The first of the Plantagenets was no common man. Like most of his race, he was a born statesman; and also like most of them, he allowed his evil passions and natural corruption such free scope that his talents were smothered under their weight. In person he was of middle stature, somewhat thickly built, with a large round head covered by curly hair, cut square upon the forehead. Long arms ended in large hands, the care of which he entirely neglected, never wearing gloves save when he carried a hawk. His complexion was slightly florid, his eyes small but clear and sparkling, dove-like when he was pleased, but flashing fire in his anger. Though his voice was tremulous, yet he could be an eloquent speaker. He rarely sat down, but commonly stood, whether at mass, council, or meals. Except on ceremonial occasions, he was extremely careless in his attire, wearing short clothes of a homely cut, and requiring some persuasion to renew them. He detested every thing that came in the way of his convenience, whether long skirts, hanging sleeves, royal mantles, or boots with folding tops. He was (for his time) a great reader, a "huge lover of the woods" and of all sylvan sports, fond of travelling, a very small eater, a generous almsgiver, a faithful friend--and a good hater. The model example which he set before him as a statesman was that of his grandfather, Henry First. The Empress Maud, his mother, was above all things Norman, and was now living in Normandy in peaceful old age. Perhaps her stormy and eventful life had made her _feel_ weary of storms, for she rarely emerged from her retirement except in the character of a peacemaker. Certainly she had learnt wisdom by adversity. Her former supercilious sternness was gone, and a meek and quiet spirit, which earned the respect of all, had taken its place. She may have owed that change, and her quiet close of life, instrumentally, in some measure to the prayers of the good Queen Maud, that sweet and saintly mother to whom Maud the Empress had in her childhood and maturity been so complete a contrast, and whom she now resembled in her old age. Her son was unhappily not of her later tone, but rather of the earlier, though he rarely reached those passionate depths of pride and bitterness through which his aged mother had struggled into calm. He did not share her Norman proclivities, but looked back--as the mass of his people did with him--to the old Saxon laws of Alfred and of Athelstan, which he called the customs of his grandfather. In a matter of trial for heresy, or a question of doctrine, he was the obedient servant of Rome; but when the Pope laid officious hands on the venerable customs of England, and strove to dictate in points of state law, he found no obedient servant in Henry of Anjou.