A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies | Page 6

it. The Duke riding one day to take the air passed by a company of country girls, who were dancing, and was so taken with the graceful carriage of one of them, named Harlotte, a skinner's daughter, that he prevailed on her to cohabit with him, and she was ten months after delivered of William, who, having reigned 21 years, died at Rouen, in September, 1087.
WILLIAM II. sirnamed Rufus, succeeded his father; he built Westminster-hall, rebuilt London-bridge, and made a new wall round the Tower of London. In his time the sea overflowed a great part of the estate belonging to Earl Goodwin, in Kent, which is at this day called the Goodwin Sands. The King was killed accidentally by an arrow in the New Forest, and left no issue. He reigned fourteen years, and was buried in Winchester Cathedral.
HENRY I. youngest son of William the Conqueror, succeeded his brother William II. in 1100. He reduced Normandy, and made his son Duke thereof. This Prince died in Normandy of a surfeit, by eating lampreys after hunting, having reigned 35 years.
STEPHEN, sirnamed of Blois, succeeded his uncle Henry I. in 1135; but being continually harassed by the Scotch and Welsh, and having reigned 19 years in an uninterrupted series of troubles, he died at Dover in 1154, and was buried in the Abbey at Feversham, which he had erected for the burial place of himself and family.
HENRY II. son of Geoffrey Plantagenet, Earl of Anjou, succeeded Stephen in 1154. In him the Norman and Saxon blood was united, and with him began the race of the Plantagenets, which ended with Richard III. In this King's reign Thomas �� Becket, son to a tradesman in London, being made Lord High Chancellor, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, affected on all occasions to oppose and to be independent of the court. The King hearing of his misbehaviour, complained that he had not one to revenge him on a wretched priest for the many insults he had put upon him. Hereupon four of his domestics, in hopes to gain favour, set out immediately for Canterbury, and beat out Thomas's brains with clubs, as he was saying vespers in his own cathedral, in so cruel a manner, that the altar was covered with blood. King Henry subdued Ireland, and died there in 1189, in the 34th year of his reign.
RICHARD I. succeeded his father Henry II. and was no sooner crowned than he took upon him the cross, and went with Philip, King of France, to the Holy Land in 1192. On his return he was detained by the Emperor Henry VI. and was obliged to pay 100,000 marks for his ransom. In a war which succeeded between England and France, Richard fought personally in the field, and gained a complete victory over the enemy, but was afterwards shot by an arrow at the siege of the Castle of Chalus, and died of the wound April 6, 1199.
JOHN, the fourth son of Henry II. took possession of the crown on Richard's decease, though his nephew Arthur of Bretagne, son of his elder brother Geoffrey Plantagenet, had an undoubted title to it.
His encroachments on the privileges of his people called forth the opposition of the spirited and potent Barons of that day: John was reduced to great straits; and Pope Innocent III. with the usual policy of the Holy Fathers, sided with John's disaffected subjects, and fulminated the thunders of the church against him, till he had brought him to his own terms: the King surrendered his crown at the feet of the Pope's Legate, who returned it to him on his acknowledging that he held it as the vassal of the Holy See, and binding himself and successors to pay an annual tribute thereto. The Barons and their cause were to be sacrificed to the Pope's interest, and the Legate commanded them to lay down their arms; they were however bold enough to make head against this powerful league, and by their steady opposition to the King, and their moderate demands when their efforts were crowned with success, immortalized their names: John was obliged to sign out two famous charters--the first called Magna Charta, or the Charter of Liberties; the second the Charter of Forests; which two charters have since been the foundation of the liberties of this nation. Some time after, having thrown himself into a fever by eating peaches, he died at Newark October 28, 1216.
HENRY III. succeeded his father John in 1216, being but nine years old. He reigned 56 years, during the greatest part of which he was embroiled in a civil war. He founded the house of converts, and an hospital, in Oxford, and died at St. Edmundsbury in 1272.
EDWARD I. though in the Holy Land when his father died, yet