HENRY I ing of England, surnamed Beauclere, or the Scholar, was the fourth and youngest son of William the Conqueror, by his queen Matilda of Flanders, and was born in 1003 at Selby in York shire, being the only one of the sons of the Conqueror who was an Englishman by birth. Hie surname attests that he had received a more literary education than was then usually given either to the sons of kings or to laymen of any rank ; and this advantage was seconded by natural abilities of a superior order. From an early age he and his next brother, William, appear to have monopolised the favour of their father to the exclusion of his eldest son, Robert (Richard, the second son, died in his youth); and Roberts first recourse to arms is even attributed to his indignation at having cue day had a pitcher of water thrown down upon his head, in mockery or sport, at the town of L'Aigle iu Normandy, by his two younger brothers, and at his father's refusal to punish them for the insult. If this incident took place at all it must however have been when Henry was a mere child, not beyond his eighth or ninth year : his brother Williem was about twelve years his senior. In the last days of their father's reign jealousies arose between these two brothers; aull in this new family quarrel the father seems to have attached himself to the one who was on the whole most like himself in character. At his death iu 1037, the Conqueror expressed his wish that William should be his successor in the crown of England, and only left Henry a legacy of 5090/. of silver. With 3000/. of this however Henry soon after obtaiued, from tho facility of his brother Robert, the whole of the district of Cotentin, comprehending nearly a third of Normandy. Although in the first instance a quarrel between the two arose out of this bargain, they were afterwards reconciled ; and in ]090, when tho intrigues of William, now king of England, had excited a revolt of the Norman barons against Robert, Henry came to the assistance of the latter, and was chiefly instrumental in putting down the insurrection. Upon this occasion Henry gave a striking proof of the relentless determination of his character. Conan, a rich burgess of Rouen, one of the most active and powerful of those who had taken part iu the treason, having fallen into the hands of his enemies, Duke Robert thought it puuish ment enough to condemn him to perpetual imprisonment; but Henry, deeming it expedient to have better security against his future attempts, led the unfortunate man, on pretence of giving him a view of the sur rounding country, to the highest tower of the castle in which he was confined, and threw him over the battlements. Wheu Robert and
William made peace the following year, they turned their united arms against Henry, who was soon compelled to evacuate even his last stronghold—the fortress built on the lofty rock of St. Michael; after which he wandered about for some two years in a state of nearly complete destitution. At length, ou the invitation of the inhabitants of the town of Domfrout, he assumed the government of that place ; and it would appear that from this point d'appui he gradually raised himself to the repossession of nearly all the territory that he had lost. He also became reconciled to Rufus, and was iu England and in the New Forest with that king when he carne by his death (2nd of August 1100). That sudden and mysterious event (which very possibly his hand or his contrivance may have caused, and into which at least he never instituted any inquiry), made Henry king of England. His reign is reckoned from Sunday the 3rd of August, on which day ho was crowned in Westminster Abbey by Maurice, bishop of London. The next day he published a charter confirming the rights and liberties both of the Church and of the nation, and promising the restoration of the laws of the Confessor, with only such alterations as bad been made iu them by his father. All the circumstances of Henry's acces sion furnish strong evidence of the great importance which the Saxon population had already recovered since the Conquest. Henry from the first put forward his Euglish birth as one of his chief claims to acceptance with his subjects; and he hastened to strengthen this title by an act which almost amounted to a tacit admission that the rights of the old Saxon line were not yet extinct—his marriage with Maud, or Matilda, daughter of Malcolm, king of Scotland, and niece of Edgar Atheling, which, after a delay occasioned by the reluctance of the princess to unite herself to the supplanter of her house, and by the circumstance of her having been at least designed to pass her days as the inmate of a nunnery, if she had not actually taken the veil, was at last celebrated on Suuday the 11th of November. As soon as he assumed the crown, Henry affected a complete change of manners, I laying aside the open licentiousness in which ho had heretofore Indulged, and with much apparent zeal clearing the court of the mistresses and profligate minions of the late king; but this show of reformation, like most of his other professions, was soon found to be merely an expedient adopted for the purposes of tho moment.