Part 51

Richard was the son of a Worcestershire yeoman, and was early, with his elder brother, left an orphan. He was a studious, holy, clerkly boy, looked on as fit for the cloister: but when his brother came of age, it was found that the guardians had so wasted their goods, that their inheritance lay desolate. The brother was in despair, but young Richard comforted him, bade him trust in God, and himself laying aside the studies he delighted in, look up the spade and axe, and worked unceasingly till the affairs of the homestead were in a flourishing state. Then, when prosperity dawned on the elder brother, the younger obtained his wish, and went to study at Oxford, where he was so poor that he and two other scholars had but one gown between them, lived hard, and allowed themselves few pleasures; but this he was wont to call the happiest time in his life.

Afterward he went to Bologna, and, after seven years there, returned, and was made Chancellor, first of Oxford, and afterward of Canterbury. There was a most earnest attachment between him and St. Edmund, whom he followed into his exile. The Bishop whom the King had appointed to Chichester was examined by Grosteste, and found deficient in theology, and the chapter and Pope agreed in choosing Richard Wych, who was consecrated by Innocent himself. Henry, in displeasure, took all the temporalities of the see into his hands, and for a year Richard lived at the expense of a poor parish priest named Simon, whom he strove to requite by working in his garden, budding, grafting, and digging, as he had once done for his brother.

He went about his diocese visiting each parish, and doing his work like the early bishops of poorer days, and all the time making his suit to the King to do him justice; but whenever he went to Westminster, meeting only with jests and gibes from the courtiers.

The Pope was too busy to attend to him. That council at Lyons had ended in sentence of deposition upon Frederick, and the combat raged in Italy till his death, when Innocent, claiming Sicily as a fief of the Church, offered it, if he could get it, to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who had too much sense to accept such a crown.

It then was offered to Henry for his son Edmund, whom he arrayed in the robes of a Sicilian prince, and presented to the barons of England, asking for men and money to win the kingdom. Not a man of them, however, would march, or give a penny in aid of the cause, and therefore Innocent raised money from the Lombard merchants in the name of the King of England.

No wonder Henry could not pay. His own household had neither wages, clothes, nor food, except what they obtained by purveying--in their case only a license to rob, since no payment was ever given for the goods they carried off. His pages were gay banditti, and the merchants, farmers, and fishers fled as from an enemy when the court approached; yet, at each little transient gleam of prosperity, the King squandered all that came into his hands in feasting and splendor, then grasped at Church revenues, tormented the Jews, laid unjust fines on the Londoners, or took bribes for administering justice, and all that he did was imitated with exaggeration by his half-brothers, uncles, and favorites.

His chancellor, Mansel, held seven hundred benefices at once, and so corrupted the laws, that one of the judges pronounced the source poisoned from the fountain. Another chancellor was expelled from the court for refusing to set the great seal to a grant to one of the Queen’s uncles of four-pence on every sack of wool, and at one time Eleanor herself actually had the keeping of the seal, and when the Londoners resisted one of her unjust demands, she summarily sent the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs to the Tower.

Isabel Warenne, the King’s cousin, and widow of the Earl of Arundel, an excellent and charitable lady, still young, came to the King’s court to seek justice respecting a wardship of which she had been deprived. She spoke boldly to Henry: “My Lord, why do you turn your face from justice? Nobody can obtain right. You are placed between God and us, but you govern neither yourself nor us. Are you not ashamed thus to trample on the Church, and disquiet your nobles?”

“What do you mean, lady?” said the King. “Have the great men of England chosen you for their advocate?”

“No, sir,” said the spirited lady; “they have given me no such charter, though you have broken that which you and your father have granted and sworn to observe. Where are the liberties of England, so often granted? We appeal from you to the Judge in heaven!”

All Henry could say, was, “Did you not ask me a favor because you were my cousin?”

“You deny my right; I expect no favor,” and, so saying, Isabel left him.

After two years, Richard of Chichester was permitted to assume the temporalities of his see, and most admirably he used them, doing every kindness to the poor in his diocese, and always maintaining the right, though more gently than his friend at Lincoln. Those were evil days, and men’s sense of obedience and sense of right were often sorely divided. Richard died in the year 1253, after a short illness, in which he was attended by his friend Simon, leaving the memory of his peaceful, charitable life, much beloved in his diocese, and was shortly after canonized. “Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us,” were among his last words.

The champion Robert Grosteste had one more battle to fight ere following his two saintly brethren.

He was wont always to compare each bull which he received with the Gospels and the canon law, and if he found anything in it that would not stand this test, he tore it in pieces. In 1254, one of these letters commanded him to institute to a benefice a nephew of the Pope, a mere child, besides containing what was called the clause “non obstante” (namely, in spite of), by which the Pope claimed, as having power to bind and loose, to set aside and dispense with existing statutes and oaths, at his pleasure.

Grosteste wrote an admirable letter in reply. He said most truly, “Once allowed, this clause would let in a flood of promise-breaking, bold injustice, wanton insult, deceit, and mutual distrust, to the defilement of true religion, shaking the very foundations of trust and security;” and he also declared that nothing could be more opposed to the precepts of our Lord and His apostles, than to destroy men’s souls by depriving them of the benefits of the pastoral office by giving unfit persons the care of souls. He therefore absolutely refused to publish the bull, or to admit the young Italian to the benefice.

Innocent flew into a passion on reading the letter. “What meaneth this old dotard, surd and absurd, thus to control our actions? Did not our innate generosity restrain us, I would confound him, and make him a prodigy to all the world!”

One of the Spanish cardinals, however, spoke thus: “We cannot deal harshly with such a man as this. We must confess that he speaketh truth. He is a holy man, of more religious life than any of us; yea, Christendom hath not his equal. He is a great philosopher, skilled in Greek and Latin, a constant reader in the schools, preacher in the pulpit, lover of chastity, and hater of simony.”

Authorities are divided as to whether the Pope was persuaded to lay aside his anger, or not. Some say that he sent off sentence of suspension and excommunication; others, that he owned the justice of Grosteste’s letter. It made little difference to the good Bishop, who lay on his deathbed long before the answer arrived. He spoke much of the troubles and bondage of the Church, which he feared would never be ended but by the edge of a blood-stained sword, and grieved over the falsehood, perfidy, and extortion, that were soiling his beloved Church; and thus he expired, uplifting his honest testimony both in word and deed, untouched by the crimes of his age.

Innocent IV. did not long survive him, and there is a remarkable story of the commencement of his last illness. He dreamt that the spirit of Robert Grosteste had appeared, and given him a severe beating. The delusion hung about him, and he finally died in the belief that he was killed by the blows of the English Bishop.

Sewel, Archbishop of York, had the same contest with Rome. Three Italians walked into York cathedral, asked which was the Dean’s seat, and installed one of their number there; and when the Archbishop refused to permit his appointment, an interdict was laid on his see, and he died under excommunication, bearing it meekly and patiently, and his flock following his funeral in weeping multitudes, though it was apparently unblest by the Church.

These good men had fallen on days of evil shepherds, and lamentable was the state of Europe, when men’s religious feelings were perverted to be engines for exalting the temporal power of the popedom, and their ministers, mistaking their true calling, were struggling for an absolute and open dominion, for which purity, truth, meekness, and every attribute of charity were sacrificed.

CAMEO XXIX. THE LONGESPÉES IN THE EGYPTIAN CRUSADES. (1219-1254.)

King of England. 1216. Henry III.

Kings of Scotland. 1214. Alexander II. 1249. Alexander III.

Kings of France. 1180. Philip III. 1223. Louis VIII. 1226. Louis IX.

Emperors of Germany. 1209. Friedrich II. 1259. Conrad IV.

Popes. 1216. Innocent III. 1227. Honorius III. 1241. Gregory IX. 1241. Celestin IV. 1242. Innocent IV.