CHAP. XXIX, A.D. 1173. Lyttleton's Vol. V., p. 147. Becket met his death with becoming fortitude. His blood became more powerful than his voice, for the Constitutions of Clarendon, after being practically disregarded, were soon repealed at a great council held at Northampton. Unhappily in this as in many of the contests between the clergy and laity, the struggle was not for Christ and His kingdom. Wicked and depraved as Henry's character was, posterity acquits him of being the contriver of this crime, though his violent expressions no doubt led to the commission of it. We pass over his penance and pilgrimage, followed by that of King Louis, attended by the Earl of Flanders and other great nobles (22nd August, 1179),. when Henry travelled all night along our coast to be present at their landing at Dover and to accompany them to Canterbury. To Henry may be well applied that truthful axiom, "our sins are sure to find us out." He had when only eighteen married for the sake of her patrimony the divorced Queen of France, eleven years older than himself. The love that Eleanor might at first have entertained for him was soon changed by his neglect and infidelity into bitter hatred, and in revenge, as her children grew up she exercised all her maternal influence to produce a breach between them and her husband, and she succeeded; thus embittering the lives of all concerned, and presenting a deplorable picture of family discord. A conspiracy against the King was the result, which spread widely. Louis, the King of France, summoned a great council to meet him at Paris, and took an oath that he would assist the young Henry and his brothers against their father, and endeavour to put him in possession of anathema in general terms against almost all the King's Court. Then, lighting the candles, he by name excommunicated Randulph and Robert de Broc, the latter of whom does not appear to have been guilty of any other offence than having cut off the tail of one of the Primate's sumpter horses the day before, which Becket considered an unpardonable affront." This is not the case; he had for years been associated with his brother in the custody of the lands of the See, and had borne his part in all the injury done to them. the throne. At the same time he took an oath from CHAP. XXIX. Henry and his brothers that they would not make peace with their father unless Louis and the barons consented to it. This confederacy being thus cemented, the young King received homage from the Earl of Flanders and his brother the Earl of Boulogne, which he madly purchased by conferring on the Earl of Flanders the whole county of Kent, with the castles of Dover and Rochester, besides a clear amount of £1,000 charged on other lands in England. The Queen fled from her husband to associate herself openly with the rebellion of her sons; but while making her way for the French Court, dressed in male attire, she was caught and brought back to Henry, who kept her in confinement during the remainder of his life. Peace ensued, but only to be followed by a war between the young princes themselves, during which Henry, the King's eldest son, died (11th June, 1183). Popular tradition attributes the conduct of Eleanor to jealousy of Fair Rosamond, the bewitching daughter of Walter, Lord Clifford, one of her husband's many mistresses. Rosamond's residence at Woodstock, with its labyrinth, and her death by poison administered to her by the Queen, form the subject of romantic tales and ballads with which most of the readers of English history are familiar; and many are also acquainted with the tradition which attaches to the round tower with its pointed roof at Westenhanger, in this county, which still bears the name of this fair but frail lady, who it is said found refuge here before she was removed to Woodstock. Harris says Westenhanger belonged to Henry II., and p. 294. as he (Dr. Harris) was looking over the ruins, he found the left hand of a statue well carved in stone with the end of a sceptre grasped in it, which he fancied to be part of the figure of Henry II., because he remembered that in Sandford's genealogical history of our kings there was a * Two years afterwards the Earl of Flanders sought an interview with Henry, and surrendered to him this grant which his son had so basely executed. Stanley's Canterbury, p. 50. CHAP. XXIX. seal of that Prince with the sceptre in his left hand, a position so unusual that one would have almost concluded that King Henry was left-handed. The room called Fair Rosamond's gallery (or prison) was an upper one of 160 feet in length. This popular tradition has, perhaps, some support from the fact that the adjoining castle (Saltwood) was held at this time by Becket's chief enemy, Dan Ranulph of Broc, who had made himself still more obnoxious by hunting down the Archbishop's deer with his own dogs. After Becket's murder, Robert de Broc forbade the monks to bury Becket among the Archbishops in Canterbury Cathedral, and brutally described the treatment which the "corpse of his master's enemy ought to receive." Men so attached to the King, and probably looking for advancement, however tortuous the road might be, would be fit instruments to assist the monarch in his clandestine amours, and watch over the fair culprit in the neighbouring castle, but this is mere conjecture after a reperusal of Dean Stanley's admirable narrative of the murder of Becket. This conjecture is not weakened by the fact that the Brocs held the manor of Catteshill, in the adjoining county of Surrey, by the service of usher (ostiarius) of the King's chamber. Ib., p. 83. Brayley's Vol. V. p. 214. A.D. 1177. Henry having subdued Ireland and appointed his son John its Lord, the Pope sent him a Crown made of peacock's feathers, a sad emblematical commencement of all the vanity and lack of wisdom and justice by which that unhappy kingdom has been since ruled. In this reign, at a council holden at Nottingham, Though Henry II., as we have seen, ordered Saltwood castle to be restored to Becket, it was not given up to the See of Canterbury until the reign of King John. The Brocs it would appear were owners of property in the neighbourhood of the castle, and gave the name to Brochill or Brochull. Philipott says in his day (1659), "there is an old vast mansion house at Brochill, in Saltwood, of stone, on the side of a steep hill, which was the seat and ancient residence of a family as eminent for antiquity as any in this track, and extracted their sirname from hence." The plot on the downs by Beachborough now called Brockman's Bushes was originally Brochill Bushes. A modern house erected on the estate retains the name of Brochill. England was divided into six circuits, and itinerant CHAP. XXIX. judges appointed,-called justices in eyre, for the sake of brevity, though the practice previously existed. The writ of right was also introduced, being intended as a substitute for the ordeal of battle. Glanville, the earliest of our English law writers, lived under Henry II., and was as good a soldier when needed as any of the Devil's Own" in our day. Notwithstanding the oath taken by King Stephen, Danegeld, we find, had not been wholly abolished at this time, as the Sheriff in the Pipe Roll of this reign returns £28 15s. for it, and £4 fine for a murder in Sumerdene. The name of Cade appears very frequently in this Kentish Roll. England, especially Kent, was free from any lengthened civil or internal wars during this and the following reign, and its inhabitants were thus enabled to improve the cultivation of the soil, and advance in civilization. The little to be said of the Weald at this period shall be noticed in Chapter XXXI. Henry died on 6th July, 1189, in wretchedness and misery of mind and body, uttering imprecations against his undutiful children. He was in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his reign. His only surviving sons were Richard and John, but he left a grandson Arthur, by his deceased son, Geoffrey. Henry was a gifted monarch, but without saving grace. His reckless marriage and dissolute life raised him up mortal enemy in his own house," and his greediness for the territory of others involved him in wars, which ended in his dying a fugitive from his own children. a A.D. 1189 to 1199. With the exception of about eight months, the whole Richard I. of the ten years which Richard I. (the eldest surviving son of Henry II.) reigned over England (1189 to 1199) were spent abroad, a large part being employed in the Crusades. He is the first King of England who can be Allen, p. 45. said to have ascended the throne without the form at least of an election. One of his earliest acts was to Stanley's Canterbury, p. 50. CHAP. XXIX. seal of that Prince with the sceptre in his left hand, a position so unusual that one would have almost concluded that King Henry was left-handed. The room called Fair Rosamond's gallery or prison) was an upper one of 160 feet in length. This popular tradition has, perhaps, some support from the fact that the adjoining castle (Saltwood) was held at this time by Becket's chief enemy, Dan Ranulph of Broe, who had made himself still more obnoxious by hunting down the Archbishop's deer with his own dogs. After Becket's murder, Robert de Broc forbade the monks to bury Becket among the Archbishops in Canterbury Cathedral, and brutally described the treatment which the "corpse of his master's enemy ought to receive." Men so attached to the King, and probably looking for advancement, however tortuous the road might be, would be fit instruments to assist the monarch in his clandestine amours, and watch over the fair culprit in the neighbouring castle, but this is mere conjecture after a reperusal of Dean Stanley's admirable narrative of the murder of Becket. This conjecture is not weakened by the fact that the Brocs held the manor of Catteshill, in the adjoining county of Surrey, by the service of usher (ostiarius) of the King's chamber. Ib., p. 83. Brayley's A.D. 1177. |