Henry had already chosen a vessel for himself, but agreed to intrust to his care the prince with his retinue and companions. The king set sail in the afternoon, and on the following morning reached England; but William did not leave the harbour till night had set in, having spent the intervening hours in feasting and dancing on the deck with his companions. At last the White Ship left her moorings, and the crew, excited by a liberal allowance of wine, rowed lustily by the bright light of the moon to overtake the king, when suddenly the vessel struck upon a rock, and in a short time sank to the bottom. Of more than three hundred persons who were on board, nearly a half belonged to the noblest families of England and Normandy, and the only one who escaped was a poor butcher of Rouen, who clung to a piece of the wreck, and was picked up next morning by some fishermen.

In this awful catastrophe, that brought mourning to so many Norman families, the oppressed Saxons imagined that they could trace the retributive justice of God. The bereaved monarch was never again seen to smile after receiving the fatal news, although he survived the event fifteen years, and continued to pursue his ambitious projects with undiminished ardour.

During the last years of his life, in which he suffered much unhappiness from domestic broils, Henry lived on the continent, and he was preparing for his return to England to suppress a revolt in Wales, when he was seized with a violent fever at Lions-la-Forêt in Normandy, which carried him off A.D. in a few days, in the sixty-seventh year of his age and 1135. the thirty-sixth of his reign.

Henry Beauclerc, himself a scholar, as his name imports, was a liberal patron of learning and the fine arts. He attracted several poets to his court, who were also favoured by his two queens; but the progress made in science and literature during his reign was chiefly owing to the encouragement bestowed on youths in the ecclesiastical schools. The Latin and Greek authors began to be more generally studied, their manuscripts were sought for, and from their works scholars derived their little knowledge of grammar, rhetoric, and logic, as well as some imperfect notions of mathematics, astronomy, music, and medicine. These five branches of science formed, respectively, the trivium and quadrivium of the schools of this period,

6. THE CHURCH.-A short time after Henry's accession, a

serious difference arose between him and the clergy, when he called upon Anselm to do homage for his archbishopric of Canterbury. This the prelate refused, on the ground that a recent council had threatened excommunication against every layman who should grant investiture of any ecclesiastical benefice, and every priest who should receive it from such a source. This dispute, after much double-dealing on the part of Pope Pascal II., was terminated by an arrangement, that the king should abstain from investiture with ring and crozier, and that the dignitaries of the church should do homage for the temporalities of their sees. In 1108, a council was held in London to enforce the rule of clerical celibacy; and it was enacted that all married priests should immediately put away their wives, and not permit them to live in any lands belonging to the church, or see or converse with them except in the presence of witnesses. They were further to undergo several penances, and were suspended from saying mass during a certain period, as a punishment for having married. All refractory priests were to be deposed and excommunicated, their goods to be confiscated, and their wives, as adulteresses, made slaves to their respective bishops.

ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.-About the year 1110, Henry established a colony of Flemings in Pembrokeshire, which proved a source of great commercial wealth to the country by the introduction of a mercantile spirit and the art of manufacturing woollen cloths. They had previously settled in the vicinity of Carlisle, where they did not consort amicably with the natives; and as they were equally ready at the plough and the sword, Henry appears to have removed them into Wales, that they might act as a check upon the troublesome and warlike mountaineers.

The Norman architecture, which had been introduced about the time of the conquest, made considerable progress in England during the reign of Henry. It is known by the arches being round instead of pointed, as they were in the later style called Gothic architecture: indeed, it has been supposed that the Norman architecture was merely a rude adaptation of the Roman. Specimens of it may be seen in the cathedrals of Canterbury and Durham, in Christ's church and St Peter's, Oxford, in the chapel of the White Tower of London, in Dunfermline abbey and Leuchars church in Fifeshire, and in the cathedral of St Magnus in Orkney.

CRUSADES. These religious wars, which lasted for nearly two centuries, have been divided into seven periods :-The first crusade dates from the Council of Clermont in 1095, but the expedition did not set out until the following year. It was headed by the noblest knights of the times-Godfrey of Bouillon and his brother Baldwin, Hugh the Great of France, Raymond of Toulouse, and others. Jerusalem was rescued from the infidels in 1099, and a Christian kingdom founded in Palestine, the crown of which was conferred on Godfrey. It lasted until 1187. The second crusade was in 1147, when the Emperor Conrad III. and Louis VII. of France took the cross. This was a complete failure, the army being wasted away in its march through Asia Minor. The third crusade (1189) was undertaken to recover Jerusalem, which had been captured by Saladin the Great, caliph of Egypt. It was led by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Philip Augustus, and Richard I. The emperor was drowned in Asia Minor; Ptolemais (Acre) was taken by the allied English and French armies, after a siege of three years and nine battles. The fourth crusade (1202) was directed not against the infidels, but against Constantinople, which was easily conquered. The emperor was deposed, and the crown conferred on Baldwin of Flanders, with a fourth part of the empire, the remainder being divided between Thibaut of Champagne, Boniface of Montferrat, and Simon of Montfort. The fifth crusade (1227) was conducted by the Emperor Frederick II., who received the city of Jerusalem in exchange for his alliance with the Sultan of Egypt against his enemy the Sultan of Damascus. The sixth crusade (1249) was undertaken by Louis IX. of France, to recover the Holy City, which had again fallen into the hands of the Mohammedans. He invaded Egypt, captured Damietta, was defeated at Mansurah, and obliged to purchase his retreat by a ransom of 400,000 livres. England was the pioneer of the seventh and last crusade (1270). While St Louis was wasting his army in Tunis, Prince Edward sailed to Palestine; but not being able to accomplish his plans, he returned home, and was the last among Christian princes who dreamt of recovering the Holy Land.

Although several millions of lives were sacrificed, it cannot be doubted that the crusades were accompanied by many beneficial effects: among them may be reckoned the increased activity of political life in Europe; the union of

different nations in a common object, and that a noble and unselfish one; an improvement in manners and habits; the weakening of feudalism by the sale of estates to merchants in exchange for money wanted by the nobles for their military equipments and provisions; the great extension of commerce, and the increased wealth of the mercantile towns in Italy, which led to the revival of the fine arts and of learning in that country. But it must be remembered that these ameliorations were of slow growth, and that some did not even bear fruit until several generations had passed away.

FEUDALISM.-The feudal system was the growth of circumstances. Its earliest traces are to be found in the relation of patron and client among the Romans; but it took a more developed form in the military colonies of Gaul, where lands were granted to the soldiers, and allowed to descend to their children, on the condition of military service. When the Franks overran that province, they adopted and modified this system, the leaders giving portions of the conquered territory to their principal officers on a like condition of service. Hence arose the Salic custom restricting these fiefs (as they were called) to males only, women being held incapable of military service or of leading the armed force of the nation in time of war. The fiefs were personal grants, reverting to the over-lord or suzerain on failure of the conditions or at the death of the vassal. By slow degrees the powerful nobles took advantage of the weakness of the Frank monarchs, and made their fiefs hereditary; and then began the custom of subinfeudation, the vassals portioning out their estates among their inferiors, to whom they stood in the position of over-lords. The sub-vassals did the same with their fiefs; and the practice was seen to be so beneficial in an early and rude state of society, when might was the only law, that the holders of allodial (or free) lands were glad to hold them in capite of some neighbouring and powerful chief. Feudalism rapidly embraced Gaul, Italy, and Germany, and afterwards extended so completely over the whole of civilized Europe, that it took the place of all other kinds of tenure. William I. gave it a completer form in England than it had as yet assumed on the continent; but it never struck deep root in this country, and soon began to yield before the power of the kings and the increasing influence of the commercial classes. In Scotland it existed in a slightly modified shape until a very late period.

Stephen, A. D. 1135–1154.

7. After the melancholy death of Prince William, Henry's only surviving legitimate child was Maud or Matilda, who became the wife of Henry V., emperor of Germany. Being left a widow in 1124, she returned to her father, by whom she was married to Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou, in 1127. In a general assembly of nobility and clergy held at Windsor Castle in 1126, she had been declared nearest heir to the throne, all swearing to maintain her succession; and when, in 1133, she was delivered of a son, who was named Henry after his grandfather, the barons of England and Normandy swore fealty to her and her heirs. But oaths of fidelity in those days were as unscrupulously broken as they were heedlessly made; and the old king was scarcely dead before these same barons and the clergy elected his sister's son, Stephen, count of Blois, to the vacant throne, declaring that they would not have a woman to rule over them.

The early days of the new reign were peaceful and happy, and by lavishing his treasures Stephen confirmed the attachment of his adherents and acquired extensive popularity. He made liberal grants of the estates which the Conqueror had reserved for his own portion; and created earls and independent governors in districts hitherto administered by royal officers. Geoffrey of Anjou, Matilda's husband, received a pension of 5000 marks on condition of remaining neuter; and Robert of Gloucester, the late king's natural son, rendered homage and made oath of fidelity.

But this calm was not of long duration; and about 1137, Maltilda's partisans openly declared themselves. The English nation took no part in the quarrels of their conquerors, as they had done in former years, but prepared to profit by their dissensions, and even formed a plan to massacre all the Normans in one day. The conspirators renewed the ancient alliance of the Saxon patriots with the Welsh and Scots, and designed to place the king of the latter people on their emancipated throne. The secret was revealed in the confessional; most of the conspirators escaped into Wales, while those who were seized were put to death in various ways.

8. BATTLE OF THE STANDARD.-In 1138, notwithstanding the failure of the Saxon conspiracy, David, king of Scotland, entered England to support his niece Matilda's claim to the throne. He was immediately joined by the population of the