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 A new coinage was issued, and the old withdrawn.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 Conqueror 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

to unwise and unwarrantable means to bring him to terms, and the archbishop retaliated by measures equally unwise. At length a partial reconciliation was effected, and Becket returned to England. But his temper was unchanged; he seemed to have a veritable passion for the glory of martyrdom, and it may be fairly said that he forced the issue between himself and the king. Henry lost patience. In his rage he uttered some hasty words, which were interpreted too literally by a few of his attendants. They hastened to England, sought out the archbishop in his own cathedral, and entered into an angry altercation with him, which resulted in his death.]

THE assassination of Becket has something appalling, with all its terrible circumstances seen in the remote past. What was it in its own age? The most distinguished churchman in Christendom, the champion of the great sacerdotal order, almost in the hour of his triumph over the most powerful king in Europe; a man, besides the awful sanctity inherent in the person of every ecclesiastic, of most saintly holiness; soon after the most solemn festival of the Church, in his own cathedral, not only sacrilegiously but cruelly murdered, with every mark of hatred and insult. Becket had all the dauntlessness, none of the meekness, of the martyr; but while his dauntlessness would command boundless admiration, few, if any, would seek the more genuine sign of Christian martyrdom.

The four knights do not seem to have deliberately determined on their proceedings, or to have resolved, except in extremity, on the murder. They entered, but unarmed, the outer chamber. The archbishop had just dined, and withdrawn from the hall. They were offered food, as was the usage; they declined, thirsting, says one of the biographers, for blood. The archbishop obeyed the summons to hear a message from the king; they were admitted to his presence. As they entered there was no salutation on either side, till the primate, having surveyed, perhaps recognized them, moved to them with cold courtesy. Fitz-Urse was the spokesman in the fierce altercation which ensued. Becket replied with haughty firmness. Fitz-Urse began by re

proaching him with his ingratitude and seditious disloyalty in opposing the coronation of the king's son, and commanded him, in instant obedience to the king, to absolve the prelates. Becket protested, that so far from wishing to diminish the power of the king's son, he would have given him three crowns and the most splendid realm. For the excommunicated bishops he persisted in his usual evasion, that they had been suspended by the pope, by the pope alone could they be absolved; nor had they yet offered proper satisfaction. "It is the king's command," spake Fitz-Urse, “that you and the rest of your disloyal followers leave the kingdom." "It becomes not the king to utter such command: henceforth no power on earth shall separate me from my flock." "You have presumed to excommunicate without consulting the king, the king's servants and officers." "Nor will I ever spare the man who violates the canons of Rome, or the rights of the Church.' From whom do you hold your archbishopric ?." "My spirituals from God and the pope, my temporals from the king." "Do you not hold all from the king?" "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." You speak in peril of your life!" "Come ye to murder me? I defy you, and will meet you front to front in the battle of the Lord." He added that some among them had sworn fealty to him. At this, it is said, they grew furious, and gnashed with their teeth. The prudent John of Salisbury heard, with regret, this intemperate language: "Would it may end well!" Fitz-Urse shouted aloud, "In the king's name I enjoin you all, clerks and monks, to arrest this man till the king shall have done justice on his body." They rushed out, calling for their arms.

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His friends had more fear for Becket than Becket for himself. The gates were closed and barred, but presently sounds were heard of those without, striving to break in. The lawless Randulph de Broc was hewing at the door with