The Lion of Justice (40 page)

‘You have always done what is best for your subjects, sir.'

Oh yes, there was great comfort in Stephen.

When Stephen left the King he could not help feeling exultant.

Who is there? he asked himself. Why should I not be the next? The King loves me. If he does not get himself an heir . . . why should the next ruler not be King Stephen?

Henry had come out of his stupor. A king cannot mourn forever. We should have had more sons, he thought. Better too many than not enough.

He went to the window and looked out.

Across the courtyard walked a comely young lady of the Court. He felt the familiar stirrings which invariably assailed him at the sight of a nubile girl.

I am not old, he thought. I am not as old as the Emperor of Germany – yet
he
took a young wife.

Why should I not get sons, a prince who will follow me? I have the time; I have the vitality.

It was the answer.

Then he would stop grieving. He had loved Matilda; he had loved his sons; but they were lost.

He was not old; he was full of vigour. His desire for women had not yet begun to fail.

The King had made up his mind. He would take a young wife, and that without delay.

Arnold, Ralph
A Social History of England

Aubrey, William Hickham Smith
The National and Domestic History of England

Bagley, J. J.
Life in Medieval England

Baker, Timothy
The Normans

Brooke, Christopher
From Alfred to Henry III

Brown, R. Allen
The Normans and the Norman Conquest

Bryant, Arthur
The Story of England: Makers of the Realm

Davis, H. W. C.
England under the Normans and the Angevins

Green, J. R.
A Short History of the English People

Milne, Duncan Grinnell
The Killing of William Rufus

Page, R. I.
Life in Anglo-Saxon England

Pine, L. G.
Heirs of the Conqueror

Poole, Austin Lane
From Doomsday Book to Magna Carta 1087–1216

Round, J. H.
Feudal England

Stenton, F. M.
Anglo-Saxon England

Stephen, Sir Leslie and Lee, Sir Sydney (edited by)
The Dictionary of National Biography

Strickland, Agnes
Lives of the Queens of England

Tomkeieff, O. G.
Life in Norman England

White, R. T.
A Short History of England

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Epub ISBN: 9781448150298

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First published in Great Britain 1975 by Robert Hale & Company

© Jean Plaidy 1975

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ISBN 0 330 25175 9