The youngest son of the sagacious Conqueror, after the death of the “Red king,” by a rare union of audacity and cunning, Henry, had seized the sceptre of the fair island--the hereditary right of his romantic, generous, and gallant brother, who with the feudatories of his Norman duchy was waging war upon the Saracen, neglectful of his own and of his subjects’ interests alike, beneath the burning sun of Syria. Already firmly seated in his usurped dominion ere Robert returned homeward, nor yet contented with his ill-gained supremacy, he had wrung from the bold crusader, partly by force but more by fraud, his continental realms; and adding cruelty which scarcely can be conceived to violence and fraud, deprived him of Heaven’s choicest blessing, sight, and cast him--of late the most renowned and glorious knight in Christendom--a miserable, eyeless captive into the towers of Cardiff, his dungeon while he lived, and after death his tomb! No retributive justice had discharged its thunders upon the guilty one; no gloom sat on his smooth and lordly brow, no thorns had lurked beneath the circle of Henry’s blood-bought diadem. Fortune had smiled on every effort; had granted every wish, however wild; had sanctioned every enterprise, however dubious or desperate: he never had known sorrow; and from his restless, energetic soul, remorse and penitence were banished by the incessant turmoil of ambition and the perpetual excitement of success. And now his dearest wish had been accomplished--the most especial aim and object of his life perfected with such absolute security, that his insatiate soul was satisfied. Absolute lord of England, and undisputed ruler of the fair Cotentin, he had of late disarmed the league which for a time had threatened his security; detaching from the cause of France the powerful count of Anjou, whose daughter--the most lovely lady and the most splendid heiress of the time--he had seen wedded to his first-born and his favorite, William. The previous day he had beheld the haughty barons tender the kiss of homage and swear eternal loyalty to the young heir of England, Normandy, and Anjou; the previous night he had sat glad and glorious at the festive board, encompassed by all that was fair, and noble, and high-born, in the great realms he governed, and among all that proud and graceful circle his eye had looked on none so brave and beautiful as that young, guiltless pair for whom he had imbrued, not his hands only, but his very soul, in blood! He sat on the high dais, beneath the gilded canopy; and as he quaffed the health of those who had alone a kindly tenure of his cold and callous heart, a noble knight approached with bended knee, and placing in his hand a mark of gold--“Fair sir,” he said, “I, a good knight and loyal--Thomas Fitz-Stephen--claim of your grace a boon. My father, Stephen Fitz-Evrard, served faithfully and well, as long as he did live, your father William--served him by sea, and steered the ship with his own