and England
to swear fealty to her. He hoped that the choice of this husband would
be more agreeable to all his subjects than that of the emperor; as
securing them from the danger of falling under the dominion of a great
and distant potentate, {1128.} who might bring them into subjection,
and reduce their country to the rank of a province; but the barons were
displeased that a step so material to national interests had been taken
without consulting them;[**] and Henry had too sensibly experienced
the turbulence of their disposition not to dread the effects of their
resentment.

[* Chron. Sax. p. 223. W. Malms, p. 165.]

[** W. Malms, p. 175. The Annals of (Waverly p.
150) say that the king asked and obtained the consent of all
the barons.]

It seemed probable that his nephew's party might gain force from the
increase of the malecontents; an accession of power, which that prince
acquired a little after, tended to render his pretensions still more
dangerous. Charles, earl of Flanders, being assassinated during the
celebration of divine service, King Lewis immediately put the young
prince in possession of that county, to which he had pretensions in the
right of his grandmother Matilda, wife to the Conqueror. But William
survived a very little time this piece of good fortune, which seemed to
open the way to still further prosperity. He was killed in a skirmish
with the landgrave of Alsace, his competitor for Flanders; and his death
put an end, for the present, to the jealousy and inquietude of Henry.

The chief merit of this monarch's government consists in the profound
tranquillity which he established and maintained throughout all his
dominions during the greater part of his reign. The mutinous barons were
retained in subjection; and his neighbors, in every attempt which they
made upon him, found him so well prepared that they were discouraged
from continuing or renewing their enterprises. In order to repress the
incursions of the Welsh, he brought over some Flemings in the year
1111, and settled them in Pembrokeshire, where they long maintained
a different language, and customs, and manners, from their neighbors.
Though his government seems to have been arbitrary in England, it was
judicious and prudent; and was as little oppressive as the necessity
of his affairs would permit. He wanted not attention to the redress
of grievances; and historians mention in particular the levying of
purveyance, w