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Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, died, and was succeeded by Geoffrey1.

In the thirty-third year of his reign King Henry, during Christmas, lay sick at Windsor. In the end of Lent there was a meeting at London respecting the Bishops of St. David's and Glamorgan, and also the contention between the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Lincoln. The king spent Easter in the New Hall at Oxford; and at the Rogations there was another meeting at Winchester about the above matters. After Whitsuntide the king gave the bishopric of Ely to Nigel, and the bishopric of Durham to Godfrey the Chancellor. The king also erected a new bishopric at Carlisle, and then he crossed over the sea. There was an eclipse of the sun on the 10th of August. The year following King Henry remained in Normandy, by reason of his great delight in his grandchildren, born of his daughter by the Count of Anjou. Gilbert, bishop of London, and the Bishop of Llandaff died this year on their way to Rome, respecting their cause so long pending. This year, also, Archbishop William, and Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, went over the sea to the king, on the controversy there was between them respecting certain customs of their dioceses.

In his thirty-fifth year King Henry still continued in Normandy, though he often proposed to return to England, an intention which was never fulfilled. His daughter detained him on account of sundry disagreements, which had their origin in various causes, between the king and the Count of Anjou, and which were fomented by the arts of his daughter. These disputes irritated the king, and roused an ill feeling, which some have said resulted in a. natural torpor, which was the cause of his death. For, returning from hunting at St. Denys in the "Wood of Lions," he partook of some lampreys, of which he was fond, though they always disagreed with him; and though his physician recommended him to abstain, the king would not submit to his salutary advice; according to what is written :

"Men strive 'gainst rules, and seek forbidden things."

1 Fulk? see note, p. 256.

2 Llandaff.

3 The Saxon Chronicle does not mention the foundation of this bishopric. Ethelwulf, prior of St. Oswalds, the king's confessor, was the first bishop.

This repast bringing on ill humours, and violently exciting similar symptoms, caused a sudden and extreme disturbance, under which his aged frame sunk into a deathly torpor; in the reaction against which, Nature in her struggles produced an acute fever, while endeavouring to throw off the oppressive load. But when all power of resistance failed, this great king died on the first day of December [1135], after a reign of thirty-five years and three months. And now, with the end of so great a king, I propose to end the present Book, entreating the Muse to furnish such a memorial of him as he deserved :

Hark! how unnumber'd tongues lament
HENRY, the wide world's ornament.
Olympus echoes back the groan,
And Gods themselves his fate bemoan.
Imperial Jove from his right hand

Might take the sceptre of command;

Mercury borrow winged words,

Mars share with him the clash of swords
Alcides' strength, Minerva's wit,
Apollo's wisdom, him befit:

Form'd like the Deities to shine,
He shar'd their attributes divine.
England, his cradle and his throne,
Mourns, in his glory lost, her own;
Her great duke, weeping, Normandy
Saw in her bosom lifeless lie.

BOOK VIII.1

On the death of the great King Henry, his character was freely canvassed by the people, as is usual after men are dead. Some contended that he was eminently distinguished for three brilliant gifts. These were, great sagacity, for his counsels were profound, his foresight keen, and his eloquence commanding; success in war, for, besides other splendid achievements, he was victorious over the king of France; and wealth, in which he far surpassed all his predecessors. Others, however, taking a different view2, attributed to him three gross vices: avarice, as, though his wealth was great, in imitation of his progenitors he impoverished the people by taxes and exactions, entangling them in the toils of informers; cruelty, in that he plucked out the eyes of his kinsman, the Earl of Morton, in his captivity, though the horrid deed was unknown until death revealed the king's secrets: and they mentioned other instances of which I will say nothing; and wantonness, for,

1 This Book of Huntingdon's History has been collated for the purpose of the present translation, with two MSS., from which a number of corrections of Savile's text, besides those mentioned in the notes, and several additions, have been made. In Savile's arrangement, which has been followed, it forms the eighth Book; but in the order of the two MSS. the tenth; two others being inserted before it, and forming the eighth and ninth. See the Observations in the Preface.

2 The Royal MS. differs here from the Arundel MS. and Savile's printed After "others taking a different view," it reads as follows:

text.

"For their poisoned minds led them to humiliate him, [and they alleged that his extreme avarice induced him to oppress the people with taxes and exactions, entangling them in the toils of informers.] But those who asserted this did not recollect, that although his character was such that it struck terror into all his neighbours, yet this very affluence contributed, in no small degree, to make him formidable to his enemies; and that he governed his sea-girt territories in great peace and prosperity, so that every man's house was his castle. [Thus men's opinions were divided.]"

In the Royal MS. the portions in brackets are crossed through in red, and there is the following note in the margin : “This is borrowed from Horace in his Epistles, who calls the secret robbery of the poor a low poison."

But in

like Solomon, he was perpetually enslaved by female seductions. Such remarks were freely bruited abroad. the troublesome times which succeeded from the atrocities of the Normans, whatever King Henry had done, either despotically, or in the regular exercise of his royal authority, appeared in comparison most excellent.

For in all haste came Stephen, the youngest brother of Theobald, count de Blois, a resolute and audacious man, who, disregarding his oath of fealty to King Henry's daughter, tempted God by seizing the crown of England with the boldness and effrontery belonging to his character. William [Corboil], archbishop of Canterbury, who had been the first to swear allegiance to the late king's daughter, consecrated, alas! the new king1; wherefore, the Lord visited him with the same judgment which he had inflicted on him who struck Jeremiah, the great priest: he died within a year. Roger, also, the powerful bishop of Salisbury, who had taken a similar oath, and persuaded others to do the same, contributed all in his power to raise Stephen to the throne. He, too, by the just judgment of God, was afterwards thrown into prison, and miserably afflicted by the very king he had assisted to make. short, all the earls and great barons who had thus sworn fealty, transferred their allegiance to Stephen, and did him homage. It was a bad sign, that the whole of England should so quickly, without hesitation or struggle, as it were in the twinkling of an eye, submit to Stephen. After his coronation, he held his court at London.

In

Meanwhile, the remains of King Henry lay still unburied in Normandy; for he died on the 1st of December, [A.D. 1135.] His corpse was carried to Rouen, where his bowels, with his brain and eyes, were deposited. The body being slashed by knives, and copiously sprinkled with salt, was sown up in ox hides to prevent the ill effluvia, which so tainted the air as to be pestilential to the bystanders. Even the man who was hired by a large reward to sever

1

Henry of Huntingdon omits to notice the debates which took place among the great ecclesiastics respecting the validity of Stephen's pretensions and the propriety of crowning him, which are related in the "Acts of Stephen" see them under the year 1136.

the head with an axe and extract the brain, which was very offensive, died in consequence, although he wore a thick linen veil; so that his wages were dearly earned. [He was the last of that great multitude King Henry slew.1] The corpse being then carried to Caen, was deposited in the church where his father was interred; but notwithstanding the quantity of salt which had been used, and the folds of skins in which it was wrapped, so much foul matter continually exuded, that it was caught in vessels placed under the bier, in emptying which the attendants were affected with horror and faintings. Observe, then, reader, how the corpse of this mighty king, whose head was crowned with a diadem of precious jewels, sparkling with a brightness almost divine, who held glittering sceptres in both his hands, the rest of whose body was robed in cloth of gold, whose palate was gratified by such delicious and exquisite viands, whom all men bowed down to, all men feared, congratulated, and admired; observe, I say, what horrible decay, to what a loathsome state, his body was reduced! Mark how things end, from which only a true judgment can be formed, and learn to despise what so perishes and comes to nothing! At last, the royal remains were brought over to England, and interred, within twelve days of Christmas, in the abbey at Reading, which King Henry had founded and richly endowed. There, King Stephen, after holding his court at London during Christmas, came to meet the body of his uncle, and William, archbishop of Canterbury, with many earls and great men, buried King Henry with the honours due to so great a prince.

From thence the king went to Oxford, where he recorded and ratified the solemn promises which he had made to God and the people, and to holy church, on the day of his coronation. They were these:-First, he vowed that he would never retain in his own hands the churches of deceased bishops, but forthwith consenting to a canonical3 1 This sentence is omitted in the Royal MS.; but it is found in the Arundel MS., and occurs in Roger de Wendover.

2 The charter is given in William of Malmesbury's Modern History. See p. 493 of the translation in "Bohn's Antiquarian Library."

The Royal MS. omits "canonical."

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