Already while Henry was in Ireland, the discontent of the young king had been noticed and reported to him. It had been speedily discovered that the coronation carried with it no power, though the young Henry was of an age to rule according to the ideas of the time,--of the age, indeed, at which his father had begun the actual government of Normandy. But he found himself, as a contemporary called him, "our new king who has nothing to reign over." It is probable, however, that the scantiness of the revenues supplied him to support his new dignity and to maintain his court had more to do with his discontent than the lack of political power. The courtly virtue of "largesse," which his father followed with some restraint where money was concerned, was with him a more controlling ideal of conduct. A brilliant court, joyous and gay, given up to minstrelsy and tournaments, seemed to him a necessity of life, and it could not be had without much money. Contemporary literature shows that the young king had all those genial gifts of manner, person, and spirit, which make their possessors universally popular. He was of more than average manly beauty, warm-hearted, cordial, and generous. He won the personal love of all men, even of his enemies, and his early death seemed to many, besides the father whom he had so sorely tried, to leave the world darker. Clearly he belongs in the list of those descendants of the Norman house, with the Roberts and the Stephens, who had the gifts which attract the admiration and affection of men, but at the same time the weakness of character which makes them fatal to themselves and to their friends. To a man of that type, even without the incentive of the spirit of the time, no amount of money could be enough. It is hardly possible to doubt that the emptiness of his political title troubled the mind of the young Henry far less than the emptiness of his purse.[47]