1120.
But this public prosperity of Henry was much overbalanced by a domestic calamity, which befell him. His only son, William, had now reached his eighteenth year; and the king, from the facility with which he himself had usurped the crown, dreading that a like revolution might subvert his family, had taken care to have him recognized successor by the states of the kingdom, and had carried him over to Normandy, that he might receive the homage of the barons of that duchy. The king, on his return, set sail from Barfleur, and was soon carried by a fair wind out of sight of land. The prince was detained by some accident; and his sailors, as well as their captain, Thomas Fitz-Stephens, having spent me interval in drinking, were so flustered, that, being in a hurry to follow the king, they heedlessly carried the ship on a rock, where she immediately foundered. William was put into the long boat, and had got clear of the ship, when, hearing the cries of his natural sister, the countess of Perche, he ordered the seamen to row back, in hopes of saving her: but the numbers who then crowded in, soon sunk the boat; and the prince with all his retinue perished. Above a hundred and forty young noblemen, of the principal families of England and Normandy, were lost on this occasion. A butcher of Rouen was the only person on board who escaped:[*] he clung to the mast, and was taken up next morning by fishermen. Fitz-Stephens also took hold of the mast; but being informed by the butcher that Prince William had perished, he said that he would not survive the disaster; and he threw himself headlong into the sea.[**] Henry entertained hopes for three days that his son had put into some distant port of England; but when certain intelligence of the calamity was brought him, he fainted away; and it was remarked, that he never after was seen to smile, nor ever recovered his wonted cheerfulness.[***]
The death of William may be regarded, in one respect, as a misfortune to the English; because it was the immediate source of those civil wars which, after the demise of the king, caused such confusion in the kingdom; but it is remarkable, that the young prince had entertained a violent aversion to the natives; and had been heard to threaten, that when he should be king he would make them draw the plough, and would turn them into beasts of burden. These prepossessions he inherited from his father; who, though he was wont, when it might serve his purpose, to value himself on his birth, as a native of England,[****] showed, in the course of his government, an extreme prejudice against that people. All hopes of preferment to ecclesiastical as well as civil dignities were denied them during this whole reign; and any foreigner, however ignorant or worthless, was sure to have the preference in every competition.[*****] As the English had given no disturbance to the government during the course of fifty years, this inveterate antipathy in a prince of so much temper as well as penetration, forms a presumption that the English of that age were still a rude and barbarous people even compared to the Normans, and impresses us with no very favorable idea of the Anglo-Saxon manners.
Prince William left no children; and the king had not now any legitimate issue, except one daughter, Matilda, whom, in 1110, he had betrothed, though only eight years of age,[******] to the emperor Henry V., and whom he had then sent over to be educated in Germany.[*******] [13]
[* Sim. Dunelm. p. 242. Alured. Beverl. p. 148.]
[** Order. Vitalis, p. 868.]
[*** Hoveden, p. 476. Order. Vitalis, p. 869.]
[**** Gul. Neubr. lib. i. cap, 3.]
[****** Chron, Sax. p. 215. W. Malms, p. 166.
Order. Vitalis, p 83]
[******* See note M, at the end of the volume.]
But as her absence from the kingdom, and her marriage into a foreign family, might endanger the succession, Henry, who was now a widower, was induced to marry, in hopes of having male heirs; and he made his addresses to Adelais, daughter of Godfrey, duke of Lovainc, and niece of Pope Calixtus, a young princess of an amiable person.[*]
1121.
But Adelais brought him no children; and the prince who was most likely to dispute the succession, and even the immediate possession of the crown, recovered hopes of subverting his rival, who had successively seized all his patrimonial dominions. William, the son of Duke Robert, was still protected in the French court; and as Henry’s connections with the count of Anjou were broken off by the death of his son, Fulk joined the party of the unfortunate prince, gave him his daughter in marriage, and aided him in raising disturbances in Normandy. But Henry found the means of drawing off the count of Anjou, by forming anew with him a nearer connection than the former, and one more material to the interests of that count’s family.
1127.
The emperor, his son-in-law, dying without issue, he bestowed his daughter on Geoffrey, the eldest son of Fulk, and endeavored to insure her succession, by having her recognized heir to all his dominions, and obliging the barons both of Normandy and England to swear fealty to her. He hoped that the choice of this husband would be more agreeable to all his subjects than that of the emperor; as securing them from the danger of falling under the dominion of a great and distant potentate,