QUESTIONS. 1. What struggle began in Rufus's time? How long did it last? What was the source of the quarrel? What was its immediate occasion? Who was the chief instrument of Rufus's extortion? What plan of raising money did he devise? What question arose out of this?

2. Who was the chief sufferer by William's extortion? In what circumstances was he made Archbishop? Who was his predecessor? About what did the King quarrel with him? When did Anselm quit England? Where did he go?

3. What new plot was formed against William? Who headed it? What was Mowbray's fate?

4. How did William get possession of Normandy and Maine? What led Robert to make this offer? How did William obtain the money? 5. How did Rufus die? Where was he buried? What is the common account of his death?

6. Who succeeded Rufus? Where was Robert?

7. What was the object of Henry's early acts? What charter did he publish? What different classes was it designed to please? How? What was one of his first acts?

8. Whom did his marriage please? Who was his wife? What union did this marriage effect?

9. Who induced Robert to invade England? How had Flambard escaped from the Tower? What agreement was made between Robert and Henry? How did Robert lose his pension?

10. In what did the disputes between the brothers end? What happened in the second campaign? What was Robert's fate?

11. What quarrel was reopened during these wars? What were the contested points? Which side did Anselm take? What was the consequence of this? When did he return? When was the dispute settled? How?

CHAPTER V.

GROWTH OF THE BARONS' POWER.

1. Normandy Secured.

2. The White Ship-Death of Prince William.

3. The Angevin Marriage.

4. Accession of Stephen.

5. Increase of Baronial Castles.

6. Battle of the Standard.

7. Peace with Scotland.

8. The Civil War.

9. Stephen's Triumph. 10. Flight of Maud.

11. Treaty of Winchester.

1. A FEW years later, the war in Normandy was renewed. The Norman barons favoured the claims of Robert's son, William, to the dukedom; and his cause was embraced 1119 by the French King. But Henry triumphed on the field A.D. of Brenville, and his son William received the dukedom.

2. On the voyage homeward the Prince was drowned. When he was about to embark in his father's ship, a sailor named Fitz-Stephen (whose father had steered the Conqueror's ship to England) offered the Prince the use of The 1120 White Ship," manned by fifty rowers. The other A.D. vessels left the shore early in the day; but the White

Ship delayed till sunset, the crew drinking and feasting on

deck. They set out by moonlight, and were rowing vigorously to overtake the King's ship, when the vessel struck on a rock in the Race of Alderney, and all on board were lost, except a butcher of Rouen, who floated ashore on a piece of the wreck. William might have been saved, for he had secured a boat; but he returned to rescue his sister, and the boat sank with the weight of the numbers that leaped from the ship's side. It is said that, after hearing of this disaster, Henry never smiled again. This event revived the hopes of Robert's son, now Earl of Flanders; but his death, soon afterwards, left Henry without a rival for the Norman coronet.

A.D.

3. Left without a son to inherit his throne, Henry exacted from the prelates and nobles an oath to support the claim of his daughter Maud, the widow of Henry V., Emperor 1125 of Germany. At the same time, to strengthen his connections in France, he caused her to marry Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, a boy of sixteen,—an alliance which pleased neither English nor Normans. The marriage was not a happy one, and the broils between Maud and her husband disturbed the later years of Henry's 1135 reign. The King died at St. Denis in Normandy, after A.D. seven days' illness, brought on by eating to excess of lampreys.1

4. STEPHEN.2—Although Stephen, Earl of Blois, had sworn fealty to Maud, he claimed the vacant throne in opposition to her. He was first Prince of the blood royal, and, be1135 sides being personally a favourite, he had on his side A.D. the feeling of feudal times, that it was disgraceful for men to submit to a woman's rule. He was joyfully received by the citizens of London, who proclaimed him King even before the barons had decided to accept him. His brother Henry, Bishop of Winchester, gained for him the leading clergy.

clerc, or

1 Henry gained his surname of Beau- | was introduced by some Flemings, who good scholar," by translating settled first on the Tweed, and afterEsop's Fables. He was the first English wards at Haverfordwest in Pembroke, King who delivered a formal speech and Worsted in Norfolk. from the throne. During his reign silver halfpence and farthings, which had previously been formed by clipping the penny into halves and quarters, were made round. The woollen manufacture

2 Stephen.-Grandson of William I., his mother being Adela, the Conqueror's daughter. Married Matilda of Boulogne, niece of Queen Matilda, wife of Henry I. Reigned 19 years.

5. The embalmed body of Henry was escorted to Reading Abbey by Stephen, who helped to bear the coffin. After the burial, at a meeting of prelates and barons held at Oxford, Stephen, already crowned King, swore to abolish the Danegeld, to preserve the rights of the clergy, and to allow the barons the privilege of hunting in their own forests, and of building new castles on their estates. These concessions gained a strong party for Stephen; but the immediate result of the last was, that there arose throughout England one hundred and twenty-six new castles. These, as well as those built before, long continued to be the strongholds of lawless robber-nobles, who lived by plunder, and often headed their vassals against the King himself.

6. David of Scotland was the first to draw the sword for Maud. Thrice in one year with pitiless cruelty he ravaged Northumberland, which he claimed as his own. 1138 In his third invasion he reached Yorkshire; but he was A.D. there met at Northallerton by the northern barons

and their vassals, who had been roused to action by the aged Thurstan, Archbishop of York. There was fought the Battle of the Standard; so called because above the Aug. 22. English forces rose the mast of a ship, adorned with the banners of saints, and surmounted by a cross, the whole being bound to a rude car.

7. The English chiefs knelt in prayer, and rose to battle. The Scots rushed to the onset with shouts, and bore back the English van. The flanks, too, yielded; but around the Standard For two hours the English spears formed an unbroken front.

the Scottish swordsmen strove, amid showers of English arrows, to hew their way to victory; but they spent their strength in vain, and had at last to hurry from the field scattered and broken. David collected his forces at Carlisle, where he was joined, three days later, by his son Henry, who had escaped into the woods by following the pursuit as an English knight. Early in the next year peace was made, and on terms so favourable to Scotland as to suggest that Stephen was anxious to conciliate the Scottish King. All Northumberland, except Bamborough and Newcastle, was conferred on Prince Henry of Scotland.

Sept. 30, 1139

A.D.

8. Maud soon landed on the southern coast with 140 knights. At first she occupied Arundel Castle in Sussex; but, with a generosity more chivalrous than politic, Stephen permitted her to reach Bristol, the chief stronghold of her half-brother, Robert, Earl of Gloucester. In the civil war that followed, London and the East sided with Stephen; Bristol and the West with Maud. The barons, who lived like independent Kings within their strong castles, watched its progress without joining much in its operations. The people were mercilessly robbed, imprisoned, and tortured by them; trade and tillage were neglected; and a man might have ridden for a whole day in some districts without seeing a cultivated field or an inhabited dwelling.

9. Maud's cause was at first successful. At the Battle of Lincoln, Stephen was made prisoner. Heavily fettered, he

A.D.

was cast into the dungeons of Bristol Castle; while his 1141 wife, Matilda of Boulogne, withdrew to Kent. Maud was then acknowledged Queen by the clergy; but her arrogance soon estranged her warmest supporters. The men of Kent, rising in Stephen's cause, entered London; and Maud, alarmed at the pealing of bells and the shouts of the citizens, fled on horseback to Oxford. The failure of an attack on Winchester, in which her brother Robert was taken prisoner, ruined her cause; and Stephen, exchanged for the Earl of Gloucester, sat once more on the throne.

10. Maud still held Oxford, and was there besieged by the King. She sustained the siege far into the winter, in the hope that Stephen would yield to the severity of the weather; but

famine forced her to leave the castle. She with three knights, all clad in white in order to escape the eye of Stephen's sentinels, fled over the snow, crossed the Thames on 1142 the ice, and reached Wallingford. She remained for A.D. four years longer in England, holding Gloucester as the centre of her sway, which was acknowledged in the western half of the kingdom. Then, having lost by death her chief supporters, Milo of Hereford and Robert of Gloucester, she retired to Normandy.

11. Her son Henry had been meanwhile growing up. He had been knighted at Carlisle by his uncle David; had succeeded, on his father's death, to Normandy and Anjou; and had gained Aquitaine1 by his marriage with Eleanor of Poitou,

1 Aquitaine.-Afterwards called Guienne. (See Map.)