Whilst Henry was extending his conquests to the western limits of the known world, the whole fabric of his power was privately sapped and undermined, and ready to overwhelm him with the ruins, in the very moment when he seemed to be arrived at the highest and most permanent point of grandeur and glory. His excessive power, his continual accessions to it, and an ambition which by words and actions declared that the whole world was not sufficient for a great man, struck a just terror into all the potentates near him: he was, indeed, arrived at that pitch of greatness, that the means of his ruin could only be found in his own family. A numerous offspring, which is generally considered as the best defence of the throne, and the support as well as ornament of declining royalty, proved on this occasion the principal part of the danger. Henry had in his lawful bed, besides daughters, four sons, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, and John, all growing up with great hopes from their early courage and love of glory. No father was ever more delighted with these hopes, nor more tender and indulgent to his children. A custom had long prevailed in France for the reigning king to crown his eldest son in his lifetime. By this policy, in turbulent times, and whilst the principles of succession were unsettled, he secured the crown to his posterity. Henry gladly imitated a policy enforced no less by paternal affection than its utility to public peace. He had, during his troubles with Becket, crowned his son Henry, then no more than sixteen years old. But the young king, even on the day of his coronation, discovered an haughtiness which threatened not to content itself with the share of authority to which the inexperience of his youth and the nature of a provisional crown confined him. The name of a king continually reminded him that he only possessed the name. The King of France, whose daughter he had espoused, fomented a discontent which grew with his years. Geoffrey, who had married the heiress of Bretagne, on the death of her father claimed to no purpose the entire sovereignty of his wife's inheritance, which Henry, under a pretence of guardianship to a son of full age, still retained in his hands. Richard had not the same plausible pretences, but he had yet greater ambition. He contended for the Duchy of Guienne before his mother's death, which, alone could give him the color of a title to it. The queen, his mother, hurried on by her own unquiet spirit, or, as some think, stimulated by jealousy, encouraged their rebellion against her husband. The King of France, who moved all the other engines, engaged the King of Scotland, the Earl of Flanders, then a powerful prince, the Earl of Blois, and the Earl of Boulogne in the conspiracy. The barons in Bretagne, in Guienne, and even in England, were ready to take up arms in the same cause; whether it was that they perceived the uniform plan the king had pursued in order to