I40 HENRY AND RICHARD. [Vf. men. Henry, the eldest son, was, as we are told, devoted to arms; if he was not equally accomplished in letters it was not because such accomplishments were undervalued by the people whom he was expected to rule. There is among the letters of Peter of Blois an epistle written in the name of Rotrou, archbishop of Rouen, and at the express wish of the Norman bishops, urging in strong terms, and by cogent examples, the importance of a literary training for a young prince. Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, King David, Constantine, Theodosius, Justinian, and Leo are pressed into the service. No doubt the advice was taken; but the stormy career of the younger Henry does not afford many indications of its results. One book we know, a book unfortunately lost, was especially written for his amusement. Gervase of Tilbury, who, many years after Henry's death, wrote for his grandson, the Emperor , Otto, the Otia Imperialia, tells us that he wrote a Liber ' Facetiarum for the young king, in which no doubt he collected the amusing stories of the popes and emperorsthat were current at the time, some of which are probably preserved for us in the pages of Ralph de Diceto. It is possible that the Otia Imperialia were originally drawn up for the instruction of the same prince. It is curious, however, that in none of the panegyrics of this unfortunate boy is any special stress laid on his knowledge of letters, and it is even possible that the. epistle of Archbishop Rotrou was intended as a remonstrance against the exclusively military training of the heir to the crown; certainly Thomas Becket, to whose care he is said to have been committed in his youth, would, at that period of his career, have been better qualified to instruct him in arms than in letters. With Richard it was otherwise. In his case we must certainly allow some amount of literary knowledge and