oth from his distant place of residence,
and from the incompatibility of interests, a kind of foreigner to his
French dominions; and his subjects on the continent considered their
allegiance as more naturally due to their superior lord, who lived in
their neighbourhood, and who was acknowledged to be the supreme head
of their nation. He was always at hand to invade them; their
immediate lord was often at too great a distance to protect them; and
any disorder in any part of his dispersed dominions gave advantages
against him. The other powerful vassals of the French crown were
rather pleased to see the expulsion of the English, and were not
affected with that jealousy, which would have arisen from the
oppression of a co-vassal, who was of the same rank with themselves.
By this means, the King of France found it more easy to conquer those
numerous provinces from England, than to subdue a Duke of Normandy or
Guienne, a Count of Anjou, Maine, or Poictou. And after reducing such
extensive territories, which immediately incorporated with the body of
the monarchy, he found greater facility in uniting to the crown the
other great fiefs which still remained separate and independent.

But as these important consequences could not be foreseen by human
wisdom, the King of France remarked with terror the rising grandeur of
the house of Anjou, or Plantagenet; and, in order to retard its
progress, he had ever maintained a strict union with Stephen, and had
endeavoured to support the tottering fortunes of that bold usurper.
But after this prince's death it was too late to think of opposing the
succession of Henry, or preventing the performance of those
stipulations which, with the unanimous consent of the nation, he had
made with his predecessor. The English, harassed with civil wars, and
disgusted with the bloodshed and depredations which, during the course
of so many years, had attended them, were little disposed to violate
their oaths, by excluding the lawful heir from the succession of their
monarchy [a]. Many of the most considerable fortresses were in the
hands of his partisans; the whole nation had had occasion to see the
noble qualities with which he was endowed [b], and to compare them
with the mean talents of William the son of Stephen; and as they were
acquainted with his great power, and were rather pleased to see the
accession of so many foreign dominions to the crown of England, they
never entertained the least thou