A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



particularly on his Hampshire manors of Farnham, Merdon (Hursley) 

 and Waltham, and converted the episcopal residence of his predecessors 

 in the city of Winchester into the strongly fortified castle of Wolvesey. 



This proved to be most disastrous, so far as Hampshire was con- 

 cerned, in the prolonged and awful civil strife between the forces of 

 Stephen and Maud. If it had not been for these castles the soil of 

 Hampshire would have been spared much bloodshed, for not a little 

 of the struggle naturally centred round strongholds held by so influential 

 a personage of the royal line. The bishop was to be found now on one 

 side and now on the other, a line of conduct that was eminently dis- 

 astrous to the peace of his diocese. Having solemnly sworn fealty and 

 obedience to Maud, in the name of the Church and as papal legate at 

 a synod of his assembling at Winchester in 1 141, he very soon became 

 an equally energetic partisan of Stephen. This brought about a sicken- 

 ing warfare of seven weeks' duration in the very heart of the city of 

 Winchester. The bishop held Wolvesey Castle and the cathedral pre- 

 cincts for the king, and with fireballs deliberately burnt down the 

 recently erected New Minster at Hyde, the abbey of St. Mary and 

 twenty churches, as well as the royal palace and a great number of 

 houses. 



There is one redeeming feature in the warlike career of this militant 

 bishop that does him no small credit. He held a council as papal 

 legate at London in the presence of the king in 1142, at which it was 

 resolved that ploughmen and ploughs should during the war be held as 

 sacred as clergy and churches, and solemn excommunication was pro- 

 nounced upon all who should attack or injure those engaged in agricul- 

 ture, who were to be esteemed as much in sanctuary in their fields as if 

 they were in churchyards. 1 



Through pride in his legatine authority Bishop Henry was led to 

 endeavour to make Winchester an archbishopric, as the metropolitical 

 see of the old kingdom of Wessex. His prayer was however rejected 

 by Pope Innocent II., and on that pontiffs death in 1143 Henry ceased 

 to be legate and the honour was more appropriately conferred on Arch- 

 bishop Theobald. On the accession of Henry II. the bishop fled to the 

 continent, and the king dismantled three of his four Hampshire castles, 

 namely those of Wolvesey, Merdon, and Waltham. However a speedy 

 reconciliation ensued, but the bishop's overweening influence in state 

 affairs had departed. He was the consecrator of St. Thomas of Canter- 

 bury, and in the great controversy between the king and the archbishop 

 Henry of Blois always supported the latter. During his episcopate the 

 Austin priory of St. Denis was founded at Southampton ; but the best 

 memorial of the soldier-bishop is the noble foundation of the beautiful 

 hospital of St. Cross. 



Henry II., in violation of the solemn pledge given at his enthrone- 

 ment, kept the see of Winchester vacant for two years, appropriating 



1 Rog. de Wendover, Flares Hiitoriarum (Engl. Hist. Soc.), ii. 232; Matt. Paris, Hist. Angl. (Rolls 

 Scries), i. 270. 



12 



