out issue, the other should succeed to his dominions. This treaty being ratified, the armies on each side were disbanded; and Robert, having lived two months in the utmost harmony with his brother, returned in peace to his own dominions.

But it was not in the power of formal treaties to bind up the resentment of a monarch who knew himself injured, and found it in his power to take revenge. Henry soon showed his resolution to punish all the heads of the party which had lately opposed him; and this he did, under different pretexts, and by repeated prosecutions. The earl of Shrewsbury, Arnulf de Montgomery, and Roger earl of Lancaster, were banished from the kingdom, with the confiscation of their estates. Robert de Pontefract, Robert Mallet, William de Warrenne, and the earl of Cornwall, were treated with equal severity; so that Robert, finding his friends thus oppressed, came over to England to intercede in their behalf. Henry 1103. received him very coolly, and assembled a council to deliberate in what manner he should be treated; so that Robert, finding his own liberty to be in danger, was glad to ask permission to return: which, however, was not granted him till he consented to give up his pension.

A. D.

But the consequences of Robert's indiscretion were not confined to his own safety alone: as he was totally averse to business, and only studious of the more splendid amusements or employments of life, his affairs every day began to wear a worse appearance. His servants pillaged him without compunction; and he is described as lying whole days in his bed for want of clothes, of which they had robbed him. His subjects were treated still more deplorably; for, being under the command of petty and rapacious tyrants, who plundered them without mercy, the whole country was become a scene of violence and depredation. It was in this miserable exigence that the Normans at length had recourse to Henry, from whose wise administration of his own dominions they expected a similitude of prosperity, should he take the reins of theirs. Henry very readily promised to redress their grievances, as he knew it would be the direct method to second his own ambition. The year ensuing, therefore, he landed in Normandy with a strong army, took some of the principal towns, and showed, by the rapidity of his progress, that he meditated the entire conquest of the country.

A. D.

1104.

Robert, who had already mortgaged or given away the greatest part of his demesne, spent his time in the most indolent amusements, and looked upon the progress of Henry with an eye of perfect indifference. But being at last roused from his lethargy, and finding his affairs in a desperate situation, he took the strange resolution of appealing in person to Henry's natural affections, which this brave imprudent man estimated by the emotions of his own heart. Henry received him not only with coolness but contempt; and soon taught him, that no virtues will gain that man esteem who has forfeited his pretensions to prudence. Robert, thus treated

with indignity, quitted his brother in a transport of rage, expressing an ardent purpose of revenge; to which Henry paid no sort of regard.

Robert was resolved, however, to show himself formidaA. D. ble, even in the most distressed state of his circumstances. 1106. Possessed with high ideas of chivalry, which his expedition to the Holy Land served to heighten, he was willing to retrieve his affairs by valour, which he had lost by indolence. Being supported by the earl of Mortaigne and Robert de Belesme, Henry's inveterate enemies, he raised an army, and approached his brother's camp, with a view of finishing, by a decisive battle, the quarrel between them. While the two armies were yet in sight of each other, some of the clergy employed their mediation to bring on a treaty; but as Henry insisted upon Robert's renouncing the government of his dominions entirely, and one half of the revenue, all accommodation was rejected with disdain, and both sides prepared for battle. Robert was now entered on that scene of action in which he chiefly gloried, and in which he was always known to excel. He animated his little army by his example, and led them to the encounter with that spirit which had formerly made the infidels tremble. There was no withstanding his first shock; that quarter of the English army where he made the impression gave way, and he was nearly on the point of gaining a complete victory. But it was different on that quarter where Belesme commanded; he was put to flight by one of the king's generals, who also advancing himself with a fresh body of horse to sustain his centre, his whole army rallied; while Robert's forces, exhausted and broken, gave ground on every side, in spite of all his efforts and acts of personal valour. But though he now saw his army defeated, and numbers falling round him, yet he refused to find safety by flight, or turn his back upon an enemy that he still disdained. He was taken prisoner, with nearly ten thousand of his men, and all the considerable barons who had adhered to his misfortunes. This victory was followed by the final reduction of Normandy, while Henry returned in triumph to England, leading with him his captive brother, who, after a life of bravery, generosity, and truth, now found himself not only deprived of his patrimony and his friends, but also of his freedom. Henry, unmindful of his brother's former magnanimity with regard to him, detained him a prisoner during the remainder of his life, which was no less than twenty-eight years; and he died in the castle of Cardiff, in Glamorganshire. It is even said by some that he was deprived of his sight by a red-hot copper basin applied to his eyes; while his brother attempted to stifle the reproaches of his conscience by founding the abbey of Reading, which was then considered as a sufficient atonement for every degree of barbarity.

The first step Henry took, after his return to England, was to reform some abuses which had crept in among his courtiers; for as, they were allowed by the feudal law to live upon the king's tenants whenever he travelled, they, under colour of this, committed all

manner of ravages with impunity. To remedy this disorder, he published an edict, punishing with the loss of sight all such as should, under pretext of royal authority, commit any depredation in the places through which they passed. Some disputes also concerning ecclesiastical affairs, which were supported by Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, were compromised and adjusted. Henry was contented to resign his right of granting ecclesiastical investitures, but was allowed to receive homage from his bishops for all their temporal properties and privileges. The marriage of priests also was prohibited, and laymen were not allowed to marry within the seventh degree of affinity. The laity were also prohibited from wearing long hair-a mode of dress to which the clergy showed the

utmost aversion.

These regulations served to give employment to Henry in his peaceful intervals; but the apprehensions which he had from the dissatisfaction of his Norman subjects, and his fears for the succession, gave him too much business to permit any long intervals of relaxation. His principal concern was to prevent his nephew, William, the son of Robert, from succeeding to the crown, in prejudice of William, his own son, for whom he was solicitous to secure it. His nephew was but six years of age when he committed him to the care of Helie de St. Saen; and this nobleman discharged his trust in his education with a degree of fidelity uncommon at the barbarous period we are describing. Finding that Henry was desirous of recovering possession of his pupil's person, he withdrew, and carried him to the court of Fulk, count of Anjou, who gave him protection. This noble youth, wandering from court to court, evaded all the arts of his powerful uncle, who was not remiss in trying every method of seizing him, either by treaty or intimidation. In this struggle Lewis, the king of France, took the young adventurer's part, and endeavoured to interest the pope in his quarrel. Failing in this, he endeavoured to gain, by force of arms, what his negociations could not obtain. A war ensued between him and Henry, in which many slight battles were fought, but attended with no decisive consequences. In one of these, which was fought at Noyon, a city that Lewis had an intention to surprise, the valour both of the nephew and the uncle were not a little conspicuous. This young man, who inherited all his father's bravery, charged the van of the English army with such impetuosity, that it fell back upon the main body, commanded by the king in person, whose utmost efforts were unequal to the attack. Still, however, exerting all his endeavours to stem the torrent of the enemy that was pouring down upon him, a Norman knight, whose name was William Crispin, discharged at his head two such furious strokes of a sabre, that his helmet was cut through, and his head severely wounded. At the sight of his own blood, which rushed down his visage, he was animated to a double exertion of his strength, and retorted the blow with such force, that his antagonist was brought to the ground, and taken prisoner. This decided the victory in fa

A. D.

1119.

vour of the English, who pursued the French with great slaughter; and it also served to bring on an accommodation soon after, in which the interests of his nephew were entirely neglected. From this period till the time of that brave youth's death, which happened about eight years after, he appears to have been employed in ineffectual struggles to gain those dominions to which he had the most just and hereditary claims, but wanted power to back his pretensions.

no

Fortune now seemed to smile upon Henry, and promise a A. D. long succession of felicity. He was in peaceable possession 1120. of two powerful states, and had a son who was acknowledged undisputed heir, arrived at his eighteenth year, whom he loved most tenderly. His daughter Matilda was also married to the emperor Henry V. of Germany, and she had been sent to that court, while yet but eight years old, for her education. All his prospects, however, were at once clouded by unforeseen misfortunes and accidents, which tinctured his remaining years with misery. The king, from the facility with which he usurped the crown, dreading that his family might be supplanted with the same ease, took care to have his son recognized as his successor by the states of England, and carried him over to Normandy to receive the homage of the barons of that duchy. After performing this requisite ceremony, Henry, returning triumphantly to England, brought with him a numerous retinue of the chief nobility, who seemed to share in his successes. In one of the vessels of the fleet, his son, and several young blemen, the companions of his pleasures, went together to render the passage more agreeable. The king set sail from Barfleur, and was soon carried by a fair wind out of sight of land. The prince was detained by some accident; and his sailors, as well as their captain Fitz-Stephen, having spent the interval in drinking, became so disordered, that they ran the ship upon a rock, and immediately it was dashed to pieces. The prince was put into the boat, and might have escaped, had he not been called back by the cries of Maude, his natural sister. He was at first conveyed out of danger himself, but could not leave a person so dear to perish without an effort to save her. He, therefore, prevailed upon the sailors to row back and take her in. The approach of the boat giving several others, who had been left upon the wreck, the hopes of saving their lives, numbers leaped in, and the whole went to the bottom. Above a hundred and forty young noblemen, of the principal families of England and Normandy, were lost on this occasion. A butcher of Rouen was the only person on board who escaped; he clung to the mast, and was taken up the next morning by some fishermen. FitzStephen, the captain, while the butcher was thus buffeting the waves for his life, swam up to him, and inquired if the prince was yet living; when being told that he had perished, "Then I will not outlive him," said the captain, and immediately sunk to the botThe shrieks of these unfortunate people were heard from the shore, and the noise even reached the king's ship; but the cause was then unknown. Henry entertained hopes for three days that

tom.

his son had put into some distant port of England; but when certain intelligence of the calamity was brought him, he fainted away, and was never seen to smile from that moment to the day of his death.

The rest of this prince's life seems a mere blank: his restless desires having now nothing left worth toiling for, he appeared more fond of repose than ambition. His daughter Matilda, however, becoming a widow by the death of the emperor, he married her a second time to Geoffery Plantagenet, eldest son of the count of Anjou, and endeavoured to ensure her accession by obliging his barons to recognize her as the heir of all his dominions. Some time after, that princess was delivered of a son, who received the name of Henry; and the king, farther to ensure her succession, caused all the nobility of England and Normandy to renew their oaths of allegiance. The barons of these times were ready enough to swear whatever the monarch commanded; but, it seems, they observed it no longer than while they were compelled to obey. Henry did not long survive these endeavours to secure the succession in his family. He was seized with a sudden illness at St. Denis, a little town in Normandy, from eating too plentifully of lampreys, a dish he was particularly fond of. He died in the sixty-eighth year of Dec. 1. his age, and the thirty-sixth of his reign, leaving, by will, his daughter Matilda heiress of all his dominions.

1135.

If we consider Henry's character impartially, we shall find more to admire than to love in it. It cannot be doubted that he was a wise and valiant prince; and yet our hearts revolt against his success, and follow the unfortunate Robert even to his captivity. Henry's person was manly, his countenance engaging, his eye clear, serene, and penetrating. By his great progress in literature he acquired the name of Beau-clerc, or the scholar; and such was the force of his eloquence, that, after a conference with him, the pope is said to have given him the preference to all the other princes of Europe. He was much addicted to women, and left behind him a numerous spurious offspring. Hunting also was one of his favourite amusements: and he is accused of augmenting the forests which had been appropriated during the former reigns for that diversion. His justice also seemed to approach to cruelty: stealing was first made capital in his reign; and false coining was punished with death and mutilation. He first granted the city of London a charter and privileges; and from this first concession we may date the origin of English liberty, such as we find it at this day.