Note 720 — Chapter III · (continued 2)

Ib. “Henricus acer fraternæ ultor injuriæ præ ira infremuit.” Simple wrath is an attribute which we are more used to assign to Henry the Second, with his hereditary touch of the Angevin devil, than to the calm, deliberate, Henry the First. Yet we can understand how, through the stages of the “ironica insultatio,” as Orderic calls Henry’s discourse to Conan, a determination taken in cold blood might grow into the fierce delight of destruction at the actual moment of carrying it out.