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Tamoskaro-2 Directory 10
Page 07
The great duchy founded three hundred years before on the colonization of the Northmen, always one of the mightiest of the feudal states of France, all the dominions which the counts of Anjou had struggled to bring together through so many generations, the disputed claims on Maine and Britanny recognized now for a long time as going with Normandy, a part even of the splendid possessions of the dukes of Aquitaine;--all these in little more than two years Philip had transferred from the possession of the king of England to his own, and all except Britanny to the royal domain. If we consider the resources with which he began to reign, we must pronounce it an achievement equalled by few kings. For the king of England it was a corresponding loss in prestige and brilliancy of position. John has been made to bear the responsibility of this disaster, and morally with justice; but it must not be forgotten that, as the modern nations were beginning to take shape and to become conscious of themselves, the connexion with England would be felt to be unnatural, and that it was certain to be broken. For England the loss of these possessions was no disaster; it was indeed as great a blessing as to France. The chief gain was that it cut off many diverting interests from the barons of England, just at a time when they were learning to be jealous of their rights at home and were about to enter upon a struggle with the king to compel him to regard the law in his government of the country, a struggle which determined the whole future history of the nation.
For the last half of the reign of Henry II we have the advantage of a valuable and in some respects very interesting and attractive chronicle. This is the Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, associated with the name of BENEDICT OF PETERBOROUGH (Rolls Series, 2 vols.). Benedict, however, was not the author, and no certain evidence as to who he was can be derived from any source, nor does the chronicle itself supply many of those incidental indications from which it is often possible to learn much regarding the author of an anonymous book. The tentative suggestion of Bishop Stubbs that it may have been written by Richard Fitz Neal, the author of the Dialogus de Scaccario, is now generally regarded as inadmissible. The work begins in 1170, and from a date a year or two later is evidently contemporaneous to its close in 1192, with perhaps a slight interruption at 1177. It is written in a simple and straightforward way, and with a sure touch, unusual accuracy of statement, and a clear understanding of constitutional details; it suggests an interesting personality in its author, with whom we constantly desire a closer acquaintance. Whoever he was, he possessed good sources of information, though apparently too great consideration for king or court keeps him sometimes from saying all he knows or believes, and he has inserted in his work many letters and important documents.
When Tite had finished his story, the old man began his by saying: "Heaven forgive me, for I am a great sinner, and have much to answer for in the next world. I was born in Bristol, England. My father was a clergyman of the established church. I have no remembrance of my mother, for she died when I was an infant. When I was fifteen years old I was sent to sea as a means of bettering my morals. I served first on board an Indiaman, made two voyages to China, and was wrecked on the coast of Malabar; and when I got home my father or friends procured me the position of midshipman on board a man-of-war. I served on board the frigate Winchester, and other of His Majesty's ships, I did, for fifteen years, and was only a midshipman at the end. Heaven forgive me for my sins. It seemed there was no promotion for me. I was then transferred to His Majesty's packet service, and assigned to the brig Storm, carrying six guns, and the mails between Plymouth and the North American provinces. She was a beauty of a craft, that Storm was. She used to carry a crowd of canvas, and jump the seas like a sea-bird. I was four years first officer of that craft, was proud of what she could do, and the devil took advantage of my ambition, and created within me a longing to be in command of her, and make myself heroic by roaming unrestrained on the free sea. That feeling kept increasing until it become a passion with me. Then it was my misfortune to fall in love. Yes, love was a misfortune to me. I had courted and was engaged to the daughter of a rich old man who had made all his money in the West Indies, and still had plantations there.
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