studies of my soul."
The money was found at once, and a royal hint given. The demon blood of
the Angevins, which frightened most men, and kept Henry in loneliness,
had no terrors for Hugh; and Henry could hardly express the pleasure he
felt in a rare friendship which began here. He loved and honoured no
other man so much, for he had found a man who sympathised with him
without slavishness, and whose good opinion was worth having. This close
friendship, combined with physical likeness, made it generally believed
that Hugh was Henry's own son. Hugh did not always agree with the king,
and if he felt strongly that any course was bad for king and kingdom
would say so roundly in direct words of reproof, but withal so
reasonably and sweetly that he made "the rhinoceros harrow the valleys"
after him, as his biographer quaintly puts it, glancing at Job. The
counsel was not limited to celestial themes. Hugh checked his temper,
softened his sentences, and got him to do good turns to churches and
religious places. He unloosed the king's rather tight fist, and made him
a good almsgiver. One offence Hugh was instant in rebuking--the habit of
keeping bishoprics and abbacies vacant. He used also to point out that
unworthy bishops were the grand cause of mischiefs in God's people,
which mischiefs they cherished, caused to wax and grow great. Those who
dared to promote or favour such were laying up great punishments against
the Doomsday. "What is the need, most wise prince, of bringing dreadful
death on so many souls just to get the empty favour of some person, and
the loss of so many folk redeemed by Christ's death? You invoke God's
anger, and you heap up tortures for yourself hereafter." Hugh was for
free canonical election, with no more royal interference than was
required to prevent jobbery and quicken responsibility.

The two friends visited each other often, and the troubles of Henry's
last years were softened for him by his ghostly friend. It is quite
possible that Hugh's hand may be traced in the resignation of Geoffrey
Plantagenet, the king's dear illegitimate son, who was (while a mere
deacon) bishop-elect of Lincoln from 1173 to 1181. From the age of
twenty to twenty-eight he enjoyed the revenues of that great see without
consecration. The Pope objected to his birth and his youth. Both
obstacles could have been surmounted, but Geoffrey resigns his claims in
the Epiphany of the latter year, and gets a chancellorship with five