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This king—of a strange and inexplicable personality—gave no Charter to the City so far as is known, nor do there appear to have been any events of importance in London itself during his reign. One or more destructive fires, a hurricane, and a famine, or at least a scarcity, are mentioned.
William Rufus followed his father’s example in being crowned at Westminster. And as the Conqueror was crowned by a Norman and a Saxon Bishop, so he also was crowned by the Norman Archbishop of Canterbury and the last Saxon Bishop, Wulfstan.
In the Chronicle of Florence of Worcester, it is mentioned that on the outbreak of the Civil War, the year after the accession of William Rufus, he collected his army in London; that it consisted mainly of English whom he made loyal by promising “just laws”; that while William was besieging Pevensey, the garrison of Rochester fell upon the people of Canterbury and London with fire and sword. Had the King taken from London the power of defence? Were there no walls and gates, or were there traitors within the walls and gates? The A.S. Chronicle says nothing of this massacre; it speaks, however, of discontent. When the rebellion in favour of Robert broke out, the King “was greatly disturbed in mind; and he sent for the English, and laid his necessities before them, and entreated their assistance. He promised them better laws than had ever been in this land, and forbade all unjust taxes, and guaranteed to his subjects their woods and hunting. But these concessions were soon done away. Howbeit the English came to the aid of their lord the King, and they then marched towards Rochester.”
William spent very little time in London or at Westminster. Once he held his Christmas at the King’s House, Westminster, and twice he held Whitsuntide there. At the feasts of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide the King feasted in public, wearing his crown.
In the year 1092, Florence of Worcester says that a fire destroyed nearly the whole of London. The A.S. Chronicle does not notice the event. Like the alleged massacre in London by the men of Rochester, we may suppose that the damage was exaggerated.
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The slender annals of the City during this reign do not, therefore, tell us much. As for its internal condition, the trade and the prosperity of the place, it is not to be supposed that in a time of continual wars, internal and external, the trade of London could possibly advance; nor is it likely that when the hand of the King was heavy with exactions and unjust taxation upon the rest of his kingdom, London would escape. In reading the history of this king, one is continually wishing that a layman had written an account of his sayings and doings. The ecclesiastics were embittered against a man who was not only a derider of the Church, but also a robber of the Church; who held in his own hand, keeping them vacant, bishoprics and monasteries; who dared to say that he had no belief in saints; who discouraged the conversion of Jews, and even persuaded the Jews to hold a public debate with Christians as to the tenets of their faith, promising to become a convert if they should defeat the Christians. This part of the story is, however, doubtful. William of Malmesbury believed it. He says, “The thing was done, to the great fear of the Bishops and clergy, fearing with pious solicitude for the Christian faith, and from this contest the Jews received nothing but confusion, though they often boasted that they had been conquered not by argument but by power.” One would like to have been present at the debate.
The few glimpses we get of London do not point to prosperity or to contentment. The A.S. Chronicle (A.D. 1097) says, “Many shires which are bound to duty in works at London were greatly oppressed in making the wall round the Tower, in repairing the bridge which had been almost washed away, and in building the King’s Hall at Westminster. These hardships fell upon many.”
The memory of the general misery of the time is preserved in a curiously suggestive manner: by the record of those strange and monstrous events which only occur in times of trouble and injustice. There was an earthquake; there was a very late harvest; lightning struck the head off a crucifix. There was a deluge of rain such as had never before been seen; there was a hard frost which froze rivers;274 there was a rapid thaw which tore away bridges; there was a famine, so severe, in some parts, that the dying wanted attention and the dead wanted burial; there was a comet; there were stars which fought with each other; there was a high tide which ran up the Thames and inundated many villages; the devil appeared in person to many, speaking to them in woods and secret places. It is not reported what he said, which is a pity; he seems, however, to have been in a gracious mood, no doubt because things were going on quite to his liking. Lastly, a spring at Finchampstead began to flow with blood, an omen which filled everybody, except the King, with terror and gloomy forebodings. The King, it is reported, laughed at the omen.
William’s sudden and tragic death—clearly a proof of Heaven’s displeasure—gave rise to a whole group of omens and dreams. The Abbot of Cluny is reported to have told the brothers on the very morning after the death, long before the news could have arrived, that King William was “last night brought before God, and that he was sentenced to damnation.” The King himself was terrified by a dream the night before his death; a monk had a terrible dream which he brought to the King the very morning of his death. And so on. The point remains that all these monstrous signs and portents indicate a time of general terror, when no one knew what taxes or burdens might be laid upon him by a king who was strong of will, not afraid of Pope or Bishop, or anything that the Church could do or threaten: a king of strange freaks and uncertain temper: influenced by no one; feared for his courage; respected for his success in war; beloved by his favourites; prodigal and extravagant; a free-thinker; a man of no private morality; and of so little respect for the Church that he made his Bishops and Abbots strip off the gold from their shrines, and melt down their chalices. Wherever he went his Court was composed chiefly of young men who wore flowing hair and extravagant dress; who, as the Chronicle says, “rivalled women in delicacy of person, minced their gait, and walked with loose gesture and half-naked.” They plundered the country far and wide; what they could not devour they sold or destroyed. If it was liquor, they washed their horses’ legs with what they could not drink. “Droves of harlots” followed the Court. No wonder the fountain of Finchampstead ran with blood. At the same time, it must be remembered that the ecclesiastics who wrote these things were not likely to take a favourable view of their oppressor.
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