king of England on whom that title was bestowed by the unawed choice of the Anglo-Saxon nation.

The

Robert had a son, named William, a child of five years of age when brought before Henry after the defeat and captivity of his father. child was intrusted, by command of Henry, to the care of Elie de Saen, a Norman baron, who had been his father's friend. But the king soon became apprehensive, lest, in the person of the young prince, he might at some future period encounter a formidable rival, and a trusty officer was despatched to the castle of Saen with orders to reclaim the child. The messenger arrived in Elie's absence, but friendly hands suspecting the nature of the commission on which he came, carried off the sleeping child before the royal officer reached his apartment, and hastened with him into the French territory. Louis, surnamed Le Gros, who had by this time discovered how much more dangerous a neighbour Henry was likely to prove than his brother, received the rightful heir of Normandy with pleasure, and vowed to grant him the investiture of his paternal dominions when he should be of age to rule them. In the name of the young duke, he entered into a league with the Flemings and Anjouans, and attacked Henry at every point of his Norman frontier. Meanwhile, the youth grew up into manhood, and became distinguished by his valour and accomplishments; his partisans encreased with his rising fame, and Henry began to tremble at the gathering storm which soon threatened to burst upon his head. By accident, Henry and Louis met in the vicinity of Brenneville. Henry had with him five hundred knights, Louis four hundred. A severe conflict ensued, which

ended in the total defeat of the French knights, and the flight of Louis. William of Normandy also was in the battle, and only saved himself by flight. An end was at last put to these wasting hostilities, by the interference of Pope Calixtus II. Under the treaty negotiated by this pontiff, Henry retained the possession of Normandy, and the king of France, as sovereign lord, consented to receive the homage of William, Henry's son, in lieu of that of the father.

8

Peace being thus restored, and the ambition of Henry fully gratified, he prepared once more to cross the channel, with his son William, and a number of the young Norman nobility. The fleet destined for this purpose assembled, in the month of December, 1120, in the port of Harfleur; but, before it weighed anchor, a Norman mariner, called Fitz-Stephen, presented himself to the king, and offering him a mark of gold, addressed him thus: "Etienne, son of Herard, my father, all his life followed thy father on the sea. He steered the vessel in which thy father went to the conquest of England. I ask of thee, that thou wouldst confer on me the like honour. I have a ship in readiness, and suitably fitted up, called La Blanche Nef, which is at thy service." The king replied, that he had already selected a vessel for himself, but that in consideration of the request of a son of Etienne, he would confide his son and his treasures to his safe conduct. The vessel which carried the king set sail first, with a south wind, and reached the Eng lish coast in safety. But the young prince spent some hours on deck in feasting and dancing with his gay and thoughtless companions, before he permitted the anchor of the Blanche Nef to be weighed.

The

*Ord. Vital. 866-The grandmother of Calixtus was Alice, daughter of Richard !I. duke of Normandy.

vessel was manned by fifty skilful rowers; the son of Etienne was at the helm; and they held their course rapidly under a clear moon, along the coast in the vicinity of Harfleur, before reaching the open sea. The rowers, stimulated by wine, pulled hard to overtake the king's ship; but, too eager to accomplish this, they incautiously entangled themselves among some rocks under water,—the helmsman's hand proved untrue,— and, amid the shouts and merriment of her disorderly company, the Blanche-Nef struck against a rock with all the velocity of her course, and instantly began to fill. The prince was immediately lowered into a boat, and told to row himself back to land; but the shrieks of his sister, Adela, recalled him to the wreck, and the small boat was swamped by the numbers which precipitated themselves into it. Soon after, the ship itself went down, and all on board, to the number of three hundred persons, among whom were eighteen noble ladies, and one hundred and forty young Norman nobility, were buried in the waves. The despairing cry of the wretched sufferers was heard from the other vessels, already far at sea, but no one dared to suspect the cause. Two men alone saved themselves by clinging to the great yard, which was left floating on the water. The master of the ship, after sinking once, rose to the surface of the water, and swimming towards them, called out, The prince! what has become of him?" "We have seen no more of him, nor of his brother, nor of his sister, nor of their companions," was the answer. "Woe is me !" then exclaimed the unfortunate mariner, and voluntarily sunk beneath the waves. The night was extremely cold, and the weakest of the two survivors, benumbed and worn out by his efforts, lost his grasp of the spar, and sunk in the act of uttering a prayer for the safety of his companion. Berauld, the humblest of the survivors, perhaps of the whole party that had sailed that day in the Blanche-Nef, wrapped in his sheep-skin doublet, continued to support himself on the surface of the water, and was picked up in the morning by a fishingboat. The old English historians affirm that king Henry was never seen to smile after hearing of the loss of his son; but they evidently regarded the catastrophe, so fatal to the highest Norman families, as well as to the king, as the just judgment of heaven on their tyrannical masters.3 The young prince, though the son of a Scottish princess, and the grandnephew of a Saxon king, had imbibed the feelings of a Norman, and had been heard to say, that if ever he came to reign over these miserable English, he would yoke them like oxen to the plough. The threat was remembered now that it was vain, and the English writers gloried over the destruction of the man who had confessed his antipathy to their countrymen. "The proud youth !" exclaims Henry of Huntingdon, 'he thought of his future reign; but God said, 'It shall not be so,thou impious man, it shall not be.' And it has come to pass, that his brow, instead of being encircled by a crown of gold, has been dashed against the rocks of the ocean. 'Twas God himself who would not that the son of the Norman should again see England!"

Henry's first wife, Matilda, had died in 1118. The loss of his only legitimate son brought the succession again within the grasp of his hated nephew. To defeat the hopes of that prince, Henry offered his hand to Adelais, the daughter of Geoffrey, duke of Louvain, and niece

⚫ Chron. Sax. 222.-Hunting. apud Angl. Sac. tom. 11. p. 696.

to Pope Calixtus. The marriage was solemnized on February, 1121; but their union proved without issue, and Henry formed the resolution of settling the crown on his daughter Maud, the widow of the emperor Henry V. He obtained the consent of his barons to this arrangement, but they viewed with much dissatisfaction her subsequent marriage to Geoffrey Plantagenet," eldest son to the earl of Anjou.

The death of his nephew, William, who had shortly before been in vested with the county of Flanders, the greatest fief of the French crown, relieved Henry of his greatest fears; and the successive births of three grandsons, Henry, Geoffrey, and William, promised stability to the order of succession which he sought to establish. But the impatient ambition of his son-in-law, who demanded to be put in instant possession of Normandy, and the indifference, amounting almost to hatred, with which Geoffrey and Maud regarded each other, embittered the last years of his reign, and detained him in Normandy settling family. broils. A surfeit of lampreys, of which he was very fond, though they always injured him, at last terminated his existence, on the 1st of De cember, 1135, in the 36th year of his reign. In his dying moments he declared to his natural son, Robert, count of Gloucester, who was with him, that he left all his possessions to his daughter."

Henry was of middle stature; his eye was mild and serene; his chest broad and well-developed; and his black hair clustered luxuriantly over his forehead. Although he fell a victim to his appetite, it is recorded of him, that he was usually temperate in his diet, and displeased with all appearance of excess in others; but he was lewd in the extreme, and of a fiery ungovernable temper. He had excellent natural abilities, and had cultivated letters in his youth with much assiduity and success. The most amiable feature of his character, was the strong attachment which he bore to all his children. Nothing moved him so much as their deaths. Yet, the most unhesitating perfidy and relentless cruelty marked his dealings toward all who had offended him. Death, the loss of sight, or perpetual imprisonment, was their usual portion. His military talents were great, and he was unquestionably one of the most profound politicians of his age. He began his reign with many acts of favourable omen to his English subjects, and for a time he enjoyed and merited their confidence; but no sooner did he feel himself securely seated in the throne, which he had at first usurped, than he threw away the mask, and treated them with the most marked contempt. They were carefully excluded from every office of power or emolument in church and state No virtue nor merit could advance an Englishman, while the most slender accomplishments were prized and rewarded in the person of an Italian, Frenchman, or Norman. He prided himself on his inflexible administration of the fiscal laws of the kingdom; but no one could sit as judge in one of his courts of justice, who wore not the sword and baldric, the ensigns of Norman nobility, and moreover spoke the French tongue. There even were instances in which the testimony of a man ignorant of the language of the Conqueror, was deemed incompetent evidence in a court of law. Henry's grand and exclusive aim was to

19 That is, Plante-de-genet, or Broom-plant. Geoffrey had received this name from his fondness for hunting in the woods, and his usually wearing a slip of broom in his cap. Script. Rer. Franc. Tom xii. p. 581

11 Malm. 178.

12 Eadm. 94, 110.

enrich and aggrandise his family. For this he spared no degree of exertion himself; for this he violated the most solemn, and oft-repeated promises; for this he drained the very blood and sinews of his English subjects, and crushed the spirit of a brave and faithful ration.

Stephen.

BORN A. D. 1104.-DIED A. D. 1154.

We have seen with what anxiety, and by what strong measures, Henry endeavoured to secure the succession to his only legitimate descendant. His precautions proved vain; it was the age of usurpations, and a usurper seized the crown on the death of Henry. This was Stephen, earl of Boulogne, the second son of Stephen, earl of Blois, by Adela the daughter of the Conqueror. The younger son of no opulent family, he had been indebted to the generosity of his uncle Henry for his first advancement in the world, and marriage with the heiress of Boulogne. He had also been the first of the laity to swear fealty to Henry's daughter. And between him and all hereditary pretensions to succeed to the Conqueror, stood the empress Maud, her three sons, and his own elder brother. Yet, in spite of oaths and gratitude, and in the face of all right and justice, he no sooner heard of his uncle's death, than he hastened from Boulogne to England. The inhabitants of Dover, suspecting his intentions, shut their gates against him, and he met with a similar repulse at Canterbury. But, nothing daunted by this unsuccessful beginning, he pressed on to London, where he was received by the populace with loud acclamations. Corboil, archbishop of Canterbury, aud Roger, bishop of Salisbury, and chief justiciary and regent of the kingdom, favoured his pretensions; and, on the 22d of December, 1135, he was declared king of England by the very prelates, counts, and barons, who had so recently sworn to give the kingdom to Matilda and her children. Some of his supporters added new perjuries to their falsehood. Bryod, the royal seneschal, swore that the king, in his last moments, had disinherited his daughter, and named Stephen as his successor. The bishop of Salisbury declared that he regarded his own oath as null, because the king had afterwards given his daughter in marriage without the consent of his prelates and barons. Others remembered that the oath had been imposed on them by a power which they could not resist; and besides, it now appeared to them a shameful thing that so many brave men and noble warriors should be ruled over by a woman. Henry, bishop of Winchester, the usurper's brother, as papal legate, added his sanction to the whole proceedings. And the pope himself completed this "disgusting scene of political perfidy," by granting letters of confir mation to the new king. "We have learned," said that holy personage, in his despatch to the successful usurper, "that thou hast been elected by the common wish and unanimous consent of nobles and people, and that thou hast been anointed by the prelates of the kingdom. Considering that the suffrages of so many cannot have been united in thy person, without the especial co-operation of Divine grace, and moreover that thou art kin to the late king in the nearest degree, we look

with satisfaction on all that has been done in thy favour, and adopt thee, with paternal affection, as a son of the blessed apostle Peter, and of the holy Roman church."

Stephen was at first very popular among the Normans, among whom he freely dissipated the accumulated wealth of the three preceding reigns. He likewise converted a large portion of the royal domains into fiefs, for the gratification of his adherents, and substituted independent courts and governors for the royal prefects who had hitherto ruled in the king's name and for the profit of the king only. He bought peace from Geoffrey of Anjou, Matilda's husband, for an annual pension of 5000 marks; and even won over the late king's natural son, Robert of Gloucester, by similar artifices, to his party. With the common people, and particularly with the citizens of London, he ingratiated himself by his condescending deportment, and a certain jocular fami liarity always pleasing to vulgar minds. By means such as these Stephen secured general popularity, and seemed for a time to be as securely seated on his throne as any sovereign in Europe. But the aspect of affairs soon changed. Several barons, not satisfied with what they had already extorted from Stephen's liberality, demanded farther concessions and larger grants; and, when denied, proceeded to take by force of arms whatever they had set their hearts upon. Every baron fortified his castle, or built what strongholds he pleased, to maintain and extend his own robberies as well as secure himself from aggres sion. The whole kingdom was thus transformed into one scene of outrage and plunder, and amidst the incessant conflicts of rival gangs of avowed banditti, all law and order were set at defiance. The partisans of Matilda eagerly fomented the growing strife; and David king of Scotland, threatened an invasion in support of his niece's claims. Stephen marked the storm which was gathering around him, and prepared to meet it with firmness. 66 They chose me king, and now they abandon me!" he exclaimed. "But, by the birth of Christ I swear, they shall never call me a deposed king." In order to have an army on which he could depend, he took into his pay a number of foreign soldiers, and invited knights and adventurers from every country of Europe to settle in his dominions. He seized two bishops, and his own chancellor, and threw them into prison; and made an unsuccessful attempt to get hold of the person of Robert, count of Gloucester. But these efforts only involved him in fresh difficulties. The arrest of the bishops aroused the church against him; Robert eagerly renounced the allegiance from which the king's own act had virtually released him; and as to the foreign mercenaries, their presence only increased the public discontent. "Every where from their castles," says the unknown writer of the 'Gesta Stephani,' they confederated for all mischief; and the prey they were allowed to seize did not always satisfy their insatiable rapacity." The Saxon chronicler has, in his own simple but nervous manner, drawn a forcible picture of the lamentable state of things thus produced: "In this king's time," says he, "all was dissension, and evil, and rapine. Against him soon rose rich men. They had sworn oaths, but no truth maintained, they were all forsworn and forgetful of their oath,-they built castles which they held out against him, they cruelly oppressed Script. Rer. Franc. Tom. xvi. p. 392.-Gesta. Reg. Steph. apud Duchesne, 928. 2 Malm. 179