obstinacy of the other. She had undaunted courage, and a masculine spirit of enterprise, with a masculine sternness of mind. Whatever there may have been in her of the gentle and the womanly seems to have been suppressed by the circumstances of her early life. Betrothed in her eighth year, and sent to be educated in Germany, where she became the wife of an Emperor when she had scarcely passed her twelfth birthday, she naturally grew up in the ideas of the land of her husband, and in all the stiff restraints of an Imperial position. We know that the impression which she left behind her in her Imperial home was not an unfavourable one, and that nobles of Lorraine and Lombardy (the seat of her Imperial dower-lands) followed her on her return to the Court of her father, claiming her back as their chosen ruler. We can well conceive that her stately, haughty bearing, and her proud self-dependence would suit well the headship of that elaborate hierarchy of dignities which called itself the successor of the Empire of the West. But it was a

difficult thing for one who had sat by the side of the successor of Charlemagne, first to sink into a little Countess of Anjou, and then to drive a disadvantageous bargain for her father's crown with a rebellious and lawless nobility. If the pride of the Empress Dowager and of the woman were severely wounded by the forced marriage with a petty count and a clever, precocious stripling, with a will of his

own, quite as much must the haughty spirit of the daughter of Henry and the granddaughter of the Conqueror have chafed under the necessity of perpetual conciliation and concession towards the barons of her own party in England. That she was a

woman of some power of mind we might gather, if only from the influence which she is stated to have exercised over her father's counsels on an important point, such as the choice of the noble gaoler for Duke Robert. But she came to England with Imperial ideas and a wounded spirit, and both alike disabled her from ruling this country. She looked down with indifferent contempt on all ranks of society alike. If Stephen was merely one unit in the social mass, she was so removed from it that she scarcely recognised its existence. The Londoners complained bitterly of her insolent treatment of their great citizens when they besought her to lighten her heavy demands on their purses. But they had no reason to complain of being worse handled than others. She treated the barons, who, abandoning Stephen's cause, sought her favour, with the illconcealed scorn fitting for renegades, but most impolitic in one who benefited by their recreancy. She seemed to ignore the influence and counsels even of her half-brother Robert of Gloucester, to whom she was chiefly indebted for her crown; while the proud, intriguing Bishop of Winchester retreated to his diocese, feeling himself for the first time in

his career counted as of no weight. Even if she had been forewarned of her approaching downfall, the probability is that she would have preferred a brief reign of independent royalty to long years as a puppet sovereign. She had but one rule with friend and foe-she kept them all at a distance. With an undisputed title to the position she held, she might have been tolerated and respected; as a competitor for the crown, she merely alienated everybody; and when her son was recognised by the King of France as Duke of Normandy, and again by the united English factions as the adopted son and successor of Stephen, her own prior claims were passed over, and were virtually negatived. The very reverse of her rival, she lost all by being a King overmuch, and nothing but a King.

57

HENRY THE SECOND.

WITH the accession of the House of Anjou to the throne of England, we feel at once that we are on new ground, and that, though there is a certain continuity both in the history of the country and in the character of the reigning sovereigns before and after that event, there is also a marked change in the one and a fresh element in the other. If, as I believe, infusions of new blood into families never destroy and seldom seriously diminish the force of existing elements of character, and though sometimes modifying the character as a whole by their coexistence, more frequently manifest themselves from time to time as an additional type of character in individual members of the family, alternating, according to some unknown law, with the old elements, it is especially important to ascertain what this new blood really is, as this knowledge will be one essential key to character for the succeeding history of the family. The House of Anjou, according to the family legend, had its origin during the Carlovingian period of French history in one Ingelgar,

raised to the dignity of Count by Charles the Bald, or his son, Louis the Stammerer, some time in the latter half of the ninth century. This Ingelgar, we are further told, was the son of one Tertullus, a peasant (raised by Charles to the rank of Seneschal), who was the son of Torquatius (corruptly called Tortulfus), a Roman settler, whose family had been expelled from Armorica by order of the Emperor Maximus. We attach no authority to the legend, which may be entirely unfounded, but we can, I think, recognise in the family type of the Counts of Anjou some characteristics which are Italian rather than Teutonic or Celtic. Strong men they nearly all of them were, and wise men also in their generation. Learned far beyond the average of their age, one of them was himself the author of a fragment on Angevin history, which is described as of considerable merit, and another is the reputed author of the proverb that an unlettered king is but a crowned ass. Courageous when needful, but never unnecessarily courageous, they were good soldiers, but better statesmen. Hot-blooded by nature, but patient by policy. Generally very prudent, but always very pertinacious. Not too proud to crouch for a time in order to gain an ulterior end, but too proud ever to forget the indignity, and with only too good a memory of the past. Capable of unscrupulous cruelty, but averse to wanton brutality. Often kindhearted and habitually courteous, but not always