Page:Select historical documents of the Middle Ages.djvu/106

86 begun or intended, nevertheless, mindful of that high-souled king, I have not been able to pass them over and keep my peace of mind. Thou may'st see, therefore, how miraculously that man resisted himself, against the sons, indeed, of his own flesh, nay, further, the sole hope and singular glory of his soul after God. When they were young and, by reason of their age, waxen beyond measure, and prone to every emotion of the soul, the pertinacious little foxes were carried away by wicked counsels, and, at length, turned their bowels against their father as against an enemy; " and a man's enemies have become they of his own household, and those who guarded his side have taken counsel against him; saying"—to his sons and his enemies—"persecute him and take him for there is none to deliver him"; thou would'st say that in them the word of the prophet was fulfilled: "I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me." When, therefore, the wife was raging against the husband, the sons against their father, the servants, without cause, against their master,—would'st thou not say with the best of reasons that a man was warring against himself: But, against the numerous multitude of his enemies, the magnitude of the Divine grace alone aided him; and, as though God were fighting for him, he so in a short time got hold of almost all the rebels, that he was by far more strongly confirmed in the kingdom than before, by means of that very thing which was to have weakened him.

For those who had conspired against him, in all his strength, came to know through this, most plainly, that the club can not be extorted from the hand of Hercules except by force. Moreover, when they were taken, an unheard-of clemency spared the enemies, the inciters of such a tremendous crime; so that few of them sustained the loss of their goods—none, however, of their rank or their bodies. If thou should' st read the revenge which David visited on the overthrowers of his son Absalom, thou would'st say that Henry had been far more gentle than he: although it is written of him, "I have found a man after mine own heart." Although, then, the great king had an abundant number of precedents, and might have exercised against them even the most shameful revenge,—he preferred,