For the Priests in general had found out, since a Becket's death,
that they admired him of all things - though they had hated him
very cordially when he was alive.
The Earl of Flanders, who was at the head of the base conspiracy of
the King's undutiful sons and their foreign friends, took the
opportunity of the King being thus employed at home, to lay siege
to Rouen, the capital of Normandy. But the King, who was
extraordinarily quick and active in all his movements, was at
Rouen, too, before it was supposed possible that he could have left
England; and there he so defeated the said Earl of Flanders, that
the conspirators proposed peace, and his bad sons Henry and
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Geoffrey submitted. Richard resisted for six weeks; but, being
beaten out of castle after castle, he at last submitted too, and
his father forgave him.
To forgive these unworthy princes was only to afford them
breathing-time for new faithlessness. They were so false,
disloyal, and dishonourable, that they were no more to be trusted
than common thieves. In the very next year, Prince Henry rebelled
again, and was again forgiven. In eight years more, Prince Richard
rebelled against his elder brother; and Prince Geoffrey infamously
said that the brothers could never agree well together, unless they
were united against their father. In the very next year after
their reconciliation by the King, Prince Henry again rebelled
against his father; and again submitted, swearing to be true; and
was again forgiven; and again rebelled with Geoffrey.
But the end of this perfidious Prince was come. He fell sick at a
French town; and his conscience terribly reproaching him with his
baseness, he sent messengers to the King his father, imploring him
to come and see him, and to forgive him for the last time on his
bed of death. The generous King, who had a royal and forgiving
mind towards his children always, would have gone; but this Prince
had been so unnatural, that the noblemen about the King suspected
treachery, and represented to him that he could not safely trust
his life with such a traitor, though his own eldest son. Therefore
the King sent him a ring from off his finger as a token of
forgiveness; and when the Prince had kissed it, with much grief and
many tears, and had confessed to those around him how bad, and
wicked, and undutiful a son he had been; he said to the attendant
Priests: 'O, tie a rope about my body, and draw me out of bed, and
lay me down upon a bed of ashes, that I may die with prayers to God
in a repentant manner!' And so he died, at twenty-seven years old.
Three years afterwards, Prince Geoffrey, being unhorsed at a
tournament, had his brains trampled out by a crowd of horses
passing over him. So, there only remained Prince Richard, and
Prince John - who had grown to be a young man now, and had solemnly
sworn to be faithful to his father. Richard soon rebelled again,
encouraged by his friend the French King, PHILIP THE SECOND (son of
Louis, who was dead); and soon submitted and was again forgiven,
swearing on the New Testament never to rebel again; and in another
year or so, rebelled again; and, in the presence of his father,
knelt down on his knee before the King of France; and did the
French King homage: and declared that with his aid he would
possess himself, by force, of all his father's French dominions.
And yet this Richard called himself a soldier of Our Saviour! And
yet this Richard wore the Cross, which the Kings of France and
England had both taken, in the previous year, at a brotherly
meeting underneath the old wide-spreading elm-tree on the plain,
when they had sworn (like him) to devote themselves to a new
Crusade, for the love and honour of the Truth!
Sick at heart, wearied out by the falsehood of his sons, and almost
ready to lie down and die, the unhappy King who had so long stood
firm, began to fail. But the Pope, to his honour, supported him;
and obliged the French King and Richard, though successful in
fight, to treat for peace. Richard wanted to be Crowned King of
England, and pretended that he wanted to be married (which he
really did not) to the French King's sister, his promised wife,
whom King Henry detained in England. King Henry wanted, on the
other hand, that the French King's sister should be married to his
favourite son, John: the only one of his sons (he said) who had
never rebelled against him. At last King Henry, deserted by his
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nobles one by one, distressed, exhausted, broken-hearted, consented
to establish peace.
One final heavy sorrow was reserved for him, even yet. When they
brought him the proposed treaty of peace, in writing, as he lay
very ill in bed, they brought him also the list of the deserters
from their allegiance, whom he was required to pardon. The first
name upon this list was John, his favourite son, in whom he had
trusted to the last.
'O John! child of my heart!' exclaimed the King, in a great agony
of mind. 'O John, whom I have loved the best! O John, for whom I
have contended through these many troubles! Have you betrayed me
too!' And then he lay down with a heavy groan, and said, 'Now let
the world go as it will. I care for nothing more!'
After a time, he told his attendants to take him to the French town
of Chinon - a town he had been fond of, during many years. But he
was fond of no place now; it was too true that he could care for
nothing more upon this earth. He wildly cursed the hour when he
was born, and cursed the children whom he left behind him; and
expired.
As, one hundred years before, the servile followers of the Court
had abandoned the Conqueror in the hour of his death, so they now
abandoned his descendant. The very body was stripped, in the
plunder of the Royal chamber; and it was not easy to find the means
of carrying it for burial to the abbey church of Fontevraud.
Richard was said in after years, by way of flattery, to have the
heart of a Lion. It would have been far better, I think, to have
had the heart of a Man. His heart, whatever it was, had cause to
beat remorsefully within his breast, when he came - as he did -
into the solemn abbey, and looked on his dead father's uncovered
face. His heart, whatever it was, had been a black and perjured
heart, in all its dealings with the deceased King, and more
deficient in a single touch of tenderness than any wild beast's in
the forest.
There is a pretty story told of this Reign, called the story of
FAIR ROSAMOND. It relates how the King doted on Fair Rosamond, who
was the loveliest girl in all the world; and how he had a beautiful
Bower built for her in a Park at Woodstock; and how it was erected
in a labyrinth, and could only be found by a clue of silk. How the
bad Queen Eleanor, becoming jealous of Fair Rosamond, found out the
sec
ret of the clue, and one day, appeared before her, with a dagger
and a cup of poison, and left her to the choice between those
deaths. How Fair Rosamond, after shedding many piteous tears and
offering many useless prayers to the cruel Queen, took the poison,
and fell dead in the midst of the beautiful bower, while the
unconscious birds sang gaily all around her.
Now, there WAS a fair Rosamond, and she was (I dare say) the
loveliest girl in all the world, and the King was certainly very
fond of her, and the bad Queen Eleanor was certainly made jealous.
But I am afraid - I say afraid, because I like the story so much -
that there was no bower, no labyrinth, no silken clue, no dagger,
no poison. I am afraid fair Rosamond retired to a nunnery near
Oxford, and died there, peaceably; her sister-nuns hanging a silken
drapery over her tomb, and often dressing it with flowers, in
remembrance of the youth and beauty that had enchanted the King
when he too was young, and when his life lay fair before him.
It was dark and ended now; faded and gone. Henry Plantagenet lay
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quiet in the abbey church of Fontevraud, in the fifty-seventh year
of his age - never to be completed - after governing England well,
CHAPTER XIII - ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE FIRST, CALLED THE LIONHEART
IN the year of our Lord one thousand one hundred and eighty-nine,
Richard of the Lion Heart succeeded to the throne of King Henry the
Second, whose paternal heart he had done so much to break. He had
been, as we have seen, a rebel from his boyhood; but, the moment he
became a king against whom others might rebel, he found out that
rebellion was a great wickedness. In the heat of this pious
discovery, he punished all the leading people who had befriended
him against his father. He could scarcely have done anything that
would have been a better instance of his real nature, or a better
warning to fawners and parasites not to trust in lion-hearted
princes.
He likewise put his late father's treasurer in chains, and locked
him up in a dungeon from which he was not set free until he had
relinquished, not only all the Crown treasure, but all his own
money too. So, Richard certainly got the Lion's share of the
wealth of this wretched treasurer, whether he had a Lion's heart or
not.
He was crowned King of England, with great pomp, at Westminster:
walking to the Cathedral under a silken canopy stretched on the
tops of four lances, each carried by a great lord. On the day of
his coronation, a dreadful murdering of the Jews took place, which
seems to have given great delight to numbers of savage persons
calling themselves Christians. The King had issued a proclamation
forbidding the Jews (who were generally hated, though they were the
most useful merchants in England) to appear at the ceremony; but as
they had assembled in London from all parts, bringing presents to
show their respect for the new Sovereign, some of them ventured
down to Westminster Hall with their gifts; which were very readily
accepted. It is supposed, now, that some noisy fellow in the
crowd, pretending to be a very delicate Christian, set up a howl at
this, and struck a Jew who was trying to get in at the Hall door
with his present. A riot arose. The Jews who had got into the
Hall, were driven forth; and some of the rabble cried out that the
new King had commanded the unbelieving race to be put to death.
Thereupon the crowd rushed through the narrow streets of the city,
slaughtering all the Jews they met; and when they could find no
more out of doors (on account of their having fled to their houses,
and fastened themselves in), they ran madly about, breaking open
all the houses where the Jews lived, rushing in and stabbing or
spearing them, sometimes even flinging old people and children out
of window into blazing fires they had lighted up below. This great
cruelty lasted four-and-twenty hours, and only three men were
punished for it. Even they forfeited their lives not for murdering
and robbing the Jews, but for burning the houses of some
Christians.
King Richard, who was a strong, restless, burly man, with one idea
always in his head, and that the very troublesome idea of breaking
the heads of other men, was mightily impatient to go on a Crusade
to the Holy Land, with a great army. As great armies could not be
raised to go, even to the Holy Land, without a great deal of money,
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he sold the Crown domains, and even the high offices of State;
recklessly appointing noblemen to rule over his English subjects,
not because they were fit to govern, but because they could pay
high for the privilege. In this way, and by selling pardons at a
dear rate and by varieties of avarice and oppression, he scraped
together a large treasure. He then appointed two Bishops to take
care of his kingdom in his absence, and gave great powers and
possessions to his brother John, to secure his friendship. John
would rather have been made Regent of England; but he was a sly
man, and friendly to the expedition; saying to himself, no doubt,
'The more fighting, the more chance of my brother being killed; and
when he IS killed, then I become King John!'
Before the newly levied army departed from England, the recruits
cruelties on the unfortunate Jews: whom, in many large towns, they
murdered by hundreds in the most horrible manner.
At York, a large body of Jews took refuge in the Castle, in the
absence of its Governor, after the wives and children of many of
them had been slain before their eyes. Presently came the
Governor, and demanded admission. 'How can we give it thee, O
Governor!' said the Jews upon the walls, 'when, if we open the gate
by so much as the width of a foot, the roaring crowd behind thee
will press in and kill us?'
Upon this, the unjust Governor became angry, and told the people
that he approved of their killing those Jews; and a mischievous
maniac of a friar, dressed all in white, put himself at the head of
the assault, and they assaulted the Castle for three days.
Then said JOCEN, the head-Jew (who was a Rabbi or Priest), to the
rest, 'Brethren, there is no hope for us with the Christians who
are hammering at the gates and walls, and who must soon break in.
As we and our wives and children must die, either by Christian
hands, or by our own, let it be by our own. Let us destroy by fire
what jewels and other treasure we have here, then fire the castle,
and then perish!'
A few could not resolve to do this, but the greater part complied.
They made a blazing heap of all their valuables, and, when those
were consumed, set the castle in flames. While the flames roared
and crackled around them, and shooting up into the sky, turned it
&nb
sp; blood-red, Jocen cut the throat of his beloved wife, and stabbed
himself. All the others who had wives or children, did the like
dreadful deed. When the populace broke in, they found (except the
trembling few, cowering in corners, whom they soon killed) only
heaps of greasy cinders, with here and there something like part of
the blackened trunk of a burnt tree, but which had lately been a
human creature, formed by the beneficent hand of the Creator as
they were.
After this bad beginning, Richard and his troops went on, in no
very good manner, with the Holy Crusade. It was undertaken jointly
by the King of England and his old friend Philip of France. They
commenced the business by reviewing their forces, to the number of
one hundred thousand men. Afterwards, they severally embarked
their troops for Messina, in Sicily, which was appointed as the
next place of meeting.
King Richard's sister had married the King of this place, but he
was dead: and his uncle TANCRED had usurped the crown, cast the
Royal Widow into prison, and possessed himself of her estates.
Richard fiercely demanded his sister's release, the restoration of
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her lands, and (according to the Royal custom of the Island) that
she should have a golden chair, a golden table, four-and-twenty
silver cups, and four-and-twenty silver dishes. As he was too
powerful to be successfully resisted, Tancred yielded to his
demands; and then the French King grew jealous, and complained that
the English King wanted to be absolute in the Island of Messina and
everywhere else. Richard, however, cared little or nothing for
this complaint; and in consideration of a present of twenty
thousand pieces of gold, promised his pretty little nephew ARTHUR,
then a child of two years old, in marriage to Tancred's daughter.
We shall hear again of pretty little Arthur by-and-by.
This Sicilian affair arranged without anybody's brains being
knocked out (which must have rather disappointed him), King Richard
took his sister away, and also a fair lady named BERENGARIA, with
whom he had fallen in love in France, and whom his mother, Queen
Eleanor (so long in prison, you remember, but released by Richard
on his coming to the Throne), had brought out there to be his wife;
and sailed with them for Cyprus.