ENGLAND. 207 



exasperated the clergy so much, that they invited over young Heary 

 of Anjou, who had been acknowledged duke of Normandy, and was 

 son to the empress ; and he accordingly landed in England with an 

 army of foreigners. 



This measure divided the clergy from the barons, who were appre- 

 hensive of a second conquest; and the earl of Arundel, with the 

 heads of the lay aristocracy, proposed" an accommodation, to which, 

 both parties agreed. Stephen, who about that time lost his son Eus- 

 tace, was to retain the name and office of king ; but Henry, wno was 

 in fact invested with the chief executive power, was acknowledged 

 his successor. Though this accommodation was only precarious and 

 imperfect, yet it was received by the English, who had suffered so 

 much during the late civil wars, with great joy ; and Stephen dying 

 very opportunely, Henry mounted the throne, without a rival, in 

 1154. 



Henry II, surnamed Plantagenet, was by far the greatest prince of 

 his time. At his accession to the throne, he found the condition of the 

 English boroughs greatly improved, by the privileges granted them 

 in the struggles between their late kings and the nobility. Henry 

 perceived the good policy of this, and still further extended the fran- 

 chises of the boroughs, so that if a bondman or servant remained in 

 a borough a year and a day, he was by such residence made free. 



Henry likewise distinguished his reign by the conquest of Ireland; 

 and by marrying Eleanor, the divorced queen of France, but the heir- 

 ess of Guienne and Poitou, he became almost as powerful in France 

 as the French king himself, and the greatest prince in Christendom. 



Richard I, surnamed Cceur de Lion from his great courage, was 

 die third but eldest surviving son of Henry II. He engaged in a 

 most magnificent but ruinous crusade to the Holy Land, where he 

 took Ascalon, and displayed his valour by many heroic acts. After 

 several glorious but fruitless campaigns, he concluded a truce of 

 three years with Saladin emperor of the Saracens ; and in his return 

 to England was treacherously surprised by the duke of Austria, who, 

 in 1193, sent him a prisoner to the emperor Henry VI. His ransom 

 was fixed by the sordid emperor at 150,000 marks, about 300,000 

 pounds of our present money. On his return, he found his domi- 

 nions in great disorder, through the practices of his brother John, 

 whom, however, he pardoned ; and by the invasions of the French, 

 whom he repelled ; but was slain while besieging the castle of Cha- 

 lons, in the year 1 199, the forty-second year of his age, and tenth of 

 his reign. 



The reign of his brother John, who succeeded him, is infamous in 

 the English history. He is said to have put to death Arthur, the 

 eldest son of his brother Geoffrey, who had the hereditary right to 

 the crown. The young prince's mother, Constance, complained to 

 Philip, the king of France ; who, upon John's non-appearance at his 

 court as a vassal, deprived him of Normandy. John, notwithstanding, 

 in his wars with the French, Scotch, and Irish, gave many proofs of 

 personal valour; but became at last so apprehensive of a French in- 

 vasion, that he rendered himself a tributary to the pope, and laid his 

 crown and regalia at the foot of the legate Pandulph, who kept them 

 for five days. The great barons resented his meanness, by taking 

 arms : but he repeated his shameful submissions to the pope ; and 

 after experiencing various fortunes of war, John was at last brought; 

 to low, that the barons obliged him, in 1216, to sign the great deed 



