So, from one town to another Peter went. He preached in market-places, when the people left off their business to listen to the strange-looking man who talked in such an excited way. In France his preaching made the most sensation, and on one occasion the people exclaimed with one voice, "God wills it!" and declared that they would free the Holy City from infidels. So thousands of Christians went to Palestine to try and turn out the Saracens. These wars were sometimes called Holy Wars, because the quarrel was about religion; and sometimes Crusades, from a French word meaning "cross," for every Christian soldier wore a cross on his arm as a sign of his faith.

Robert, Duke of Normandy, then, joined the Crusades. William was glad to have him out of the way. There is little good to be said for this king; he was very cruel to the Saxons whom he ruled, and seems to have had all his father's faults, and few of his merits. He robbed the clergy very much, and cared nothing for any kind of religion. He only cared for hunting, and enlarged the hunting-ground. After reigning thirteen years he was killed in the New Forest by a shot from the bow of one of his knights-whether by accident or on purpose was never discovered. This king was nicknamed Rufus, which means "red," from the colour of his hair.

THE NEW FOREST.

THERE moves a sad procession

Across the silent vale,

With backward glancing eyes of grief,

And tearful cheeks all pale.

Scattered and slow, without array,
With wavering feet they go,

Yet with a kind of solemn pace,
The measured tread of woe.

There women pause and tremble,
And weep with breaking heart;
While men with deeply-knitted brows
Stride mutely on apart.

There infants cling upon the breast,

Their own accustomed place,

And children look up askingly

Into each darkened face.

For the king has sent his soldiers

Who strike and pity not,

They have razed to the earth each smiling home, They have burned each lowly cot.

It was the ruthless Conqueror

By whom this deed was done;
And yet more fierce and hard of heart
Was Rufus, his stern son.

So they leave each humble cottage
Where they so long have dwelt,
Where morn and eve to simple prayer
With thankful hearts they knelt;
Places all brightened with the joy

Of sweet domestic years,
And spots made holy by the flow
Of unforgotten tears.

And the gardens are uprooted,

And the walls cast down around; it is all a spacious wilderness,

The king's great hunting-ground.
While hopeless, homeless, shelterless,
Those exiles wander on,

And most of them lie down to die
Ere many days are gone.

Oh, Forest! green New Forest,
Home of the bird and breeze,

With all thy soft and sweeping glades,
And long dim aisles of trees,
Like some ancestral palace

Thou standest proud and fair,
Yet is each tree a monument
To Death and lone Despair!

And thou, relentless tyrant !

Ride forth and chase the deer, With a heart that never melted yet To pity or to fear.

But for all these broken spirits,

And for all these wasted homes,

God will avenge the fatherless—
The day of reckoning comes!

To hunt rode fierce King Rufus
Upon a holy morn;

The Church had summoned him to pray,

But he held the Church in scorn.

Sir Walter Tyrrel rode with him,
And drew his good bow-string,
He drew the string to smite a deer,
But the arrow smote the king.

Down from his startled charger
The death-struck monarch falls.

Sir Walter fled afar for fear,

And turned not at his calls.

On the spot where his strong hand had made

So many desolate,

He died with none to pity him—

Such was the tyrant's fate.

None mourned for cruel Rufus,
With pomp they buried him,
But no heart grieved beside his bier,
No kindly eye grew dim.

But poor men lifted up their heads

And clasped their hands, and said, "Thank God, the ruthless Conqueror And his stern son are dead."

Remember! oh remember!

Ye who shudder at my lay,
These cruel men were children once,
As ye are now were they.
They sported round a mother's seat,
They prayed beside her knee,
She gazed into their cloudless eyes

And asked, "What will they be ?"

Alas, unhappy mothers!

If ye could then have known

How crime would make each soft gay heart
As cold and hard as stone,

Ye would have wished them in their graves
Ere life had passed its spring.

Ah, friends, keep watch upon your hearts-
Sin is a fearful thing.

From "THE BOOK OF POETRY."

CHAPTER V.

HENRY I. (Surnamed Beau Clerc), 1100-1136.

Married Matilda of Scotland.

Children :-William, died before his father; Matilda, or Maud, married first the Emperor of Germany; secondly, Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou.

AFTER William Rufus's death, his youngest brother Henry seized the crown. He had no right to it, for Robert was still alive fighting in Palestine. Henry was surnamed the Fine Scholar, because he was fond of learning. He certainly was sharp enough, but his sharpness was unfortunately accompanied by considerable meanness. As he knew he had no right to the throne, he thought it safest to make as many friends as possible. So directly William was dead, Henry seized the royal treasure, and gave away quantities of money to the nobles. Next, he married a Scotch princess, because he thought by that means to ensure a quiet neighbour in the King of Scotland, and also, as the princess was a Saxon, to please his Saxon subjects.