104 The New Forest : its Hidory and its Scenery. 



in the other hand.* The cause of their hatred is at once 

 supplied by his refusing to pay St. Peter's pence — denying the 

 Pope's supremacy — banishing Anseim — promoting Flambard — 

 holding all the bishoprics and other offices which fell vacant f 

 — by his cruelties to their difierent orders at Canterbury and 

 Crowland, and throughout England, whose enmity died not with 

 his death, but made them believe that the tower of Winchester 

 Cathedral fell because they allowed him to be buried in its 

 nave. 



Reading, in the Chroniclers, the life of the Red King seems 

 like rather reading a series of plots against it, not by the 

 English, who were too thoroughly cowed to make the slightest 



Wace, quoted by Sharon Turner (vol. iv. p. 169), says that a woman 

 prophesied to Henry his speedy accession to the throne ; but I am not 

 inclined to put any faith in this story, especially as Wace's account is in 

 poetry, where a prophetical speech might after the event be given dramati- 

 cally true, without being so historically. The same criticism must be 

 applied to the still more detailed account of Gaimar, who vaguely accuses 

 Tiril of conspiracy. No one, however, was likely to declare, for so many 

 reasons, that the King was murdered. We must not expect such a state- 

 ment, or even look for it in the Chroniclers ; we nuist seek for it in the 

 contradictions, and absurdities, and prophecies which have gathered round 

 the event. 



* Let no one be startled at the fact of ecclesiastics being assassins. "We 

 have on record during this very reign the deliberate confessions by monks 

 of plots to murder their abbots, deeming they were doing God a service. 

 We must further keep steadily in mind that prelates then united in their 

 own persons both sacred and military offices. How much Henry was under 

 the influence of the monasteries his marriage and his various appointments 

 show. Their power was enormous. In fact, I believe that the Conqueror 

 owed his success as much to them as llufus his death, and Henry his 

 crown. 



t At the time of his death he held in his hand the archbishopric of 

 Canterbury, the bishoprics of "Winchester and Salisbury, besides eleven 

 abbacies, all let out to rent. The Chronicle, Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 364. 



104 



