height, by Thomas à Becket, a most turbulent man, who was made archbishop of Canterbury by the king. The broils they occasioned, brought on the murder of the bishop, and the excommunication of the king. In 1170 Henry associated his son Henry with him in the crown rather than in the government; for though he was crowned king, he was never permitted to act as king. This gave rise to several disturbances; for the French King prevailed upon the son to make war upon the father, which he did repeatedly, till a fever, said to have been occasioned by excessive grief, caused his death. The story of Rosamond called the fair, a daughter of lord Clifford, is interwoven with the history of this reign, with circumstances of a nature peculiarly romantic. She being dearly beloved by the king, and persecuted by Eleanor his queen, was artfully concealed by her royal paramour in a labyrinth at Woodstock, to which no one had the clue but himself. Jealousy and revenge were too ingenious for love, and a visit from the wife was fatal to the mistress. Henry died in 1189, in the 35th year of his reign, and 57th of his age, and was succeeded by his son.

2. Richard I. sirnamed Cœur de Lyon, wasted all the treasures left by his father, and what he could obtain by the sale of crown-lands and by extortion, in the crusade or Holy War. Having in this enterprize offended the duke of Austria, he was, on his return home in disguise through the dominions of that prince, discovered and taken prisoner, and an immense sum of money demanded and raised for his ransom. England was again exhausted in carrying on a ruinous war against the king of France. Having reigned 9 years, and almost 8 months, he died in the 45th year of his age in 1199, of a wound in his arm by an arrow, shot by Bertram de Gourdon, from a castle in Normandy. The king himself not only pardoned Bertram, but ordered a sum of money to be given him. After the king's death, he was flead alive, and hanged.

3. John, the youngest son of Henry II. succeeded to the exclusion of his nephew, prince Arthur, then only 13 years of age. The kingdom was again shaken with civil commotion; and the unfortunate young prince being taken prisoner, was basely murdered; most proba

bly by his uncle's own hand. His death, however, contributed as little to the repose, as to the credit of the king. In Runnimede, between Windsor and Stanes, in 1215, the great foundation of English liberty was laid. There the reluctant king Johu, after having repeatedly disregarded the former solicitations of the barons, was compelled to sign Magna Charta, and the Charter of the Forest. The arm of force and terror, which his barons held over his head, was strengthened by the claims of justice. As all the kings from the conquest had solemnly sworn at their coronation to revive the laws of Edward the Confessor, the barons conceived themselves justified, when their adherents were sufficiently strong and numerous, in demanding from John, by the power of the sword, the full execution of his promise.

The provisions of Magna Charta enjoined, that one weight and one measure should be used throughout the kingdom;-gave new encouragements to commerce, by the protection of foreign merchants:-prohibited all delay in the administration of justice;-fixed the court of Common Pleas, at Westminster, that the parties in a law-suit might no longer be harassed with following the king from place to place;-established annual circuits of judges; and confirmed the liberties of all cities and districts. It protected every freeholder in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property. This was the first general opposition successfully made against arbitrary power, and those rights were acknowledged and established which the English had enjoyed before the Conquest.

John had scarcely signed it, but he retracted, and called upon the pope for protection, when the barons withdrew their allegiance from John, and transferred it to Lewis, the eldest son of Philip Augustus, king of France. This gave umbrage to the pope; and the barons being apprehensive of their country becoming a province to France, returned to John's allegiance; but he was unable to protect them, till the pope refused to confirm the title of Lewis. John passed a law at Hastings, commanding all ships to strike to the English flag, on pain of forfeiture of ships and goods, and imprisonment of the crew as guilty of treason. He died in 1216, in the 18th year of his reign,

and 46 of his age, just as he had a glimpse of resuming his authority.

4. Henry III. who succeeded his father, was but nine years of age. The earl of Pembroke was appointed his guardian; and the pope taking part with the young prince, the French were defeated and driven out of the kingdom, and their king obliged to renounce all claims to the crown of England. Henry died in 1272, the 64th year of his age, and 56th of his reign, which was uncomfortable and inglorious; and yet to the struggles of his reign, the people in a great measure owe the liberties of the present day. In his time, and in one year, the pope sent over 300 Italian priests into England, and received a sum of money which exceeded the annual revenue of the crown.

5. Edward I. returning to England, on the news of his father's death, invited all those who held of his crown in capite, to his coronation dinner, which consisted of 278 bacon hogs, 450 hogs, 440 oxen, 430 sheep, 22,6000 hens and capons, and 13 fat goats. Alexander III. king of Scotland, was at the solemnity, and on the occasion 500 horses were let loose, for all that could catch them to keep them.

Edward was a brave and politic prince, and being perfectly acquainted with the laws, interests, and constitution of the kingdom, his reformation of the laws, has justly given him the title of the English Justinian. He died in 1307, in the 69th year of his age, and 35th of his -reign.

6. Edward II. son of the preceding king, showed an early disposition to encourage favourites: but Gaveston, his chief minion, a Gascon, being banished by his father Edward, he ascended the throne with great advantages. He recalled Gaveston, and loaded him with honours; and married Isabella, daughter of the French king, who restored to him part of the territories which Edward I. had lost in France. The barons, however, obliged him once more to banish his favourite, and confirm the Great Charter. King Robert Bruce recovered all Scotland, excepting the castle of Stirling; near to which, at Bannockburn, Edward in person received the greatest defeat England ever suffered, in 1314, Edward II. was most barbarously murdered in Berkley

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Castle, by ruffians, supposed to be employed by the queen and her paramour Mortimer, in the year 1327.

7. Edward III. succeeded in 1327. He was then under the tuition of his mother, who lived with Mortimer, and they endeavoured to keep possession of their power by executing many popular measures, and putting an end to all national differences with Scotland, for which Mortimer was created Earl of March. Edward, young as he was, was soon sensible of their designs. He surprized them in person, at the head of a few chosen friends, in the castle of Nottingham. Mortimer was hanged as a traitor at the common gallows of Tyburn, and the queen herself was shut up in confinement twenty-eight years, to her death. Upon the death of Charles the fair, king of France, Edward laid claim to the throne, and invaded France with a powerful army. At Cressy, August 26, 1346, above 100,000 French were defeated, chiefly by the valour of the prince of Wales, who was but sixteen years of age, (his father being no more than thirty-four) though the English did not exceed 30,000. The loss of the French far exceeded that of the English army. The battle of Poitiers was fought in 1356, between the prince of Wales and the French king John, but with very superior numbers on the part of the French, who were totally defeated, and the king and his favourite son Philip taken prisoners. The modesty and politeness with which the prince treated his royal prisoners, was the brightest gem in his crown of victory.

9. Richard II. son of the Black Prince, (so called from the colour of his armour) was only eleven years of age when be ascended the throne. So many men were employed in unsuccessful wars, that the common people like powder, receiving a spark of fire, all at once flamed out into rebellion under the conduct of Hall, a priest, Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, and others, the lowest of the people. The conduct of these insurgents was very violent, and in many respects unjustifiable: but it cannot justly be denied, that the common people of England then laboured under many oppressions, particularly a poll tax.

Richard was not theu above sixteen, but he acted with great spirit and wisdom. He faced the storm of the insurgents, at the head of the Londoners, while Walworth

the mayor, and Philpot an alderman, had the courage to put Tyler, the leader of the malcontects, to death, in the midst of his adherents. Richard then associated to himself a new set of favourites.

He was deposed in full parliament, upon a formal charge of tyranny and misconduct: and soon after he is supposed to have been starved to death in prison, in the year 1399, the 34th of his age, and the 23d of his reign. He had no children by either of his two marriages. With him ended the line of the Plantagenets.

VI. The Houses of Lancaster and Pork,

1. Henry IV. son of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, fourth son of Edward III. was settled on the throne of England, to the prejudice of the elder branches of Edward the IIId's family. A dangerous rebellion broke out under the old earl of Northumberland, and his son the famous Henry Percy, sirnamed Hotspur, but it ended in the defeat of the rebels, chiefly by the valour of the prince of Wales. With equal good fortune Henry suppressed the insurrection of the Welch, under Owen Gleudower; and by his prudent concessions to his parliament, to the commons particularly, he at last conquered all opposition.

2. Henry V. ascended the throne in 1413. He was early engaged in a contest with France. He demanded a restitution of Normandy, and other provinces, that had been ravished from England in the preceding reigns; also the payment of certain arrears due for king John's ransom, since the reign of Edward III. Availing himself of the distracted state of that kingdom by the Orleans and the Burgundy factions, he invaded it, where he first took Harfluer, and then defeated the French in the battle of Agincourt, which equalled those of Cressy and Poictiers in glory to the English, but exceeded them in its consequences, on account of the vast number of French princes of the blood, and other great noblemen, who were there killed. Henry made a triumphal entry into Paris, where the dauphin was proscribed; and after receiving the fealty of the French nobility, he returned to England, to levy a force that might rush the dauphin and his Scotch auxiliaries. He probably