erritories which lay contiguous, and which,
by that means, might easily lend to each other mutual assistance both
against intestine commotions and foreign invasions. Richard, his
second son, was invested in the duchy of Guienne and county of Poictou;
Geoffrey, his third son, inherited, in right of his wife, the duchy of
Brittany, and the new conquest of Ireland was destined for the appanage
of John, his fourth son. He had also negotiated, in favor of this last
prince, a marriage with Adelais, the only daughter of Humbert, count
of Savoy and Maurienne; and was to receive as her dowry considerable
demesnes in Piedmont, Savoy, Bresse, and Dauphiny. But this exaltation
of his family excited the jealousy of all his neighbors, who made those
very sons, whose fortunes he had so anxiously established, the means of
imbittering his future life, and disturbing his government.

Young Henry, who was rising to man's estate, began to display his
character, and aspire to independence: brave, ambitious, liberal,
munificent, affable: he discovered qualities which give great lustre to
youth; prognosticate a shining fortune; but, unless tempered in mature
age with discretion, are the forerunners of the greatest calamities. It
is said that at the time when this prince received the holy unction, his
father, in order to give greater dignity to the ceremony, officiated at
table as one of the retinue; and observed to his son that never king was
more royally served. "It is nothing extraordinary," said young Henry to
one of his courtiers, "if the son of a count should serve the son of a
king." This saying, which might pass only for an innocent pleasantry, or
even for an oblique compliment to his father, was, however, regarded as
a symptom of his aspiring temper; and his conduct soon after justified
the conjecture.

{1173.} Henry, agreeable to the promise which he had given both to the
pope and French king, permitted his son to be crowned anew by the hands
of the archbishop of Rouen, and associated the Princess Margaret, spouse
to young Henry, in the ceremony.[*] He afterwards allowed him to pay
a visit to his father-in-law at Paris, who took the opportunity of
instilling into the young prince those ambitious sentiments to which he
was naturally but too much inclined.

[* Hoveden, p. 529. Diceto, p. 560. Brompton, p.
1080. Gervase, p. 1421. Trivet, p. 58. It appears from
Madox's History of the Exchequer, that silk garments were