ACCESSION OF RICHARD TO THE THRONE.
1189
The reverses of King Henry.--Negotiating a peace.--The
thunder-storm.--Henry's horsemanship.--The hard conditions of
peace imposed by Philip and Richard.--The sick king.--His
distress at the conduct of John.--The palace at Chinon.--The
imprecations of the dying king.--The heartless conduct of the
courtiers of the dead king.--Richard following the funeral train
to the Abbey Fontevraud.--Richard immediately secures the
succession to the throne.--Sorrow often results in
happiness.--Eleanora queen regent.--Her change of
character.--Richard's return to England.--Richard's proposed
crusade.--John's dissimulation.--A delusion.--The treasures of
the crown.--Circumstances alter cases.--Accomplices ill
rewarded.
Richard was called to the throne when he was about thirty-two years of
age by the sudden and unexpected death of his father. The death of his
father took place under the most mournful circumstances imaginable. In
the war which Richard and Philip, king of France, had waged against
him, he had been unsuccessful. He had been defeated in the battles and
outgeneraled in the manoeuvres, and his barons, one after another,
had abandoned him and taken part with the rebels. King Henry was an
extremely passionate man, and the success of his enemies against him
filled him with rage. This rage was rendered all the more violent by
the thought that it was through the unnatural ingratitude of his own
son, Richard, that all these calamities came upon him. In the anguish
of his despair, he cursed the day of his birth, and uttered dreadful
maledictions against his children.
At length he was reduced to such an extremity that he was obliged to
submit to negotiations for peace, on just such terms as his enemies
thought fit to impose. They made very hard conditions. The first
attempt at negotiating the peace was made in an open field, where
Philip and Henry met for the purpose, on horseback, attended by their
retainers. Richard had the grace to keep away from this meeting, so as
not to be an actual witness of the humiliation of his father, and so
Philip and Henry were to conduct the conference by themselves.
The meeting was interrupted by a thunder-storm. At first the two kings
did not intend to pay any heed to the storm, but to go on with their
discussions without regarding it. Henry was a very great horseman, and
spent almost his whole life in riding. One of his historians says that
he never sat down except upon a saddle, unless it was when he was
taking his meals. At any rate, he was almost always on horseback. He
hunted on horseback, he fought on horseback, he traveled on horseback,
and now he was holding a conference with his enemies on horseback, in
the midst of a storm of lightning and rain. But his health had now
become impaired, and his nerves, though they had always seemed to be
of iron, were beginning to give way under the dreadful shocks to which
they had been exposed, so that he was now far less able to endure such
exposures than he had been. At length a clap of thunder broke rattling
immediately over his head, and the bolt seemed to descend directly
between him and Philip as they sat upon their horses in the field.
Henry reeled in the saddle, and would have fallen if his attendants
had not seized and held him. They found that he was too weak and ill
to remain any longer on the spot, and so they bore him away to his
quarters, and then Philip and Richard sent him in writing the
conditions which they were going to exact from him. The conditions
were very humiliating indeed. They stripped him of a great portion of
his possessions, and required him to hold others in subordination to
Philip and to Richard. Finally, the last of the conditions was, that
he was to give Richard the kiss of peace, and to banish from his heart
all sentiments of animosity and anger against him.
Among other articles of the treaty was one binding him to pardon all
the barons and other chief men who had gone over to Richard's side in
the rebellion. As they read the articles over to the king, while he
was lying sick upon his bed, he asked, when they came to this one, to
see the list of the names, that he might know who they were that had
thus forsaken him. The name at the head of the list was that of his
son John--his darling son John, to defend whose rights against the
aggressions of Richard had been one of his chief motives in carrying
on the war. The wretched father, on seeing this name, started up from
his bed and gazed wildly around.
"Is it possible," he cried out, "that John, the child of my heart--he
whom I have cherished more than all the rest, and for love of whom I
have drawn down on mine own head all these troubles, has verily
betrayed me?" They told him that it was even so.
"Then," said he, falling back helplessly on his bed, "then let every
thing go as it will; I care no longer for myself or for any thing else
in this world."
All this took place in Normandy, for it was Normandy that had been the
chief scene of the war between the king and his son. At some little
distance from the place where the king was now lying sick there was a
beautiful rural palace, at a place called Chinon, which was situated
very pleasantly on the banks of a small branch of the Loire. This
palace was one of the principal summer resorts of the dukes of
Normandy, and the king caused himself now to be carried there, in
order to seek repose. But instead of being cheered by the beautiful
scenes that were around him at Chinon, or reinvigorated by the
comforts and the attentions which he could there enjoy, he gradually
sank into hopeless melancholy, and in a few days he began to feel that
he was about to die. As he grew worse his mind became more and more
excited, and his attendants from time to time heard him moaning, in
his anguish, "Oh, shame! shame! I am a conquered king--a conquered
king! Cursed be the day on which I was born, and cursed be the
children that I leave behind me!"
The priests at his bedside endeavored to remonstrate with him against
these imprecations. They told him that it was a dreadful thing for a
father to curse his own children, and they urged him to retract what
he had said. But he declared that he would not. He persisted in
cursing all his children except Geoffrey Clifford, the son of
Rosamond, who was then at his bedside, and who had never forsaken him.
The king grew continually more and more excited and disordered in
mind, until at length he sank into a raving delirium, and in that
state he died.
A dead king is a very helpless and insignificant object, whatever may
have been the terror which he inspired while he was alive. As long as
Henry continued to breathe, the attendants around him paid him great
deference, and observed every possible form of obsequious respect, for
they did not know but that he might recover, to live and reign, and
lord it over them and their fortunes for fifteen or twenty years to
come; but as soon as the breath was out of his body, all was over.
Richard, his son, was now king, and from Henry nothing whatever was
any longer to be hoped or feared. So the mercenary and heartless
courtiers--the ministers, priests, bishops and barons--began at once
to strip the body of all the valuables which the king had worn, and
also to seize and appropriate every thing in the apartments of the
palace which they could take away. These things were their
perquisites, they said; it being customary, as they alleged, that the
personal effects of a deceased king should be divided among those who
were his attendants when he died. Having secured this plunder, these
people disappeared, and it was with the utmost difficulty that
assistance enough could be procured to wrap the body in a
winding-sheet, and to bring a hearse and horses to bear it away to the
abbey where it was to be interred. Examples like this--of which the
history of every monarchy is full--throw a great deal of light upon
what is called the principle of loyalty in the hearts of those who
attend upon kings.
While the procession was on the way to the abbey where the body was to
be buried, it was met by Richard, who, having heard of his father's
death, came to join in the funeral solemnities. Richard followed the
train until they arrived at the abbey. It was the Abbey Fontevraud,
the ancient burial-place of the Norman princes. Arrived at the abbey,
the body was laid out upon the bier, and the face was uncovered, in
order that Richard might once more look upon his father's features;
but the countenance was so distorted with the scowling expression of
rage and resentment which it had worn during the sufferer's last
hours, that Richard turned away in horror from the dreadful spectacle.
But Richard soon drove away from his mind the painful thoughts which
the sight of his father's face must have awakened, and turned his
attention at once to the business which now pressed upon him. He, of
course, was heir both to the crown of England and also to all his
father's possessions in Normandy, and he felt that he must act
promptly, in order to secure his rights. It is true that there was
nobody to dispute his claim, unless it was his brother John, for the
two sons of Rosamond, Geoffrey and William Clifford, did not pretend
to any rights of inheritance. Richard had some fears of John, and he
thought it necessary to take decisive measures to guard against any
plots that John might be disposed to form. He sent at once to England,
and ordered that his mother should be released from her imprisonment,
and invested her with power to act as regent there until he should
come. In the mean time, he himself remained in Normandy, and devoted
himself to arranging and regulating the affairs of his French
possessions. This was the wisest course for him to pursue, for there
was no one in England to dispute his claims to that kingdom. On the
Continent the case was different. His neighbor, Philip, King of
France, was ready to take advantage of any opportunity to get
possession of such provinces on the Continent as might be within his
reach.
It was certainly a good deed in Richard to liberate his mother from
her captivity, and to exalt her as he did to a position of
responsibility and honor. Eleanora fulfilled the trust which he
reposed in her in a very faithful and successful manner. The long
period of confinement and suffering which she had endured seems to
have exerted a very favorable influence upon her mind. Indeed, it is
very often the case that sorrow and trouble have this effect. A life
of prosperity and pleasure makes us heartless, selfish, and unfeeling,
while sorrow softens the heart, and disposes us to compassionate the
woes of others, and to do what we can to relieve them.
Eleanora was queen regent in England for two months, and during that
time she employed her power in a very beneficent manner. She released
many unhappy prisoners, and pardoned many persons who had been
convicted of political crimes. The truth is that probably, as she
found herself drawing toward the close of life, and looked back upon
her past career, and remembered her many crimes, her unfaithfulness to
both her husbands, and especially her unnatural conduct in instigating
her sons to rebel against their father, her heart was filled with
remorse, and she found some relief from her anguish in these tardy
efforts to relieve suffering which might, in some small degree, repair
the evils that she had brought upon the land by the insurrections and
wars of which she had been the cause. She bitterly repented of the
hostility that she had shown toward her husband, and of the countless
wrongs that she had inflicted upon him. While he was alive, and she
was engaged in her contests with him, the excitement that she was
under blinded her mind; but now that he was dead, her passion
subsided, and she mourned for him with bitter grief. She distributed
alms in a very abundant manner to the poor to induce them to pray for
the repose of his soul. While doing these things she did not neglect
the affairs of state. She made all the necessary arrangements for the
immediate administration of the government, and she sent word to all
the barons, and also to the bishops, and other great public
functionaries, informing them that Richard was coming to assume the
government of the realm, and summoning them to assemble and make ready
to receive him. In about two months Richard came.
Before Richard arrived in England, however, he had formed the plan,
in connection with Philip, the King of France, of going on a crusade.
Richard was a wild and desperate man, and he loved fighting for its
own sake; and inasmuch as now, since his father was dead, and his
claim to the crown of England, and to all his possessions in Normandy,
was undisputed, there seemed to be nobody for him to fight at home, he
conceived the design of organizing a grand expedition to go to the
Holy Land and fight the Saracens.
John was very much pleased with this idea. "If Richard goes to
Palestine," said he to himself, "ten to one he will get killed, and
then I shall be King of England."
So John was ready to do every thing in his power to favor the plan of
the crusade. He pretended to be very submissive and obedient to his
brother, and to acknowledge his sovereign power as king. He aided the
king as much as he could in making his arrangements and in concocting
all his plans.
The first thing was to provide funds. A great deal of money was
required for these expeditions. Ships were to be bought and equipped
for the purpose of transporting the troops to the East. Arms and
ammunition were to be provided, and large supplies of food. Then the
princes, and barons, and knights who were to accompany the expedition
required very expensive armor, and costly trappings and equipments of
all sorts; for, though the pretense was that they were going out to
fight for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre under the influence of
religious zeal, the real motive which animated them was love of glory
and display. Thus it happened that the expense which a sovereign
incurred in fitting out a crusade was enormous.
Accordingly, King Richard, immediately on his arrival in England,
proceeded at once to Winchester, where his father, King Henry, had
kept his treasures. Richard found a large sum of money there in gold
and silver coin, and besides this there were stores of plate, of
jewelry, and of precious gems of great value. Richard caused all the
money to be counted in his presence, and an exact inventory to be made
of all the treasures. He then placed the whole under the charge of
trusty officers of his own, whom he appointed to take care of them.
The next thing that Richard did was to discard and dismiss all his own
former friends and adherents--the men who had taken part with him in
his rebellions against his father. "Men that would join me in
rebelling against my father," thought he to himself, "would join any
body else, if they thought they could gain by it, in rebelling against
me." So he concluded that they were not to be trusted. Indeed now, in
the altered circumstances in which he was placed, he could see the
guilt of rebellion and treason, though he had been blind to it before,
and he actually persecuted and punished some of those who had been his
confederates in his former crimes. A great many cases analogous to
this have occurred in English history. Sons have often made themselves
the centre and soul of all the opposition in the realm against their
father's government, and have given their fathers a great deal of
trouble by so doing; but then, in all such cases, the moment that the
father dies the son immediately places himself at the head of the
regularly-constituted authorities of the realm, and abandons all his
old companions and friends, treating them sometimes with great
severity. His eyes are opened to the wickedness of making opposition
to the sovereign power now that the sovereign power is vested in
himself, and he disgraces and punishes his own former friends for the
crime of having aided him in his undutiful behavior.