Page:The Queens of England.djvu/66

$2 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. these words of wounded affection on the one hand, and paternal pride on the other, was William Long Espee, the eldest son of Rosamond, whose birth took place before Henry returned to Eleanor in Normandy. Soon after his return, the death of Stephen summoned him to England as its undisputed sovereign ; and accompanied by his wife and son, he went thither in the month of December, 1 1 54, and on the 19th of the same month he and Eleanor were crowned in Westminster Abbey. This coronation was one of unparalleled magnificence. Eleanor, who had naturally a taste for elegance and splendor, which had been greatly increased by her journey into the East, whence she had brought articles of luxury and magnificence hitherto unknown in the western parts of Europe, indulged, on this occasion, this taste to the utmost, and astonished her new subjects by all her Oriental splendor. The coronation robes of the ecclesiastics were now for the first time composed of silk and velvet embroidered with gold. Henry wore a short Angevin cloak, which obtained for him the surname of Court Mantle, and the form of the coro- nation robes as worn by him is continued to the present time. The Christmas festivities were held with great pomp at Westminster palace, but immediately after the coronation, Eleanor removed to the palace at Bermondsey, where, in the following February, she gave birth to her second son. In a commercial point of view, Henry's union with the Princess of Aquitaine was advantageous to the country. The wines of Gascony were now for the first time introduced, and large for- tunes were made by the merchants who imported them, although some of the rigid old chroniclers complain of the increase of drunkenness in consequence of the cheapness of these wines. Henry, as the direct descendant of the beloved old Saxon monarchs, was regarded with affection by the English people, and at a great assembly of the nobles in the following March, the barons kissed the hands of his children, who were present with the queen, and swore to acknowledge them as the heirs of the English crown, as the rightful descendants of Alfred and Edward the Confessor. A few weeks afterwards William, the eldest of these children, died, and was buried by his great- grandfather, Henry I., at Reading. The queen, as was natural, indulged in her new kingdom her native love for poetry and dramatic representation. Mysteries and miracle plays were acted before her, and many records yet