Henry had in him some of the elements of a fine character. His mind was cultivated; he was a discriminating patron of literature, and Westminster Abbey is an abiding memorial of his artistic taste. His personal morality was irreproachable, except that he inherited the Plantagenet taste for crooked courses and dissimulation in political affairs; even in this respect the king's reputation has suffered unduly at the hands of Matthew Paris, whose literary skill is only equalled by his malice. The ambitions which Henry cherished, if extravagant, were never sordid; his patriotism, though seldom attested by practical measures, was thoroughly sincere. Some of his worst actions as a politician were due to a sincere, though exaggerated, gratitude for the support which the Papacy had given him during his minority. But he had neither the training nor the temper of a statesman. His dreams of autocracy at home and far-reaching dominion abroad were anachronisms in a century of constitutional ideas and national differentiation. Above all he earned the contempt of Englishmen and foreigners alike by the instability of his purpose. Matthew Paris said that he had a heart of wax; Dante relegated him to the limbo of ineffectual souls; and later generations have endorsed these scathing judgments.
Henry died at Westminster on the 16th of November 1272; his widow, Eleanor, took the veil in 1276 and died at Amesbury on the 25th of June 1291. Their children were: the future king Edward I.; Edmund, earl of Lancaster; Margaret (1240-1275), the wife of Alexander III., king of Scotland; Beatrice; and Katherine.
ORIGINAL AUTHORITIES.--Roger of Wendover, _Flores historiarum_ (ed. H. O. Coxe, 4 vols., 1841-1844); and Matthew of Paris, _Chronica majora_ (ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls Series, 7 vols., 1872-1883) are the chief narrative sources. See also the _Annales monastici_ (ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls Series, 5 vols., 1864-1869); the collection of _Royal and other Historical Letters_ edited by W. Shirley (Rolls Series, 2 vols., 1862-1866); the Close and Patent Rolls edited for the Record Commission and the Master of the Rolls; the _Epistolae Roberti Grosseteste_ (ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls Series, 1861); the _Monumenta Franciscana_, vol. i. (ed. J. S. Brewer, Rolls Series, 1858); the documents in the new _Foedera_, vol. i. (Record Commission, 1816).