knowledged as a martyr, spent the whole night in prayer and tears, and on the next morning was, at his own request, scourged by the monks as a token of his penitence. That night he was awakened by a messenger with good news. Ranulf de Glanvile had won for him a great victory at Alnwick, had dispersed the barons' host, and had taken prisoner the Scottish king. About the same time the fleet which was to bring his son over was dispersed

Military and civil costume of the latter part of the twelfth century.

by a storm. Within a few weeks the whole rebellion was at an end. It was the last time that the barons ventured to strive with the king till the time came when they had the people and the Church on their side. William the Lion was carried to Normandy, where, by the treaty of Falaise, he acknowledged himself the vassal of the king of England for the whole of Scotland.

23. The Assize of Arms. 1181.-In September 1174 there was a general peace. In 1181 Henry issued the Assize of Arms,

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organising the old fyrd in a more serviceable way. Every English freeman was bound by it to find arms of a kind suitable to his property, that he might be ready to defend the realm against rebels or invaders. The Assize of Arms is the strongest possible evidence as to the real nature of Henry's government. He had long ago sent back to the Continent the mercenaries whom he had brought with him in the peril of 1174, and he now entrusted himself not to a paid standing army, but to the whole body of English freemen. He was, in truth, king of the English not merely because he ruled over them, but because they were ready to rally round him in arms against those barons whose ancestors had worked such evil in the days of Stephen. England was not to be given over either to baronial anarchy or to military despotism.

24. Henry II. and his Sons.—In England Henry ruled as a national king over a nation which, at least, preferred his government to that of the barons. The old division between English and Norman was dying out, and though the upper classes, for the most part, still spoke French, intermarriages had been so frequent that there were few amongst them who had not some English ancestress and who did not understand the English language. Henry was even strong enough to regain much that he had surrendered when he abandoned the Constitutions of Clarendon. In his Continental possessions there was no such unity. The inhabitants of each province were tenacious of their own laws and customs, and this was especially the case with the men of Aquitaine, the country south of the Loire, who differed in habits, and even in language, from the Frenchmen of Normandy and Anjou. They therefore found it difficult to give a share of the allegiance which they owed to their own duchess, Eleanor, to her Angevin husband, the king of England. Henry in 1172 having appointed his eldest son, Henry, as the future ruler of Normandy and Anjou as well as of England, thought it wise to recognise this feeling by giving to his second son, Richard, the immediate possession of Eleanor's duchy of Aquitaine. In 1181 he provided for his third son, Geoffrey, by a marriage with Constance, the heiress of Brittany, over which country he claimed a feudal superiority as Duke of the Normans. Yet, though he gave away so much to his sons, he wished to keep the actual control over them all. The arrangement did not turn out well. He had set no good example of domestic peace. His sons knew that he had married their mother for the sake of her lands, that he had subsequently thrown her into prison and had been faithless to her with a succession of mistresses. Besides this, they were

torn away from him by the influence of the men whom they were set to rule. Richard was dragged away from his father by the interests and feelings of the men of Aquitaine, Geoffrey by the interests and feelings of the men of Brittany. John, the fourth son, who was named Lackland from having no territory assigned to him, was, as yet, too young to be troublesome.' Both Richard and Geoffrey had taken part with their brother Henry in the great revolt of 1173. In 1177 they were again quarrelling with their father and with each other. "Dost thou not know," was the message which Geoffrey sent to his father, "that it is our proper nature, planted in us by inheritance from our ancestors, that none of us should love the other, but that ever brother should strive with brother and son against father? I would not that thou shouldst deprive us of our hereditary right nor vainly seek to rob us of our nature." Henry loved his children, and could never bring himself to make war very seriously against them. Henry died young in 1183, and Geoffrey in 1185. Richard was now the heir of all his father's lands, from the Tweed to the Pyrenees. Henry made an effort to provide for John in Ireland, and in 1185 he sent the youth— now eighteen years old-to Dublin to rule as king of Ireland. John soon showed his incompetence. He was rude to the English barons, and still ruder to the Irish chiefs, amusing himself by laughing at their dress and pulling the hairs out of their beards. Before the end of the year his father was obliged to recall him.

25. The Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. 1187.-The divisions in Henry's family were stirred up afresh by the new king of France, Philip II., who had succeeded his father, Louis VII., in 1179. Philip was resolved to enlarge his narrow dominions at the expense of Henry. He was Henry's feudal lord, and he was crafty enough to know that by assisting Henry's sons he might be able to convert his nominal lordship into a real power. News, however, arrived in the midst of the strife which for a little time put an end to the discords 1 Genealogy of the sons and grandchildren of Henry II. :

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of men and peoples. The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, which had been established after the first crusade, had only maintained itself because the Mahommedan rulers of Egypt were the rivals and enemies of the Mahommedan rulers of Syria. Yet even with the advantage of divisions amongst their enemies, the Christians had only defended themselves with difficulty. A second crusade which had gone out to relieve them in Stephen's reign, under the Emperor Conrad III. and Louis VII. of France, had accomplished nothing. Their real defenders were two bodies of soldiers, known as the Knights Templars and the Knights of St. John, who were bound, like monks, to vows of celibacy, so that they might always be free to defend Jerusalem. At last a great Mahommedan warrior, Saladin, arose, who ruled both Egypt and Syria, and was therefore able to bring the united forces of the two countries against the Christian colony. In 1187 he destroyed the Christian army at Tiberias, and in the same year took Jerusalem and almost every city still held by the Christians in the East. Tyre alone held out, and that, too, would be lost unless help came speedily.

26. The Last Years of Henry II. 11881189.-For a moment the rulers of the West were shocked at the tidings from the East. In 1188 Philip, Henry, and Richard had taken the cross as the sign of their resolution to recover the Holy City from the infidel. To enable him to meet the expenses of a war in the East, Henry imposed upon England a new tax of a tenth part of all movable property, which is known as the Saladin tithe, but in a few months those who were pledged to go on the crusade were fighting with one another-first Henry and Richard against Philip, and then Philip and Richard against Henry. At last, in 1189, Henry, beaten in war, was forced to submit to Philip's terms, receiving in return a list of those of his own barons who had engaged to support Richard against his father. The list reached him when he was at Chinon, ill and worn out. The first name on it was that of his favourite son John. The old man turned his face to the wall. "Let things go now as they will," he cried bitterly. "I care no more for myself or for the world." After a few days of suffering he died. The last words which passed his lips were, Shame, shame upon a conquered king."

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27. The Work of Henry II.-The wisest and most powerful ruler can only assist the forces of nature; he cannot work against them. Those who merely glance at a map in which the political divisions of France are marked as they existed in Henry's reign, cannot but wonder that Henry did not make himself master of the

small territory which was directly governed, in turn, by Louis VII. and Philip II. A careful study of the political conditions of his reign shows, however, that he was not really strong enough to do anything of the kind. His own power on the Continent was purely feudal, and he held authority over his vassals there because they had personally done homage to him. Henry, however, had also done homage to the king of France, and did not venture, even if he made war upon his lord, the king of France, to push matters to extremities against him, lest his sons as his own vassals might push matters to extremities against himself. He could not, in short, expel the king of France from Paris, lest he should provoke his own vassals to follow his example of insubordination and expel him from Bordeaux or Rouen. Moreover, Henry had too much to do in England to give himself heart and soul to Continental affairs, whilst the king of France, on the contrary, who had no foreign possessions, and was always at his post, would be the first to profit by a national French feeling whenever such a feeling arose. England under Henry II. was already growing more united and more national. The crown which Henry derived from the Conqueror was national as well as feudal. Henry, like his predecessors, had two strings to his bow. On the one hand he could call upon his vassals to be faithful to him because they had sworn homage to him, whilst he himself, as far as England was concerned, had sworn homage to no one. On the other hand, he could rally round him the national forces. To do this he must do justice and gain the goodwill of the people at large. It was this that he had attempted to do, by sending judges round the country and by improving the law, by establishing scutage to weaken the power of the barons, and by strengthening the national forces by the Assize of Arms. No doubt he had little thanks for his pains. Men could feel the weight of his arm and could complain of the heavy fines exacted in his courts of justice. It was only a later generation, which enjoyed the benefits of his hard discipline, which understood how much England owed to him.