way to the king and struck him a deadly blow on the head, but Henry's headpiece saved him, though it was broken by the blow, and wounded his head so that the blood flowed. All the eighty knights were taken. A body of knights from the Vexin for a moment shook the Norman lines, but was quickly repulsed. When Louis saw that William Crispin and the knights whom he led did not return from their charge, he and his men took flight, and the Normans pursued some of the fugitives as far as Andelys. Henry's men took 140 prisoners and the banner of the French king. Henry returned this banner to Louis together with his charger, and William the Ætheling sent back the charger of his cousin William of Normandy. Henry also sent back without ransom some knights who owed allegiance to Louis as well as to himself. Only three knights were slain out of the nine hundred engaged in the fight; for all were clad in complete armour, and on both sides there was a feeling of knightly comradeship which prevented any sanguinary conflict; indeed the aim of both sides was rather to make prisoners than to slay the enemy. The whole affair was more like a great tournament than a battle (Orderic, pp. 853–5; Suger, p. 45; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 241, where some details are probably untrustworthy). Louis raised a large force and overran part of Normandy and Chartres, gaining nothing by his raid, while Henry organised his army. In October Louis, who evidently felt himself overmatched, appeared before Calixtus II at the Council of Rheims, and made his complaints against the English king. Geoffrey, archbishop of Rouen, rose to reply to the charges brought against his lord, but the council would not hear him. The pope, however, was anxious to make peace with the emperor, and did not care to offend the father of the empress. Meanwhile Henry received the submission of several rebel lords, and was reconciled to Amaury of Montfort, Eustace, and Juliana, Hugh of Gournay, and others, who agreed, though against their wills, to let William Clito and Elias of St.-Saen remain in exile. In November he met the pope at Gisors, and replied in person to the charges brought against him by Louis of usurping the inheritance of his brother and nephew, declaring that he had offered to make William earl of three counties in England, and to bring him up with his own son. His answers on these and other points thoroughly satisfied the pope, by whose intercession a peace was arranged in 1120 between Henry and Louis and the Count of Flanders; all conquests were to be restored, captives liberated, and offences pardoned, and Louis accepted the homage of Henry's son, and thus gave a pledge that he should succeed to his father's fiefs (Orderic, p. 866; Norman Conquest, v. 193). Henry thus passed safely and honourably through the most dangerous crisis of his reign. After devoting some time to settling the affairs of the duchy, he embarked at Barfleur on 25 Nov. to return to England, from which he had been absent for four years. His only legitimate son, William, was to follow him, with his half-brother Richard, his half-sister the Countess of Perche, many young lords and ladies, and the king's treasure, in the White Ship. The ship foundered, and all were drowned except a butcher of Rouen. Although Henry's lords were mourning their own losses, they concealed the disaster from the king for a day after the news had come, for they feared to tell him. At last the young son of Count Theobald knelt before him and told him of his loss. Henry fell senseless to the ground, and though in a few days he restrained his grief, and applied himself to his kingly business, he was deeply affected by his son's death (Orderic, pp. 868 sq.; Gesta Regum, v. 419; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 242; Symeon, ii. 259; Wace, ll. 10203–10288; Benoit, ll. 41039–41152).
The disaster ruined his schemes at the very moment when their success appeared certain, and when it seemed as though nothing could prevent his son from inheriting both his kingdom and duchy. All his dominions would now naturally pass at his death to his enemy, William Clito. By the advice of his counsellors he married again, taking to wife, on 29 Jan. 1121, Adela, or Adelaide, daughter of Godfrey VII, count of Louvain, in the hope of having a son by her, and also, it is said, to keep himself from disgraceful conduct (Gesta Regum, v. 419; Eadmer, col. 517). Unfortunately the marriage proved barren. After Whitsuntide Henry led an army into Wales, where the natives had taken advantage of the death of the Earl of Chester to rise in revolt. He marched as far as Snowdon (Symeon, ii. 264), and received the submission of the Welsh nobles, who gave him their sons as hostages, and paid him tribute, so that he is said to have fully subdued the land (Giraldus Cambrensis, iii. 152). While on this expedition, and as the army was passing through English territory, he was hit by an arrow which was shot at him secretly. His armour saved him from harm. The man who made the attempt was not discovered, and Henry swore ‘by God's death,’ his favourite oath, that he was no Welshman, but one of his own subjects (Gesta Regum, v. 401). Shortly before this time Henry brought to a close a quarrel with Thurstan, archbishop of
