churches and convents, and making the sufferers no compensation for the injuries thus sustained, was to be the scene of that divine retribution, by which the sins of the fathers are sometimes permitted to be visited on their children. Hunting in this place with Walter Tyrrel, a French gentleman and favourite, whom Rufus familiarly called Wat de Poix, from the name of his estates in Picardy, he was there slain by a random arrow (as it is said), which Tyrrel let fly at a stag, but which glancing from a tree against which it had struck, pierced the breast of the King, and instantly occasioned his death. So unpopular was this sovereign that, according to some accounts, Tyrrel is accused of having been intentionally the cause of his death. But as he himself denied the truth of this accusation, long after it could have done him any harm if he had admitted it, we may reasonably believe his solemn denial; and attribute the report that he had thus sought to avenge the wrongs of a suffering people to the opinion generally entertained of the just deserts of a monarch, the termination of whose reign by any means appeared to be a national blessing. 65. Henry, the fourth son of the Conqueror, was now the only one of his descendants upon whom the crown of England could justly descend, as William had died without an heir, and Robert, the oldest brother, had virtually abandoned all pretensions to this inheritance, by marching with the army of the Crusaders to take possession of the Holy City. This, which was one of the greatest enterprises of the age, and to accomplish which all Europe had been aroused under the preaching of Peter, the hermit of Picardy, diverted the attention of Robert from those objects of ambition that might more naturally have engaged his talents as a warrior and a prince. He enlisted in it with so much ardour and enthusiasm, that he not only yielded to William the quiet possession of the realm of England, but mortgaged to him his hereditary dukedom. Hearing, however, of his untimely death, just as the diadem of Jerusalem was placed within his grasp, he instantly relinquished it, for one which was still more tempting, and returned hastily from the Holy Land, bringing with him the beautiful Sibilla, daughter of the Count of Couversana, in Italy, whom he had just married. By the intervention of Anselm, the successor of Lanfranc in the see of Canterbury, an amicable arrangement was entered into between the two brothers. It was agreed that Henry should pay to Robert an annual pension, and that on the demise of either of them, the dominions each had possessed should belong to the survivor. But this treaty was soon broken; and the disputes between these rivals for power terminated at length in the battle of Tinchebray, which for ever deprived Robert of his liberty. By the marriage which has just been referred to, Robert had a son, named in history William Clito, who, when he grew up, courageously endeavoured to vindicate his father's rights, but with small success. He died at the early age of sixteen years, in consequence of a slight wound in the thumb which he received in disarming a mutinous soldier of his lance (A.D. 1128). 66. From this period (A.D. 1100), Henry, therefore, became the undisturbed possessor of that sovereignty in England and Normandy, which his father on his death-bed predicted would be his lot. This prince, who gained the title of Beauclerk, or the fine scholar, by his scholastic learning and his patronage of learned men, turned some of his superior knowledge to good account by becoming in some respects a better statesman than either of his predecessors. Of this he gave the best proof by marrying the daughter of Malcolm, king of Scotland. Her mother Matilda was the sister of Edgar Atheling, and a queen of the blood of Alfred. The allegiance which the Norman Conqueror, and his still more despotic successor, had only been able to obtain from the Saxons by terror and compulsion, and which they had often thrown off in spite of all the severe penalties attending rebellion, was now faithfully and willingly bestowed upon a sovereign, who thus identified himself in heart and interest with the English people. It should not be forgotten, however, that the Norman sovereigns were far from being aliens in blood with that race whom they had conquered; for Henry, as well as his Saxon queen, was descended in the eighth generation from the same lineage, through the marriage of Elstrith, the daughter of Alfred, with an earl of Flanders, who was thus his maternal ancestor. 67. From this union, which rendered the blending of the two races more complete and apparent, he derived an heir, William the Atheling, upon whom his best hopes were fixed, but who was not destined to continue his line. This young prince unfortunately perished in returning from Normandy to England; the vessel in which he sailed, called the White Ship, having struck upon a rock-a catastrophe which was the more to be regretted, as it seemed the result of the intoxicated condition of the ship's crew, whom the prince had incautiously regaled with too much wine. Henry had married his only other surviving child Matilda to Henry the Fifth, emperor of Germany, who left her a widow in her twenty-fourth year. Upon her rested all the father's prospects of securing the succession in his family. With this object in view he united her to Geoffrey Plantagenet, the eldest son of the Earl of Anjou. From this union descended Henry the Second, first monarch of this illustrious house of the Plantaganets. On the death of Stephen, who usurped the crown of his uncle, and continued, notwithstanding a fierce civil war raised against him by Matilda and her party, to wear it for nineteen years, or from A.D. 1135 to 1189, this inheritance of greatness was again restored to the direct successors of William the Conqueror. The line of this mighty Norman prince has thus been nobly sustained through some of its branches to the present day; and its honours have been at length transmitted to Queen VICTORIA, who now, seated on the throne of Great Britain, unites, with the glory of an uninterrupted line of illustrious ancestors, an extent of power and dominion that has no parallel in any former age of history. SUMMARY OF ERA THE TWELFTH. 1. Sketch of the Saxon kings succeeding Alfred to Ed- sures; he fulfils his vow, and founds Battle Abbey.—33. |