He was very fond of books, and encouraged learned men, and his subjects gave him the name of Beauclerk, which means fine scholar. He married Matilda, whose uncle was Edgar Atheling, who ought to have been King of England after Edward the Confessor. The English people were pleased to have her for their queen, because they hoped she would make Henry more kind to them than his brother and father had been; and they called her “the good queen Maude” (which is short for Matilda). She had two children, William and Maude; but William was not at all like his good and kind mother, who died when he was a boy. He loved to drink wine, and was very quarrelsome; and he used to say that, if ever he became king, he would treat the English worse than they had ever been treated before: so nobody but the Normans cared for him. But he never came to be king, as I will tell you.
He had been with his father into Normandy, and when they were to return, instead of coming in the same ship with his father, he chose to come in one called the White Ship, where there were a number of foolish young people like himself. They amused themselves so long ashore, drinking before they set off, that they were a great way behind the king, who got safe to England. The prince and his companions had drunk so much wine, that they did not know what they were about, so that the White Ship ran on a rock, and, not being able to manage the vessel properly, they were all drowned. I have read that Prince William might have been saved, but he tried to save a lady who was his near relation, and in trying to save her he was drowned himself; and this is the only good thing I know about Prince William. You may think how sorry King Henry was to hear that his only son was drowned.
Indeed, I have read that nobody ever saw him smile afterwards. He had lost his good wife, and his only son, and now he had nobody to love but his daughter Maude.
When Maude was very young, she was married to the German Emperor, Henry the Fifth; but he died very soon; however, people always called her the Empress Maude. And then her father made her marry a nobleman, named Geoffrey, who was Count or Earl of Anjou; and she had three sons, the eldest of whom came to be one of the greatest of our kings.
Now I told you King Henry Beauclerk was very fond of his daughter. Her eldest son was named Henry after him; and he meant that his daughter Maude should be Queen of England after he died, and that her little Henry should be the next king.
But he was afraid that the Norman barons would not like to obey either a woman or a little child, and that they would make some grown-up man of the royal line king instead; and he did everything in his power to make all the barons promise to make Maude queen after his death. But they would not all promise; and I am sorry to say that some of those who did forgot their promise as soon as he was dead, and took the part of Stephen, as I will tell you by and by.
While Henry was busy, doing all he could to make his daughter queen, he died.
I must tell you the cause of his death; for I think it is a good lesson to all of us. He had been told by the physicians that he ought not to eat too much, but one day a favorite dish was brought to his table (I have read that it was potted lampreys), and he ate such a quantity that it made him ill, and so he died, after he had been king thirty-five years.
