whom we are speaking, and Henry. Henry earl of Warwick, a man of sweet and placid disposition, passed and ended his days, in occupations congenial to his habits. The other, more shrewd, and of a subtler character, in addition to his paternal inheritance in Normandy and large estates in England, purchased from the king of France a castle called Mellent, which Hugh the son of Gualeraun, his mother's brother, had held. Conducted gradually by budding hope towards fame in the time of the former kings, he attained to its full bloom in Henry's days; and his advice was regarded as though the oracle of God had been consulted: indeed he was deservedly esteemed to have obtained it, as he was of ripe age to counsel; the persuader of peace, the dissuader of strife, and capable of very speedily bringing about whatever he desired, from the powers of his eloquence. He possessed such mighty influence in England, as to change by his single example the long established modes of dress and of diet. Finally, the custom of one meal a day, is observed[1] in the palaces of all the nobility through his means; which he, adopting from Alexius, emperor of Constantinople, on the score of his health, spread, as I have observed, among the rest by his authority. He is blamed, as having done, and taught others to do this, more through want of liberality, than any fear of surfeit, or indigestion; but undeservedly: since no one, it is said, was more lavish in entertainments to others, or more moderate in himself. In law, he was the supporter of justice; in war, the insurer of victory: urging his lord the king to enforce the rigour of the statutes; himself not only following the existing, but proposing new ones: free himself from treachery towards the king, he was the avenger of it in others.[2]
Besides this personage king Henry had among his counsellors, Roger[3] bishop of Salisbury, on whose advice he prin-
- ↑ This practice is referred to by Henry Huntingdon, when speaking of Hardecanute, who had four repasts served up every day, "when in our times, through avarice, or as they pretend through disgust, the great set but one meal a day before their dependents."—H. Hunt. lib. vi. p. 209.
- ↑ "Henry of Huntingdon, in his epistle to Walter (Anglia Sacra, pars ii., p. G9.t) gives a flattering character of Robert. Ordericus Vitalis places his death on the first June, a.d. 1118."—Hardy.
- ↑ Roger had a church in the neighbourhood of Caen, at the time that Henry was serving under his brother William. Passing that way, he
