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 CONTENTS vii

JOHN STUART MILL 920

Utilitarianism 923

SØREN KIERKEGAARD 962

Fear and Trembling (Problema I: “Teleological Suspension
of the Ethical”) 966
Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Section II, Chapter 2, “Subjective Truth,
Inwardness; Truth Is Subjectivity”) 974

KARL MARX 983

Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (“Alienated Labor”) 986
Manifesto of the Communist Party (Chapters 1 and 2) 995
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Preface) 1004
Notes on Bakunin’s Statehood and Anarchy (selections) 1005

CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE 1007

The Fixation of Belief 1009

WILLIAM JAMES 1019

Pragmatism (Lecture II: What Pragmatism Means) 1021

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE 1033

The Birth of Tragedy (Chapters 1–3) 1037
The Gay Science (selections) 1043
Twilight of the Idols (selections) 1045
The Anti-Christ (First Book, 2–7, 62) 1057

TWENTIETH-CENTURY PHILOSOPHY 1061

EDMUND HUSSERL 1065

Phenomenology (Encyclopaedia Brittanica article) 1068
viii CONTENTS

W.E.B. DU BOIS 1076

The Souls of Black Folks (Chapter 1) 1079

BERTRAND RUSSELL 1085

The Problems of Philosophy (Chapters 1 & 15) 1088

MARTIN HEIDEGGER 1096

Introduction to Metaphysics (Chapter 1: “The Fundamental Question
of Metaphysics”) 1101

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN 1127

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Preface Sections 1–3.1431,4, 4.06, 4.1,
5, 5.6, 6.4–7) 1131
Philosophical Investigations (Paragraphs 1–47, 65–71, 241, 257–258,
305, 309) 1139

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE 1156

Existentialism Is a Humanism 1160

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR 1174

The Second Sex (Introduction) 1177

WILLARD VAN ORMAN QUINE 1189

Two Dogmas of Empiricism 1192

JACQUES DERRIDA 1207

Of Grammatology (“The Written Being/The Being Written”) 1210
Preface

T here is no better introduction to philosophy than to read some of the great philoso-
phers. But few books are more difficult to read than Aristotle’s Metaphysics or Spinoza’s
Ethics. Even works that are less puzzling are sometimes like snippets of a conversation
that you overhear on entering a room: What is said is clear, only you cannot be sure you
have got the point because you do not know just what has gone before. A slight point
may be crucial to refute some earlier suggestion, and a seemingly pointless remark may
contain a barbed allusion. As a result of this difficulty, some students of philosophy cry
out for a simple summary of the “central doctrines” of the great philosophers. Yet carv-
ing up great books to excerpt essential doctrines is one of the greatest sins against the
spirit of philosophy. If the reading of a whole Platonic dialogue leaves one more doubt-
ful and less sure of oneself than the perusal of a brief summary, so much the better. It is
part of the point of philosophy to make us a little less sure about things. After all,
Socrates himself insisted that what distinguished him from other persons was not that he
knew all, or even most, answers but rather that he realized his ignorance.
Still, one need not despair of joining this ongoing conversation. In the first place,
you can get in near the beginning of this conversation by starting with Plato and moving
on from there. Given that they are over two thousand years old, his early dialogues are
surprisingly easy to follow. The later Platonic dialogues, Aristotle, and much which fol-
lows will be more difficult, but by that point you will have some idea of what the con-
versation is about.
Secondly, the structure of this book is designed to make this conversation accessi-
ble. There are section introductions and introductions to the individual philoso-phers.
These latter introductions are divided into three sections: (1) biographical (a glimpse of

ix
x PREFACE

the life), (2) philosophical (a resume of the philosopher’s thought), and (3) bibliographical
(suggestions for further reading). To give a sense of the development of ideas, there are
short representative passages from some of the less important, but transitional, thinkers.
To make all the works more readable, most footnotes treating textual matters (variant
readings, etc.) have been omitted and all Greek words have been transliterated and put in
angle brackets. My goal throughout this volume is to be unobtrusive and allow you to
hear, and perhaps join in, the ongoing conversation that is Western philosophy.

WHAT’S NEW IN THIS EDITION?

• New translations of Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Physics, Metaphysics, and On

the Soul by Joe Sachs.
• New translation of Spinoza’s Ethics by Samuel Shirley.
• New section on Pyrrho using a reading from Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of
Pyrrhonism.
• New section on Charles Sanders Peirce with the reading “The Fixation of Belief.”
• New section on William James with the reading “What Pragmatism Means” from
Pragmatism.
• New section on W.E.B. Du Bois with the reading “Of Our Spiritual Strivings”
from The Souls of Black Folks.
• Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism is a Humanism is now given complete.
• New reading by Jacques Derrida, “The Written Being/The Being Written”
from Of Grammatology.
• Updated bibliographies reflecting the most recent scholarship on each thinker
and philosophical school.

Throughout the editing of this edition, I have tried to follow the editorial princi-
ples established by Walter Kaufmann in his 2 volume Philosophic Classics (1961) on
which this current series is based: (1) to use complete works or, where more appropri-
ate, complete sections of works (2) in clear translations (3) of texts central to the
thinker’s philosophy or widely accepted as part of the “canon.” While little remains of
Professor Kaufmann's introductions or editing—and the series has now grown to 7
volumes—his spirit of inclusion and respect for ideas continues. Those who use this
volume in a one-term introduction to philosophy, history of philosophy, or history of
intellectual thought course will find more material here than can easily fit a normal
semester. But this embarrassment of riches gives teachers some choice and, for those
who offer the same course year after year, an opportunity to change the menu.

* * *
I would like to thank the many people who assisted me in this volume, including the
library staff of Whitworth College, especially Hans Bynagle, Gail Fielding, and
Jeanette Langston; my colleagues, F. Dale Bruner, who made helpful suggestions on all
the introductions, Barbara Filo, who helped make selections for the artwork, and
 PREFACE xi

Corliss Slack and John Yoder, who provided historical context; Stephen Davis,
Claremont McKenna College; Jerry H. Gill, The College of St. Rose; Rex Hollowell,
Spokane Falls Community College; Arthur F. Holmes, Wheaton College; Stanley
Obitts, Westmont College; Wayne Pomerleau, Gonzaga University; Timothy A.
Robinson, The College of St. Benedict; Glenn Ross, Franklin & Marshall College; and
Charles Young, The Claremont Graduate School, who each read some of the introduc-
tions and gave helpful advice; Edward Beach, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, and
John Justice, Randolph-Macon Women’s College who graciously called my attention to
errors in previous editions; my former secretary, Michelle Seefried; my production
editor, Shiny Rajesh of Integra, my project managers, Sarah Holle and Cheryl Keenan
of Prentice Hall; and my former acquisitions editors, Mical Moser, Ross Miller, Karita
France, Angela Stone and Ted Bolen. I would also like to acknowledge the following
reviewers who made helpful suggestions: Marianina Alcott, San Jose State University;
James W. Allard, Montana State University; David Apolloni, Augsburg College; Robert
C. Bennett, El Centro College; Sarah Borden, Wheaton College; Herbert L. Carson,
Ferris State University; Mary T. Clark, Manhattanville College; Stuart Dalton,
Monmouth College; Sandra S. Edwards, University of Arkansas; Steven M. Emmanuel,
Virginia Wesleyan College; David Griesedieck, University of Missouri, Saint Louis;
John Hurley, Central Connecticut Sate University; Stephen E. Lahey, LaMoyne
College; Helen S. Lang, Trinity College; R. James Long, Fairfield University; Scott
MacDonald, University of Iowa; Angel Medina, Georgia State University; Nick More,
Westminster College; Paul Newberry, California State University–Bakersfield; Eric
Palmer, Allegheny College; David F. T. Rodier, American University; Katherine
Rogers, University of Delaware; Gregory Schultz, Wisconsin Lutheran College;
Stephen Scott, Eastern Washington University; Daniel C. Shartin, Worcester State
College; Walter G. Scott, Oklahoma State University; Howard N. Tuttle, University of
New Mexico; Richard J. Van Iten, Iowa State University; Donald Phillip Verene, Emory
University; Tamara Welsh, Univeristy of Tennessee–Chattanooga; Sarah Worth,
Allegheny College; and Wilhelm S. Wurzer, Duquesne University.
I am especially thankful to my wife, Joy Lynn Fulton Baird, and to our children,
Whitney, Sydney, and Soren, who have supported me throughout this enterprise.

Forrest E. Baird
Professor of Philosophy
Whitworth University
Spokane, WA 99251
email: [email protected]
 Philosophers in this Volume
400 B.C. 200 B.C. 0 A.D. 200 400 600 800 1000
Plato
Aristotle
Pyrrho
Epicurus
Epictetus
Sextus Empiricus
Plotinus
Augustine
Boethius
Anselm

Other Important Figures

Socrates
Alexander the Great Porphyry
Zeno of Citium Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite
Cleanthes Mohammed
Julius Caesar Charlemagne
Lucretius Avicenna
Philo of Alexandria
Jesus
Paul
Justin Martyr
Marcus Aurelius
Ptolemy (astronomer)
Clement of Alexandria
Tertullian
Origen

A Sampling of Major Events

Death of Socrates
Punic Wars and rise of Roman Empire
Wall of China built
Jerusalem Temple destroyed
Furthest extent of the Roman Empire
Council of Nicea
Roman Empire divided
Fall of Rome
Schools of philosophy in Athens
closed by Justinian
Muslim conquest
of Northern Africa
and Spain
Peak of Mayan
civilization in Central
America

400 B.C. 200 B.C. 0 A.D. 200 400 600 800 1000
 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Hildegard of Bingen John Stuart Mill
Moses Maimonides Søren Kierkegaard
Thomas Aquinas Karl Marx
William of Ockham Friedrich Nietzsche
Pico della Mirandola Edmund Husserl
Thomas Hobbes Bertrand Russell
René Descartes Martin Heidegger
Princess Elizabeth Ludwig Wittgenstein
of Bohemia Jean-Paul Sartre
Blaise Pascal Simone
Baruch Spinoza de Beauvoir
John Locke Willard Van
Gottfried Leibniz Orman Quine
George Berkeley Jacques
David Hume Derrida
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Immanuel Kant
G.W.F. Hegel
Mary Wollstonecraft

Peter Abelard Louis XIV Mahatma Gandhi

Averroës Isaac Newton G. E. Moore
Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi) J. S. Bach Martin Buber
Genghis Khan Voltaire Jacques Martin
Francis of Assisi Thomas Reid Adolf Hitler
Bonaventure J. W. Goethe Gilbert Ryle
Dante Alighieri Mozart A. J. Ayer
Catherine of Siena Napoleon Michel Foucault
Leonardo da Vinci Bonaparte
Martin Luther Beethoven
John Calvin Simon Bolivar
Galileo Queen Victoria
Shakespeare John Dewey
Rembrandt Henri Bergson
George Santayana

Paris University founded Wright brothers

Magna Carta invent airplane
Bubonic Plague World War I
Ming Dynasty in China Russian
Gutenberg invents moveable- Revolution
type printing World War II
Columbus sails to America Korean
Luther begins Protestant Reformation War
English defeat Spanish Armada Vietnam
Charles I executed War
English “Glorious Revolution” First men
Declaration on the
of Independence moon
French Revolution
Chaka founds Zulu Empire
American Civil War

1200 1400 1600 1800 2000

This page has been left blank intentionally
 ANCIENT GREEK
PHILOSOPHY
‫ﱸﱷﱶ‬

S omething unusual happened in Greece and in the Greek colonies of the Aegean
Sea some twenty-five hundred years ago. Whereas the previous great cultures of
the Mediterranean had used mythological stories of the gods to explain the oper-
ations of the world and of the self, some of the Greeks began to discover new
ways of explaining these phenomena. Instead of reading their ideas into, or out of,
ancient scriptures or poems, they began to use reason, contemplation, and sensory
observation to make sense of reality.
The story as we know it began with the Greeks living on the coast of Asia
Minor (present-day Turkey). Colonists there, such as Thales, tried to find the one
common element in the diversity of nature. Subsequent thinkers, such as
Anaximenes, sought not only to find this one common element, but also to find
the process by which one form changes into another. Other thinkers, such as
Pythagoras, turned to the nature of form itself rather than the basic stuff that takes
on a particular form.
With Socrates, the pursuit of knowledge turned inward as he sought not to
understand the world, but himself. His call to “know thyself,” together with his
uncompromising search for truth, inspired generations of thinkers. With the writ-
ings of Plato and Aristotle, ancient Greek thought reached its zenith. These giants
of human thought developed all-embracing systems that explained both the nature
of the universe and the humans who inhabit it.
All these lovers of wisdom, or philosophers, came to different conclusions and
often spoke disrespectfully of one another. Some held the universe to be one sin-
gle entity, whereas others insisted that it must be made of many parts. Some

1
2 ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY

believed that human knowledge was capable of understanding virtually every-

thing about the world and the self, whereas others thought that it was not possible
to have any knowledge at all. But despite all their differences, there is a thread of
continuity, a continuing focus among them: the human attempt to understand the
world and the self, using human reason. This fact distinguishes these philoso-
phers from the great minds that preceded them.
The philosophers of ancient Greece have fascinated thinking persons for cen-
turies, and their writings have been one of the key influences on the development
of Western civilization. The works of Plato and Aristotle, especially, have defined
the questions and suggested many of the answers for subsequent generations. As
the great Greek statesman Pericles sagely predicted, “Future ages will wonder at
us, as the present age wonders at us now.”

* * *
For a comprehensive, yet readable, work on Greek philosophy, see W.K.C.
Guthrie’s authoritative The History of Greek Philosophy, six volumes.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962–1981). W.T. Jones, The Classical
Mind (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969); Frederick Copleston,
A History of Philosophy: Volume I, Greece & Rome (Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, 1962); Friedo Ricken, Philosophy of the Ancients, translated by Eric
Watkins (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991); J.V. Luce, An
Introduction to Greek Philosophy (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1992);
C.C.W. Taylor, ed., Routledge History of Philosophy, Volume 1: From the
Beginning to Plato (London: Routledge, 1997); David Furley, ed., Routledge
History of Philosophy, Volume 2: Aristotle to Augustine (London: Routledge,
1997); Julia Annas, Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000); James A. Arieti, Philosophy in the Ancient World
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005); Anthony Kenny, Ancient
Philosophy: A New History of Western Philosophy (Oxford University Press,
2004); and Stephanie Lynn Budin, The Ancient Greeks: An Introduction (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009) provide basic introductions. Julie K. Ward, ed.,
Feminism and Ancient Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1996) provides a feminist
critique while Robert S. Brumbaugh, The Philosophers of Greece (Albany, NY:
SUNY Press, 1981) is an accessible introduction with pictures, charts, and maps.
SOCRATES
470–399 B.C.
PLATO
428/7–348/7 B.C.

Socrates has fascinated and inspired men and women for over two thousand
years. All five of the major “schools” of ancient Greece (Academics, Peripatetics,
Epicureans, Stoics, and Cynics) were influenced by his thought. Some of the early
Christian thinkers, such as Justin Martyr, considered him a “proto-Christian,”
while others, such as St. Augustine (who rejected this view) still expressed deep
admiration for Socrates’ ethical life. More recently, existentialists have found in
Socrates’ admonition “know thyself” an encapsulation of their thought, and oppo-
nents of unjust laws have seen in Socrates’ trial a blueprint for civil disobedience.
In short, Socrates is one of the most admired men who ever lived.
The Athens into which Socrates was born in 470 B.C. was a city still living in
the flush of its epic victory over the Persians, and it was bursting with new ideas.
The playwrights Euripides and Sophocles were young boys, and Pericles, the
great Athenian democrat, was still a young man. The Parthenon’s foundation was
laid when Socrates was twenty-two, and its construction was completed fifteen
years later.
Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and of Phaenarete, a mid-
wife. As a boy, Socrates received a classical Greek education in music, gymnas-
tics, and grammar (or the study of language), and he decided early on to become
a sculptor like his father. Tradition says he was a gifted artist who fashioned
impressively simple statues of the Graces. He married a woman named
Xanthippe, and together they had three children. He took an early interest in the
developing science of the Milesians, and then he served for a time in the army.
When he was a middle-aged man, Socrates’ friend, Chaerephon, asked the ora-
cle at Delphi “if there was anyone who was wiser than Socrates.” For once the
mysterious oracle gave an unambiguous answer: “No one.” When Socrates heard

3
4 PLATO

of the incident, he was confused. He knew that he was not a wise man. So he set
out to find a wiser man to prove the answer wrong. Socrates later described the
method and results of his mission:

So I examined the man—I need not tell you his name, he was a politician—but this was
the result. Athenians. When I conversed with him I came to see that, though a great
many persons, and most of all he himself, thought that he was wise, yet he was not
wise. Then I tried to prove to him that he was not wise, though he fancied that he was.
By so doing I made him indignant, and many of the bystanders. So when I went away,
I thought to myself, “I am wiser than this man: neither of us knows anything that is
really worth knowing, but he thinks that he has knowledge when he has not, while
I, having no knowledge, do not think that I have. I seem, at any rate, to be a little wiser
than he is on this point: I do not think that I know what I do not know.” Next I went to
another man who was reputed to be still wiser than the last, with exactly the same
result. And there again I made him, and many other men, indignant. (Apology 21c)

As Socrates continued his mission by interviewing the politicians, poets, and arti-
sans of Athens, young men followed along. They enjoyed seeing the authority fig-
ures humiliated by Socrates’ intense questioning. Those in authority, however, were
not amused. Athens was no longer the powerful, self-confident city of 470 B.C.,
the year of Socrates’ birth. An exhausting succession of wars with Sparta (the
Peloponnesian Wars) and an enervating series of political debacles had left the city
narrow in vision and suspicious of new ideas and of dissent. In 399 B.C., Meletus and
Anytus brought an indictment of impiety and corrupting the youth against Socrates.
As recorded in the Apology, the Athenian assembly found him guilty by a vote of 281
to 220 and sentenced him to death. His noble death is described incomparably in the
closing pages of the Phaedo by Plato.
Socrates wrote nothing, and our knowledge of his thought comes exclusively
from the report of others. The playwright Aristophanes (455–375 B.C.) satirized
Socrates in his comedy The Clouds. His caricature of Socrates as a cheat and
charlatan was apparently so damaging that Socrates felt compelled to offer a
rebuttal before the Athenian assembly (see the Apology, following). The military
general Xenophon (ca. 430–350 B.C.) honored his friend Socrates in his Apology
of Socrates, his Symposium, and, later, in his Memorabilia (“Recollections of
Socrates”). In an effort to defend his dead friend’s memory, Xenophon’s writings
illumine Socrates’ life and character. Though born fifteen years after the death of
Socrates, Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) left many fascinating allusions to Socrates in
his philosophic works, as did several later Greek philosophers. But the primary
source of our knowledge of Socrates comes from one of those young men who
followed him: Plato.

* * *
Plato was probably born in 428/7 B.C. He had two older brothers, Adeimantus and
Glaucon, who appear in Plato’s Republic, and a sister, Potone. Though he may have
known Socrates since childhood, Plato was probably nearer twenty when he came under
the intellectual spell of Socrates. The death of Socrates made an enormous impression on
Plato and contributed to his call to bear witness to posterity of “the best, . . . the wisest and
most just” person that he knew (Phaedo, 118). Though Plato was from a distinguished
family and might have followed his relatives into politics, he chose philosophy.
 INTRODUCTION 5

Following Socrates’ execution, the twenty-eight-year-old Plato left Athens and

traveled for a time. He is reported to have visited Egypt and Cyrene—though some
scholars doubt this. During this time he wrote his early dialogues on Socrates’ life and
teachings. He also visited Italy and Sicily, where he became the friend of Dion, a rela-
tive of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, Sicily.
On returning to Athens from Sicily, Plato founded a school, which came to be
called the Academy. One might say it was the world’s first university, and it endured as
a center of higher learning for nearly one thousand years, until the Roman emperor
Justinian closed it in A.D. 529. Except for two later trips to Sicily, where he unsuccess-
fully sought to institute his political theories, Plato spent the rest of his life at the
Athenian Academy. Among his students was Aristotle. Plato died at eighty in 348/7 B.C.
Plato’s influence was best described by the twentieth-century philosopher Alfred
North Whitehead when he said, “The safest general characterization of the European
philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”

* * *
It is difficult to separate the ideas of Plato from those of his teacher, Socrates. In virtu-
ally all of Plato’s dialogues, Socrates is the main character, and it is possible that in the
early dialogues Plato is recording his teacher’s actual words. But in the later dialogues,
“Socrates” gives Plato’s views—views that, in some cases, in fact, the historical
Socrates denied.
The first four dialogues presented in this text describe the trial and death of
Socrates and are arranged in narrative order. The first, the Euthyphro, takes place as
Socrates has just learned of the indictment against him. He strikes up a conversation
with a “theologian” so sure of his piety that he is prosecuting his own father for murder.
The dialogue moves on, unsuccessfully, to define piety. Along the way, Socrates asks a
question that has vexed philosophers and theologians for centuries: Is something good
because the gods say it is, or do the gods say it is good because it is?
The next dialogue, the Apology, is generally regarded as one of Plato’s first, and
as eminently faithful to what Socrates said at his trial on charges of impiety and corrup-
tion of youth. The speech was delivered in public and heard by a large audience; Plato
has Socrates mention that Plato was present; and there is no need to doubt the historical
veracity of the speech, at least in essentials. There are two breaks in the narrative: one
after Socrates’ defense (during which the Athenians vote “guilty”) and one after
Socrates proposes an alternative to the death penalty (during which the Athenians
decide on death). This dialogue includes Socrates’ famous characterization of his mis-
sion and purpose in life.
In the Crito, Plato has Crito visit Socrates in prison to assure him that his escape
from Athens has been well prepared and to persuade him to consent to leave. Socrates
argues that one has an obligation to obey the state even when it orders one to suffer
wrong. That Socrates, in fact, refused to leave is certain; that he used the arguments
Plato ascribes to him is less certain. In any case, anyone who has read the Apology will
agree that after his speech Socrates could not well escape.
The moving account of Socrates’ death is given at the end of the Phaedo, the last
of our group of dialogues. There is common agreement that this dialogue was written
much later than the other three and that the earlier part of the dialogue, with its Platonic
doctrine of Forms and immortality, uses “Socrates” as a vehicle for Plato’s own ideas.
These first four dialogues are given in the F.J. Church translation.
6 PLATO

There are few books in Western civilization that have had the impact of Plato’s
Republic—aside from the Bible, perhaps none. Like the Bible, there are also few books
whose interpretation and evaluation have differed so widely. Apparently it is a descrip-
tion of Plato’s ideal society: a utopian vision of the just state, possible only if philoso-
phers were kings. But some (see the following suggested readings) claim that its
purpose is not to give a model of the ideal state, but to show the impossibility of such a
state and to convince aspiring philosophers to shun politics. Evaluations of the Republic
have also varied widely: from the criticisms of Karl Popper, who denounced the
Republic as totalitarian, to the admiration of more traditional interpreters, such as
Francis MacDonald Cornford and Gregory Vlastos.
Given the importance of this work and the diversity of opinions concerning its
point and value, it was extremely difficult to decide which sections of the Republic to
include in this series. I chose to include the discussion of justice from Books I and II,
the descriptions of the guardians and of the “noble lie” from Book III, the discussions of
the virtues and the soul in Book IV, the presentations of the guardians’ qualities and
lifestyles in Book V, and the key sections on knowledge (including the analogy of the
line and the myth of the cave) from the end of Book VI and the beginning of Book VII.
I admit that space constraints have forced me to exclude important sections. Ideally, the
selections chosen will whet the student’s appetite to read the rest of this classic. I am
pleased to offer the Republic in the outstanding new translation by Joe Sachs.
The marginal page numbers are those of all scholarly editions, Greek, English,
German, or French.

* * *
For studies of Socrates, see the classic A.E. Taylor, Socrates: The Man and His Thought
(London: Methuen, 1933); the second half of Volume III of W.K.C. Guthrie, The
History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969); Hugh H.
Benson, Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992);
Anthony Gottlieb, Socrates (London: Routledge, 1999); Christopher Taylor’s pair of
introductions, Socrates and Socrates: A Very Short Introduction (both Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999 and 2000); Nalin Ranasingle, The Soul of Socrates (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2000); Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith, The
Philosophy of Socrates (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000); and James Colaiazo, Socrates
Against Athens (London: Routledge, 2001). For collections of essays, see Gregory
Vlastos, ed., The Philosophy of Socrates (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971); Hugh H.
Benson, ed., Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1992); Terence Irwin, ed., Socrates and His Contemporaries (Hamden, CT: Garland
Publishing, 1995); and the multivolume William J. Prior, ed., Socrates (Oxford:
Routledge, 1996); and Lindsay Judson and Vassilis Karasmanis, eds., Remembering
Socrates: Philosophical Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). For discus-
sions of the similarities and differences between the historical Socrates and the
“Socrates” of the Platonic dialogues, see Gregory Vlastos, Socrates: Ironist and Moral
Philosopher (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), especially Chapters 2 and 3.
Books about Plato are legion. Once again the work of W.K.C. Guthrie is sensible,
comprehensive, yet readable. See Volumes IV and V of his The History of Greek
Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975 and 1978). Paul Shorey,
What Plato Said (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1933); and G.M.A. Grube,
Plato’s Thought (London: Methuen, 1935) are classic treatments of Plato, while Robert
 INTRODUCTION 7

Brumbaugh, Plato for a Modern Age (New York: Macmillan, 1964); I.M. Crombie, An
Examination of Plato’s Doctrines, two volumes (New York: Humanities Press,
1963–1969), R.M. Hare, Plato (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982); David J.
Melling, Understanding Plato (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); Bernard
Williams, Plato (London: Routledge, 1999); Julius Moravcsik, Plato and Platonism
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2000); and Gail Fine, The Oxford Handbook of Plato
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) are more recent studies. For collections of
essays, see Gregory Vlastos, ed., Plato: A Collection of Critical Essays, two volumes
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971); Richard Kraut, ed., The Cambridge Companion
to Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Nancy Tuana, ed., Feminist
Interpretations of Plato (College Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994);
Terence Irwin, ed., Plato’s Ethics and Plato’s Metaphysics and Epistemology (both
Hamden, CT: Garland Publishing, 1995); Gregory Vlastos, ed., Studies in Greek
Philosophy, Volume II: Socrates, Plato, and Their Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1995); Nicholas D. Smith, ed., Plato: Critical Assessments (London:
Routledge, 1998); Gail Fine, ed., Plato (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); and
Gerald A. Press, ed., Who Speaks for Plato? (Lanham, MD: Rownan and Littlefield,
2000). C.D.C. Reeve, Socrates in the Apology (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1989) pro-
vides insights on this key dialogue. For further reading on the Republic, see Nicholas P.
White, A Companion to Plato’s Republic (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1979); Julia
Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981); Nickolas
Pappas, Routledge Guidebook to Plato and the Republic (Oxford: Routledge, 1995);
Daryl Rice, A Guide to Plato’s Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997);
Richard Kraut, ed., Plato’s Republic: Critical Essays (Lanham, MD: Rowan
& Littlefield, 1997); Sean Sayers, Plato’s Republic: An Introduction (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1999); Stanley Rosen, Plato’s Republic (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2005); Luke Purshouse, Plato’s Republic: A Reader’s Guide
(London: Continuum, 2006); and C.R.F. Ferrari, ed., The Cambridge Companion
to Plato’s Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Terence Irwin,
Plato’s Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) and Gabriela Roxanna Carone,
Plato’s Cosmology and Its Ethical Dimensions (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005) examine several dialogues while thoroughly exploring Plato’s ethical
thought. Finally, for unusual interpretations of Plato and his work, see Werner Jaeger,
Paideia, Vols. II and III, translated by Gilbert Highet (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1939–1943); Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies; Volume I: The
Spell of Plato (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962); and Allan Bloom’s
interpretive essay in Plato, Republic, translated by Allan Bloom (New York: Basic
Books, 1968).
 8 PLATO

EUTHYPHRO

Characters
Socrates
Euthyphro
Scene—The Hall of the King*

2 EUTHYPHRO: What in the world are you doing here in the king’s hall, Socrates?
Why have you left your haunts in the Lyceum? You surely cannot have a suit before
him, as I have.
SOCRATES: The Athenians, Euthyphro, call it an indictment, not a suit.
b EUTHYPHRO: What? Do you mean that someone is prosecuting you? I cannot
believe that you are prosecuting anyone yourself.
SOCRATES: Certainly I am not.
EUTHYPHRO: Then is someone prosecuting you?
SOCRATES: Yes.
EUTHYPHRO: Who is he?
SOCRATES: I scarcely know him myself, Euthyphro; I think he must be some
unknown young man. His name, however, is Meletus, and his district Pitthis, if you can
call to mind any Meletus of that district—a hook-nosed man with lanky hair and rather
a scanty beard.
EUTHYPHRO: I don’t know him, Socrates. But tell me, what is he prosecuting you for?
c SOCRATES: What for? Not on trivial grounds, I think. It is no small thing for so
young a man to have formed an opinion on such an important matter. For he, he says,
knows how the young are corrupted, and who are their corrupters. He must be a wise
d man who, observing my ignorance, is going to accuse me to the state, as his mother, of
corrupting his friends. I think that he is the only one who begins at the right point in his
political reforms; for his first care is to make the young men as good as possible, just as
a good farmer will take care of his young plants first, and, after he has done that, of the
3 others. And so Meletus, I suppose, is first clearing us away who, as he says, corrupt the
young men growing up; and then, when he has done that, of course he will turn his
attention to the older men, and so become a very great public benefactor. Indeed, that is
only what you would expect when he goes to work in this way.
EUTHYPHRO: I hope it may be so, Socrates, but I fear the opposite. It seems to me
that in trying to injure you, he is really setting to work by striking a blow at the founda-
tion of the state. But how, tell me, does he say that you corrupt the youth?
b SOCRATES: In a way which sounds absurd at first, my friend. He says that I am a
maker of gods; and so he is prosecuting me, he says, for inventing new gods and for not
believing in the old ones.
EUTHYPHRO: I understand, Socrates. It is because you say that you always have a
divine guide. So he is prosecuting you for introducing religious reforms; and he is going
into court to arouse prejudice against you, knowing that the multitude are easily prejudiced

*The anachronistic title “king” was retained by the magistrate who had jurisdiction over crimes affect-
ing the state religion.

Plato: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, translated by F.J. Church (Pearson/Library of the Liberal Arts, 1987).
 EUTHYPHRO 9

The Acropolis and the Parthenon

a. The Parthenon, Athens, built 477–438 B.C. The Parthenon, dedicated to Athena, patron deity of
Athens, was at one period rededicated to the Christian Virgin Mary and then later became a Turkish
mosque. In 1687 a gunpowder explosion created the ruin we see today. The Doric shell remains as a
monument to ancient architectural engineering expertise and to a sense of classical beauty and order.
( © James Davis/Eye Ubiquitous/Corbis)
b. Restored plan of the Acropolis, 400 B.C. The history of the Acropolis is as varied as the style and size of
the temples and buildings constructed atop the ancient site. (Public Domain)
c. This model of the Acropolis of Athens recreates the complexity of fifth century B.C. public space,
which included centers for worship, public forum, and entertainment. (With permission of the Royal
Ontario Museum © ROM)
d. Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns with their characteristic capitals. (© AS400 DB/Corbis)

about such matters. Why, they laugh even at me, as if I were out of my mind, when I talk
about divine things in the assembly and tell them what is going to happen; and yet I have c
never foretold anything which has not come true. But they are resentful of all people like
us. We must not worry about them; we must meet them boldly.
SOCRATES: My dear Euthyphro, their ridicule is not a very serious matter. The
Athenians, it seems to me, may think a man to be clever without paying him much
attention, so long as they do not think that he teaches his wisdom to others. But as soon
as they think that he makes other people clever, they get angry, whether it be from d
resentment, as you say, or for some other reason.
EUTHYPHRO: I am not very anxious to test their attitude toward me in this matter.
SOCRATES: No, perhaps they think that you are reserved, and that you are not anx-
ious to teach your wisdom to others. But I fear that they may think that I am; for my
love of men makes me talk to everyone whom I meet quite freely and unreservedly, and
 10 PLATO

without payment. Indeed, if I could I would gladly pay people myself to listen to me. If
then, as I said just now, they were only going to laugh at me, as you say they do at you,
it would not be at all an unpleasant way of spending the day—to spend it in court, jok-
ing and laughing. But if they are going to be in earnest, then only prophets like you can
tell where the matter will end.
EUTHYPHRO: Well, Socrates, I dare say that nothing will come of it. Very likely
you will be successful in your trial, and I think that I shall be in mine.
SOCRATES: And what is this suit of yours, Euthyphro? Are you suing, or being sued?
EUTHYPHRO: I am suing.
SOCRATES: Whom?
4 EUTHYPHRO: A man whom people think I must be mad to prosecute.
SOCRATES: What? Has he wings to fly away with?
EUTHYPHRO: He is far enough from flying; he is a very old man.
SOCRATES: Who is he?
EUTHYPHRO: He is my father.
SOCRATES: Your father, my good man?
EUTHYPHRO: He is indeed.
SOCRATES: What are you prosecuting him for? What is the accusation?
EUTHYPHRO: Murder, Socrates.
b SOCRATES: Good heavens, Euthyphro! Surely the multitude are ignorant of what is
right. I take it that it is not everyone who could rightly do what you are doing; only a
man who was already well advanced in wisdom.
EUTHYPHRO: That is quite true, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Was the man whom your father killed a relative of yours? But, of
course, he was. You would never have prosecuted your father for the murder of a
stranger?
EUTHYPHRO: You amuse me, Socrates. What difference does it make whether
the murdered man were a relative or a stranger? The only question that you have to
ask is, did the murderer kill justly or not? If justly, you must let him alone; if unjustly,
c you must indict him for murder, even though he share your hearth and sit at your
table. The pollution is the same if you associate with such a man, knowing what he
has done, without purifying yourself, and him too, by bringing him to justice. In the
present case the murdered man was a poor laborer of mine, who worked for us on our
farm in Naxos. While drunk he got angry with one of our slaves and killed him. My
father therefore bound the man hand and foot and threw him into a ditch, while he
sent to Athens to ask the priest what he should do. While the messenger was gone, he
entirely neglected the man, thinking that he was a murderer, and that it would be no
d great matter, even if he were to die. And that was exactly what happened; hunger and
cold and his bonds killed him before the messenger returned. And now my father and
the rest of my family are indignant with me because I am prosecuting my father for
the murder of this murderer. They assert that he did not kill the man at all; and they
say that, even if he had killed him over and over again, the man himself was a mur-
e derer, and that I ought not to concern myself about such a person because it is impi-
ous for a son to prosecute his father for murder. So little, Socrates, do they know the
divine law of piety and impiety.
SOCRATES: And do you mean to say, Euthyphro, that you think that you under-
stand divine things and piety and impiety so accurately that, in such a case as you have
stated, you can bring your father to justice without fear that you yourself may be doing
something impious?
 EUTHYPHRO 11

EUTHYPHRO: If I did not understand all these matters accurately, Socrates, I should
not be worth much—Euthyphro would not be any better than other men. 5
SOCRATES: Then, my dear Euthyphro, I cannot do better than become your pupil
and challenge Meletus on this very point before the trial begins. I should say that I had
always thought it very important to have knowledge about divine things; and that now,
when he says that I offend by speaking carelessly about them, and by introducing
reforms, I have become your pupil. And I should say, “Meletus, if you acknowledge b
Euthyphro to be wise in these matters and to hold the correct belief, then think the same
of me and do not put me on trial; but if you do not, then bring a suit, not against me, but
against my master, for corrupting his elders—namely, myself whom he corrupts by his
teaching, and his own father whom he corrupts by admonishing and punishing him.”
And if I did not succeed in persuading him to release me from the suit or to indict you
in my place, then I could repeat my challenge in court.
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, by Zeus! Socrates, I think I should find out his weak points if he
were to try to indict me. I should have a good deal to say about him in court long before c
I spoke about myself.
SOCRATES: Yes, my dear friend, and knowing this I am anxious to become your
pupil. I see that Meletus here, and others too, seem not to notice you at all, but he sees
through me without difficulty and at once prosecutes me for impiety. Now, therefore,
please explain to me what you were so confident just now that you knew. Tell me what d
are righteousness and sacrilege with respect to murder and everything else. I suppose
that piety is the same in all actions, and that impiety is always the opposite of piety, and
retains its identity, and that, as impiety, it always has the same character, which will be
found in whatever is impious.
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly, Socrates, I suppose so.
SOCRATES: Tell me, then, what is piety and what is impiety?
EUTHYPHRO: Well, then, I say that piety means prosecuting the unjust individual
who has committed murder or sacrilege, or any other such crime, as I am doing now,
whether he is your father or your mother or whoever he is; and I say that impiety means e
not prosecuting him. And observe, Socrates, I will give you a clear proof, which I have
already given to others, that it is so, and that doing right means not letting off unpun-
ished the sacrilegious man, whosoever he may be. Men hold Zeus to be the best and the
most just of the gods; and they admit that Zeus bound his own father, Cronos, for 6
wrongfully devouring his children; and that Cronos, in his turn, castrated his father for
similar reasons. And yet these same men are incensed with me because I proceed
against my father for doing wrong. So, you see, they say one thing in the case of the
gods and quite another in mine.
SOCRATES: Is not that why I am being prosecuted, Euthyphro? I mean, because
I find it hard to accept such stories people tell about the gods? I expect that I shall be
found at fault because I doubt those stories. Now if you who understand all these mat-
ters so well agree in holding all those tales true, then I suppose that I must yield to your b
authority. What could I say when I admit myself that I know nothing about them? But
tell me, in the name of friendship, do you really believe that these things have actually
happened?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, and more amazing things, too, Socrates, which the multitude do
not know of.
SOCRATES: Then you really believe that there is war among the gods, and bitter
hatreds, and battles, such as the poets tell of, and which the great painters have depicted c
in our temples, notably in the pictures which cover the robe that is carried up to the
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of England under
the Angevin Kings, Volume I
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
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laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: England under the Angevin Kings, Volume I

Author: Kate Norgate

Release date: June 19, 2022 [eBook #68346]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: Macmillan and Co, 1887

Credits: MWS, Fay Dunn and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file
was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLAND

UNDER THE ANGEVIN KINGS, VOLUME I ***
 Transcriber’s Note

The cover image was created by the transcriber, and is placed in the public domain.
Please see the note at the end of the book, which is preceded by the Index to Volumes I
and II, copied from Volume II.
 ENGLAND
UNDER

THE ANGEVIN KINGS

 ENGLAND
UNDER

THE ANGEVIN KINGS

BY

KATE NORGATE

IN TWO VOLUMES—VOL. I.

WITH MAPS AND PLANS

London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1887

All rights reserved

 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

WITH THE DEEPEST REVERENCE AND GRATITUDE

TO THE MEMORY OF

MY DEAR AND HONOURED MASTER

JOHN RICHARD GREEN

 PREFACE

This attempt to sketch the history of England under the Angevin

kings owes its existence to the master whose name I have ventured
to place at its beginning. It was undertaken at his suggestion; its
progress through those earliest stages which for an inexperienced
writer are the hardest of all was directed by his counsels, aided by
his criticisms, encouraged by his sympathy; and every step in my
work during the past eleven years has but led me to feel more
deeply and to prize more highly the constant help of his teaching and
his example. Of the book in its finished state he never saw a page.
For its faults no one is answerable but myself. I can only hope that,
however great may be its errors and its defects, it may yet shew at
least some traces of that influence which is so abidingly precious to
me.
I desire respectfully to express my gratitude to the Lord Bishop of
Chester and to Mr. Freeman, who, for the sake of the friend who had
commended me to their kindness, have been good enough to help
me with information and advice on many occasions during my work.
A word of acknowledgement is due for some of the maps and
plans. The map of Gaul in the tenth century is founded upon one in
Mr. Freeman’s Norman Conquest. The plans of Bristol and Lincoln
are adapted from those in the Proceedings of the Archæological
Institute; for Lincoln I was further assisted by the local knowledge
kindly placed at my disposal by the Rev. Precentor Venables. For
Oxford I have followed the guidance of the Rev. Father F. Goldie,
S.J. (A Bygone Oxford), and of Mr. J. Parker (Early History of
Oxford); and for London, that of its historian the Rev. W. J. Loftie,
whom I have especially to thank for his help on some points of
London topography.
My greatest help of all has been the constant personal kindness
and ever-ready sympathy of Mrs. Green. To her, as to my dear
master himself, I owe and feel a gratitude which cannot be put into
words.
KATE NORGATE.
January 1887.
 CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
PAGE
The England of Henry I., 1100–1135 1

CHAPTER II
The Beginnings of Anjou, 843–987 97
Note A.—The Sources of Angevin History 126
Note B.—The Palace of the Counts at Angers 132
Note C.—The Marriages of Geoffrey Greygown 134
Note D.—The Breton and Poitevin Wars of Geoffrey
Greygown 136
Note E.—The Grant of Maine to Geoffrey Greygown 140

CHAPTER III
Anjou and Blois, 987–1044 143
Note A.—The Siege of Melun 189
Note B.—The Parents of Queen Constance 190
Note C.—The Pilgrimages of Fulk Nerra 192
Note D.—Geoffrey Martel and Poitou 197

CHAPTER IV
Anjou and Normandy, 1044–1128 200
Note A.—The Houses of Anjou and Gâtinais 249
Note B.—The Heir of Geoffrey Martel 251
 Note C.—The War of Saintonge 252
Note D.—The Descendants of Herbert Wake-dog 253
Note E.—The Siege of La Flèche and Treaty of
Blanchelande 256
Note F.—The Marriage of Geoffrey and Matilda 258

CHAPTER V
Geoffrey Plantagenet and Stephen of Blois, 1128–
1139 261

CHAPTER VI
England and the Barons, 1139–1147 308
Note.—The Topography of the Battle of Lincoln 344

CHAPTER VII
The English Church, 1136–1149 347

CHAPTER VIII
Henry Duke of the Normans, 1149–1154 372

CHAPTER IX
Henry and England, 1154–1157 407

CHAPTER X
Henry and France, 1156–1161 440

CHAPTER XI
The Last Years of Archbishop Theobald, 1156–1161 474
 LIST OF MAPS

I. Gaul c. 909–941 To face page 107

II. Gaul c. 1027 ” 143

PLANS

I. Winchester. II. Bristol To face page 31

III. Lincoln. IV. Oxford ” 40
V. London ” 44
VI. Angers ” 165
 CHAPTER I.
THE ENGLAND OF HENRY I.

1100–1135.

“When the green tree, cut asunder in the midst and severed by the
space of three furlongs, shall be grafted in again and shall bring forth
flowers and fruit,—then at last may England hope to see the end of
her sorrows.”[1]

[1] Vita Edwardi (Luard), p. 431.

So closed the prophecy in which the dying king Eadward the

Confessor foretold the destiny in store for his country after his
departure. His words, mocked at by one of the listeners,
incomprehensible to all, found an easy interpretation a hundred
years later. The green tree of the West-Saxon monarchy had fallen
beneath Duke William’s battle-axe; three alien reigns had parted its
surviving branch from the stem; the marriage of Henry I. with a
princess of the old English blood-royal had grafted it in again.[2] One
flower sprung from that union had indeed bloomed only to die ere it
reached its prime,[3] but another had brought forth the promised fruit;
and the dim ideal of national prosperity and union which English and
Normans alike associated with the revered name of the Confessor
was growing at last into a real and living thing beneath the sceptre of
Henry Fitz-Empress.

[2] Æthelred of Rievaux, Vita S. Edw. Regis (Twysden, X.

Scriptt.), col. 401.
 [3] Will. Malm. Gesta Reg., l. v. c. 419 (Hardy, p. 652), notes
that the fulfilment of the prophecy was looked for in William the
Ætheling.

There are, at first glance, few stranger things in history than the
revival thus prefigured:—a national revival growing up, as it seems,
in the most adverse circumstances, under the pressure of an alien
government, of a race of kings who were strangers alike to the men
of old English blood and to the descendants of those who had come
over with the Conqueror: at a time when, in a merely political point of
view, England seemed to be not only conquered but altogether
swallowed up in the vast and varied dominions of the house of
Anjou. It was indeed not the first time that the island had become an
appendage to a foreign empire compared with which she was but a
speck in the ocean. Cnut the Dane was, like Henry of Anjou, not only
king of England but also ruler of a great continental monarchy far
exceeding England in extent, and forming together with her a
dominion only to be equalled, if equalled at all, by that of the
Emperor. But the parallel goes no farther. Cnut’s first kingdom, the
prize of his youthful valour, was his centre and his home, of which
his Scandinavian realms, even his native Denmark, were mere
dependencies. Whatever he might be when he revisited them, in his
island-kingdom he was an Englishman among Englishmen. The heir
of Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda of Normandy, on the other hand,
was virtually of no nationality, no country; but if he could be said to
have a home at all, it was certainly not on this side of the sea—it was
the little marchland of his fathers. In the case of his sons, the
southern blood of their mother Eleanor added a yet more un-English
element; and of Richard, indeed, it might almost be said that the
home of his choice was not in Europe at all, but in Holy Land. Alike
to him and to his father, England was simply the possession which
gave them their highest title, furnished them with resources for
prosecuting their schemes of continental policy, and secured to them
a safe refuge on which to fall back in moments of difficulty or danger.
It was not till the work of revival was completed, till it had resulted in
the creation of the new England which comes to light with Edward I.,
that it could find a representative and a leader in the king himself.
The sovereign in whose reign the chief part of the work was done
stood utterly aloof from it in sympathy; yet he is in fact its central
figure and its most important actor. The story of England’s
developement from the break-down of the Norman system under
Stephen to the consolidation of a national monarchy under Edward I.
is the story of Henry of Anjou, of his work and of its results. But as
the story does not end with Henry, so neither does it begin with him.
It is impossible to understand Henry himself without knowing
something of the race from which he sprang; of those wonderful
Angevin counts who, beginning as rulers of a tiny under-fief of the
duchy of France, grew into a sovereign house extending its sway
from one end of Christendom to the other. It is impossible to
understand his work without knowing something of what England
was, and how she came to be what she was, when the young count
of Anjou was called to wear her crown.
The project of an empire such as that which Henry II. actually
wielded had been the last dream of William Rufus. In the summer of
1100 the duke of Aquitaine, about to join the Crusaders in Holy Land,
offered his dominions in pledge to the king of England. Rufus
clutched at the offer “like a lion at his prey.”[4] Five years before he
had received the Norman duchy on the same terms from his brother
Robert; he had bridled its restless people and brought them under
control; he had won back its southern dependency, his father’s first
conquest, the county of Maine. Had this new scheme been realized,
nothing but the little Angevin march would have broken the continuity
of a Norman dominion stretching from the Forth to the Pyrenees, and
in all likelihood the story of the Angevin kings would never have had
to be told. Jesting after his wont with his hunting-companions,
William—so the story goes—declared that he would keep his next
Christmas feast at Poitiers, if he should live so long.[5] But that same
evening the Red King lay dead in the New Forest, and his territories
fell asunder at once. Robert of Normandy came back from Palestine
in triumph to resume possession of his duchy; while the barons of
England, without waiting for his return, chose his English-born
brother Henry for their king.
 [4] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, Hist. Norm. Scriptt.), p. 780.

[5] Geoff. Gaimar, vv. 6296–6298 (Wright, p. 219).

Thirteen years before, at his father’s death, Henry, the only child of
William and Matilda who was actually born in the purple—the child of
a crowned king and queen, born on English soil, and thus by birth,
though not by descent, entitled to rank as an English Ætheling—had
been launched into the world at the age of nineteen without a foot of
land that he could call his own. The story went that he had
complained bitterly to the dying Conqueror of his exclusion from all
share in the family heritage. “Have patience, boy,” was William’s
answer, “let thine elder brothers go before thee; the day will come
when thou shalt be greater than either of them.” Henry was,
however, not left a penniless adventurer dependent on the bounty of
his brothers; the Conqueror gave him a legacy of ten thousand
pounds as a solid provision wherewith to begin his career. A year
had scarcely passed before Duke Robert, overwhelmed with troubles
in Normandy, found himself at his wits’ end with an empty treasury,
and besought Henry to lend him some money. The Ætheling, as cool
and calculating as his brothers were impetuous, refused; the duke in
desperation offered to sell him any territory he chose, and a bargain
was struck whereby Henry received, for the sum of three thousand
pounds, the investiture of the Cotentin, the Avranchin, and the Mont-
St.-Michel—in a word, the whole western end of the Norman duchy.
[6] Next summer, while the duke was planning an attempt on the
English crown and vainly awaiting a fair wind to enable him to cross
the Channel, the count of the Cotentin managed to get across
without one, to claim the estates in Gloucestershire formerly held by
his mother and destined for him by his father’s will. He was received
by William Rufus only too graciously, for the consequence was that
some mischief-makers, always specially plentiful at the Norman
court, persuaded Duke Robert that his youngest brother was plotting
against him with the second, and when Henry returned in the autumn
he had no sooner landed than he was seized and cast into prison.[7]
Within a year he was free again, reinstated, if not in the Cotentin, at