The Conquering Family Read online

  The man who entered the room shortly thereafter was verging on his middle years and the most compelling personality Henry had ever encountered. He was very tall, some say over six feet, and of slender build. His nose was long and beautifully modeled, and his eyes were so dark and so intense that the young King fell under their fascination at once.

  Henry, it is clear, took an instant liking to Thomas à Becket, realizing that here was a man of unusual parts who would perhaps prove to be the blade of fine steel he had been seeking. The King stood in front of the newcomer, both hands tucked in his belt now, his protuberant gray eyes sparkling excitedly, the jeweled tuft of his hat bobbing as he nodded his head. Then he smiled. After the interval enjoined by deference, Thomas à Becket smiled back. One of the great friendships of history had been born.

  Henry had full faith in his own judgment, no matter how quickly it might have been formed and on what slight evidence. He was certain he had found the man he wanted for chancellor. He even considered sending for the Great Seal of England, which was always placed in the possession of the chancellor, and thus settling the matter there and then. But his native caution asserted itself and he went no further, even though his mind was made up. He would take this archdeacon into the offices which clustered around the Curia Regis in a lesser capacity. Later, he was confident, the higher appointment could be made. This was the way it was done.

  The post did not have then the importance it was later to carry. It came sixth, in fact, in the list of royal offices. The chief justiciar was ranked at the top, followed by the constable, the marshal, the steward, the chamberlain, and then the chancellor. Becket’s great ability was to raise the post to something approaching the stature of later centuries when it combined home ministership with control of foreign affairs. He was to prove himself the first of the clerical statesmen who played such important roles in history: Wolsey, Richelieu, Mazarin, to name the most obvious.

  The young King walked to one of the windows. From here he could look into the main courtyard, where the snow had already been trodden down to the hardness of masonry by all the feet bringing people to see the King, even on Christmas Day. It was filled with men of all stations, skipping and jigging and threshing their arms about and blowing on their fingers. He recognized Godobert the white-tawyer and frowned; the fellow would be here about some costly leather articles for the Queen and, although he was not parsimonious, such trivialities annoyed him. Then he saw the stolid and well-muffled figure of William Cade standing behind the fashioner of fine leather. So Cade had come to see him, after all, about the loan he wanted!

  Across the road a sound of chanting rose from the great minster. Henry could see a stretch of the road which ran north and east through the village of Charing to Ludgate. It was black with people coming from and going to London, on foot, on horseback, on runners behind horses. He began to envision many such roads, leading to Rouen, Rennes, Bordeaux, Dublin on the Liffey, all of them black with people coming to see him.

  3

  The first task facing Henry and his small circle of advisers, now increased by one, was to take from the barons the dictatorial powers they had assumed during the lawless years. This was done in four steps.

  The first, and most urgent, was getting rid of the mercenaries. This was accomplished with such dispatch and thoroughness that even William of Ypres, who had been made Earl of Kent by Stephen and believed himself comfortably settled, was bundled out with the rest. He was reported to have wept bitterly when he had himself admitted to a Norman monastery.

  Second, new sheriffs were appointed to control the administration of justice and collect taxes.

  Third, the clause in the Treaty of Wallingford which provided for the demolition of unlicensed castles was carried out, quickly and relentlessly. Practically all of the eleven hundred were torn down during the early years of the reign.

  Fourth, all grants and concessions made during the previous reign were revoked. His handling of this situation showed the real mettle of the young Henry. A good share of the grants had been made by his mother during the period when she was competing with Stephen for the support of the baronage. They had been to men who had fought for her, whose aid had been given, moreover, in placing him on the throne. To take away from them the rewards of their loyalty would seem to be a rank injustice. But Henry, young though he was both in years and experience, knew there was a broader view than this. If he revoked Stephen’s grants and left those of his mother in force, he would be keeping the schism alive and laying up cause for further strife. He knew, moreover, that Matilda’s largesse had been lavish and that the holders of her bounty had no reasonable claims to the lands and honors she had showered about her. It required the sternest of resolution for Matilda’s son to tell his friends they must disgorge; but he did, and so saved the country from trouble later on.

  Despite the sharp medicine of Bloody Christmas in the reign of Henry I, the moneyers had been up to their tricks again and, in addition, the holders of money had fallen more than ever into filing and debasing coins. The anarchy had added to the monetary confusion, and there were many coinages in the country when Henry ascended the throne: Stephen’s own, which had been rudely made with his name spelled wrong, Stiefne or Stefne; Matilda’s, which had been of better design; the coins he had issued himself during his campaigns in England and which were called Duke’s Money; and various others by Eustace, Robert of Gloucester, and a mysterious unknown who had put out an issue in the name of Pereric.

  One of Henry’s first acts was to call in all old money and replace it with a new penny issue. According to one historian, he assumed the loss himself, but this seems highly unlikely in view of the great amount involved and the far from healthy condition of the royal finances, as well as the obvious fact that it would have been a stimulant to future clipping and sawing and filing. Although the financial transactions of the day bristle with references to pounds, marks, and shillings, they did not exist. They were “coins of account,” having established values and being used as terms in settling the price of goods and in making calculations. The only money in existence in England was the penny. Soon after this period the need for coins of larger value was felt, and several were turned out at the mint in the Tower of London. The first was a gold penny with a value equaling that of twenty of the established pennies, but it was such a thin and inconvenient coin that the London merchants complained, and it was soon thereafter withdrawn. Next in order came groats, florins, nobles, and rose nobles, all of which continued in circulation through several reigns. The first pound was made in 1487 and was called a sovereign because the King who ordered the minting, Henry VII, one of the least kingly of rulers (Francis Hackett calls him “one of those elderly potentates who bring with him a whiff of the backstairs”), elected to have himself shown on the obverse side seated in state and holding his scepter, orb, and cross. No attempt was made to produce an English mark, but it continued in use for centuries as a term for one hundred pennies. It was Henry VII also who decided to give the shilling, the scilling of Saxon days, an existence of its own after nearly a thousand years of use. The first shilling was minted in 1504.

  All coin issues during the days under consideration, therefore, were pennies. The issue which Henry put out to replace the dross of the anarchy was hastily conceived and rudely executed (he did not care about such matters), but it was an honest penny. Most issues had been good for several years only, but this first one to carry the name and the bust of Matilda’s son remained in exclusive use for twenty-three years. The young King saw to it that it continued honest. He cut down the number of licensed mints to fifty and had a continuous inspection made of their output. In 1180 he put out a second issue, a much more artistic one this time. This minting was so sound that no more coins were struck for sixty years. It was so strictly backed up during his lifetime, and his likeness continued even after his death to strike such terror to wrongdoers, that Richard and John, who followed him, both of whom were vain and jealous men, were
content with it and issued no money of their own.

  Money hoarding was a general tendency in these unsettled years. At the time of the Conquest, when it seemed to the poor Saxons that all security had been lost, and subsequently when civil wars threatened, men would hide their negotiable wealth against the dire needs they anticipated later. Often they died without a chance to divulge the location of the buried money. From time to time these deposits come to light. In London in the year 1872 one supply of more than six thousand pennies was found, all of them newly minted coins of William I. The largest find has been the Eccles Hoard, which was dug up in Lancaster in 1864 and consisted of more than eleven thousand pennies. Nothing could be more indicative than this of the state of mind of the unhappy Saxons in the early days of Norman rule.

  All through his reign, when not concerned with war and conquest, Henry continued to improve the laws with dome and ban, by either of which terms royal proclamations were called. He stopped the hideous Norman custom of deciding criminal charges by having the contestants fight it out in full armor, in the belief that God would grant the decision to the one whose cause was right, and of testing the guilt of prisoners by making them lift white-hot irons or walk barefooted over heated plowshares. In the place of these cruel absurdities from the Dark Ages, he went back to trial by jury. It had been tried by the Saxons, sometimes with panels made up of witnesses in the case, sometimes with jurors who had not participated in any way, sometimes a combination. Henry now gave more definite substance to the institution by having jury lists maintained in all counties. This was an important milestone in the growth to present-day conceptions of law enforcement.

  That it was difficult to escape entirely from the cruel Norman customs, which had prevailed for two generations, was felt in many ways. One incident may be told in this connection. Eight men were charged with breaking at night into a house in London and killing the owner. The jury decided that their guilt had been established sufficiently to warrant their taking the water test! The water test, ordinarily, consisted of throwing the prisoner into a pool with arms tied. If he floated, he was considered guilty and was taken out and hanged. If he sank, he was judged guiltless but, unfortunately for him, he drowned in the demonstration of his innocence. In the case of the eight prisoners, however, a different form of the test was used. They were required to dip their arms into a vat of boiling water and lift out a bar of iron from the bottom, and moreover they had to show no signs of burn or scald two days later.

  Two of the eight had the extreme fortitude, or the lack of nervous sensibility, to lift out the bar. As both failed to show later any serious injuries, they were declared innocent and set free. The other six, none of whom was more guilty than the pair who escaped, if guilty at all, could not stand the excruciating pain of the boiling water and so failed to pass the test. They were taken to the place of execution and hanged in a row.

  Much later in the reign, as late as 1176, Henry divided the country into six districts, each with three itinerant judges, a further development of his grandfather’s plan. These judges were responsible for the holding of courts and were expected as well to collect the taxes.

  Almost as important was his decision to establish again the militia of the country. This pared the claws of the barons still closer to the quick, because the Crown was no longer dependent on them for levies of troops in time of war and so was not under the necessity of giving great grants of land. When Henry needed troops he issued a general call, and the townsman and the freeman on the land were supposed to respond as well as the baron. It was, therefore, not an unmixed blessing. At that juncture, however, the only important thing was to find ways and means of reducing the barons from lords of their small creations to mere holders of land and privilege, and anything which contributed to that end was acceptable.

  From the standpoint of legislative advance the reign of Henry II was quite monumental. If the sturdy, sub-rufus, energetic King had been able to curb his ambition for power and keep out of wars in France and not clutter up his life with shoddy love affairs, the thirty-five years he ruled might well have become the most notable period in all English history.

  4

  It was amazing how quickly the country recovered from the carnage of the last reign under a ruler like this to plot the course of revival and keep a steady hand on the tiller. None of the hundreds of thousands of sad, starved people who had died under the oppressions of the baronage could be brought back to life. But the country responded with alacrity as soon as evidences of stable government were felt.

  Most particularly was this true of London. That city, always of a cosmopolitan aspect, had recovered from the great fire of 1132 and was built up again to a swarming tightness from end to end. The houses were still of frame for the most part (for reasons of economy, not because there was no realization of the danger) and most often also of one story. Where a second story was added—and this was an evidence of the prominence of the owner and perhaps of ostentation—it was called the solar and extended out over the street. The solar had to be a certain height from the ground, prescribed by law, and officials were always going around and measuring and raising great difficulties when a man had transgressed by inches. The idea of numbering the houses had not yet been thought of, and so each residence had a sign of its own suspended over the front door. Gilbert Becket, a citizen of some prominence, had a snipe painted on a board which swung in the wind and creaked in winter; and because of this his young son had been called by playmates Thomas of the Snipe. These signs lent a picturesque note to the old Roman town. Painters must have been kept busy designing them for well-to-do burghers. There was great variety, of course, running from plain household articles like baskets and spades, through such rather costly types as horses’ heads and cows and swine, and ladders and merrytotters, to the very expensive kinds which showed dragons and griffins and ships under full head of sail.

  It was on these signs that the King’s officers would mark two lines with chalk when it had been decided to use the house for the billeting of troops or the servants of prominent visitors; and a very effective method it was, for the signs were easy to remember and so rubbing the marks off did no good.

  The city was so closely packed inside its two-mile bow of wall that some of the parishes covered no more than three or four acres of land. Each parish, however, had its own church and generally it was built of stone, with an imposing gateway and great crossbeams painted red and gold, and with figures of angels suspended from the roofs. There were more than one hundred parishes in all, and the spires of the churches showing above the top of the stout walls gave the city a magical atmosphere.

  The badge of budge (lambskin) on which the clothworkers had their insignia of the ram and teasel might very well have carried the arms of London, for the great city on the Thames was founded on wool. The ships which came into the estuary from all the ports of Europe and reached their moorings to the sound of Praise to the Good Christ and Kind Virgin sung by the whole crew (a hymn heard in every language and in every port on the Continent at the end of each safe journey) brought all manner of goods to England—fine fabrics, spices, wines, armor—and what they took back in exchange was wool. There was always more than enough wool for export to balance all the fancier imports which came to England.

  It must not be assumed because so much wool was sold abroad that the English had failed to become makers of cloth themselves. The Drapers’ Company in London was the oldest of the guilds and one of the strongest and richest. A draper in those days was a maker of cloth and not a dealer in the finished article. The London drapers not only used much of the best English wool, but they also imported a special variety from Spain. The rich purple cloths for supertunics, the wine-colored varieties, the deep blues, and the tawny yellows so much favored in those days were made right in London. The company had a fine hall in St. Swithin’s Lane, and their annual feasts were of such note that men of high title were glad to be invited as guests.

  Henry I granted them a c
harter for which they paid an annual fee of sixteen pounds. Henry II renewed this and established a yearly cloth fair to be held in the churchyard of the priory of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield.

  There was much activity, therefore, in the houses where the drapers lived and carried on their trade. The front of the house was always used as a shop for the display and sale of the cloth. Behind this, and sometimes in full view, the apprentices worked at heddle and shuttle, and reed and treadle, weaving the enduring cloth into handsome patterns.

  The drapers had another great distinction. It was from their ranks that the first Lord Mayor of London came. His name was Henry FitzAlwyn, and he was of very considerable wealth. He had a large house near London Stone and he was a sagacious and resolute man, and a popular one, with his ruddy face and waxed beard, his hearty laugh, strutting in clothes as rich as any great nobleman. He was a perfect choice for the new post which was created about the middle of Henry’s reign. That he continued to hold it for twenty-four years was proof that the first of the lord mayors was also one of the best.

  FitzAlwyn’s selection was an indication that the fusing of the two races was becoming an accomplished fact in London. The trade of the city had continued largely in Anglo-Saxon hands. All the moneyers of the city seem to have been Saxon, and the heads of the guilds were known by such names as Leofwine and Athelstan and Bricstab. FitzAlwyn, clearly, was of Norman extraction, and it was highly indicative that he had the undivided support of the stout burghers of London Town.

  London, of course, was dedicated to trade, and most highly and intricately organized it was. Each trade had its guild, and each guild had its own part of the town, its patron saint, its livery, its insignia. Wherever men gathered would be seen the crescent moon of the mercers, the camel of the grocers, the dolphin of the fishmongers. Most of the proud wearers carried their tallysticks along with them to be used in keeping track of sales and purchases, none being able to read or write. They were not burel men and humble; they were prosperous and a little arrogant. Never before nor perhaps since had the trades been so minutely specialized. If a man was a wimpler, he made wimples, a scarf for women’s heads, and he made nothing else. If he had chosen to be a gorgoaricer, he made gorgets and was not allowed to try his hand at any other part of a knight’s armor. Each section of London, the London of St. Nicholas Shambles, Blowbladder Street, Labor-in-Vain Street, Candlewick, Cordwainer, had special trade associations. The moneylenders lived in Old Jewry, but not all of them, for the William Cade who loaned money to baron and bishop and the King himself, under the very modern-sounding business name of Cade, Cade and Co., was on West Chepe; and the very king of moneylenders he was, charging as high, when he dared, as two-pence on the pound per day!