We have painted this prince in the colors in which he is drawn by all the writers who lived the nearest to his time.  Although the monkish historians, affected with the partiality of their character, and with the sense of recent injuries, expressed themselves with passion concerning him, we have no other guides to follow.  Nothing, indeed, in his life appears to vindicate his character; and it makes strongly for his disadvantage, that, without any great end of government, he contradicted the prejudices of the age in which he lived, the general and common foundation of honor, and thereby made himself obnoxious to that body of men who had the sole custody of fame, and could alone transmit his name with glory or disgrace to posterity.

FOOTNOTES: 

[76] Maimbourg.

[77] Chron.  Sax. 204.

CHAPTER IV.

REIGN OF HENRY I.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 1100.]

Henry, the youngest son of the Conqueror, was hunting at the same time and in the same forest in which his brother met his fate.  He was not long before he came to a resolution of seizing on the vacant crown.  The order of succession had already been broken; the absence of Duke Robert, and the concurrence of many circumstances altogether resembling those which had been so favorable to the late monarch, incited him to a similar attempt.  To lose no time at a juncture when the use of a moment is often decisive, he went directly to Winchester, where the regalia and the treasures of the crown were deposited.  But the governor, a man of resolution, and firmly attached to Robert, positively refused to deliver them.  Henry, conscious that great enterprises are not to be conducted in a middle course, prepared to reduce him by force of arms.  During this contest, the news of the king’s death, and the attempts of Henry, drew great numbers of the nobility to Winchester, and with them a vast concourse of the inferior people.  To the nobility he set forth his title to the crown in the most plausible manner it could bear:  he alleged that he was born after his father had acquired his kingdom, and that he was therefore natural heir of the crown; but that his brother was, at best, only born to the inheritance of a dukedom.  The nobility heard the claim of this prince; but they were more generally inclined to Robert, whose birthright, less questionable in itself, had been also confirmed by a solemn treaty.  But whilst they retired to consult, Henry, well apprised of their dispositions, and who therefore was little inclined to wait the result of their debates, threw himself entirely upon the populace.  To them he said little concerning his title, as he knew such an audience is little moved with a discussion of rights, but much with the spirit and manner in which they are claimed; for which reason he began by drawing his sword, and swearing, with a bold and