The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (68 page)

During this war, prince John deserted from Philip, threw himself at his brother’s feet, craved pardon for his offences, and by the intercession of queen Eleanor, was PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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received into favour.
I forgive him,
said the king,
and hope I shall as easily forget his
injuries, as he will my pardon.
John was incapable even of returning to his duty, without committing a baseness. Before he left Philip’s party, he invited to dinner all the officers of the garrison, which that prince had placed in the citadel of Evreux; he massacred them during the entertainment; fell, with the assistance of the townsmen, on the garrison, whom he put to the sword; and then delivered up the place to his brother.

The king of France was the great object of Richard’s resentment and animosity: The conduct of John, as well as that of the emperor and duke of Austria, had been so base, and was exposed to such general odium and reproach, that the king deemed himself sufficiently revenged for their injuries; and he seems never to have entertained any project of vengeance against any of them. The duke of Austria about this time, having crushed his leg by the fall of his horse at a tournament, was thrown into a fever; and being struck, on the approaches of death, with remorse for his injustice to Richard, he ordered, by will, all the English hostages in his hands to be set at liberty, and the remainder of the debt due to him to be remitted: His son, who seemed inclined to disobey these orders, was constrained by his ecclesiastics to execute them.
p
The emperor also made advances for Richard’s friendship,

and offered to give him a discharge of all the debt, not yet paid to 1195.

him, provided he would enter into an offensive alliance against the king of France; a proposal which was very acceptable to Richard, and was greedily embraced by him. The treaty with the emperor took no effect; but it served to rekindle the war between France and England before the expiration of the truce. This war was not distinguished by any more remarkable incidents than the foregoing. After mutually ravaging the open country, and taking a few insignificant castles, the two kings concluded a peace at Louviers, and made an exchange of some territories with each other.
q
Their inability to wage war occasioned the peace: Their mutual antipathy engaged them again in war before two

1196.

months expired. Richard imagined, that he had now found an

opportunity of gaining great advantages over his rival, by forming an alliance with the counts of Flanders, Toulouse, Boulogne, Champagne, and other considerable vassals

of the crown of France.r
But he soon experienced the insincerity of those princes; and was not able to make any impression on that kingdom, while governed by a monarch of so much vigour and activity as Philip. The most remarkable incident of this war was the taking prisoner in battle the bishop of Beauvais, a martial prelate, who was of the family of Dreux, and a near relation of the French king’s. Richard, who hated that bishop, threw him into prison, and loaded him with irons; and when the pope demanded his liberty, and claimed him as his son, the king sent to his holiness the coat of mail which the prelate had worn in battle, and which was all besmeared with blood: And he replied to him, in the terms employed by Jacob’s sons to that patriarch,
This have we found: Know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no.
s
This new war between England and France, though carried on with such animosity, that both kings frequently put out the eyes of their prisoners, was soon finished, by a truce of five years; and immediately after signing this treaty, the kings were ready, on some new offence, to break out again into hostilities; when the mediation of the cardinal of St.

Mary, the pope’s legate, accommodated the difference.
t
This prelate even engaged the PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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princes to commence a treaty for a more durable peace; but the death of Richard put an end to the negociation.

Vidomar, viscount of Limoges, a vassal of the king’s, had found 1199.

a treasure, to which he sent part to that prince as a present.

Richard, as superior lord, claimed the whole; and at the head of some Brabançons, besieged the viscount in the castle of Chalus, near Limoges, in order to make him comply with his demand.
u
The garrison offered to surrender; but the king replied, that, since he had taken the pains to come thither and besiege the place in person, he would take it by force, and would hang every one of them. The same day, Richard, accompanied by Marcadée, leader of his Brabançons, approached the castle in order to survey it; when one Bertrand de Gourdon, an archer, took aim at him, and pierced his shoulder with an arrow.

The king, however, gave orders for the assault, took the place, 28th March.

and hanged all the garrison, except Gourdon, who had wounded

him, and whom he reserved for a more deliberate and more cruel execution.
w

The wound was not in itself dangerous; but the unskilfulness of the surgeon made it mortal: He so rankled Richard’s shoulder in pulling out the arrow, that a gangrene ensued; and that prince was now sensible that his life was drawing towards a period.

He sent for Gourdon, and asked him,
Wretch, what have I ever done to you, to oblige
you to seek my life?—What have you done to me?
replied coolly the prisoner:
You
killed with your own hands my father, and my two brothers; and you intended to have
hanged myself: I am now in your power, and you may take revenge, by inflicting on
me the most severe torments: But I shall endure them all with pleasure, provided I can
think that I have been so happy as to rid the world of such a nuisance.
x
Richard, struck with the reasonableness of this reply, and humbled by the near approach of death, ordered Gourdon to be set at liberty, and a sum of money to be given him; but Marcadée, unknown to him,

seized the unhappy man, flead him alive, and then hanged him.

8th April. Death and

Richard died in the tenth year of his reign, and the forty-second character of the king.

of his age; and he left no issue behind him.

The most shining part of this prince’s character are his military talents. No man, even in that romantic age, carried personal courage and intrepidity to a greater height; and this quality gained him the appellation of the lion-hearted,
coeur de lion.
He passionately loved glory, chiefly military glory; and as his conduct in the field was not inferior to his valour, he seems to have possessed every talent necessary for acquiring it. His resentments also were high; his pride unconquerable; and his subjects, as well as his neighbours, had therefore reason to apprehend, from the continuance of his reign, a perpetual scene of blood and violence. Of an impetuous and vehement spirit, he was distinguished by all the good, as well as the bad qualities, incident to that character: He was open, frank, generous, sincere, and brave; he was revengeful, domineering, ambitious, haughty, and cruel; and was thus better calculated to dazzle men by the splendor of his enterprizes, than either to promote their happiness or his own grandeur, by a sound and well regulated policy. As military talents make great impression on the people, he seems to have been much beloved by his English subjects; and he is remarked to have been the first prince of the Norman PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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line that bore any sincere regard to them. He passed however only four months of his reign in that kingdom: The crusade employed him near three years; he was detained about fourteen months in captivity; the rest of his reign was spent either in war, or preparations for war, against France; and he was so pleased with the fame which he had acquired in the East, that he determined, notwithstanding his past misfortunes, to have farther exhausted his kingdom, and to have exposed himself to new hazards, by conducting another expedition against the infidels.

Though the English pleased themselves with the glory which the Miscellaneous king’s martial genius procured them, his reign was very

transactions if this

oppressive, and somewhat arbitrary, by the high taxes which he reign.

levied on them, and often without consent of the states or great council. In the ninth year of his reign, he levied five shillings on each hyde of land; and because the clergy refused to contribute their share, he put them out of the protection of law, and ordered the civil courts to give them no sentence for any debts which they might claim.
y
Twice in his reign he ordered all his charters to be sealed

anew, and the parties to pay fees for the renewal.z
It is said that Hubert, his justiciary, sent him over to France, in the space of two years, no less a sum than 1,100,000

marks, besides bearing all the charges of the government in England. But this account is quite incredible, unless we suppose that Richard made a thorough dilapidation of the demesnes of the crown, which is not likely he could do with any advantage after his former resumption of all grants. A king, who possessed such a revenue, could never have endured fourteen months captivity, for not paying 150,000 marks to the emperor, and be obliged at last to leave hostages for a third of the sum. The prices of commodities in this reign are also a certain proof, that no such enormous sum could be levied on the people. A hyde of land, or about a hundred and twenty acres, was commonly let at twenty shillings a year, money of that time. As there were 243,600

hydes in England, it is easy to compute the amount of all the landed rents of the kingdom. The general and stated price of an ox was four shillings; of a labouring horse the same; of a sow, one shilling; of a sheep with fine wool, ten-pence; with coarse wool, six-pence.
a
These commodities seem not to have advanced in their price

since the conquest,NOTE [R]
and to have still been ten times cheaper than at present.

Richard renewed the severe laws against transgressors in his forests, whom he punished by castration and putting out their eyes, as in the reign of his great-grandfather. He established by law one weight and measure throughout his kingdom.
b

A useful institution, which the mercenary disposition and necessities of his successor engaged him to dispense with for money.

The disorders in London, derived from its bad police, had risen to a great height during this reign; and in the year 1196, there seemed to be formed so regular a conspiracy among the numerous malefactors, as threatened the city with destruction.

There was one William Fitz-Osbert, commonly called
Longbeard,
a lawyer, who had rendered himself extremely popular among the lower rank of citizens; and by defending them on all occasions, had acquired the appellation of the advocate or saviour of the poor. He exerted his authority, by injuring and insulting the more substantial citizens, with whom he lived in a state of hostility, and who were every moment exposed to the most outrageous violences from him and his licentious PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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emissaries. Murders were daily committed in the streets; houses were broken open and pillaged in day-light; and it is pretended, that no less than fifty-two thousand persons had entered into an association, by which they bound themselves to obey all the orders of this dangerous ruffian. Archbishop Hubert, who was then chief justiciary, summoned him before the council to answer for his conduct; but he came so well attended, that no one durst accuse him, or give evidence against him; and the primate, finding the impotence of law, contented himself with exacting from the citizens hostages for their good behaviour. He kept, however, a watchful eye on Fitz-Osbert; and seizing a favourable opportunity, attempted to commit him to custody; but the criminal, murdering one of the public officers, escaped with his concubine to the church of St. Mary le Bow, where he defended himself by force of arms. He was at last forced from his retreat, condemned, and executed, amidst the regrets of the populace, who were so devoted to his memory, that they stole his gibbet, paid the same veneration to it as to the cross, and were equally zealous in propagating and attesting reports of the miracles wrought by it.
c
But though the sectaries of this superstition were punished by the justiciary,
d
it received so little encouragement from the established clergy, whose property was endangered by such seditious practices, that it suddenly sunk and vanished.

It was during the crusades, that the custom of using coats of arms was first introduced into Europe. The knights cased up in armour, had no way to make themselves be known and distinguished in battle, but by the devices on their shields; and these were gradually adopted by their posterity and families, who were proud of the pious and military enterprizes of their ancestors.

King Richard was a passionate lover of poetry: There even remain some poetical works of his composition: and he bears a rank among the Provençal poets or
Trobadores,
who were the first of the modern Europeans, that distinguished themselves by attempts of that nature.

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[Back to Table of Contents]

XI

JOHN

Accession of the king — His marriage — War with France — Murder of Arthur, duke
of Britanny — The king expelled from all the French provinces — The king’s quarrel
with the court of Rome — Cardinal Langton appointed archbishop of Canterbury —