471 – How To Lose Friends and Irritate People

Welcome to the British History Podcast.

My name is Jamie, and this is episode 471: How to Lose Friends and Irritate People.

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It was January of 1095, and Rufus was still at war with his eldest brother, Duke Robert.

And this was a war that could have been avoided if the Red King simply kept his word, or even just apologized.

But Rufus wasn't interested in doing either of those things.

So people were dying in Normandy.

But apologizing wasn't the only thing that Rufus didn't want to do.

He also didn't want to fight a war in winter.

At least, he didn't want to fight it personally.

He left that nasty business to his subordinates.

So instead, the king was spending his winter nice and cozy in London, partying it up with his younger brother, Henry.

And this is one of those situations where I wish we had some diaries.

Because I can't tell if Rufus simply had the attention span of a goldfish and this habit of abandoning tasks half finished had to do with a general lack of follow-through, or if the king had just created so many conflicts that he couldn't keep up with all of them no matter how hard he tried.

And honestly, I kind of feel like it was both.

Because at this point, the Norman campaign was at a stalemate, which wouldn't be very fun for a warlike king like Rufus.

And at the same time, North Wales had just kicked off, and Robert Rithlin had been slain, and now the rebels were encouraging neighboring kingdoms to follow suit.

So he did have things that needed his attention in Britain.

But this pattern does keep happening.

I mean, when Rufus was focused on England, his problems in Normandy multiplied, and his poor diplomacy in this case had ignited a full-blown war.

And while he was in Normandy handling that war, his problems in England had multiplied, and his poor diplomacy in Wales had also ignited a full-blown war.

So this chaos agent governing style was creating multiple disasters.

And as a consequence, he was absolutely surrounded by problems.

For example, chances are the king's Christmas party was interrupted with news about the recent antics of Earl Robert de Mowbray of Northumbria.

Now, if you recall, de Mowbray was the guy who gave everyone the heebie-jeebies when he decided to just haul off and kill King Malcolm Canmore of Scotland, just on his own authority, and in a manner that pretty much everyone agreed was dastardly.

Some people said it was an ambush, others that it was outright assassination or murder, but regardless of how it actually went down, no one was thrilled about it.

The entire social order that the nobility relied upon was built upon norms and hierarchy, and I can think of no greater assault on that order than an unsanctioned regicide.

So, DeMowbray was on thin ice.

And so you'd expect him to have kept kept his head down.

But Rufus had spent years creating an atmosphere of lawlessness, and figures like DeMowbray were all too happy to go with the flow.

And so recently, the Earl had taken up piracy.

Specifically, he and his nephew Morel, who was the other guy directly involved in the murder of King Malcolm, had decided to plunder four large Norwegian trading vessels.

And this was a huge no-no.

But de Mowbray had already violated one major rule and hadn't suffered any consequences for that.

And so he seems to have interpreted this lack of consequences as a life hack.

Get rich the de Mowbray way by using this one simple trick.

The trick, of course, was crime.

And needless to say, the merchants who were the victims of this crime immediately complained to the king.

And presumably in between cups of spiced wine, Rufus sent a messenger to the errant earl demanding that he make restitution for all the theft and plunder.

And

we'll see how that goes.

I'm sure it's fine.

But with that handled, now he just had to handle Wales.

As you know, North Wales had completely exploded into full-blown rebellion, and it was picking up steam with every day that passed.

Even worse, the other kingdoms of Wales were starting to get ideas.

And so, once the Christmas celebrations were done, Rufus moved his court to Dorset.

And it's likely he did that to intimidate the nearby southern Welsh out of any freedom thoughts that they might have been catching from their northern neighbors.

But Rufus didn't travel alone, of course.

He had his whole court with him.

And when they reached Gillingham, Archbishop Anselm arrived and announced that he would be joining them too.

Now,

this must have been awkward for everyone, since the last time that these two men were together, it had ended in a screaming match.

And chances are, neither man was happy about this meeting here.

But Rufus had something that Anselm needed.

You see, even though Anselm had agreed to be the Archbishop and had extracted some extreme concessions in exchange for it, well, the old man had realized that actually,

he really wasn't the Archbishop.

Not really, because you can't be the Archbishop of Canterbury without a pallium, at least not officially.

And that was a big deal because he had recently managed to alienate and enrage the king.

And as a consequence, Anselm was in a very precarious position.

Because without all the spiritual fashion accessories, his ability to protect the wealth and power of Canterbury was severely limited.

And he had learned that fact all too clearly when he was forced to witness Rufus granting church lands, Anselm's lands, to his rival, Ranulf Lambard.

So, Anselm really wanted to finalize his investiture.

As a consequence, here he was, in court, asking for the king's permission to visit the pope.

And sitting amongst his barons and his courtiers, Rufus looked at the old man and asked, which pope?

Now, it's probably not obvious to you listening to this about a thousand years later, but Rufus had just dropped the mic so hard, it broke the floor.

You see, the church had been embroiled in a legitimacy crisis going on for years at this point.

And at the center of it was the fact that there were multiple men claiming to be the true pope and declaring that that other guy was the fake pope.

And at the moment, Italy and France were backing Pope Urban II.

But Pope Clement III

also had his own supporters and neither faction was backing down.

And frankly, a lot of people were choosing to just stay neutral on the whole conflict because weighing in on it offered very few benefits and a whole bunch of risks.

And so, for the last decade, England had not officially recognized any pope.

The last time England acknowledged a pope was back when the conqueror was working with Pope Gregory VII.

And truth be told, Anselm wasn't much of a papalist either.

His interest lay in things like having cool stuff, making weird legalistic arguments, and ensuring that no one could ever question his opinions.

Ever.

But now the king was thrusting him right into the middle of this thing.

So Rufus' little clapback didn't just highlight how much of a shit show the church was these days.

He was also making Anselm pick a side.

which in turn would make the See of Canterbury take a side, publicly, right in the middle of the English court.

Basically, this is the medieval equivalent of Drake saying that Pusha T's rhymes suck, and then Pusha T replying, oh yeah, well you've got a secret love child.

We need a new word here because escalation doesn't quite describe what's going on there.

And Anselm, the Drake in our story, clearly didn't realize who he was f ⁇ ing with when he picked this fight.

Because now, the king had backed the old man up into a corner that he could not escape from.

There were no good answers that Anselm could give to this question.

Even silence was the wrong answer, because that would mean that he wouldn't be able to get his pallium.

So Anselm had no choice but to come down on the side of one of the popes.

And so he said, Pope Urban.

And actually,

that was a sensible answer.

Urban certainly seemed like he was most likely to prevail given the support he was getting from both France and Italy.

But in making a choice, Anselm played directly into the king's hands.

And so Rufus began acting shocked.

No, not shocked, outraged, and said that since the days of the conquest, no man but the king could acknowledge a pope without royal license.

And perhaps the old man missed this little detail amongst all of his other religious scholarship, but the English crown had not recognized a pope.

So how dare he, a simple priest, attempt to deprive the king of England of his God-given authority?

Rufus wasn't just embarrassing Anselm in court.

He was low-key accusing him of treason.

And Anselm, trying to think on his feet, pointed out that English archbishops traditionally traveled to Rome to get their pallium, and so to carry on that tradition, he would be seeing Urban because he held his seat in Rome.

And then he also reminded Rufus that they had discussed all of this before he ever even agreed to become archbishop.

So really, this shouldn't be much of a surprise for the king.

But Rufus held his ground.

And he took the position that by acknowledging Urban without royal license and by seeking to go to submit to him in Rome, the Archbishop was giving priority to his obligations to the papacy when he already owes fealty to the English crown.

Again, he was subtly accusing the Archbishop of having treasonous intent.

And honestly, he kind of did have a point here.

While Anselm did acknowledge that he had duties to both masters, the Pope and the King, the Archbishop also consistently assessed his primary duty was to the Pope, and he argued that, if you think about it, his duty to the Pope predates any duties he might have to the king.

And so, in Anselm's eyes, the papacy had already called shotgun.

And every fiber in Rufus' body sang with his hatred of Anselm.

A loathing that filled Rufus with incandescent purpose to f this guy's life up.

And yet, some crazy how, the old bastard kept finding ways to enrage him even further.

And as you might imagine, the mood in court started to turn kinda dark.

The assembled churchmen and courtiers, probably realizing that there was a non-zero possibility that Rufus would just bludgeon Anselm to death right then and there, attempted to broker some sort of solution before England became the site of an international incident.

And so the courtiers helpfully offered that since Rufus wasn't saying that he was against Pope Urban, well, then this, at its heart, was just a matter of timing.

Anselm had endorsed Urban before Rufus had the chance to do it first, which was rude at best and treasonous at worst.

So why don't we just rearrange the timeline a little bit?

Anselm could retract his acknowledgement, and then Rufus could acknowledge Urban as the true Pope.

Then, Anselm could say that he wants to go and see Pope Urban and get his pallium, and everybody will be happy.

The king's feelings will be protected, Anselm will get to go to Rome, and the council won't have to spend the next year putting out a bunch of religious and diplomatic fires.

Everyone wins.

And Anselm said,

Yeah, no, I'm not retracting a goddamn thing.

Rufus is the one who sucks, so he needs to admit that I'm right and he's being stupid.

I'm obviously paraphrasing here, but that's the basic gist of it.

And despite the fact that they were trying to save him here, the members of court simply could not get Anselm to budge.

And eventually, the Archbishop got tired of the whole affair, and he asked that a council of churchmen and magnates be summoned to hear and decide on on this issue, which, frankly, was the most reasonable suggestion that he made all day.

So the king immediately agreed to it.

But then Anselm added a caveat.

If the council decided against him, well, then he would go into exile because he wasn't going to back down on this issue.

Not ever.

He would just stay in exile until Rufus agreed that Anselm was right all along, and that Urban was the correct pope, and that Anselm's primary duty was to the papacy, not the king.

After he made that declaration, I'm pretty sure Anselm's allies hustled him out of the room as fast as they could before the king had a chance to knight the old man with a meat cleaver.

But as intense as that whole situation was, fighting with old guys in robes over who gets to give him a scarf wasn't the reason why Rufus was in Dorset.

He was there to intimidate and suppress the nearby southern Welsh.

And Florence of Worcester tells us that this intimidation campaign wasn't just a matter of getting close to the border and then mean-mugging.

Rufus actually decided to do some campaigning during this period.

But just like his previous forays into Wales, this one was a debacle.

We're not given specific details, but in the end, he was forced to withdraw without any military or diplomatic gains in the region.

And if anything, his behavior further emboldened the Welsh resistance, because this was just one more demonstration that while Rufus apparently had Welsh and Irish ambitions, he lacked the prowess and logistic ability to actually see those ambitions through.

So his problems were going from bad to worse.

But speaking of problems, he was still up to his neck in them.

So even though the powerful Earl Hugh Lupus of Chester was having trouble containing this Welsh crisis, and even though it was spiraling out of control, King Rufus gathered up his court in late February and moved on, this time relocating all the way up to Northamptonshire.

And we know this because the great council of churchmen and magnates that Anselm had requested took place up there and it began on February 25th.

Once everyone was gathered, Anselm stepped forward and he addressed the assembly.

He told them about his meeting with the king and told them about his belief that he's bound to answer to the papacy first and foremost, and how the king wanted him to violate his duty to Saint Peter.

And then he told them whose fault all of this was.

Have you guessed whose fault it was?

Anselm looked around the assembly full of churchmen who had been summoned here to support him.

And he told them that this whole thing was all their fault.

They had pressed this archbishopric upon him.

He didn't even want it.

So really, if you think about it, all of these conflicts and problems that have been created by his appointment are really their fault.

And as such, it's their job to fix it.

And right at about this point, I'm guessing the churchmen probably only wanted Anselm to have his pallium so they could strangle him with it.

But Anselm went on and he told them specifically how they needed to address their personal failures.

What he wanted was for the council to get together and tell the king that he was wrong and Anselm was right.

Yeah, as far as I could tell, that was the only remedy that the old monk was willing to accept.

And it was the Bishop of Durham who was tasked with answering Anselm, as he was the man leading the council.

And actually, having him take point makes a lot of sense, since you probably remember that the Bishop of Durham had ample experience in conflicts between the church and the crown.

Though, to be fair, in the past, he was the one who was in open defiance of the king and was using every legal trick he could to avoid conviction.

Which had been fun.

But now that the bishop was on the other side of this, he was quickly discovering that was a lot less fun.

And so this appointment was probably a bit of a headache.

But on the other hand, historians suspect that he took the task because he was angling for Anselm's job.

And that is entirely plausible, since the way things were going at this point, it really did seem like there would be a vacancy in the near future.

And so the Bishop of Durham stood up and he turned to Anselm and said, Oh, we couldn't possibly weigh in on this and offer a judgment of that kind.

I mean, you are, after all, so much wiser and more holy than we are, so we would hate to step on your toes in that way.

All we feel comfortable doing is to make the suggestion that you take the king's advice and you back down.

But again, since you are super smart, if you do disagree with us, then we would be only too happy to convey your very wise counsel to the king.

And the bishop's sarcastic offer to Anselm went over about as well as you would expect.

And given the Archbishop's social skills, it wasn't long before everyone was mad and the proceedings fell apart.

And so eventually, everyone agreed to just go to bed and think it over, which meant that this grand assembly of holy men had just turned into the world's worst sleepover.

The next day, everyone got back together and the council asked if Anselm had thought things over.

And Anselm told them, and again, I'm paraphrasing here, but not as much as you would think: I don't need to think anything over because I'm right.

I am always right.

Jesus is on my side, the Pope is on my side, Saint Peter is on my side.

Everyone, even the angels, know that I am right.

So, are you going to back me up here?

Or do I need to call in Big J and the Pope?

Because I will.

I got him on speed dial.

I'm the goddamn archbishop.

Tell that to your stupid king.

A little stunned by this, the council tried to talk some sense into him.

But Anselm not only refused to back down, but he insisted that the bishops carry his words back to the king, which they, wisely, were refusing to do.

So Anselm was all, fine, I'll tell him myself.

Someone needs to tell him.

And then he marched into the king's presence and let him have it.

And this was ill-advised.

And I get the sense that Anselm might have mistaken the silence in the room for weakness or submission, but it was just the initial sense of shock.

And once that wore off, and the full weight of Anselm's overreach had set in, it immediately became clear that the Archbishop had just offended everyone who had been tasked with sitting in judgment.

And suddenly, everyone was very prepared to render that judgment.

The assembly told Anselm that he must immediately renounce his declaration of obedience to Pope Urban.

And then he must wait patiently for the king's decision on this matter.

He'd also offended the king, though, so he would have to make that right.

And in this case, it meant that he would need to do everything that the king had told him to do in that earlier meeting.

Finally, Anselm would refrain from taking any further actions while he was waiting for the king's judgment.

No more statements, no more oaths, no more pronouncements.

Just be quiet, Anselm.

For God's sake, be quiet.

And Anselm listened to this verdict and he said,

Yeah, no, I'm not gonna do that.

Not gonna do what?

Any of it?

All of it.

Take your pick.

But I'll tell you what.

Why don't we postpone this and meet again tomorrow so all of you could take some time and think about what it is you're doing.

And at this point, the Bishop of Durham hit his limit, or perhaps he saw his opening.

Either way, though, the bishop pounced.

He accused Anselm of polluting the fealty he owed the king and despoiling his royal prerogatives.

And the entire tone of the meeting changed at that point.

Because now, this was no longer a meeting to discuss concepts of duty and obedience.

As soon as the bishop charged Anselm with crimes, because those were crimes he just mentioned, this became a trial.

And the bishop was quite clear on this.

The only way that Anselm could extricate himself from this trial was to make things right with the king.

Durham insisted that they wouldn't even entertain an adjournment until Anselm accepted the king and council's judgment.

But Anselm didn't budge.

Instead, he adopted a newly calm and conciliatory tone while repeating his position that he had been placed in an impossible position.

He simply could not renounce his obedience to Pope Urban or accept that Rufus held a position of absolute primacy.

To do either would be to abandon his principles and his oaths.

He was an archbishop, and while he recognized his duty was to the king, he couldn't abandon his duty to Rome, not even if his king demanded it.

There's a kind of person who likes to pick fights, and then once they get an angry response, they act like they've been reasonable this whole time and tell their exasperated victim that, you know, there's no need to be nasty here.

And I get the sense from these records that Anselm was that kind of guy.

And now he'd managed to get Rufus and Durham to lose their tempers.

He was basically telling them that they should really just calm down, which has never in the history of the world ever calmed anyone down.

And so predictably, the king and the bishop of Durham exploded.

And I suspect that's exactly what Anselm wanted.

Because as they did, they started to lose the crowd.

The gathered barons and knights who were part of this council and who had been friendly to the king's position mere minutes earlier began to waver.

I mean, maybe Anselm was right.

His tone sure sounded rational, while these guys are busy shouting.

And it's nice to know that even a thousand years ago, matters of governance and justice could be completely derailed by bad faith tone policing.

At least we know we're not alone, right?

But the Bishop of Durham pretty quickly realized that they were losing the room.

And so, bless him, he suggested that they adjourn for the night and promised Rufus that he would come up with a solution before they gathered once more.

The king agreed, and so everyone went to bed, angry.

And true to his word, the bishop of Durham did come up with a plan.

Once they assembled again, the bishop laid it all out.

Anselm was a jerk, and he was clearly in criminal breach with the king.

So he would be convicted of offending the king and defaming his royal person.

And the punishment would be to strip him of his ring, his staff, and his office.

Then he would be expelled from the kingdom.

Anselm had come here seeking a scarf, but he would be lucky to leave with his clothes on.

This

was a heavy sentence, but it wasn't unprecedented.

Something similar had been levied against Herbert of Thetford only a year before.

And so the bishop did have legal precedent for this proposal.

But there was one small wrinkle.

Over the course of the last three days, the king and the bishop had lost the room.

The barons, magnates, and bishops were deeply uncomfortable with this whole affair.

And they really didn't like the idea that if Rufus and the Bishop of Durham were mad, they could just strip someone of everything and exile them.

Because if they could do that to an archbishop, they really could do that to anyone.

So, when it came time to convict, the barons refused.

Probably while shuffling their feet awkwardly and refusing to look the king in the eye.

And Rufus lost whatever shred of patience he had left.

If you thought Anselm was so innocent, then why the f did you not say anything when we brought this suit against him?

And if you don't like my judgment, then speak up, you bastards, and share with me what you would do.

Because as God is my witness, I am not gonna have any equals in my kingdom.

Not Anselm, not you, not anyone.

So, you will condemn this man, or so help me, God, I will condemn you instead.

You're my advisors.

Advise me on what I'm to do with you.

Now again, I'm paraphrasing here, but only barely.

The barons held their breath, probably hoping that God would just strike them down right now and put them out of their misery.

And no one said anything until poor Robert of Moulin, the king's uncle, found his voice and spoke up.

And he admitted to Rufus Rufus that they didn't have any helpful advice to offer him.

And the king was all, yeah, yeah, I'm getting that.

Well, listen up.

I command you as your king to bring judgment against Anselm and renounce any obedience and any friendship that you might feel you owe him.

That guy is a dick, and I want it recognized that he's a dick as a matter of law.

And the churchman, probably realizing that this cart had careened right off the road, told the king that they simply could not sit in judgment against Anselm, but they did promise that they wouldn't be friends with him anymore.

The barons, however, were feeling a bit pushed around.

And frankly, they weren't pleased with the king's behavior here.

And so they flatly refused.

They weren't the vassals of the archbishop, and so they didn't owe him any feudal duties.

But he was the archbishop and so they did owe him religious fealty and they weren't gonna forsake that

the king

was furious if he was read before i can't imagine the crimson on his face at this moment and it immediately became clear to anselm that he was in a hell of a lot of danger because with the loss of the king's friendship came the loss of safe passage and so anselm offered to go into exile, so long as he had a guarantee of safe conduct out of the kingdom.

And Rufus really did not want to give him safe conduct.

And it was starting to look like the request would be outright denied, and then who knows what would happen next.

And so the barons got involved.

And they admitted that this council had been very long and very contentious, and everyone was clearly upset.

So, why don't we adjourn and try again tomorrow?

And the king actually agreed.

And so, everyone went to bed angry again.

The next morning, they gathered again.

And I suspect that Rufus and Anselm had both spent long hours talking with their advisors and were both forced to listen to descriptions of exactly how bad things could get if they continued along this path.

Because today,

against all odds, both men stopped escalating and they slowly backed away from the precipice that they were stood on the day before.

After much discussion, they agreed to postpone the conflict until the 20th of May, and they would use that time to try and find a resolution.

And if no solution could be found, then Anselm would be provided safe passage out of the kingdom.

With both men agreeing to the terms, the council was disbanded and Anselm prepared to go on his way.

And Rufus was probably anxious for him to depart because the king had no interest in using his time to find any resolution other than the one he already had in mind.

But to get that resolution, he needed a little time, which the old fool had just agreed to give him.

Though at the same time, patience was never something that Rufus was good at.

And so Edmer writes that the king started to get some strike back against the Archbishop right away.

He reports that Rufus had Anselm's chief advisor, Baldwin of Tournai, expelled from the kingdom, and then he had the Archbishop's chamberlain and other assorted servants arrested.

And just to make sure that Anselm knew exactly who held power in England, the king ensured that the chamberlain was arrested while the archbishop was still in the room.

While Anselm might have managed to get the barons on his side, the fact was that Rufus was still the king.

And now that he was using the power of the crown and making arrests, the archbishop really couldn't do anything other than watch and then depart as soon as he was granted permission to leave.

Once Anselm was gone, the king summoned Gerard and William Warrelwast, Warlwast, who Edmer says were two of the king's most crafty clerks, and he ordered them to travel to Rome immediately.

Once there, they were to determine which pope was the real pope, and then they were to meet with that real pope, get a pallium, and bring it back to England.

But they wouldn't deliver the pallium to Anselm, obviously.

Instead, they were under strict instructions to deliver it directly into the king's hands, who would then give it to an archbishop of his choosing.

With that handled, Rufus was now free to turn his attention to another problem,

because Anselm was still just a sideshow in this whole mess.

In fact, it's quite likely that the reason why this whole trial was carried out in Northamptonshire was because of another man who was proving to be even more irritating than Anselm, Earl Robert de Mowbray of Northumbria.

You see, it turned out that when Rufus ordered de Mowbray to reimburse those Norwegian merchants, he didn't.

Now, I've read historians argue that the Earl might have done this because he believed the king was infringing upon his own liberty, which, if true, gives you a sense of exactly how lawless things have become.

Because typically, when people talk about liberty, they're not talking about extrajudicial killing of monarchs and piracy of merchant vessels.

But that appears to be the position that de Mowbray was taking.

And even worse, he had just brokered an arrangement where he would marry Matilda, the daughter of the powerful Earl, Hugh Lupus of Chester.

And so de Mowbray wasn't just a powerful and lawless earl.

He was a powerful, lawless earl who was expanding his power base for unknown reasons.

Though, considering the lack of deference that he was showing King Rufus, I think we can make a few guesses as to what he had in mind.

And so while the scribes don't tell us why Rufus moved his court to Northamptonshire, It's quite likely that he did it because he wanted to apply a little pressure to Earl Robert de Mowbray.

But here's the kicker.

It wasn't working.

Because even though the king was in the neighborhood, Earl Robert de Mowbray still refused to reimburse those merchants.

And that's not just rude.

It's a denial of the king's authority.

And that didn't escape the attention of Rufus, because he tried to cover the whole thing up by reimbursing the Norwegians himself.

And meanwhile, de Mowbray had yet reason to believe that his little life hack worked.

And he began to wonder exactly how far he could push this thing.

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