and errors that may be pointed out in the Chronicles, he still appears in the same light. Effeminacy, drunkenness, gluttony, dissoluteness, and unnatural crimes were the distinguishing characteristics of his court. He was himself an example of incontinence." This is a nice character to travel with down the page of history. He quarrelled with his brothers, and with his uncle, and kept up the family character in an exceedingly satisfactory manner, considering that he was unmarried. The statement that he was slain by Walter Tirel, accidentally, in the New Forest, is now disregarded. Our theory of his death is, that he fell a victim to the ambition of his brother, Henry I., who succeeded him, and who certainly had good information as to his fall, and made good use of it, like a sensible fellow. Of all the royal races of the Middle Ages, no one stands out more boldly on the historic page than the Plantagenets, who ruled over England from 1154 to 1485, the line of descent being frequently broken, and family quarrels constantly occurring. They were a bold and an able race, and if they had possessed a closer resemblance to the Hapsburgs, they would have become masters of Western Europe; but their quarrelsome disposition more than undid all that they could effect through the exercise of their talents. On the female side they were descended from the Conqueror; and, as we have seen, the Conqueror's family was one in which sons rebelled against the fathers, and brother fought with brother. Matilda, daughter of Henry I., became the wife of Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, and from their union came Henry II., first of the royal Plantagenets. Now the Angevine Plantagenets were "a hard set," as we should say in these days. Dissensions were common enough in the family, and they descended to the offspring of Geoffrey and Matilda, being in fact intensified by the elevation of the House to a throne. Henry II. married Eleanora of Aquitaine, one of the greatest matches of those days, a marriage which has had great effect on modern history. The Aquitanian House was as little distinguished for the practice of the moral virtues as were the lines of Anjou and Normandy. One of the Countesses of Anjou was reported to be a demon, which probably meant only that her husband had caught a Tartar in marrying her; but the story was enough to satisfy the credulous people of those times, who, very naturally, considering their conduct, believed that the Devil was constant in his attention to their affairs. It was to this lady that Richard Cocur de Lion referred, when he said, speaking of the family contentions, "Is it to be wondered at, that, coming from such a source, we live ill with one another? What comes from the Devil must to the Devil return." With such an origin on his father's side, crossing the fierce character of his mother, Henry II. thought he could not do better than marry Eleanora, whose origin was almost as bad as his own.