ents and misfortunes, was now preached by St. Barnard.[****]
But an event soon after happened which threatened a revival of
hostilities in England. Prince Henry, who had reached his sixteenth
year, was desirous of receiving the honor of knighthood; a ceremony
which every gentleman in that age passed through before he was admitted
to the use of arms, and which was even deemed requisite for the greatest
princes.

[* Epist. St. Thom, p. 225.]

[** Chron. W. Thom, p. 1807.]

[*** Epist. St. Thom, p. 226.]

[**** Hagulstadt, p. 275, 276.]

He intended to receive his admission from his great-uncle, David, king
of Scotland; and for that purpose he passed through England with a great
retinue, and was attended by the most considerable of his partisans.
He remained some time with the king of Scotland, made incursions into
England, and by his dexterity and vigor in all manly exercises, by his
valor in war, and his prudent conduct in every occurrence, he roused the
hopes of his party, and gave symptoms of those great qualities which he
afterwards displayed when he mounted the throne of England. {1150.} Soon
after his return to Normandy, he was, by Matilda's consent, invested in
that duchy, and upon the death of his father Geoffrey, which happened
in the subsequent year, he took possession both of Anjou and Maine, and
concluded a marriage which brought him a great accession of power, and
rendered him extremely formidable to his rival. Eleanor, the daughter
and heir of William, duke of Guienne, and earl of Poictou, had been
married sixteen years to Lewis VII., king of France, and had attended
him in a crusade which that monarch conducted against the infidels; but
having there lost the affections of her husband, and even fallen
under some suspicion of gallantry with a handsome Saracen, Lewis, more
delicate than politic, procured a divorce from her, and restored her
those rich provinces, which, by her marriage, she had annexed to the
crown of France. Young Henry, neither discouraged by the inequality
of years, nor by the reports of Eleanor's gallantries, made successful
courtship to that princess, and espousing her six weeks after her
divorce, got possession of all her dominions as her dowry. {1152.} The
lustre which he received from this acquisition, and the prospect of
his rising fortune, had such an elect in England, that when Stephen,
desirous to insure the crown to his son Eustace, required the archbishop