Three distinct sets of contemporary events.
Aspects of Rufus with regard to each.
Primacy of Anselm.
Affairs of Scotland and Wales.
Continental schemes.
Revolt of Robert of Mowbray. 1095.
- twined, but which on the whole did not seriously affect
one another. Each is best told by itself, with as little reference to either of the others as may be. And each begins in the year of which we have now reached the threshold. The sixth year of William Rufus saw the beginning of the primacy of Anselm, the beginning of the main dealings of the reign with Wales and Scotland, the beginning of renewed interference in the Norman duchy. It will be well to keep these three lines of narrative as distinct as may be. They show the Red King in three different characters. In the first story he appears as the representative of the new form which the kingship of England has taken with reference both to temporal and to spiritual matters within the kingdom. In the second story we see him asserting the powers of the English crown beyond the kingdom of England, but within the island of Britain. And here, alongside of the affairs of Scotland, perhaps not very closely connected with them by any chain of cause and effect, but forming one general subject with them as distinguished alike from purely domestic and from continental affairs, will come the relations between England and Wales during the reign of William Rufus. In the third story we see the beginning of the events which led to those wider schemes of continental policy which almost wholly occupy the last three years of the reign. One event only of much moment stands apart from the general thread of any of the three stories. It stands by itself, as one of those events which might easily have led to great changes, but which, as a matter of fact, passed away without much result. This is the conspiracy and revolt of Robert of Mowbray and William of Eu, which may, dramatically at least, be connected with either the Scottish or the Norman story, but which, as a matter of actual English history, stands apart from all.
