Thus, by the prudence of Archbishop Theobald, the moderation of the two princes engaged, and the universal inclination of the people, a happy period was put to this tedious and troublesome war: men began to have the prospect of a long peace; nor was it easy to foresee what could possibly arise to disturb it; when discovery was made, by accident, of a most horrible piece of treachery, which, if it had met with success, would have once more set the whole nation in a flame. The Duke, after the peace, attended the King to London, to be shewn to the people as the undoubted successor to the crown; and having made a progress together through some other parts of the kingdom, they came to Canterbury; where Henry received private notice of a design upon his life. It hath been already observed, that the King employed in his wars a body of Flemings, to the great discontent of his own subjects, with whom they were very ungracious. These foreigners were much discontented at the peace, whereby they were likely to become useless and burthensome to the present King, and hateful to the successor. To prevent which, the commanders among them began to practise upon the levity and ambition of William the King's son. They urged the indignity he had received in being deprived of his birthright; offered to support his title by their valour, as they had done that of his father; and, as an earnest of their intentions, to remove the chief impediment by dispatching his rival out of the world, The young prince was easily wrought upon to be at the head of this conspiracy; time and place were fixed; when, upon the day appointed, William broke his leg by a fall from his horse; and the conspirators wanting their leader immediately dispersed. This disappointment and delay, as it usually happens among conspirators, were soon followed by a discovery of the whole plot, whereof the Duke, with great discretion, made no other use than to consult his own safety; therefore, without any shew of suspicion or displeasure, he took leave of the King, and returned to Normandy. 1154. Stephen lived not above a year to share the happiness of this peace with his people, in which time he made a progress through most parts of the kingdom, where he gained universal love and veneration, by a most affable and courteous behaviour to all men. A few months after his return he went to Dover, to have an interview with the Earl of Flanders;[43] where, after a short sickness, he died of the iliac passion, together with his old distemper the hemorrhoids, upon the twenty-fifth day of October, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the nineteenth of his reign. [Footnote 43: The Earl of Flanders was a potent sovereign on the continent, and had landed at Dover, in order to meet and confer with the King. [D.S.]]