of the Christian states to throw back the power of the Moors.  Normandy and Auvergne were separated only by a narrow belt of country from the Empire, which, under the greatest ruler and warrior of the age, Frederick Barbarossa, was extending its power over Burgundy, Provence, and Italy.  His claims to the over-lordship of Toulouse gave Henry an interest in the affairs of the great Mediterranean power—­the kingdom of Sicily; and his later attempts on the territories of the Count of Maurienne brought him into close connection with Italian politics.  No ruler of his time was forced more directly than Henry into the range of such international politics as were possible in the then dim and inchoate state of European affairs.  England, which in the mind of the Norman kings had taken the first place, fell into the second rank of interests with her Angevin rulers.  Henry’s thoughts and hopes and ambitions centred in his continental domains.  Lord of Rouen, of Angers, of Bordeaux, master of the sea-coast from Flanders to the Pyrenees, he seemed to hold in his hand the feeble King of Paris and of Orleans, who was still without a son to inherit his dignities and lands.  The balance of power, as of ability and military skill, lay on his side; and, long as the House of Anjou had been the bulwark of the French throne, it even seemed as if the time might come peaceably to mount it themselves.  Looking from our own island at the work which Henry did, and seeing more clearly by the light of later events, we may almost forget the European ruler in the English king.  But this was far from being the view of his own day.  In the thirty-five years of his reign little more than thirteen years were spent in England and over twenty-one in France.  Thrice only did he remain in the kingdom as much as two years at a time; for the most part his visits were but for a few months torn from the incessant tumult and toil of government abroad; and it was only after long years of battling against invincible forces that he at last recognized England as the main factor of his policy, and in great crises chose rather to act as an English king than as the creator of an empire.

The first year after Henry’s coronation as King of England was spent in securing his newly-won possession.  On Christmas Day, 1154, he called together the solemn assembly of prelates, barons, and wise men which had not met for fifteen years.  The royal state of the court was restored; the great officers of the household returned to their posts.  The Primate was again set in the place he held from early English times as the chief adviser of the crown.  The nephew of Roger of Salisbury, Nigel, Bishop of Ely, was restored to the post of treasurer from which Stephen had driven him fifteen years before.  Richard de Lucy and the Earl of Leicester were made justiciars.  One new man was appointed among these older officers.  Thomas, the son of Gilbert Becket, was born in Cheapside in 1117.  His father, a Norman merchant who had