such a union could hardly, or rather impossibly be of long duration. But Henry and his ministers, and also many of his contemporaries, were sensible that this connection with Anjou not merely secured to the English crown the possession of certain provinces, but they well comprehended what an influential position with regard to France and, consequently, to the whole political system of Europe, England might through them obtain. But Henry had soon to experience that the realization of great ideas only too easily miscarries through the personality of those concerned in executing them. Scarcely had Henry reached England after the termination of the Flemish dissensions and the settlement of matters in Normandy connected with them, when, shortly after the marriage which had taken place at Whitsuntide (15 July 1129) he received intelligence that his daughter had been contumeliously put away by her young consort, and had returned to Rouen1. The uncertainty of Matilda's succession, which was generally acknowledged, must, no doubt, have tended to aggravate the misunderstanding between them. In the following year (8 Sept. 1130) Henry summoned a great council of the nobles to attend him at Northampton, for the purpose of deliberating on the request made by count Geoffrey for the return of his consort. This was agreed to, and, at the same time, the oath, which assured to Matilda the succession to the crown, was renewed, and also taken by those who had not sworn on the former occasion. Henry thereupon proceeded with his daughter to Normandy, where count Geoffrey received his wife in an honourable manner. In the following years, the birth of two children was for some time a source of domestic pleasure, and brought Henry repeatedly and at length for several years back to Normandy. But Geoffrey's demands for certain castles in Normandy, promised to him on his marriage, but which the king refused to deliver to him, his wars against the king's relations, and lastly, his demand,

1 Sim. Dunelm. a. 1129. 2 Hen. Hunt. a. 1130. W. Malm. p. 698.

be expected that, even weakened as they were by the settlement of Norman barons in the midst of their country, they would, during so long a reign, continue either peaceful subjects or neighbours. Already in the insurrection of Robert of Belesme they took part with the rebels. Availing himself therefore of a year when he was not engaged in foreign warfare, Henry adopted an apparently peaceful, although in the execution perhaps, severe method of confirming the subjection of the Welsh, and, at the same time, rendering harmless an enemy of the public tranquillity that he was harbouring in the midst of his realm. His father, the Conqueror, had been followed to England by many Flemings, the greater number of whom sojourned in the northern counties, as most congenial both to their habits and native climate. Many of these also dwelt dispersed over all the other parts of England, and were very vexatious to the inhabitants1. Other bodies of Flemings had been driven from their country by inundations (1106), the greater number of whom had sought shelter in Germany, while others had betaken themselves to England 2. To these Henry had at first assigned the desolated lands on and beyond the Tweed. It is not improbable that it was owing to his connection with the emperor Henry, that the thought occurred to him of planting Flemish colonies among the Welsh, after the example set him in Germany of employing them to curb the Slavish nations and in the culture of the land. Henry collected all those Flemings settled in England, who had not previously acquired more considerable possessions, and sent them to the western parts of Wales, to the land of Rhos, and the neighbourhood of Haverford and

1 W. Malm. p. 628.

2 The account of this second immigration of Flemings has by Bromton been assigned to the year 1106, and from him by Knyghton, p. 2377, and by Powel, History of Wales, p. 128.

3 In the year 1106 the " privilegium" of the Flemish colonists was granted by the archbishop Adelbero of Hamburg. See Lindenbrog, Scriptt. Rer. Septent.

Tenby1. Antiquaries have imagined that the posterity of these colonists may, both by their manners and language, be recognised down to the latest times. They were advantageous to the kingdom, if not, as elsewhere, for the construction of dikes, yet through the weaving of wool and their knowledge of husbandry, though at first chiefly as military mercenaries. The land ceded to them was the western point of Wales, where Milford-haven afforded the best place for embarkation to England, and where Arnold of Shrewsbury had already availed himself of his acquired territory in an attempt on the royal crown of Ireland. After his expulsion from England, his constable, Gerald of Windsor, defended the castle of Pembroke, which was assailed by the Welsh, with as much valour as artifice, and caused them to retire at the moment when his provisions failed, by casting to them, on the preceding day, as a present over the wall, the small portion still remaining, accompanied by vaunting words, and by a letter which he had caused to fall into their hands, in which it was stated that he could well hold out for four months longer. He afterwards espoused Nesta, the daughter of Rhys ap Theodor, the last king of South Wales, sister of prince Griffith, and one of the numerous mistresses of king Henry, to whom she had borne two sons, one named after his father, and Robert earl of Gloucester3. A grandson of Gerald and Nesta was the noted Gerald, to whose numerous writings we are indebted for the best accounts of the ancient state of Wales.

Notwithstanding the valour of his vassals and colonists in Wales, Henry was unable to secure peace and tranquillity in that country. Dissensions among the several tribes never ceased, through whose mutual support of each other violent

1 Flor. Wigorn. a. 1111. W. Malm. p. 493. Bromton, col. 1003.

2 Giraldi Cambrens. Itiner. lib. i. c. 11. and H. Lluyd on Powell's note; also Rot. Magn. Pipa 31 Hen. I. pp. 136 sq. contains mention of the Flemings in Pembrokeshire.

3 Giraldi Cambrens. Itiner. lib. ii. c. 7.

wars sometimes burst forth, which not unfrequently required the armed interposition of the king. A short time before the planting of the Flemish colony in Rhos, Henry had been compelled to enter the country, on which occasion even the aid of king Alexander of Scotland is said to have been demanded (1111). But still more serious was the appearance of Griffith, son of that Rhys, who had been slain twenty years previously. Griffith, who had been reared in Ireland, excited by his return to his native country the minds of all the South Welsh. He succeeded in taking Caermarthen from the Normans, and found considerable support in Cardigan, the castle of which was held by Gilbert Strongbow, earl of Strigul. Gerald of Windsor and the Flemings were thereby completely cut off from the rest of the English, and Henry found it necessary, for the safety of his barons there, to lead his warriors to Wales in person (1114). Under his direction his brave son, Robert of Gloucester, suppressed the insurrection, and a number of new castles and forts were erected, and distributed among the Normans and Flemings2, of whom many of the latter had been sent to Cardigan, which was held by Richard of Clare3. In two years after this a new rebellion was raised. The noble-hearted Griffith retained only a small part of the cantref Mawr, in Caermarthenshire, in his possession; yet did the natives of the ancient Deheubarth pay him the respect due to the old princes of their country, a respect allowed even by Henry himself. In the summer following the king's second marriage, a new expedition against Wales was found necessary (1122), during which, in Powys, he was stricken with an arrow, but which was fortunately arrested

i Powell, pp. 139 sq. The English chroniclers make no mention of the king's presence in Wales in this year.

2 Sax. Chron. h. a. Powell, lib. i., who does not, however, mention the king's presence.

3 Giraldus, lib. i. c. 4.

4 Flor. Wigorn. a. 1116.

by his chain-armour1. For a series of years we hear of no further disturbances of magnitude; the natives were held down by the iron hand of foreigners, who, like the Flemings in Germany, may have been followed by numbers of their wandering and adventurous countrymen. By these strangers the Welsh were expelled from one possession after another, and those who resisted stricken down like dogs. The people, thus provoked beyond endurance, again rose in the latter years of Henry's reign (1134), burned Caus, a castle of Payne fitz John, sheriff of Hereford and Shrewsbury, one of the king's most distinguished counsellors and scribes, and wreaked most barbarous vengeance on their captives. Henry hereupon resolved to leave his beloved Normandy, for the purpose of proceeding once more against the never totally subdued ancient Britons; but thrice did the wind drive him back on the coast of his paternal home, which death, that overtook him shortly after, did not permit him again to leave 2.

By dissensions with his son-in-law, Henry found himself detained still for some months in Normandy. At Lions, near Rouen, he had been enjoying his favourite diversion of the chase, on his return from which he was suddenly seized with illness, the consequence, it is said, of a surfeit of lampreys, which, in a few days, terminated in death (1st Dec. 1135). Time and quiet were afforded him for the adoption of many measures of mercy and beneficence. He recalled the exiled, remitted pecuniary mulcts, restored to their paternal inheritance those who had been displaced; sixty thousand pounds of silver he caused to be distributed among his servants, his mercenaries, and the poor. His body, according to his desire,

1 Sax. Chron. h. a. Giraldus, lib. i. c. 2. W. Malm. p. 628. Eadmer, p. 138. Powell, p. 152, who erroneously places this expedition in the year

1118.

2 Ord. Vital. p. 900. Gesta Stephani, edit. E. H. S. p. 9. Payne was lord of Ewias. [A. D. 1132 a considerable part of London, together with St. Paul's cathedral, was consumed by fire. Fl. Wigorn.-T.]