busily making preparations for renewing that course of operations, which had once before proved so successful against Wales. This was to proceed with a large force along the sea coast, supported and supplied by his navy; but while the King was waiting for the arrival of a sufficient number of vessels to put this plan in execution, he suddenly, from some cause unknown, dismissed his fleet, broke up his camp, and retired from Chester with precipitation. This unaccountable proceeding was immediately taken advantage of by the Welsh Princes. Rushing forth from their strongholds, they poured into the country still possessed by the English; the whole of Cardigan and the greater part of Pembrokeshire were subdued by Rees ap Gryffyth, while the castle of Basinwark, the great stronghold of the Norman power in that quarter, was captured by Owen Gwyneth. The friends of Henry mourned to see such a change come over his fortunes, and Becket rejoiced in the reverses of his master.

The conduct of Henry in this transaction was indeed unaccountable. It is true, that while he was thus busily engaged in Wales, the French King, though not actually attacking his Norman dominions, was exciting his subjects in Maine to revolt, and fomenting the troubles in Britanny, the malcontents of which duchy now leagued themselves with the rebels in Maine. But the peril was by no means so imminent as to call for the presence of the English King, to the detriment of his reputation, and to the

danger of the counties bordering upon Wales; and yet no more reasonable cause whatsoever has been assigned for his extraordinary abandonment of all his plans and purposes at that moment. Whether such was his motive or not, Henry did not return to his continental dominions immediately after quitting Wales, but passed some time in England, occupied by various transactions, only one of which seems to have been of any very great importance. This was the reception of ambassadors from the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, whose envoys acted also on the part of Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony. Both those Princes having acknowledged Victor the antipope, were held by the English and French churches to be schismatics; both were also already deeply engaged in the cause of Wido or Guido of Crema, a new rival to Alexander. Nevertheless, indignant at the support shown to Becket, and the ingratitude displayed towards himself, Henry received the ministers of Frederic Barbarossa with joy and satisfaction, entered into strict alliance with the Emperor, and contracted his eldest daughter Matilda, not yet ten years old, to the Duke of Saxony. At the head of the Emperor's embassy was the Archbishop of Cologne, a prelate of great powers of mind and determination of character, who possessed vast influence with Frederic, and who had taken a very decided part in the schism which had desolated the Church. With him, Henry now contracted a great intimacy; and not

withstanding the position in which he stood towards the Pontiff recognized by the Anglican Church, he was received by the English King, by the bishops, and by the nobility of the realm, with distinction and honour, such as had never been shewn to any ambassador before.

It is probable, by this conduct towards a prelate who had been excommunicated by Alexander, that Henry wished to give the Pope an intimation that he had not so far committed himself in his favour as not to abandon him, and join the party of his opponents, if he thought fit. Indeed, it would appear, that either by the persuasions of the Emperor, or at the suggestion of some of his own counsellors, Henry was led to contemplate a complete rupture with Alexander, and even went so far as to threaten that Pontiff, in no very doubtful language, with the loss of British support. He wrote to the Archbishop of Cologne too, after the ambassadors from Frederic had quitted England, to announce his determination of sending ambassadors to Alexander, with a demand that he and the Cardinals should abandon their support of Becket, and recognize the ancient customs of the English realm, with the alternative of losing his assistance and support. He even went so far as to send the ambassadors named in this letter, who on their way to Italy, reached Wurtzburg, where they found a diet of the empire assembled, at which the Emperor and all his princes formally recognized the antipope Pascal the third,

swore never to obey Alexander, and bound the German empire to oppose that Pope and any other who at an after period might be elected by his party in the Conclave. The Emperor even asserted openly, that Henry had pledged himself by his ambassadors to abandon Alexander, and no longer to give him his countenance. Whether such was the fact or not, upon the angry remonstrances of Alexander, Henry only so far retreated from this promise, if it really was made, as to say, that he would always recognize and obey Alexander so long as he shewed him fatherly affection, saving his own royal dignity and the rights of his kingdom. But Henry was not steady in his purposes-not sincere in his menace. Had he determined fully and firmly to persevere in the course which he pretended to have adopted, and to abandon Alexander in case of his attempting to maintain the unjust authority which he had usurped or support the ambitious pretensions of Becket, it might have been wise to make the threat, and to take such preparatory steps as those displayed in the negociations with the Emperor. Nor can it be doubted that the apprehension of such conduct, and of the utter destruction which was likely to ensue to him and his party in consequence of a strict alliance between Henry, Frederic, and the Duke of Saxony, might have induced Alexander to abandon the cause of Becket, and to desist from his opposition to the English customs. But there is an energy and a simplicity about truth,

which to the eye of experience is not to be mistaken. Alexander saw clearly that all these negociations with Frederic implied a menace, but did not display a determination, and consequently they produced no effect. He still supported Becket, temporizing indeed with Henry, and from time to time, yielding, more than he ultimately intended to concede; but he never gave up any important points; and yet the King of England was weak enough to leave his threats unsupported by his actions, to suffer the menacing envoys whom he had sent to the Pope to pause by the way, and not even to make that denunciation to Alexander, which he had assured the Archbishop of Cologne should take place without delay.

It may be well supposed, that such conduct greatly decreased that proud reputation with which the King of England had at first set out in his royal career. The character of Becket, and his firmness, seemed to rise by the contrast; and other people, as well as that prelate himself, might believe that Henry had lost his wisdom, when he lost his minister.

In estimating the motives of the King of England, one fact is to be remarked which has not been sufficiently noticed by any one, and which in Lord Lyttleton's anxiety to elevate the character of this monarch, he has attempted to controvert, as it seems to me, without just grounds. Henry was by no means without his share of the superstition of the age. Reverence, or the capability of con