e monks, sensible
that their saint's honour was concerned in the case, failed not to
publish that Lewis's prayers were answered, and that the young prince
was restored to health by Becket's intercession. That king himself
was soon after struck with an apoplexy, which deprived him of his
understanding: Philip, though a youth of fifteen, took on him the
administration, till his father's death, which happened soon after,
opened his way to the throne; and he proved the ablest and greatest
monarch that had governed that kingdom since the age of Charlemagne.
The superior years, however, and experience of Henry, while they
moderated his ambition, gave him such an ascendant over this prince,
that no dangerous rivalship, for a long time, arose between them. [MN
1180.] The English monarch, instead of taking advantage of his own
situation, rather employed his good offices in composing the quarrels
which arose in the royal family of France; and he was successful in
mediating a reconciliation between Philip and his mother and uncles.
These services were but ill requited by Philip, who, when he came to
man's estate, fomented all the domestic discords in the royal family
of England, and encouraged Henry's sons in their ungrateful and
undutiful behaviour towards him.
[FN [e] Bened. Abb. p. 437, &c.]

Prince Henry, equally impatient of obtaining power, and incapable of
using it, renewed to the king the demand of his resigning Normandy;
and on meeting with a refusal, he fled with his consort to the court
of France: but not finding Philip at that time disposed to enter into
war for his sake, he accepted of his father's offers of
reconciliation, and made him submissions. It was a cruel circumstance
in the king's fortune, that he could hope for no tranquillity from the
criminal enterprises of his sons but by their mutual discord and
animosities, which disturbed his family, and threw his state into
convulsions. Richard, whom he had made master of Guienne, and who had
displayed his valour and military genius by suppressing the revolts of
his mutinous barons, refused to obey Henry's orders, in doing homage
to his elder brother for that duchy, and he defended himself against
young Henry and Geoffrey, who, uniting their arms, carried war into
his territories [f]. The king, with some difficulty, composed this
difference; but immediately found his eldest son engaged in
conspiracies, and ready to take arms against himself. While the young