XXI. REIGN OF RICHARD I.: THE THIRD CRUSADE…

XXI. REIGN OF RICHARD I.: THE THIRD CRUSADE

Richard's Show of Penitence--His Coronation--Massacre of the Jews--Results of the Second Crusade--Richard raises Money for the Third Crusade--The Regency--Departure for the Holy Land--The Sicilian Succession--The Quarrel concerning Joan's Dower--Richard's Prodigality--His Interview with the Monk, Joachim--Treachery of Philip, and Richard's Repudiation of Alice--Richard's Betrothal to Berengaria--Adventures on the Coast of Cyprus, and the Conquest of the Island--The Siege of Acre and its Fall--Dissension between Richard and Philip, and Return of the Latter to France--Massacre of Prisoners on Both Sides--The Battle of Azotus--Occupation of Jaffa--The Advance towards Jerusalem--Quarrels among the Crusaders, and Negotiations with Saladin--Chivalry of Saladin--Death of Conrad, and Charges brought against Richard--Last Advance upon Jerusalem--Battle of Jaffa--Truce with Saladin.

No sooner had the monks of Fontevrault committed the body of Henry to the grave, than Richard assumed the sovereign authority, and his first acts were marked with all that energy and determination which afterwards distinguished him. He at once gave orders that the person of Stephen of Tours, seneschal of Anjou, and treasurer of Henry, should be seized. This functionary was thrown into a dungeon, where he was confined with irons on his feet and hands, until he had given up to the new king, not only all the treasures of the crown, but also his own property. Richard then called to his councils the advisers of his father, with the exception of Ranulph de Glanville, and discarded those men who had supported his own rebellion, not excepting even his most familiar friends. This policy, which has been attributed by some historians to the repentance of Richard, was more probably the result of profound calculation, and was based upon sound reasoning. The men who were ready to plot against one monarch, would not hesitate to do the same towards another, when occasion served, or offence was given; while those who had supported the reigning dynasty were the men upon whom the new king might most safely depend.

Messengers were immediately sent to England commanding the release of the Queen Eleanor from the confinement into which she had been thrown by Henry. On quitting her prison she was temporarily invested with the office of regent, and during the short period of authority which she thus obtained, she occupied herself in works of mercy and benevolence. The long imprisonment she had undergone appeared to have softened her imperious temper; she listened readily to those who had complaints to lay before her, and pardoned many offenders against the crown. Having proceeded to Winchester, where she took possession of the royal treasures, she summoned a great assembly of the barons and ecclesiastics of the country to receive the new monarch, and tender him their allegiance. After a delay of two months, Richard crossed the channel, accompanied by his brother John, and landed at Portsmouth. On his arrival at Winchester he caused the gold and jewels of the crown to be weighed in his presence, and an inventory made of them. A similar course was pursued in the cities in which treasures of the late king had been deposited. Richard was absorbed in the project of a grand expedition to the Holy Land, which should reduce the infidel to permanent submission, and place himself on the highest pinnacle of military renown. To this circumstance we may in some degree attribute the fact that the ambitious John permitted his brother to succeed to the throne without any attempt to dispute his right. John probably calculated that in the king's absence the actual sovereignty would devolve upon himself, and that the impetuous Richard might never return from the dangers of the holy war. Apart from these considerations, however, it is doubtful whether the weak temper of John would have permitted him to rebel openly against his powerful and energetic brother.

On the 3rd of September, Richard was crowned at Westminster, and the ceremonial was conducted with great pomp and splendour. The procession along the aisles of the cathedral was headed by the Earl of Albemarle, who carried the crown. Over the head of Richard was a silken canopy, supported by four lances, each of which was held by one of the great barons of the kingdom. The Bishops of Bath and Durham walked beside the king, whose path to the altar was spread with a rich carpet of Tyrian purple. The ceremony was performed by Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Richard took the customary oath to fear God and execute justice. The cloak, or upper clothing, of the king, was then taken off, sandals of gold were placed upon his feet, and he was anointed with oil upon the head, breast, and shoulders; afterwards receiving the insignia of his rank from the state officers in attendance. Richard was then led to the altar, where he renewed the vows he had taken; and, lifting with his own hands the crown from off the altar--which he did in token that he received it from God alone--he gave it to the archbishop, who placed it upon his head.

The day of the new king's coronation was marked by an event which resulted in an attack upon all the Jews assembled in the city, who were barbarously murdered with their wives and children. In the Middle Ages, while the science of finance was in its infancy, and men had not yet learned to associate together for purposes of trade, the Jews were the principal, if not the only, bankers of Christendom. There were no laws in existence to regulate the interest of money, and their profits were frequently enormous. The wealth which they thus obtained, no less than the obnoxious faith to which they firmly adhered, caused them to become objects of hatred to the people; and this feeling was increased at the date of the new crusade, in consequence of the increased rate of interest they demanded from men who were about to risk their lives in that dangerous journey. During the reign of Henry II. the Jews had enjoyed some degree of protection, and had, accordingly, increased in numbers and wealth. In France they were less fortunate. On the accession of Philip II. he had issued an edict ordering the banishment of all the Jews from the kingdom, and the confiscation of their property. Hated by the people, the persecuted race had no other hope than in the favour of the prince, and, fearing that Richard might be disposed to follow the example of his ally, the King of France, they determined to secure his protection by presents of great value.

At the coronation of Richard, the chief men of the Jewish race proceeded to Westminster to lay their offerings at his feet. Being apprised of their intention, Richard, who is said to have feared some evil influence[36] from their presence, issued a proclamation, forbidding Jews and women to be present at Westminster on that day, either in the church, where he was to receive the crown, or in the hall, where he was to take dinner. Some of the Jews, however, trusting that the object of their errand would excuse the breach of the royal command, attempted to enter the church among the crowd, and were attacked and beaten by the king's servants. A report was then rapidly circulated among the multitude outside, that the king had delivered up the unbelievers to the vengeance of the people. Headed by some of the lower class of knights and nobles, who were not sorry to get rid of men to whom they owed large sums of money, the crowd surrounded the unhappy Jews, and drove them along the streets with staves and stones, killing many of them before they could reach the doors of their houses. At night the excitement spread throughout the town, and the populace attacked the dwellings of the hated race in every direction. These being strongly barricaded from within, were set on fire by the mob, and all the inmates who were not destroyed in the flames, and who attempted to escape by the doors, were received on the swords of their adversaries.

Preparations were now about to be made for the Third Crusade. The Second Crusade, headed by Louis VII. of France and the Emperor Conrad of Germany, had been a total failure. Although 200,000 persons perished in it, it is not to be ranked in importance with those which preceded and followed it. It was preached in 1146 with all the zeal of the celebrated St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, who was noted equally for eloquence and piety, but its acceptance was confined to France and Germany, and it took the character of a great military expedition rather than of a popular movement. The result of the expedition was disastrous, and the princes returned in 1149 to Europe with only the scattered remnants of their noble army. The events of this crusade being comparatively unimportant, and having only an indirect connection with English history, it has not been considered necessary to relate them in detail. The state of affairs in the East, which induced the kings of France and England to determine upon a third crusade, has been briefly referred to in a preceding chapter. (See pp. 207-8).

To raise money for the expedition to Palestine, Richard adopted a policy similar to that which, in the reign of Stephen, had so greatly reduced the revenues of the state. He publicly sold the estates of the crown to the highest bidder--towns, castles, and domains. Many rich Normans of low birth thus became possessed of lands which, at the time of the Conquest, had been distributed among the immediate followers of William; and many men of English race availed themselves of the opportunity to recover the houses of their fathers, and, under a quit rent, became the lawful owners of their places of abode. The towns which concluded these bargains became corporations, and were organised under a municipal government. Many of these charters were made in the reigns of Richard I. and his successors. In these transactions Richard appears to have been influenced solely by his determination to obtain money, and when some of his courtiers ventured to remonstrate with him, he said that he would sell London itself, if he could find a buyer.

Titles and offices of state were sold without scruple. Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, purchased the earldom of Northumberland, and also obtained, for a payment of 1,000 marks, the chief justiciarship of the kingdom. It has been already related that, at the time of Richard's accession, this office was held by Ranulph de Glanville, a man of great ability and undoubted probity. One account tells us that Glanville resigned the office for the purpose of joining the crusade; but other historians relate that he was driven from it by the king, who was willing to obtain money even by the disgrace of an old and valuable servant of the crown. Vacant ecclesiastical benefices were filled up by the appointment of those who could best afford to pay for them. In addition to the sums raised by these measures, Richard obtained 20,000 marks from the King of Scotland, who in return was released from homage to the English crown.

While Richard thus appeared to be making every preparation for the expedition to the Holy Land, he showed no hurry to leave his new kingdom; and Philip of France, with whom he had engaged to join his forces, sent ambassadors to England to announce his intention to depart at the ensuing Easter. Richard then convoked an assembly of the nobles of the kingdom, and declared his intention to proceed to the Holy Land in company with his brother of France. He placed the regency in the hands of William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, and Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham; the former of whom succeeded, not long afterwards, in securing the entire authority into his own hands. Prince John was thus deprived of the position which he had calculated would fall to him, and he received by way of compensation, a pension of 4,000 marks, the territory of Mortaigne in Normandy, and the earldoms of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset. He possessed, besides, Derbyshire, for his wife was the heiress of the Earl of Gloucester.

Early in the following year (1190) Richard crossed the Channel into Normandy, and soon afterwards a meeting took place between the two kings of France and England, at which they bound themselves to a compact of brotherhood and alliance, each swearing to maintain the life and honour of the other as he would his own. The death of the young Queen of France caused a delay in the departure of the expedition, and it was not until midsummer that the armies of the two kings assembled for that purpose. The allied forces are said to have numbered 100,000, and having been united on the plains of Vézelai, they marched in company to Lyons. At this point the two kings separated. Philip, who possessed no ships or seaport town on the Mediterranean, proceeded by land to Genoa, that powerful republic having agreed to furnish a fleet of transports for the convoy of his troops. Richard was in possession of the powerful fleet built by his father for the voyage to Palestine, as well as of trading vessels, which he had himself selected from different seaports, and he, therefore, had no need to make the journey across the Alps. He proceeded from Lyons to Marseilles, where he embarked.

Richard landed on the shore of the narrow strait which divides Sicily from Calabria, whence he was conveyed to the harbour of Messina. The French king had already arrived, and soon afterwards set sail with the view of continuing his voyage to the East. His ships, however, experienced bad weather, which compelled them to return to the port, and the two kings then arranged to remain there during the winter.

The island of Sicily, which in the preceding century had been conquered by the Norman lords of Apulia and Calabria, then formed, together with a part of lower Italy, a kingdom which was under the control of the Holy See. Not many years before, under the reign of William I., the country had been in a prosperous condition, but now it was weakened by internal dissensions, and in no position to offer a successful defence to attacks from without. William II., surnamed the Good, had married Richard's sister Joan, who bore to him no children. Anxious to preserve the succession to his family, he caused his aunt, the Princess Constance, who was the only legitimate member of the family, to be married to Henry, son and heir of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. By securing to her a powerful husband, able to support her claims, the king trusted to overcome that opposition to a female sovereign which was likely to be even greater in Sicily than in other countries of Europe. Constance, at the age of thirty-two, was considerably older than her husband; but her dower was rich, and this, joined to the prospect of the succession, proved attraction sufficient for the young prince. He married her in the year 1186, at Milan. In November, 1189, William the Good died, appointing by his will that his aunt Constance should be his successor. The barons of the kingdom had previously taken an oath of fealty to the princess, but that oath, as well as the will of the king, was entirely disregarded. The nobles were necessarily indisposed to submit to the rule of a foreign prince, and the aggressions of the German emperors in the north of Italy had given good cause for dread of any further increase of their power. Constance and Henry were also out of the country at this critical moment, and the barons, after various disputes among themselves, conferred the crown upon Tancred, nephew to William the Good, though reputed to be illegitimate by birth. The new king was hailed by the people with acclamation, and was acknowledged by the Pope, Clement III., who sent him the customary benediction. His reign, however, had no sooner commenced, than various conspiracies were formed against him by the barons who had been competitors for the throne, and though he had succeeded in reducing these to submission, he was threatened by Henry, who had now become emperor, and who was preparing a powerful army to support the claims of his wife Constance.

Such was the position of affairs in Sicily at the time of the arrival of the kings of England and of France. Both monarchs were received by Tancred with every token of honour and hospitality; Philip was entertained within the city of Messina, and Richard took up his quarters in a house without the walls, situated in the midst of a vineyard. After having remained for a very brief period in tranquillity, Richard found in the position of his sister Joan a cause of quarrel with the King of Sicily. At the time of the marriage of that princess with William the Good, a splendid dower had been given to her by her husband, including many towns and cities, and territory of considerable extent. When Tancred ascended the throne, he withheld these broad lands, part of which, however, were occupied by nobles who were in rebellion, and which, therefore, it would not have been easy to deliver up. Richard first demanded that his sister should be sent to him, and when the request was complied with, he sent other messengers requiring the whole of her dower. Without waiting for an answer the impetuous prince passed over to the Calabrian shore, and seized possession of the castle of Bagnara. Here he left his sister defended by a body of troops, and returned to Messina. On the borders of the strait, overlooking the English camp, there was a convent of Greek monks, having a strong natural position, and capable of being easily fortified. Richard drove out the monks, and placed in their stead a strong garrison, who turned the monastery into a fortress, and issued thence on licentious excursions through the town and the neighbourhood. The disorders of the foreigners at length aroused the indignation of the Sicilians, who, jealous of the honour of their wives and daughters, suddenly attacked the English, who were in the city, and at the same time closed the gates of the town. The whole camp speedily took to arms, and assembled without the walls, making a reckless and unorganised assault upon them. Richard having received news of the tumult, mounted his horse and rode hastily among his soldiers, beating them back with a truncheon which he carried in his hand. By exertions of this kind, joined to the influence of his character, he succeeded in restraining his troops, not, however, before some animosities which had arisen between them and the French soldiers had found vent in several partial combats. The kings of France and England held a solemn meeting, at which to arrange against future differences of this kind, as well as to determine upon a peace with the Sicilians. On the hill overlooking the Norman camp a number of the natives were assembled, and during the conference they attacked a few stragglers from the camp. Having learnt the cause of the uproar, Richard called his men to arms, drove the Sicilians from the hill, and followed them to the walls of the city, which the English now attacked under the direction of their prince. The troops of Tancred made little resistance against their impetuous assailants; the town was carried by storm, and Richard raised his banner on the walls as though the town had become exclusively his. The jealousy of Philip was excited, and a rupture took place between the two princes, which was appeased only by the town being given into the hands of the Knights Hospitallers and Knights Templars, who were to hold possession of it until the claims of Richard against Tancred had been finally adjusted.

In addition to the territories assigned to Joan as a dowry, she was entitled, as Queen of Sicily, to a golden table, twelve feet long, and a foot and a half broad; a golden chair; two golden trestles for supporting the tables: twenty-four silver cups, and as many silver dishes. William the Good had left in his will to Henry II. a contribution towards the Holy War, in which that prince was proposing to engage. This legacy consisted of a tent of silk to accommodate 200 persons seated, 60,000 measures of wheat and 60,000 of barley, with 100 armed galleys, equipped and provisioned for two years. Henry II. died before his son-in-law, and, therefore, Richard could prefer no legal claim in right of his father. He, nevertheless, demanded that all these things should be given up to him, as well as the treasures to which his sister was entitled. An agreement was ultimately entered into, by which a sum of 20,000 gold ounces was paid to Joan, and a further sum of 20,000 ounces to Richard, in satisfaction of their several demands. The legality of Richard's claim was not acknowledged, but the money was paid to him ostensibly on a treaty of marriage, which was concluded between his young nephew Arthur and an infant daughter of Tancred. The payment thus took the form of a dower, and was to be returned in case either of the children died before they reached a marriageable age.

The money of which Richard thus became possessed was lavished with the utmost prodigality. His tastes were magnificent; and the extraordinary fame which he had acquired throughout Europe was due no less to his own gigantic strength and brilliant valour than to the glittering halo of romance which surrounded him, and the splendour with which he dazzled the eyes of his followers. Soldiers of fortune of every country came to offer their swords to Cœur-de-Lion, and were received with welcome and entertainment. Tournaments and spectacles of various kinds succeeded each other; the sounds of mirth and music resounded through the camps; troubadours and jongleurs offered their feats of skill, or songs of war and beauty, secure of a liberal reward. Relying upon his strong arm to replenish his coffers, Richard showered gifts and largesses upon all comers; and at a great banquet which he gave to the knights of both armies, he sent away each of his guests with a large present of money. Thus, throughout the winter the soldiers of the North gave themselves up to luxury and pleasure under the sunny sky of Sicily. But Cœur-de-Lion was no mere voluptuary. If, in many respects, he bore a resemblance to the gallant but ill-fated Robert of Normandy, he possessed, at the same time, a degree of intellectual power and energy little inferior to that of William the Conqueror. Amidst the glare of rich banquets and gorgeous spectacles, amidst the tinkling of harps whose strings were attuned to flattery, and the glances of bright eyes, which brought their tribute of admiration to the young prince of the Lion Heart, his ardent nature languished and longed for activity. There was a strong impulsive force within the men of those days, which rendered exertion the only pleasure--ease and rest a punishment not to be endured. Cut off for a time from the excitements of battle, Richard sought occupation in the field of theological controversy and the exercises of religion.

At this time a certain Calabrian monk, named Joachim, Abbot of Curacio, had made himself famous throughout Europe by his writings and preachings against the abuses of the court of Rome. We have already seen how at intervals, during the Middle Ages, some sandalled monk would rise up from obscurity, and, by the mere force of intellect, with no advantages of outward circumstances, would obtain a power over the minds of men, compared with which that of princes was as nothing. This influence was of a purely personal nature, and was attained by the gift of eloquence. The books which Joachim had written would have availed little--they appealed only to the few who could read them, and to posterity--but the man could speak his thought in the ear of the present. We know little, in these later times, of the meaning of the word eloquence--we apply it to what is written, to thoughts expressed upon inanimate paper--dull and lifeless, as words from the mouth of a statue. The growth of civilisation is unfavourable to eloquence, for civilisation is built up of laws and customs, and the language of the heart defies all law, and pays no deference to expediency. The modern teacher dare not trust his heart. Sermons are written, speeches are prepared, periods carefully rounded, sentiments weighed in the nicest balance--even the tone of the voice and the motion of the arm--are studied beforehand under a master. The influence attained is exactly commensurate with the means employed, and the listeners find themselves on a level of caution, equally removed from danger on the one hand, or from excellence on the other. But such a level is not the normal condition of the human mind. When, at rare intervals, the torch of enthusiasm is lighted by some earnest man, thousands will burst away to follow the flame, though it lead them to utter destruction.

Richard Cœur-de-Lion, like his ancestors, recognised that subtle force of intellect whose influence among men surpassed that of laws or armies. He heard of the fame of the Abbot Joachim, and desired to see him. The king and the monk met together at Messina, where a long theological discussion took place between these strange disputants. Joachim, like all the other clergy of the age, gave his authority in favour of the Crusade. He assumed the gift of inspiration, and, like a prophet of old, told the king to go forth and conquer: the infidel should be scattered before the Christian host, and the banner of the Cross be raised once more over the walls of Jerusalem. These were but the ravings of fanaticism, and were utterly falsified by the event; but their influence, meanwhile, was none the less upon those who listened and regarded the speaker as a prophet. Richard's mind was of higher order, and he is said to have called the monk a vain babbler, whose words were unworthy of attention. It is not probable, however, that he expressed such an opinion publicly, for he could not be insensible to the effect of such predictions upon the minds of his soldiers.

Not long after this discussion, Richard rode to the town of Catania, where he had appointed to meet Tancred for the first time. With all the state and magnificence suited to the occasion, the two kings walked in procession to the church, where, forgetting all former differences, they took vows of mutual friendship, and performed their devotions together before the shrine of St. Agatha. On the return of Cœur-de-Lion to Messina, the Sicilian king accompanied him for many miles, and at the moment of parting gave into his hands a letter written by Philip of France, in which Philip proposed to ally himself with Tancred, and to drive the English monarch out of the country.

Some days elapsed before Richard made any use of this communication; but he met Philip with haughtiness and reserve, and frequent disputes took place between them. At length, during one of these altercations, Cœur-de-Lion suddenly produced the letter, and asked whether he knew the handwriting. Philip indignantly declared it to be a forgery, and accused Richard of seeking a cause of quarrel, by which means he might break off his contract of marriage with the Princess Alice, Philip's sister. Richard replied calmly that he could not marry the lady Alice, since it was well known that she had borne a son to his father, King Henry. This circumstance, if true, was well known to Richard during his father's lifetime, when he had so frequently demanded that his bride should be given up to him--a request which, it is evident, had merely been made as a pretext for rebellion. Richard now offered proofs of what he had alleged, and, whatever may have been the force of these proofs, Philip consented to give up the contest. In the days of chivalry, as now, money was accepted in compensation for breaches of such contracts, and Philip sold the honour of his sister for an annual pension of 2,000 marks for five years. For this sum he gave Richard permission to marry whomsoever he pleased.

Cœur-de-Lion had already chosen his bride. Some three years before, while staying at the court of Navarre, he had fallen in love with Berengaria, daughter of the king of that country. The young princess is described as having been very beautiful, of extremely youthful and delicate appearance, presenting in every respect the most striking contrast to the robust frame and gigantic presence of her lover. Their passion seems to have been more romantic and sincere than usually happens in similar cases. It is certain that Richard asked for no dowry with his bride, sought for no political advantages, but merely dispatched his mother, Queen Eleanor, to ask the lady's hand. Such conduct alone might have won the heart of Berengaria, even though she had not been already interested in his favour. Undeterred by the dangers and difficulties of the journey across the Alps, she at once set out to join her intended husband. The queen and the princess travelled with a suitable escort, and reached Naples in safety. Thence they passed on to the city of Brindisi, where they waited until the French king should have departed to the Holy Land. Philip set sail for Acre on the 30th of March, 1191; and Richard, at the same time, proceeded to Reggio, on the coast of Calabria, where he took on board his bride, with Queen Eleanor, and carried them to Messina. The season of Lent being not yet over, the marriage was deferred; and Eleanor, having confided her charge to her own daughter, Joan, returned to England.

Within a few days afterwards the English fleet was ready for sea, and passed with a stiff breeze through the straits of Messina. More than 200 vessels were there, some of large size, with three masts, and all well appointed, and gaily decked with the banners of the crusaders. Never before had so gallant an armament been seen in those waters; and as the brilliant pageant moved away, the Sicilians gathered in multitudes on the shore with cries of admiration. In those days war was, with half the world, the business of life; women did not hesitate to share the dangers of those whom they loved, and the smile of beauty was at once the incentive and the reward of valour. Joan and Berengaria accompanied the expedition, and Richard, with a delicacy which belonged to his chivalrous character, fitted up a splendid galley, which was allotted to their separate use.

The fleet was not destined to proceed far in such gallant trim. Within a very few hours a heavy storm arose, and many of the ships, dismasted and at the mercy of the waves, were cast ashore and broken to pieces. Richard himself narrowly escaped shipwreck, and was compelled to put into the island of Rhodes, not knowing what had become of the vessel of his bride. While he lay there in the greatest anxiety of mind, he learnt that two of his ships had been wrecked on the coast of Cyprus, and that his people had been plundered and cast into prison by the natives. Vowing vengeance, Richard collected all the vessels which had arrived at Rhodes, and immediately proceeded to the succour of the captives. On approaching the harbour of Limasol in Cyprus, he fell in with the galley of Joan and Berengaria who, like himself, had escaped from the storm, but had hesitated to trust themselves nearer to the shore.

The island of Cyprus was at that time colonised by the Greeks, under the rule of a prince of the race of the Comneni, named Isaac, who called himself "Emperor of Cyprus." This mighty monarch of a score of square miles seems to have known little of the character of the English king, for when Richard demanded satisfaction for the injuries done to the crusaders, he returned an arrogant refusal, and drew up his soldiers in battle array upon the shore. Cœur-de-Lion immediately landed a body of troops, who put to flight the half-naked men of Cyprus, and took possession of the city.

Isaac now sent in his submission to the conqueror, and on a plain near Limasol a conference took place between them. Richard demanded, not only an indemnity in money, but also that the "Emperor of Cyprus" should do homage to him, and should accompany him to Palestine with a thousand of his best warriors. The daughter and heiress of Isaac was to be placed in Richard's hands as a hostage for the good faith of her father. The Greek, with that mixture of shrewdness and deceit characteristic of his race, consented to these terms, and on the same night he escaped from the guards placed over him by Richard, and organised new plans, which proved as vain as before, to resist the invaders.

Leaving a garrison at Limasol, Richard sailed round the island, capturing all the ships of the Cypriotes, and taking possession of their towns. Nicosia, the capital, surrendered with little resistance, and among the prisoners who fell into his hands was the young princess, the daughter of Isaac. The "Emperor" loved his child, and when he heard of her capture he made no further resistance; but quitting a monastery in which he had fortified himself, he placed himself at once in the power of Richard, fell at his feet, and prayed that his daughter might be restored to him. Cœur-de-Lion refused the request, and committed him to prison, directing that, in consideration of the rank he assumed, he should be bound with chains of silver instead of iron. It is difficult to understand how any rational being should have derived satisfaction from such a distinction; but it appears that the "Emperor of Cyprus" did so, and expressed himself much gratified by the honour done him.

At Limasol there were great stores of provisions of all kinds, and a splendid festival was prepared to celebrate the landing of the Princess Berengaria. Here, at length, Cœur-de-Lion claimed his bride, and the marriage ceremony was performed by the Bishop of Evreux. For a few days the accoutrements of war were put aside, the songs of the minstrels were again heard through the camp, and the sweet wine of Cyprus lent its intoxicating influence to the scene of revelry. Richard, however, was pre-eminently a soldier; martial glory was his true mistress, and he did not long delay the expedition on which he was engaged. In a little more than a month after his arrival at Cyprus the fleet set sail for Acre, and arrived there on the 8th of June.

All the chivalry of Europe was collected before this city, which was regarded as the key to the Holy Land. Hospitallers and Templars, priests and princes, knights of high and low degree, from every Christian country, had flocked to lay down their lives in a cause which they believed to be sacred. For two years before the arrival of Richard the siege had been carried on with all the military skill of the age; but, while thousands[37] of the besiegers fell victims to disease and privation, or to their own desperate valour, the city still held out, and its massive walls defied the force of the mightiest engines of war. Each month brought new reinforcements to the banner of the Cross, and thus an army, to which Europe could find no equal, maintained its numerical strength while the work of death went on.

Saladin, one of the greatest names in Eastern history, had posted his immense forces upon the heights about Mount Carmel, whence he watched the great armament of Richard, still numbering more than one hundred sail, as it advanced into the roadstead of Acre. The fame of Cœur-de-Lion had gone before him, and the crusaders hailed his approach with shouts of rejoicing. Gay banners flashed in the sun, and trumpets and drums sounded their loudest note of welcome. Philip, however, could not witness without envy the power and splendour of his ally. Not many days elapsed before a quarrel took place between them; and each refusing to act in concert with the other, made separate attacks upon the town, in the hope of obtaining the exclusive honour of the capture. Both of these ill-judged attempts were unsuccessful, and were attended with heavy loss.

At length the brave garrison of Acre, cut off from all supplies, were compelled to offer terms of capitulation. They agreed to surrender possession of the city, together with all the Christian prisoners it contained, and the wood of the true cross. A sum of 200,000 pieces of gold was to be paid by Saladin within forty days, as a ransom for the lives of the inhabitants, several thousands of whom were retained as hostages for the performance of these conditions.

The Army of the Cross entered Acre on the 12th of June, 1191, and at the same time Saladin withdrew from the neighbouring heights, and proceeded a short distance into the interior to concentrate his forces. Soon afterwards Philip of France expressed his intention to return to Europe. The reason he gave for doing so was the bad state of his health; and it is not improbable that this prince, who seems to have possessed neither the occasional religious impulses nor the warlike spirit of Cœur-de-Lion, should have found the first approaches of disease sufficient to deter him from the toils and dangers of a journey to the Holy Sepulchre. Other causes were, however, at work. The title of King of Jerusalem was still a subject of dispute among the crusaders, although the city itself was now in the hands of the infidel. The crown had been assumed by Guy of Lusignan, in right of his wife Sybilla, a descendant of Godfrey of Bouillon. During the siege of Acre, Sybilla died; and her sister Isabella, who had married Conrad of Montferrat, Prince of Tyre, put in her claim to confer the title on her husband. While Philip had declared in favour of Conrad, Richard--who seems to have acted merely from the desire of opposing his ally--supported the cause of Lusignan, and acknowledged him King of Jerusalem. In this, as in every other dispute between the two monarchs, Philip was compelled to yield; but he did so with an ill grace, and it was hardly to be expected that the King of France could long submit to such a course of humiliation. He determined to return to his own country, where his will was law, and his power absolute; and where, too, he might have opportunity, during the absence of the English king, to seize upon some portion of the latter's territories, and extend the rather circumscribed limits of the French kingdom.

Richard at first received the news of Philip's intended departure with a malediction, calling down shame upon his head for deserting the holy cause in which he was engaged. The feeling of anger seems soon to have given place to something like contempt, for Cœur-de-Lion added, "Let him go, if his health needs it, and he cannot live away from Paris." But the probable designs of the French king were not overlooked; and he was compelled to take an oath that he would make no aggression upon English territories during the absence of Richard in Palestine. He also agreed to leave at Acre 10,000 men, commanded by the Duke of Burgundy, but under the control of Cœur-de-Lion.

Soon after Philip quitted Acre, the term of forty days appointed for the ransom of the Saracen captives expired. No ransom had been received. The messengers of Richard, who made their way into the presence of the soldan, were received with the highest courtesy, and were dismissed with costly presents to their master; but to the demand for money Saladin returned no answer. It was reported among the crusaders that he had massacred the Christian prisoners in his power; and a great excitement arose among the troops at Acre, who called loudly for vengeance. And now took place one of the worst of those atrocious deeds which stain the history of the crusades. On the forty-first day, under the orders of Richard and the Duke of Burgundy, the unhappy Saracen captives were led out beyond the camps, and were there butchered without mercy, some few rich men only being spared, in the hope that large sums would be obtained for their ransom.[38] So blinded were the crusaders by their fanatic zeal, that this massacre in cold blood was regarded by the perpetrators as a righteous deed, acceptable to Heaven.

On receiving the news of the massacre, Saladin put to death all the Christian prisoners in his hands. Such an act of retaliation, however it may now be regarded, was in accordance with the usages of the time; and it is hardly to be expected that the Moslem should display more mercy than the Christian. With hands reeking with the blood of their victims, the crusaders returned to the city, where they gave themselves up to debauchery and excess. Many of them would probably have been well disposed to go no farther; but Richard roused them once more into activity, and his will was not to be resisted. He left his young wife and his sister behind him, defended by a strong garrison, and strictly forbade women of all ranks from accompanying the army. He quitted Acre on the 22nd of August, with about 30,000 men, of all the nations of Christendom, and took his way along the sea shore towards Ascalon. Saladin, whose scouts were everywhere, was speedily apprised of the march of the crusaders; and he appeared at a distance with a great army, hovering about them, and keeping them continually in expectation of attack. The troops of Richard, however, marched fearlessly on; and when, after a day's march across those burning plains, exhausted by the weight of their heavy armour, they reached a halting-place, a herald stood forth from each camp, and cried aloud three times, "Save the Holy Sepulchre!" and the whole army knelt down, and said, "Amen!" Human nature displays the most striking contrasts where the fortunes of men are subject to extremes of vicissitude; and thus the soldiers who one day were engaged in acts of brutal cruelty or sensuality, on the next might be seen marching to the death with a devotion which, if mistaken, was not the less sublime.

When Richard had advanced as far as Azotus he was opposed by the Saracen forces, ranged in order of battle. Saladin, whose skill as a general was scarcely inferior to that of Cœur-de-Lion himself, conducted the attack in person; and for a time the Christian troops gave way before him. Richard, who commanded the centre of the army, waited with great coolness until the Saracens had exhausted their arrows; then placing himself at the head of his knights, and brandishing the formidable battle-axe which was his favourite weapon, he rushed upon the enemy, slaying with his own hand all who fell within his reach. Many of the feats of valour attributed to him by the chroniclers are wholly incredible; but after making all reasonable deduction for exaggeration, enough remains to prove that Cœur-de-Lion deserved the proud surname which he bore, and that his strength and valour were alike without parallel. The Saracen army, numerous as it was, could not withstand the charge of the mail-clad warriors of Europe; and Saladin was compelled to beat a hasty retreat, leaving behind him seven thousand dead upon the field.

Richard advanced to Jaffa--the Joppa of the Bible--of which city he obtained possession without opposition; but here a delay took place, which proved fatal to the success of the expedition. Some of the chief men of the army alleged that it would be necessary to repair the fortifications of Jaffa, for the purpose of placing it in a condition of defence. The soldiers, remembering the pleasures of Acre, willingly adopted a pretext which afforded a new opportunity of rest and enjoyment; and Richard himself, attracted by the field-sports to be obtained in the neighbourhood, appears to have laid aside for a time his customary energy. Saladin, who had recovered from his defeat, and was intent upon vengeance, was known to be in the neighbourhood, with an army even larger than before; but Cœur-de-Lion, undisturbed by this circumstance, rode about the country with a small escort. Many strange adventures are told in connection with these expeditions; and it would appear that Richard was often in imminent danger of being captured--a fate from which his courage or good fortune invariably saved him.

Various negotiations now ensued, which appear to have led to nothing, and were probably devised by the Saracens merely to gain time. The envoy who passed between the two camps on these occasions was Saif-ed-Deen, or Saphadin, the brother of Saladin, who was a man of great ability, and who conducted his missions in such a manner as to gain the favour of Cœur-de-Lion. At length, in the month of November, the fortifications of Jaffa were completed, negotiations were broken off, and the crusaders resumed their march. The sky was black with tempest, and as they crossed the plain of Sharon, where now the rose and lily of the valley bloomed no longer, a violent wind arose, and thick rain began to fall. The heaviest storms are found in those countries where the sun shines brightest, and it was now the commencement of the rainy season. The soldiers of the Cross, ill provided with protection against such weather, pitched their camp at Ramula, the Arimathea of Scripture; but the streams which descended from the mountains inundated the encampment, and the winds tore up the tents which were their only shelter. Struggling on wearily, they reached Bethany, which was within twelve miles of Jerusalem, but here they found it impossible to proceed farther. Famine and disease had decimated the troops, and those who were still able to bear arms were ill suited to cope with an enemy. Richard was therefore compelled to retrace his steps, and he marched back rapidly to Ascalon, there to recruit his forces.

The fortifications of Ascalon had been dismantled by Saladin; but Cœur-de-Lion, whose energetic spirit no reverses could subdue, set himself immediately to restore the defences, and appeared among his men doing the work of a mason. Novelist or romancer never imagined more striking contrasts than are presented to us in the sober records of the Middle Ages, and thus we find the king who lately was the centre of unexampled pomp and splendour at Messina, now wielding the trowel and the pickaxe upon the walls of Ascalon. The example set by Richard was attended with the best effects; princes and nobles, bishops and their clergy, worked beside him as masons and carpenters, thinking it no shame to do what the King of England had done. The only exception was the Archduke of Austria, and on his refusal, it is related that Cœur-de-Lion kicked or struck that prince, and turned him and his retainers out of the town.

Having placed Ascalon in a condition of defence, Richard restored other fortifications destroyed by Saladin along the coast. These works, however, were attended with a vast expense, and Richard's generosity, which appears to have been without stint, whether much or little was at his command, hastened the exhaustion of his finances. The French and other foreign troops attached to his army were kept together by the largesses he gave them; but as the treasury became empty they relaxed in their obedience, and their national animosities found vent in repeated quarrels and disturbances. The dispute between Conrad of Montferrat and Guy of Lusignan for the crown of Jerusalem was renewed. Conrad, whose character was vacillating and treacherous, was nevertheless a man of considerable ability and of high military renown. Having secured the assistance of the Genoese, he defied the power of the King of England, and a civil war appeared to be imminent among the Christians of Palestine. The Pisans, whose old hatred against the Genoese led them to take the opposite side, declared for Lusignan, and frequent combats took place in the very streets of Acre between the opposing factions. Richard quitted Ascalon, and succeeded in repressing these tumults. He endeavoured to restore unanimity to the army, and to conciliate the Marquis of Montferrat; but that haughty chief rejected his offers, and entrenched himself in the town of Tyre, with a number of disaffected soldiers of different nations who had joined his standard.

Saladin soon became aware of the dissensions in the Christian army, and he made preparations for striking what he hoped would be a decisive and successful blow. But in the meanwhile he was unexpectedly met by proposals for peace from Cœur-de-Lion, who sent him word that he demanded only the possession of Jerusalem and the wood of the true Cross. The soldan returned for answer that the blessed city[39] was as dear to the Moslem as to the Christian, and would never be delivered up except by force.

The unusual course pursued by Richard was not to be attributed to such an inadequate cause as the disaffection of a part of his troops. He had lately received letters from his mother, Queen Eleanor, and from William Longchamp, whom he had appointed chancellor in his absence, detailing various conspiracies which were fraught with the greatest danger to the throne. It is not necessary to interrupt the narrative for the purpose of relating the particulars of these matters; they will be given in detail when the history returns to the consideration of events in England. It is enough to say that they were of a nature to cause the greatest disquietude, even to the strong mind of Cœur-de-Lion. It is reported that he set on foot new negotiations with Saladin, which continued for some time, and that he even proposed that the contest should be terminated by the marriage of his own sister Joan with Saphadin, the brother of the Sultan. This extraordinary scheme, if it ever really was entertained, was defeated by religious obstacles; the clergy launching the thunders of the Church against all those who should sanction the union between a Christian princess and a chief of the infidels.

Saladin had abilities of a very high order, joined to bodily strength little inferior to that of Cœur-de-Lion himself. He was skilled in the learning of the East, and he possessed that refinement of manners which was induced by the usages of chivalry. The virtues of a warlike age appeared in him pre-eminently; he was brave, generous, and true to his word, preserving his plighted faith with a degree of scrupulousness not often observed even by the princes of Christendom. Descended from the race of the Seljuks, he had embraced the religion of Mahomet, whose doctrines taught him to pursue to utter destruction all the enemies of the Prophet. But Saladin was no bigoted Mussulman, and when the foes he had conquered appeared before him as suppliants, he seldom failed to grant the mercy they implored. It is needless to say that this picture has its reverse, and that the character of the great soldan was not altogether blameless. He was in the highest degree ambitious, and his elevation to the throne was obtained by the unscrupulous shedding of blood. He trampled down all who stood in his way; but having attained that elevation, he proved himself a wise and just monarch, and his rule, of the whole, was free from tyranny.

The soldan and the Christian king, both on whom stood far above their contemporaries in military prowess and ability, had learnt mutual respect, and not all the injuries which each had inflicted on the other had power to subdue this feeling. Great minds can afford to be generous, and the depreciation of the merits of a rival seldom arises from any other cause than a consciousness of inferiority. Saladin and Richard met together many times with interchanges of courtesy, and the soldiers of both armies mingled in the tournament and in other martial exercises. Where the laws of chivalry prevailed, the warrior sheathed his enmity with his sword, and would have regarded it as a foul stain upon his knighthood to doubt for a moment the faith pledged to him by a foeman.

Pilgrims were continually arriving in the Holy Land from Europe, and from each traveller who appeared in the presence of Richard, he learnt news which compelled him to hasten his return to England, although he had sworn never to abandon the expedition so long as he had a war-horse to eat. In the hope of establishing peace among all parties, he consented that Conrad of Montferrat should be crowned King of Jerusalem, and gave to Lusignan, by way of compensation, the island of Cyprus. It is probable that the energetic character of Conrad might ultimately have enabled him to obtain possession of Jerusalem, but at the time when he was preparing for his coronation he was murdered in the streets of Tyre, by two men of the sect of the Assassins. This name, then quite new to the languages of Europe, was applied to those fanatical Moslems who devoted themselves to assassinating the enemies of their faith by surprise, in the belief that they should thus secure admission into paradise. In the mountain defiles of Lebanon there lived a whole tribe of these enthusiasts, under the rule of the Old Man[40] of the Mountain, a mysterious chief, whose name became a sound of terror throughout Europe. They were called in Arabic "Haschischin," from an intoxicating plant (haschisch, Chang) well known in the East, which they made use of to stupefy the brain and excite themselves to their desperate deeds of blood.

It would appear that Conrad was murdered in revenge for certain injuries which he had inflicted upon this extraordinary people. An Arabic writer relates that when the two Assassins were seized and put to the torture, they confessed that they had been employed by the King of England; but this account differs from others, and is so completely at variance with all we know of the Assassins, as well as of the character of Richard, that it may be at once rejected as fabulous. Apart from the arguments which may be adduced to show, from the previous arrangements of the king, that he had no anticipation of the death of Conrad, the whole tenor of the life of Cœur-de-Lion serves to prove that he was not the man to strike a foe in secret. The French and German factions, however, at once spread a report that he had instigated the murder, and letters were sent to Philip of France containing the same news. Philip, who contemplated a descent upon the English territory, eagerly seized a pretext for his treason. He applied to the Pope to release him from his oath of peace, and declared that he had received a caution that the King of England had sent some of those dreaded Assassins of the East to murder him.

During the tumult which followed the death of Conrad, Count Henry of Champagne, the nephew of Richard, appeared on the scene, and the people of Tyre placed him in possession of the town, as well as of the other territories held by their late prince. Soon afterwards Henry married the young widow of Conrad, receiving with her hand the title to the imaginary crown, and he was generally acknowledged by the crusaders as King of Jerusalem.

With each succeeding month the need for the presence of Richard in England appeared the greater; but he concealed his uneasiness, and, with the view of repressing the growing discontent in his army, he publicly proclaimed his intention to remain for another year in Palestine. Laying aside for a time all considerations connected with affairs at home, he determined to give his whole energies to bring to a successful termination the expedition in which he was engaged. Having at length restored something like unanimity to his troops, and brought them into an efficient state, he once more led them on the way to Jerusalem. The army resumed its march in the month of May, and reached the valley of Hebron, which was destined to be the extent of its journey. The circumstances which induced Richard to relinquish his long-cherished enterprise cannot now be known with certainty. Various versions are given by the different historians; but we find no occurrence which appears of sufficient importance to have changed the purpose of Cœur-de-Lion. It is certain, however, that a council assembled by the king decided upon the propriety of attacking Cairo, which was the main store-house of Saladin, rather than of marching upon Jerusalem. No sooner was it known among the troops that a counter-march was intended, than they threw aside all discipline: great numbers of them deserted, and Richard was compelled to return to Acre, as the only means of regaining the authority he had lost.

Saladin, who kept watch from the mountains upon all the movements of the crusaders, perceived the disorganised condition of the army, and chose that moment for an attack upon Jaffa, which he captured with little resistance. On learning the news, Richard at once dispatched by land the troops who remained with him, while he, with a small body of knights, proceeded by sea to the relief of the town. Cœur-de-Lion never showed his splendid military talents more strikingly than on this occasion. On arriving opposite the town, he found a vast host of the Saracens drawn up on the shore to receive him. His companions counselled him to turn back, saying that it was little else than madness to attack such overwhelming numbers; but Cœur-de-Lion knew that to dare is to reach half-way to victory, and he had learned to despise the nice calculation of probabilities. He leaped into the water, and cried, "Cursed for ever be he who follows me not!" At such a call no knight who desired to keep his spurs would dare to hang back, and one and all followed their leader to the shore, threw themselves upon the thick ranks of the enemy, and put them to flight. The gallant band of Richard then entered Jaffa, where they were joined by the troops who had marched by land.

On the following day the main body of the Saracen army, with Saladin at their head, advanced upon the town. Richard went forth to meet them on the plain, and a pitched battle ensued, in which, after many hours of hard fighting, he defeated them with great slaughter. It is scarcely too much to say that this success against a vastly superior force was due, in a large measure, to the extraordinary prowess of Cœur-de-Lion himself. Wherever he stretched out his ponderous battle-axe, horse and man went down before him; and it is said that such was the terror he inspired that whole bodies of the Saracen troops would turn and fly at his approach. Although the expedition to the Holy Land was not destined to attain its object, the fame of its leader was raised both in the East and in the West to a height which has never been equalled. For hundreds of years the name of Richard Cœur-de-Lion was employed by Syrian mothers to silence their infants; and if a horse suddenly started from the way, his rider was wont to exclaim, "Dost thou think King Richard is in that bush?"

The battle of Jaffa was Cœur-de-Lion's last victory in the Holy Land. His exertions on that day brought on a violent fever, and the state of his health, as well as the necessity of a return to England, induced him to conclude a treaty with his gallant enemy on terms which Saladin was glad to accept. A truce was proclaimed for three years, three months, three days, and three hours; the towns of Jaffa and Tyre were to remain in the hands of the Christians, and they were to be permitted at all times to visit Jerusalem as pilgrims without persecution or injury. To the French, who had refused to take part in the battle of Jaffa, Richard denied the benefits of this treaty, and told them that since they had held back from the fight, they were not worthy to enter the Holy City. The remaining portions of the army, casting aside their weapons of war, made the pilgrimage in safety, protected from all molestation by the pledge of Saladin. And yet the massacre of Acre was fresh in the memory of the Moslems, and many of the kinsmen of those who had perished there threw themselves at the feet of their chief, and implored him to take vengeance for the ruthless deed upon the Christians now in his power. But the soldan refused to listen to their entreaties, and replied that he had passed his word, which was sacred and unchangeable.

The third body of pilgrims which entered Jerusalem was headed by the Bishop of Salisbury, who was received with great honour, and was admitted to a long interview with Saladin. Many questions were put to him by his royal entertainer, who, among other matters, desired to know in what light he was regarded among the Christians. "What do they say," he asked, "of your king, and what of me?" The bishop answered boldly, "My king stands unrivalled among all men for deeds of might and gifts of generosity; but your fame also is high, and were you but converted to the true faith, there would not be two such princes as you and he in all the world." Saladin replied in a speech as wise as it was generous. He readily gave his tribute of admiration to the brilliant valour of Richard, but said that he was too rash and impetuous, and that, for his own part, he would rather be famed for skill and prudence than for mere audacity. At the request of the bishop, Saladin granted his permission that the Latin clergy should be allowed to have separate establishments at Jerusalem, as had previously been the case with the eastern churches.

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XXII. REIGN OF RICHARD I. (concluded)

Shipwreck of Richard--His Arrival in Austria--His Capture by the Archduke Leopold--He is Surrendered to the Emperor of Germany--Events in England--Renewed Persecution of the Jews--The Massacre at York--Quarrel between Longchamp and Pudsey--Stories about Longchamp--His Rupture with John, and Temporary Compromise--Imprisonment of Geoffrey of York--Longchamp takes Refuge in the Tower--His Deposition and Flight to France--Intrigues between John and Philip--Rumours of Richard's Imprisonment--The Story of Blondel--Richard before the Diet--Loyalty of Richard's Subjects, and Collection of the Ransom--Richard's Reception in England--His Expedition to France--Administration of Hubert Walter--William Fitz-Robert--Recommencement of Hostilities with France--The Bishop of Beauvais--Defeat of Philip--Death of Richard before Chaluz--His Character.

Richard set sail from Acre in October, 1192, with the queen Berengaria, his sister Joan, and all the knights and prelates who held fealty to the English crown. The proud heart of Cœur-de-Lion would not permit him to visit Jerusalem in the lowly guise of a pilgrim, but he quitted Palestine with feelings of the deepest regret; and he is reported to have stretched out his arms towards the hills, exclaiming, "Most holy land, I commend thee unto God's keeping. May He grant me life and health to return and rescue thee from the infidel!"

A heavy storm--attributed by the sailors to the displeasure of Heaven--overtook the returning fleet, scattering the ships, and casting many of them ashore on the coasts of Barbary and Egypt. The vessel which carried Joan and Berengaria arrived in safety at a port in Sicily. Richard had followed in the same direction, with the intention of landing in southern France; but he suddenly remembered that he had many bitter enemies in that country, in whose power it would be dangerous to trust himself, and he turned back to the Adriatic, dismissing the greater part of his followers, and intending to take his way homeward in disguise through Styria and Germany.

His vessel was attacked by Greek pirates; but he not only succeeded in repelling the attack, but in commanding their services to convey him to shore. Possibly his name may have had an influence, even with these robbers of the sea; but whatever were the means employed, it is certain that they placed themselves under his orders, and that he quitted his own ship for one of theirs, in which--the better to secure his disguise--he proceeded to Zara in Dalmatia, and there landed. He was attended by a Norman baron, named Baldwin of Bethune, two chaplains, a few Templars, and some servants. Richard had assumed the dress of a palmer, and, having suffered his hair and beard to grow long, went by the name of Hugh the Merchant. He had, however, not yet learned prudence, and those who were with him seemed to have been as deficient in this quality as himself. Cœur-de-Lion then hastened on his way through Germany, attended only by a single knight, and by a boy who spoke the English language, then very similar to the Saxon dialect of the Continent. For three days and nights they travelled without food among mountains covered with snow, not knowing in which direction they were going. They entered the province which had formed the eastern boundary of the old empire of the Franks, and was called Œsterreich, which means the East Country. This country, known to us by the name of Austria, was subject to the Emperor of Germany, and was governed by an Archduke, whose capital was Vienna, on the Danube. This duke was the same Leopold whom Richard had insulted at Ascalon, and with whom also, on a former occasion, he had a serious quarrel. This occurrence took place at Acre, where the duke having presumed to raise his standard on a portion of the walls, Cœur-de-Lion seized the flag and trampled it under foot.

Richard and his companions arrived at a small town near Vienna, exhausted with fatigue and fasting. It is not probable that the king could have proceeded so near the city without knowing where he was, but his immediate necessities were too pressing to leave any room for hesitation. Having taken a lodging, he sent the boy into the market-place to buy provisions. The boy was dressed in costly clothes, and these, together with the large sums of money which he exhibited, excited the suspicions of the citizens; but he made excuse that he was the servant of a rich merchant who was to arrive within three days at Vienna. When he returned to the king, he related what had happened, and begged him to escape while there was yet time. Richard, however, little accustomed to anticipate danger, and fatigued with his journey, determined to remain some days longer.

Meanwhile Leopold heard the rumour of the landing of his enemy at Zara, and, incited at once by feelings of revenge and by the hope of the large ransom which such a prisoner would command, sent out spies and armed men in all directions to search for him. As the duke was scarcely likely to anticipate the presence of the fugitive so near the capital, the search was made without success, and Cœur-de-Lion would doubtless have escaped undiscovered if another strange act of carelessness had not drawn suspicion upon him. One day, when the same boy who had before been arrested was again in the market-place, he was observed to carry in his girdle some embroidered gloves, such as were worn only by princes and great nobles on occasions of ceremony. He was again seized, and the torture was employed to bring him to confession. He revealed the truth, and pointed out the house in which King Richard was lodging. Cœur-de-Lion was in a deep sleep when the room in which he lay was entered by Austrian soldiers. He immediately sprang up and, seizing his sword, which lay beside him, kept them at bay, vowing that he would surrender to none but their chief. The soldiers, superior as their numbers were, hesitated to undertake the task of disarming him, and the Archduke of Austria having been sent for, Cœur-de-Lion gave up the sword into his hands.

No sooner did the Emperor Henry VI. of Germany learn the news of the arrest of Cœur, de-Lion than he sent to the Archduke of Austria, his vassal, commanding him to give up his prisoner. "A duke," said he, "has no right to imprison a king; that is the privilege only of an emperor." This strange proposition does not seem to have been denied by Leopold, who resigned the custody of the English king, on condition of receiving a portion of his ransom. The agreement having been concluded, Richard was removed from Vienna at Easter, 1193, and was confined in one of the imperial castles in Worms.

Before we follow further the fortunes of this adventurous king, it is necessary to go back to the period of his departure for the Holy Land, and to trace the course of events in England during his absence. The popular feeling which had been excited against the Jews at the time of Richard's coronation, and which he had done so little to repress, found vent in persecutions and massacres throughout the country. In those turbulent times there were among the people a certain number of lawless characters, who, ever eager for plunder, were doubly so when they could obtain it by means which were encouraged by their superiors, and permitted secretly, if not openly, by the clergy. To kill a Jew was regarded not only as no crime, but as a deed acceptable to God; and in England, as in Palestine, the pure and holy religion of peace was believed to give its sanction to acts of merciless bloodshed and plunder. In February, 1190, a number of Jews were butchered in the streets of Lynn, in Norfolk, and immediately afterwards, as though by a preconcerted movement, similar bloody scenes were enacted at Norwich, Lincoln, St. Edmundsbury, Stamford, and York.

The massacre of York, which took place in March, 1190, was remarkable no less for the number of victims who were sacrificed than for the circumstances of horror which attended it. At nightfall, on the 16th of the month, a company of strangers, armed to the teeth, entered the city, and attacked the house of a rich Jew who had been killed in London at the coronation. His widow and children, however, still remained, and these the ruffians put to the sword, carrying off whatever property the house contained. On the following day the rest of the Jews in York, anticipating the fate which awaited them, appeared before the governor, and entreated permission to seek safety for themselves and their families within the walls of the castle. The request was granted, and the people of the persecuted race, to the number of not less than 1,000 men, women, and children, were received into the fortress, within whose strong walls they might hope to find shelter from their enemies. But for some reason or other the governor passed outside the gates, and returned attended by a great number of the populace. The Jews, whose misfortunes had made them suspicious, feared that they had been permitted to enter the castle only as into a slaughter-house, and refused to admit the governor, excusing their disobedience by their dread of the mob, who, it was evident, would enter with him if the drawbridge were lowered. The governor refused to listen to such an argument, reasonable as it was; and, whatever may have been his original intention, he now gave orders to the rabble to attack the rebellious Israelites. The command was willingly obeyed, and the populace, whose numbers were continually increased by all the vagabonds and ruffians of the neighbourhood, laid siege to the castle, and made preparations for taking it by assault. It is related that the governor became alarmed at the tumult he had raised, and that he recalled his order, and endeavoured to calm the excitement of the people; if so, his efforts were unsuccessful. Few things are easier than to rouse the passions of men--nothing more difficult than to quell them. The unhappy Jews heard the loud shouts of vengeance without the walls, and, foreseeing that they could make little or no defence against the force brought against them, set the place on fire, slew first their wives and children, and afterwards, with a few exceptions, themselves.

It has been already related that, before the departure of Richard for the Holy Land, he had sold the chief justiciarship of the kingdom to Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, whose authority he subsequently curtailed by appointing as rival justiciary William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely. Longchamp, who also held the chancellorship, and the custody of the Tower of London, was the favourite of Richard, and he soon secured into his own hands the entire government of the country. The king, who had the greatest confidence in his loyalty and ability, issued letters-patent, directing the people to obey him as their sovereign; and, by the authority of the Pope, the chancellor was also appointed legate of England and Ireland. Thus doubly armed with spiritual and temporal power, the rule of Longchamp was absolute throughout the kingdom.

Pudsey, however, had paid for the justiciarship, and was by no means disposed to see his privileges swept away without making an effort at resistance. He accordingly laid his complaint before the king, and Richard, in reply, sent him letters, authorising him to share with Longchamp the authority which was his due. Armed with these, Pudsey made his appearance in London with great ceremony, but the barons of the kingdom assembled there refused to permit him to take his seat among them. After having in vain insisted upon the king's authority which he carried with him, the discomfited bishop proceeded in search of the chancellor. When the two prelates met, Longchamp approached his brother of Durham with a smiling countenance and courteous demeanour, expressed himself ready to obey the commands of the king, and invited Pudsey to an entertainment on that day se'nnight in the castle of Tickhill. The Bishop of Durham, who possessed either more good faith or less shrewdness than is usual with statesmen in that or any other age, accepted the invitation; and as soon as he had passed the gates of the castle, Longchamp placed his hand on his shoulder and arrested him, saying, that as sure as the king lived, the bishop should not leave that place until he had surrendered, not only his claim to power, but all the castles in his possession. "This," said he, "is not bishop arresting bishop, but chancellor arresting chancellor." Pudsey was accordingly imprisoned, and was not released until he had fulfilled the required conditions.

The power of Longchamp was now employed to the utmost to raise money for the king's necessities, and to further his own schemes of aggrandisement. Among the chroniclers are several who speak in strong terms of his avarice and tyranny, while Peter of Blois alone has a good word to say for him. He, however, was an impartial witness, and an authority whose words carry considerable weight. Matthew Paris says that such was the rapacity of the chancellor that not a knight could keep his baldrick, not a woman her bracelet, not a noble his ring, not a Jew his hoards of gold or merchandise. He used his power to enrich his relations and friends, placing them in the highest and most profitable posts under government, and entrusting to them the custody of towns and castles, which he took from those who had previously held them. He passed through the country with all the pomp and parade of royalty, attended by more than a thousand horsemen; and it is related that whenever he stopped to lodge for the night, a three years' income was not enough to defray the expenses of his train for a single day. His taste for luxury was further ministered to by minstrels and jugglers, whom he invited from France, and who sang their strains of flattery in the public places, proclaiming that the chancellor had not his like in the world.

There is an evident air of exaggeration about these statements, and many of them were to be referred to men as disaffected towards the king as towards his chancellor. If Longchamp reduced the country to poverty by his exactions, it is most likely that he was impelled to obtain the money by the demands of Richard: we shall presently see, however, that the national wealth was by no means exhausted by the burdens--heavy as they were--which it sustained. The loyalty of Longchamp has never been doubted, and there is no reason to believe that his government was generally tyrannous or unjust.

The nobles viewed the increasing power of the chancellor with feelings of envy; and Earl John, the brother of Richard, who had long entertained designs upon the throne, perceived that his chances of success were small indeed so long as a man devoted to the king retained the supreme power in the realm. Some of the turbulent barons, to whom Longchamp had given cause of offence, attached themselves to John, and encouraged him in his ambitious schemes. While Richard was in Sicily he received letters from his brother, containing various accusations against the chancellor of tyranny and misgovernment. It appears that these letters produced their effect, and that the king sent a reply directing that, if the accusations were proved to be true, Walter, Archbishop of Rouen, with Geoffrey Fitz-Peter and William Marshal, should be appointed to the chief justiciarships, and that in any case they should be associated with Longchamp in the direction of affairs. Richard, however, was well aware of the treacherous disposition of his brother, and reflection satisfied him that the chancellor was more worthy of confidence than those who accused him. Before the departure of the fleet from Messina, the king sent letters to his subjects confirming the authority of Longchamp, and directing that implicit obedience should be rendered to him.

When John learnt that his brother was on his way to Acre, he took active measures for bringing his schemes into operation. Various disputes took place between him and the chancellor, and before long an incident occurred which led to an open rupture between them. Gerald of Camville, a Norman baron, and one of the adherents of John, held the custody of Lincoln Castle, which he had purchased from the king. Longchamp--who, it is said, desired to give this office to one of his friends--summoned Camville to surrender the keys of the castle; but the baron refused compliance, saying that he was Earl John's liegeman, and that he would not relinquish his possessions except at the command of his lord. Longchamp then appeared before Lincoln with an army, and drove out Camville, who appealed to John for justice. The prince, who desired nothing better than such an opportunity, attacked the royal fortresses of Nottingham and Tickhill, carried them with little or no opposition, and, planting his standard on the walls, sent a messenger to Longchamp to the effect that, unless immediate restitution were made for the injury to Gerald of Camville, he would revenge it with a rod of iron. The chancellor, who possessed little courage or military talent, entered into a negotiation, by the terms of which the castles of Nottingham and Tickhill remained in the hands of John, and that of Lincoln was restored to Camville. Others of the royal castles, which had hitherto remained exclusively in the power of the chancellor, were committed into the custody of different barons, to be retained until the return of Richard from the Holy Land, or, in the event of his death, to be delivered up to John.

These important concessions satisfied John only for a short time, and an opportunity soon presented itself for pushing his demands further. Geoffrey, son of Henry II. by Fair Rosamond, had been appointed to the archbishopric of York during his father's lifetime, but his consecration had been delayed until the year 1191, when the necessary permission was received from the court of Rome, and he was consecrated by the Archbishop of Tours. As soon as the ceremony was concluded, he prepared to take possession of his benefice, notwithstanding the oath which had been exacted from him that he would not return to England. The chancellor having been apprised of his intention, sent a message to him forbidding him to cross the Channel, and at the same time directed the sheriffs to arrest him should he attempt to land. Geoffrey despised the prohibition; and, having landed at Dover in disguise, took shelter in a monastery. His retreat was soon discovered, and the soldiers of the king broke into the church, and seized the archbishop at the foot of the altar, while he was engaged in the celebration of the mass. A good deal of unnecessary violence seems to have been used, and Geoffrey was dragged through the streets to Dover Castle, where he was imprisoned.

The peculiar circumstances of this arrest, and the indignity thus inflicted upon a prelate of the Church, excited the popular feeling strongly against the government, and John, satisfied that he would be supported by the people, openly espoused the cause of his half-brother, and peremptorily ordered the chancellor to release him. Longchamp dared not resist the popular voice; he asserted that he had given no orders for the violence which had been used, and directed that the archbishop should be set at liberty, and suffered to go to London. An alliance, whose basis seems to have been self-interest rather than mutual esteem, was formed between the two half-brothers, and John, supported by the Archbishop of Rouen, who had been sent by Richard to England, boldly proceeded to London, summoned the great council of the barons of the kingdom, and called upon the chancellor to appear before it and defend his conduct. Longchamp not only refused to do so, but forbade the barons to assemble, declaring that the object of John was to usurp the crown. The council, however, was held at London Bridge, on the Thames, and the barons summoned Longchamp, who was then at Windsor Castle, to appear before them. The chancellor, on the contrary, collected all the men-at-arms who were with him, and marched from Windsor to London; but the adherents of John, who met him at the gates, attacked and defeated his escort; and finding himself also opposed by the citizens, he was compelled to take refuge in the Tower.

Immediately afterwards John entered the city; and, on his promising to remain faithful to the king, was received with welcome. The people, though they were willing to join in deposing the chancellor, retained, almost without exception, the utmost loyalty to their brave sovereign, and showed clearly they would permit of no treason against his authority. The act contemplated by the barons involved very important consequences, and John, with the craft and caution peculiar to his character, determined to obtain the assent of the citizens of London, and thus to involve them in a portion of its responsibility. The suffrages of the people were taken in a manner which shows at once the rudeness of the times and the unusual nature of such a proceeding. On the day fixed for the great assembly of the barons, the tocsin, or alarm bell, was rung, and when the citizens poured forth from their houses, they found heralds posted in the streets, who directed them to St. Paul's Church. When the people arrived there in a crowd, they found the chief men of the realm--barons and prelates--seated in council. These haughty nobles, chiefly of Norman descent, whose usual custom had been to treat the native English as mere serfs and inferior beings, now received the people with extraordinary courtesy, and invited them to take part in the proceedings. The debate which followed, being conducted in Norman-French, must have been unintelligible to the majority of the citizens; but they were shown the king's seal affixed to a letter, which was said to authorise the deposition of the chancellor in case he failed to conduct properly the duties of his office. When this letter had been read, the votes of the whole assembly were taken, and it was decreed by the voice of "the bishops, earls, and barons of the kingdom, and of the citizens of London," that the chancellor should be deprived of his office, and that John, the brother of the king, should be proclaimed "chief governor of the whole kingdom."

On the news of these transactions being conveyed to Longchamp, it is reported that he fell upon the floor insensible. It was evident that he had no longer any power to resist the pretensions of John: resistance, to have been of any avail, should have come sooner. The troops of his opponents having surrounded the Tower, the chancellor came out from the gates, and offered to surrender. John, who thought it worth while to buy his adhesion or submission to the new authority, proposed to leave him in possession of the bishopric of Ely, and to give him the custody of three castles belonging to the crown. To the honour of Longchamp, he refused to accept gifts from such a source, or to resign of his own free will any of the powers entrusted to him by his sovereign. "I submit," he said, "only to the superior force which is brought against me." And with these words he gave the keys of the Tower into the hands of John. The barons, however, compelled him to take an oath that he would surrender the keys of the other royal fortresses, and his two brothers were detained as hostages for the performance of these conditions.

The ex-chancellor himself was permitted to go at large; and it appears that he determined, rather than resign possession of the castles, to leave his brothers in danger, and to escape to Normandy. Having reached Canterbury, he stayed there for a few days, and then quitted the town in the disguise of a hawking woman, having a bale of linen under his arm and a yard-measure in his hand. In this strange costume, the ex-chancellor, who had been accustomed to travel with a retinue of 1,000 men-at-arms, took his way on foot to the sea-shore. Having to wait a while for a vessel in which to embark, he sat down upon a stone with his veil, or hood, drawn over his face. Some fishermen's wives who were passing by stopped and asked him the price of his cloth, but as he did not understand a word of English, he made no answer, much to the surprise of his questioners. Presently some other women came up to him, who also took an interest in his merchandise, and desired to know how he sold it. The prelate, who was keenly alive to the ludicrousness of his situation, burst out into a loud laugh, which stimulated the curiosity of the women, and they suddenly lifted his veil. Seeing under it, as Roger of Hoveden hath it, "the dark and newly-shaven face of a man," they ran away in alarm, and soon brought back with them a number of men and women, who amused themselves by pulling the clothes of this strange person, and rolling him in the shingle. At length, after the ex-chancellor had tried in vain to make them understand who he was, they shut him up in a cellar, and he was compelled to make himself known to the authorities as the only way of regaining his liberty. He then gave up the keys of the royal castles, and was permitted to proceed to the Continent.

Immediately on his arrival in Normandy, Longchamp wrote those letters to Richard which reached him in the Holy Land, and apprised him of the unsettled condition of affairs in England, and of the dangerous assumption of power on the part of John. This prince had appointed the Archbishop of Rouen to the chief justiciarship of the kingdom; but it would appear that the new justiciary was too honest a man to assent to all the views of his unprincipled master; and John being in want of money, entered into a negotiation with Longchamp to replace him in his office for a payment of £700. The chief ministers, however, dreading the consequences which might follow the return of the ex-chancellor to power, agreed to lend John a sum of £500 from the treasury, to induce him to withdraw his proposal. The mercenary prince consented to do so, and the negotiation was broken off.

In defiance of the solemn oath which Philip had taken before leaving the Holy Land, he no sooner returned to France than he prepared to invade Normandy. Some of the nobles of his kingdom, however, had more regard for their knightly faith, and they refused to join in the expedition; while the Pope, determined to defend the cause of a king who was so nobly fighting the battle of the faith, threatened Philip with the ban of the Church if he persisted in his treacherous intention. Compelled to abandon this expedition, the French king by no means gave up his designs against Richard, and he entered into a treaty with John, by which he promised to secure to him the possession of Normandy, Aquitaine, and Anjou, and to assist him in his attempts upon the English throne. In return he merely asked that John should marry the Princess Alice, Philip's sister.

To this match John, who probably might have been willing to promise anything that was required of him, did not hesitate to give his consent, in spite of the sinister rumours which were current about the princess, and the fact that she had been affianced to his brother.

As time passed on, and the king still remained absent, strange stories began to get abroad. It was affirmed that he had been driven on the coast of Barbary, and taken prisoner by the Moors; that, like Robert of Normandy, he had been tempted to stay for a while among the groves of Italy; that the ship which carried him had foundered at sea with all on board. The last story, however, found few believers, for the people, imbued with a tinge of that romance which taught the immortality of the hero, were fully convinced that their king was still alive, and would some day return to take possession of the throne. At length it became known that Cœur-de-Lion was in imprisonment in one of the castles of Germany. The news was first conveyed in a letter from the Emperor Henry to King Philip, and quickly travelled over Europe. To the revengeful and ungenerous King of France that letter brought more joy than a present of gold and topaz; but the other nations of Christendom received the tidings with indignation and disgust. The Pope instantly excommunicated the Archduke of Austria, and sent a message to the Emperor Henry, to the effect that he too should be placed under the curse of Rome unless the royal prisoner were instantly released. The Archbishop of Rouen proved his loyalty by summoning the council of the kingdom, and sending two abbots into Germany to visit the king, and confer with him on the measures to be taken for his liberation. Longchamp, however, had already departed in search of his master, and was the first who obtained an interview with him.

There is a beautiful legend, much better known than the authenticated facts, which tells of a minstrel, named Blondel, who had been attached to the person of Richard, and whose love for his master induced him to travel through Germany for the purpose of discovering the place of his confinement. Whenever he came to a castle the minstrel placed himself under the walls, and sang a song which had been a favourite with Cœur-de-Lion. One day when the king was whiling away the dreary hours in solitude, he heard the sound of a harp beneath his window, and when the well-known strains floated up to his ears, he joined in the air, and sang the concluding verse of the song. Blondel immediately recognised the voice, and thus the place of Cœur-de-Lion's imprisonment became known to his countrymen. Such is the story, which has been generally rejected by the historians for want of evidence. There is considerable improbability in the legend, but, at the same time, it is not impossible that it may have had a foundation in fact. It has been argued that Richard's imprisonment was related in the letter of the emperor to Philip, and that therefore there was no need for the journey of Blondel; but although the locality of the king's prison was indicated in this letter, it by no means follows that it was known to Longchamp and others who first took steps to visit him. When at length Longchamp obtained admission into his prison, Richard received him as a friend, and appears to have entirely forgiven that weakness and lack of energy on the part of the chancellor which had proved so favourable to the traitorous designs of Prince John.

Longchamp exerted himself in his master's favour with the Emperor Henry, and that prince at length consented that Richard should appear before the Diet at Hagenau. When the king was on his way thither he was met by the two abbots who had been sent by the Archbishop of Rouen. "Unbroken by distress," Cœur-de-Lion received them with a smiling countenance, and the admiration of all the bystanders was attracted by his undaunted bearing, which was rather that of a conqueror than a prisoner. Within a few days afterwards he appeared before the Diet of the Empire, where he was permitted to offer his defence against the accusations of Henry. These were: that he had entered into an alliance with Tancred, the usurper of the crown of Sicily; that he had unjustly imprisoned the Christian ruler of Cyprus; that he had insulted the Duke of Austria; and that he was guilty of the murder of Conrad of Montferrat. It was also alleged that the truce he had entered into with Saladin was disgraceful, and that he had left Jerusalem in the hands of the infidels. The speech of Richard in reply to these charges has not been preserved, but contemporary writers describe it as having been full of manly eloquence, and assert that its effect on the assembly was entirely to establish in their minds the conviction of his innocence. The emperor, however, was by no means disposed to set his prisoner at liberty, and insisted upon a heavy ransom, which was subsequently raised to the large sum of 100,000 marks. It was also stipulated that Richard should give hostages to the emperor and the Duke of Austria for the further payment of 50,000 marks, which was to be made under certain conditions; and that Eleanor, the maid of Brittany, sister to Prince Arthur, and niece of Richard, should be affianced to the son of Leopold. It is related by Hoveden that Richard did homage to the emperor for the crown of England. This act of vassalage, if it really took place, was but an acknowledgment of the pretensions of the ancient emperors of Germany to the feudal superiority of Europe as heirs of the Roman Cæsars.

When the first news of Richard's imprisonment reached England, John collected a body of troops, and took possession of the castles of Windsor and Wallingford. Thence he marched to London, causing it to be proclaimed wherever he went that the king his brother had died in prison. The people refused to believe this report, and when John required the barons of England and Normandy to acknowledge him as their sovereign, they answered by raising the standard of Cœur-de-Lion. The troops of John were attacked and put to flight, and the prince himself passed across the Channel, and joined his ally, Philip of France. Philip then entered Normandy with a large army, but there, as in England, the people remained loyal to their sovereign, and the French king was compelled to retreat with heavy loss.

The ransom of Richard, which was obtained almost wholly in England, appears to have been raised with great difficulty. The officers of the crown went through the country, compelling men of all ranks to contribute, making no distinction between clergy and laity, Saxons or Normans. The plate of the churches and monasteries was melted down into coin and bullion, and the Cistercian monks, whose poverty had usually exempted them from such exactions, were forced to give up the wool of their sheep. Frauds were practised to a considerable extent by the officers, who exacted money for their own use under the pretence of applying it to the king's ransom; and thus the already grievous burdens of the people increased to such an extent, that they were said to be in dire distress from sea to sea.

At length, after much delay, the sum of 70,000 marks was raised and sent to the emperor, who paid over one-third of the sum to the Archduke of Austria as his share of the booty. It was then agreed that Richard should be set at liberty, on condition of his leaving hostages for the payment of the sum in arrear. The king, whose captivity had now endured for thirteen months, was disposed to agree to almost any terms that might be demanded of him; and the hostages having been obtained, he was released about the end of January, 1194.

Attended by a few followers, Richard left Antwerp in a small vessel, and landed at Sandwich on the 13th of March, 1194. The English people had paid heavily for his freedom, but he seemed to have become more endeared to them on that account. Impulsive and enthusiastic then as now, they crowded about him with uproarious welcome, and accompanied him on his way to London with shouts of rejoicing. The injuries inflicted by the Norman conquest were beginning to disappear from their minds; and though Cœur-de-Lion could not speak their language, he was their king, and his exploits were a national honour. London, at least, was not impoverished by the sums raised for his ransom. So magnificent was the reception given by the citizens--such stores of plate, and jewels, and cloth of gold were displayed, to do honour to the occasion--that one of the German barons who went with him expressed his astonishment at the sight, and said that if the emperor his master had known the wealth of the country, he would not have let his prisoner off so easily. At the moment when Richard entered London, bells were ringing at the churches, tapers were lit, and at every altar in the city sentence of excommunication was pronounced, by order of the bishops, against Prince John and his adherents.

John himself had received timely notice of the release of Richard by a letter which reached him from Philip, containing the significant words, "Take care of yourself--the devil is broken loose"; and the Prince immediately sought safety in flight. At a council held at Nottingham, the barons summoned him to appear within forty days, on pain of the forfeiture of all his estates; they also determined that Richard should be crowned a second time, and though the king was opposed to this extraordinary proceeding, he submitted to a decision which was evidently dictated by loyalty. The ceremony was performed at Winchester on Easter Day following.

On the return of King Richard to London, and immediately after his second coronation, he commenced preparations for a war in France, which he proposed to undertake in revenge for the injuries he had sustained at the hands of Philip. For this purpose, as well as for his own necessities, money was required, and Richard showed no scruple as to the means by which it was obtained. He at once annulled the sales of royal estates which he had made before his departure for the Holy Land, declaring that they had not been sold, but mortgaged, and that the crown was entitled to their restitution; many important appointments were also resumed in the same manner, and these, as well as the lands, were again sold to the highest bidder.

Impatient to take the field, Richard collected as many troops as could be got together, and passed over into Normandy in May, 1194. He landed at Harfleur, and as soon as he had set foot upon the beach he was met by his cowardly brother John, who crouched at his feet and begged forgiveness. His mother, Queen Eleanor, seconded the request with her prayers; and Richard on this occasion showed a magnanimity which was rare indeed in those days. He granted his brother's pardon, and said, "I forgive him; and I hope to forget his injuries as easily as he will forget my pardon." The prince who thus knelt trembling on the beach at Harfleur, had just been guilty of a most foul and treacherous murder. Regardless of the oath he had taken, he determined to desert the cause of Philip, whom he feared less than his brother; before doing so he invited the officers of the garrison placed by the French king at Evreux to an entertainment, and massacred them all without mercy.

The expedition of Richard, hastily undertaken, was attended with only partial success. The French troops were beaten in several engagements, and several towns and castles of Normandy which had been occupied by them were retaken by Cœur-de-Lion; but his finances were soon exhausted, and the people of Aquitaine broke out into insurrection against him. The campaign came to an end in July by a truce for one year.

While Richard was absent on the Continent the government of England was confided to Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was appointed chief justiciary of the kingdom (1195). As Bishop of Salisbury he had accompanied the king to Palestine, and had there shown great courage and ability, as well in the field of battle as in his interview with Saladin. Cœur-de-Lion knew both how to appreciate and reward the ability shown in his service; great men seldom choose bad instruments, and the new justiciary proved himself fully worthy of the trust reposed in him. Under his administration the country began to recover from its depressed condition, although the constant demands for money made by the king rendered it difficult to relax, in any great degree, the burdens of the people. Hubert, however, appears to have promoted their well-being to the utmost of his power; the taxes were raised with as little violence as possible; commerce was fostered, and justice equitably administered in the courts of law.

Before the truce between Richard and Philip had expired, war again broke out, and continued without any important advantage to either side, until the end of the year, when a temporary peace was once more concluded. The citizens of London had for some time complained of the unequal manner in which the taxes were levied, the poor being made to pay much more in proportion to their means than the rich. In the year 1195 the movement took a new form, headed by a man named William Fitz-Osbert, called "Longbeard," from the length of the beard which he wore to make himself look like a true Englishman. His first act, which showed no sign of disloyalty, was to visit Richard in Normandy, and lay before him the grievance of which the people complained. The king made a courteous reply, and promised that the matter should be inquired into. Months passed away, however, without any redress being obtained, and in 1196 Longbeard formed a secret association, which was said to number 52,000 persons, all of whom swore to obey the "Saviour of the Poor," as he was called. Frequent assemblies of the citizens took place at St. Paul's Cross, where their leader delivered political orations, couched in obscure language, and usually prefaced by some text from Scripture. The passions of the people were becoming daily more excited, and it was evident that these meetings could not go on without danger to the public peace. Longbeard was summoned to appear before a council composed of the barons and higher ecclesiastics, where the strange accusation was brought against him that he had excited among the lower classes of the people the love of liberty and happiness. He attended the council, but so large a concourse of his adherents escorted him there, that it was not considered prudent to take proceedings against him. Great efforts were made to counteract the effects of his teaching, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose virtues were recognised and respected by all classes, went personally among the poorest of the citizens, and prevailed upon many of them to give their promise to keep the peace, and to deliver their children into his hands as hostages for their good faith. Two citizens now presented themselves to the council, and since it was dangerous to arrest Longbeard openly, offered to take him by surprise. The offer was accepted, and these men were employed to dog his footsteps, and watch an opportunity of seizing him. At length they found him with only a few companions, and having called to their assistance some armed men whom they had in readiness, they advanced and laid hands upon him. Longbeard immediately drew a knife and stabbed one of them to the heart; then with his companions he effected his escape to the Church of St. Mary-le-Bow, in the tower of which he barricaded himself. Here for several days he maintained his position, but at length the tower was set on fire, and Longbeard and his friends were driven out by the flames. They were immediately seized and bound, but at that moment a youth, the son of the citizen who was killed, approached Longbeard, and plunged a knife into his bowels. The wound did not cause death, and the soldiers--to whom pity would seem to have been unknown--tied the wounded man to the tail of a horse, and dragged him in this manner to the Tower of London, whence, by sentence of the chief justiciary, he was taken to West Smithfield, and was there hanged, together with his companions.

During this cruel torture of their leader the citizens remained passive, making no attempt to rescue him; and yet no sooner was he dead than they proclaimed him to be a saint and a martyr, and cut up the gibbet on which he was hanged into relics, which were preserved with a religious veneration. The fame of the "Saviour of the Poor" had travelled far and wide, and the peasantry from remote parts of the kingdom made pilgrimages to Smithfield, in the belief that miracles would be wrought on the spot where he fell. So great was the popular enthusiasm that it became necessary to maintain a guard of soldiers on the spot, and some of the more troublesome pilgrims were imprisoned and scourged. Even these severe measures were only successful after a considerable lapse of time, so enthusiastic were the people in their attachment to the memory of one whom they believed to have died in their cause, but whom in his death-agony they raised no arm to save.

In the year 1197 hostilities again commenced between Richard and Philip, the latter of whom derived support from the disaffection of the English king's Continental subjects. The people of Brittany--ever impetuous and eager for liberty--joined the standard of Philip, or fought separately against his enemy, without reflecting that their efforts, if successful, would tend only to a change of masters, and not to establishing their independence. The men of Aquitaine had risen in insurrection. The Count of Flanders in the north, and the Count of Toulouse in the south, simultaneously declared war against Richard, and raised large bodies of troops in their territories. The war continued in a desultory manner, fortune leaning now to this side, now to that; but wherever Cœur-de-Lion showed himself in person he maintained his reputation, and overcame his opponents. The king ultimately secured the adherence of the Count of Toulouse, by giving him the hand of his sister Joan, the Queen Dowager of Sicily, who, with the Queen Berengaria, had returned to Aquitaine.

In this campaign the Bishop of Beauvais, a powerful prelate, who had evinced great enmity to Richard, was captured by Mercadi, a captain of the Brabanters in the king's service. He was taken in complete armour, fighting sword in hand, contrary to the canons of the Church. By direction of Richard he was consigned to a dungeon in the castle of Rouen. Two of his priests presented themselves before the king to beg that their bishop might no longer be subjected to such harsh treatment. Richard replied that they themselves should judge if he deserved it. "This man," said he, "has done me many wrongs, one of which is not to be forgotten. When I was a prisoner, in the hands of the emperor, and when, in consideration of my royal birth, they began to treat me with some little respect, your master arrived, and used his influence to my injury. He spoke to the emperor over-night, and the next morning I was made to wear a chain such as a horse could hardly bear. Say, now, what he merits at my hands, and answer justly." The priests are said to have made no reply, and quitted the royal presence. Efforts were then made in a more influential quarter on behalf of the bishop. He appealed to Pope Celestine, who replied that in such a case he could not use his pontifical authority, but would address his request to Richard as a friend. He did so, and sent the king a letter, in which he implored mercy for his "dear son, the Bishop of Beauvais." Richard replied by sending to the Pope the bishop's coat of mail, which was covered with blood, and attaching to it a scroll containing the following verse from the Old Testament--"This have we found; know now whether it be thy son's coat or no?" Celestine, who appears to have relished the joke, replied, "No; it is the coat of a son of Mars. Let Mars deliver him if he can." On this occasion Richard proved implacable; he refused the large sum of 10,000 marks which was offered as a ransom; and until the king's death the Bishop of Beauvais remained in the dungeon in chains.

In the following year (1198) the truce again expired, and war broke out once more, and for the last time between the two kings. The prolonged contest seemed to have increased their hatred, and led them to wreak their vengeance upon the unhappy prisoners who fell into their hands. Great cruelties were practised by both armies, who, as they passed through their enemy's territory, burned up the homesteads of the people, and laid waste the fields. A pitched battle took place near Gisors, in which Richard obtained a complete victory, and Philip, in his retreat, had a narrow escape from drowning in the river Epte, the bridge over which he crossed breaking down under the weight of his troops. Richard then exclaimed exultingly that he had made the French king drink deeply of the waters of the Epte. During the engagement Cœur-de-Lion exhibited all his old prowess. It is related that he rode unattended against three knights, whom he struck down one after the other and made prisoners. This was Cœur-de-Lion's last exploit in the field. A truce was declared between the obstinate belligerents, and was solemnly ratified for the term of five years. In those times an oath of truce or a kingly pledge was little else than a ceremony, and passion or self-interest continually broke down the most solemn vows and attestations. Thus the truce for five years was infringed in as many weeks; but the difference was a trivial one, and was concluded without further hostilities. Richard then marched a body of troops against the insurgents of Aquitaine.

For some time previously the minstrels of the south had been heard to introduce among their love-songs a ballad of more gloomy portent. This ballad contained a prophecy that in Limousin an arrow was making by which the tyrant King of England should die. Such proved to be, indeed, the manner of Richard's death, and the previous existence of the prophecy would appear to indicate a conspiracy to assassinate him. These were the men who, as already related, had attempted the life of Henry II., by shooting arrows at him; and it is not improbable that they should have determined among themselves to get rid of his son in the same manner. The circumstances of Richard's death, however, seem to have had no connection with such a conspiracy; it was provoked by his own spirit of revenge, and by the reckless indifference with which he exposed himself to danger. The story most commonly received is to the following effect:--Vidomar, the Count of Limoges, had found a considerable treasure, which Richard, as his feudal lord, demanded. The count offered one-half, and no more; and the king, who wanted money, and seldom listened to argument in such cases, besieged the rebellious noble in his castle of Chaluz. Famine soon appeared among the garrison, and they sent to the king to tender their submission, on the condition only that their lives might be spared. Richard refused the request, and swore he would storm the castle and hang the whole garrison on the battlements. The unhappy men of Chaluz had received this reply, which seemed to cut them off from hope, and they were consulting together with despairing looks when they observed the king, attended by Mercadi, approaching the castle walls to reconnoitre and determine where the attack should be made. A youth named Bertrand de Gourdon, who stood upon the ramparts, then took a bow, and directing an arrow at the king, lodged it in his left shoulder. The castle was then carried by assault, and the whole of the garrison were massacred, except Bertrand, who was led into the presence of Richard, to learn the more horrible fate which it was supposed would await him. Meanwhile, the arrow-head had been extracted with great difficulty by the surgeon, and it was evident that the wound would prove mortal. In the presence of death none but the most depraved minds retain their animosities; and the dying king looked calmly on his murderer, while the youth, for his part, bore an undaunted brow. "What have I done to thee," Cœur-de-Lion said, "that thou shouldst seek my life?" The youth answered, "Thou hast killed with thine own hand my father and my two brothers, and myself thou wouldst hang. Let me die in torture, if thou wilt; I care not, so that thou, the tyrant, diest with me." Such a speech found an echo in the breast of him of the Lion-Heart: "Youth," he said, "I forgive thee. Let him go free, and give him a hundred shillings." The command was not obeyed, for it is related that Mercadi retained the prisoner, and after the king's death caused him to be flayed alive, and then to be hanged. Like others of the princes, his contemporaries, Richard expressed contrition and remorse at the prospect of death, and in his last moments courted the offices of the Church. He died on the 6th of April, 1199, at the age of forty-two, having reigned, or rather worn the crown, for nearly ten years; during which, with the exception of a few months, he was absent from England. He had no children to succeed to the throne, and he left a will, in which he appointed his successor, and gave directions as to the disposal of his remains. "Take my heart," he said, "to Rouen, and let my body lie at my father's feet in the abbey of Fontevrault."

Richard Cœur-de-Lion appears to us as the type of manhood unfettered by a high civilisation--a strong, passionate heart, with great capacities for good or evil, placed above the control of ordinary circumstances, little influenced by the power of religion, and therefore left in a large measure to its own native impulses. Richard was revengeful, but not implacable; passionate, but not vindictive. The story of his life, like that of other kings of the Plantagenet race, cannot be written without the record of many acts of cruelty, which there is little to excuse or palliate. If he wanted money he seized it wherever it was to be had, with or without pretext; if a man opposed him, he crushed him down or hanged him without scruple. When, on his return from captivity, the garrison of Nottingham held out against his troops, doubting the report of his return, it was not until the prisoners taken by the besiegers were hung up before the castle walls that the rebels became convinced of their error, and realised that the king was there. Absolute power is unfitted for human nature; and since the beginning of the world no man has ever wielded it without blame. But if Cœur-de-Lion was not free from the crimes belonging to his age and kingly position, he surpassed his contemporaries as much in nobility of character, as in bodily strength and valour. His courage was of the highest order; for it combined not only the dash and gallantry common to men whose physical organisation is perfect, and who are incited by the love of military fame, but also that calmer, but not less admirable, quality of fortitude, which sustains the heart of the prisoner in chains, or of the soldier in time of famine and disease. The business of his life was war, and its recreation the tournament or the chase. Then, if ever, were the days of chivalry as they are depicted by the poets--stormy and perilous days, when the pulse of life beat high, and there was enough of intellectual culture to show men how to use their passions, but not to restrain them.

It has been said by a modern historian that the character of Richard was described by the Normans in one word, when they called him Cœur-de-Lion, or the Lion-Heart, but that the tiger might with more fitness have been taken as his prototype. Such an opinion does not appear to be warranted by the facts. To say that Richard was guilty of acts which we now stamp as cruel and tyrannous, is but to say that he was possessed of power, and lived in the twelfth century; but to intimate that his whole life was a course of such acts, is to violate historical justice. This terrible warrior-king had his moments of gentleness, and more than once displayed a magnanimity which, under all the circumstances, must excite our high admiration. If he was false to his wife, as appears to have been the case, his vices of that kind were less conspicuous than those of his predecessors. If he struck down his enemies without pity, he at least used no treachery for that purpose. Whatever he did he dared to do openly, and would have disdained to use intrigues like those which disgraced the sovereigns of France and Germany. Without searching the records of his reign for isolated instances of virtue, we may believe that many noble qualities must have been possessed by the man who could attach his friends and attendants so warmly to himself, and excite in the breasts of his people--ground down as they were by his exactions--such strong sentiments of loyalty and admiration. The great fault in his character is his complete indifference to England and the welfare of his subjects.

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XXIII. JOHN AND THE GREAT CHARTER

Accession of John--His Position--Arthur of Brittany--Peace between John and Philip of France--John's Marriage with Isabella of La Marche--Rupture with France--The Struggle Begins--Capture of Arthur--The Stories of his Death--The Loss of Normandy--Peace with Philip--Quarrel with the Pope--The Kingdom Laid Under an Interdict, and Excommunication of John--John's Desperate Measures--Expedition to Ireland--John is Deposed--Arrival of Pandulph in England--Surrender of the Kingdom to the Pope--Successes of John--Langton Arrives in England--He Becomes Leader of the Baronial Party--The Battle of Bouvines--Insurrection in England--The Barons Confront John--His Intrigues--Meeting at Brackley--Occupation of London---The Meeting at Runnymede--Greatness of the Occasion--Provisions of the Charter--Duplicity of John--Siege of Rochester--John in the North--His Cause Supported by the Church--The Crown offered to Louis of France--He Enters London--Sieges of Dover and Windsor--Reported Conspiracy--John's Disaster at the Wash--His Death and Character.

When the news of the death of Richard I. was conveyed to his brother John, he immediately took measures for obtaining possession of the throne. This degenerate son of the house of Plantagenet recovered his courage when he had only a child to oppose his ambitious schemes--for the young Arthur, son of his elder brother Geoffrey, was not yet twelve years old. John, who knew well how little popularity he possessed in England, sent to secure the services of the foreign mercenaries who had been in the army of Richard, offering them a greatly increased rate of pay, and promising to their leaders profitable appointments. Being then in Normandy, he dispatched William Marshal and Hubert Walter, the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose adherence he had obtained, into England, to further his claims, and prepare the way for his coming. Meanwhile, he presented himself before the castle of Chinon, and demanded possession of his brother's treasure, which was there deposited. No opposition was made to him in that neighbourhood, and the Governor of Chinon, as well as the Governors of other strongholds, opened their gates at his bidding. Not so the Lords of Touraine, Anjou, and Maine, who joined the Bretons in supporting the claims of their young prince Arthur, and raised the standard of revolt. John caused himself to be crowned at Rouen as Duke of Normandy, and having wreaked his vengeance on the citizens of Le Mans for having refused him their allegiance, he crossed the Channel, and landed at Shoreham on the 25th of May, 1199, six weeks after his brother's death.

When Hubert of Canterbury and William Marshal arrived in England, they caused proclamation to be made throughout the kingdom, calling upon all the earls, barons, and owners of land to render fealty to John, Duke of Normandy, son of King Henry, son of the Empress Matilda. Whatever may have been the motives which first induced Hubert to espouse the cause of John, it will scarcely be denied that the archbishop was justified in putting an end to the state of uncertainty by any means in his power. It has been already stated that Hubert Walter was a man of very high abilities, and these he now exerted to the utmost, and with remarkable success. Having summoned a council of the barons and prelates at Nottingham, he used all his eloquence to overcome the disaffection of the assembly, while to arguments were added secret gifts and lavish promises in the name of John. These inducements prevailed, and the barons there present took the oath of allegiance.

Immediately after the landing of John, he proceeded to the church of St. Peter, at Westminster, there to prefer formally his claim to the crown. He carried with him a document, signed by Richard on his death-bed, in which no allusion was made to the claims of Arthur, but John was appointed unreservedly as the successor to the throne. Archbishop Hubert was well aware that, according to the laws of primogeniture, Arthur, as the only son of an elder brother, had an undoubted right to the succession; the prelate, therefore, in addressing the people assembled in the church, is said to have insisted upon the elective character of the monarchy, and that no man could be entitled to the crown unless he were chosen by the nation. He asserted that John had already been so chosen at the council held at Nottingham, and that there was no one of the family of the dead king better fitted to assume the regal dignity. He declared that John possessed those meritorious qualities which had belonged to King Richard--a statement which it would have been difficult to prove--and that for these reasons, as well as for having the same lineage, he was elected king. Whatever may have been the real temper of the assembly, no opposition was made to these statements, and the English crown was conferred upon the most vicious and worthless prince who ever wore it.

The new king began his reign amidst the disaffection, if not the hatred, of the people, while he was menaced on every side by the attacks of enemies from without. In the north, William the Lion, King of Scotland, was preparing to invade his territories; while on the Continent, all his vassals, except those of Normandy, were in insurrection, and the French king, his former ally, had declared war against him. The aspect of affairs was highly favourable to the designs of Philip, who, to further his own ends, declared himself in favour of the cause of the young Arthur. John, having sent an army under the command of William de Stuteville to oppose the Scottish king, passed over into Normandy. Negotiations were then entered into by Philip, who demanded that all the Continental provinces subject to England, with the exception of Normandy, should be given up to Arthur, and that a large portion of Normandy should be resigned to the French crown. Such terms could not be accepted, and the war continued.

The young prince, whose claims to the English throne gave rise to so much bloodshed and revolution, appeared to have been marked for misfortune from his birth. He was a posthumous child, his father, Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, second son of Henry II., having been killed in a tournament several months before Arthur came into the world. The Bretons, who were perpetually struggling for independence against the overwhelming force of France on the one hand, and of England on the other, hailed the birth of their native prince with enthusiastic joy, and when his grandfather desired to give him the name of Henry, they one and all insisted that he should be called Arthur--a name which was held in as much honour by them as among their kindred, the Bretons of Wales. The latter people, who held tenaciously by their ancient traditions handed down by the bards from generation to generation, believed firmly that they were destined once more to possess the whole island of Britain. The confidence they expressed in this wild hope, opposed as it was to all probability, caused them to be regarded both in England and France as having the gift of prophecy. The songs of their ancient poets, imaginative and obscure, were supposed to possess a hidden meaning which was traced in the political events occurring many years afterwards. Hence arose the strange stories related of Myrddin, a Cambrian bard of the seventh century, who, after a lapse of five hundred years, had become celebrated under the name of the enchanter Merlin. To this source, also, is to be attributed the extraordinary fame of King Arthur, of whose existence no authentic records remain, but to whom the glowing imaginations of the Welsh poets attributed superhuman valour and virtues. The writings of that people, when translated into the languages of the Continent, were read with avidity. The troubadours of Provence completed the picture drawn by the Welsh, and from the shadowy outline furnished by tradition, produced that vigorous portraiture of a perfect knight, which became celebrated throughout Europe. The Welsh placed the most entire confidence in the prediction of Merlin, that King Arthur would return to them and restore their ancient glory; and this belief was shared by the Bretons of the Continent. These were the reasons which induced the latter people to call their young chief by the name of Arthur; and as the child grew in strength and beauty, they hoped to see the day when their independence should be restored through him, and he should rule them without the control of French or English.

While the Bretons were fighting against Richard I., Constance, the mother of Arthur, relinquished their support, and carried her son first to the court of Richard, and then to that of the King of France. When John ascended the throne, Arthur was placed under the protection of Philip, to whom the boy-prince was made to surrender the independence of Brittany, Maine, Touraine, and Anjou, by acknowledging him as feudal suzerain of those provinces. Constance was a woman of little virtue, and seems to have cared more about the prosecution of her own intrigues than the welfare and safety of her child. The Bretons, headed by William Desroches, firmly maintained the attitude they had assumed; while John, with his army of mercenaries, advanced upon their lands, spreading ruin and devastation around him--burning the villages, and selling the inhabitants as slaves. Philip marched a body of troops to the assistance of Desroches, took possession of several towns of Brittany, and seized some castles on the frontiers belonging to the English.

He, by way of securing Arthur for the future, conferred upon him the honour of knighthood, and even promised him the hand of his daughter Mary in marriage. This friendly attitude, however, did not exist long. Philip soon perceived that it was impossible to retain possession of his new territories, so long as he was opposed by the inhabitants themselves on the one hand, and the arms of the King of England on the other. He therefore determined to arrange a peace with John, and for that purpose he completely sacrificed the interests of the young prince, to whom he had so lately promised an alliance with himself. By a treaty concluded in the following year (1200) between the two kings, it was agreed that John should retain possession of all the provinces held by his father, and Arthur was compelled to do homage to his uncle for Anjou, Brittany, and Maine. In return John did homage to Philip for his French possessions. The treaty was cemented by a marriage alliance; John promising to young Louis, the French king's heir, the hand of his niece, Blanche of Castille.

In spite of the act which thus deprived young Arthur of his inheritance, he remained at the French court, where Philip retained him, to be brought forward in case of any new cause of offence on the part of John. It was not long before such an occurrence took place. With the exception of Normandy, the only province under the Anglo-Norman rule which refrained from open rebellion against John was that of Aquitaine. Peace had been maintained there chiefly by the influence of Queen Eleanor, who was the representative of the ancient lords of the province, and to whose person the people had always shown great attachment. In the summer of the year 1200 John made a progress through this part of his dominions, and, by the pomp and parade with which he appeared, had a favourable effect upon the lively and impressible children of the south. On this occasion John, who was a tolerably good actor, exerted all his powers to obtain popularity, and strove to hide his naturally tyrannical and vindictive temper under a smiling face and affable manner. It appears that he was only partially successful. He had not sufficient patience or self-control to continue long this kind of deceit, and on some trifling provocation his real character would display itself. He was already married, and had been so for ten years, to Hadwisa, daughter of the Earl of Gloucester, a gentle and amiable woman; but John was as remarkable for licentiousness as for cruelty, and his passions were under no restraint, except from his fears. At the time of his visit to Aquitaine he saw a lady whose beauty was celebrated throughout the French provinces, and who immediately attracted his lawless admiration. This was Isabella, the daughter of the Count of Angoulême, lately betrothed to Hugh, Count of La Marche. Regardless of the ties by which both she and himself were bound, John seized possession of her person and took her to Angoulême, where the ceremony of marriage was performed between them by the Archbishop of Bordeaux. A few months later he returned to England, carrying with him his new wife, who was crowned at Westminster by the Archbishop of Canterbury. John himself was recrowned on that occasion. He then gave himself up to indolence and luxury, not knowing or caring how the kingdom was governed; heeding little the disaffection of his people at home, or the indignation which his tyranny had excited throughout France.

The Count of La Marche was a young and powerful chief, who was not likely to endure without resistance the grievous wrong he had suffered. The barons, his neighbours, made his cause their own; and when he raised the standard of rebellion they armed their retainers in his service. John, apprised of the storm which was gathering in the south, summoned his lords to attend him with their troops. Many of them at once refused, and said openly that they would not unsheathe their swords in such a paltry and dishonourable war. There were some high-minded men among the Anglo-Norman barons; but the majority of them were not apt to be so scrupulous, and their refusal was dictated by no other reason than their hatred to the king. They afterwards proposed to accompany him on condition of all their rights and liberties being restored. John's rage on this occasion gave him energy; and for a time he asserted his authority by compelling the barons to pay the tax of scutage, and to give hostages in place of their personal service. He then crossed over into Normandy, accompanied by Isabella, and proceeded to Paris, where he was received by Philip--a much abler hypocrite--with great show of courtesy. On his refusal, however, to answer the charges brought against him by the Poitevins, Louis declared his French provinces forfeited. The French king had already entered into an alliance with the Count of La Marche, and was at that moment engaged in organising a formidable insurrection in Brittany. A part of Aquitaine still remained quiet under the influence of Eleanor; and through this district John passed in state after he had quitted Paris. He, however, did not go for the purpose of fighting, and soon marched back again, having produced no other effect than to inspire the insurgents with contempt for so aimless a demonstration.

In the year 1202 the struggle at length commenced, which was destined to give a fatal blow to the Plantagenet power in France. It has been considered probable that had the successors of Henry II. possessed the abilities which distinguished that monarch, they would ultimately have extended their authority over the whole of France; but if we regard the relative geographical positions of the two countries, and the turbulent and warlike character of the French people, it will appear unlikely that such a condition of affairs could have been long maintained, and that, on the contrary, it was almost a matter of certainty that the French provinces would sooner or later become separated from the English crown; but that separation took place at a much earlier period than it otherwise would have done, in consequence of the indolence and pusillanimity of John. Philip, who had waited only to arrange certain differences in which he had been engaged with the Pope, now openly declared himself in favour of the claims of Arthur, and of the cause of the men of Aquitaine. He proclaimed the young prince Count of Brittany, Anjou, and Poitou, and gave him 200 knights, with whom he directed him to march and take possession of those provinces, and to conquer the towns of Poitou, which were in the hands of the English king. Arthur entered into a treaty, by which he resigned to Philip all the Norman territory of which the king had become possessed, or which he might obtain during the expedition which he was preparing to take into that province. Arthur then raised his standard and appealed for aid to the Bretons, who promptly responded to the call by joining in alliance with the Poitevins, and sending their prince 500 knights and 400 foot. These with 100 men-at-arms from Touraine and Poitou, and the small body of French troops, was all the force at his command. It did not suit the purpose of Philip to place too much power in the hands of the boy, to whom he never meant to resign any portion of those territories for which Arthur believed himself to be fighting.

Arthur was now an orphan, his mother Constance having died during his stay at the French court; he was in his fifteenth year, and therefore, though possessing all the valour of his race, he was necessarily deficient in knowledge of the art of war, and experience in the field. Nevertheless, the boy leader rode gallantly at the head of his little army, and led them against the town of Mirabel, in which his grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, was then shut up. His advisers may probably have reminded him that Eleanor had always been the enemy of his mother, and that, could he take her prisoner, it would be an important step towards bringing the king, his uncle, to terms. Whether Arthur was or was not aware that his grandmother was within the town, the circumstance proved fatal to the success of the expedition. The town surrendered without much resistance, but not before Eleanor had thrown herself into the castle, which was very strong, and there this Amazon of eighty maintained a vigorous defence against the attacks of the prince, whose troops had occupied the town. The Breton army remained in apparent security, when John, who on this occasion displayed an extraordinary degree of activity, suddenly appeared before the gates of Mirabel. The troops of Arthur, though taken by surprise, made a gallant resistance, and it was only by means of treachery that, on the night of the 31st of July, John obtained possession of the town. The prince was taken while asleep, and the other leaders of the insurrection were made prisoners without the opportunity of resistance. Among these were the unhappy Count of La Marche, Isabella's former lover: the Viscounts of Thouars, Limoges, and Lusignan, and nearly 200 other nobles and knights of fame.

Of the fate of the young Prince Arthur, no authentic details have been recorded. That his youth and innocence did not save him from the bloody hands of John, is certain, but of the manner in which he came by his death we can form an idea only by comparing the different stories which are current on the subject among the old chroniclers. Arthur was conveyed by his uncle to the castle of Falaise, whence he was removed to that of Rouen. There he disappeared, and there ends the narrative of sober fact, the rest bringing us into the region of conjecture and probability. The Normans, who remained loyal to the English king, spread a report that Arthur died of sickness in the castle of Rouen, or was killed in attempting to make his escape; this statement may be at once rejected as a mere invention, and not a very ingenious one. The account given by some of the French chroniclers is to the following effect:--John having visited his nephew at Falaise, desired him to put confidence in his uncle. Arthur rejected his advances, and said indignantly, "Give me my inheritance, the kingdom of England." The king then sent him to Rouen, strongly guarded, and not long afterwards he suddenly disappeared. It was suspected by all men that John had murdered his nephew with his own hands, and he became the object of the deepest hatred. The monks of Margan relate that John killed the prince in a fit of drunkenness, and caused his body to be thrown into the Seine, with stones tied at his feet, but that, notwithstanding these, it was cast on the bank, and was buried at the abbey of Bec secretly, for fear of the tyrant.

The story current among the Bretons was nearly similar, with the difference of a change of scene. They related that John having feigned to be reconciled to his nephew, took him from the castle of Rouen, and caused him to ride in his company in the direction of Cherbourg, keeping near to the sea coast. Towards nightfall one evening, when the prince had ridden with his perfidious uncle in advance of their escort, they arrived at the top of a high cliff overlooking the sea, and John suddenly seized the boy round the waist and threw him over the cliff. Another account, more circumstantial, which has been generally received as likely to be the correct one, is given by Ralph, Abbot of Coggeshall. The story is as follows:--The king's councillors, having represented to him that the Bretons would continue their rebellion so long as Prince Arthur was in a condition to assume the sovereignty, suggested that the eyes of the boy should be put out, in order to render him unfit to govern. Some ruffians in the king's service were sent to the dungeon at Falaise to execute this cruel deed, but the tears and prayers of the youth, and his helpless condition, moved even their hearts to pity, and Hubert de Burgh, the warden of the castle, took advantage of their hesitation to forward an earnest appeal for mercy to the king. The only result of the petition was the removal of the prince from Falaise to Rouen. On the 3rd of April, 1203, he was roused from his sleep, and desired to descend to the foot of that tower, beside which flowed the placid waters of the Seine. At the bottom of the steps he saw a boat, in which was seated the king, his uncle, attended by an esquire named Peter de Mauley. The boy shrank back in terror, anticipating the fate which awaited him, and fell on his knees before his uncle, making a last appeal for mercy. But John, whose heart was harder than those of the vilest wretches in his pay, gave the sign, and the murder was committed. Some relate that the esquire hesitated to obey the sign, and that John himself seized his nephew by the hair, ran him through the body, and threw him into the water. Other writers, however, assert that de Mauley was the actual murderer, and this statement is confirmed by the fact that soon afterwards John gave him the hand of a rich heiress in marriage, in all likelihood as the reward of his services.

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Act IV

However near the truth these different statements may have been, it is certain that the rumour of the murder was spread throughout Brittany during the same month of April. The indignation of the people was universal; they had believed their future destiny to be connected with that of their prince, and they professed the greatest attachment to the French king, as the enemy of his murderer. The elder sister of Arthur, the Maid of Brittany--whose lot was scarcely more fortunate than that of her brother--was confined in a monastery at Bristol, where she remained for forty years; but the people declared Alice, daughter of Constance by her last husband, and half-sister to Arthur, to be their duchess, and appointed her father, Guy of Thouars, as their regent or governor. The barons of the province then appeared before Philip, to whom, as their feudal suzerain, they complained of the murder of their prince. Philip eagerly availed himself of the appeal, and cited John, as his vassal for the duchy of Normandy, before the court of the barons of France, to whom, it may be noted, the name of peers was now first given. The accused monarch did not put in an appearance, and was condemned by the court to the forfeiture of all the lands which he held of the kingdom of France, possession of which was to be taken by arms.

No sooner did Philip appear with his forces on the frontier of Poitou, than the inhabitants rose to join his standard, and when he returned to attack Normandy, he found he was anticipated by the Bretons, who had occupied the whole of that portion of the duchy which bordered on their territories. They took by assault the strong castle of Mount St. Michael, seized upon Avranches, and burned the villages which lay between that city and Caen. These successes gave new strength to the expedition of the French king, who, joined by the people of Anjou and Maine, took Bayeux, Evreux, Domfront, and Lisieux, and then joined the Breton army at Caen. While this formidable confederacy menaced him on every side, John was passing his days in voluptuous indolence, or in the sports of the field; he again refused to answer complaints at Paris. When his courtiers brought him intelligence of new successes on the part of his enemies, he expressed his contempt of the rabble of Bretons and of anything they could do; but when, in the month of December, the insurgents appeared in the neighbourhood of Rouen, he suddenly became aware of the danger in which he was placed, and fled over into England.

On his arrival he demanded the aid of the barons to raise an army for his service, but the call was responded to with the utmost apathy. It would appear that the Anglo-Norman lords no longer possessed the great estates they had formerly held in Normandy; for had such been the case it is not probable that their hatred to the king would have induced them to disregard their own interests. After in vain attempting to raise a sufficient force to oppose the French king, John appealed to Rome (1205), and Pope Innocent sent two legates into France for the purpose of negotiating a peace. Philip, however, who had everything to gain by prolonging the war, not unnaturally refused to listen to the entreaties of the legates, and their mission ended without success.

When John fled from Normandy, there remained in his possession throughout the duchy only the town of Rouen, and the fortresses of Château-Gaillard and Verneuil. The people of Rouen held out until they were reduced to the last extremity by famine, when, having concluded a truce of thirty days with the French king, they sent to John praying for succour. The messengers found the king playing at chess, and while they told their deplorable tale, he remained seated at his game, and gave them no answer. When the game was over, he told them that he had no means of helping them, and that they must do the best they could. This was the only recognition he made of the heroic struggle of the citizens on his behalf. Rouen surrendered, the two castles soon afterwards followed its example, and the conquest of Normandy was complete. This duchy was then finally restored to the French crown, after having been separated from it for 292 years. Within the same year, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, Poitou, and Brittany also fell under the authority of Philip, and John retained only a few castles in those provinces besides the territory of Aquitaine, which remained nominally under his rule.

The Bretons soon discovered that, so far from having recovered their independence, they had changed the tyranny of a weak arm for that of a strong one. Disgusted with the supremacy of the King of France, they made efforts which proved fruitless to renew their alliance with John, and then, with a sort of suicidal ferocity, they aided their new sovereign to destroy the independence of their neighbours. In the year 1206, John landed an army at La Rochelle, whence he proceeded to the Loire, taking the castle of Montauban, and burning the town of Angers. His energy, however, did not last long, and for several months he gave himself up to feasting and debauchery. Aroused once more, he passed on to the town of Nantes, to which he laid siege; but on the approach of Philip with an army, he raised the siege, and proposed to negotiate with the French king. During the negotiations John ran away to England covered with disgrace. By the intervention of the Pope, however, a truce for two years was then arranged between the two kings.

Degraded as he was in the eyes of all honourable men, John retained his arrogance, and governed his kingdom with greater tyranny than ever. In the following year (1207) he defied the authority of the power which was concentred in the Holy See, now so formidable throughout Europe, and which he, of all men, was least fitted to resist. The ground of the quarrel was the right of the crown to the appointment of bishops.

Archbishop Hubert, of Canterbury, died in 1205, and a dispute arose between the monks of the cathedral and the suffragan bishops of the diocese, both parties claiming the right to elect the new archbishop. Some of the younger monks proceeded to settle the question off-hand, and without consulting the bishops or the king, secretly elected their sub-prior, Reginald. He was sent to Rome; but before reaching the Pope he bragged of his good fortune, and the news reached England. The elder monks took alarm, went to the king and agreed to elect John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, who was one of John's ministers. He also was sent to Rome, and shortly afterwards appeared representatives from the bishops, who were angry at being altogether disregarded. Innocent settled the knotty question in a masterly manner. He decided that the right of election lay neither with the king nor the bishops, but with the monks; the election of Reginald, however, had been irregular, and, therefore, he ordered such of the monks as were at Rome to elect an entirely new candidate, Stephen Langton, cardinal priest of St. Chrysogonus. John, however, was determined that his favourite, John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, should receive the appointment, and he sent two knights with a body of soldiers to Canterbury to drive the rebellious monks out of the country. Once more those walls which had witnessed the murder of Becket were profaned by a deed of violence; the monks were compelled to quit their monastery and take refuge in Flanders, where they were received into the religious houses.

Innocent, who was a man of great ability, sent a temperate letter to the king, demanding redress for this outrage; but John returned an insolent reply, and set the Pontiff at defiance. Soon afterwards the Bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester received directions from Rome to wait upon the king, and in case they were still unable to obtain redress for the injury, to threaten him with an interdict upon the whole kingdom. John heard the threat with transports of rage, and swore that if the bishops dared to lay his states under an interdict, he would seize upon their property, and drive them and their clergy penniless to Rome; that if any Roman priests dared to appear in the country, he would cut off their noses and tear out their eyes, and so make them a witness of his vengeance before the nations. Undeterred by these savage menaces, the bishops proclaimed the interdict on the 23rd of March, 1208, and then fled across the Channel. The interdict was carried out to the fullest extent by the unanimous concurrence of the clergy. During this time the country lay as it were in mourning, the churches were closed, the pictures of the saints covered with black cloth, and their relics laid on ashes in the aisles; the priests refused their offices, with the exception of administering the rite of baptism to infants and the sacrament to the dying; and the command of Rome suspended all public prayers to Heaven. At the end of the year Innocent proceeded to further measures, and issued against John the sentence of excommunication.

The king now became alarmed at his position. He saw the spirit of disaffection increasing among his barons; he had made enemies of the clergy, and he was hated by the people. Abroad, the aspect of affairs was no less menacing. He knew that the Pope would follow up the sentence of excommunication by proclaiming his dethronement, and declaring him unworthy to rule in a Christian land; and he perceived that Philip was making ready to invade England, armed with the authority of the Holy See. Wherever he looked he saw none but enemies, and it was evident that his downfall would be attended with a general rejoicing throughout Europe. It is related by Matthew Paris that at this moment of danger John applied for succour to the Emir al Nassir, the powerful chief of the Moslems of Spain. It was even reported that he had offered to embrace the religion of Mahomet, and to become a vassal of the Emir, in return for the assistance he demanded. Improbable and disgraceful as such an offer would have been, there is no doubt that John was capable of making it; but if he did so, it was not accepted, and the king was compelled to give up the attempt to obtain assistance from abroad.

For the purpose of raising an army, John determined to obtain money by any and every means in his power, and in the spring of 1210 he commenced a series of exactions, compared with which those of his predecessors had been moderate. He employed the most lawless means of forcing their hoards from his subjects, and especially from the Jews, who, as the richest, were invariably the first to suffer on such occasions. He declared that his object was to drive the French king from Normandy; but as soon as he had raised an army, he crossed over into Ireland, where the English nobles had thrown off his authority. He landed on the 6th of June, and on his arrival at Dublin many of the native chiefs came to offer him their homage. With their assistance he marched through the country, destroying the castles of the insurgent barons, who were totally unprepared for resistance, and within a few weeks he had reduced them to submission. He then established English laws in the island, appointing officers to see them duly executed; he also directed that the same coins of money should be used in the two countries--a measure by which the interests of commerce were greatly promoted. Having appointed John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, to the government of the island, he returned to England. This expedition, in which he encountered no opposition, encouraged him to make a descent upon Wales in the following year (1211). For this purpose more money was required, and he obtained it by measures more flagitious, if possible, than before. He summoned before him all the heads of religious establishments, abbots and abbesses, and compelled them to deliver up the property of the Church into his hands. Having exhausted this source of supply, he again attacked the unfortunate Jews, visiting them with imprisonment and the torture to force a compliance with his peremptory demands.

Having now raised a great army the king entered Wales and penetrated as far as Snowdon. The people could make no resistance against the force brought against them, and they were compelled to pay to him a tribute of cattle, and to give twenty-eight hostages, the sons of their chiefs, as security for their fidelity. But the efforts made by John to destroy their independence proved altogether fruitless. Their strength now, as in former years, lay in their mountain fastnesses; the spirit of freedom has her seat among mountains in every age and country. Within a year after the king's return to England, the Welsh were again up in arms. As soon as the news was brought to John he hanged the unhappy youths who were in his hands as hostages, and he was preparing for another descent upon Wales, when he learnt that a conspiracy was forming against him among the English barons. He then immediately relinquished his intention, and shut himself up for fifteen days in Nottingham Castle, where he seems to have stayed in something like an extremity of fear. His acts at this time were dictated entirely by impulses, now of cruelty, now of cowardice, and cannot be accounted for by any rational rule of conduct. Suddenly he recovered his courage, quitted Nottingham, and marched to Chester, once more declaring that he would exterminate the Welsh; then as suddenly he retraced his steps and marched into Northumberland, where the barons were in arms against him. It would appear that he lived in continual dread of his life, suffering no one to approach him but his immediate attendants and favourites, whose fidelity he secured by his gold, and keeping himself surrounded by large bodies of foreign mercenaries. Hated as he knew himself to be, he made no attempt to change his tyrannical conduct, or to conciliate the regard of the people, but, on the contrary, each day witnessed some new act of cruelty, which rendered him still more obnoxious to his subjects.

At length Pope Innocent listened to the prayers of the English exiles, solemnly proclaimed the deposition of the English king, as an enemy to the Church of Christ, and called upon all Christian princes to take up arms against him, and to join in hurling him from the throne. Stephen Langton, the banished Archbishop of Canterbury, with other prelates, appeared with the Pope's letters at the French court, there called together a solemn council, and informed the king and lords of France that the Pope gave his sanction to the invasion of England. Innocent promised to Philip the remission of his sins provided he accepted and fulfilled the solemn commission with which he was charged. Philip had other inducements to do so, which were sufficiently strong, and he at once collected an army on the coast of Normandy, and caused a fleet of 1,700 vessels to be made ready at Boulogne and other ports to convey it across the Channel.

Aroused by the imminence of the danger, John appealed to his subjects to resist the foreign invader, and collected all the vessels in the kingdom which were capable of being used as transports. Then, under the influence of one of his fits of energy, he acted with boldness and determination; and before the French fleet had quitted Normandy the English vessels crossed the Channel, and swept along the coast. The superiority already attained by the English sailors was clearly shown on this occasion, and was soon to be still more decisively manifested. A French squadron at the mouth of the Seine was destroyed by the English, who also burned down the town of Dieppe, and returned triumphantly, the fleet at Boulogne not having ventured to leave the harbour.

While success thus crowned the arms of John on the sea, he possessed on shore a numerous army of stout English yeomen, who had joined his standard, and who, whatever might be their feelings towards him personally, would doubtless have fought well to save their country from a foreign yoke. But John's courage seldom endured beyond the first moments of excitement, and when he found time to calculate risks and chances, he consulted his own safety by any means in his power. He took no measures for following up his successes, and it was evident that, in spite of his haughty defiance of the power of Rome, he would now be glad to escape from his dangerous position by humbling himself before it. Pandulph, the legate of the Pope, who fully understood the character of John, obtained permission to land in England, and presented himself in the royal presence. He laid before the king the impolicy of his course of action, the danger he incurred from the French king, whose formidable preparations he described, and the probability of a general rebellion among the English barons. The facts were undeniable, and urged as they were with all the skill and eloquence of an able diplomatist, they produced the greatest alarm in the breast of the tyrant. This feeling was increased by the prediction of a hermit named Peter, who asserted that before Ascension Day, which was three days distant, the king would have ceased to reign. Irreligious as he was, John was by no means free from superstition, and he seems to have attached more weight to the words of the friar, which he believed foretold his death, than to the arguments of the legate. After some hesitation, his fears prevailed, and he agreed to sign an agreement or treaty with the Pope, by which he bound himself to fulfil all the Church's demands, the refusal of which had caused his excommunication; to restore the monks of Canterbury to their lands; to receive into favour all the exiled clergy, especially Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury; and to make satisfaction to both clergy and laity for any injuries they had sustained in consequence of the interdict, paying down a sum of £8,000 as a first instalment of such indemnity.

Pandulph agreed, in the Pope's name, that on the performance of these conditions the interdict should be removed from the country, and that the servants of the Church, including the exiled bishops, should swear fidelity to the king. Four of the chief barons of the kingdom bore witness to this compact, which was solemnly concluded. By this agreement John suffered no peculiar indignity, but it was immediately followed by a proceeding in the highest degree disgraceful, and which can only be accounted for by the subtle art with which the legate worked upon the fears of the pusillanimous monarch. On the 15th of May, 1213, John proceeded at an early hour in the morning to the church of the Templars at Dover, and there, in the presence of the bishops and nobles of the realm, he knelt down before Pandulph, placed his crown in his hands, and took the oath of fealty to the Pope. At the same time he gave into the hands of the legate a document which set forth that he, the King of England, Lord of Ireland, in atonement for his sins against God and the Church, did of his own free will, and with the consent of the barons, surrender into the hands of Pope Innocent and his successors for ever, the kingdom of England and lordship of Ireland, to hold them henceforth as fiefs of the Holy See, John and his successors paying for them a yearly tribute of 700 marks for England, and 300 marks for Ireland.

On the following day, which was the Feast of the Ascension, John awoke with something of the feeling of a criminal whose hour of execution has arrived. The words of the hermit Peter caused him to tremble even more than the thunders of Rome; and he watched the long hours till sunset, anticipating the stroke which was to end his hateful existence. When the time of the prediction had passed away, and he found himself still alive, he caused Peter and his son to be dragged at the tails of horses to the gibbet where they were executed as a punishment for the terror they had caused him. But it was commonly said among the people that the monk had told no lie; and that John had ceased to be a king when he laid his crown at the feet of a foreign priest.

The Holy See, having secured a humble and subservient vassal in the King of England, now espoused his cause, and undertook to defend him against his enemies. Pandulph returned to France, and forbade Philip to prosecute the war, or to invade a kingdom which was under the protection of the Church. Philip thought proper to argue the matter on religious grounds, and said that he had expended large sums of money upon this expedition, for the purpose of obtaining, according to the promise of the Pontiff, the remission of his sins. The legate seems to have cared little about this circumstance, and simply repeated his prohibition. Philip then continued his march towards the coast, prepared to defy the authority of the Holy See, and to continue the expedition, now no longer for the remission of his sins, but avowedly for more worldly ends. His design, however, was frustrated by the disaffection of his vassals, to whom the command of the Pope served as a sufficient justification of rebellion. The Count of Flanders withdrew his forces from the expedition, declaring that he would not engage in such an unjust war. Philip immediately followed him into Flanders, intending to punish his rebellion by seizing upon the whole province. Several towns and fortresses fell into the French king's hands, who passed on, and laid siege to the strong city of Ghent. The Count of Flanders then applied to John for assistance, which it was manifestly to his interest to grant, and which, therefore, was not refused.

The English fleet set sail from the harbour of Portsmouth; 500 vessels, having on board 700 knights and a large force of infantry, under the command of William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, a son of "fair Rosamond," and William, Earl of Holland. They bore down upon the coast of Flanders, and approached the port of Damme, in which the French fleet, three times more numerous, was lying at anchor. Many of the French troops and sailors were then absent from the ships, engaged in predatory excursions throughout the country. As the English neared the coast, they saw a number of vessels lying outside the harbour, which, capacious as it was, could not contain them all. Shallops, or fishing boats, were then sent in to reconnoitre, and returned with the news that the fleet had been left without sufficient hands to defend it. No time was lost. The "tall ships" along the coast were attacked, and captured with little difficulty. The smaller vessels, which, when the tide went down, were left upon the beach, were plundered and set on fire, the men on board escaping to the shore. The English then approached the harbour, for the purpose of attacking the fleet within it; but here a delay took place, in consequence of the difficulty of bringing a large force to bear in so confined a space.

The period of inaction, however, did not last long, and the fleet, on the preparation of which Philip had exhausted his resources, was annihilated. When the conquerors had returned thanks to Heaven for their victory, they sent 300 of the prizes to England; these were richly laden with stores for the French army--corn, oil, wine, and other provisions. Others of the ships which were on shore, were burnt within the harbour. A portion of the fleet, which lay higher up, protected by the town, still remained uninjured; and the English, having landed, were joined by the Count of Flanders, and proceeded to attack the place. Meanwhile the French king had learnt the destruction of his fleet, and having raised the siege of Ghent, was advancing with the utmost rapidity. The English and the Flemings made a gallant defence in the engagement which soon afterwards took place; but the force opposed to them was overwhelming, and they were compelled to retreat to their ships, with a loss which is stated by the French to have been 2,000 men. But the English had no intention of relinquishing the contest, and from the shores of the Isle of Walcheren, they watched their opportunity for renewing the attack. Philip perceived that the unskilfulness of his seamen left no hope of preserving the remainder of his ships, and he therefore set fire to them himself, that they might not fall into the enemy's hands. It was evident that the project of invading England must now be abandoned, the French king having no means of transporting his troops across the Channel. He even found it impossible to maintain them in Flanders, and was compelled to make a hasty retreat into his own territories, with scarcely an effort to maintain possession of the towns he had taken.

Elated by the success of his arms, John assumed all his old arrogance of demeanour, and showed little disposition to fulfil the terms of the treaty into which he had entered with the Pope. He now determined to invade France, and for this purpose he summoned the barons of the kingdom to attend him at Portsmouth with their troops. They obeyed the command; but when, in warlike array, they appeared before the king, they refused to set sail unless the exiled bishops were immediately recalled, according to his promise. John was compelled to submit, and Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, with the Bishops of London, Ely, Lincoln, Bath, and Hereford, were restored to their benefices. The monks of Canterbury also returned in peace to their cloister. The king and the archbishop met each other at Winchester, where they exchanged a kiss of amity, and Langton gave the king absolution for the injuries done to himself and his colleagues; John once more taking an oath to execute justice, and to preserve his fealty to the Pope. But Stephen Langton, one of the ablest men who ever had filled the archiepiscopal chair, was not likely to place much confidence in the promises of the king; and John evidently regarded the archbishop with bitter hatred, as the cause of all his troubles.

Leaving directions for the barons to follow him with all speed, John embarked a body of troops in a few ships, and reached the island of Jersey. The barons, however, were little disposed to follow their cowardly king; and the scheme for securing their liberties, which, in a vague and indefinite form, had long held possession of their minds, now began to assume strength and consistency. They excused themselves from following the king, by the assertion that their term of feudal service was expired; and, profiting by his absence, proceeded to hold a great council at St. Albans, at which they formulated the complaints of the nation, and threatened with death such of the king's officers as should exceed their provisions. Meanwhile, John, having looked in vain for the appearance of the barons, returned from Jersey in a transport of rage, and, collecting his army of mercenaries, marched towards the north, burning up and devastating the lands of the rebellious nobles. At Northampton, he was met by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who openly censured these acts of violence, and told him that, according to his oath, his vassals ought to be tried by their peers, and not crushed by arms. "Mind you your church," the king replied, "and leave me to govern the state." He then continued his march to Nottingham; but here, Langton, who joined the courage of the soldier to the wisdom of the priest, again presented himself in the royal presence, and this time with more determined carriage. He calmly told the king that if such a course of action was continued, he would excommunicate all the ministers and officers of the crown who obeyed the royal will. John seldom maintained his ground against a determined opponent, and he now gave way once more, and, as a matter of form, summoned the barons to meet him, or his justices. Having thus stopped the tyrannous career of the king, the brave archbishop proceeded to London, where, on the 25th of August, he called a second council of the barons, and read to them the provisions of the charter granted by Henry I. on his accession. In that assembly of feudal lords he delivered an address advocating the principles of liberty and justice; and, having induced the council to adopt as the basis of their operations the charter of Henry I., he caused them to swear fidelity to each other, and to the cause in which they were embarked. A month later, the Cardinal Nicholas, a new legate of the Pope, arrived in England, for the purpose of receiving the indemnity which had been promised by John, and of removing the interdict from the kingdom. Once more John appeared on his knees, renewing his oath of fealty to Innocent, and doing homage to the legate. He paid the sum of 15,000 marks to the bishops, and undertook to give them 40,000 more. The interdict was then removed, the churches lost their funereal appearance, and once more the bells rang out their daily call to prayer. The cause of liberty has never been long maintained by the Church of Rome; and as soon as the submission of John was thus completely assured, she relinquished her support of the barons, and commanded her bishops to give their unreserved allegiance to the king. The nobles, however, still relied upon the strength of their cause, although unblessed by the Pope; and Stephen Langton remained firmly at their head, as one who dared do right though all the world forbade it.

The following year (1214) was rendered memorable by the battle of Bouvines, in which the French gained a complete victory over English, Flemish, and German troops. A powerful confederacy, in which John took a prominent part, had been formed against the French king. Ferrand, Count of Flanders, Reynaud, Count of Boulogne, and Otho, Emperor of Germany, determined, along with John, to invade France simultaneously, and to divide that kingdom among themselves. The partition was already made: Ferrand was to receive Paris, with the Isle of France, Reynaud the country of Vermandois, John the territory beyond the Loire, and Otho all the remaining provinces. The English king dispatched a body of troops, commanded by William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, to Valenciennes, which had been appointed the headquarters of the confederates; he then proceeded to Poitou, whence he led his army into Brittany. Philip, who was thus menaced on both sides, sent his son Louis to oppose the troops of John, and to prevent his advance. This was not difficult, and the cowardice or indecision of the English king kept him in a state of inactivity, while his allies were being utterly routed. Philip, whose forces were inferior in number to those of his enemies, gave them battle at Bouvines, a village between Lisle and Tournay, and after a sanguinary conflict the Earl of Salisbury, the Count of Flanders, and the Count of Boulogne were taken prisoners, together with great numbers of nobles and knights of inferior rank. The Bishop of Beauvais, whose martial spirit was untamed by his long imprisonment, appeared again in the field on this occasion, and he it was who took prisoner the gallant William Longsword. The bishop, however, no longer used a sword, but carried in its stead a formidable club, with which he laid about him, having satisfied himself, by some curious logical process, that in doing so he was acting in accordance with the canon of the Church, which forbade her priests to shed blood. He was not the only bishop who distinguished himself on that day as a warrior. Guerin of Senlis appeared among the French troops, like Odo of Bayeux among the soldiers of the Conqueror, bearing a wand, or staff of authority, with which he waved them on to victory. The battle of Bouvines, which was fought on the 27th of July, 1214, completed the ruin of John.

A few months later John made proposals for a truce, which he obtained for five years, on condition of restoring all the towns and fortresses which he had taken during the expedition. He then made a disgraceful retreat to England, where, with the true spirit of a coward, he vented upon his unoffending subjects that rage which he dared not display towards his foes. He disregarded all the vows he had taken, and let loose his foreign mercenaries over the country, who oppressed and robbed the people in every direction, unrestrained by law, and secure of the king's favour. But his career of tyranny was now drawing to a close. Each day which was marked by new acts of oppression cemented more closely the league among the barons, who only waited an opportunity of assembling together for the purpose of arranging a combined movement. Such an opportunity presented itself at the feast of St. Edmund, on the 20th of November, when pilgrims of all ranks, from every part of the country, proceeded to St. Edmundsbury to offer their devotions at the shrine of the saint. Mingling with the crowd of worshippers, the champions of freedom advanced one by one in order of seniority to the high altar, on which they placed their swords, and swore that if the king refused to admit the rights they demanded from him, they would one and all abandon their allegiance, renounce their vows of fealty, and compel him by force of arms to sign a charter granting their just requests. Having agreed to assemble at the court for this purpose during the approaching festival of Christmas, they separated.

When Christmas Day arrived John was at Worcester, where he was attended only by a few of his immediate retainers and the foreign mercenaries. None of his great vassals came, as the custom was at that season, to offer their congratulations. His attendants tried in vain to assume an appearance of cheerfulness and festivity, and among the people such an appearance had long ceased to be found when the king was present. Alarmed at the gloom which surrounded him, and the desertion of the barons, John hastily rode to London, and there shut himself up in the house of the Knights Templars, which was as strong as a fortress. The temper in which the barons entered upon their cause may be inferred from the seasons which they chose for their efforts, and the manner in which they invoked, as it were, the blessing of Heaven upon them. Some holy day consecrated each step of their way, and marked the renewal of the struggle against tyranny. On the feast of the Epiphany they assembled in great force at London, and presenting themselves before the king, demanded an audience. John was compelled to grant the request, but he assumed a bold and defiant air, and met the barons with an absolute refusal, and the most violent threats. Two of their number were affected by these menaces, and one of the bishops joined them in consenting to recede from their claims; but the rest of the assembly were made of sterner stuff, and firmly maintained their demands. John looked upon their calm and dauntless faces with a dread which he could not conceal. He entirely changed his manner, and descended from invective to expostulation. "This petition," he said, "treats of matters weighty and arduous. You must grant me time for deliberation until Easter, that I may be able, in considering the request, to satisfy the dignity of my crown." Many of the barons were opposed to such a delay, knowing how little dependence could be placed upon the king's good faith; but the greater number consented on condition that Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, William, Earl of Pembroke, and the Bishop of Ely, should be sureties for the king that he would give them a reply at the time appointed.

As soon as the nobles had quitted his presence, John directed his efforts to escaping from the pledge he had given, and took measures which he hoped would bring the rebellious lords within the reach of his vengeance. The important privilege of the appointment of bishops, which in former years had given rise to so many disputes between the Crown and the Church, was now formally abandoned; and when, by this means, John believed himself to have secured the goodwill of the clergy, he caused a new oath of allegiance to be administered by the sheriffs to all the free men of their several counties. He then dispatched messengers to Rome, entreating the aid of the Pope against the treasonable violence of the barons. Innocent listened to the appeal, and showed himself determined to support the cause of his royal vassal. The English nobles had also sent their message to the Pontiff, but he answered it only by a letter of threats and reproaches, which was addressed to Stephen Langton, commanding him and his colleagues at once to cease their opposition to the king. Langton, with a high-souled courage, the full extent of which we can now only imperfectly appreciate, disregarded the command, and dared to defend a righteous cause, even in defiance of the Pope. The king, as a last effort to sustain his tottering throne, assumed the cross, making a solemn oath that he would lead an army on a new crusade to the Holy Land.

When Easter day arrived the king was at Oxford. The barons of England assembled at Stamford, attended by 2,000 knights, and vast multitudes of their retainers, and of the people. They had marched to Brackley, when they were met by Stephen Langton, the Earl of Warrenne, and the Earl of Pembroke, who came to bear their message to the king. The barons delivered the schedule containing the chief articles of the petition, and declared that if their claims were not instantly granted they would appeal to arms. When the deputation returned to the king, and Langton explained to him the terms of the document which he brought, John fell into a transport of rage, and swore that he would not grant them liberties which would make him a slave. He proposed some modifications of the charter which were at once rejected. Pandulph, who stood at his side, asserted that the primate of the kingdom ought to excommunicate the rebels; but Langton replied that the Pope's real intentions had not been expressed, and that so far from doing so, he would excommunicate the foreign mercenaries who overran the kingdom, unless the king ordered their instant dismissal.

The barons now declared war against the king, chose Robert Fitz-Walter as their leader, and marched against the castle of Northampton, which was garrisoned by foreigners. "The army of God and the Church," for so they styled themselves, was composed of the best and bravest men in the kingdom; but the strong fortress to which they first laid siege resisted all their attacks. They had prepared no battering-rams, or other necessary engines; and the garrison, on their side, fought with the desperation of men who knew that they had earned for their misdeeds a bitter retribution. After fifteen days the besiegers raised the siege, and marched towards Bedford. The barons were strong in arms, and in the justice of their cause; but their strength was not of itself sufficient to overturn the throne, or force the king to submission. Within the past century a middle class of freemen had been growing up in the country, increasing in wealth and influence year by year. Had the king possessed the affections of the free burghers of England, the Anglo-Norman barons, powerful as they were, would have been driven from the country; but the people knew that now, at least, the cause of the nobles was their own, and they rose with joy to welcome the pioneers of freedom. The men of Bedford opened their gates at the approach of the army, and the citizens of London sent messengers to the leaders, inviting them to march thither with all speed, and assuring them of the support of the people.

On Sunday, the 24th of May, the troops of Fitz-Walter reached the capital. The city of London lay wrapped in that Sabbath stillness which, on summer days descends like a blessing upon an English landscape, as though Nature herself had ceased from labour. The gates were open, and the music of the church bells floated softly through the air as the "army of God" approached the walls. They passed through the streets in perfect order and profound silence--a mien well suited to convey to all who saw them a conviction of the solemn nature of the duty they came to perform, and of the calm determination with which they would pursue their object. On the following day the barons issued a proclamation to all the nobles and knights of the kingdom who had remained neutral, calling upon them to join the national standard, unless they wished to be treated as enemies of their country. This proclamation aroused the slumbering patriotism of those who received it. The baron, with his troop of men-at-arms, and the knight, whose only property was his horse and his sword, alike hastened to London. In the words of the old chroniclers, there is no need to name the men who composed the "army of God and the Church;" they were the whole nobility of England.

Such a demonstration as this might have made a much braver monarch than John Lackland turn white with fear. Only a very few knights from among his numerous courtiers remained at his side, and these were hardly retained in their allegiance by a mingling of lavish promises and threats. The terror of the king now conquered his rage. Once more he assumed an affable demeanour, and with a sickly smile he told the Earl of Pembroke that the barons had done well, and that, for the sake of peace and the exaltation of his reign, he was ready to grant the liberties they demanded. From Odiham, in Hampshire, where John was then staying, the Earl of Pembroke carried this message to his friends, and informed them that the king only desired them to name a day and place of meeting. The barons replied--"Let the day be the 15th of June; the place, Runny-mede."

The scene thus chosen was well suited to the occasion. No narrow walls of wood or stone, which in succeeding years should crumble into dust and leave no trace, bore witness to the solemn act whose effects were destined to extend to remotest ages--the victory of freedom was gained under the free sky, the dome of the universal temple of God. On the appointed day the king quitted Windsor Castle, and proceeded to the green meadow which was called by the Saxon name of Runnymede, situated on the banks of the Thames between Staines and Windsor. He was attended by Pandulph, Almeric, the Grand Master of the Templars, the Earl of Pembroke, together with eight bishops and thirteen other men of rank; but of these, though they stood at his side, few really adhered to the tyrant, or were prepared to give him any advice contrary to the wishes of the people. On the other side stood the barons of the kingdom, attended by a vast multitude, representing all other classes of the population. So completely was the arrogance of the king subdued, so hopeless appeared all resistance, that, with scarcely a word of remonstrance, John gave his assent to the document which, as the foundation of the liberties of England, is known to us by the name of Magna Charta--the Great Charter.

To the Englishman of modern times, the event of that day bears a deep and solemn interest, far surpassing that of battles or of conquests. He is surrounded now by many of the blessings which freedom gives to all who live beneath her sway. Under her warm smile civilisation grows and flourishes, knowledge sheds around her calm, undying light; wrong is redressed by free opinion; and man, with brow erect, throws off the tyranny of man. In the green meadow by the Thames was sown the seed which bears such fruits as these. Centuries more of toil and struggle may be needed to bring it to maturity. The progress of the human race is slow, and beset with difficulties: amidst the present material prosperity, with all the advantages of civil and religious liberty, we are still far from the goal which lies before us. Error still treads close upon the heels of Truth; poverty still retains her grasp upon half the world, grinding men down to a life-long struggle, with little joy or hope. But the work steadily goes on. With each passing year flies a prejudice; with each passing year some gigantic wrong lifts up its head, and claims and meets redress. Now, at least, the way is open to us, and cannot be mistaken; the light of Heaven shines full upon it, the obstacles grow fewer and weaker every day, the efforts to oppose them grow stronger, and the final triumph is secure. The value and importance of Magna Charta is not to be estimated by its immediate application to ourselves. Those positive laws and institutions of later times, which secure our rights and liberties, all have their root in this charter.

It had many evils to remedy. (I.) In the first place the Church secured its rights and freedom of election. (II.) Then came provisions against the royal exactions from the tenants. During the reigns of the successors of the Conqueror, the king had exercised the power of exacting arbitrary payments from his subjects under the name of reliefs; of farming out the estates of his wards to the highest bidder; of marrying the heir during his minority, heiresses at any age above fourteen, and widows if they held estates of the crown, giving their hands to whom he pleased. In the reign of John, the exercise of the laws was a matter of common bargain and sale. Bribes--or, as they were called, fines--were received for the king's help, against adverse suitors, for perversion of justice, or delay in its administration. Sometimes it would happen that bribes were given by both parties, in which case it may be supposed that the highest bidder would gain the day, the money of those who lost being returned to them. The charters which had been granted by Henry I., Stephen, and Henry II., had little effect on this state of things, and were, in fact, repeatedly violated both by themselves and their successors. By the provisions of Magna Charta reliefs were limited to a moderate sum, computed according to the rank of the tenant; the wrong and waste committed by the guardians in chivalry restrained; the disparagement in matrimony of female wards was forbidden; and widows were secured from being forcibly disposed of in marriage. (III.) Arbitrary taxation was provided against by the provision that scutage and aids were henceforward to be granted by the Great Council of the kingdom, except in the cases of the deliverance of the king from prison, the knightage of his eldest son, and the marriage of his eldest daughter. The elements of the great council are also described, and their character will appear from these pages. (IV.) The franchises of the city of London, and of all towns and boroughs were declared inviolate. (V.) The ports were freely thrown open to foreign merchants, and they were permitted to come and go as they pleased. (VI.) The Court of Common Pleas, which had hitherto followed the king's person, whereby much inconvenience and injustice had been occasioned, was fixed at Westminster.

The most important clauses of Magna Charta are those which protect the personal liberty and property of every freeman in the kingdom, by giving security from arbitrary imprisonment and unjust exactions. (VII.) "No freeman," says the Charter, "shall be taken, or imprisoned, or dispossessed of his tenement, or be outlawed or exiled, or any otherwise destroyed; nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, unless by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. (VIII.) To none will we sell, to none will we deny or delay, right or justice."

The barons required securities for the due observance of these provisions. They demanded that the foreign officers of the crown, with their families and retainers, should be sent out of the country; that the barons should keep possession of the city, and Stephen Langton of the Tower of London, for the two months following; that twenty-five of their number should act as guardians of the liberties of the realm, whose business it should be to secure the observance of the charter, and who, in case of its provisions being disregarded, should have power to make war upon the king, and to seize upon his towns, castles, or other possessions, until the grievance should be redressed. By this article the twenty-five barons were invested with the real government of the kingdom, setting aside altogether the royal prerogative--a measure which, opposed as it was to all precedent, must be considered as having been rendered necessary by the duplicity of the king, by whom the most solemn oaths were habitually disregarded.

When the vast assembly had dispersed, and the defeated tyrant found himself again in Windsor Castle, attended only by some of the foreign adventurers who still hung about his person, he gave vent to all the suppressed passion of his soul. In transports of impotent rage, he uttered fearful curses against the deed which had been done, and against those who had forced him to do it; he rolled his eyes and gnashed his teeth like one insane, and restlessly strode about his chamber gnawing sticks and stones. So say the chroniclers, and the account may readily be believed: a depraved heart, hardened by a long course of crime and cruelty, would probably display itself in an outburst of passion in colours such as these. His attendants, the slaves of his gold, who saw their career of robbery and injustice suddenly cut short, incited the king to vengeance for the humiliation he had sustained, and counselled him to resist the Charter, and to take measures for the recovery of his power. John, released from his immediate fears, listened to their advice, and sent two of them to the Continent to carry out the schemes they proposed. One of them took his way to Rome to appeal to the Pope for prompt and efficient aid; the other proceeded to Flanders, Gascony, and among the former Continental vassals of the king, to hire fresh bodies of mercenaries, and to bring them over to England. Meanwhile the king entered secretly into communication with all the governors of castles who were foreigners, ordering them to lay up stores of provisions, and keep themselves prepared for defence, "doing this without noise and with caution, for fear of alarming the barons."

The barons did not yet know what hard and unremitting effort the struggle for liberty demands. They looked upon the work as done, when, in fact, it was only beginning; and on their departure from Runnymede they appointed a grand tournament to be held on the 2nd of July at Stamford, in celebration of their joy. No sooner did he hear of their intention, than John threw to the winds the oaths he had taken, and formed a plot to seize possession of London during the absence of the nobles. The scheme, however, was communicated to them, and the tournament was arranged to take place nearer the capital. The king now proceeded to Winchester, when some deputies from the barons presently demanded an interview with him. They required an explanation of the line of conduct, ambiguous, if not treacherous, which he had adopted since the signing of the Charter. John met them with the hollow smile which he was accustomed to put on at such times, and assured them that their suspicions were unfounded, and that he was prepared to fulfil all that he had promised. The barons withdrew, little satisfied by these assertions, and the king took his way to the Isle of Wight, where he remained for three weeks. Here he refused all companionship but that of the fishermen and sailors of the place, whose manners he adopted, with the view of making himself popular among them. To a certain extent he seems to have succeeded; and during the struggle which soon afterwards took place, the English sailors proved generally true to his cause.

In July, John was at Oxford; but after a stay of a few days he again turned to the south, and proceeded to Dover, where he remained, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the mercenaries whom he expected from the Continent. During the month of September, the barons learnt that troops were landing in small bodies, with little noise, but in a manner which indicated a well-organised confederacy. William d'Albini was then sent with a picked force of men-at-arms to seize upon the royal castle at Rochester. Having done so, he found it extremely ill-furnished with stores or means of defence; and in this condition it was besieged by John, who had quitted Dover with an army from various parts of the Continent. Each day brought new reinforcements across the Channel, and their numbers so greatly increased that when the barons quitted London to the relief of Rochester, they were compelled to turn back before the superior force opposed to them. It seemed as though the elements themselves could alone check this invasion of banditti. A certain Hugh de Boves, one of their leaders, had embarked from Calais with a vast force of his irregular troops, when a storm arose, against which the unskilful mariners were quite helpless, and the whole of the ships, with those on board, were destroyed. John heard of this loss with another burst of rage, but he still pressed on the siege of Rochester, and succeeded in preventing all succour from reaching it. D'Albini maintained the defence for eight weeks with unshaken determination, and it was not until the outer wall of the castle had been beaten down, and the garrison reduced to the last extremity by famine, that he threw open the gates. John immediately ordered the brave commander to be hanged with all his men; but Peter de Mauley, the leader of one of the foreign bands, opposed this command, because he feared the acts of retaliation which it would certainly provoke on the part of the English. The tyrant, shorn of his power on all sides, was compelled to submit his barbarous will to the decision of the foreign chief. The prisoners of inferior rank were butchered by the king's orders, but the knights were spared, and were sent for imprisonment to the strong castles of Corfe and Nottingham.

The Pope now responded to the application of John by declaring himself against the English nation, and issuing sentence of excommunication against the barons. He asserted that they were worse than Saracens, for daring to rebel against a vassal of the Holy See, a religious monarch who had taken up the cross. This decision of the Pope, together with the success at Rochester, gave John new courage, and he marched northward to St. Albans, accompanied by the immense force which, composed of many races, and presenting striking contrasts of appearance and accoutrements, possessed one common attribute of unredeemed ferocity. The citizens of London, who were among the first to join in the struggle for right, were also among the bravest to maintain it, and as the foreign hordes swept by the city, showed an undaunted front, which deterred the king from attacking them. From St. Albans he passed on towards Nottingham, encouraging his soldiers to seize their pay from the wretched inhabitants of the country. The northern counties had long been the chief seat of disaffection, and now Alexander, the young King of Scotland, who had concluded an alliance with the English barons, crossed the borders with an army, and laid siege to the castle of Norham. John saw the means of vengeance in his hands, and he determined to use them to the utmost. A few days after the feast of Christmas, when the ground was covered with snow, he marched from Nottingham into Yorkshire, laying waste the country and meeting with no opposition. True to the instincts of his base and malignant character, he became more ruthless in proportion to the helplessness of his victims. Every house and village on the road were destroyed, the king himself giving the example, and setting fire with his own hands in the morning to the roof which had sheltered him during the night. The fury of the savage horde did not end there. The inhabitants, driven from their homes, were plundered of everything they possessed, and often butchered upon their own hearthstones. Others, less happy, were subjected to torture to make them give up their hidden stores of money.

The expedition of John to the north, like that of William the Conqueror through the same district, was one long course of rapine and cruelty; castles and towns were burned to the ground, and the path of the king was marked by a trail of blood among heaps of blackened ruins. The young King of Scots retired before the vast force brought against him, and John pushed his way to Edinburgh. Here he found himself in danger of attack, and, as was usual with him in such cases, he at once turned back, and recrossed the border. Among the towns burnt up by the king during this expedition were Alnwick, Morpeth, Mitford, Roxburgh, Berwick, Haddington, and Dunbar. A division of his forces had been left in the south to oppose the barons, and keep in check the citizens of London; and this division, reinforced by fresh arrivals from the Continent, made predatory incursions through the southern counties, marking their course with equal ferocity. The only distinction between their conduct and that of the king, appears to have been that the castles which fell into their hands were occupied by some one of their number, instead of being destroyed.

Meanwhile, further measures had been taken by the Church against the insurgent barons. The Abbot of Abingdon, with other ecclesiastics, in obedience to the tyrant and the Pope who supported him, fulminated a second sentence of excommunication, in which Robert Fitz-Walter, the chief of the confederacy, with many others of the most powerful nobles, were mentioned by name, and an interdict was placed upon the city of London. The measure was not without its effect upon certain classes of the country people, but the courage and intelligence of the citizens of London rose superior to the thunder of Rome. In defiance of the interdict they dared still to offer their prayers to Heaven, and to keep the solemn festival of Christmas; the churches remained open, and the bells still rang out the note of freedom.

But dangers were thickening on every side around them. The barons saw themselves hemmed in by increasing hordes of foreigners, and at the same time had reason to fear the effect of the excommunication upon the mass of the people. It does not appear that there was among the nobles any man of sufficient influence or military genius to break through the obstacles by which they were surrounded. Many councils were held and schemes proposed, only to be laid aside as unfeasible. At length the barons determined to offer the English throne to Prince Louis, the eldest son of Philip of France. Such a step scarcely admits of excuse under any circumstances; but the barons, unable of themselves to wrest the power from John, might not improbably consider that any change would be to their advantage, and that it would be better for the country to be under the rule even of the son of their ancient enemy, than to submit to a tyrant who had lost every attribute of manhood.

Louis had married Blanche of Castile, who was the niece of John, and thus he might pretend to some shadow of a title to the crown. The barons also considered that, if he landed in England, many of the foreign mercenaries, who were subjects of France, would be detached from the cause of John, and would join the standard of their prince. When the proposal was carried to the court of France, it was received by the king and his son with that degree of exultation which might have been anticipated. Louis was anxious to sail for England immediately; but Philip, with more wisdom and caution, demanded that twenty-four hostages, the flower of the English nobility, should first be sent to Paris, in assurance of the fidelity of the barons. A French fleet then sailed up the river Thames, and arrived at London in February (1216), conveying a small army, which formed the first detachment of the French forces. The commander informed the barons that Prince Louis would arrive in person at the approaching feast of Easter.

The Pope--true to the cause he had embraced--no sooner heard of these preparations than he sent a new legate into England, who, as he passed through France, boldly remonstrated with the king and his son upon the course they were pursuing. Once more England was called the patrimony of St. Peter, and Philip was asked how he dared to attack it, and was threatened with immediate excommunication in case he persisted in doing so. Louis immediately set up a claim to the English throne in right of his wife; and, leaving the legate in astonishment at this new view of the matter, he escaped from further argument, and took his way to Calais. Having collected a great army, well furnished with stores, he embarked them on board 680 vessels, and set sail from Calais at the appointed time. The English sailors of the Cinque Ports, on whom the efforts of John to secure their good will had not been thrown away, lay in wait for an opportunity of inflicting damage on the invaders, and a storm having arisen by which the French fleet became scattered, they took advantage of the circumstance, and cut off and captured some of the ships. The rest of the fleet arrived safely at Sandwich, where Louis landed on the 30th of May.

John had arrived at Dover with a large army; but so far from attempting to prevent the landing of the French, he made a rapid retreat at the news of their approach. His own unhappy subjects, however, were not in a position to oppose him; them he could attack and slaughter in safety, and accordingly, wheresoever his army passed, the same cruelties were practised, the same ravages committed as before. He went to Guildford, whence he proceeded to Bristol by way of Winchester. Meanwhile, Louis led his forces to Rochester Castle, which he besieged and captured, and then passed on to London. The French prince entered the capital on the 2nd of June, 1216, and was received with the greatest demonstrations of joy by rich and poor. A magnificent procession was formed to accompany him to St. Paul's Church, and there, after he had offered up his prayers, the barons of the kingdom and the citizens paid him the vows of homage. He then placed his hand upon a copy of the Gospels, and swore to restore to the country its just and righteous laws, and to each man the lands or property of which he had been despoiled.

One of the first acts of Louis was to issue a manifesto, which was addressed to the King of Scotland and to all the owners of land throughout the country who were not then present in London. The result of this proclamation soon made itself apparent. Any jealousy towards a foreign prince was entirely subdued by the deep hatred with which all classes of the people regarded their king. The force of an idea was not then so great as in more recent times; the confederacy of the barons, notwithstanding the high and just cause for which they fought, was weak, because it was without a powerful and recognised head. No sooner had the people a living man round whom to rally, instead of a collection of names, than they at once flocked to join his standard. Of the few nobles who had accompanied John on his marauding expeditions, nearly all quitted him at once, and took their way to London; all the people of the northern counties rose up among the ruins of their homes, and cried aloud for vengeance; the King of Scotland prepared an army to march once more to the south; and the foreign mercenaries, with the exception of the Gascons and Poitevins, renounced their adhesion to the tyrant, and either quitted the country or joined the forces of Louis and the barons. Dangers thickened about the king on every side, and his abject spirit was sustained only by the consolations which Gualo, the Pope's legate, poured into his ear. The legate assured him of the constant support of the Pope, and exhorted him to courage, since it was impossible that any harm could happen to a prince who was under the protection of Holy Church. But now the news arrived that Pope Innocent, whose efforts alone had sustained the tyrant in his power, was dead, and a considerable time elapsed before his successor was appointed.

Louis marched his forces to Dover, and laid siege to the castle, which was in the hands of Hubert de Burgh, a man whose character stands so high in history that we are at a loss to understand how he should have retained his allegiance to John. He, however, proved his loyalty by maintaining a most gallant defence, and effectually repelled all the attacks of the besiegers. Mention is made of a formidable engine of war, called a malvoisin, or bad neighbour, which was sent by Philip to be used by his son at the siege of Dover. Neither this engine nor the bravery of the attacking troops availed anything against the strong walls of the castle and the obstinate defence of the garrison; and, after a siege which lasted several weeks, Louis was compelled to desist from the attack, and he determined to reduce the place by famine. Meanwhile, a number of the barons had laid siege to Windsor Castle, which also made a vigorous defence. The king availed himself of the moment when they were thus occupied to advance upon their estates, where he let loose the greedy adventurers who still remained in his pay. The barons then raised the siege to attack the king, who made a hasty retreat. Having succeeded in eluding their pursuit, he reached the town of Stamford. The barons made no attempt to molest him there, but turned and took their way to Dover, where they joined the forces of Louis.

Dover Castle still held out, and the prince pertinaciously maintained his position before it, thus losing three months of valuable time, which, had it been well employed, would doubtless have placed him in possession of the throne. In such a case, inactivity necessarily produced discontent, and other causes of complaint soon presented themselves to the English barons. Louis, who showed himself as deficient in policy as in military skill, began to treat the English with disrespect, and made grants of land and titles in England to his own countrymen. At the same time an event occurred, or was believed to have occurred--and in either case the result was the same--which was calculated to destroy at once the bonds of alliance which existed between the barons and the French prince. One of the followers of Louis, named the Viscount de Melun, being seized with illness at London, and finding himself at the point of death, earnestly desired to see those English nobles who remained in the city. When they approached his bedside, he informed them that the prince, with sixteen of his principal barons, had sworn that when the kingdom should be conquered and Louis crowned, all the English who had joined his standard should be banished for ever, as traitors not to be trusted, and their offspring exterminated or reduced to poverty. "Doubt not my words," De Melun said, with his dying breath; "I, who lie here about to die, was one of the conspirators." Whether this extraordinary scene did or did not take place, the report greatly increased the discontent among the barons. Several of them quitted the standard of Louis, and those who remained appear to have done so merely as the alternative of again tendering their support to John.

While such was the condition of affairs in the French camp, it is evident that there was nothing to oppose the king in his lawless course of vengeance. He advanced with his troops to Lincoln, and having made himself master of the town, he established his headquarters there, and rallied around him fugitive bands of his mercenaries. His chief support was derived from the adherence of the seamen of the country, who appear to have remained firm in their resistance to the French invasion. Many ships laden with stores on their way from the Continent were captured by them, and thus the army of Louis found itself frequently deprived of supplies. In the month of October the king set out on another predatory excursion, which was destined to be his last. Leaving Lincoln, he passed through the district of Croyland, burning up the farmhouses attached to the abbey of that name. Then, proceeding eastward, he went to Lynn and Wisbech, whence he reached the Cross Keys, a place on the south side of the Wash. At low water the sands of this estuary are dry, so as to admit of a passage across for horses and vehicles; but it is liable to a sudden influx of the tide. For some reason which does not very clearly appear, John determined to cross the Wash at the Cross Keys, and in doing so he narrowly escaped the fate of Pharaoh. When his troops had nearly reached the opposite shore, they heard the roar of the rising tide. The king, alarmed, hastened his steps, and succeeded in reaching dry ground; but on looking back, he saw all the carriages and sumpter-horses which carried his stores and treasure overwhelmed by the waters. The waves dashed and leaped over them, and presently carriages, horses, and men, all disappeared in the whirlpool caused by the confluence of the tide and of the current of the river Welland.

Giving vent to his rage by curses and complaints, John took his way gloomily to the Abbey of Cistercians at Swineshead, where he remained for the night. At supper he is said to have eaten to excess of peaches, or pears, and drank great quantities of new cider. A story was current, some fifty years later, that he was poisoned by the monks, but no allusion is made to it in the accounts of his contemporaries; and it is equally probable that his death resulted from excess, acting upon a body already fevered by excitement. He was attacked during the night by severe illness, and on mounting his horse early next morning he found himself unable to sit upright. A horse-litter was then procured, in which he was conveyed to the neighbouring castle of Sleaford. A burning fever, attended with acute pains, had seized upon him; and it was with great difficulty that, on the following day, he was carried to the castle of Newark on the Trent. The shadow of coming death now appeared upon his face, and he desired that a confessor might be sent for. The abbey of Croxton was not far distant, and on receiving the message, the abbot attended to witness the last moments of the king, and to offer him such consolation as he had to bestow. The chroniclers describe the wretched tyrant as dying in an extremity of agony and remorse. He appointed his eldest son Henry as his successor, and a letter was written under his direction to Honorius III., the newly-elected Pope, entreating protection for his children. He caused his attendants to swear fealty to Henry, and sent orders to the sheriffs and other royal officers throughout the kingdom to render the prince their obedience. In his last moments, the abbot asked where he desired that his body should be buried, and John replied, "I commit my soul to God, and my body to St. Wulstan." He died on the 18th of October, 1216, in the forty-ninth year of his age, having reigned seventeen years. His body was conveyed to the cathedral church of Worcester, of which St. Wulstan was the patron saint, and was there buried.

The character of John has been shown only too clearly in the records of those miserable years during which he occupied the throne. It is unquestionable that the very circumstances which entailed so much misery upon the people under his rule were ultimately of the greatest benefit to the country, and that the cowardice and tyranny of John produced results of far more importance to the welfare of the English nation than the high military talent and abilities of his predecessors. Yet, however highly we may estimate the national blessings which have followed in the train of Magna Charta, we cannot be blind to the fact, that, like every other triumph of freedom, it was bought with tears and blood.

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