whose gain I have brought upon me all this misery,
has forsaken me?” Then he laid himself down
again and turned his face to the wall. “Now
you have said enough,” he said. “Let
all the rest go as it will, I care no more for myself
nor for the world.” From this time he grew
delirious. But still in the intervals of his
ravings the great passionate nature, the defiance,
the unconquered will broke out with inextinguishable
force. He cursed the day on which he was born,
and called down Heaven’s vengeance on his sons.
The great king’s pride was bowed in the extremity
of his ruin and defeat. “Shame,” he
muttered constantly, “shame on a conquered king.”
Geoffrey watched by him faithfully, and the dying
king’s last thoughts turned to him with grateful
love. On the 6th of July, the seventh day of his
illness, he was seized with violent hemorrhage, and
the end came almost instantaneously. The next
day his body was borne to Fontevraud, where his sculptured
tomb still stands. To the astonished onlookers
at the great tragedy, the grave in a convent church,
separated from the tombs of his Angevin forefathers
and of his Norman ancestors, far from his English
kingdom, seemed part of the strange disasters foretold
by Merlin and inspired messengers. But no ruler
of his age had raised for himself so great a monument
as Henry. Amid the ruin that overwhelmed his
imperial schemes, his realm of England stood as the
true and lasting memorial of his genius. Englishmen
then, as Englishmen now, taught by the “remembrance
of his good times,” recognized him as one of
the foremost on the roll of those who have been the
makers of England’s greatness.