At two-and-thirty years of age, in the year 1199, 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 the country had been searched from end to end to
find him out.
The French king, Philip, refused to acknowledge the right of John to
his new dignity, and declared in favor 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 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, 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.”
Prince Arthur went to attack the town of Mirebeau, because his
grandmother, Eleanor, was living there, and because his knights said,
“Prince, if you can take her prisoner, you will be able to bring the
king your uncle to terms!” But she was not to be easily taken. She was
old enough by this time--eighty; but she was as full of stratagem as
she was full of years and wickedness. Receiving intelligence of young
Arthur’s approach, she shut herself up in a high tower, and encouraged
her soldiers to defend it like men. Prince Arthur with his little army
besieged the high tower. King John, hearing how matters stood, came up
to the rescue with his army. So here was a strange family party! The
boy-prince besieging his grandmother, and his uncle besieging him!
This position of affairs did not last long. One summer night, King
John, by treachery, got his men into the town, surprised Prince
Arthur’s force, took two hundred of his knights, and seized the prince
himself in his bed. The knights were put in heavy irons, and driven
away in open carts, drawn by bullocks, to various dungeons, where they
were most inhumanly treated, and where some of them were starved to
death. Prince Arthur was sent to the Castle of Falaise.
One day, while he was in prison at that castle, mournfully thinking it
strange that one so young should be in so much trouble, and looking
out of the small window in the deep, dark wall, at the summer sky and
the birds, the door was softly opened, and he saw his uncle, the king,
standing in the shadow of the archway, looking very grim.
“Arthur,” said the king, with his wicked eyes more on the stone
floor than on his nephew, “will you not trust to the gentleness, the
friendship, and the truthfulness of your loving uncle?” “I will tell
my loving uncle that,” replied the boy, “when he does me right. Let
him restore to me my kingdom of England, and then come to me and ask
the question.” The king looked at him and went out. “Keep that boy a
close prisoner,” said he to the warden of the castle. Then the king
took secret counsel with the worst of his nobles, how the prince was to
be got rid of. Some said, “Put out his eyes and keep him in prison, as
Robert of Normandy was kept.” Others said, “Have him stabbed.” Others,
“Have him poisoned.”
King John feeling that in any case, whatever was done afterwards, it
would be a satisfaction to his mind to have those handsome eyes burnt
out, that had looked at him so proudly, while his own royal eyes were
blinking at the stone floor, sent certain ruffians to Falaise to blind
the boy with red-hot irons. But Arthur so pathetically entreated them,
and shed such piteous tears, and so appealed to Hubert de Bourg (or
Burgh), the warden of the castle, who had a love for him, and was a
merciful, tender man, that Hubert could not bear it. To his eternal
honor, he prevented the torture from being performed; and, at his own
risk sent the savages away.
The chafed and disappointed king bethought himself of the stabbing
suggestion next; and, with his shuffling manner and his cruel face,
proposed it to one William de Bray. “I am a gentleman, and not an
executioner,” said William de Bray, and left the presence with disdain.
But it was not difficult for a king to hire a murderer in those days.
King John found one for his money, and sent him down to the castle of
Falaise. “On what errand dost thou come?” said Hubert to this fellow.
“To despatch young Arthur,” he returned. “Go back to him who sent
thee,” answered Hubert, “and say that I will do it!”
King John, very well knowing that Hubert would never do it, but that he
evasively sent this reply to save the prince or gain time, despatched
messengers to convey the young prisoner to the castle of Rouen. Arthur
was soon forced from the kind Hubert--of whom he had never stood in
greater need than then--carried away by night, and lodged in his new
prison; where, through his grated window, he could hear the deep waters
of the river Seine rippling against the stone wall below.
One dark night, as he lay sleeping, dreaming, perhaps, of rescue by
those unfortunate gentlemen who were obscurely suffering and dying in
his cause, he was roused, and bidden by his jailor to come down the
staircase to the foot of the tower. He hurriedly dressed himself, and
obeyed. When they came to the bottom of the winding-stairs, the jailor
trod upon his torch, and put it out. Then Arthur, in the darkness, was
hurriedly drawn into a solitary boat; and in that boat he found his
uncle and one other man.
He knelt to them, and prayed them not to murder him. Deaf to his
entreaties, they stabbed him, and sank his body in the river with heavy
stones. When the spring morning broke, the tower-door was closed, the
boat was gone, the river sparkled on its way, and never more was any
trace of the poor boy beheld by mortal eyes.
_Word Exercise._
Seine (_sān_)
Fă-lāise´ (_lāz_)
ruffians (_rŭf´yans_)
accession (_ak-sesh´un_)
Geoffrey (_jĕf´re_)
besieged (_be-sējd_)
dungeons (_dŭn´juns_)
tour´na-ment (_toor-_ or _tur-_)
Mirebeau (_meer´bō_)
usurping (_yū-zurp´ing_)
treachery (_trĕch´er-e_)
acknowledge (_ak-nŏl´ej_)
Nor´man-dy
mĕs´sen-gers
_Phrase Exercise._
1. Detestable villain.--2. _Declared in favor_ of Arthur.--3.
Ambitious schemes.--4. Heartlessly sacrificed his
interests.--5. Full of _stratagem_.--6. Inhumanly treated.--7.
Took _secret counsel_.--8. Arthur _pathetically entreated_.--9.
The _chafed_ and _disappointed_ king.--10. _To despatch_
Arthur.--11. _Evasively_ sent this _reply_.--12. He prayed
them.--13. Solitary boat.