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soldiers with drawn swords; the scene changed again, and crosiered bishops seemed to be leaning over his bed, ready to fall upon him, as if they meant to kill him with their holy staves. Thus the tillers of the ground, the military and the church,—the three most important interests of the kingdom,-appeared to have each sent its representatives to reproach, and curse, and menace him. The dream is said to have produced a great impression upon Henry. He awoke in extreme perturbation, leaped out of his bed, seized his sword, and called violently for his attendants. When he became more calm he solemnly resolved upon repentance and amendment of life, and it is affirmed that, from this time, he began to be an altered man.

The Children of Henry.

THIERRY.

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According to the ancient historians, king Henry was never seen to smile after the shipwreck of his children. His wife Matilda was dead, and lay at Winchester, the epitaph on her tomb containing a few English words; of which the monuments of the rich and great in England would not, for a long time, furnish another example. Hic jacet Matildis regina **** ab Anglis vocata Mold the good queen. Henry took a second wife, not of the Anglo-Saxon race, which had again fallen into contempt, now that it was no longer needed by the son of the Conqueror. new marriage of the king was unfruitful, and all his affections were now concentrated on a natural son named Robert, the only one now left him. About the time that this son arrived at an age marry, it happened that a certain Robert Fitz-Aymes or FitzAymon, a Norman by birth, and the owner of great estates in the county of Gloucester, died, leaving an only daughter named Aimable, and familiarly Mable or Mabile, heiress to his possessions. King Henry negociated with the relatives of this young lady, a marriage between her and his illegitimate son, Robert; they consented, but Aimable refused. She continued obdurate

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for some time, without explaining the motives of her repugnance, until at last, being much urged, she declared that she would never be the wife of a man who had not two names.

Two names, or a two-fold name, composed of a christian and surname, either purely genealogical, or signifying the possession of an estate, or the holding of some office, was one of the signs by which the Norman race in England distinguished themselves from the English. In the ages succeeding the conquest, any one with only a christian name, was liable to pass for a Saxon; and the vigilant pride of the heiress of Robert Fitz-Aymon took alarm beforehand at the idea that her future husband might be confounded with the ignoble class of natives. She candidly confessed this scruple in a conversation that she had with the king, and which is given in the following manner in a chronicle in verse:-" Sire," said the young Norman lady, "I know that you have cast your eyes upon me, much less for myself than for my inheritance; but having such a fine inheritance, would it not be a great shame for me to take a husband who has not two names? In his lifetime, my father was called sir Robert Fitz-Aymon: I do not wish to have to do with a man whose name does not show whence he springs."-"Well said, maiden," replied king Henry; "sir Robert Fitz-Aymon was the name of thy father, sir Robert Fitz-Roy shall be the name of thy husband."—"That, I grant, is a fine name to be an honour to him all his life, but what shall his sons, and his sons' sons call themselves?" The king saw the drift of this question, and thus replied to it: "Maiden," he said, "thy husband shall have an irreproachable name, for himself and for his heirs; he shall be called Robert of Gloucester; for it is my will that he shall be earl of Gloucester, he and all his descendants."

Of king Henry's two illegitimate children, there still remained to him Matilda, the wife of Henry V., Emperor of Germany. She became a widow in the year 1126, and returned to live with her father; notwithstanding her widowhood the Normans continued to call her by courtesy the empress. At Christmas Henry held his court, with great pomp, in the halls of Windsor Castle, and all

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the Norman lords of the two countries, assembled by his invitation, swore fealty to Matilda, both for the duchy of Normandy and for the kingdom of England, promising to pay the same allegiance to her after her father's death, as they had paid to him in his lifetime. The first to take this oath was Stephen, the son of the count de Blois and of Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, one of the most intimate friends of the king, and almost holding the place of his favourite. The same year, Foulques, count of Anjou, infected with the new passion of the age, constituted himself what was called a soldier of Christ, put the mark of the cross on his shield, his coat of arms, his helmet, and the saddle and bridle of his horse, and departed for Jerusalem. In the uncertainty of his return he committed the government of the province of Anjou to his son Geoffrey, surnamed Plantagenet, on account of a habit he had of wearing a sprig of broom in his helm by way of plume.

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King Henry conceived a great friendship for his young neighbour, count Geoffrey of Anjou, on account of his fine person, his elegant manners, and his reputation for courage. He even chose to become his sponsor in knighthood, and to perform at Rouen, at his own expense, the ceremony of receiving Geoffrey into this high military rank. After the bath, into which, according to custom, the new knight was plunged, Henry gave him, as his son arms, a Spanish horse, a complete suit of double mail, proof against lance and javelin; golden spurs, a shield embellished with lions in gold, a helmet garnished with precious stones; a lance of ash-wood, with a point of Poitiers steel, and a sword made by Waland, the most renowned workman of the time. The friendship of the king of England was not confined to these marks of regard, and he determined that his daughter, the empress Matilda, should take the count of Anjou for her second husband. The marriage was consummated, but without the previous consent of the nobles of Normandy and England, an omission which had the most disastrous effect on the fortune of the young couple. Their nuptials were celebrated in Whitsun week of the year 1127, and the festivities lasted for three weeks. On the first day,

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heralds, in full costume, paraded the streets of Rouen, at every crossway, shouting this strange proclamation: "Thus saith king Henry Let no man here present, native or foreigner, rich or poor, noble or villain, be so bold as to keep away from the royal rejoicings; for whosoever shall not take part in the games and diversions, will be guilty of an offence against his lord the king."

From the union of Henry's daughter Matilda, with Geoffrey Plantagenet, was born, in the year 1133, a son, who was named Henry, after his grandfather, and whom the Normans surnamed Fitz-Empress, that is to say son of the empress, to distinguish him from his grandfather, whom they called Fitz-William the Conqueror. On the birth of his grandson, the Norman king once more convoked his barons of England and Normandy, and required them to recognise for his successors the children of his daughter, after him, and after her: they consented apparently, and swore as he desired. The old king died, two years after, in Normandy, of an indigestion, caused by eating lampreys.

The Accession of Stephen.

HUME.

In the progress and settlement of the feudal law, the male succession to fiefs had taken place some time before the female was admitted; and estates being considered as military benefices, not as property, were transmitted to such only as could serve in the armies, and perform in person the conditions upon which they were originally granted. But when the continuance of rights, during some generations, in the same family, had in a great measure obliterated the primitive idea, the females were gradually admitted to the possession of feudal property; and the same revolution of principles which procured them the inheritance of private estates, naturally introduced their succession to government and authority. The failure, therefore, of male heirs to the kingdom of England and duchy of Normandy, seemed to leave the succession open, without a rival, to the empress Matilda; and

as Henry had made all his vassals in both states swear fealty to her, he presumed that they would not easily be induced to depart at once from her hereditary right, and from their own reiterated oaths and engagements. But the irregular manner in which he himself had acquired the crown, might have instructed him, that neither his Norman nor English subjects were as yet capable of adhering to a strict rule of government; and as every precedent of this kind seems to give authority to new usurpations, he had reason to dread, even from his own family, some invasion of his daughter's title, which he had taken such pains to establish.

Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, had been married to Stephen, count of Blois, and had brought him several sons, amongst whom, Stephen and Henry, the two youngest, had been invited over to England by the late king, and had received great honours, riches, and preferment, from the zealous friendship which that prince bore to every one that had been so fortunate as to acquire his favour and good opinion. Henry, who had betaken himself to the ecclesiastical profession, was created abbot of Glastonbury and bishop of Winchester; and though these dignities were considerable, Stephen had, from his uncle's liberality, attained establishments still more solid and durable. The king had married him to Matilda, who was daughter and heir of Eustace, Count of Boulogne, and who brought him, besides that feudal Sovereignty in France, an immense property in England, which in the distribution of lands had been conferred by the conqueror on the family of Boulogne. Stephen also by this marriage acquired a new connection with the royal family of England; as Mary, his wife's mother, was sister to David, the reigning king of Scotland, and to Matilda, the first wife of Henry, and mother of the empress. The king, still imagining that he strengthened the interests of his family by the aggrandizement of Stephen, took pleasure in enriching him by the grant of new possessions; and he conferred on him the great estate forfeited by Robert Mallet in England, and that forfeited by the earl of Mortaigne in Normandy. Stephen, in return, professed great attachment to his uncle; and appeared So zealous for the succession of Matilda, that, when the barons