To King Henry the birth of his grandson was the crowning of all his hopes. The greatest difficulty which had hitherto stood in the way of his scheme for the descent of the crown--the objection which was sure to be made against Matilda on account of her sex--would lose more than half its force now that she could be regarded as regent for her infant son; and Henry at once summoned another great council at which he again made the archbishops, bishops, earls and barons of his realm swear fealty to the Empress “and also to her little son whom he appointed to be king after him.”[650] All things seemed as safe as human foresight could make them when in the beginning of August he crossed over to Normandy.[651] Signs and wonders in earth and sky, related afterwards as tokens of coming evil, accompanied his voyage;[652] but nearly two years passed away before the portents were fulfilled. In the spring Matilda joined her father at Rouen, and there, shortly before Whitsuntide, her second son was born.[653] The old king’s pleasure in his two little grandchildren was great enough to keep him lingering on in Normandy with them and their mother, leaving England to the care of Bishop Roger, till the middle of the following year,[654] when there came tidings of disturbance on the Welsh border which made him feel it was time he should return.[655] His daughter however set herself against his departure. Her policy is not very clear; but it seems impossible to acquit her of playing a double game and secretly instigating her husband to attack her father while the latter was living with her in unsuspecting intimacy and confidence. Geoffrey now suddenly put forth a claim to certain castles in Normandy which he asserted had been promised to him at his marriage.[656] Henry denied the claim; the Angevin temper burst forth at once; Geoffrey attacked and burned the castle of Beaumont, whose lord was like himself a son-in-law of Henry, and altogether behaved with such insulting violence that the king in his wrath was on the point of taking Matilda, who was with him at Rouen all the while, back with him to England. But he now found it impossible to leave Normandy. The land was full of treason; many barons who only disguised their real feelings from awe of the stern old king had been gained over in secret to the Angevin cause; among those whose fidelity was most suspected were Roger of Toëny and William Talvas the lord of Alençon, who had been restored to the forfeited estates of his family at the intercession of Geoffrey’s father in 1119. Roger’s castle of Conches was garrisoned by the king; William Talvas was summoned to Rouen more than once, but the conscious traitor dared not shew his face; at last Henry again seized his estates, and then, in September, Talvas fled across the border to be received with open arms by the count of Anjou.[657] The countess pleaded warmly with her father for the traitor’s pardon, but in vain.