Character of the year 1090.
Beginnings of foreign adventure.
First mention of domestic opposition.
The next year we find no entries of this kind. There
was a mighty stir in England and in Normandy; but
it was not a mere stirring of the elements. We now enter
on the record of the foreign policy and the foreign wars of
the Red King, and we hear the first wail going up from the
oppressed folk within his kingdom. Throughout his reign
the growth of the prince's power and the grievances of his
people go together. In the former year there was nothing
to chronicle but the earthquake and the late harvest. This
year we hear of the first successes of the King beyond the
sea, and we hear, as their natural consequence, that the
"land was fordone with unlawful gelds."[1]
The years 1090-1091.
Successes in Normandy.
Supremacy over Scotland. 1091.
Annexation of Cumberland. 1092.
The two years which followed the death of Lanfranc saw
the attempt of the first year of Rufus reversed. Instead
of the lord of Normandy striving to win England, the lord
of England not only strives, but succeeds, in making himself
master of a large part of the Norman duchy. Having
thus become a continental potentate, the King comes
back to his island kingdom, to establish his Imperial
supremacy over the greatest vassal of his crown, and
to do what his father had not done, to enlarge the borders
of his immediate realm by a new land and a new city.
Close connexion of English and Norman history.
The same main actors in both.
Through a large part then of the present chapter the
scene of our story will be removed from England to Normandy.
Yet it is only the scene which is changed, not the
actors. One main result of the coming of the first William
into England was that for a while the history of Normandy
and that of England cannot be kept asunder.
The chief men on the one side of the water are the chief
men on the other side. And the fact that they were so is
the main key to the politics of the time. We have in the
last chapter seen the working of this fact from one side;
- ↑ Chron. Petrib. 1090. "And betwyx þisum þingum þis land wæs swiðe fordón on unlaga gelde and on oðre manige ungelimpe."
