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efforts and acts of personal valour. But though he now saw his army defeated, and thousands falling around him, yet he refused to find safety in flight or turn his back upon an army that he still disdained. He was taken prisoner, with near 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 bason 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 suffici ent 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 depredations in the places through which they passed. Some disputes also concerning ecclesiastical affairs, which were supported by Anselm, the archbishop of Canterbury, were comprised and adjusted. Henry was contented to resign his right of granting ecclesiastical investitures, but was allowed

to receive his homage from his bishops for all their temporal properties and privileges. The marriage` of priests was also prohibited, and laymen were not allowed to marry within the seventh degree of afïnity. The laity were also prohibited from wearing long hair, a mode of dress to which the clergy shewed the utmost aversion.

These regulations served to give employment to Henry in his peaceful intervals; but the apprehension which he had from the dissatisfaction of his Norman subjects, and his fears for the succession, gave him but 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 that 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 surprize, the valour both of the ne

phew 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 antago nist was brought to the ground and taken prisoner. This decided the victory in favour 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 the 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 inef fectual struggles to gain those dominions to which he had the most just hereditary claims, but wanted power to back his pretensions.

A. D.

1119.

Fortune now seemed to smile upon Henry, and promise a long succession of felicity. He was in peaceable possession 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 remain

ing years with misery. The king, from the facility with which he usurped the crown, dreading that his family might be subverted with the same ease, took care to have his son recognised as his successor by the states of England, and carried him over to Normandy to receive the homage of the barons of that dutchy. 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 noblemen, 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 an 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. Fitz Stephen, the captain, while the butcher was thus buffeting the waves for his life, swam up to him, and enquired if the prince was

yet living. When, being told, that he had perished; then I will not out-live him, said the captain, and immediately sunk to the bottom. The 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 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 left nothing 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 Geoffry 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 succeeding, caused all the nobility of England and Normandy to renew their former oaths of allegiance. The barons of those 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-seventh year of his age, and in the thirty-fifth of his reign, leaving by will, his daughter Matilda heiress of 1115. all his dominions.

Dec. 1.