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five years and three months, on the first day of December; relative to whom one of our writers says:

66

King Henry is dead! the glory once, now the grief of the world. The Deities lament the death of their fellow divinity: Mercury, his inferior in eloquence, Apollo, in strength of mind, Jupiter, in command, and Mars, in might; all bewail him. Janus, his inferior in caution, Alcides, in prowess, Pallas, in arms, Minerva, in arts; all bewail him. England, who, springing from her cradle, had shone exalted on high beneath the sceptre of this divinity, now sinks in shade. She, with her king, Normandy, with her duke, waxes faint; the one nurtured him as a child, the other lost him as a man.'

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This happened in the year from the arrival of the Britons in England, two thousand two hundred and sixty-five; from the arrival of the Normans, sixty-nine; from the beginning of the world, five thousand three hundred and seventeen ;8 ;82 in the year of grace, eleven hundred and thirty-five.

On the decease of the great king Henry, as is generally the case after death, the judgment of the people was freely pronounced upon him. Some asserted that he shone resplendent in three particulars; supreme wisdom, victory, and riches. In wisdom, because he was considered most profound in counsel, remarkable for foresight, and distinguished for eloquence. In victory, because, besides other exploits which he had successfully performed, according to the laws of warfare, he had overcome the king of the Franks. In riches, because in that respect he far outstripped his predecessors. Others again, animated by opposite feelings, charged him with three vices; excessive avarice, inasmuch as, while he was wealthy, in order that he might render all his relatives poor, greedily gaping for their riches, he laid hold of everything, with the hooks of informers, by means of taxes and exactions; cruelty, inasmuch as he put out the eyes of his kinsman, the earl of Moretuil, whom he had thrown into prison, (a horrid crime, which was not known until death had revealed the king's secrets); other instances were cited besides, which we will omit; and sensuality, because after the manner of king Solomon, he was continually a slave to his passion for the female sex.

82 This is clearly wrong, both according to our present reckoning, and his own previous mode of calculation, which places the first year of the Christian era in the year from the beginning of the world 4204.

VOL. I.

Such matters as these did the common people freely discuss. In the course of time, however, in consequence of the shocking events which were kindled through the frantic perfidies of the Normans, whatever Henry had done, either in a tyrannical manner, or as befitted a king, seemed most excellent, in comparison with doings still worse. For after this, without delay, Stephen, the younger brother of Theobald, earl of Blois, repaired thither, a man of great activity and boldness; and although he had taken the oath of fealty, in the English kingdom, to the empress and her son Henry, still, like a tempest, he rushed upon the crown of the kingdom of England. William, archbishop of Canterbury, who had been the first to take the oath, oh shame! consecrated him king; in consequence whereof, God pronounced the judgment against him which he had pronounced against the high priest, the smiter of Jeremiah, namely, that he should not live beyond that year. In like manner, Roger, bishop of Salisbury, who had been the second to take the before-mentioned oath, and had dictated it to the rest, gave him the crown and the support of his assistance; in consequence of which, by the just judgment of God, at a subsequent period, being taken prisoner by him whom he had created king, and consigned to torture, he met with a miserable end.

But why make any further remark? All who had taken the oath, both bishops as well as earls and chief men, gave in their adherence to Stephen and did homage to him. This was, indeed, a bad sign, that thus suddenly all England, without any delay or resistance, as though in the twinkling of an eye, became subject to him.

KING STEPHEN.

In the year of grace 1136, on Saint Stephen's day, king Stephen was crowned, and held his court at London. At his coronation, according to report, the "Pax Domini" [Peace of the Lord] was neither said at the mass, nor repeated before the people when this sacrament was performed.

As yet the body of king Henry remained unburied in Normandy; for he had died on the first day of December. His body was brought to Rouen, where his entrails, brains, and

82* Alluding to the fate of Pashur, son of Immer, the priest, who smote Jeremiah. Jer. xx. 2-6.

eyes were buried; but the remainder of his body being cut asunder with knives in every part, and then sprinkled with a quantity of salt, was wrapped up and sewed in bull's hides, to avoid the offensiveness of the smell, which being strong and continued, was overpowering to those who stood near it. In consequence of this, even the person who, in consideration of a large sum, had opened the head with a hatchet for the purpose of extracting the brain, which was in a most corrupt state, although he had wrapped up his own head in napkins, still met with his death therefrom, and had poor reason for rejoicing at his bargain. He was the last of the many slain by king Henry.

His attendants then conveyed the royal corpse to Caen, where, while it was lying in the church in which his father had been buried, it was steeped in a quantity of salt and wrapped up in numerous hides, still a black and disgusting liquid matter coming through the hides oozed forth therefrom, and being caught in vessels placed beneath the bier, was carried away by the servants fainting with disgust.

See, therefore, reader, whoever thou art, how the body of a most potent king, whose head had been decked with a crown, gold, and the choicest gems, with splendour almost divine, whose two hands had been radiant with sceptres, the rest of whose person had glittered all over with tissue of gold, whose mouth used to be supplied with food so exquisite and delicious, before whom all were wont to arise, whom all had dreaded, all congratulated, all admired-See, I say, to what that body was reduced; how horribly it was put out of sight, how shockingly thrust aside! Behold the result of human affairs, upon which the judgment ever depends, and learn to have a contempt for all that thus terminates, all that is thus reduced to annihilation.

At last, the remains of the royal corpse were brought to England, and were, in twelve days after, on his birth-day, 83 buried at the abbey of Reading, which the same king Henry had founded and enriched with many possessions. Thither, also, came king Stephen from his court, which, at the feast of the Nativity, he had been holding in London, to meet the body of his uncle; and with him, William, archbishop of Canter

83 "Natalis" here, is probably a misprint for "Natali." Wendover says that he was buried on his birth-day.

Roger of

bury, and many bishops and nobles, and there they buried king Henry with the respect due to a man so great.

King Stephen proceeded thence to Oxford, where he repeated and confirmed the concessions which he had promised to make to God, the people, and the holy Church, on the day of his coronation, which were these: In the first place, he promised on oath that, on the death of bishops, he would never retain the sees in his own hand, but immediately consent to the election and invest them with bishops. Secondly, he promised on oath, that he would retain in his hand the woods of no clerk or layman, as king Henry had done, who had every year impleaded them, if they either took venison in their own. woods, or rooted them up or thinned them to supply their own necessities: which kind of unjust impleading was carried to so annoying a length, that, if the supervisors set eye from a distance upon the wood of any person whom they deemed to be a moneyed man, they immediately obtained an injunction against waste thereon, whether it had suffered waste or not, in order that, by some means or other, they might be enabled to mulct him. In the third place, he promised on oath, that Danegelt, that is to say, two shillings on every hide of land, which his predecessors had been accustomed to receive yearly, he would give up for ever. These are the principal things which he promised on oath to God; there were others besides; but none of these promises did he keep.

In the meantime, while, at the close of the festival of the Nativity, king Stephen was staying at Oxford, he received tidings which informed him to this effect: "David, king of the Scots, on pretence that he was coming with peaceful intent for the purpose of visiting you, has come to Carlisle and Newcastle, and stealthily taken possession of them both;" to which king Stephen made answer; "What he has taken by stealth, I will recover by victory;" and thereupon, without delay, the king moved forward his army, which was so mighty, so valiant, and so numerous, that none in England could be remembered like it. However, king David met him in the neighbourhood of Durham, and, making a treaty with him, restored Newcastle, but retained Carlisle with the king's consent. David, however, did not do homage to king Stephen; because he had previously, as the first of the laity, promised

on oath to the empress, the daughter of king Henry and his own niece, to maintain her in possession of England after the death of king Henry. However, the son of king David, Henry by name, did homage to king Stephen; on which, the latter presented him with the borough which is called Huntingdon, by way of gift.

After this, the king returned at Lent, and held his court at London during the festival of Easter, amid such dazzling splendour, that there was never one in England more brilliant than it in its multitudes, magnificence, gold, silver, jewels, garments, and luxuries of every description.

At the time of the Rogation Days, the king was seized with a lethargy, and it was currently reported that he was dead. On hearing of this, Hugh Bigod secretly effected an entrance into Norwich castle, and would not restore it to any person except to the king himself on his repairing thither, and then very reluctantly. It was now that the frenzied conduct of the Normans, which has been previously mentioned, began to produce its effects in perjury and treason. The king, therefore, took Badington, the owner of which was one Robert, a traitor, who had rebelled against the king; after which, he laid siege to the city of Exeter, which Baldwin de Redwers 5 held against him; and being long detained there, and constructing many engines of war, consumed a large portion of his treasures in so doing. At length, however, the castle was surrendered to him, and the king, following the most pernicious advice, did not exercise vengeance upon the traitors. But if he had exercised it on this occasion, so many castles would not have afterwards held out against him. The king proceeded thence to the Isle of Wight, and took it from Baldwin de Redwers, previously mentioned, whom he banished from England.

The king, elated at these successes, went to hunt at Bramton, which is one mile distant from Huntingdon, and there he held pleas as to the forests of his nobles, that is to say, with reference to their woods and hunting, and thereby broke the vow and promise which he had made before God and the people.

In the year of grace 1137, being the second year of the reign of king Stephen, the king, at the season of Lent, crossed over into Normandy. Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, and

85 Or Rivers.

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