tions make them of no real importance. At last the life of foul depravity and the reign of great undertakings and of small achievements came to an end; the tongue that boasted great things was silenced; the time of military license and administrative iniquity was cut short; the Red King was slain in the place made desolate by his father's cruel selfishness, and was carted away like one of those high deer which the Conqueror loved so well.

XII.

HENRY I., THE SCHOLAR-KING.-Pearson.

[The tragic death of the Red King summoned his younger brother, Henry, to the throne. The claim of the elder brother, Robert, who was still absent in the east, was simply ignored. Robert, on his return, attempted to assert his rights in England, but without success. Weak, vacillating, and extravagant, he was soon unable to maintain his ground against the powerful barons in his own duchy. Henry, on pretext of being alarmed for the safety of his continental possessions, invaded Normandy, met Robert in battle, captured him, and kept him in prison until his death, in 1134. Henry's rule both in Normandy and England was stern, but, perhaps, no sterner than the times demanded.]

THE Conqueror's youngest son had the stature and general features of his family; but the high forehead, inherited from his father, the dark complexion and quiet, thoughtful eyes peculiar to himself, indicated a statesman rather than a soldier. Thrown early upon the world, Henry had been trained in a rough school. He had spent a large portion of his inheritance in buying the government of the Cotentin from Robert, who discharged the obligation by throwing him into prison. A reconciliation was effected, and Henry did good service in the revolt of Rouen, recovering the town when the duke fled from it in a panic. A few weeks passed, and the fickle Robert had united with William to besiege Henry in his castle of

Mont St. Michel. That Robert behaved with knightly courtesy, in refusing to starve his brother out, is true; but he continued the siege till the castle was surrendered; and Henry spent the next few years of his life without money or men, with a beggarly household of one squire and a priest. He was, probably, the better scholar, but not the milder man, for these experiences. As king he soon made himself respected; he was a pleasant companion at times; but no man could withstand "the imperious thunder of his voice;" and it was remarked that he was inscrutable; his praise was often a sure sign that he meant to ruin. He brooked no rivalry, and forgave no insult; the old favorite, who had boasted that he could build as grand a monastery as the king, was ruined by suits at law, and died broken-hearted. The foreign knight, who satirized Henry in songs, was blinded, in spite of the Earl of Flanders' intercession, and dashed out his brains in despair. When the king's ambition was interested, he was careless what suffering he caused; he oppressed the people with intolerable taxes; and punished one of his own daughters for rebellion by dragging her through a frozen moat.

Yet Henry possessed merits of a high order. He was not moral, but he was not shamelessly vicious; he was moderate in dress and food; his conversation was pure, and his court decorous. He honored learning and talent, formed a menagerie at Woodstock, and promoted the formation of a vernacular Norman literature. He advanced the fortunes of Robert the Great, whom he had chosen chaplain for his skill in hurrying through the mass, but who proved a first-rate justiciary, and adorned his see with the splendid cathedral of Salisbury. He brought over Gilbert the Universal, the first scholar north of the Alps, to be bishop of London. A great historical school flourished in his reign, and the zeal of his son, the Earl of Gloucester, for these studies, may well have been derived from a father who looked back with affection on his own "tumultuary "scholarship through all the troubles of his

life. Nor was he indifferent to religion; he preferred being served by good men if good men would do his will. He was clear-sighted enough to perceive the importance of uniformity in standards. He fixed the length of the English yard, it is said, by his own arm; and at some immediate hardship he substituted payments in coin, which was instantly smelted down, for payments in kind by which the taxes had been discharged. Above all, he had a statesmanlike love of order; and devoted himself to the cares of government, when his ambition was satisfied by the conquest of Normandy. He was called by one who survived him: "The peace of his country, and the father of his people." . .

It is difficult to say whether Henry introduced any new principles into his government; but he struck vigorously at the great abuses. The most monstrous of all, the purveyance of the royal officers, was repressed. The coinage had been debased until the king's soldiers in Normandy were unable to use it. Accordingly the coiners throughout England were summoned to Winchester, and were there one by one blinded and otherwise mutilated. It does not seem that any trial was held; it was mere Lynch law; but the people applauded it. A new coinage was issued, and the old withdrawn. The stern measure dealt out to outlaws was less popular. Henry revived the punishment of death; in 1124 the grand justiciary was sent down into Leicester, which had been peculiarly infested with thieves, and forty-four men, accused of burglary, were hanged, and six mutilated, at a single session. The sympathies of the people were with the sufferers, of whom several were said to be innocent, while the guilty had probably practiced upon the rich. These executions, however, effected their purpose; the land was restored to complete order, and Henry obtained the title of the Lion of Justice.

Henry's marvelous prosperity was darkened by one great loss. His only legitimate son, William, had already received the barons' oath of homage as their future king, when he ac

companied Henry on a visit to Normandy (1120). When they were about to return by the port of Barfleur, a Norman captain, Thomas Fitz-Stephen, appeared, and claimed the right of taking them in his ship, on the ground that his father had been captain of the Mora in which the Con queror crossed to invade England. The king did not care to alter his own arrangements, but agreed that his son should sail in the Blanche Nef with Fitz-Stephen. William Ætheling, as the English called him, was accompanied by a large train of unruly courtiers, who amused themselves by making the sailors drink hard before they started, and dismissed the priests who came to bless the voyage with a chorus of scoffing laughter. It was evening before they left the shore, and there was no moon; a few of the more prudent quitted the ship, but there remained nearly three hundred-a dangerous freight for a small vessel. However, fifty rowers flushed with wine made good way in the waters; but the helmsman was less fit for his work, and the vessel struck suddenly on a sunken rock, the Ras de Catte. The water rushed in, but there was time to lower a boat, which put off with the prince. When in safety, he heard the cries of his sister, the Countess of Perche, and returned to save her. A crowd of desperate men leaped into the boat; it was swamped, and all perished. As the ship settled down, all but three of those on board were washed away. One of these, FitzStephen, drowned himself when he learned that the prince was lost; one perished from cold; the third, a common sailor, was kept warm by his thick sheep-skin dress, and survived to tell the tale. It was a fresh horror of this tragedy that scarcely any bodies were found to receive Christian burial. For more than a day no one dared to tell the king of his loss; at last a page was sent weeping to his feet. Three of Henry's children, but, above all, the heir of all his hopes, for whom he had plotted and shed blood, were taken from him at a blow. It is said that from that hour he was never known to smile.

XIII.

THE ASSASSINATION OF BECKET.-MILMAN.

[The untimely death of Prince William seemed certain to involve the country in all the miseries of a disputed succession. Henry I. made every effort to secure the succession to his only remaining legitimate child, his daughter Matilda. She had married the German emperor, Henry V., and, after his death, in 1125, she became the wife of Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou. This second marriage was displeasing to the English barons, who feared the influence of a foreign prince in England; and, moreover, it was repugnant to feudal principles that a woman should wear the crown. At Henry's death the throne was seized by Stephen, count of Blois, who was the third son of Adela, fourth daughter of the Conqueror. Matilda attempted to make good her claim, and the result was civil war. The barons divided between the two claimants, or went from one to the other, as their own interests demanded. For nearly twenty years the feudal spirit was rampant in England. At length the ruinous contest was stopped by the treaty of Wallingford (1153), brought about by the influence of the clergy, by which it was agreed that Stephen should remain king during his life-time, and that Henry, son of Matilda, should succeed him. In less than a year after the treaty was ratified Stephen died.

The young Henry-the first of the Plantagenets-stood pledged to reform. He proved equal, on the whole, to the gigantic problem which he had to solve, that of bringing order out of chaos, and of establishing a strong centralized government, which was the greatest need of his time. He had difficulties to meet such as had confronted no other English king. By inheritance and by marriage he was ruler over many heterogeneous peoples, with varied and often conflicting interests. His dominions stretched from the Scottish borders to the Pyrenees.

In the work of governing his vast dominions Henry was ably assisted, during the first few years, by his chancellor, Thomas Becket. One of the king's chief objects was to bring all classes of his subjects, rich and poor, high and low, clergy and laity alike, under the rule of the common law. In furtherance of this object, he determined to make Becket archbishop of the realm. This was a great mistake. As chancellor, Becket had steadily upheld the royal authority; as archbishop he felt it his duty to uphold the authority of the Church. The antagonism between Church and State was

such as to make a collision between them inevitable. It soon came. Becket fled from the country. Henry, whose aims were largely right, resorted