throne, he refused to do it, saying that he was forbidden by our lord the pope, and that Stephen, being a usurper, could not, like a legitimate sovereign, transmit his crown to his posterity. The king, unto whom the archbishop had taken the oath of allegiance, waxed wroth, and threatened the archbishop with a punishment sharper than banishment; but, when the first passion of anger was over, he did nothing. Men censured the archbishop at the time, but they afterwards thought he had taken the wisest course for putting an end to this long war. In the interim Henry Fitz-empress had been again in our island. In the year eleven hundred and forty-nine, having attained the military age of sixteen, Henry Plantagenet came over to Scotland with a splendid retinue, to be made a knight by his mother's uncle, King David. The ceremony was performed with much magnificence in the city of Carlisle, where the old Scottish king did then keep his court; and most of the nobles of Scotland and many of our great English barons were present at the celebration, and did then and there make note of the many high qualities of the truly great and ever to be remembered son of the Countess Matilda. All manner of honours and power alighted on the head of Henry Plantagenet soon after his being knighted at Carlisle. The death of his father Geoffrey left him in full possession of the dukedom of Normandie, which he had governed for him, and of the earldom of Anjou, which was his own birthright; and in that lucky year for the house of Plantagenet, the year of our redemption eleven hundred and fifty-two, by espousing Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry acquired that great dame's rights to the earldom of Poictou and the great duchy of Aquitaine. Henry was thus the greatest and richest prince in all the main land of Europe, and albeit he was only in his twentieth year, he already knew the arts of government and of war better than any of his neighbours. A great prince was he from his cradle: he was born to command.