e of England, and how his uncle the King, knowing that he had that
claim, would have murdered him, perhaps, but for his escape.

The youth and innocence of the pretty little WILLIAM FITZ-ROBERT (for
that was his name) made him many friends at that time. When he became a
young man, the King of France, uniting with the French Counts of Anjou
and Flanders, supported his cause against the King of England, and took
many of the King's towns and castles in Normandy. But, King Henry,
artful and cunning always, bribed some of William's friends with money,
some with promises, some with power. He bought off the Count of Anjou,
by promising to marry his eldest son, also named WILLIAM, to the Count's
daughter; and indeed the whole trust of this King's life was in such
bargains, and he believed (as many another King has done since, and as
one King did in France a very little time ago) that every man's truth and
honour can be bought at some price. For all this, he was so afraid of
William Fitz-Robert and his friends, that, for a long time, he believed
his life to be in danger; and never lay down to sleep, even in his palace
surrounded by his guards, without having a sword and buckler at his
bedside.

To strengthen his power, the King with great ceremony betrothed his
eldest daughter MATILDA, then a child only eight years old, to be the
wife of Henry the Fifth, the Emperor of Germany. To raise her marriage-
portion, he taxed the English people in a most oppressive manner; then
treated them to a great procession, to restore their good humour; and
sent Matilda away, in fine state, with the German ambassadors, to be
educated in the country of her future husband.

And now his Queen, Maud the Good, unhappily died. It was a sad thought
for that gentle lady, that the only hope with which she had married a man
whom she had never loved--the hope of reconciling the Norman and English
races--had failed. At the very time of her death, Normandy and all
France was in arms against England; for, so soon as his last danger was
over, King Henry had been false to all the French powers he had promised,
bribed, and bought, and they had naturally united against him. After
some fighting, however, in which few suffered but the unhappy common
people (who always suffered, whatsoever was the matter), he began to
promise, bribe, and buy again; and by those means, and by the help of the
Pope, who exerted himself to save more bloodshed, and by solemnly
de