Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/251

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the rule of him who was one day to be called the Lion of Justice, there was a nearer approach to peace and order than could be found in other parts of Normandy. The young Count governed his county well and firmly; no such doings went on in the lands of Coutances and Avranches as went on in the rest of the duchy under the no-rule of Duke Robert.

Henry, Ætheling on one side of the sea and now Count on the other side, next thought of crossing the channel to seek for those estates in his native land which he claimed in right of his mother. These lands, in Cornwall, Buckinghamshire, and specially in Gloucestershire, had mostly formed a part of the forfeited possessions of Brihtric, the man whose name legend has so strangely connected with that of Matilda. Henry must have reached England about the time when the rebellion had been put down, and when the new King might be expected to be in a mood inclined either to justice or to generosity. William received his brother graciously, and granted, promised, or pretended to grant, the restitution of the lands of their mother. Henry, already a ruler on one side of the sea, a sharer in his father's inheritance, went back to his peninsula in a, Constantiniensis comes" in Orderic, 672 D; "comes Henricus" in Will. Gem. viii. 3.]deditione citra mare personuit."]