Part 31 (2/2)

The family of Pembroke, Earls Marshal of England, were especially obnoxious to this party, as resolute supporters of Magna Charta, and of much power and influence. William, the eldest son of the late Protector, was married to Eleanor, the King's sister. He died early, and this party tried to deprive his brother Richard of his inheritance; then, when this did not succeed, Des Roches wrote letters in the King's name to some of the Norman-Irish n.o.bles, offering them all his lands in that island, provided they would murder him, ratifying these promises with the great seal.

The a.s.sa.s.sins stirred up the Irish to attack Pembroke's castles, so as to bring him to Ireland; they then pretended to join with him in putting down the rebellion, and, in the midst, waylaid him, and attacked him while riding with a few attendants. Some of these he ordered at once to convey his young brother to a place of safety, and gallantly defended himself, but his horse was killed, and he was stabbed in the back; his servants, returning, carried him home to his castle, but there the letter purporting to be from the King was shown him, and his grief was so great that he would not permit his wounds to be dressed, and died in a few hours.

Archbishop Edmund procured letters exposing this black treachery, and read them before the whole court. Henry and all present burst into tears, and the poor careless King confessed with bitter grief that he had often allowed Des Roches to attach his seal to letters without knowing their contents, and that this must have been one of them. Des Roches was dismissed, and sent to his own diocese, where he soon after died at his castle of Farnham. He was the founder of many convents, several in Palestine, and others in his own diocese, among which was Netley, or Letley (_Laeto Loco_), near Southampton, a beautiful specimen of the pointed style.

Edmund could not prevent the King from intruding on the see of Winchester the giddy young Aymar de Valence, already Bishop-designate of Durham. ”If my brother is too young, I will hold the see myself,” said the King.

Every attempt Edmund made to repress the grievous evils that prevailed was frustrated by the authority of Rome.

The imperial family of Hohenstaufen were held in the utmost hatred by the Popes; and Frederick II., being likewise King of Naples and Sicily, was an object of great dread and defiance. Fierce pa.s.sions on either side were raging, and Innocent IV. regarded his spiritual powers rather as weapons to be used against his foe the Emperor, than as given him for the salvation of men's souls.

As a warrior, he needed money: it was raised by exactions on the clergy, going sometimes as far as demanding half their year's income; as head of a party, he needed rewards for his friends, and bestowed benefices without regard to the age, the character, or the fitness of the nominee; moreover, he trusted to the religious orders, especially those called Mendicant, for spreading his influence, and he did not dare to restrain or reform their disorders.

Archbishop Edmund, with his two friends, Robert Grosteste, Bishop of Lincoln, and Richard Wych, Chancellor of Canterbury, did their best.

Robert's history is striking. He was a nameless peasant of Suffolk, of the meanest parentage, and only called Grosteste from the size of his head, needing plenty of stowage (says Fuller) for his store of brains.

How he obtained education is not known, but he worked upward until he became a noted teacher at Oxford, and afterward at Paris, where he lectured on all the chief authors then known in Greek and Latin. He wrote two hundred books, many on sacred subjects, and several poems in Latin and French; for he was a great lover of minstrelsy, and his contemporary translator tells us that

”Next his chamber, besyde hys study Hys harper's chamber was thereby.”

This poet and scholar was a most active, thorough-going, practical man, and, when chosen as Bishop of Lincoln, showed his grat.i.tude for the benefits of his education by maintaining a number of poor students at the University. He set himself earnestly to reform abuses in his diocese, forcing the monasteries which held the t.i.thes of parishes to provide properly for their spiritual care, and making a strict inquiry into the condition of the religious houses. They, however, appealed to Rome; and Innocent, who had at first sanctioned his proceedings, was afraid of losing their support, and ordered Grosteste to desist. The resolute Bishop set off to Rome, and laid the Pope's own letters before his face.

”Well,” said Innocent, ”be content; you have delivered your own soul. If I choose to show grace to these persons, what is that to you?”

Robert was anything but content, but he went home, and manfully struggled with the evils that were rife, sometimes prevailing, sometimes disappointed, always honest and steadfast. The more gentle Archbishop gave up the contest, worn out by the vain attempt to preserve purity and order between the fickle King, the oppressive Pope, the turbulent n.o.bles, and the avaricious clergy. Orders to him, to Robert, and to the Bishop of Salisbury, to appoint no one to a benefice till three hundred Italians were provided for, seemed finally to overpower him; he, with Richard Wych, secretly left London, and arrived at Pontigny, where, three years after, he died, in 1142, and has been revered as a saint.

Canterbury remained vacant for several years, the revenues being absorbed by the King, and the refractory chapter tailing upon them to quarrel with Grosteste, and going so for as to excommunicate him; whereupon the st.u.r.dy Bishop trod the letter under foot, saying, ”Such curses are the only prayers I ask of such as you.”

After three years the King appointed to Canterbury the Queen's uncle, Boniface of Savoy, a man of no clerical habits; but the Queen wrote a persuasive letter, by which she obtained the consent of Innocent.

So many monstrous demands had been made by the Pope, that, in 1245, the n.o.bles sent orders to the wardens of the seaports to seize every despatch coming from Rome, and they soon made prize of a great number of orders to intrude Italians into Church patronage. Martin, the legate, complained to the King, who ordered the letters to be produced, but the barons took the opportunity of laying before the King a statement of the grievances of the Church of England, 60,000 marks a year being in the hands of foreigners, while the whole of the royal revenue was but 20,000. Henry could only make helpless lamentations, and, under pretext of a tournament, the Barons met at Dunstable, and sent a knight to expostulate with the legate. This envoy threatened him, that if he remained three days longer in England, his life would not be safe--an intimation which drove him speedily from the country.

The barons, hearing that the Pope was holding a council at Lyons, sent deputies thither, with a letter drawn up by the Bishop of Lincoln, so powerfully enforced by William de Powerie, their spokesman, that the exposure of the enormities permitted in England called up a deep blush on the face of Innocent, and he allowed that he had been wrong in thrusting in these incompetent Italians. There was one good effected at this council, namely, the appointment of Richard Wych to the see of Chichester.

Richard was the son of a Worcesters.h.i.+re yeoman, and was early, with his elder brother, left an orphan. He was a studious, holy, clerkly boy, looked on as fit for the cloister: but when his brother came of age, it was found that the guardians had so wasted their goods, that their inheritance lay desolate. The brother was in despair, but young Richard comforted him, bade him trust in G.o.d, and himself laying aside the studies he delighted in, look up the spade and axe, and worked unceasingly till the affairs of the homestead were in a flouris.h.i.+ng state. Then, when prosperity dawned on the elder brother, the younger obtained his wish, and went to study at Oxford, where he was so poor that he and two other scholars had but one gown between them, lived hard, and allowed themselves few pleasures; but this he was wont to call the happiest time in his life.

Afterward he went to Bologna, and, after seven years there, returned, and was made Chancellor, first of Oxford, and afterward of Canterbury.

There was a most earnest attachment between him and St. Edmund, whom he followed into his exile. The Bishop whom the King had appointed to Chichester was examined by Grosteste, and found deficient in theology, and the chapter and Pope agreed in choosing Richard Wych, who was consecrated by Innocent himself. Henry, in displeasure, took all the temporalities of the see into his hands, and for a year Richard lived at the expense of a poor parish priest named Simon, whom he strove to requite by working in his garden, budding, grafting, and digging, as he had once done for his brother.

He went about his diocese visiting each parish, and doing his work like the early bishops of poorer days, and all the time making his suit to the King to do him justice; but whenever he went to Westminster, meeting only with jests and gibes from the courtiers.

The Pope was too busy to attend to him. That council at Lyons had ended in sentence of deposition upon Frederick, and the combat raged in Italy till his death, when Innocent, claiming Sicily as a fief of the Church, offered it, if he could get it, to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who had too much sense to accept such a crown.

It then was offered to Henry for his son Edmund, whom he arrayed in the robes of a Sicilian prince, and presented to the barons of England, asking for men and money to win the kingdom. Not a man of them, however, would march, or give a penny in aid of the cause, and therefore Innocent raised money from the Lombard merchants in the name of the King of England.

No wonder Henry could not pay. His own household had neither wages, clothes, nor food, except what they obtained by purveying--in their case only a license to rob, since no payment was ever given for the goods they carried off. His pages were gay banditti, and the merchants, farmers, and fishers fled as from an enemy when the court approached; yet, at each little transient gleam of prosperity, the King squandered all that came into his hands in feasting and splendor, then grasped at Church revenues, tormented the Jews, laid unjust fines on the Londoners, or took bribes for administering justice, and all that he did was imitated with exaggeration by his half-brothers, uncles, and favorites.

His chancellor, Mansel, held seven hundred benefices at once, and so corrupted the laws, that one of the judges p.r.o.nounced the source poisoned from the fountain. Another chancellor was expelled from the court for refusing to set the great seal to a grant to one of the Queen's uncles of four-pence on every sack of wool, and at one time Eleanor herself actually had the keeping of the seal, and when the Londoners resisted one of her unjust demands, she summarily sent the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs to the Tower.

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