ling or buying by auction. It is
somewhat remarkable that so severe a critic should have used such a word
in historical composition. [S.]]

He had one vice or folly that seemed rooted in his mind, and of all
others, most unbefitting a prince: This was, a proud disdainful manner,
both in his words and gesture; and having already lost the love of his
subjects by his avarice and oppression, this finished the work, by
bringing him into contempt and hatred among his servants; so that few
among the worst of princes have had the luck to be so ill beloved, or so
little lamented.

He never married, having an invincible abhorrence for the state,
although not for the sex.

He died in the thirteenth year of his reign, the forty-third of his age,
and of Christ 1100, August 2.

His works of piety were few, but in buildings he was very expensive,
exceeding any King of England before or since, among which Westminster
Hall, Windsor Castle, the Tower of London, and the whole city of
Carlisle, remain lasting monuments of his magnificence.

THE REIGN OF HENRY THE FIRST.

This prince was the youngest son of William the Conqueror, and bred to
more learning than was usual in that age, or to his rank, which got him
the surname of Beauclerk; the reputation whereof, together with his
being born in England, and born son of a king, although of little weight
in themselves, did very much strengthen his pretensions with the people.
Besides, he had the same advantage of his brother Robert's absence,
which had proved before so successful to Rufus, whose treasures he
likewise seized on immediately at his death, after the same manner, and
for the same end, as Rufus did those of his father the Conqueror. Robert
had been now five years absent in the Holy War, where he acquitted
himself with great glory; and although he was now in Apulia, upon his
return homeward, yet the nobles pretending not to know what was become
of him, and others giving out that he had been elected King of
Jerusalem, Henry laid hold of the occasion, and calling together an
assembly of the clergy, nobles, and people of the realm at London, upon
his promises to restore King Edward's laws, and redress the grievances
which had been introduced by his father and brother, they consented to
elect him king. Immediately after his coronation, he proceeded upon
reforming the abuses of the late reign: he banished dissolute persons
from the court, who had long infested it under the prote