 Chapter 1 of King Richard the First This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Andrew Wilson King Richard the First by Jacob Abbott Chapter 1 King Richard's Mother King Richard the First, the Crusader, was a boisterous, reckless and desperate man, and he made a great deal of noise in the world in his day. He began his career very early in life by quarrelling with his father. Indeed, his father, his mother and all his brothers and sisters were engaged as long as the father lived in perpetual wars against each other, which were waged with the most desperate fierceness on all sides. The subject of these quarrels was the different possessions which the various branches of the family held or claimed in France and in England, each endeavouring to dispossess the others. In order to understand the nature of these difficulties and also to comprehend fully what sort of a woman Richard's mother was, we must first pay a little attention to the map of the countries over which these royal personages held sway. We have already seen in another volume of this series how the two countries of Normandy on the continent and of England became united under one government. England, however, did not conquer and hold Normandy. It was Normandy that conquered and held England. The relative situation of these two countries is shown on the map. Normandy, it will be seen, was situated in the northern part of France, being separated from England by the English Channel. Besides Normandy, the sovereigns of the country held various other possessions in France and this French portion of the compound realm over which they reigned had it as far the most important portion. England was but a sort of appendage to their empire. You will see by the map the situation of the River Loire. It rises in the centre of France and flows to the westward through a country which was even in those days very fertile and beautiful. South of the Loire was a sort of kingdom then under the dominion of a young and beautiful princess named Eleonora. The name of her kingdom was Aquitaine. This lady afterward became the mother of Richard. She was very celebrated in her day and has since been greatly renowned in history under the name of Eleonora of Aquitaine. Eleonora received her realm from her grandfather. Her father had gone on a crusade with his brother Eleonora's uncle Raymond and had been killed in the east. Raymond had made himself master of Antioch. We shall presently hear of this Raymond again. The grandfather abdicated in Eleonora's favour when she was about 14 years of age. There were two other powerful sovereigns in France at the time. Louis, King of France who reigned in Paris and Henry, Duke of Normandy and King of England. King Louis of France had a son Prince Louis who was heir to the crown. Eleonora's grandfather formed the scheme of marrying her to Prince Louis and thus unite his kingdom to hers. He himself was tired of ruling and wished to resign his power with a view to spending the rest of his days in penitence and prayer. He had been a wicked man in his day and now as he was growing old he was harassed by remorse for his sins and wished if possible to make some atonement for them by his penances before he died. So he called all his barons together and laid his plans before them. They consented to them on two conditions. The first was that Eleonora should first see Louis and say whether she was willing to have him for a husband. If not, she was not to be compelled to marry him. The other condition was that their country, Aquitaine, was not to be combined with the dominions of the King of France after the marriage but was to continue a separate and independent realm to be governed by Louis and Eleonora not as King and Queen of France but as Duke and Duchess of Aquitaine. Both these conditions were complied with. The interview was arranged between Louis and Eleonora and Eleonora concluded that she should like the King for a husband very much. The interview was arranged between Louis and Eleonora and Eleonora concluded that she should like the King for a husband very much. At least she said so and the marriage was concluded. Indeed, the match thus arranged for Eleonora was in all worldly respects the most eligible one that could be made. A husband was the heir apparent to the throne of France. His capital was Paris which was then as now the great centre in Europe of all splendour and gaiety. The father of Louis was old and not likely to live long. Indeed, he died very soon after the marriage and thus Eleonora when scarcely 15 became Queen of France as well as Duchess of Aquitaine and was finally raised the highest pinnacle of worldly grandeur. She was young and beautiful and very gay in her disposition and she entered at once upon a life of pleasure. She had been well educated. She could sing the songs of the troubadours which was the most fashionable music of those days in a most charming manner. Indeed, she composed music herself and wrote lines to accompany it. She was quite celebrated for her learning on account of her being able to both read and write. These were rare accomplishments for ladies in those days. She spent a considerable portion of her time in Paris at the court of her husband but then she often returned to Aquitaine where she held a sort of court of her own in Bordeaux which was her capital. She led this sort of life for some time until at length she was induced to form a design of going to the east on a crusade. The crusades were a military expedition which went from the western countries of Europe to conquer Palestine from the Turks in order to recover possession of Jerusalem and other sepulchre where the body of Christ was laid. It had been for some time the practice for the princes and knights and other potentates of France and England to go on these expeditions on account of the fame and glory which those who distinguished themselves acquired. The people were excited, moreover, to join the crusades by the preaching of the monks and hermits who harangued them in public places and urged them to go. At these assemblages the monks held up their symbols of crucifixion to inspire their zeal and promised them the special favour of heaven if they would go. They said that whoever devoted himself to this great cause should surely be pardoned for all the sins and crimes that he had committed whatever they might be. And whenever they heard of the commission of any great crimes by potentates or rulers they would seize upon the occasion to urge the guilty persons to go and fight for the cross in Palestine as a means of wiping away their guilt. One of these preachers charged such a crime upon Louis the husband of Eleonora. It seems that in a quarrel which he had had with one of his neighbours he had sent an armed force to invade his enemy's dominions and in storming a town a cathedral had been set on fire and burned and 1,500 people who had taken refuge in it as a sanctuary had perished in the flames. Now it was a very great crime according to the Zaidis of those times to violate a sanctuary and the hermit preacher urged Louis to go on a crusade in order to atone for the dreadful guilt he had incurred by not only violating a sanctuary but by overwhelmingly in doing it so many hundreds of innocent women and children in the awful suffering of being burnt to death. So Louis determined to go on a crusade and Eleonora determined to accompany him. Her motive was a love adventure and a fondness for notoriety. She thought that by going out a young and beautiful princess at the head of an army of crusaders into the east she would make herself a renowned heroine in the eyes of the whole world. So she immediately commenced her preparations and by the commanding influence which she exerted over the ladies of the court she soon inspired them all with her romantic ardour. The ladies at once laid aside their feminine dress and clothe themselves like amazons so that they could ride a stride on horseback like men. All their talk was of arms and armour and horses and camps. They endeavoured too to interest all the men, the princes and the barons and knights that surrounded them in their plans and to induce them to join the expedition. A great many did so but there were some that shook the heads and seemed inclined to stay at home. They knew that so wild and heedless a plan as this could end in nothing but disaster. The ladies ridiculed these men for their cowardice and want of spirit and they sent them their distaffs as presents. We have no longer any use for the distaffs, says they, but as you are intending to stay at home and make women of yourselves we send them to you so that you may occupy yourselves with spinning. By such taunts and ridicules as this a great many were shamed into joining the expedition whose good sense made them extremely adverse to have anything to do with it. The expedition was at length organised and prepared to set forth. It was encumbered by the immense quantity of baggage which the Queen and her party insisted on taking. It is true that they had assumed the dress of Amazons but this was only for the camp and the field. They expected to enjoy a great many pleasures while they were gone to give then receive a great many entertainments and to live in luxury and splendour in the great cities of the East. So they must needs take with them large quantities of baggage containing dresses and stores of female paraphernalia of all kinds. The King remonstrated against his folly but all to no purpose. The ladies thought it very hard if in going on such an expedition they could not take with them the usual little comforts and conveniences appropriate to their sex. So it ended with them having their own way. The caprices and the freaks of these women continued to harass and interfere with the expedition during the whole course of it. The army of crusaders reached at length a place near Antioch in Asia Minor where they encountered the Saracens. Antioch was then in the possession of the Christians. It was under the command of Prince Raymond who has already been spoken of as Eleonora's uncle. Raymond was a young and very handsome prince and Eleonora anticipated great pleasure in visiting his capital. The expedition had not however yet reached it but were advancing through the country defending themselves as well as they could against the troops of the Arab horsemen that were harassing their march. The commanders were greatly perplexed in this emergency to know what to do with the women and with their immense train of baggage. The king at last sent them on in advance with all his best troops to accompany them. He directed them to go on and encamp for the night on a certain high ground which he designated where they would be safe, he said, for an attack by the Arabs. When they approached the place, Eleonora found a green and fertile valley near which was very romantic and beautiful and she decided at once that this was a much prettier place to encamp than the bare hill above. The officers in command of the trip remonstrated in vain. Eleonora and the ladies insisted on encamping in the valley. The consequences was that the Arabs came and got possession of the hill and thus put themselves between the division of the army which was with Eleonora and that which was advancing under a king. A great battle was fought. The French were defeated. A great many thousand men were slain. All the provisions for the army were cut off and all the ladies' baggage was seized and plundered by the Arabs. The remainder of the army with the king and the queen and the ladies succeeded in making their escape to Antioch and Eleonora opened the gates and let them in. As soon as Eleonora and the other ladies recovered a little from their fright and fatigue they began to lead very gay lies in Antioch and before long a serious quarrel broke out between Louis and the queen. The cause of this quarrel was Raymond. He was a young and handsome man and he soon began to show such fondness for Eleonora that the king's jealousy was aroused and at length the king discerned and said proofs of such degree of intimacy between them as to fill him with rage. He determined to leave Antioch immediately and take Eleonora with him. She was unwilling to go but the king was so angry that he compelled her to accompany him. So he went away abruptly scarcely bidding Raymond goodbye at all and proceeded with Eleonora and nearly all his company to Jerusalem. Eleonora submitted though that she was exceedingly out of humour. The king too on his part was as much out of humour as the queen. He determined that he would not allow her to accompany him any more on the campaign so he left her at Jerusalem a sort of prisoner while he put himself at the head of his army and went forth to prosecute the war. By and by when he came back to Jerusalem and inquired about his wife's conduct he learned some facts in respect to the intimacy which he had formed with the prince of the country during his absence that made him more angry than ever. He declared that he would sue for divorce. She was a wicked woman he said and he would repudiate her. One of his ministers however contrived to appease him at least so far as to induce him to abandon this design. The minister did not pretend to say that Eleonora was innocent or that she did not deserve to be repudiated but he said that if the divorce was to be carried into effect then Louis would lose all claim to Eleonora's possession for it will be recollected that the dukedom of Aquitaine and the other rich possessions which belonged to Eleonora before her marriage continued entirely separate from the kingdom of France and still belonged to her. The king and Eleonora had a daughter named Margaret who was now a young child but who when she grew up would inherit both her father and her mother's possessions and thus in the end they would be united if the king and queen continued to live together in peace but this would be all lost as the minister maintained in his argument was a king in case of a divorce. If you were divorced from her he said she will soon be married again and then all her possessions will finally go out of your family. So the king concluded to submit to the shame of his wife's dishonour and still keep her as his wife but he had now lost all interest in the crusade partly on account of his want of success in it and partly on account of his domestic troubles. So he left the holy land and took the queen and the ladies and the remnants of his troops back again to Paris. Here he and the queen lived very unhappily together for about two years. At the end of this time the queen became involved in new difficulties in consequence of her intrigues. The time had passed away so rapidly that it was now 13 years since her marriage and she was about 28 years of age. Old enough one would think to have learned some discretion. After however amusing herself with various lovers she at length became a nomad of a young prince named Henry Plantagenet who afterward became Henry II of England and was the father of Richard the hero of this history. Henry was at this time Duke of Normandy. He came to visit the court of Louis in Paris and here after a short time Eleanor conceived the idea of being divorced from Louis in order to marry. Henry was a great deal younger than Eleanor who had been then only about 18 years of age but he was very agreeable in his person and manners and Queen Eleanor was quite charmed with him. It was not however to be expected that he should be so much charmed for her although she had been very beautiful she had now so far passed the period of her youth and had been subjected to so many exposures that the bloom of her early beauty was in a great measure gone. She was now nearly 30 years old having been married 12 or 13 years. She however made eager advances to Henry and finally gave him to understand that if he would consent to marry her she would obtain a divorce from King Louis and then endow him with all her dominions. Now there was a strong reason operating upon Henry's mind to accept this proposal. He claimed to be entitled to the crown of England. King Stephen was at this time reigning in England but Henry maintained that he was an usurper and he was eager to dispossess him. Eleanor represented to Henry that with all the forces of her dominions she could easily enable him to do that and so at length the idea of making himself a king overcame his natural repugnance to take her wife almost twice as old as him and she too the divorced and discarded wife of another man. And so he agreed to take Eleanor's proposal and measures were soon taken to effect the divorce. There is some dispute amongst the ancient historians in respect to this divorce. Some say that it was a king that originated it and that the cause which he alleged was the freedom of the queen in her love for other men and that Eleanor when she found that the divorce was resolved upon formed the plan of the garling Henry and married with her to save her fall. Others say that the divorce was her plan alone and that the pretext for it was the relationship that existed between her and King Louis for they were in some degree related to each other and the rules of the Church of Rome were very strict against such marriages. It's not improbable however that the real reason of the divorce was the king decided on the count of his wife's loose and irregular character while Eleanor wished for it in order to have a more agreeable husband. She never had liked Louis. He was a very grave and even gloomy man who thought of nothing but the church and his penises and prayers so that Eleanor said he was more of a monk than a king. This monkish turn of mine had increased upon the king since his return from the Crusades. He made it a matter of conscience coarse and plain clothes instead of dressing handsomely like a king and he cut off the curls of his hair which had been very beautiful and shaved his head and mustache. This procedure disgusted Eleanor completely. She despised her husband herself and ridiculed him to others saying that he had made himself look like an old priest. In a word all her love for him was entirely gone. Both parties being thus very willing to have the marriage annulled they agreed to put it on the ground of their relationship in order to avoid a scandal. At any rate the marriage was dissolved and Eleanor set out from Paris to return to Bordeaux the capital of her own country. Henry was to meet her on the way who rode lay along the banks of the Loire. Here she stopped for a day or two. The Count who ruled this province who was a very gay and handsome man offered his hand. He wished to add her dominions to his own. Eleanor refused him. The Count resolved not to take the refusal and at the sum pretext of the rather he detained her in his castle resolving to keep her there until he should consent. But Eleanor was not a woman to be conquered by such a method as this. She pretended to acquiesce in the detention and to be contented. But this was only to put the Count of his guard and then watching her opportunity she escaped from the castle in the night and getting into a boat which she had caused to be provided for the purpose she went down the river to the town of Tour which was some distance below and in the dominions of another sovereign. In going on from Tour towards her own home she encountered and narrowly escaped another danger. It seems that Geoffrey Plantagenet the brother of Henry whom she had engaged to marry conceived the design of seizing her and compelling her to marry him instead of his brother. It may seem strange that anyone should be so unprincipled and base as to attempts thus to circumvent his own brother and take away from him his intended wife but it was not a strange thing at all for the members of royal and princely families of those days to act in this manner towards each other. It was the usual and established condition of things among these families that the different members of them could be perpetually intriguing and maneuvering one against the other brother against sister husband against wife and father against son. In a vast number of instances these contentions broke out into open war and the wars thus waged between the nearest relatives were of the most desperate and merciless character. It was therefore a very moderate and inconsiderable deed of brotherly hostility on the part of Jeffrey to plan the seizure of his brother's intended wife in order to get possession of the dominions. The plan which he formed was to line wait for the boat which was to convey Eleonora down the river and cease her as she came by. She however avoided this snare by turning off into a branch of the river which came from the south. You will see the course of the river and the situation of this southern branch on the map. The branch which Eleonora followed not only took her away from the ambush which Jeffrey had laid for her but conducted her towards her own home where after meeting with various other adventures she arrived safely at last. Here Henry Plantagenet soon joined her and they were married. The marriage took place only six weeks after her divorce from her former husband. This was considered a very scandalous transaction throughout and Eleonora was now considered as having forfeit all claims to respectability of character. Still she was a great duchess in her own right and was now wife of the heir apparent of the English throne and so her character made little difference in the estimation in which she was held by the world. From the time of her first engagement with Henry the years had elapsed before all the proceedings in relation to the divorce had been completed so as to prepare the way for the marriage and now Eleonora was about 32 years of age while Henry was only 20. Henry seems to have felt no love for his wife. He had acceded to a proposal to marry him only in order to obtain assistance which the forces of her dominions might supply him in gaining possession of the English throne. Accordingly about a year after the marriage a military expedition was fitted out to proceed to England. The expedition consisted of 36 ships and a large force of fighting men. Henry landed in England at the head of this force and advanced against Stephen. The two princes fought for some time without any very decisive success on either side when at length they concluded to settle the quarrel by compromise. It was agreed that Stephen should continue to hold the crown as long as he lived and then that Henry should succeed him. When this arrangement had been made Henry returned to Normandy and then after two or three years he heard of Stephen's death. He then went immediately to England again and was universally acknowledged as king. Eleonora went with him as queen and very soon they were crowned Westminster with the greatest possible pomp and parade. And thus it was that Eleonora of Aquitaine the mother of Richard in the year 1154 became queen consort of England. End of chapter 1 Chapter 2 of King Richard I This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org King Richard I by Jacob Abbott Chapter 2 Richard's Early Life Almost all the early years of the life of our hero were spent in wars which were waged by the different members of his father's family against each other. These wars originated in the quarrels that arose between the sons to the family property and power. Henry had five sons of whom Richard was the third. He also had three daughters. The king held a great variety of possessions having inherited from his father and grandfather or received through his wife a number of distinct and independent realms. Thus he was Duke of one country Earl of another King of a third King of a fourth. England was his kingdom Normandy was his great duke and he held besides various other realms. He was a generous father and he began early by conveying some of these provinces to his sons but they were not contented with the portions that he voluntarily assigned them. They called for more. Sometimes the father yielded to these unreasonable demands of war grasping them before and at length the father would resist. Then came the rebellions and the leagues formed by the sons against the father and the mustering of armies and battles and sieges. The mother generally took part with the sons in these unnatural contests and in the course of them the most revolting spectacles were presented to the eyes of the world of towns belonging to a father sacked and burned by the sons or castles beleaguered and the garrisons reduced to famine in which a husband was defending himself against the forces of his wife or a sister against those of a brother. Richard himself who seemed to have been the most desperate and reckless of the family began to take an active part in these rebellions against his father when he was only 17 years old. These wars continued with various temporary interruptions for many years and whenever at any time a brief peace was made between the sons and the father, then the young men would usually fall into quarrelling amongst themselves. Indeed Henry, the oldest of them said that the only possible bond of peace between the brothers seemed to be a common war against their father. Nor did the king live on much better terms with his wife than he did with his children. At the time of Illinois' marriage with Henry her prospects were bright indeed. People of England notwithstanding the evil reports that were spread in respect to her character received her as their queen with much enthusiasm and on the occasion of her coronation they made a great deal of parade to celebrate the event. Her appearance at that time attracted unusual attention. This is partly on account of her personal attractions and on account of her dress. The style of her dress was quite oriental. She had brought home with her from Antioch a great many eastern fashions and many elegant articles of dress such as mantles of silk and brocade, scarfs, curled girdles and bands and beautiful veils such as a worn at the east. These dresses were made at Constantinople and when displayed by the queen in London they received a great deal of admiration. We can see precisely how the queen looked in these dresses by means of illuminated portraits of her contained in the books written at that time. It was accustomed in those days in writing books the work of which was all executed by hand to embellish them with what were called illuminations. These were small paintings inserted here and there upon the page distinguished personages named in the writing. These portraits were painted in very brilliant colours and there are several still remaining that show precisely how Eleonora appeared in one of her oriental dresses. She wears a close headdress with a circlet of gems over it. There is a gown made with tight sleeves and fastened with the full gathers just below the throat where it is confined by a rich collar of gems. Over this is an elegant outer robe bordered with fur. The sleeves of the outer robe are very full and loose and aligned with ermine. They open so as to show the close sleeves beneath. Overall is a long and beautiful gore's veil. The dress of the king was very rich and gorgeous too and so indeed was that of all the ecclesiastics and other dignitaries that took part in the celebration. All London was filled with festivity and rejoicing on the occasion and the queen's heart overflowed with pride and joy. After the coronation the king conducted Eleonora to a beautiful country residence called Bermondsey which was a short distance from London toward the south. Here there was a palace and gardens and beautiful grounds. The palace is on an elevation which commanded a fine view of the capital. Here the queen lived in royal state. She had however other palaces beside and she often went to and fro among her different residences. She contrived a great many entertainments to mute her, such as comedies, games, revels and celebrations of all sorts. The king joined with her in these schemes of pleasure. One of the historians of the time gives a curious account of the appearance of the king and the court in their excursions. When the king sets out of a morning you see multitudes of people running up and down as if they were distracted. Horses rushing against horses, carriages overturning carriages, players, gamesters, cooks, confectioners, more restances, barbers, courtesans and parasites. Making so much noise and, in a word, such an intolerable, tumultuous jumble of horse and foot that you can imagine the great abyss hath opened and poured forth all its inhabitants. It was about three years after Eleanor was crowned Queen of England that Richard was born. At the time of his birth the queen was residing at the palace in Oxford. The palace had gone pretty much to ruin. The building is now used in part as a workhouse. The room where Richard was born is ruthless and uninhabitable. Nothing even of the interior of it remains except some traces of the fireplace. The room, however, though thus completely gone to ruin, is a place of considerable interest to the English people who visit it in great numbers in order that they may see the place where the great hero was born. For desperate and reckless as Richard's character was, the people of England are quite proud of him on account of his undaunted bravery. It is very curious that the first important event of Richard's childhood was his marriage. He was married when he was about four years old. That is, he was regularly and formally affianced and a ceremony which might be called the marriage ceremony was duly performed. His bride was a young child of Louis King of France. The child was about three years old. Her name was Ellis. This marriage was the result of a sort of bargain between Henry, Richard's father and Louis, the French King. They had had a fierce dispute about the portion of another of Louis' children that had been married in the same way to one of Richard's brothers, named Henry. The English King complained that the dowry was not sufficient and the French King after a long discussion agreed to make it up by giving another province with his daughter Ellis to Richard. The reason that induced the King of England to affect these marriages was that the provinces that were bestowed with their infant wives as their dowries came into his hands as the guardian of their husbands while they were minors and thus extended as it were his own dominions. At the time the realms of King Henry had become very extensive. He inherited Normandy you recollect from his ancestors and he was in possession of that country before he became King of England. When he was married to Eleonora he acquired through her a large addition to his territory by becoming jointly with her the sovereign of her realms in the south of France. Then when he became King of England his power was still more extended and finally by the marriages of his sons the young princes he received other provinces besides though of course he held these last only as the guardian of his children. Now in governing these various realms the King was accustomed to leave his wife and his sons in different portions of them to rule them in his absence they still under his command they each maintained a sort of court in the city where their father left them but they were expected to govern the several portions of the country in strict subjection to their father's general control. The boys however as they grew older became more and more independent in feeling and the Queen being a great deal older than her husband and having been before her marriage a sovereign in her own right was disposed to be very little submissive to his authority. It was under these circumstances that the family quarrels arose that led to the wars spoken of at the beginning of the chapter. Richard himself as was there stated began to raise rebellions against his father when he was about 17 years old. Whenever in the course of these wars the young men found themselves worsted in their contests with their father's troops was to fly to Paris in order to get King Louis to aid them. This Louis was always willing to do for he took great pleasure in the dissensions which were thus continually breaking out in Henry's family. Beside these wars King Eleonora had one great and bitter source of trouble in a guilty attachment which her husband cherished for a more beautiful lady more nearly his own age than his wife was. Her name was Rosamond. She is known in history as Fair Rosamond. A full account of her will be given in the next chapter. All that is necessary to state here is that Queen Eleonora was made very wretched by her husband's love for Rosamond though she scarcely had any right to complain for she had as it would seem done all in her power to alienate the affections of her husband self by the levity of her conduct and by her bold and independent behaviour in all respects. At last at one time while she was at Bordeaux the capital of her realm in Aquitaine she heard rumours that the king was intending to obtain a divorce from her in order that he might openly marry Rosamond and she was determined to go back to her former husband Louis of France. The country however was full of castles which were garrisoned by Henry's troops and she was afraid that they would prevent her going if they knew of her intention so she contrived a plan of disguising herself in man's clothes and undertook to make her escape in that way. She succeeded in getting away from Bordeaux but her flight was soon discovered and the officers of the garrison immediately set off a party to pursue her. The pursuers overtook her before she had gone far and brought her back. They treated her quite roughly and kept her prisoner in Bordeaux until her husband came. When Henry arrived he was quite angry with the queen for having thus undertaken to go back to her former husband whom he considered as his greatest rival and enemy and he determined that she should have no opportunity to make another such attempt so he kept a very strict watch over her and subjected her to some restraint that she considered herself a prisoner. The king had a quarrel also at this time with one of his daughters in law and he made her a prisoner too. Soon after this he went back to England taking these two captives in his train. In a short time he sent the queen to a certain palace which he had in Winchester and there he kept her confined for sixteen years. It was during this period of their mother's captivity that the wars between the father and his sons waged most fiercely. At length in the year 1182 in the midst of one of the most violent wars that had raged between the king and his sons a message came to the king that his son Henry was very dangerously sick and that he wished his father to come and see him. The king was greatly at a loss what to do on receiving this communication. His councillors advised him not to go. It was only a strategy they said on the part of the young prince to get his father into his camp and so take him prisoner. So the king concluded not to go. He had however some misgivings that his son might be really sick and accordingly dispatched an archbishop to him with a ring which he said he sent to him as a token of his forgiveness and of his paternal affection. Very soon however a second messenger came to the king to say that Prince Henry had died. These sad tidings overwhelmed the heart of the king with the most poignant grief. He had once forgot all the undutiful and disobedient conduct of his son and remembered him only as his dearly beloved child. He became almost broken hearted. The prince himself on his deathbed was born down with remorse and anguish in thinking of the crimes that he had committed against his father. He longed to have his father come and see him before he died. The ring which the archbishop was sent to bring to him arrived just in time and the prince pressed it to his lips and blessed it with tears of frantic grief. As the hour of death approached his remorse became dreadful. All the attempts made by the priests around his bed to soothe and quiet him were unavailing and at last his agony became so great that he compelled them to put a rope around him and drag him from his bed to a heap of ashes placed for the purpose in his room that he might die there. A heap of ashes, he said, was the only fit place for such a reprobate as he had been. So will it be with all undutiful children when on their deathbeds they reflect on their disobedient and rebellious conduct toward the father and the mother of the king? It is remarkable how great an effect a death in a family produces in reconciling those who before had been at enmity with each other. There are many husbands and wives who greatly disagree with each other in times of health and prosperity but who are reconciled and made to love each other by adversity and sorrow. Such was the effect produced upon the minds of Henry and Eleonora by the death of their son there. They were both overwhelmed with grief for the affection which a parent bears to a child is never wholly extinguished however undutiful and rebellious a child may be and the grief which the two parents now felt in common brought them to a reconciliation. The king seemed disposed to forgive the queen for the offenses were the real or imaginary which he had committed against him. Now that our dear son is dead and gone he said let us no longer quarrel with each other so he liberated the queen from the restraint which he had imposed upon her and restored her once more to her rank as an English queen. This state of things continued for about a year and then the old spirit of animosity and contention burned up once more as fiercely as ever. The king shut up Eleonora again and a violent quarrel broke out between the king and his son Richard. The cause of this quarrel was connected with the Princess Alice to whom it will be recollected Richard had been betrothed in his infancy. Richard claimed now since he was of age his wife ought to be given to him but his father kept her away and would not allow the marriage to be consummated. The king made various excuses and pretexts for the delay some thought that the real reason was that he wished to continue his guardianship and his possession of the dower as long as possible but Richard thought his father was in love with Alice himself and that he did not intend that he, Richard should have her at all. This difficulty led to new quarrels in which the king and Richard became more exasperated with each other than ever. This state of things continued until Richard was 34 years old and his bride was 30. Richard was so far bound to her that he could not marry any other lady and his father obstinately persisted in preventing his completing the marriage with her. In the meantime Prince Geoffrey another of the king's sons came to a miserable end. He was killed in a tournament. He was riding furiously in the tournament in the midst of a great number of other horsemen when he was unfortunately thrown from his steed and trodden to death on the ground by the hoofs of the other horses that were galloped over him. The only two sons that were left now were Richard and John. Of these Richard was the oldest and he was of course his father's heir. King Henry however formed a plan for dividing his dominions between his two sons instead of allowing Richard to inherit the whole. John was his youngest son and as such the king loved him tenderly. So he conceived the idea of leaving to Richard all his possessions in France which constituted the most important part of his dominions and of bestowing the kingdom of England upon John and in order to make sure of the carrying of this arrangement into effect he proposed crowning John king of England forthwith. Richard however came to resist this plan. The former king of France Louis VII was now dead and his son Philip II the brother of Alice reigned in his steed. Richard immediately set off for Paris and laid his case before the young French king. I am engaged he said to your sister Alice and my father will not give her to me. Help me to maintain my rights and hers. Philip like his father was always in his power to foment dissension in the family of Henry. So he readily took Richard's part in the new quarrel and he somehow or other contrived means to induce John to come and join in the rebellion. King Henry was overwhelmed with grief when he learned that John his youngest and now dearest child and the last that remained had abandoned him. His grief was mingled with resentment and rage. He lost his children's heads and he caused the device to be painted for John and sent to him representing a young eaglet picking out the parent's eagles eyes. This was to typify him his own undutiful and unnatural behaviour. Thus the domestic life which Richard led while he was a young man was embedded by the continual quarrels between the father, the mother and the children. The greatest source of sorrow to his mother however in which subsisted between the king and the lady Rosamond. The nature and the results of this connection will be explained in the next chapter. End of chapter 2 Chapter 3 of King Richard I This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org King Richard I by Jacob Abbott Chapter 3 Fair Rosamond During his lifetime King Henry did everything in his power of course to keep the circumstances of his connection with Rosamond a profound secret and to mislead people as much as possible in regard to her. After his death too it was for the interest of his family that as little as possible Rosamond respecting her. Thus it happened that in the absence of all authentic information a great many strange rumors and legends were put in circulation and at length when the history of those times came to be written it was impossible to separate the false from the true. The truth however so far as it can now be as attained seems to be something like this Rosamond was the daughter of an English nobleman named Clifford. Lord Clifford lived in a fine old castle situated in the valley of the Y in her most romantic and beautiful situation. The river Y is in the western part of England it flows out from among the mountains of Wales through a wild and romantic gorge which after passing the English frontier expands into a broad and fertile and most beautiful valley. The castle of Lord Clifford was built at the opening of the gorge and it commanded an enchanting view of the valley below. It was here that Rosamond spent her childhood and here probably that Henry first met her while he was yet a young man. She was extremely beautiful and Henry fell very deeply in love with her. This was while they were both very young and sometime before Henry thought of Eleonora for his wife. There is some reason to believe that Henry was really married to Rosamond though if so the marriage was a private one and the existence of it was kept a profound secret from all the world. The real and public marriages of kings and princes are almost always determined by reasons of state so Eleonora went to Paris and saw Eleonora there and found moreover that she was willing to marry him and to bring him as her dowry all her possessions in France which would so greatly extend his dominions he determined to accede to her desires and to keep his connection with Rosamond whatever the nature of it might have been a profound secret forever. So he married Eleonora and brought her to England however as has already been described in the various palaces which belong to him sometimes in one and sometimes in another. Among these palaces one of the most beautiful was that of Woodstock. The engravings on the opposite page represents the buildings of the palace as they appeared some hundreds of years later than the time when Rosamond lived. In the days of Henry and Rosamond the palace of Woodstock was surrounded with very extensive and beautiful gardens and grounds. Somewhere upon these grounds the story was that Henry kept Rosamond in a concealed cottage. The entrance to the cottage was hidden in the depths of an almost impenetrable thicket and could only be approached through a tortuous and intricate path which led this way and that by an infinite number of turns forming a sort of maze made purposely to bewilder those attempting to pass in and out. Such a place was often made in those days in palace grounds as a sort of ornament or rather as an amusing contrivance to interest the guests coming to visit the proprietor. It was called a labyrinth. A great many plans of labyrinths have been found delineated in ancient books. The paths were not only also arranged as to twist and turn in every imaginable direction but at every turn there were several branches made so precisely alike that there was nothing to distinguish one from the other. Of course one of these roads was the right one and led to the centre of the labyrinth where there was a house or a pretty seat with a view or a garden or a shady bower or some other object of attraction to reward those who should succeed in getting in. The other paths led nowhere or rather they led on through various devious windings in all respects similar to those of the true path until at length they came to a sudden stop and the explorer was obliged to return. The paths were separated from each other by dense hedges of thorn or by high walls so that it was impossible to pass from one to another except by walking regularly along. It was in a house entered through such a labyrinth as this that Rosamond is said to have lived on the grounds of the palace of Woodstock while Eleonora as the avowed wife and queen of King Henry occupied the palace itself. Of course the fact that such a lady was hidden on the grounds was kept a profound secret from the queen. If this story is true there were probably other labyrinths on the grounds and this one was so surrounded with trees and hedges which connected it by insensible gradations with the groves and the thickets of the park that there was nothing to attract attention to it particularly and thus a lady might have remained concealed in it for some time without awakening suspicion. At any rate Rosamond did remain, it is supposed for a year or two concealed thus until at length the queen discovered the secret. The story is that the king found his way in and out of the labyrinth by means of a clue of floss silk and that the queen one day when riding with the king in the park observed this clue a part of which had in some way or other become attached to his spur. She said nothing but watching a private opportunity she followed the clue. She headed by a very intricate path into the heart of the labyrinth there the queen found a curiously contrived door. The door was almost wholly concealed from view but the queen discovered it and opened it. She found that it led into a subterranean passage. The interest and curiosity of the queen were now excited more than ever and she determined that the mystery should be solved. So she followed the passage led by it to a place beyond the wall of the grounds where there was a house in a very secluded spot surrounded by thickets. Here the queen found Rosamond sitting in a bow and engaged in embroidering. She was now in a great rage both against Rosamond and against her husband. It was generally said that she poisoned Rosamond. The story was that she took a cup of poison with her and a dagger and presenting them both to Rosamond compelled her to choose between them and that Rosamond chose the poison and drinking it died. This story however was not true for it is now known that Rosamond lived many years after this time though she was separated from the king. It is thought that her connection with the king continued for about two years after he was married with Eleonora. It may be that she did not know before that time that the king was married she may have supposed that she was herself his lawful wife as indeed it is possible that she may have actually been so. At any rate soon after she and Eleonora became acquainted with each other's existence Rosamond retired to a convent and lived there in complete seclusion all the rest of her days. The name of this convent was Godstow. It was situated near Oxford. Rosamond became a great favour with the nuns while she remained at the convent which was nearly twenty years. During this time the king made many donations to the convent for Rosamond's sake and the jealousy of the queen against her beautiful rival of course continued unabated. It was indeed this difficulty in respect to Rosamond that was one of the chief causes of the domestic trouble which always existed between Henry and the queen. The world at large have always been most disposed to sympathise with Rosamond in this quarrel. She was nearly of the king's own age and his attachment to her rose doubtless from sincere affection whereas the queen was greatly his senior and had inveigled him into a marriage with her through motives of the most mercenary character. Then moreover, Rosamond either was, or was supposed to be a lady of great gentleness and loveliness of spirit. She was very kind to the poor and while in the convent she was very assiduously devoted to her religious duties. Eleonora on the other hand was a very unprincipled and heartless woman and she had been so loose and free in her own manner of living too that nobody said and believed that it was with a very ill grace that she could find any fault with her husband. Thus under the circumstances of the case the world has always been most inclined to sympathise with Rosamond rather than with the queen. The question which we ought to sympathise with depends upon which was really the wife of Henry. He may have been truly married to Rosamond, or at least some ceremony may have been performed which she honestly considered as marriage. If so she was innocent and Henry was guilty of having virtually repudiated this marriage in order to connect himself with Eleonora for the sake of her kingdom. On the other hand if she were not married to Henry but used her arts to entice him away from his true wife then she was deeply in fault. It's very difficult now to ascertain which of these suppositions is the correct one. In either case Henry himself was guilty toward the one or the other of treacherously violating his marriage vows the most solemn vows in some respects that a man can ever assume. Rosamond had two children named William and Jeffrey and at one time in the course of his life Henry seemed to acknowledge that they were his only two children thus admitting the validity of his marriage with Rosamond. This admission was contained in an expression which he used in addressing William on a field of battle when he came toward him at the head of his troop. William he said you are my true and legitimate son the rest are nobodies. He may it is true have only intended to speak figuratively in saying this meaning that William was the only one worthy to be considered as his son or it may be that it was an inadvertent and hasty acknowledgement that Rosamond and not Eleanor was his true wife. As time rolled on however and the political arrangements are rising out of the marriage with Eleonora and the appointment of her sons to higher positions in the state became more and more extended the difficulties which the invalidation of the marriage with Eleonora would produce became very great and immense interests were involved in sustaining it. Rosamond's rights therefore if she had any were wholly overborn and she was allowed to linger and die in her nunnery as a private person. When at length she died the nuns who had become greatly attached to her caused her to be interred in an honourable manner in the chapel. But afterwards the bishop of the diocese ordered the remains to be removed. He considered Rosamond as having never been married to the king and he said that she was not a proper person to be the subject of monumental honours in the chapel of a society of nuns. So he sent the remains away and ordered them to be interred in the common burying ground. If Rosamond was what he is supposed to be and if he removed the remains in a proper and respectful manner he was right in doing what he did. His motive may have been however merely a desire to please the authorities of his time who represented of course the heirs of Eleonora by sealing the stamp of condemnation on the character and position of her rival. But though the authorities may have been pleased with the bishop's procedure the nuns were not at all satisfied. They not only felt a strong personal affection for Rosamond but as a sisterhood they felt grateful to her memory on account of the many benefactions which the convent had received from Henry on account of her residence there. So they seized the first opportunity to take up the remains again which consisted now of dry bones alone and after perfuming them and enclosing them again in a new coffin they deposited them once more under the pavement of the chapel and later slab with a suitable inscription over the spot to mark the place of the grave. The house where Rosamond was concealed at Woodstock was regarded afterwards with great interest and there was a chamber in it that was for a long time known as Rosamond's chamber. There remains a letter of one of the kings of England written about a hundred years after this time in which the king gives directions to have this house repaired and particularly to have the chamber restored to a perfect condition. His orders are that the house beyond the gate in the new wall be built again and that the same chamber called Rosamond's chamber be restored as before and crystal plates that is glass for the windows and marble and lead be provided for it. From that day to this the story of Rosamond has been regarded as one of the most interesting incidents of English history. End of chapter 3 Chapter 4 of King Richard I This is a Libra Rocks recording all Libra Rocks recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibraVox.org King Richard I by Jacob Abbott Chapter 4 The Excession of Richard to the Throne Richard was called to the throne when he was about 32 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 out-generaled 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 natural 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 melodictions 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 a conference by themselves. The meeting was interrupted by a thunderstorm. At first the kings did not intend to pay any heed to the storm but to go on with the 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 but 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 bolts 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 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 upon his sick bed he asked when they came to this one to see the list of 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 Richard 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 the love of whom I have drawn down on my own head all these troubles has verily betrayed me they told him that it was even so. Then he said falling back helplessly on his bed then let everything go as it will I care no longer for myself or for anything else in this world. All this took place in Normandy for it was in Normandy that had been the chief scene of the war between 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 him now to be carried there in order to seek repose. 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 attendance from time to time hurt him moaning in his anguish. 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 implications. 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 Godfrey Clifford the son of Rosamond whom 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 she 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 the 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 everything 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 Abbey Fountainwright the ancient burial place of the Norman princes. Arrived at the abbey the body was laid out upon the beer 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 scaling 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 it once to England and ordered that his mother should be released from her imprisonment and requested her with power to act as regent there until he should come. In the meantime 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 claim to that kingdom. On the continent the case was different. His neighbour 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 honour. Eleonora 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 seemed exerted a very favourable 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. Eleonora was queen regent in England for two months and during that time she employed her power to fight in a very beneficial 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 towards 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 which she had been the cause. She bitterly repented of the hostility that she had shown towards her husband and of the countless wrongs that she had inflicted upon him. While he was alive she dazed 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 arms 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 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 had loved fighting for its own sake and in as much as now since his father was dead and he claimed 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 organising a grand expedition to go to the Holy Land and fight the Saracens. John was very much pleased with this idea. As Richard goes to Palestine he said to himself 10 to 1 he will get killed and then I shall be King of England. So John was ready to do everything in his power to favour 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 the large supplies of food. Then the princes and the barons and knights who would accompany the expeditions required very expensive armour and costly trappings and equipments of all sorts. For though the pretence 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 the love of glory and display. Thus it happened that the expense which a sovereign incurred in fitting out a crusade was enormous. Accordingly 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 beside this there were stores of plate, of jewellery 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 hole 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 he thought to himself would join anybody else if they thought they could game 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 the great many cases analogous to this have occurred in English history sons have often made themselves the centre and sole of all the opposition in the realm against their father's government and having 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 former friends for the crime of having aided him in his undutiful behaviour End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of King Richard I This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org King Richard I by Jacob Abbott Chapter 5 The Coronation It was now time that the coronation should take place and arrangements were accordingly made for performing this ceremony with great magnificence in Westminster Abbey The day of the ceremony acquired a dreadful celebrity in history in consequence of a great massacre of the Jews which resulted from an insurrection in Riot that broke out in Westminster and London immediately after the crowning of the King The Jews had been hated and appalled by all the Christian nations of Europe for many ages Since they were not believers in Christianity they were considered as little better than infidels and heathen and the government that oppressed and persecuted them the most was considered as doing the greatest service to the cause of religion One very curious result followed from the legal disabilities that the Jews were under They could not own land and they were restricted also very much in respect to nearly all avocations open to other men They consequently learned gradually to become dealers in money and in jewels this being almost the only reputable calling that was left open to them There was another great advantage too for them in dealing in property of this kind and that was that comprising as such property does great value in small bulk It could easily be concealed and removed from place to place whenever it was especially endangered by the edicts of governments or the hostility of enemies From these and similar reasons the Jews became the bankers and money lenders and they are this day the richest bankers and greatest money lenders in the world The most powerful emperors and kings often depend upon them the supplies that they require to carry on their great undertakings or to defray the expenses of their wars The Jews had gradually increased in numbers and influence in France until the time of the accession of Philip and then he determined to extricate them from the realm So he issued an edict by which they were all banished from the kingdom Their property was confiscated and every person that owed their money was released from all obligation to pay them Of course a great many of their dears would pay them, notwithstanding this relief, from the influence of that natural sense of justice which in all nations and in all ages has a very great control in human hearts Still there were others who would of course avail themselves of this opportunity to defraud their creditors of what was justly their due and being engaged too, at the same time to fly precipitously from the country in consequence of the decree of the banishment The poor Jews were reduced to a state of extreme distress Now the Jews of England when Henry died and Richard succeeded him began to be afraid that the new king would follow Philip's example and in order to prevent this and to conciliate Richard's favour they determined to send a delegation to him at Westminster at the time of his coronation with rich presence which had been procured by contributions made by the wealthy Accordingly on the day of the coronation when the great crowds of people assembled at Westminster that to honour the occasions these Jews came among them The ceremony of the coronation was performed in the following manner The king in entering the church and proceeding up towards the high altar walked upon a rich cloth laid down for him which had been dyed with the famous Tyrion purple Over his head was a beautifully wrought canopy of silk supported by four long lances These lances were born by four great barons of the realm A great nobleman the Earl of Abomale bore the crown and walked with it before the king at the altar When the Earl reached the altar he placed the crown upon it The archbishop of Canterbury stood before the altar to receive the king as he approached and then administered the usual oath to him The oath was in three parts One that all the days of his life he would bear peace, honour and reverence to God and the holy church into all the ordinances thereof that he would exercise right justice and law on the people unto him committed three that he would abrogate wicked laws and perverse customs if any such should be brought into his kingdom and that he should enact good laws and the same in good faith keep without mental reservation Having taken this oath the king removed his upper garment and put golden sandals upon his feet and then was anointed by the archbishop with the holy oil on his head, breast and shoulders The oil was poured from a rich vessel called an ampoule The anointing having been performed the king received various articles of royal dress and decoration from the hands of the great nobles around him who officiated as servitors on the occasion and with their assistance put them on When thus robed and adorned he advanced up the steps of the altar As he went up the archbishop addued him in the name of the living god not to assume the crown unless he was fully resolved to keep the oaths that he had sworn Richard again solemnly called God to witness that he would faithfully keep them and then advancing to the altar he took the crown and put it into the hands of the archbishop who then placed it upon his head and thus the coronation ceremony was completed The people who had presents for the king now approached and offered them to him Among them came the Jews Their presents were very rich and valuable and the king received them very gladly although in announcing the arrangements for the ceremony he had declared that no Jew and no woman was to be allowed to be present Notwithstanding this prohibition the Jewish deputation had come in and offered their presents among the rest There was however a great murmuring among the crowd in respect to them and a great desire to drive them out This crowd consisted chiefly of course of barons, earls, knights and other great dignitaries of the realm for very few of the lower ranks would be admitted to see the ceremony and these people in addition to the usual religious prejudice against the Jews had many of them been exasperated against the bankers and money lenders on account of the difficulties that they had had with them in relation to money that they had borrowed and to the high interest which they had been compelled to pay Some wise observer of the working of human passions has said that men always hate more or less those to whom they owe money This is a reason why there should certainly be very few pecuniary transactions between friends At length as one of the Jews who was outside was attempting to go in a bystander at the gate tried out, here comes a Jew and struck at him This excited the passions of the rest and they struck and pushed the poor Jew in order to drive him back and at the same time a general outcry against the Jews and spread into the interior of the hall The people there glad of the opportunity afforded them by the excitement began to assault the Jews and drive them out and as they came out the door beaten and bruised a rumour was raised that they had been expelled by the king's order This rumour as it spread through the streets was soon changed into a report that the king had ordered all the unbelievers to be destroyed and so whenever a Jew was found in the street a riot was raised about him he was assaulted with sticks and stones cruelly beaten and if he was not killed he is driven to seek refuge in his home wounded and bleeding In the meantime the news that the king had ordered all Jews to be killed spread rapidly over the town and in the evening crowds collected and after murdering all the Jews that they could find in the streets they gathered round their houses and finally broke into them and killed the inhabitants In some cases where the houses were strong the Jews barricaded the doors and the mob could not get in In such cases they brought combustibles and piled them up before the windows and the doors and then setting them on fire they burned the house to the ground and men, women and children were consumed together in the flames If any of the unhappy wretched burning in these fires attempted to escape by leaping from the windows the mob below held up spears and lances for them to fall upon There were so many of these fires in the course of the night that the whole sky was illuminated and at one time there was danger that the flames would spread so as to produce a general conflagration Indeed, as the night passed on the excitement became more and more violent until at length the streets in all the quarters where Jews resided were filled with the shouts of the mob raving in demoniacal frenzy and with the screams of the terrified and dying sufferers and the crackling of the lurid flames in which they were burning The king in the meantime was carousing with his lords and barons in the great banqueting hall at Westminster and for a time took no notice of these disturbances He seemed to consider them as a very little moment At length however in the course of the night he sent an officer and a few men to suppress the riot but it was too late the mob paid no heed to the remonstrances which came from the leader of so small a force but on the other hand threatened to kill the soldiers too they did not go away so the officer returned to the king and the riot went on under served until about two o'clock of the next day when it gradually ceased from the mere weariness and exhaustion of the people A few of the men who had been engaged in this riot were afterward brought to trial and three were hung not for murdering Jews but for burning some Christian houses which either by mistake or accident took fire in the confusion and were burned with the rest This was all that was ever done to punish this dreadful crime In justice to King Richard however it must be stated that he issued an edict after this forbidding that the Jews should be injured or maltreated anymore He took the whole people he said thenceforth under his special protection and all men were strictly forbidden to harm them personally or to molest them in the possession of their property and this was a terrible coronation scene which signalized the investiture of Richard with the crown and the royal robes of England End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of King Richard I This is a LibriVox recording while LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org King Richard I by Jacob Abbott Chapter 6 Preparations for the Crusade At the time of his accession to the throne Richard, as has already been remarked was about 32 years of age On the following page you have a portrait of him with the crown upon his head This portrait is taken from a sculpture on his tomb and is undoubtedly a good representation of him as he appeared when he was alive The first thing that Richard turned his attention to when he found himself securely seated on his throne was the preparation for a Crusade It had been the height of his ambition for a long time to lead a Crusade It was undoubtedly through the influence of his mother and of her early conversations with him that he imbibed his extraordinary eagerness to seek adventures in the Holy Land She had been a Crusader herself during her first marriage as has already been related in this volume and she had undoubtedly in Richard's early life entertained him with a thousand stories of what she had seen and of the romantic adventures which she had met with there These stories and the various conversations which arose out of them kindled Richard's youthful imagination with ardent desires to go and distinguish himself on the same field These desires had been greatly increased as Richard grew up to manhood by observing the exalted military glory to which successful Crusaders attained And then beside this Richard was endured with a sort of reckless and lion-like courage which led him to look upon danger as a sport and made him long for a field where there were plenty of enemies to fight and enemies so abhorred by the whole Christian world that he could indulge in the excitement of hatred and rage against them without any restraint whatever He could there satiate himself too with the luxury of killing men without any misgiving of conscience or at least without any condemnation on the part of his fellow men for it was understood throughout Christendom that the crimes committed against the Saracens in the Holy Land were committed in the name of Christ What a strange delusion to think of honouring the memory of the meek and lowly Jesus by utterly disregarding his peaceful precepts and his loving and gentle example and going forth in thousands to the work of murder, rapine and devastation in order to get possession of his tomb In preparing for the Crusade the first and most important thing to in Richard's view was the raising of money A great deal of money would be required as has already been intimated to fit out the expedition on the magnificent scale which Richard intended There was a fleet of ships to be built and equipped and stores of provisions to be put on board There were armies to be levied and paid and immense expenses were to be incurred in the manufacture of arms and ammunition The armour and the arms used in those days especially those worn by knights and noblemen and the comparisons of the horses were extremely costly The armour was fashioned with great labour and skill out of plates or rings of steel and the helmets and the bucklers and the swords and all the military trappings of the horses and the horsemen being fashioned altogether by hand required great labour and skill in the artisan who made them and then moreover it was customary to decorate them very profusely with embroidery and gold and gems At the present day men display their wealth in the costliness of their houses and the gorgeousness and luxury of the furniture which they contain It is not considered in good taste except for ladies to make a display of wealth upon the person In those days however the reverse was the case The knights and barons lived in the rudest stone castles dark and frowning without and meagrely furnished and comfortless within while all the means of display which the owners possessed were lavished in arming and decorating themselves and their horses magnificently for the field of battle For all these things Richard knew that he should acquire a large sum of money and he proceeded at once to carry into effect the most wasteful and reckless measures for obtaining it His father, Henry II had in various ways acquired a great many estates in different parts of the kingdom which estates he had added to the royal domains These Richard at once proceeded to sell to whom so ever would give the most for them In this manner he posed of a great number of castles fortresses and towns so as greatly to diminish the value of the crown property The purchasers of this property if they had not money enough of their own to pay for what they bought would borrow from the Jews Some of the king's councillors remonstrated with him against this wasteful policy but he replied that he needed the money so much for the crusade that if necessary he would sell the city of London itself to raise it if he could only find a man rich enough to be the purchaser After having raised as much money as he could by the sale of the royal lands the next resource to which Richard turned was the sale of public offices and titles of honour He looked about the country for wealthy men and he offered them several high offers on condition of their paying large sums into the treasury as a consideration for them He sold titles of nobility too in the same way If any man who was not rich held a higher important office he would find some pretext for removing him and then would offer the office for sale One of the historians of those times says that at this period Richard's presence chamber became a regular place of trade like the counting room of a merchant or an exchange where everything that could be derived from the bounty of the crown or bestowed by the royal prerogative was off to the sale in open market to the man who would give the best bargain for it Another of the modes which the king adopted for raising money and in some respects the worst of all was to impose fines as a punishment for crime and then in order to make the fines possible every imaginable pretext was resorted to to charge wealthy persons with offences with a view of exacting large sums from them as the penalty It was said that a great officer of state was charged with some offence and was put in prison and not released until he had paid a fine of £3,000 One of the worst of these cases was that of his half-brother Geoffrey, the son of Rosamond Geoffrey had been appointed Archbishop of York in accordance with the wish that his father Henry had expressed on his deathbed Richard pretended to be displeased with this Perhaps he wished to have that office to dispose of like the rest At any rate he exacted a very large sum from Geoffrey as a condition on which he would grant him his peace as he termed it and Geoffrey paid the money When by these and other similar means Richard had raised all that he could in England he prepared to cross the channel into Normandy in order to see what more he could do there Before he went out of there he had first to make arrangements for a regency to govern England while he should be away This is always accustomed in monarchical countries Whenever for any reason the true sovereign cannot personally exercise the supreme power whether from minority, insanity long continued sickness or protracted absence from the realm, a regency as it is called is created to govern the kingdom in his stead The person appointed to act as a regent is usually some near relation of the king Richard's brother John hoped to be made regent but this did not suit Richard's views He wished to make this office the means as all the others had been of raising money and John had no money to give For the same reason he could not appoint his mother who in other respects would have been a very suitable person So Richard contrived a sort of middle course He sold the nominal regency to two wealthy courtiers whom he associated together for the purpose One was a bishop and the other was an earl It may perhaps be too much to say that he directly sold them the office but at any rate he appointed them jointly to it and under the arrangement that was made he received a large sum of money He however stipulated that John and also his mother should have a large share of influence in deciding upon all the measures of government John would have been by no means satisfied with his divided and uncertain share of power were it not that he was so desirous of favouring the expedition in every possible way in hopes that if Richard could once get to the Holy Land he would soon perish there and that then he should be king altogether It was a comparatively little consequence who was regent in the meantime So he resolved to make no objection to any plan that the king might propose Richard was now ready to cross to Normandy but just before he went there came a deputation from Philip to consult with him in respect to the plans of the crusade and to fix upon the time for setting out The time proposed by Philip was the latter part of March It was now late in the fall It would not be safe to set out before March on account of the inclemency of the season and Richard supposed that he should have ample time to complete his preparations by the time that Philip named So both parties agreed to it and they took a solemn oath on both sides that they would all be ready without fail Soon after this Richard took leave of his friends and accompanied by a long retinue of earls, barons, knights and other adventurers who were to accompany him to the Holy Land and cross the channel to Normandy In such cases as this there are always a great many last words to be said and a great many last arrangements to be made and Richard found it necessary to see his mother and his brother John again before finally taking his departure from Europe So he sent for them to come to Normandy and there another great council of state was held at which everything in relation to the affairs of his dominions was finally arranged There was still one other danger to be guarded against and that was some treachery on the part of Philip himself So little reliance to these valiant champions of Christianity place in each other in those days that both Richard and Philip in joining together to form this expedition had many misgivings and suspicions in respect to each other's honesty Undoubtedly neither of them would have thought it safe to leave his dominions and go on a crusade unless the other had been going too The one left behind would have been sure to found some pretext during the absence of his neighbour to invade his dominions and plunder him of some of his possessions This was one reason why the two kings had agreed to go together and now as an additional safeguard they made a formal treaty alliance and fraternity in which they bound themselves by the most solemn oars to stand by each other and to be faithful and true to each other to the last They agreed that each would defend the life and honour of the other on all occasions that neither would desert the other in the hour of danger and that in respect to the dominions that they were respectively to leave behind them neither would form any designs against the other but that Philip would cherish and protect the rights of Richard even as he would protect his own city of Paris and that Richard would do the like by Philip even as he would protect his own city of Rouen It is curious circumstance that in this treaty Richard should name Rouen and not London as his principal capital It confirms what is known in many other ways that the kings of this line reigning over both Normandy and England considered Normandy as the chief centre of their power and England as subordinate It may be however that one reason why Rouen was named in this instance may have been because it was nearer to the dominions of the King of France and so better known to him This treaty was signed in February and the preparations were now nearly complete for setting forth on the expedition in March at the appointed time End of chapter 6