pages and squires came, when he had unstrung his shield: and they took the helmet from his head, and the hauberk from his back, and saw the heavy blows upon his shield, and how his helmet was dinted in. And all greatly wondered, and said, 'Such a baron never bestrode war-horse, or dealt such blows, or did such feats of arms; neither has there been on earth such a knight since Rollant and Olivier.'

"Thus they lauded and extolled him greatly, and rejoiced in what they saw; but grieving also for their friends who were slain in the battle. And the Duke stood meanwhile among them of noble stature and mien; and rendered thanks to the King of Glory, through whom he had the victory; and thanked the knights around him, mourning also frequently for the dead. And he ate and drank among the dead, and made his bed that night upon the field.

"The morrow was Sunday; and those who had slept upon the field of battle, keeping watch around, and suffering great fatigue, bestirred themselves at break of day and sought out and buried such of the bodies of their dead friends as they might find. The noble ladies of the land also came, some to seek their husbands, and others their fathers, sons, or brothers. They bore the bodies to their villages, and interred them at the churches; and the clerks and priests of the country were ready, and at the request of their friends, took the bodies that were found, and prepared graves and laid them therein.

"King Harold was carried and buried at Varham; but I know not who it was that bore him thither, neither do I know who buried him. Many remained on the field, and many had fled in the night."

Such is a Norman account of the battle of Hastings, which does full justice to the valor of the Saxons, as well as to the skill and bravery of the victors. It is indeed evident that the loss of the battle to the English was owing to the wound which Harold received in the afternoon, and which must have incapacitated him from effective command. When we remember that he had himself just won the battle of Stamford Bridge over Harald Hardrada by the manœuvre of a feigned flight, it is impossible to suppose that he could be deceived by the same stratagem on the part of the Normans at Hastings. But his men, when deprived of his control, would very naturally be led by their inconsiderate ardor into the pursuit that proved so fatal to them.

Two of the monks of Waltham Abbey, which Harold had founded a little time before his election to the throne, had accompanied him to the battle. On the morning after the slaughter they begged and gained permission of the Conqueror to search for the body of their benefactor. The Norman soldiery and camp-followers had stripped and gashed the slain; and the two monks vainly strove to recognize from among the mutilated and gory heaps around them the features of their former king. They sent for Harold's mistress, Edith, surnamed "the Fair" and the "Swan-necked," to aid them. The eye of love proved keener than the eye of gratitude, and the Saxon lady, even in that Aceldama, knew her Harold.

The king's mother now sought the victorious Norman, and begged the dead body of her son. But William at first answered in his wrath, and in the hardness of his heart, that a man who had been false to his word and his religion should have no other sepulchre than the sand of the shore. He added, with a sneer, "Harold mounted guard on the coast while he was alive; he may continue his guard now he is dead." The taunt was an unintentional eulogy; and a grave washed by

the spray of the Sussex waves would have been the noblest burial-place for the martyr of Saxon freedom. But Harold's mother was urgent in her lamentations and her prayers: the Conqueror relented: like Achilles, he gave up the dead body of his fallen foe to a parent's supplications; and the remains of King Harold were deposited with regal honors in Waltham Abbey.

On Christmas Day of the same year, William the Conqueror was crowned at London, King of England.

STATE OF EUROPE DURING THE TENTH, ELEVENTH, AND TWELFTH CENTURIES.

On

France, from the extent and splendor of its dominions under Charlemagne, had dwindled to a shadow under his weak posterity. At the end of the Carlovingian period, France comprehended North Normandy, Dauphiné, and Provence. the death of Louis V. (Fainéant) the crown ought to have devolved on his uncle, Charles of Brabant and Hainault, as the last male of the race of Charlemagne; but Hugh Capet, Lord of Picardy and Champagne, and the duchy of France, in which Paris was situated, the most powerful of French nobles, was elected sovereign by the voice of his brother peers, A.D. 987. Paris, which had originally been made the capital of the kingdom of Clovis, but abandoned again during the reigns of the last kings of the first race, and by the whole of the second dynasty, became once more the seat of government under the Capetian monarchs, and continues so to this day.

The prevailing passion of the times was pilgrimage and chivalrous enterprise. In this career of adventure, the Normans from the remotest shores of Scandinavia most remarkably distinguished themselves. In 983, having descended as low as the Mediterranean Sea, they relieved the Prince of Salerno, in Italy, by expelling the Saracens from his territory. They did a similar service to Pope Benedict VIII. and the Duke of Capua; while another band of their countrymen fought against the Greeks, and afterwards against the Pope, always selling their services for the highest pay. In 1101, Roger the Norman completed the conquest of Sicily, of which the Popes continued to be Lords Paramount.

The north of Europe in these periods was in an extremely barbarous condition. Russia received

the Christian religion in the eighth century. Sweden, after its conversion in the ninth century, relapsed into idolatry, as did Hungary and Bohemia. The Constantinopolitan empire defended its frontiers with difficulty against the Bulgarians in the west, and against the Turks and Arabians in the east and north. In Italy, excepting the papal territory, the principalities of the independent nobles, and the states of Venice and Genoa, the greatest part of the country was now in the possession of the Normans. Venice and Genoa were gradually rising to great opulence through commerce. Venice was for some ages tributary to the emperors of Germany. In the tenth century, its Doge, an officer created towards the close of the seventh or the beginning of the eighth century, assumed the title of Duke of Dalmatia, of which the republic had acquired the property by conquest.

Spain was chiefly possessed by the Moors; the Christians retaining only about a fourth of the kingdom, namely, Asturia, part of Castile and Catalonia, Navarre and Arragon. Portugal was likewise occupied by the Moors. Of the independent lords or Cavalleros andantes, or knights-errant, the most distinguished was Rodrigo the Cid, who undertook for his sovereign, Alphonso, king of Old Castile, to conquer the kingdom of New Castile, achieving the same with signal success.

The contentions between the Imperial and Papal powers make a distinguished figure in these ages. From the time that Otho the Great received the Imperial crown from the Pope, the emperors were considered as the temporal, the popes as the spiritual, heads of Christendom. The contest went on under a succession of popes and emperors, but ended commonly in favor of the pontiffs. Frederic I. (Barbarossa), the second monarch of the Suabian dynasty, after an indignant denial of the supremacy of Alexander III., and a refusal of the customary homage, was at length compelled to kiss his feet, and appease the papacy by a large cession of territory. Pope Celestinus, at eighty-six years of age, kicked off the Imperial crown of Henry VI. while doing homage on his knees, but made amends by the gift of Nice and Sicily, from which Henry had expelled the Normans. These territories now became an appanage of the empire, 1194. The succeeding popes increased in power, till Innocent III., in the beginning of the thirteenth century, established the

power of the papacy on a settled basis, and obtained a positive acknowledgment of the papal supremacy, or the right principaliter et finaliter to confer the Imperial crown. It was the same Pope Innocent whom we shall hereafter see the disposer of the crown of England in the reign of John.

ENGLAND.

The consequence of the battle of Hastings was the submission of all England to William the Conqueror. The beginning of his government was sufficiently mild and conciliatory; but in process of time he disgusted his English subjects by the strong partiality he showed his Norman followers, preferring them to all offices of trust and dignity. The Norman conquest was, in reality, the imposition of a French dynasty, with a French nobility, in England. The dynasty remained French for more than one hundred years: French phrases then introduced are still used in the English courts of law; and the French element permanently grafted on the English language. A conspiracy arose from discontent, which William defeated, and avenged with signal rigor and cruelty. He determined henceforward to treat the English as a conquered people. He commanded all pleadings to be in the French tongue, and established schools for the instruction of youth in it, that the mother-tongue might be entirely superseded. He abolished the Saxon laws, and substituted in their stead those of Normandy. To his own children he owed the severest of his troubles. His power in Normandy was threatened by the rebellion of his eldest son, Robert, who levied open war against him, and on one occasion almost killed his father with his own hand. sound of William's voice, under his closed helmet, calling for help, revealed him to his son, who was struck with remorse, and asked for pardon. William not only forgave him, but intrusted him with a command against Malcolm, king of Scotland,

1079.

The

In 1086 a grand ceremony was held at Salisbury, which has left a lasting record to our day. All the freeholders of the kingdom took the oath of fealty to William as their feudal lord; and the great record of the landed estates of the kingdom was finished, which bears the name of DOMESDAY BOOK.

It describes the divisions and products of the various properties in the land. It registers 283,000 persons, from which basis the whole population is reckoned at about 1,000,000. This crowning act of William's government was his last. Incensed by the inroads of certain French barons upon Normandy, and offended by some personal sarcasms of the French king, Philip, he led an army into l' Isle de France, burning and destroying on every side. His rage brought its own retribution. As he was viewing the ruins of Mantes, which his followers had just burnt, his horse, stepping on some hot ashes, plunged violently, and bruised him against the pommel of the saddle. His advanced age and his state of body rendered the hurt mortal. He died in the monastery of St. Gervas, in the sixtyfirst year of his age, the fifty-fourth of his reign over Normandy, and twenty-first from his conquest of England, A.D. 1087. He was buried in the church of St. Stephen at Caen.

William established the CURFEW (couvre feu) bell, on the ringing of which fires had to be extinguished at sunset in summer, and about 8 o'clock in winter. By the forest laws he reserved to himself the exclusive privilege of killing game all over the kingdom, a restriction resented by his subjects above every other mark of servitude. But, in its lasting results, the Norman conquest was an incalculable benefit to England. It gave her a strong government in place of the effete Saxon dynasty. It placed around the throne a body of nobles whose very pride and jealousy were soon to prove the means of extending the people's liberties; and it brought England into a relation with the Continent, which, in spite of long and desolating wars, raised her, at length, to the rank of an European power.

William left three sons, Robert, William, and Henry; his second son, Richard, having been killed. while hunting. He demised to Robert his duchies of Normandy and Maine; to Henry he gave 5,000 pounds of silver; bequeathing the crown of England to William.

William II., surnamed Rufus, from his red hair, 1087-1100, hastened to England, bearing his father's letter to Archbishop Lafranc, which directed the prelate to crown him. He seized the fortresses of Dover, Pevensey, and Hastings, and the royal treasure of £60,000, or $300,000, at Winchester. His coronation took place on the 26th September; and

he easily crushed a rebellion of the partisans of Robert. His reign is distinguished by no event of importance, presenting nothing but a dull career of unresisted despotism.

Meanwhile, the preaching of Peter the Hermit had enkindled the zeal of Christendom for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre from the Saracens; and the First Crusade was undertaken in 1095. Robert of Normandy joined in the enterprise; and, to acquire the needful funds, he mortgaged to William his duchies of Normandy and Maine for 10,000 marks, which were raised by violent extortion from the English, 1096. The example of Robert was followed by William, Duke of Guienne and Count of Poitiers, in 1099; but before William Rufus could prepare his army to take possession of those provinces, his reign was closed by a violent death. As he was hunting in the New Forest, with a French gentleman, Walter Tyrrel, an arrow shot by Tyrrel glanced from a tree full into the king's breast, and killed him. That noble monument of his reign, Westminster Hall, the great hall of the palace of Westminster, as well as the bridge he built over the Thames, and his wall round the town of London, are said to have been reared by a system of the greatest oppression.

Henry I., surnamed Beauclerc, from his education and. literary tastes, A. D. 1100-1135, was on the spot when William died, and hastened to secure the crown, to the exclusion of Robert, who was absent in Palestine. He was proclaimed at Winchester on the 3d of August, and crowned at London on the 5th. His first act was to grant a charter, in which he made fair promises to the church, the barons, and the English. To the latter he pledged himself to observe the laws of Edward the Confessor. In this charter, the barons are for the first time named, in place of the witan, as concurring with the king. The confidence of his English subjects was completely gained by the marriage of Henry with Matilda, the niece of Edgar Atheling, and lineal representative of the house of Cerdic, who is known in English history as "the good Queen Maud." By this marriage Henry also allied himself to the royal family of Scotland.

Landing in Normandy in 1105, Henry gave battle to his brother Robert, and defeated him. He then caused him to be imprisoned in the castle of Cardiff, where he died after a captivity of twenty-eight.

years. In the year 1120, Henry, having made peace with the king of France, set sail from Iarfleur for England. His only son, and heir to the throne, William, remained behind for a short time, and the captain and crew of his ship drank so freely that, soon after setting sail, they drove the vessel on a rock. The prince was escaping in a long boat, when, hearing the cries of his natural sister, the Countess of Perche, he put back to save her. A rush was made to the boat, which sank with all on board; while only two survivors still clung to the ship. The one was the captain, who threw himself into the sea, when he learned that the prince was dead; the other was a butcher of Rouen, who alone escaped to tell the tale. When, after three days' suspense, the king received certain news of his loss, he fainted away, and it is recorded that "he never smiled again."

On Christmas-day, 1126, the king caused all his nobles to swear fealty to Matilda, daughter of "good Queen Maud." In the following year, he married Matilda to Geoffrey Plantagenet, and in 1133 a son was born of this marriage, who afterwards, as Henry II., became the first lineal descendant of both lines, the Saxon and Norman, who was king of England. In the same year Henry went to Normandy, where he died of eating too freely of lampreys. He was buried in the abbey of St. Mary's at Reading, which he had founded. Henry set the first example of justice to his Saxon subjects, and so strict and impartial was he in administering the laws, that he was styled "The Lion of Justice."

All Henry's cares for Matilda's succession were frustrated by the treason of a relative. William the Conqueror had married his daughter to Stephen, Count of Blois; and the two youngest of their sons, Stephen and Henry, had been invited to England by Henry I., who made Henry Bishop of Winchester, and gave Stephen immense estates. Stephen, in spite of these benefits, hastened to London, where he was saluted king by the populace, and the Archbishop of Canterbury crowned him. on the 26th December, 1135. Stephen after a while imagined himself strong enough to curb the power of the nobles, but committed the fatal error of beginning with the clergy. He imprisoned the bishops of Salisbury and Lincoln, compelling them to yield up their fortresses. This act roused the

whole church against Stephen, and Matilda, profiting by the disturbance, landed in England, 1139. The country now suffered the worst horrors of a civil war that lasted five years; famine being added to bloodshed. Matilda's son, Henry, began in 1148 to come to the front, and gave promise of those abilities which he afterward displayed as king. His marriage with Eleanor, the divorced wife of Louis VII. of France, brought him Guienne, Poitou, and other provinces in the south of France, of which she was the heiress; and these laid the foundation of those interests in France, which his successors fought so hard to maintain. Stephen died, October 25th, 1154, and Henry landed in England on the 6th of December, to found that famous dynasty in which the Saxon and the Norman blood were mingled, and which reigned over England for three centuries, from Henry II. to Richard III. The house received the name of Plantagenet from the sprig of Spanish broom (planta genista), which their founder, Geoffrey, used to wear in his hat.

Henry II. ascended the throne of England amidst the acclamations of all classes; and was crowned on the 19th of December, 1154.

In consequence of owning so much land in France, and the French claiming the rights of feudal supremacy,-rights the English kings refused to surrender, battles and quarrels were the natural outcome. Henry's reign is remarkable in history from two events: (1) The invasion of Ireland; and (2) his celebrated conflict with Thomas à Becket. With the latter this History deals first.

Thomas à Becket was the first Englishman who emerged from the obscurity to which his race were consigned when the Normans seized upon all the higher offices of Church and State. He studied civil law in the then most famous university of Bologna. On Henry's accession, à Becket, who had been archdeacon of Canterbury, was appointed to the high office of Lord Chancellor. The king enriched him with several forfeited baronies, and entrusted to him the education of his son and heir, Prince Henry. Becket now assumed a state in which no English subject had lived before. A large retinue of knights waited upon him; the highest barons crowded his halls, and the king himself was frequently his guest. Becket was installed Archbishop of Canterbury on Whitsunday, May 24,

1162. He at once resigned his office of Chancellor, thereby intimating to the king, who was deeply offended, his resolution to free himself from all dependence on the crown. He maintained the pomp of his household on a scale proportioned to his new dignity, while in his own person he practiced extreme austerity. He lived on bread and water, and not only wore sackcloth next his skin, but kept it unchanged till it was full of vermin, and scarred his back with frequent discipline.

Henry, with a view to an improvement in the administration of the laws, attempted so to limit the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, that the clergy should be subject to the royal tribunals in temporal matters, without any appeal to the pope. Resolved to have a clear decision he assembled a council of the nobles and clergy, under the presidency of John, bishop of Oxford, at Clarendon, near Salisbury, January 25, 1164. This assembly, after a most violent opposition from à Becket, passed the sixteen articles known as the "Constitution of Clarendon," one of which was that clergymen accused of any crime should be tried by the civil courts; while the others were designed to define and regulate the ecclesiastical authority, and make it subservient to the civil power. To these propositions, Becket, after great resistance, reluctantly gave his assent, but afterward attempting to evade them, he was condemned by a council especially called by the king to consider his offence.

"Either this man must cease to be archbishop, or I, king," cried Henry.

Becket secretly departed from England, and took refuge with the king of France, by whom, as well as by the pope, he was encouraged and sustained. Henry at length becoming reconciled to him, he returned to England and resumed his high office; but again opposing the royal authority, the king was provoked into exclaiming, "What? this man, who has eaten my bread, who came to my court on a lame horse, insults me to my face, and there is none of the servants who eat at my table that will avenge me!" Four gentlemen of the king's household agreed with each other to execute his supposed wishes. They departed secretly, but not until they had dropped some expressions which induced the king to send after them a messenger, charging them to do nothing against the primate's person; but this messenger arrived too late. Meanwhile Becket had found himself surrounded at Canter

bury with danger, even to his life; but maintaining his haughty bearing and nothing daunted, he preached in the Cathedral on Christmas day, and afterwards excommunicated Ranulf and Robert de Broc, who had been the sequestrators of the see during his absence. It was at the house of this same Ranulf, at Saltwood, that the conspirators met three days later (December 28), having travelled from Normandy by different routes. The day after they proceeded to Canterbury, and, being joined by certain assassins, they went to the palace, and, with many threats, required Becket to absolve the prelates. His alarmed attendants hurried him into the church, whither the assassins followed, after arming themselves. Becket met them at the door of the chapel of St. Benedict. Fitz-Urse approached him, battle-axe in hand, exclaiming, "Where is the traitor?" and Becket replied, "Reginald, here I am; no traitor, but the archbishop and priest of God; what do you wish?" They again demanded that he should revoke the excommunication, which he still steadfastly refused. Then began the scene of violence: they tried to drag him out to unconsecrated ground; he resisted, and flung Tracy on the pavement. Fitz-Urse struck off his cap with his sword: then Tracy aimed at him a blow which was intercepted by the arm of Grim, a monk of Cambridge, but still it grazed Becket's head and wounded his shoulder. Wiping away the trickling blood, he said, "Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.” Another stroke from Tracy brought him to his knees; and, having gently murmured, "For the name of Jesus and the defence of the church I am willing to die," he fell motionless on his face; and one more tremendous blow from Richard, the Breton, cleft his skull, and finished the deed of murder. This fearful crime was perpetrated on Tuesday, the 29th of December, 1170, and the mangled corpse was buried hastily in the crypt on the 31st. Becket was canonized, as a saint and martyr, by pope Alexander III., March 3, 1173; and the anniversary of his death became a marked day in the Anglican calendar. His body was removed, in 1220, to a magnificent shrine behind the high altar, which was enriched with presents from all Christendom, and visited by troops of pilgrims, the number of whom amounted in one year to 100,000. The shrine was destroyed, and the celebration of the martyrdom of St. Thomas