Page:Historyoffranc00yong.djvu/48

 24 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [CHAf. of Henry the First, Duke of the Normans as well as King of the English, the duchy as well as the kingdom was disputed between his nephew Stephen of Blois, and his daughter the Empress yI/rt/'/7rt'(t, wife of Count Geoffrey of Anjou. Normandy was conquered by Geoffrey, and on Geoffrey's death in 1151, Henry, already Duke of the Normans, succeeded to his father's county of Anjou. Meanwhile the dislike between Lewis and Eleanor had come to such a pitch that he made no objection when in 1 1 52 some plea of kindred was treated as a flaw in their wedlock, though, as she had only borne him two daughters, her vast inheritance in the South passed from him. She at once married Duke Henry, and thus Aqui- tainewas added to Normandy and Anjou, forming a power much greater than the kingdom. Soon after, in 11 54, Henry, according to the treaty with King Stephen, suc- ceeded him on the Enghsh throne. Though still in early youth, Henry from that time forward entirely over- shadowed the crown of France with his power, while his keen, crafty, bold Angevin nature made him far more than a match for Lewis, ever the Young. He did in- deed pay homage for his fiefs, but he took care to be the only master in them. He tightened his grasp on Britanny, and renewed that claim of Eleanor's to the homage of Toulouse which Lewis himself had been unable to enforce. But it was his policy to avoid open war with his feudal superior, and when Lewis came in person to the aid of the count, Raymond Jordan, he came to a treaty, and abandoned the attempt. He thought himself on the road to gaining all France for his family by easier means. Lewis' second wife, Constance of Castile., had only been the mother of two daughters, whose hands in their earliest childhood Henry obtained for his two eldest sons, Henry and Richard, while the third son, Geoffrey, was betrothed to Constance, the infant heiress of Britanny. Thus if female succession should be recognized in France, a point which had not yet been settled, the kingdom, as well as the duchy of Britanny, might pass to the House of Anjou. Part of these plans were overthrown in 1165 by the birth of an heir to France, called by Lewis in his joy Philip the God-given, but who is better known as Philip Au<;usrus, probably from the month of his birth. His mother was Lewis' third wife, Alice of Blois, daughter of the great Count Theobald of Chartres and Champagne.