building of four stories. The lowest story contained the baron's stores, the second was used by the garrison, and the third and fourth were the private apartments of the baron and his family. Underneath the keep were the dungeons for the confinement of prisoners. The only entrance was at the first or second story, the ascent to either of which was by a flight of stairs; and to increase the security, a moat was excavated around the keep in some of the castles.

In warfare a change of some interest had taken place, as the English troops no longer wielded the battle-axe of their ancestors, but employed large bows, with arrows a cloth-yard long.

When security was established after the troubles of the Norman conquest, trade began to revive, and various articles, such as wool, hides, lead, and tin, were exported. The principal towns were London, Winchester, Bristol, Exeter, Gloucester, Chester, Lynn, Dunwich, Lincoln, Norwich, York, and the Cinque Ports-Hastings, Dover, Hythe, Romney, and Sandwich. London, which in the reign of Henry II became decidedly the capital of England, had a large population; and Fitz-Stephen tells us that its citizens, who were noted for their opulence, received the appellation of barons.

The ecclesiastical power rapidly grew during this period, and many monastic houses were founded. Several of our cathedrals, including Durham, Chichester, Peterborough, Oxford, Winchester, and Norwich, were commenced, and some of them were completed, before the death of Stephen.

The most noted authors were Archbishops Lanfranc (born about 1005, died 1089), and Anselm (b. 1033, d. 1109); Florence of Worcester (d. 1118), Eadmer (died about 1124), Ordericus Vitalis (born 1075, d. 1132), William of Malmesbury (d. 1143), Geoffrey of Monmouth (d. 1154), and Henry of Huntingdon, historians.

THE HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET.

HENRY II.

Reigned from 1154 to 1189.

Birth.-Henry was born at Mans, the capital of the province of Maine (France), in March, 1133.

Descent. He was the son of Matilda, and therefore, the great grandson of William I; through his grandmother he was the descendant of Saxon kings.

Marriage. He espoused Eleanor, the divorced wife of Louis VII, of France.

Children.-William, who died in childhood; Henry, who died in 1183; Richard, afterwards king; Geoffrey, who was killed at a tournament, in 1186; John, who succeeded Richard; Matilda, married to Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony; Eleanor, married to Alphonso VIII, of Castile; and Joan, married to William, King of Sicily, and afterwards to Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse. From William, the fourth son of Matilda and Henry the Lion, the present royal family of England is descended.

Important Events.-The dominions of Henry II were more extensive than those of any of the previous Norman sovereigns; for, in addition to England, he held Touraine and Anjou, inherited from his father-Normandy and Maine from his mother-and Poitou, Saintonge, Auvergne, Perigord, Limousin, Angoumois, and Guienne, the portion of his wife. A few years later he obtained the government of Brittany.

Geoffrey, the king's brother, claimed Anjou by virtue of his father's will; but Henry disregarded his pretensions, and deprived him of the castles he had seized in the province. He, however, settled on him an annuity; and, shortly after, the people of Nantes selected the young prince as their ruler.

In 1157, Henry led an expedition into Wales, but he was

surprised by his foes in the pass of CONSILT, near Flint, and his army was saved with difficulty. The engagement is sometimes spoken of as the battle of Coleshil. The king again invaded Wales in 1165, and an encounter took place on the banks of the CIEROC, in Denbighshire, in which the English were victorious; but as the natives still mustered in force, and as the season was most unpropitious, Henry was compelled to retire from the country. With great barbarity he ordered the eyes of the male hostages to be rooted out, and the ears and noses of the female hostages to be cut off.

In 1159, Henry laid claim to Toulouse in right of his wife, and besieged the city, but without success. It was on this occasion that he excused his vassals from military service on payment of a sum of money, called escuage or scutage. This practice, which afterwards became common, tended gradually to the downfall of the feudal system.

On the death of Theobald, Thomas à Becket, the king's chancellor, was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury (1162). Contrary to the expectation of the king, he refused to aid him in checking the aggressive disposition of the clergy, who claimed exemption from all secular jurisdiction, and who, by this means escaped with impunity even when they had committed the most heinous offences. Henry, however, succeeded in securing the consent of the barons and the bishops to a series of articles, sixteen in number, known as the Constitutions of Clarendon, by which the power and the privileges of the ecclesiastics were much limited (1164). Becket afterwards openly expressed his sorrow that he had signed the Constitutions, and gave manifest proofs that he was determined to maintain the alleged immunities of his order. The king was so displeased, that, at a council held at Northampton in the same year, he directed certain charges to be laid against the archbishop, who, believing that his life was in peril, escaped to France, where he resided for about six years-first at Pontigny, and then at Sens. The shelter and countenance which Louis VII afforded the prelate

led to a war between the sovereigns, which was concluded by the peace of Montmirail (1169).

An apparent reconciliation was effected between Henry and Becket, and the latter returned to England in the beginning of December, 1170; but his conduct was so imprudent, that Henry, on hearing of it, at his castle near Bayeux, gave vent to his displeasure in exceedingly angry terms, which led four knights to hasten secretly to England to compel him to adopt a more pacific course. As he refused to accede to their demands, they assassinated him before the altar of St. Benedict, in Canterbury Cathedral, Dec. 29.

Soon after the king's accession, he obtained permission from Pope Adrian IV (Nicholas Breakspear, the only Englishman who ever wore the tiara), to conquer Ireland; but it was not till 1168 that his attention was directed specially to the project. It was then that Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, by his consent, aided Dermot, King of Leinster, a licentious prince, who had violently taken away the wife of one of the other chieftains, and who had, on that account, been expelled from his kingdom. The English assistance proved most efficacious; and Henry himself landed in the island in the winter of 1171, and received the homage of most of the native kings in the following year.

The king's elder sons, as they grew towards manhood, proved very disobedient; and being encouraged both by their mother, from dislike of her husband, and by the sovereign of France, from political motives, they went to war with their father. They were also supported by William the Lion, King of Scotland. To arouse the feelings of the people of England in his favour, Henry did penance at Becket's tomb; and on the same day, as he afterwards learned, the Scottish monarch, who had invaded Northumbria, was captured at ALNWICK by Ralph de Glanville (July 12, 1174).

A peace followed; but some years later, Henry and Geoffrey, the king's sons, made war on their brother Richard, which was followed by the death of the two former. In the last year

of his reign, Henry was expelled from Touraine by his son Richard, and Philip, King of France; and such was the posture of his affairs, that he found it necessary to make a humiliating peace.

Henry very much improved the administration of the law by the appointment of justices in eyre, who made periodical circuits through the country. A new mode of trial was adopted in certain cases, called the trial by grand assize, in which we may trace the germ of our modern trial by jury. Trial by compurgation was abolished; and not long after the accession of his grandson, trial by ordeal went out of use. From Henry II's reign dates, according to the opinion of our best constitutional writers, the English system of common law.

In 1176, London Bridge began to be built of stone, and to divert the course of the river for the time, a trench was dug between Battersea and Rotherhithe.

[Bank of Venice instituted, A.D. 1157. Jerusalem taken by Saladin, A.D. 1187.]

Death. Henry died at his castle at Chinon, about twenty-six miles from Tours, July 6, 1189. He was a sovereign of conspicuous ability, but devoid of high principle, and much devoted to immoral pleasures. Like many princes, he neglected to secure an efficient religious training for his sons, and their breach of the Divine command of filial obedience led to the troubles of the latter half of the reign.

RICHARD I (CŒUR DE LION).

Reigned from 1189 to 1199.

Birth.-Richard was born at Oxford, September 13, 1157. Descent. He was the eldest surviving son of Henry II. Marriage. He espoused Berengaria, daughter of Sancho the wise, King of Navarre. He died without issue.

Important Events.-The popular hatred of the Jews was intensely manifested on the occasion of the king's coronation