In 1183 however another outbreak of the fierce and turbulent spirit of the princes led the way to a new succession of family wars. This time Richard took up arms against Henry and Geoffrey, because his father called upon him to do homage to Henry for Aquitaine. A reconcilement between the brothers, effected by their father's inter ference, only suspended hostilities for a few months; the old king and his son Richard were then compelled to take the field against the other two. After deserting his father and his youngest brother alternately about half a dozen times, Prince Henry was suddenly taken ill, and died at Chateau-Martel, 11th June 1183, in the twenty-seventh year of his age. Geoffrey still held out, supported by the chief nobility of Aquitaine, where there was a strong feeling of the people against the English king for his treatment of their hereditary chieftainess Eleanor ; but he too in a short time made his submission and implored his father's pardon. A solemn family reconciliation then took place, at which even Eleanor was released from her prison and allowed to be present. But it did not last for more than a few months; Geoffrey then, in consequence of his father refusing to surrender to him the earldom of Anjou, fled to the court of France, where Philip II. was now king, and prepared for a new war; but before ho could carry his design into execution he was, in August .1186, thrown from his horse at a tournament, and so severely injured that he died in a few days after. No sooner was Geoffrey thus removed than his brother Richard hastened to the French court to take his place; but after unsuccess fully attempting to excite a new revolt in Aquitaine, be was compelled to throw himself upon his father's clemency. A project of a new crusade, at the call of pope Clement Ill., in the beginning of 1188, for a moment united Henry and Philip ; the impetuous Richard actually took the cross, carried away by the feeling which thrilled all Europe on the arrival of the news of the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin in the preceding September; but before the end of the same year the unhappy father saw his son again bearing arms against him in alliance with the French king. The pretext on the part of Philip and of Richard for this new war was Henry's refusal to deliver up the Princess Alice, the sister of Philip, and the affianced bride of Richard, whose person, as well as part of her dowry, he had for many years bad in his possession. Richard pretended to believe that his father wished to marry the princess himself, and even asserted or insinuated that her honour had already fallen a sacrifice to Henry's passion ; it appears to be certain however that her restitution was only made a demand of the two confederates for popular effect, and PM a very small part of their real object. Richard, having first done homage to Philip for all hie father's continental possessions, imme diately proceeded to wrest them from the old man by the sword. Henry's spirit seems now to have given way at last, and the resistance he offered to hls son was feeble and ineffective. The pope made an attempt to bring about a reconciliation, which failed; in the end Henry was compelled to sue for peace, on which he and Philip met on a plain between Tours and Azay-eur-Cher, when it was agreed, among other humiliating conditions, that all Henry's vassals, both continental and English, should do homage to Richard, in acknow ledgment of his rights as heir-apparent, and that all those persons who had taken his side should from that time be considered as his liegemen, unless they should of their own accord return to his father. Henry was stretched on a sick-bed when this treaty was read to him ; but when he found in the list of those that had deserted him to join Richard, his youngest and favourite son John, whose fidelity till now ho had never had cause to suspect, tho discovery appears to have broken his heart; be turned himself to the wall, saying that all his interest in the world was over. Ho was soon after removed to Chinon, on the Loire ; and there, alter a few days more of suffering, he died, 6th of July 11SP, In the fifty-seventh year of his age and thirty-fifth of his reign. lie was buried in the choir of the abbey of Fontorrand, in the presence of his son Richard, who succeeded him on the throne.
The character of this great king is a mixture of all the qualities, good and bad, naturally arising out of a strong Intellect, a strong will, and strong passions. llis faculties had In early life received a learned
training, and to the end of his days he preserved an attachment to literature and to the conversation of scholars. The age was distin guished throughout Western Europe, both from that which preceded and from that which followed it, by a revival of elegant letters, which, from its speedy evanescence, appears to have been premature; and Henry drew around him many of the chief lights of the time, both natives of England and of other countries. Among these two of the most conspicuous names were John of Salisbury and Peter of Blois, both of whom have left ns ample testimony, in their writings, how greatly they were dazzled by his brilliant and commanding genius. And if on the one hand he was ambitious, unscrupulous, licentious, and easily kindled to frantic excesses of rage, it must be admitted on the other that he was neither a cruel nor a vindictive or unforgiving enemy, and that he was far from incapable of generous and kindly emotions. Ile has that hold upon our sympathies which springs from the feeling that his enemies were worse men than himself, and from the pity excited by the tragic olose as contrasted with the earlier course of his history, which taken altogether is one of the saddest and most affecting of those which preach to tie the instability of fortune and the cavity of human ambition.
The government of England during this reign was still nearly as despotic in principle as iu the days of the Conqueror and his eons, but the more advanced social condition of the country and the firmer establishment of the new dynasty combined with the temper of the king to render it considerably less oppressive in practice. The augmented security and strength of the crown, and the measures which Henry took to depress or curb the aristocracy, had the effect of relieving the people to some extent of one., and that perhaps the most severe, of the two tyrannies under which they suffered, without adding to the weight of the other. While the power of the herons was curtailed or restrained, that of the throne was certainly not exercised with more, but rather with less insolence and rapacity than formerly. The laws were also administered with greater regularity during this reign than they had been since the Conquest; if the original curia regis, or royal court, was not already separated into the subdivisions out of which have sprung the present Courts of King's Much and Common Pleas (which is doubtful), the importaut institu tion of justices itinerant, or justices in eyre, as they were styled, that is, judges making periodical circuits through the kingdom for the trial of causes, was now made a permauent part of the judicial establish ment of the country. Another important legal improvement now introduced was the substitution in the trial of the species of action called a writ of right of the grand assize, for the old ordeal of battle. The earliest of the English law-writers, Itanulf de Glanville, the sup posed author of the Latin treatise entitled Tractatue de Legibus et Censuetudinibus Anglia,: held the office of chief-justiciary in the time of henry II. To this reign also belong the 'Dialogue de Scaccario,' and the two collections of charters, &c., known as tho Libor Niger' and the Libor Huber.' Henry's children by his queen Eleanor were : 1, 'William, torn 1152, died 1156; 2, Henry, born 28th of February 1155, died 11th of June 1183; 3, Maud, born 1156, married to Henry V., duke of Saxony, died 1189, a few days after her father; 4, Richard, who suc ceeded him on the throne; 5, Geoffrey, born 28th of September 1158, died 19th of August 1186; 6, Eleanor, born 13th of October 1162, married to Alphonse VIII., king of Castile, died 1214; 7, Joan, born October 1164, married to William II., king of Sicily, died 4th of September 1195; and 8, John, who succeeded Richard as king. His illegitimate children were : 1, by the famous Rosamund, daughter of Walter, lord Clifford, William, surnamed De Longeepee, who became Earl of Salisbury in right of his wife Ela, daughter and heiress of William Devercux, died 1226; 2, by the same, Geoffrey, who became Bishop of Lincoln, lord chancellor, and afterwards archbishop of York, And died 18th of December 1212; and 3, by the wife of Rodelph lfiewit, Morgan, a churchman, who held the office of provost of Beverley.