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Updated: June 25, 2025
A retainer of Ranulf de Broc with the point of his sword scattered the Primate's brains on the ground. "Let us be off," he cried triumphantly, "this traitor will never rise again." The brutal murder was received with a thrill of horror throughout Christendom; miracles were wrought at the martyr's tomb; he was canonized, and became the most popular of English saints.
In the general doubt as to the king's attitude, no one dared to speak to envoys sent by Thomas to England. Ranulf de Broc was still wasting the lands of Canterbury; the palace was half in ruins, the barns destroyed, the lands uncultivated, the woods cut down. The Primate's friends urged him to keep out of England for fear of treachery.
In 1097 William had sent Edgar the atheling to Scotland with an army, King Donald had been overthrown, and Edgar's nephew, himself named Edgar, with the support of the English king, had been made king. In 1099 Ranulf Flambard received the reward of his faithful services, and was made Bishop of Durham, in some respects the most desirable bishopric in England.
He thought, however, that he had received a token of pardon, when news was brought that his faithful son Geoffrey of Lincoln, and his chancellor, Ranulf de Glanville, had defeated the King of Scots, William the Lion, and made him prisoner at Prudhoe Castle. But King Henry had far more to suffer! His eldest son was invading Normandy, and he was forced to march against him.
Stephen made the same futile promise, failing perhaps, more from inability than from design; and after his death the nation was so glad of repose on any terms, that there were no special stipulations made on the accession of Henry II. He and his Grand Justiciary, Ranulf de Glanville, governed according to law, but it was partly the law of Normandy, partly of their own device; the Norman parlement of barons, and the Saxon Wittenagemot, were alike ignored.
It dates the rise to influence with the king of Ranulf Hambard, whose name is closely associated with the tyranny of Rufus; or if this may already have begun, it marks his very speedy attainment of what seems to have been the complete control of the administrative and judicial system of the kingdom. Of the early history of Ranulf Flambard we know but little with certainty.
But we should notice that what they have in justice to complain of is the oppressive abuse of real rights. The system of Ranulf Flambard, so far as we can determine what it was, does not differ in its main features from that which was in operation without objection in the time of Henry II. The vacant ecclesiastical, like the vacant lay, fief fell back into the king's domain.
Upon this the Earl of Gloucester came in force for revenge against his treacherous ally, Fitz-Herbert, and, conducting him to Devizes, there hanged him. The surprise of Lincoln Castle, upon which the events of 1141 mainly turned, is equally characteristic of the age. Ranulf, Earl of Chester, and William de Roumare, his half-brother, were avowed friends of King Stephen.
This church was swept away by Ranulf Flambard, the notorious justiciar and chaplain of William II., whose evil deeds, contrary to the oft-quoted passage from Mark Antony's speech in Julius Cæsar, are now generally forgotten; while the good deeds that he wrought, the nave of this church, and the still grander nave of Durham Cathedral Church, Durham Castle, "Norham's castled steep," and Kepier Hospital, built while he held the most important diocese in the North of England, live after him, and have shed a glory on his name.
A pleasing person, ingratiating manners, much quickness and ingenuity of mind, prodigality of flattery, and great economy of scruples, these were traits which would attract the attention and win the favour of a man like William II. In Ranulf Flambard we have an instance of the constantly recurring historical fact, that the holders of absolute power are always able to find in the lower grades of society the ministers of their designs who serve them with a completeness of devotion and fidelity which the master rarely shows in his own interest, and often with a genius which he does not himself possess.
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