The Reign of William Rufus and the Accession of Henry the First, Volume 2

THE WARS OF SCOTLAND, NORTHUMBERLAND, AND WALES. 1093–1098.

THE year of Anselm’s appointment to the archbishopric, that part of the year which passed between the day when the bishop’s staff was forced into his hand and the day when he received consecration from Thomas of Bayeux, was a time full of stirring and memorable events of quite another kind. It was now that some of the events of former years were to bring forth fruit. The relations between England and Scotland were of a kind which might lead to open warfare at any moment. This year the open warfare came. And it was a warfare which was far more important in its direct results than mere plundering inroads on either side of the border commonly were. The direct results of the warfare of this year were in truth the crowning result of causes which had been working for a whole generation. It was a singular irony of fate which made William the Red in some sort a missionary, not only of the political power of the English kingdom, but of the ascendency of the English blood and speech. He began the later position of England as an European power. He extended the boundaries of the kingdom of England within his own island. And, more than this, he gave decisive help to a work which wrought one of the greatest of victories, not so much for England as a power as for the English-speaking folk in their English-speaking character. That he gave kings to Scotland was a small matter; that was done by other rulers of England before and after him. What specially marks his reign is that in his day, and largely by his agency, it was ruled that, of the three elements in Northern Britain, British, English, and Scottish or Irish, the English element should have the upper hand. It was ruled that the kingdom of Scotland, whatever might be its relations towards the kingdom of England, whether separate or united, whether dependent or independent, whether friendly or hostile, should be itself truly an English kingdom, a kingdom which was for some generations more truly English than the southern England itself.