A Child's History of England

by Dickens, Charles

  He soon had the pleasure of fighting the King of the Island of

  Cyprus, for allowing his subjects to pillage some of the English

  troops who were shipwrecked on the shore; and easily conquering

  this poor monarch, he seized his only daughter, to be a companion

  to the lady Berengaria, and put the King himself into silver

  fetters. He then sailed away again with his mother, sister, wife,

  and the captive princess; and soon arrived before the town of Acre,

  which the French King with his fleet was besieging from the sea.

  But the French King was in no triumphant condition, for his army

  had been thinned by the swords of the Saracens, and wasted by the

  plague; and SALADIN, the brave Sultan of the Turks, at the head of

  a numerous army, was at that time gallantly defending the place

  from the hills that rise above it.

  Wherever the united army of Crusaders went, they agreed in few

  points except in gaming, drinking, and quarrelling, in a most

  unholy manner; in debauching the people among whom they tarried,

  whether they were friends or foes; and in carrying disturbance and

  ruin into quiet places. The French King was jealous of the English

  King, and the English King was jealous of the French King, and the

  disorderly and violent soldiers of the two nations were jealous of

  one another; consequently, the two Kings could not at first agree,

  even upon a joint assault on Acre; but when they did make up their

  quarrel for that purpose, the Saracens promised to yield the town,

  to give up to the Christians the wood of the Holy Cross, to set at

  liberty all their Christian captives, and to pay two hundred

  thousand pieces of gold. All this was to be done within forty

  days; but, not being done, King Richard ordered some three thousand

  Saracen prisoners to be brought out in the front of his camp, and

  there, in full view of their own countrymen, to be butchered.

  The French King had no part in this crime; for he was by that time

  travelling homeward with the greater part of his men; being

  offended by the overbearing conduct of the English King; being

  anxious to look after his own dominions; and being ill, besides,

  from the unwholesome air of that hot and sandy country. King

  Richard carried on the war without him; and remained in the East,

  meeting with a variety of adventures, nearly a year and a half.

  Every night when his army was on the march, and came to a halt, the

  heralds cried out three times, to remind all the soldiers of the

  cause in which they were engaged, 'Save the Holy Sepulchre!' and

  then all the soldiers knelt and said 'Amen!' Marching or

  encamping, the army had continually to strive with the hot air of

  the glaring desert, or with the Saracen soldiers animated and

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  directed by the brave Saladin, or with both together. Sickness and

  death, battle and wounds, were always among them; but through every

  difficulty King Richard fought like a giant, and worked like a

  common labourer. Long and long after he was quiet in his grave,

  his terrible battle-axe, with twenty English pounds of English

  steel in its mighty head, was a legend among the Saracens; and when

  all the Saracen and Christian hosts had been dust for many a year,

  if a Saracen horse started at any object by the wayside, his rider

  would exclaim, 'What dost thou fear, Fool? Dost thou think King

  Richard is behind it?'

  No one admired this King's renown for bravery more than Saladin

  himself, who was a generous and gallant enemy. When Richard lay

  ill of a fever, Saladin sent him fresh fruits from Damascus, and

  snow from the mountain-tops. Courtly messages and compliments were

  frequently exchanged between them - and then King Richard would

  mount his horse and kill as many Saracens as he could; and Saladin

  would mount his, and kill as many Christians as he could. In this

  way King Richard fought to his heart's content at Arsoof and at

  Jaffa; and finding himself with nothing exciting to do at Ascalon,

  except to rebuild, for his own defence, some fortifications there

  which the Saracens had destroyed, he kicked his ally the Duke of

  Austria, for being too proud to work at them.

  The army at last came within sight of the Holy City of Jerusalem;

  but, being then a mere nest of jealousy, and quarrelling and

  fighting, soon retired, and agreed with the Saracens upon a truce

  for three years, three months, three days, and three hours. Then,

  the English Christians, protected by the noble Saladin from Saracen

  revenge, visited Our Saviour's tomb; and then King Richard embarked

  with a small force at Acre to return home.

  But he was shipwrecked in the Adriatic Sea, and was fain to pass

  through Germany, under an assumed name. Now, there were many

  people in Germany who had served in the Holy Land under that proud

  Duke of Austria who had been kicked; and some of them, easily

  recognising a man so remarkable as King Richard, carried their

  intelligence to the kicked Duke, who straightway took him prisoner

  at a little inn near Vienna.

  The Duke's master the Emperor of Germany, and the King of France,

  were equally delighted to have so troublesome a monarch in safe

  keeping. Friendships which are founded on a partnership in doing

  wrong, are never true; and the King of France was now quite as

  heartily King Richard's foe, as he had ever been his friend in his

  unnatural conduct to his father. He monstrously pretended that

  King Richard had designed to poison him in the East; he charged him

  with having murdered, there, a man whom he had in truth befriended;

  he bribed the Emperor of Germany to keep him close prisoner; and,

  finally, through the plotting of these two princes, Richard was

  brought before the German legislature, charged with the foregoing

  crimes, and many others. But he defended himself so well, that

  many of the assembly were moved to tears by his eloquence and

  earnestness. It was decided that he should be treated, during the

  rest of his captivity, in a manner more becoming his dignity than

  he had been, and that he should be set free on the payment of a

  heavy ransom. This ransom the English people willingly raised.

  When Queen Eleanor took it over to Germany, it was at first evaded

  and refused. But she appealed to the honour of all the princes of

  the German Empire in behalf of her son, and appealed so well that

  it was accepted, and the King released. Thereupon, the King of

  France wrote to Prince John - 'Take care of thyself. The devil is

  unchained!'

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  Prince John had reason to fear his brother, for he had been a

  traitor to him in his captivity. He had secretly joined the French

  King; had vowed to the English nobles and people that his brother

  was dead; and had vainly tried to seize the crown. He was now in

  France, at a place called Evreux. Being the meanest and basest of

  men, he contrived a mean and base expedient for making himself

  accept
able to his brother. He invited the French officers of the

  garrison in that town to dinner, murdered them all, and then took

  the fortress. With this recommendation to the good will of a lionhearted

  monarch, he hastened to King Richard, fell on his knees

  before him, and obtained the intercession of Queen Eleanor. 'I

  forgive him,' said the King, 'and I hope I may forget the injury he

  has done me, as easily as I know he will forget my pardon.'

  While King Richard was in Sicily, there had been trouble in his

  dominions at home: one of the bishops whom he had left in charge

  thereof, arresting the other; and making, in his pride and

  ambition, as great a show as if he were King himself. But the King

  hearing of it at Messina, and appointing a new Regency, this

  LONGCHAMP (for that was his name) had fled to France in a woman's

  dress, and had there been encouraged and supported by the French

  King. With all these causes of offence against Philip in his mind,

  King Richard had no sooner been welcomed home by his enthusiastic

  subjects with great display and splendour, and had no sooner been

  crowned afresh at Winchester, than he resolved to show the French

  King that the Devil was unchained indeed, and made war against him

  with great fury.

  There was fresh trouble at home about this time, arising out of the

  discontents of the poor people, who complained that they were far

  more heavily taxed than the rich, and who found a spirited champion

  in WILLIAM FITZ-OSBERT, called LONGBEARD. He became the leader of

  a secret society, comprising fifty thousand men; he was seized by

  surprise; he stabbed the citizen who first laid hands upon him; and

  retreated, bravely fighting, to a church, which he maintained four

  days, until he was dislodged by fire, and run through the body as

  he came out. He was not killed, though; for he was dragged, half

  dead, at the tail of a horse to Smithfield, and there hanged.

  Death was long a favourite remedy for silencing the people's

  advocates; but as we go on with this history, I fancy we shall find

  them difficult to make an end of, for all that.

  The French war, delayed occasionally by a truce, was still in

  progress when a certain Lord named VIDOMAR, Viscount of Limoges,

  chanced to find in his ground a treasure of ancient coins. As the

  King's vassal, he sent the King half of it; but the King claimed

  the whole. The lord refused to yield the whole. The King besieged

  the lord in his castle, swore that he would take the castle by

  storm, and hang every man of its defenders on the battlements.

  There was a strange old song in that part of the country, to the

  effect that in Limoges an arrow would be made by which King Richard

  would die. It may be that BERTRAND DE GOURDON, a young man who was

  one of the defenders of the castle, had often sung it or heard it

  sung of a winter night, and remembered it when he saw, from his

  post upon the ramparts, the King attended only by his chief officer

  riding below the walls surveying the place. He drew an arrow to

  the head, took steady aim, said between his teeth, 'Now I pray God

  speed thee well, arrow!' discharged it, and struck the King in the

  left shoulder.

  Although the wound was not at first considered dangerous, it was

  severe enough to cause the King to retire to his tent, and direct

  the assault to be made without him. The castle was taken; and

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  every man of its defenders was hanged, as the King had sworn all

  should be, except Bertrand de Gourdon, who was reserved until the

  royal pleasure respecting him should be known.

  By that time unskilful treatment had made the wound mortal and the

  King knew that he was dying. He directed Bertrand to be brought

  into his tent. The young man was brought there, heavily chained,

  King Richard looked at him steadily. He looked, as steadily, at

  the King.

  'Knave!' said King Richard. 'What have I done to thee that thou

  shouldest take my life?'

  'What hast thou done to me?' replied the young man. 'With thine

  own hands thou hast killed my father and my two brothers. Myself

  thou wouldest have hanged. Let me die now, by any torture that

  thou wilt. My comfort is, that no torture can save Thee. Thou too

  must die; and, through me, the world is quit of thee!'

  Again the King looked at the young man steadily. Again the young

  man looked steadily at him. Perhaps some remembrance of his

  generous enemy Saladin, who was not a Christian, came into the mind

  of the dying King.

  'Youth!' he said, 'I forgive thee. Go unhurt!' Then, turning to

  the chief officer who had been riding in his company when he

  received the wound, King Richard said:

  'Take off his chains, give him a hundred shillings, and let him

  depart.'

  He sunk down on his couch, and a dark mist seemed in his weakened

  eyes to fill the tent wherein he had so often rested, and he died.

  His age was forty-two; he had reigned ten years. His last command

  was not obeyed; for the chief officer flayed Bertrand de Gourdon

  alive, and hanged him.

  There is an old tune yet known - a sorrowful air will sometimes

  outlive many generations of strong men, and even last longer than

  battle-axes with twenty pounds of steel in the head - by which this

  King is said to have been discovered in his captivity. BLONDEL, a

  favourite Minstrel of King Richard, as the story relates,

  faithfully seeking his Royal master, went singing it outside the

  gloomy walls of many foreign fortresses and prisons; until at last

  he heard it echoed from within a dungeon, and knew the voice, and

  cried out in ecstasy, 'O Richard, O my King!' You may believe it,

  if you like; it would be easy to believe worse things. Richard was

  himself a Minstrel and a Poet. If he had not been a Prince too, he

  might have been a better man perhaps, and might have gone out of

  the world with less bloodshed and waste of life to answer for.

  CHAPTER XIV - ENGLAND UNDER KING JOHN, CALLED LACKLAND

  AT two-and-thirty years of age, JOHN became King of England. His

  pretty little nephew ARTHUR had the best claim to the throne; but

  John seized the treasure, and made fine promises to the nobility,

  and got himself crowned at Westminster within a few weeks after his

  brother Richard's death. I doubt whether the crown could possibly

  have been put upon the head of a meaner coward, or a more

  detestable villain, if England had been searched from end to end to

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  find him out.

  The French King, Philip, refused to acknowledge the right of John

  to his new dignity, and declared in favour of Arthur. You must not

  suppose that he had any generosity of feeling for the fatherless

  boy; it merely suited his ambitious schemes to oppose the King of

  England. So John and the French King went to war about Arthur.

  He was a handsome boy, at that time only twelve years old. He was

  not born when his father, Geoffrey,
had his brains trampled out at

  the tournament; and, besides the misfortune of never having known a

  father's guidance and protection, he had the additional misfortune

  to have a foolish mother (CONSTANCE by name), lately married to her

  third husband. She took Arthur, upon John's accession, to the

  French King, who pretended to be very much his friend, and who made

  him a Knight, and promised him his daughter in marriage; but, who

  cared so little about him in reality, that finding it his interest

  to make peace with King John for a time, he did so without the

  least consideration for the poor little Prince, and heartlessly

  sacrificed all his interests.

  Young Arthur, for two years afterwards, lived quietly; and in the

  course of that time his mother died. But, the French King then

  finding it his interest to quarrel with King John again, again made

  Arthur his pretence, and invited the orphan boy to court. 'You

  know your rights, Prince,' said the French King, 'and you would

  like to be a King. Is it not so?' 'Truly,' said Prince Arthur, 'I

  should greatly like to be a King!' 'Then,' said Philip, 'you shall

  have two hundred gentlemen who are Knights of mine, and with them

  you shall go to win back the provinces belonging to you, of which

  your uncle, the usurping King of England, has taken possession. I

  myself, meanwhile, will head a force against him in Normandy.'

  Poor Arthur was so flattered and so grateful that he signed a

  treaty with the crafty French King, agreeing to consider him his

  superior Lord, and that the French King should keep for himself

  whatever he could take from King John.

  Now, King John was so bad in all ways, and King Philip was so

  perfidious, that Arthur, between the two, might as well have been a

  lamb between a fox and a wolf. But, being so young, he was ardent

  and flushed with hope; and, when the people of Brittany (which was

  his inheritance) sent him five hundred more knights and five

  thousand foot soldiers, he believed his fortune was made. The

  people of Brittany had been fond of him from his birth, and had

  requested that he might be called Arthur, in remembrance of that

  dimly-famous English Arthur, of whom I told you early in this book,

  whom they believed to have been the brave friend and companion of

  an old King of their own. They had tales among them about a

  prophet called MERLIN (of the same old time), who had foretold that