If we consider Henry's character impartially, we shall find more to adraire than to love in it. It cannot be doubted, but that he was a wise and a 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 had acquired the name of Beauclerc, 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 favou rite 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 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.

CHAPTER VIII.

STEPHEN.

S every expedient was used during the life of the late king, to fix the succession in his family, he among others, thought that the aggrandizing his nearest relations would not be an impolitic step. He only dreaded the designs of Robert and his adherents, no way mistrusting any attempts from another quarter. With these views, he was very liberal in heaping favours upon the children

of his sister Adela, who had been married to the count of Blois. He thought they would be the strongest safeguard to protect him from the aspiring attempts of his brother, or his posterity; and he was resolved to load them with favours, as being too far removed from the crown to entertain any hopes of succeeding in their designs to obtain it: in pursuance of this plan, he had, some years before his death, invited Stephen and Henry, the two youngest of his sister's sons, into England, and received them with great honour and esteem. Thinking that he could never do too much to secure their affections, he married Stephen to the daughter and heiress of Eustace, count of Boulogne, who brought him an immense fortune. He conferred on him the great estate forfeited by Robert Mallet in England, and by the earl of Montaigne in Normandy. Nor was Stephen's brother, Henry, without his share in the king's liberalities. He was created abbot of Glastonbury, and bishop of Winchester; so that the two brothers were thus become by far the most powerful subjects in the kingdom.

Such great riches, so much power, and the Consciousness of abilities, were the first incentives to Stephen's ambition. Placed at no great distance from the throne by birth, and perceiving the success of his uncle's usurpation, he resolved to run the same career, and strike for the crown. For this purpose, even during the king's life-time, he used all his arts to procure popularity, and to cultivate the affections of the English nobility. By h bravery, activity, and vigour, he acquired the esteem of the barons; by his generosity, and familia address he obtained the love of the people. No sconer, therefore, was the king known to be dead, than Stephen, conscious of his own power and influence, resolved to secure to himself the possession of what he had solong desired. Heimme

diately hastened from Normandy, where he then was, and setting sail for England, landed at Dover. But there the citizens, apprized of his intent, shut their gates against him. From thence he went on to Canterbury, where he was treated with like disrespect; but, passing on, he arrived at London, where he was immediately saluted king, by all the lower ranks of the people. Being thus secured of the people, his next step was to gain over the clergy; and for that purpose, his brother, the bishop of Winchester, exerted all his influence among them, with good success. The archbishop of Canterbury, as he had taken the oaths of alle. giance to Matilda, seemed for a while to stand out; but one Hugh Bigod, steward of the household,averring upon oath that the late king had expressed his intentions to make Stephen his heir, the archbishop anointed him without farther scruple. Thus was Stephen made king, by one of those speedy revolutions which ever mark the barbarity of a state in which they are customary. The people acquiesced in his claims from his popularity; the clergy allowed them, being influenced by the intrigues of his brother; and the nobility permitted a king, from the weakness of whose title they might derive power to themselves.

'The first acts of an usurper are always popular. Stephen, in order to secure his tottering throne, passed a charter, granting several privileges to the different orders of the state. To the nobility, a permission to hunt in their own forests; to the clergy, a speedy filling of all vacant benefices; and to the people, a restoration of the laws of Edward the Confessor. To fix himself still more securely, he took possession of the royal treasures at Winchester, and had his title ratified by the pope with a part of the money. VOL. I.

G

A crown thus gained by usurpation, was to be kept only by repeated concessions. The nobility and the clergy, in proportion as they were indulged in one demand, only prepared to find out others. The barons, in return for their submission, required the right of fortifying their castles, and putting themselves in a posture of defence; nor could the king refuse his consent to such exorbitant demands. as their opposition might be fatal. The clergy imitated the same pernicious example; and, in a short time, all England was filled with these independent fortresses, which the noblemen garrisoned with their own vassals, or with mercenary bravoes hired from the continent: nothing could exceed the misery which the kingdom must have been reduced to, at that terrible period of aristocracy. Unbounded rapine was exercised upon the people for the maintenance of those troops; the private animosities of the nobility were productive of wars in every quarter; the erection of one castle proved the immediate cause of building many more ; and the whole country presented a scene of petty tyA. D. ranny and hostile preparation. It was in vain that a victory, gained by the king 1158. over the Scots at Northallerton, promised to allay the murmurs of the people; their miseries were risen to too great a height for such brilliant successes to remove. The prince having usurped the throne without a title, was obliged to tolerate in others that injustice by which he had himself risen to the throne.

Yet not only real, but imaginary grievances were added, to raise the discontents of the people, and fill the country with complaints against government. The clergy, whose power had been firmly established on the ruins of the regal authority, began, in imitation of the lay barons, to build: castles, and entertain garrisons, sensible that their

sacred pretensions would be more implicitly obeyed when their temporal power was sufficient to enforce them. Stephen, who now too late perceived the mischiefs attending these multiplied citadels, resolved to begin with destroying those of the clergy, whose profession seemed to be averse to the duties of war. Taking, therefore, the pretence of a fray which had arisen between the retinue of the bishop of Salisbury, and that of the earl of Britany, he seized that prelate, and obliged both him and the bishop of Lincoln to deliver up their castles, which they had lately erected. This the whole body of the clergy considered as a breach of that charter which he had granted upon his accession; they loudly murmured against his infraction; and even the bishop of Winchester, his brother, resolved to vindicate the privileges of the church, which he pretended were openly violated. A synod was assembled in which the disgraced prelates openly inveighed against the king. But he, instead of answering their charge in person, sent one of his barons to plead his cause, and intimidate his accusers.

It was in this critical situation of Stephen's affairs, that accounts were brought him of Matilda's landing in England, with a resolution to dispossess him, and regain the crown. Matilda, upon the death of the late king, being then in Normandy, found herself totally unable to oppose the rapid progress of her rival. She was not less unfortunate in her continental connections than in those at home. The Norman barons, unwilling to have the union with England dissolved, almost unanimously declared for Stephen, and put him in possession of their government; while Geoffry himself, Matilda's husband, was content to resign his pretensions and to receive a pension from the English king. He had not, however, long acquiesced in his compromise, when he was incited to a re