He also made rapid strides as a liar, and even his own grocer would not trust him.  He successfully fainted when he heard of his son’s death, 1120 A.D.

His reign closed in 1135, when Stephen, a grandson of the Conqueror, with the aid of a shoe-horn assumed the crown of England, and, placing a large damp towel in it, proceeded to reign.  He began at once to swap patronage for kind words, and every noble was as ignoble as a phenomenal thirst and unbridled lust could make him.  Every farm had a stone jail on it, in charge of a noble jailer.  Feudal castles, full of malaria and surrounded by insanitary moats and poor plumbing, echoed the cry of the captive and the bacchanalian song of the noble.  The country was made desolate by duly authorized robbers, who, under the Crusaders’ standard, prevented the maturity of the spring chicken and hushed the still, small voice of the roast pig in death.

[Illustration:  HENRY FAINTED WHEN HE HEARD THE SAD NEWS.]

William the Conqueror was not only remembered bitterly in the broken hearts of his people, but in history his name will stand out forever because of his strange and grotesque designs on posterity.

In 1141 Stephen was made prisoner, and for five years he was not restored to his kingdom.  In the mean time, Matilda, the widow of Henry I., encouraged by the prelates, landed in England to lay claim to the throne, and after a great deal of ill feeling and much needed assassination, her son Henry, who had become quite a large property-owner in France, invaded England, and finally succeeded in obtaining recognition as the rightful successor of Stephen.  Stephen died in 1153, and Henry became king.

[Illustration:  MATILDA LANDING IN ENGLAND.]

The Feudal System, which obtained in England for four hundred years, was a good one for military purposes, for the king on short notice might raise an army by calling on the barons, who levied on their vassals, and they in turn levied on their dependants.

A feudal castle was generally built in the Norman style of architecture.  It had a “donjon,” or keep, which was generally occupied by the baron as a bar-room, feed-trough, and cooler between fights.  It was built of stone, and was lighted by means of crevices through the wall by day, and by means of a saucer of tallow and a string or rush which burned during the night and served mainly to show how dark it was.  There was a front yard or fighting-place around this, surrounded by a high wall, and this again by a moat.  There was an inner court back of the castle, into which the baron could go for thinking.  A chapel was connected with the institution, and this was the place to which he retired for the purpose of putting arnica on his conscience.

Underneath the castle was a large dungeon, where people who differed with the baron had a studio.  Sometimes they did not get out at all, but died there in their sins, while the baron had all the light of gospel and chapel privileges up-stairs.