Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/57

Rh the king his uncle, who had married him to the daughter and heiress of the earl of Boulogne, given him great possessions in England, and made him indeed too powerful for a subject.

The king having thus fixed the succession of the crown in his daughter by an act of settlement and an oath of fealty, looked about to provide her with a second husband, and at length determined his choice in Geoffry Plantagenet earl of Anjou, the son of Fulk lately deceased.

This prince, whose dominions confined on France and Normandy, was usually courted for an ally by both kings in their several quarrels; but having little faith or honour, he never scrupled to change sides as often as he saw or conceived it for his advantage. After the great victory over the French, he closed in with king Henry, and gave his daughter to the young prince William; yet at the same time, by the private encouragement of Lewis, he prevailed on the king of England to be easy in the conditions of a peace. Upon the unfortunate loss of the prince, and the troubles in Normandy thereupon, he fell again from the king, gave his other daughter to William the son of Robert, and struck up with France to take that prince again into protection. But dying soon after, and leaving his son Geoffry to succeed in that earldom, the king was of opinion he could not any where bestow his daughter with more advantage, both for the security and enlargement of his dominions, than by giving her to this earl; by which marriage Anjou would become an acquisition to Normandy, and this be a more equal match to so formidable a neighbour as France. In a short time the marriage was concluded; and this earl . XVI.