rally styled by the English " the Articling," as heir presumptive to the ducal crown; after which the king returned, with his royal son, then but twelve years old, to England, where, early in autumn, he called together that memorable council of the nobles and the representatives of the people, from which some historians date the origin of that buttress of British liberty, the House of Commons. "A t this assembly," says Malmsbury, " all the freemen, of England anil Normandy, of whatsoever order and dignity, or to what lord soever they were vassals or tenants, were made to do homage and swear fealty to William, son of Xing Henry and Queen Matilda." During the Christmas festival of this year, Matilda and her royal lord were sumptuously entertained at the abbey of St. Alban's, by the Abbot Richards, whose guests they were. The building of the magnificent fabric had just been completed, and Matilda, being its most munificent patroness, she officiated at its consecration, which took placo in the presence of a vast assembly of prelates and nobles, on Christmas day, 1115. In 1116, the king took his son, William, to Normandy, where he tarried till November, in the following year, when Matilda's health being in a declining state, he left his royal heir in charge of his Norman nobles, and returned to England. After a brief sojourn, his affairs compelled him to again embark for Normandy, where he was actively occupied chastising his unruly barons ; when, on the first of May, 1118, Matilda, whilst yet in the flower of her age, closed her eyes in the sleep of death. For seventeen years and six months had the good queen ruled with motherly affection over her loving English subjects, who now mourned her loss as a great national calamity. The king's grief, when he received the mournful tidings of the death of his consort, was hitter and deeply distressing ; but the same circumstances that had hitherto detained him in Normandy prevented him from honouring her funeral with his presence. History mentions so many spots as the reposing place of the relics of Matilda the Good, that it is impossible, with certainty, to point to the site of her grave. TyrreU assures ns she was buried at Winchester. Piers of Langtoft claims the honourof owning her tomb for St. Paul's cathedral, and the monks of Reading stoutly maintained that in their own stately abbey lay the mortal remains of their royal benefactress. Rut the tradition most generally received is, that her obsequies were solemnized, with much grandeur, on St. Philip's day, in Westminster Abbey, where her body was entombed beside that of her sainted uncle, Edward the Confessor; and that a stately monument, which time has long sinco destroyed, was there raised to her memory by the citizens of London, who, to mark their affection for the first consort of Beauclerc, whom tradition has handed down to us with the endearing and honourable surname of "the Good," annually provided a pall, and oil to burn before her greatly-revered sepulchre.