics of Counterrevolution in Europe, 1870–1956. Arno J. Mayer. Mubadele: an Ottoman-Russian Exchange of Ambassadors. Norman Itzkowitz Historians of Modern Europe. Hans A. Schmitt. Basle and France in the Sixteenth Century: The Basle Humanists and Printers in Their Contacts with Francophone Culture. Peter G. Bietenholz. Charles X of France: His Life and Times. Vincent W. Beach. The Great Illusion, 1900–1914. Oron J. Hale. Walther Rathenau and the Weimar Republic: The Politics of Reparations. David Felix. The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany: Diplomatic Revolution in Europe, 1933–1936. Gerhard L. Weinberg. Scholars and Gentlemen. Universities and Society in Pre-Industrial Britain, 1500–1700. Hugh Kearney. The Letters of Sir John Hackett, 1526–1534. Elizabeth Frances Rogers. The Elizabethan Privy Council in the Fifteen-Seventies. Michael Barraclough Pulman. The Parliament of 1621: A Study in Constitutional Conflict. Robert Zaller. Sir Henry Vane the Younger: A Study in Political and Administrative History. Violet A. Rowe. Scotland in the Age of Improvement; Essays in Scottish History in the Eighteenth Century. N. T. Phillipson Hanoverian London, 1714–1808. George Rudé Drink and the Victorians: The Temperance Question in England, 1815–1872. Brian Harrison. The Foreign Policy of Victorian England, 1830–1902. Kenneth Bourne. The Conservative Party from Peel to Churchill. Robert Blake. The Impact of Labour, 1920–1924. Maurice Cowling. The Inter-War Economy: Britain, 1919–1939. Derek H. Aldcroft Bittersweet Encounter: The Afro-American and the American Jew. Robert G. Weisbord The Taos Trappers: The Fur Trade in the Far Southwest, 1540–1846. David J. Weber. Parsons and Pedagogues: The S. P. G. Adventure in American Education. John Calam. Samuel Davies: Apostle of Dissent in Colonial Virginia. George William Pilcher. William Vans Murray, Federalist Diplomat: The Shaping of Peace with France, 1797–1801. Peter P. HILL. Sarmiento's Travels in the United States in 1847. Michael Aaron Rockland. Mission Among the Blachfeet. Howard L. Harrod. Jeremiah Sullivan Black. William N. Brigance. The Last Foray, The South Carolina Planters of 1860: A Sociological Study. Chalmers Gaston Davidson. The Limits of Dissent: Clement L. Vallandigham & The Civil War. Frank L. Klement. Roscoe Conkling of New York: Voice in the Senate. David M. Jordan. Wooster of the Middle West. Lucy Lilian Notestein. George Frisbie Hoar and the Half-Breed Republicans. Richard E. Welch, Jr. Anti-Imperialism in the United States: The Great Debate, 1890–1920. E. Berkeley Tompkins. The Papers of Woodrow Wilson. Volume VII: 1890–1892. Volume VILL: 1892–1894. Volume IX: 1894–1896. Arthur S. Link American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 1900–1939. A Study in International Humanitarian Reform. Arnold H. Taylor. Cry from the Cotton: The Southern Tenant Farmers Union and the New Deal. Donald H. Grubbs.     

Regni et pacis inquietatrix : Zur Rolle der kaiserin Mathilde in der ‘anarchie’

Some twelfth-century continental historians regarded the Empress Matilda as an angel. But the English chroniclers mirror the distinctly negative traits in her character. They accuse Matilda of having lost her war against King Stephen because of her pride, arrogance and even cruelty. Why did the daughter of King Henry I have such a very bad press in England?Undoubtedly the empress irritated the English by her harshness. She had not always been a devil, however. In 40–1139 Matilda acted in close harmony with her brother, Earl Robert of Gloucester. Both were willing to conclude a truce with King Stephen. But in 1141 the Angevin party in England lost its cohesion, and after the battle of Lincoln the empress began to follow her own path. It seems that Gloucester did not approve of all of her actions. Matilda took possession of her father's crown in Winchester and claimed to de domina et regina — just as Stephen, her prisoner at that time, was dominus et rex. She tried to turn back the wheel of history and made enemies everywhere. The empress believed in her ability to rule in her own right, but Anglo-Norman feudal society did not allow for the erection of a dominatio feminea. The verdict on Matilda began to take shape when she tried to settle the affairs of the kingdom in a ‘tyrannical’ way.     

The Norman invasion of Gwent: a reassessment

Shortly after the Norman conquest of England, William fitz Osbern was created earl of Hereford. Most historians suggest he overran all Gwent east of the Usk before his return to the continent in 1071. This article will argue that his occupation of Gwent was more limited and was possibly confined to the territories claimed by Harold Godwinson, once earl of Hereford, before his death at Hastings. Instead, the accession of William Rufus in 1087 is seen as the context for a new aggressive policy towards South Wales. In the next fifteen years, Gwent and its neighbouring kingdoms of Morgannwg and Bucheiniog were overrun by William's marcher lords.     

Celestine V,Boniface VIII and the authority of parliament

During the troubled pontificates of Celestine V and Boniface VIII, publicists argued that because general councils of the Church represented the whole congregation of the faithful, they had the power to remove a pope found guilty of crimes ranging from obdurate heresy to personal insufficiency. In 1327, Isabella and Mortimer based much of the justification for their deposition of Edward II on these newly popularized ideas. Nevertheless, since these theories were for them very much rationalizations of the moment, they were quickly abandoned, with the result that Edward III's parliaments look little different from Edward I's, though in more mature form. In 1399, however, Henry IV was forced to rely on the precedent of 1327 when supplanting Richard II. Because the then-prevalent conciliar theories generated by the great schism gave even greater immediacy to the ones which had explained that first deposition, and because Henry's approach was many times to be imitated in the depositions of the fifteenth century, parliament began to take on the character of a corpus mysticum, one which could speak with the authority not just of the king, but of God and the realm. This background may shed light on some of the reasons for Henry VIII's success in using parliamentary statute to break with Rome, and it may even have contributed to some of the parliamentary positions expressed during the seventeenth-century struggles with the crown.     

The coronation charter of 1100: a postponement of decision. What did not happen in Henry I's reign

The charter issued by Henry I on his coronation in 1100 has been regarded since Stubb's time as a prefigurement of Magna Carta, since it restricted the rights of the monarch. It has also been seen as a cunning political manoeuvre designed to strengthen the shaky position of Henry I during the tense days and months following the death of William Rufus. The present article does not set out to undermine either of these two positions. The charter played a part in the discussions between the king, the Church and the barons in 1135, 1154 and 1213. There was no such discussion in 1100 when the charter was formulated. At that earlier date the role of the monarch was predominant, as it had been since 1066. As yet the Church and the barons had no active part to play.     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship. By John Watts John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland 1504–1553. By David Loades The Nerves of State. Taxation and the Financing of the English State, 1558–1714. By Michael J. Braddick The Papers of Sir Richard Grosvenor, 1st Bart. (1585–1645). Edted by Richard Cust. The Scottish Parliament 1639–1661. A Political and Constitutional Analysis. By John R. Young Protestantism and Patriotism. Ideologies and the Making of English Foreign Policy, 1650–1668. By Steven C. A. Pincus The House of Lords in the Reign of Charles II. By Andrew Swatland William III and the Godly Revolution. By Tony Claydon The Parliamentary Diary of sir Richard Cocks, 1698–1702. Edited by D. W. Hayton. John Wilkes. A Friend to Liberty. By Peter D. G. Thomas. The Waning of ‘Old Corruption’. The Politics of Economical Reform in Britain, 1779–1846. By Philip Harling Henry Goulbum, 1784–1856. A Political Biography. By Brian Jenkins Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon 1807–1815. By Rory Muir. The Decline of British Radicalism, 1847–1860. By Miles Taylormbridge Citizenship and Community: Liberals, Radicals and Collective Identities in the British Isles, 1865–1931. Edited by Eugenio F. Biagini Officials of Royal Commissions of Inquiry 1870–1939. Compiled by Elaine Harrison Democratic Ideas and the British Labour Movement, 1880–1914. By Loge Barrow and Ian Bullock The Conservatives and British Society, 1880–1990. Edited by Martin Francis and Ina Zweiniger-Bargelowska The Age of Salisbury, 1881–1902. Unionism and Empire. By Richard Shannon. Democratic Rhondda. Politics and Society 1885–1951. By Chris William A History of Conservative Politics, 1900–1996. By John Channley The Republican Crown. Lawyers and the Making Of the State in Twentieth-Century Britain. By Joseph M. Jacob. Out of Control. British Foreign Policy and the Union of Democratic Control 1914–1918. By Sally Harris. Clement Attlee. By Jerry H. Brookshire. The Diaries and Letters of Robert Bernays 1932–1939. An Insider's Account of the House of Commons. Edited by Nick Smart Politics and the Constitution: Essays on British Government. By Vernon Bogdanor. The Heath Government 1970–1974. A Reappraisal. Edited by Stuart Ball and Anthony Seldon     

Illustrations of Medieval Manners and Costume from Original Documents

The Coningesby family connection with Guy of Warwick is recorded in a pedigree of the family in the Lincolnshire Record Office. The will of Sir Henry Coningesby, knight, indicates that he built the present house at North Mymms Park, probably in the 1580s. It is suggested that the ‘Warwick’ worthy depicts Sir Henry's thirteenth-century ancestor, Sir Roger Coningesby, knight, Steward of the house to Guy of Warwick. There was a connection by marriage between the house at North Mymms, Hertfordshire and Nether Hall, Essex, where similar wall paintings had existed. The association between the Coningesby family, when at the Manor of Weld and the Cutts family, when at Salisbury Hall, both in the parish of Shenley, Hertfordshire, probably accounts for the similarity of the frieze in the Oak bedroom and the frieze in Childerley Hall, Cambridgeshire.     

Criticism of Henry II's expedition to Ireland in William of Canterbury's miracles of St Thomas Becket

The long collection of miracles of St Thomas Becket written by William, a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, between 1172 and c.1179 is, like many other examples of the genre, a rich source for attitudes towards sanctity, relics, and pilgrimage. A far more unusual feature of William's text is the author's criticism of the recent English presence in Ireland. William's comments on this score amount to a loaded stretching of the normal parameters of his textual medium, resulting in an evaluative engagement with current affairs of the sort that we would more normally associate with reflective forms of history-writing. William's criticism focused in particular upon the expedition to Ireland undertaken by King Henry II (October 1171–April 1172), inverting the very rhetoric that Henry had used to justify his Irish adventure. William was not himself Irish, as has sometimes been supposed, nor was he registering his institution's frustrations about its exclusion from the new ecclesiastical order in Ireland, as might be implied by the traditional but questionable ‘Canterbury plot’ interpretation of the much-debated papal bull Laudabiliter. Instead, William was skilfully engaging with current debates about the rectitude of Henry II's Irish expedition, and more broadly contesting emerging prejudices about England's ‘uncultivated’ neighbours, in order to effect a subtle critique of the king's involvement in Becket's murder.     

The growth of secure inheritance in Anglo-Norman England

The following paper traces the crystallization of inheritance custom in England from 1086 to 1154. Inheritance of baronial estates has long been considered by historians to have been tenuous in the reigns of William the Conqueror and his sons, but by dating instances of forfeiture, escheat and other forms of disinheritance, and by comparing these dates with those of political turmoil, it can be shown that the custom became fairly secure and regular in the latter half of the reign of Henry I, only to be disrupted in the civil wars of Stephen's reign.     

BOOK NOTES

Wildlands: Their Protection and Management in Economic Development , by George Ledec and Robert Goodland.
Revitalising the Waterfront: International Dimensions of Dockland Redevelopment , edited by Brian S. Hoyle, David S. Pinder, and M. Sohail Hussain.     

English Bordeaux in conflict: the execution of Pierre Vigier de la Rouselle and its aftermath, 1312–24

As capital of English Gascony, Bordeaux was critical to the maintenance of Plantagenet authority in the duchy. Unfortunately for those kings, conditions tended to undermine the fragile power they did have over the wealthy rity. First, the independent-minded, affluent ruling class had for years established themselves in rival factions; at the same time ducal officials had to try to retain their goodwill at the same time as they sought to curb their lawlessness. Second, in the later years of Edward I's reign, the French occupied and governed Bordeaux and much of the rest of the duchy as a consequence of their victory over the English in a relatively minor war. With the resumption of Plantagenet rule over Bordeaux shortly before the accession of Edward II, ducal control was very tenuous indeed, as rival factions now fought each other ostensibly over their English or French sympathies.The problem is clearly illustrated in the case of a Francophilic citizen of Bordeaux, Pierre Vigier de la Rouselle, an ex-ducal official executed for his public criticism of the Gascon government. Following his death and the confiscation of his property, Vigier's heirs and sons appealed for redress to theParlement of Paris, the royal court of Edward II's Capetian overlord. The suit, dragging on there for at least twelve years, demonstrated how weak and inept the English authority was. As the French implicated both ducal officials and pro-English citizens of Bordeaux in the crime, the embarrassed Edward and his Gascon officials sought unsuccessfully to intimidate the appellants, fix culpability on scapegoats, and generally to deny any wrong-doing. Though sources provide no indication that the case ever concluded, it seems apparent that in the dispute over Vigier's death the importence of the English in their own ducal capital was only too clear.