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 gious houses also were enriched by his bounty: St. Albans, which he visited eight times, staying there a week in 1257, Whitby, and Chertsey; while he founded Netley Abbey, Hampshire, for Cistercians in 1239 (Monasticon, v. 695), Ravenston, an Austin priory, Buckinghamshire, about 1255 (ib. vi. 497), the Domus Conversorum, or House for Converts from Judaism, now the chapel of the Rolls, in 1231 (ib. p. 682), houses for Dominicans in Canterbury and Bamburgh, Northumberland, and for Franciscans, perhaps at Winchester and Nottingham, besides some hospitals. He was sincerely religious, and when nothing else could force him to give up his own way, he would yield to a threat of ecclesiastical censure. He regularly attended three masses a day, would press and kiss the hand of the celebrant, and would sometimes come in quietly to witness other celebrations. Religious ceremonies delighted him, and he showed extreme pleasure at receiving the Holy Blood in 1247, carrying the relic in his own hands from St. Paul's to Westminster. One of the few sentiments which kept a firm place in his heart was a grateful veneration for the Roman see. His life was moral, and he seems to have been a good deal under the influence of his clever and accomplished queen. To Dante, who placed him in the valley where they sat who had been careless of the great reward, and yet had not been unfruitful or evil, he was ‘il Re della simplice vita.’ Nevertheless he was inordinately extravagant, and squandered his subjects' money recklessly in gratifying his private tastes and ambitions, and on his foreign relatives and favourites. Utterly un-English in feeling, he loved to be surrounded by foreigners, and had no sympathy with the tendencies of the nation. His religion was rather that of a Roman than an Englishman, and he did not hesitate to injure the national church by conferring bishoprics and other benefices on foreign adventurers, ignorant of the language of the people, and unfit to be their spiritual guides. Though obstinate, he was infirm of purpose, and no dependence could be placed upon him. The union of pertinacity and weakness in his character rendered him irritable. When crossed or in difficulties he had no self-command, although in ordinary circumstances he was not devoid of wit or courtesy of manner. His nobles did not fear or respect him. Faithful service never won his gratitude; he was incapable of valuing his best and wisest counsellors, and was always ready to believe slanders against them. Physically brave, he was morally a coward, easily frightened, and quick to lean on others for support. Shifty and false, he met open opposition with evasion and secret influence, and the most solemn oaths failed to bind him. He had no talent for administration; in affairs of state he was content with a hand-to-mouth policy, and his campaigns were disgracefully mismanaged. Most of his difficulties were of his own making; some part of them, however, arose from the change which was passing over the spirit of the constitution. If he had been a capable king he might have taken advantage of this state of change, and of the party jealousies and struggles which accompanied it, to found a new despotism. As it was his long reign was a period during which the checks placed on the monarchy in his father's days had time to gather strength, so that when he was succeeded by such an able ruler as Edward I all danger that they might be broken up had passed away.

[Dr. Stubbs's ''Const. Hist''. vol. ii., while dealing with the constitutional aspects of Henry's reign, presents an admirable account of his life, with which should also be studied the same author's Select Charters. For the quarrel with the barons, see Blaauw's Barons' War, 2nd edit. 1871, chiefly useful for the war itself, Pauli's Simon de Montfort, translated by Goodwin, 1876, and Prothero's Simon de Montfort, which contains a good deal about the king. Of original authorities, for the first few years of the reign, Ralph of Coggeshall, ends 1224, and Walter of Coventry, vol. ii., both Rolls Ser., are useful. Roger of Wendover's Flores, vol. iv. (Engl. Hist. Soc.), ends at 1235, and is as far as Henry is concerned a first-hand authority, carefully written, honest, and outspoken; it should be read with vols. iii. iv. and v. of Dr. Luard's noble edition of Matt. Paris (Rolls Ser.), for Paris in several places interprets Wendover's work, and carries it on to 1259. The grandest of all English, perhaps of all the historians of the middle ages, Paris makes the king and all his other principal characters live in his pages, and tells several incidents which he must have heard from Henry's own lips. Of the Annales Monastici, vols. i–v., also edited by Dr. Luard (Rolls Ser.), the Ann. of Tewkesbury, ending 1263, are chiefly valuable from 1258; like most of the monastic chroniclers, the writer takes the popular side; the Ann. of Burton, ending 1262, contain one or two personal details, e.g. an account of Henry's pilgrimage to Pontigny and visit to Paris in 1254, and many valuable documents; Ann. of Winchester, especially important from 1267, and used in the Ann. of Waverley, which from 1219 to 1266 are a first-hand authority of the most trustworthy kind; the Ann. of Dunstable have a few personal details worth notice; T. Wykes, canon of Osney, having used the Osney Annals as a basis for the first part of his work, gradually becomes independent, and wholly deserts the annals during the period of the quarrel with the barons, taking, unlike the annalist, the side of the crown. As he is trustworthy, his political standpoint