Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/176

162 William, however, was not without supporters, and his personal gallantry, joined to high military talents, gave him the victory over the insurgents in various encounters. His career, however, was destined to be short; in an engagement under the walls of Alost, in which he completely defeated his opponents, the son of Robert received a wound on the head, which proved fatal within a few days afterwards. He died on the 27th July, 1128, at the age of twenty-six.

Henry was thus relieved from any dread of the pretensions of his nephew, and he passed over into Normandy, where he remained for several years in the society of his daughter. In 1133, Matilda gave birth to a son, who was named Henry, and who afterwards reigned in England with the title of Henry II. Subsequently two other sons, named Geoffrey and William, were the fruit of this marriage. On the birth of his grandson, the king again endeavoured to secure to his race the succession to the throne by causing the barons once more to swear fealty to Matilda and to her children. During Henry's stay in Normandy, various quarrels took place between the ex-empress and her husband, and the king had great difficulty in keeping the peace between them. It would appear that Matilda seized every opportunity of prejudicing her father against her husband, who was exasperated at the king's refusal to place him in immediate possession of Normandy.

The last years of Henry's life were embittered by these dissensions in his family, and his health rapidly declined. In the year 1135, he received news of an incursion of the Welsh, and while preparations were making for his return to England he was seized with a sudden illness. Having passed a day in hunting at Lions-la-Foret, in Normandy, he supped late in the evening upon a dish of lampreys, of which he was remarkably fond. An indigestion, which resulted in a fever, was the consequence of this indulgence, and three days afterwards he expired (December 1, A.D. 1135). His body was afterwards conveyed to Reading Abbey, which he had himself founded, and was there buried.



 

exertions made by Henry Beauclerc to preserve to his daughter the succession to the throne proved altogether fruitless, and those solemn vows which he had exacted from the barons, and with which he had endeavoured to fence about the cause of Matilda, were of no avail. No sooner did the news of the king's death reach Stephen of Blois, than he instantly took measures for seizing upon the English crown. Allusion has already been made to this ambitious noble, who, on taking the oaths of fealty to Matilda, had caused himself to be recognised as the first prince of the blood, 