who was forty years her senior. The separation was one of those sacrifices of natural affection which royalty imposes upon

its possessors.

The thorns which are figuratively said to line a crown, are more frequently felt within the heart that on the brow.

The princess, notwithstanding her tender age, was sent over to her husband, attended by a magnificent retinue of ladies and nobles, who, according to the Durham chronicler, vied with each other in display upon the occasion. She was accompanied both by the English and imperial ambassadors; the former did not leave her or resign their charge till they arrived at Mentz, where the emperor then resided. The following day she was married to him in the cathedral of that ancient imperial city, and crowned by the Archbishop of Cologne.

The tomb of the prelate who crowned her still exists. He is represented upon it, holding an imperial circlet in each hand, to denote that he twice performed that important office—a right which was frequently disputed by the other great ecclesiastical princes in Germany. One of the two figures kneeling at his feet is supposed to have been intended for the Empress Matilda.

The sovereigns of England, it may be observed, are the only monarchs who received the crown sitting; the rest of the kings of Europe are crowned upon their knees, to denote that they receive it from the hands of God, through the agency of His minister-a deviation from the ancient ritual which many deeply religious persons disapprove.

Another peculiarity is, that the English sovereigns are invested with the stole on the day of their coronation. We scarcely need remind our readers that the stole is the peculiar badge of the Roman Catholic priesthood: in this Protestant country it is an anomaly to retain it, though not a greater one, perhaps, than the Archbishops of Canterbury still bearing in the arms of their see the pallium-the badge of their former subjection to the Pope of Rome, who, in the church of which he is head, alone possesses the right of consecrating and conferring it.

CHAPTER XIV.

The year of Christ a thousand was full clear

One hundred eke, and therewithal eighteen,

When good Queen Maud was dead, and laid on bier,
At Westminster buried, as well was seen.

HARDINGE'S CHRONICLE IN VERSE.

ALTHOUGH Henry had succeeded in acquiring the inheritance of both his brothers, and thereby fulfilled the prediction of William the Conqueror, his rule in Normandy was frequently disturbed by the various insurrections which broke out in favor of William Clito, the son and heir of the unlucky Robert Courthose, who still remained a prisoner in Cardiff Castle. The inhabitants of the duchy were greatly dissatisfied at the absence of their sovereign, which deprived them of the splendor as well as the advantage of a court. The nobles, many of whom retained a sense of fidelity to Robert, were easily induced to favor the pretensions of his son—which pretensions the Count of Flanders, and Fulk, the Earl of Anjou, supported: the former, in accordance with his crafty, treacherous policy, secretly; the latter, openly.

These considerations compelled the king, in 1110, to separate himself from his queen and children, and embark for Normandy, where the war was raging, leaving the regency in the hands of Matilda, who so entirely possessed the love and confidence of his English subjects, that the kingdom was never more tranquil than when the reins of government were intrusted to her hands. It seems to have been one of the great purposes of her life to ameliorate the condition of the oppressed Saxon population, by securing to them, as far as possible, the benefit of the mild and equitable laws of their great King Alfred. Kings are frequently ungrateful-nations rarely or never; and the devoted loyalty of her countrymen-their submission to her rule, and sorrows for her death-prove that the various benefits she conferred upon them were not cast upon an ungrateful soil.

Matilda was so richly dowered that her vast revenues enabled her to indulge in the taste for architecture and the fine arts, of which she was a liberal patroness. It was doubtless owing to her influence, as much as to a politic desire of gratifying his subjects, which induced Henry to found and endow the stately Abbey of Hyde, for the purpose of receiving the remains of Alfred the Great and his queen, which had been originally interred in a small chapel close to the cathedral of Winchester, and which chapel had since fallen into a ruinous state. Henry and Matilda were considered as the joint founders of the new abbey, although there is little doubt but the credit due to the piety and munificence of the undertaking belongs chiefly to the queen, from whose revenues the necessary funds were principally supplied.

It was not till the year 1112 that the structure was completed, when the state of Henry's affairs in Normandy permitted him to return to England, and assist, with his pious queen, at the dedication of the abbey, and the translation of the remains of Alfred and his consort, Alswitha, to the new church, where a magnificent tomb had been prepared for their reception. It must have been a gratifying sight to the Saxon population, to see the relics of their great king and lawgiver thus honored by the son of the Conqueror, the proud Norman nobility assisting.

At the Reformation, the monument of Matilda's piety was profaned by the orders of the brutal Henry VIII., the shrines and altars plundered of their rich ornaments, and the endowments suppressed; but even he respected the resting-place of the greatest of his predecessors. It was reserved for the present century to witness the disgraceful conversion of the once stately edifice into a prison, when gentlemen and magistrates permitted the bones of Alfred and his queen to be torn from the tomb by the hands of thieves and criminals, and dispersed. And yet we call ourselves a civilized nation. More monuments have been desecrated by the barbarous, ignorant decrees of our corporate and magisterial bodies-more edifices defaced—than by the acts of the people. It is not in the lowest ranks that the greatest vandalism is to be found.

On the return of Henry to Normandy, he concluded a treaty of marriage between his heir, Prince William-whom the nation generously called Prince Atheling, out of love for his Saxon mother-and Alice, daughter of his most persevering enemy, the Earl of Anjou, who had hitherto supported the claims of the son of the unfortunate Robert to the ducal crown.

This young prince was conducted soon after by his father into Normandy, where he was solemnly recognized by the states as the successor of Henry, and the oath of allegiance taken to him as such by the nobles, great vassals, vavasours, and burgesses of the different cities. William was only twelve years of age when he was thus solemnly recognized. The following year a similar ceremony took place in England, at Salisbury, where the first parliament which had been held since the Norman conquest was summoned to meet.

About the same period, the Empress Maud, then about twelve years of age, was married a third time to her husband, Henry V., and crowned with him in the cathedral of Mentz. Her conduct appears to have won the affection of the German princes, for, at a more advanced period of her life, when left a widow by the death of the emperor, the electors offered to elevate to the imperial throne any prince of the empire on whom she might think proper to bestow her hand: an offer which the prospect of succeeding to the English crown induced her to reject.

The time at last approached when the life of usefulness and honor of Matilda Atheling was drawing to a close. In the year 1117, her husband was compelled to quit England once more for Normandy, taking his son William with him, the disturbed state of the duchy requiring his presence; he contrived, however, to pass the Christmas with his queen, after which he once more quitted her, never to behold her again in this world.

To the last this estimable princess appeared to feel the duties of her exalted station-that royalty had its duties, which were more sacred even than its prerogatives; and, although dying, she continued to hold the government with a firm hand-seeing the laws equitably administered, and providing, as far as possible,

against the abuses of those who were intrusted to execute them.

According to the Saxon annals, she expired upon the first of May, 1118, at the palace of the Saxon kings, at Westminster, universally beloved and regretted by the people, whom she had governed in mercy, and whose welfare had been so extensively promoted by her marriage.

Great obscurity prevails as to the exact burial-place of Matilda: some historians assert that she was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to the shrine of her uncle, Edward the Confessor; others, that St. Paul's was the place of her interment; whilst Tyrrel asserts that she was buried at Winchester. It is more than probable that Westminster was the true place of her interment: the many votive monuments erected in various churches to her memory has given rise to the confusion.

Henry, who was absent with his son William in Normandy at the time of her death, could not quit that distracted country even to attend the funeral of his consort, to whose influence with the people he in a great measure owed his secure possession of the crown; for it is certain that the majority of the Norman barons were unfavorable to his claims, preferring those of his elder brother, Robert Courthose.

Matilda was in the forty-second year of her age, and the eighteenth of her marriage, at the time of her death. The Palace of Westminster in which she expired, was erected by Canute, and rebuilt, after its destruction by fire, by her royal uncle, Edward the Confessor, who chiefly resided there, and died in the apartment known by the name of the Painted Chamber.

Of the two surviving children of Henry and Matilda, William and the Empress Maud, it will be necessary here merely to revert to the fate of the former; the life of his sister will be recorded in that of Henry's second queen and the succeeding reigns. Louis le Gros, who at that time filled the throne of France, as suzerain of Normandy, supported the claims of William Clito, the son of the unfortunate Robert, whom his brother had so cruelly dispossessed; but Henry, backed by the powers of Eng