Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/591

Rh She is called by Lyttleton the greatest lady that Europe had ever seen, empress of Germany by her first marriage, countess of Anjou, Touraine, and Maine by her second, and, by the will of her father, duchess of Normandy and queen of England. Yet she was more truly great in the latter part of her life, when she acted only as a subject, under the reign of her son, than at the time she beheld king Stephen her prisoner, and England at her feet. The violence of her temper and pride, inflamed by success, then dishonoured her character, and made her appear to her friends, as well as her enemies, unworthy of the dominion to which she was exalted: but from the instructions of adversity, age, and reflection, she learned the virtues she most wanted, moderation and mildness. These, joined to the elevation and vigour of her mind, enabled her to become a most useful counsellor and minister to her son, in the affairs of his government, which for some time past had been her sole ambition. There is not in all history another example of a woman who had possessed such high dignities, and encountered such perils for the sake of maintaining her power, being afterwards content to give it up, and, without forsaking the world, live quietly in it; neither mixing in cabals against the state, nor aspiring to rule it beyond that limited province which was particularly assigned to her administration. Such a conduct was meritorious in the highest degree, and more than atoned for all the errors of her former behaviour.

Camden says of her, "She intituled herself empress and Augusta, for that she was thrice solemnly crowned at Rome, as R. de Diceto testitieth, and Anglorum Domina, because she was heir apparent to the crowne of England. She was very happy in her poet, who in these two ral