Henry II. died on the 6th of July, 1189, at the age of fifty-six, having reigned nearly thirty-five years. Of the king's personal character, very different estimates have been formed by different historians. Those who look at a many-sided character from their own narrow standpoint, will, necessarily, paint that side only which is presented to them, leaving the rest in shadow; and thus we find Henry II. described on the one hand as a man almost without blemish, and, on the other, as utterly destitute of public or private virtue. It appears probable that he had little abstract regard for the welfare of the people, but he was fully alive to his own interests, and he perceived those interests to be bound up in the national prosperity. He therefore laboured to promote the well-being of his subjects, as absolute monarchs, in later times, have done from a similar motive. He was inordinately ambitious, and was heard to say, in moments of triumph, that the whole world was a portion little enough for a great man. He was skilled in the arts of diplomacy, and accustomed to use dissimulation and falsehood whenever an advantage was to be gained thereby. Instances have been given of the ungovernable fits of passion to which Henry in his younger days was subject; these appear to have been much less frequent as he grew past middle age. Without any self-control in moments of anger, he was at other times remarkable for acting with calm judgment and calculation. In his relations with women he was extremely licentious. Among his mistresses was one who has been celebrated in various romantic tales, most of which are without any foundation in truth. "Fair Rosamond" was the daughter of Walter Clifford, a baron of Herefordshire, whose castle was situated on one of the heights overlooking the valley of the Wye, between the Welsh Hay and Hereford. Henry fell in love with her before he ascended the throne, and she bore to him two sons, who have been already mentioned as aiding their father at the time of the partial rebellion in England. One of these was William, called Longsword, from the size of the weapon which he carried, who married the daughter of the Earl of Salisbury, and succeeded to his estates; the other was Geoffrey, Bishop of Lincoln, and subsequently Archbishop of York. While Henry was still a young man, Rosamond retired to the convent of Godstow, near to Oxford, where, after a few years, she died. During her residence there, Henry bestowed many valuable presents upon the convent for her sake, and the nuns, who seem to have been actuated by a personal regard for her, as well as by a recollection of the benefits she had conferred upon them, buried her in their choir, burning tapers round her tomb, and showing to her remains other marks of honour. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, twenty years afterwards, gave the nuns to understand that one who had led an impure life, even though the mistress of a king, was not worthy to lie in the sacred edifice.