rest. For, after being agitated by so many appeals to the court of Rome, so many expensive journeys, so many debates of lawyers, for a number of years, it was at last terminated, or rather cut short, by the death of Urban at Rome. The pope also, weighing the equity of the case, did justice to the piety and right of the bishop of St. David's by a suitable judgment. In the same year William, archbishop of Canterbury, personally obtained the legation of England, through the indulgence of the see of Rome.
The day after the thirty-second[1] year of his reign was completed, Henry, on the nones of August, the very day on which he had formerly been crowned at Westminster, set sail for Normandy. This was the last, the fatal voyage of his reign. The providence of God, at that time, bore reference in a wonderful manner to human affairs: for instance, that he should embark, never to return alive, on that day on which he had originally been crowned, so long and prosperously to reign. It was then, as I have said, the nones of August; and, on the fourth day of the week, the elements manifested their sorrow at this great man's last departure. For the sun on that day,[2] at the sixth hour, shrouded his glorious face, as the poets say, in hideous darkness, agitating the hearts of men by an eclipse: and on the sixth day of the week, early in the morning, there was so great an earthquake, that the ground appeared absolutely to sink down; a horrid sound being first heard from beneath the surface. During the eclipse I saw stars around the sun: and, at the time of the earthquake, the wall of the house in which I was sitting was lifted up by two shocks, and settled again with a third. The king, therefore, continued in Normandy for
- ↑ "Malmesbury seems to have committed two oversights here. Henry went to Normandy for the last time on the third before the nones of August, (that is, third, instead of fifth), a.d. 1133. This is evident from the eclipse he mentions, which took place on that day, as well as from the testimony of the continuator of Florence of Worcester, a contemporary writer."—Sharpe. "Although all the MSS. read 'tricesimo secundo,' yet it is evident, from the context, that it should be 'tricesimo tertio;' the completion of Henry's thirty-third regnal year being on the 4th of August, 1133. This, and other passages show, that Malmesbury reckoned Henry's reign to commence on the 5th of August, the day of his consecration, and not on the 2nd of that month, the day of his brother's death."—Hardy.
- ↑ "The eclipse of the sun took place on the 2nd of August, 1133, at mid-day." —Hardy.
