gy came a number of the chief officers of state, and lastly, King
Henry the Second, who took his seat in the highest of the curule chairs,
midmost among the others.

The first of the Plantagenets was no common man. Like most of his race,
he was a born statesman; and also like most of them, he allowed his evil
passions and natural corruption such free scope that his talents were
smothered under their weight. In person he was of middle stature,
somewhat thickly built, with a large round head covered by curly hair,
cut square upon the forehead. Long arms ended in large hands, the care
of which he entirely neglected, never wearing gloves save when he
carried a hawk. His complexion was slightly florid, his eyes small but
clear and sparkling, dove-like when he was pleased, but flashing fire in
his anger. Though his voice was tremulous, yet he could be an eloquent
speaker. He rarely sat down, but commonly stood, whether at mass,
council, or meals. Except on ceremonial occasions, he was extremely
careless in his attire, wearing short clothes of a homely cut, and
requiring some persuasion to renew them. He detested every thing that
came in the way of his convenience, whether long skirts, hanging
sleeves, royal mantles, or boots with folding tops. He was (for his
time) a great reader, a "huge lover of the woods" and of all sylvan
sports, fond of travelling, a very small eater, a generous almsgiver, a
faithful friend--and a good hater. The model example which he set
before him as a statesman was that of his grandfather, Henry First. The
Empress Maud, his mother, was above all things Norman, and was now
living in Normandy in peaceful old age. Perhaps her stormy and eventful
life had made her _feel_ weary of storms, for she rarely emerged from
her retirement except in the character of a peacemaker. Certainly she
had learnt wisdom by adversity. Her former supercilious sternness was
gone, and a meek and quiet spirit, which earned the respect of all, had
taken its place. She may have owed that change, and her quiet close of
life, instrumentally, in some measure to the prayers of the good Queen
Maud, that sweet and saintly mother to whom Maud the Empress had in her
childhood and maturity been so complete a contrast, and whom she now
resembled in her old age. Her son was unhappily not of her later tone,
but rather of the earlier, though he rarely reached those passionate
depths of pride and bitterness through which his age