poor. This unequivocal manifestation of immense popularity intimidated the barons of the parliament; employing artifice, they postponed the proceedings to a future sitting, which did not take place, and occupied themselves in working on the minds of the people by skilful emissaries. False promises and false alarms, aptly disseminated, calmed the public effervescence and discouraged the partisans of insurrection. The archbishop of Canterbury and the other justiciaries themselves convoked several meetings of the petty citizens of London; and discoursing to them, sometimes of the necessity of preserving order and peace, sometimes of the king's ample means of crushing sedition, they succeeded in spreading doubt and hesitation among the conspirators.2 Seizing this moment of weakness and vacillation, ever fatal to popular parties, they demanded, as hostages and guarantees of the public tranquillity, the children of a great many families of the middle and lower classes. The citizens had not sufficient resolution to oppose this demand; and the cause of power was gained, as soon as the hostages, taken from London, were imprisoned in various fortresses.3 Notwithstanding the influence given them by the anxiety which prevailed in London as to the fate of the hostages, the justiciaries dared not publicly arrest the man whose destruction was contemplated in all these proceedings. They resolved to watch a moment when William should be from home alone, or with but few companions; two rich citizens, probably of Norman race, and one of whom was named Geoffroy, undertook this duty.4 Followed by armed men, they watched for several days all the movements of the Man with the Long-Beard; and one day, as he was quietly walking with nine friends, the two citizens approached him with an air of indifference, and, suddenly, Geoffroy laid hands on him, and gave the signal for the men-at-arms to advance.5 William's only weapon of defence was one of those long knives which, at that period, were worn in the belt; he drew it, and with one blow laid Geoffroy at his feet. The soldiers came up at the same moment, armed, 1 Ib. 2 Gervas. Cantuar., ubi sup. 3 Radulf. de Diceto, col. 691. 4 Guill. Neubrig, p. 573. 5 Guill. Neubrig., p. 563. Roger. de Hoveden, p. 765. from head to foot, in dagger-proof mail; but William and his nine companions, by dint of courage and address, got clear of them, and took refuge in the nearest church, dedicated to the Virgin, and called by the Normans the church of SaintMary de l'Arche.1 They closed and barricadoed the doors. Their armed pursuers endeavoured unavailingly to force an entrance; the grand justiciary, on learning the news, sent couriers to the adjacent castles for more troops, not relying, at this critical juncture, on the garrison of the Tower of London alone.2 The report of these events caused great fermentation in the town: the people were sensible to the danger of a man who had so generously taken up their defence;3 but in general they exhibited more of sorrow than of anger. The sight of the soldiers marching into the city, and occupying the streets and market-places, and above all the conviction that, on the first outbreak, the hostages would be put to death, kept the citizens in their shops. It was in vain that the refugees awaited assistance, and that a few determined men exhorted their fellow citizens to march in arms to Saint Mary's church. The masses remained motionless as if struck with stupor.5 Meanwhile, William and his friends prepared, as best they might, to sustain a siege in the tower, whither they had retired; repeatedly summoned to come forth, they pertinaciously refused to do so; and the archbishop of Canterbury, in order to force them from their post, had a quantity of wood collected, and set fire to the church.6 The heat and the smoke which soon filled the tower, compelled the besieged to descend, half suffocated. They were all taken, and as they were being led away bound, the son of the Geoffroy whom William had killed, approached him, and with a knife ripped open his stomach.8 Wounded as he was, they tied him to a horse's tail, and dragged him thus through the streets to the Tower, where he appeared before the archbishop, Iid. ib.-Matth. Paris, i. 181. 2 Gervas. Cantuar., ubi sup. Guill. Neubrig., p. 563. 3 Henric. Knyghton, De eventis Angl., apud Script. Hist. Angl., (Selden) col. 2410. 4 Guill. Neubrig., loc. sup. cit. 5 Matthew Paris, ut sup. 1 Ib. 6 Ib.-Roger. de Hoveden, loc. sup. cit. 8 Guill. Neubrig., p. 564. and, without any sort of trial, received sentence of death. The same horse dragged him in the same manner to the place of execution.1 He was hanged with his nine companions; "and thus," says an old historian, "perished William Longbeard, for having embraced the defence of the poor and of truth: if the cause makes the martyr, none may more justly than he be called a martyr."2 This opinion was not that of one man only, but of all the people of London; who, though they had not had the energy to save their defender, at least wept for him after his death, and regarded as assassins the judges who had condemned him. The gibbet on which he had been hanged was carried away in the night as a relic, and those who could not procure any part of the wood, collected pieces of the earth in which it had stood. So many came for this earth, that in a short time a large pit was formed on the place of execution. People went there not only from the vicinity, but from all parts of the island, and no native Englishman failed to fulfil this patriotic pilgrimage when his affairs called him to London.3 Ere long, popular imagination attributed the gift of miracles to this new martyr in the cause of resistance to foreign domination; his miracles were preached, as those of Waltheof had been, by a priest of Saxon origin;4 but the new preacher shared the fate of the former, and it was no less dangerous now to believe in the sanctity of Him with the Long Beard than it had been, an hundred and twenty years before, to believe in that of the last Anglo-Saxon chief. The grand justiciary Hubert sent soldiers to disperse with their lances the crowd who assembled to insult him, as he said, by bestowing such honours on the memory of an executed malefactor.5 But the English were not disheartened; driven away in the day, they returned at night to pray; soldiers were placed in ambush, and seized a great number of men and women, who were publicly whipped, and then imprisoned.6 At length, a permanent guard, posted on the spot which the English persisted in regarding as hallowed, prevented all access to it, the only mea Matth. Paris, loc. sup. cit. Gervas. Cantuar., ubi sup. 2 Matth. Paris, loc. sup. cit. * Guill. Neubrig., p. 564. 4 Gervas. Cantuar., loc. sup. cit. 5 Henric. Knyghton, ut sup. col. 2412. Guill. Neubrig., p. 567. 6 Ib.-Gervas. Cantuar., col. 1591. sure that could discourage the popular enthusiasm, which then by degrees died away.1 Here should properly terminate the narrative of the national struggle which followed the conquest of England by the Normans; for the execution of William Longbeard is the last fact which the original authors positively connect with the conquest. That there were, at subsequent periods, other events impressed with the same character, and that William was not the last of the Saxons, are indubitable propositions; but the inexactitude of the chronicles, and the loss of ancient documents, leave us without any proofs on this subject, and reduce us, all at once, to inductions and conjectures. The main task of the conscientious narrator, therefore, ends at this point; and there only remains for him to present, in a summary form, the ulterior destiny of the persons whom he has brought upon the stage, so that the reader may not remain in suspense. And by the word personages, it is neither Richard, king of England, nor Philip, king of France, nor John, earl of Mortain, that is to be understood; but the great masses of men and the various populations who have simultaneously or successively figured in the preceding pages. For the essential object of this history is to contemplate the destiny of peoples, and not that of certain celebrated men; to relate the adventures of social, and not those of individual life. Human sympathy may attach itself to entire populations, as to beings endowed with sentiment, whose existence, longer than our own, is filled with the same alternations of sorrow and of joy, of hope and of despair. Considered in this light, the history of the past assumes somewhat of the interest which is felt in the present; for the collective beings of whom it treats have not ceased to live and to feel; they are the same who still suffer or hope under our own eyes. This is its most attractive feature; this it is that sweetens severe and arid study; that, in a word, would confer some value upon this work, if the author had succeeded in communicating to his readers those emotions which he himself experienced while seeking in old books names now obscure and misfortunes now forgotten. 'Guill. Neubrig., p. 267. CONCLUSION. I. THE CONTINENTAL NORMANS AND BRETONS; THE ANGEVINS AND THE POPULATIONS OF SOUTHERN GAUL. Birth of Arthur, duke of Brittany-Insurrection of Anjou and MainePolicy of the king of France-Death of Arthur-Indignation of the Bretons-Invasion of Normandy-Taking of Rouen-Repentance of the Bretons-The Poitevins resist the king of France-Complete submission of Normandy-Project of a new invasion of England-Entrance of the English into Normandy-Guienne remains to the king of England-Heresy of the Toulousans and Albigenses-Crusade against the Albigenses-Additional aggrandizement of the kingdom of France— Charles of Anjou becomes count of Provence-Discontent and regrets of the Provençals-Insurrection of the cities of Provence-Termination of Provençal nationality-Limits of the kingdom of France-Character of the Basque population-Political condition of the Basques-Policy of the counts de Foix-Policy of the barons of Gascony-They pass alternately from one king to another-Confederation of the Armagnacs-The Gascons join the king of France-Conquest of Guienne by the French -Revolt of Bordeaux-Second conquest of Bordeaux-Patriotic efforts of the Armagnacs-Guienne and Gascony become parts of France. TOWARDS the end of the reign of Henry II., and some months after the death of his second son, Geoffroy, earl or duke of Brittany, there occurred an event of little importance in itself, but which became the cause, or at least the occasion, of great political revolutions; the widow of count Geoffroy, Constance, a woman of Breton race,' gave birth to a son, whom his paternal grandfather, the king of England, wished to baptize in the name of Henry. But the Bretons, who surrounded the mother, were all opposed to the idea that the child, who would one day become their chief, should receive a foreign name. He was, by acclamation, called Arthur, and was baptized in this name, as popular with them as with 1 See Book VIII. 2 Hemingford, Chron., p. 507. |