and bravest of our monarchs: the latter loaded his memory with the reproach of cruelty, avarice, and incontinence. To an indifferent observer at the present day his reign will offer little worthy of praise, unless it be the severity with which he punished offences. This was a real benefit to his people, as it not only contributed to extirpate the robbers by profession, but also checked the rapacity and violence of the barons. Still his merit will be very equivocal. As long as each conviction brought with it a fine or forfeiture to the royal exchequer, princes were stimulated to the execution of the laws by a sense of personal interest. Henry, at the same time that he visited the injustice of others, scrupled not to commit injustice himself. Probably in both cases he had in view the same object, his own emolument. The great aim of his ambition was to aggrandize his family by augmenting his possessions on the continent. His success in this favourite project obtained for him the reputation of political wisdom; but it was purchased at the expense of enormous sums wrung from a suffering and impoverished people. If, however, the English thus paid for acquisitions in which they had little interest, they derived from them one advantage; the king's attention to foreign politics rendered him anxious to preserve peace with his more immediate neighbours. He lived on the most friendly terms with Alexander and David, successively kings of Scotland. The former had married his natural daughter Sybilla: both were the brothers of his wife Matilda. It was more difficult to repress the active and predatory dis position of the Welsh: but as often as he prepared to chastise their presumption, they pacified his resentment by submission and presents. As a check to this restless people, he planted among them a powerful colony of foreigners. Many natives of Flanders had found settlements in England, under the protection of his mother Matilda; and the number was now doubled by a crowd of emigrants, who had been driven from their homes by an inundation of the Rhine. Henry placed them at first on the right bank of the Tweed; but afterwards, collecting the old and new comers into one body, allotted to them for their residence the town of Haverfordwest, with the district of Ross in Pembrokeshire. They were a martial and industrious people: by attention to the cultivation of the soil, and the manufacture of cloth, they grew in numbers and opulence and under the protection of the English kings, to whom they always remained faithful, defeated every attempt of the Welsh princes to root them out of the country. Henry was naturally suspicious; and this disposition had been greatly encouraged by his knowledge of the clandestine attempts of his enemies. On one occasion the keeper of his treasures was convicted of a design on his life on another, while he was marching in the midst of his army towards Wales, an arrow from an unknown hand struck him on the breast, but was repelled by the temper of his cuirass. Alarmed by these incidents, he always kept on his guard, frequently changed his apartments, and, when he retired to rest, ordered sentinels to be stationed at the door, and his sword and shield to be placed near his pillow. The suspicious are generally dissembling and revengeful. Henry seldom forgot an injury, though he would disguise his enmity under the mask of friendship. Fraud, and treachery, and violence, were employed to ensnare those who had greatly offended him; and their usual portion was death, or blindness, or perpetual imprisonment. After his decease it was discovered that his cousin the earl of Moretoil, whom he had long kept in confinement, had also been deprived of sight. Luke de Barré, a poet, who had fought against him, was made prisoner at the close of the last war, and sentenced by the king to lose his eyes. Charles the Good, earl of Flanders, was present, and remonstrated against so direful a punishment. It was not, he observed, the custom of civilized nations to inflict bodily punishment on knights who had drawn the sword in the service of their lord. "It is not," replied Henry, "the first time that he has been in arms against me. But what is worse, he has made me the subject of his satire; and in his poems has held me up to the derision of my enemies. From his example let other versifiers learn what they may expect, if they offend the king of England." The cruel mandate was executed: and the troubadour, in a paroxysm of agony, bursting from the hands of the officers, dashed out his brains against the wall. His dissimulation was so well known that he was mistrusted even by his favourites. When Blott, bishop of Lincoln, who had for many years been one of his principal justiciaries, was told that the king had spoken of him in terms of the highest commendation : "Then," he replied, "I am undone; for I never knew him praise a man whom he did not intend to ruin." The event justified his apprehensions. In an unguarded moment the prelate had boasted that the monastery which he was building at Eyrsham should equal that which Henry had founded at Reading. The words were carried to the king, and the fall of the favourite was consummated. He was immediately deprived of the office of justiciary; vexatious prosecutions were commenced against him; by fines and extortions all his wealth was drawn to the royal exchequer: and the bishop would probably have been compelled to resign his dignity, had he not died by a sudden fit of apoplexy, as he was speaking to Henry. Malmesbury has allotted to the king the praise of temperance and continency. Perhaps his claim to the first, certainly his claim to the second, of these virtues, rests on no other ground than the partiality of his panegyrist. If, as many writers affirm, his death was occasioned by the excess with which he ate of a dish of lampreys, we may fairly doubt of his temperance: nor can the continency of that man be much commended, who is known to have been attached to several mistresses; and of whose illegitimate children no fewer than seven sons and eight daughters lived to the age of puberty. LINGARD. STEPHEN. THE character of Stephen at this period (his accession) has been drawn by his adversaries as well as his partisans: and if there be some difference in the colouring, the outlines of the two pictures are perfectly similar. It is admitted that he was prompt in decision, and bold in action; that his friends applauded his generosity, and his enemies admired his forbearance; that he won the high by courtesy, the low by condescension, all by an air of affability and benevolence. He had long been the most popular nobleman in England: and men were most inclined to favour the pretensions of one whom they loved. The royal treasures, which he distributed with profusion, while they confirmed the fidelity of his adherents, brought to his standard crowds of adventurers, who intimidated his enemies. Nor should it be forgotten, that there was a kind of spell in the very name of king, which he now bore and that his claim was sanctified in the eyes of many by the imposing ceremony of his coronation. LINGARD. HENRY THE SECOND. BETWEEN the conqueror and all his male descendants there existed a marked resemblance. The stature of Henry was moderate, his countenance majestic, and his complexion florid; but his person was disfigured by an unseemly protuberance |