his friend the French King, PHILIP THE
SECOND (son of Louis, who was dead), and
soon submitted and was again forgiven,
swearing on the New Testament never to
rebel again—and, in another year or so, rebelled
again, and, in the presence of his father,
knelt down on his knee before the King of
France, and did the French King homage,
and declared that with his aid he would possess
himself, by force, of all his father's French
dominions.

And yet this Richard called himself a
soldier of Christ Our Saviour! And yet this
Richard wore the Cross, which the Kings
of France and England had both taken, in the
previous year, at a brotherly meeting underneath
the old wide-spreading elm-tree on the
plain, when they had sworn (like him) to
devote themselves to a new Crusade, for the
love and honour of the Truth!

Sick at heart, wearied out by the falsehood
of his sons, and almost ready to lie down and
die, the unhappy King, who had so long
stood firm, began to fail. But the Pope, to
his honor, supported him and obliged the
French King and Richard, though successful
in light, to treat for peace. Richard wanted
to be crowned King of England, and to be
married to the French King's sister, his
promised wife, whom King Henry detained
in England. King Henry wanted, on the
other hand, that the French King's sister
should be married to his favorite son John:
the only one of his sons (he said) who had
never rebelled against him. At last King
Henry, deserted by his nobles one by one,
distressed, exhausted, broken-hearted, yielded
all that was demanded.

One final heavy sorrow was reserved for
him, even yet. When they brought him the
proposed treaty of peace, in writing, as he lay
very ill in bed, they brought him also the list
of the deserters from their allegiance, whom
he was required to pardon. The first name
upon this list was John, his favorite son, in
whom he had trusted to the last.

"O John! child of my heart! " exclaimed
the King, in a great agony of mind. "O
John, whom I have loved the best! O John,
for whom I have contended through these many
troubles! Have you betrayed me too!" And
then he lay down with a heavy groan, and
said, "Now let the world go as it will. I care
for nothing more!"

After a time, he told his attendants to take
him to the French town of Chinon—a town
he had been fond of, during many years.
But he was fond of no place now; it was too
true that he could care for nothing more upon
this earth. He wildly cursed the hour when
he was born, and cursed the children whom
he left behind him; and expired.

As, one hundred years before, the servile
followers of the Court had abandoned the
Conqueror in the hour of his death, so they
now abandoned his descendant. The very
body was stripped, in the plunder of the Royal
chamber, and it was not easy to find the
means of carrying it for burial to the abbey
church of Fontevraud.

Richard was said in after years, by way of
flattery, to have the heart of a Lion. It would
have been far better, I think, to have had
the heart of a Man. His heart, whatever it
was, had cause to beat remorsefully within
his breast, when he came—as he did—into
the solemn abbey, and looked on his dead
father's uncovered face. His heart, whatever
it was, had been a black, detestable, and perjured
heart, in all its dealings with the deceased
King, and more deficient in a single
touch of tenderness than any wild beast's in
the forest.

There is a pretty story told of this Reign,
called the story of FAIR ROSAMOND. It relates
how the King doted on Fair Rosamond, who
was the loveliest girl in all the world; and
how he had a beautiful Bower built for her
in a Park at Woodstock; and how it was
erected in a labyrinth, and could only be
found by a clue of silk. How the bad
Queen Eleanor, becoming jealous of Fair
Rosamond, found out the secret of the clue,
and appeared before her, one day, with a
dagger and a cup of poison, and left her to
the choice between those deaths. How Fair
Rosamond, after shedding many piteous tears
and offering many useless prayers to the
cruel Queen, took the poison, and fell dead in
the midst of the beautiful bower, while the
unconscious birds sang gaily all around her.

Now, there was a fair Rosamond, and she
was (I dare say) the loveliest girl in all the
world, and the King was certainly very fond
of her, and the bad Queen Eleanor was certainly
made jealous. But I am afraid—I say
afraid, because I like the story so much—
that there was no bower, no labyrinth, no
silken clue, no dagger, no poison. I am afraid
that fair Rosamond retired to a nunnery near
Oxford, and died there, peaceably; her sister-nuns
hanging a silken drapery over her tomb,
and often dressing it with flowers, in remembrance
of the youth and beauty that had
enchanted the King when he too was young,
and when his life lay fair before him.

It was dark and ended now; faded and
gone. Henry Plantagenet lay quiet in the
abbey church of Foutevraud, in the fifty-seventh
year of his age—never to be completed—
after governing England well, for
nearly thirty-five years.

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