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Loudon. It was added, however, that should Henry become King of England the three earldoms were then to go to Geoffrey. Such wily precautions to trap Henry into acceptance would not have been resorted to if the father had not felt strongly that his own possessions should go to the second son.
    There is still one more point. When Henry became King of England and did
not
give up the earldoms, being a highly possessive man, the brother loudly proclaimed that the will had been drawn to favor him, whose legitimacy could not be doubted.
    It is still barely beyond the limits of surmise, but it cannot be passed over. There has always been a pride displayed in certain qualities of the English kings who are grouped under the heading of Plantagenet. They were tall, golden men, with piercing blue eyes and immense physical strength; cruel and possessive and revengeful, but nonetheless rulers of ability and of considerable character. How ironic it would be if not adrop of Plantagenet blood had ever flowed in the veins of an English king!
7
    Stephen survived the Treaty of Wallingford by little more than a year. His strength was depleted and he had become slow and lethargic. It does not appear that he stirred himself to restore order out of the general chaos. The tyranny of the barons continued unchecked. The despairing cries of the people do not seem to have reached his ears. No castles were torn down for their relief. The coinage had become so debased by clipping and filing that trade agreements read
in weight
, which meant that payment was to be made according to the weight of silver in the coin and not at its face value. Nothing was done about this.
    Stephen had twice been close to death in a condition verging on coma. Now for a third time he lost the power of movement and lay as one dead in the citadel at Dover where he had been when the seizure came. There was no devoted wife to nurse him back to health as had been the case on both other occasions. In any event, it is very doubtful if even the loving care of Matilda could have helped him. His hour had come. He died on October 25, 1154, and the physicians said death had been due to piles and an iliac passion. The symptoms seem to point rather to apoplexy.
    This handsome man, who had wanted everyone to like him, was probably the worst king England ever had because of the suffering he brought the people. During the nineteen years of his reign 1,115 unlicensed castles were built by the lawless barons. In some chronicles it is said that one third of the population died during that short space of time.

CHAPTER III
The Epic Reign of a Great King
    T HE reign of Henry II, called the first of the Plantagenets or Angevins, has all the elements of an epic novel, all the romance, color, conflict, and guile of the Arthurian legends which men began to write at this time. It is the record of a king who had all the qualities of a great monarch together with many of the faults of a bad one, who corrected Stephen’s anarchy with a sure, iron hand, and who governed, part of the time at least, like a medieval Solomon. He dreamed, this great Henry, of making England the center of an empire more powerful than Charlemagne’s and nearly succeeded in making it so. He married the most glamorous woman in Europe after antlering her husband, Louis of France, so that men called the latter cuckold. He was blessed, or cursed, with many sons, including Richard of the Lionheart and the base John. He loved many women and stole the intended bride of one of his own sons. He put his beautiful wife in a prison for sixteen years. His whelps rose up in rebellion against him and made his last years a nightmare of hate and treachery.
    In this amazing reign of more than a third of a century, chivalry came to its fullest flowering and the voice of the troubadour was heard as often in the land as the clash of arms. Much more important by far, the first whispers rose of a religious unrest which led to John Wyclif and Lollardism