Page:The Normans in European History.djvu/133

Rh shrewd and stern in his dealings with the world but swayed by unrequited affection and ill-timed weakness in dealing with his children. Knowing other men, he did not know his sons, and his grave errors in dealing with them were errors of public policy, since they concerned the government of his dominions and the succession to the throne. Even those who had no sympathy for Henry had little to say to excuse the character and the unfilial conduct of his sons. "From the Devil we come, and to the Devil we return," Richard was reported to have said; and none cared to contradict him. Of the four lawful sons who grew to maturity, the eldest was Henry, crowned king by his father in 1170, and hence generally known as the Young King. Handsome and agreeable, prodigal in largesse, a patron of knightly sports and especially of the tournaments which were then coming into fashion, the Young King enjoyed great popularity in his lifetime and after his early death was mourned as a peer of Hector and Achilles and enshrined as a hero of courtly romance. Yet for all this there was no substantial foundation. He was faithless, ungrateful, utterly selfish, a thorn in his father's side and a constant source of weakness to the empire. Married at the age of five to the daughter of Louis VII, he became the instrument of the French king in his intrigues against Henry II and the rallying point of feudal reaction and personal jealousy. King in name though not in fact, having been crowned merely