Murcard, king of Ireland, and his successors, whose names have not reached our notice, were so devotedly attached to our Henry that they wrote no letters but what tended to soothe him, and did nothing but what he commanded; although it may be observed that Murcard, from some unknown cause, acted, for a short time, rather superciliously towards the English; but soon after on the suspension of navigation and of foreign trade, his insolence subsided. For of what value could Ireland be if deprived of the merchandize of England? From poverty, or rather from the ignorance of the cultivators, the soil, unproductive of every good, engenders, without the cities, a rustic, filthy swarm of natives; but the English and French inhabit the cities in a greater degree of civilization through their mercantile traffic. Paul, earl of Orkney, though subject by hereditary right to the king of Norway, was so anxious to obtain the king's friendship, that he was perpetually sending him presents; for he was extremely fond of the wonders of distant countries, begging with great delight, as I have observed, from foreign kings, lions, leopards, lynxes, or camels,—animals which England does not produce. He had a park called Woodstock, in which he used to foster his favourites of this kind. He had placed there also a creature called a porcupine, sent to him by William of Montpelier; of which animal, Pliny the Elder, in the eighth book of his Natural History, and Isodorus, on Etymologies, relate that there is such a creature in Africa, which the inhabitants call of the urchin kind, covered with bristly hairs, which it naturally darts against the dogs when pursuing it: moreover, these are, as I have seen, more than a span long, sharp at each extremity, like the quills of a goose where the feather ceases, but rather thicker, and speckled, as it were, with black and white.
What more particularly distinguished Henry was that though frequently and long absent from his kingdom on account of the commotions in Normandy, yet he so restrained the rebellious, by the terror of his name, that peace remained undisturbed in England. In consequence, foreigners willingly resorted thither, as to the only haven of secure tranquillity. Finally, Siward king of Norway, in his early years comparable to the bravest heroes, having entered on a voyage
