206 ENGLAND. 



sixty-first year of his age, and twenty-first of his reign in England, 

 and was buried in his own abbey at Caen in Normandy. 



The succession to the crown of England was disputed between the 

 Conqueror's sons Robert and William (commonly called Ruius, from 

 his being red-haired) and was carried in favour of the latter. He was 

 a brave and intrepid prince, but no friend to the clergy, who have 

 therefore been unfavourable to his memory. He was likewise hated 

 by the Normans, who loved his eldest brother: and, consequently, he 

 was engaged in perpetual wars with his brothers and rebellious sub- 

 jects. He was accidentally killed, "as he was hunting in New Forest 

 in Hampshire, in the year 1 100, and the forty-fourth year of his age. 



This prince built Westminster-hall, and added several works to the 

 tower, which he surrounded with a walland a ditch. In the year 

 1100 happened that inundation of the sea, which overflowed great 

 part of earl Goodwin's estate in Kent, and formed those shallows in 

 the Downs, now called the Goodwin-Sands. 



He was succeeded by his brother, Henry I, surnamed Beauclerc 

 on account of his learning, though his brother Robert was then re- 

 turning from the Holy Land. His reign in a great measure restored 

 the clergy to their influence in the state; and they formed, as it 

 were, a separate body, dependent upon the pope, which afterwards 

 created great convulsions in England. Henry, partly by force and 

 partly by statagem, made himself master of his brother Robert's 

 person, and duchy of Normandy ; and, with the most ungenerous 

 meanness, detained him a prisoner twenty-eight years, till the time 

 of his death. He was afterwards engaged in a bloody but successful 

 war with France ; and, before his death, he settled the succession up- 

 on his daughter, the empress Matilda, widow to Henry IV, emperor 

 of Germany, and her son Henry, by her second husband Geoffrey 

 Plantagenet, earl of Anjou. Henry died of a surfeit, in the seventy- 

 eighth year of his age, in 1135. 



Notwithstanding the late settlement of succession, the crown of 

 England was claimed and seized by Stephen, earl of Blois, the son of 

 Adela, fourth daughter to William the Conqueror. Matilda and her 

 son were then abroad ; however, she found a generous protector in 

 her ancle David, king of Scotland; and a worthy subject in her na- 

 tural brother Robert, earl of Gloucester, who headed her party until 

 her son grew up. A long and bloody war ensued, the clergy having 

 absolved Stephen and all his friends from their guilt of breaking the 

 act of succession : but at length the barons, who dreaded the power 

 of the clergy, inclined towards Matilda ; and Stephen, who depended 

 chiefly on foreign mercenaries, having been abandoned by the clergy, 

 was defeated and taken prisoner in 1141 ; and, being carried before 

 Matilda, she scornfully upbraided him, and ordered him to be put in 

 chains. 



Matilda was proud and weak : the clergy were bold and ambitious ; 

 and, when joined with the nobility, who Were factious and turbulent, 

 were an over-match for the crown. They demanded to be governed 

 by the Saxon laws, and finding Matilda refractory, they drove her out 

 of England in 1 142. Stephen, having been exchanged for the earl of 

 Gloucester, who had been taken prisoner likewise, upon obtaining 

 his liberty, found that his clergy and nobility had in fact excluded 

 him from the government, by building 1 100 castles, where each ow- 

 ner lived as an independent prince. Stephen attempted to force them 

 to declare his son Eustace heir-apparent to the kingdom j and this 



