Meanwhile, Beauclerc had not improved his reputation in the country where he reigned as king. He had been faithless at once to the Saxon people who had placed him on the throne, and to the Saxon princess who, for the sake of her race, had, somewhat against her inclination, united her fate with his. Every promise made to the English had been so unscrupulously violated, that they began to speak of royalty as synonymous with crime; and Maude died with the melancholy reflection that she had sacrificed herself for her race in vain. Ere "the good queen" was laid at rest in the cathedral of Winchester, she made Henry father of two children--a son, William Atheling, who married a daughter of the Count of Anjou, and a daughter, Matilda, wife of Henry, Emperor of Germany. The son, however, was drowned while on his voyage from Normandy in a vessel called _The White Ship_; and the daughter, on the death of her imperial husband, returned to England a young and beautiful widow. About that time, Fulke, Count of Anjou, bowed down with grief at the loss of his wife, undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to seek consolation at the Holy Sepulchre. Before going, Fulke gave Anjou to his eldest son, Geoffrey, who, from wearing a sprig of flowering broom in his hat instead of a feather, was surnamed Plantagenet. Being an accomplished and handsome prince, Geoffrey Plantagenet had the good fortune to secure the friendship of Henry Beauclerc and the hand of the Empress Matilda, who was expected to succeed, on her father's death, to the crown of England and the coronal of Normandy. It was, however, otherwise ordered. When, in 1135, Henry Beauclerc, having eaten lampreys to excess--such is the story--breathed his last in Normandy, his martial nephew, Stephen of Bouillon, claimed the English crown, and seated himself on the throne. But Matilda was not the woman to submit tamely to exclusion under such circumstances; and a war of succession between her and Stephen was the consequence. A long and sanguinary struggle resulted, and continued, with varying success, till 1153, when it was agreed, by the treaty of Wallingford, that Stephen should be allowed to reign during his life, on condition of recognising young Henry Plantagenet, the son of Geoffrey and Matilda, as his heir. Next year, on the death of Stephen, Henry, who, by his marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine, had extended his continental dominions from the Channel to the Pyrenees, was crowned King of England in the cathedral of Winchester. From the first he seems to have been in high favour with the nation. In fact, the people, remembering that he derived his descent, through his grandmother, "the good queen Maude," from the ancient monarchs of England, called him "the Saxon king," described him as the natural foe of the Norman nobles, and believed him favourable to such a system of laws as popular tradition ascribed to Edward the Confessor.