could have left England ; and there he so de-
feated the said Earl of Flanders, that the con-
spirators proposed peace, and his bad sons
Henry and Geoffrey submitted. Richard re-
sisted 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 faithless-
ness. They were so false, disloyal, and dis-
honourable, 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
42
A CHILD 'S HISTOR Y OF ENGLAND.
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 fuller ;
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 man-
ner ! " And so he died, at twenty-seven years
old.
Three years afterwards, Prince Geoffrey, be-
ing 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 faith-
ful to his father. Richard soon rebelled again,
encouraged by his friend the French King,
I'n [lip the Second (son of Louis, who was
dead) ; and soon submitted and was again for-
given, 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 Eng-
land 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. Put the Tope, 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 nobles one by
one, distressed, exhausted, broken-hearted, con-
sented to establish peace.
One final heavy sorrow was reserved for him,
even yet. When they brought him the pro-
posed 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 Con-
queror in the hour of his death, so they now
abandoned his descendant. The very body was
nipped, in the plunder of the Royal chambei ;
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.
cause to beat remorsefully within his breast,
. when he came — as he did — into the solemn
RICHARD THE FIRST.
43
abbey, and looked on his dead father's un-
covered 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 secret
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 uncon-
scious 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 quiet in the abbey church
of Fontevraud, in the fifty-seventh year of his
age — never to be completed — alter governing
England well, for nearly thirty-five years.
CHAPTER XIII.
ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE FIRST, CALLED THE
LION-HEART.
N 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 dis-
covery, 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 relin-
quished, 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 Lon-
don 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 hav-
ing 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 fling-
ing 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
44
A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
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, 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 and the general populace
distinguished themselves by astonishing 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 him-
self 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
:s roared and crackled around them, and
shooting up into the sky, turned it 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 busi-
ness 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 her lands, and (accord-
ing 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 de-
mands ; 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 considera-
tion 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.
He soon had the pleasure of lighting the
King of the Island of Cyprus, for allowing his
subjects to pillage some of the English troops
who were shipwrecked on the shore; and easily
RICHARD THE FIRST.
45
conquering this poor monarch, he seized his
only daughter, to be a companion to the lady
Berengaria, and put the King himself into silver
fetters. He then sailed away again with his
mother, sister, wife, and the captive princess ;
and soon arrived before the town of Acre, which
the French King with his fleet was besieging
from the sea. But the French King was in no
triumphant condition, for his army had been
thinned by the swords of the Saracens, and
wasted by the plague ; and Saladin, the brave
Sultan of the Turks, at the head of a numerous
army, was at that time gallantly defending the
place from the hills that rise above it.
Wherever the united army of Crusaders went,
they agreed in few points except in gaming,
drinking, and quarrelling, in a most unholy
manner ; in debauching the people among
whom they tarried, whether they were friends
or foes ; and in carrying disturbance and ruin
into quiet places. The French King was
jealous of the English King, and the English
King was jealous of the French King, and the
disorderly and violent soldiers of the two na-
tions were jealous of one another ; consequently,
the two Kings could not at first agree, even
upon a joint assault on Acre ; but when they
did make up their quarrel for that purpose, the
Saracens promised to yield the town, to give up
to the Christians the wood of the Holy Cross,
to set at liberty all their Christian captives, and
to pay two- hundred thousand pieces of gold.
All this was to be done within forty days ; but,
not being done, King Richard ordered some
three thousand Saracen prisoners to be brought
out in the front of his camp, and there, in full
view of their own countrymen, to be butchered.
The French King had no part in this crime ;
for he was by that time travelling homeward
with the greater part of his men ; being offended
by the overbearing conduct of the English King ;
being anxious to look after his own dominions ;
and being ill, besides, from the unwholesome
air of that hot and sandy country. King
Richard carried on the war without him ; and
remained in the East, meeting with a variety of
adventures, nearly a year and a half. Every
night when his army was on the march, and
came to a halt, the heralds cried out three
times, to remind all the soldiers of the cause in
which they were engaged, " Save the Holy
Sepulchre ! " and then all the soldiers knelt and
said " Amen ! " Marching or encamping, the
army had continually to strive with the hot air
of the glaring desert, or with the Saracen
soldiers animated and directed by the brave
Saladin, or with both together. Sickness and
death, battle and wounds, were always among
them ; but through every difficulty King Richard
fought like a giant, and worked like a common
labourer. Long and long after he was quiet in
his grave, his terrible battle-axe, with twenty
English pounds of English steel in its mighty
head, was a legend among the Saracens ; and
when all the Saracen and Christian hosts had
been dust for many a year, if a Saracen horse
started at any object by the wayside, his rider
would exclaim, " What dost thou fear, Fool ?
Dost thou think King Richard is behind it ?"
No one admired this King's renown for
bravery more than Saladin himself, who was a
generous and gallant enemy. When Richard
lay ill of a fever, Saladin sent him fresh fruits
from Damascus, and snow from the mountain-
tops. Courtly messages and compliments were
frequently exchanged between them — and then
King Richard would mount his horse and kill
as many Saracens as he could ; and Saladin
would mount his, and kill as many Christians
as he could. In this way King Richard fought
to his heart's content at Arsoof and at Jaffa ;
and finding himself with nothing exciting to
do at Ascalon, except to rebuild, for his own
defence, some fortifications there which the
Saracens had destroyed, he kicked his ally the
Duke of Austria, for being too proud to work at
them.
The army at last came within sight of the
Holy City of Jerusalem ; but, being then a
mere nest of jealousy, and quarrelling and fight-
ing, soon retired, and agreed with the Saracens
upon a truce for three years, three months,
three days, and three hours. Then, the Eng-
lish Christians, protected by the noble Saladin
from Saracen revenge, visited Our Saviour's
tomb ; and then King Richard embarked with
a small force at Acre to return home.
But he was shipwrecked in the Adriatic Sea,
and was fain to pass through Germany, under
an assumed name. Now, there were many
people in Germany who had served in the Holy
Land under that proud Duke of Austria who
had been kicked ; and some of them, easily
recognising a man so remarkable as King
Richard, carried their intelligence to the kicked
Duke, who straightway took him prisoner at a
little inn near Vienna.
The Duke's master the Emperor of Germany,
and the King of France, were equally delighted
to have so troublesome a monarch in safe keep-
ing. Friendships which are founded on a part-
nership in doing wrong, are never true; and the
King of France was now quite as heartily King
Richard's foe, as he had ever been his friend in
4 6
A CHILD 'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
his unnatural conduct to his father. He mon-
strously pretended that King Richard had de-
signed to poison him in the East : he charged
him with having murdered,, there, a man whom
he had in truth befriended ; he bribed the Em-
peror of Germany to keep him close prisoner :
and, finally, through the plotting of these two
princes, Richard was brought before the German
iture, charged with the foregoing crimes,
and many others. But lie defended himself so
well, that many of the assembly were moved to
tears by his eloquence and earnestness. It was
decided that he should be treated, during the
rest of his captivity, in a manner more becoming
his dignity than he had been, and that he should
be set free on the payment of a heavy ransom.
This ransom the English people willingly raised.
When Queen Eleanor took it over to German}-,
it was at first evaded and refused. But she
appealed to the honour of all the princes of the
German Empire in behalf of her son, and ap-
pealed so well that it was accepted, and the
King released. Thereupon, the King of France
wrote to Prince John — " : Take care of thyself.
The devil is unchained ! "
Prince John had reason to fear his brother,
for he had been a traitor to him in his captivity.
He had secretly joined the French King; had
vowed to the English nobles and people that
his brother was dead ; and had vainly tried to
seize the crown. He was now in France, at a
place called Evreux. Being the meanest and
basest of men, he contrived a mean and base
expedient for making himself acceptable to his
brother. He invited the French officers of the
garrison in that town to dinner, murdered them
all, and then took the fortress. With this re-
commendation to the good will of a lion-hearted
monarch, he hastened to Kmg Richard, fell on
his knees before him. and obtained the inter-
cession of Queen Eleanor. " I forgive him,''
said the King, " and I hope I may forget the
injury he has done me, as easily as I know he
will forget my pardon."
While King Richard was in Sicily, there had
been trouble in his dominions at home : one of
the bishops whom he had left in charge thereof,
arresting the other; and making, in his pride
and ambition, as great a show as if he were
King himself. But the King hearing of it at
ina, and appointing a new Regency, this
M \ii' (lor that was his name) had lied to
France in a woman's dress, and had there been
encouraged and supported by the French King.
these causes of offence against Philip
in his mind, King Richard had no sooner been
welcomed home by his enthusiastic subjects â–
with great display and splendour, and had no
sooner been crowned afresh at Winchester, than
he resolved to show the French King that the
Devil was unchained indeed, and made war
against him with great fury.
There was fresh trouble at home about this
time, arising out of the discontents of the poor
people, who complained that they were far more
heavily taxed than the rich, and who found a
spirited champion in William Fitz-Osbert,
called Longbeard. He became the leader of a
secret society, comprising fifty thousand men ;
he was seized by surprise ; he stabbed the
citizen who first laid hands upon him ; and
retreated, bravely fighting, to a church, which
he maintained four days, until he was dislodged
by fire, and run through the body as he came
out. He was not killed, though; for he was
dragged, half dead, at the tail of a horse to
Smithfield, and there hanged. Death was long
a favourite remedy for silencing the people's
advocates ; but as we go on with this history, I
fancy we shall find them difficult to make an