The History of England Part 24

But before this great machine could be put in motion, there were still many obstacles to surmount. Philip, jealous of Henry's power, entered into a private confederacy with young Richard; and, working on his ambitious and impatient temper, persuaded him, instead of supporting and aggrandizing that monarchy which he was one day to inherit, to seek present power and independence by disturbing and dismembering it.

[MN 1189. Revolt of Prince Richard.] In order to give a pretence for hostilities between the two kings, Richard broke into the territories of Raymond, Count of Toulouse, who immediately carried complaints of this violence before the King of France as his superior lord. Philip remonstrated with Henry; but received for answer, that Richard had confessed to the Archbishop of Dublin, that his enterprise against Raymond had been undertaken by the approbation of Philip himself, and was conducted by his authority. The King of France, who might have been covered with shame and confusion by this detection, still prosecuted his design, and invaded the provinces of Berri and Auvergne, under colour of revenging the quarrel of the Count of Toulouse [p]. Henry retaliated by making inroads upon the frontiers of France, and burning Dreux. As this war, which destroyed all hopes of success in the projected crusade, gave great scandal, the two kings held a conference at the accustomed place between Gisors and Trie, in order to find means of accommodating their differences: they separated on worse terms than before; and Philip, to show his disgust, ordered a great elm, under which the conferences had been usually held, to be cut down [q]; as if he had renounced all desire of accommodation, and was determined to carry the war to extremities against the King of England. But his own va.s.sals refused to serve under him in so invidious a cause [r]; and he was obliged to come anew to a conference with Henry, and to offer terms of peace. These terms were such as entirely opened the eyes of the King of England, and fully convinced him of the perfidy of his son, and his secret alliance with Philip, of which he had before only entertained some suspicion. The King of France required that Richard should be crowned King of England in the lifetime of his father, should be invested in all his transmarine dominions, and should immediately espouse Alice, Philip's sister, to whom he had formerly been affianced, and who had already been conducted into England [s]. Henry had experienced such fatal effects both from the crowning of his eldest son, and from that prince's alliance with the royal family of France, that he rejected these terms; and Richard, in consequence of his secret agreement with Philip, immediately revolted from him [t], did homage to the King of France for all the dominions which Henry held of that crown, and received the invest.i.tures as if he had already been the lawful possessor. Several historians a.s.sert, that Henry himself had become enamoured of young Alice and mention this as an additional reason for his refusing these conditions: but he had so many other just and equitable motives for his conduct, that it is superfluous to a.s.sign a cause, which the great prudence and advanced age of that monarch rendered somewhat improbable.

[FN [p] Bened. Abb. p. 508. [q] Bened. Abb. p. 517, 532. [r] Ibid.

p. 519. [s] Ibid. p. 521. Hoveden, p. 652. [t] Brompton, p. 114.

Neubrig. p. 437.]

Cardinal Albano, the pope's legate, displeased with these increasing obstacles to the crusade, excommunicated Richard, as the chief spring of discord: but the sentence of excommunication, which, when it was properly prepared, and was zealously supported by the clergy, had often great influence in that age, proved entirely ineffectual in the present case. The chief barons of Poictou, Guienne, Normandy, and Anjou, being attached to the young prince, and finding that he had now received the invest.i.ture from their superior lord, declared for him, and made inroads into the territories of such as still adhered to the king. Henry, disquieted by the daily revolts of his mutinous subjects, and dreading still worse effects from their turbulent disposition, had again recourse to papal authority; and engaged the Cardinal Anagni, who had succeeded Albano in the legateship, to threaten Philip with laying an interdict on all his dominions. But Philip, who was a prince of great vigour and capacity, despised the menace, and told Anagni, that it belonged not to the pope to interpose in the temporal disputes of princes, much less in those between him and his rebellious va.s.sal. He even proceeded so far as to reproach him with partiality, and with receiving bribes from the king of England [u]; while Richard, still more outrageous, offered to draw his sword against the legate, and was hindered by the interposition alone of the company from committing violence upon him [w].

[FN [u] M. Paris, p. 104. Bened. Abb. p. 542. Hoveden, p. 652. [w]

M. Paris, p. 104.]

The King of England was now obliged to defend his dominions by arms, and to engage in a war with France, and with his eldest son, a prince of great valour, on such disadvantageous terms. Ferte-Barnard fell first into the hands of the enemy: Mans was next taken by a.s.sault; and Henry, who had thrown himself into that place, escaped with some difficulty [x]: Amboise, Chaumont, and Chateau de Loire, opened their gates on the appearance of Philip and Richard: Tours was menaced; and the king, who had retired to Saumur, and had daily instances of the cowardice or infidelity of his governors, expected the most dismal issue to all his enterprises. While he was in this state of despondency, the Duke of Burgundy, the Earl of Flanders, and the Archbishop of Rheims, interposed with their good offices; and the intelligence which he received of the taking of Tours, and which made him fully sensible of the desperate situation of his affairs, so subdued his spirit that he submitted to all the rigorous terms which were imposed upon him. He agreed that Richard should marry the Princess Alice; that that prince should receive the homage and oath of fealty of all his subjects both in England and his transmarine dominions; that he himself should pay twenty thousand marks to the King of France as a compensation for the charges of the war; that his own barons should engage to make him observe this treaty by force, and in case of his violating it, should promise to join Philip and Richard against him; and that all his va.s.sals who had entered into confederacy with Richard, should receive an indemnity for the offence [y].

[FN [x] Ibid. p. 105. Bened. Abb. p. 543. Hoveden, p. 653. [y] M.

Paris, p. 106. Bened. Abb. p. 545. Hoveden, p. 653.]

But the mortification which Henry, who had been accustomed to give the law in most treaties, received from these disadvantageous terms, was the least that he met with on this occasion. When he demanded a list of those barons, to whom he was bound to grant a pardon for their connexions with Richard, he was astonished to find at the head of them the name of his second son John [z]; who had always been his favourite, whose interests he had ever anxiously at heart, and who had even, on account of his ascendant over him, often excited the jealousy of Richard [a]. The unhappy father, already overloaded with cares and sorrows, finding this last disappointment in his domestic tenderness, broke out into expressions of the utmost despair, cursed the day in which he received his miserable being, and bestowed on his ungrateful and undutiful children a malediction which he never could be prevailed on to retract [b]. The more his heart was disposed to friendship and affection, the more he resented the barbarous return which his four sons had successively made to his parental care; and this finishing blow, by depriving him of every comfort in life, quite broke his spirit and threw him into a lingering fever, of which he expired at the Castle of Chinon, near Saumur. [MN 1189. 6th July. Death,] His natural son Geoffrey, who alone had behaved dutifully towards him, attended his corpse to the nunnery of Fontevrault; where it lay in state in the abbey church. Next day Richard, who came to visit the dead body of his father, and who, notwithstanding his criminal conduct, was not wholly dest.i.tute of generosity, was struck with horror and remorse at the sight; and as the attendants observed, that, at that very instant, blood gushed from the mouth and nostrils of the corpse [c], he exclaimed, agreeably to a vulgar superst.i.tion, that he was his father's murderer; and he expressed a deep sense, though too late, of that undutiful behaviour which had brought his parent to an untimely grave [d].

[FN [z] Hoveden. p. 654. [a] Bened. Abb. p. 541. [b] Hoveden, p.

654. [c] Bened. Abb. p. 547. Brompton, p. 1151. [d] M. Paris, p.

107.]

[MN and character of Henry.] Thus died, in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and thirty-fifth of his reign, the greatest prince of his time, for wisdom, virtue, and abilities, and the most powerful in extent of dominion of all those that had ever filled the throne of England. His character, in private as well as in public life, is almost without a blemish; and he seems to have possessed every accomplishment, both of body and mind, which makes a man either estimable or amiable. He was of a middle stature, strong and well proportioned; his countenance was lively and engaging; his conversation affable and entertaining; his elocution easy, persuasive, and ever at command. He loved peace, but possessed both bravery and conduct in war; was provident without timidity; severe in the execution of justice without rigour; and temperate without austerity.

He preserved health, and kept himself from corpulency, to which he was somewhat inclined, by an abstemious diet and by frequent exercise, particularly hunting. When he could enjoy leisure, he recreated himself either in learned conversation or in reading; and he cultivated his natural talents by study, above any prince of his time.

His affections, as well as his enmities, were warm and durable; and his long experience of the ingrat.i.tude and infidelity of men never destroyed the natural sensibility of his temper, which disposed him to friendship and society. His character has been transmitted to us by several writers who were his contemporaries [e]; and it extremely resembles, in its most remarkable features, that of his maternal grandfather Henry I.: excepting only that ambition, which was a ruling pa.s.sion in both, found not in the first Henry such unexceptionable means of exerting itself, and pushed that prince into measures which were both criminal in themselves, and were the cause of farther crimes, from which his grandson?s conduct was happily exempted.

[FN [e] Petri Bles. epist. 46, 47. in Bibliotheca Patrum, vol. xxiv.

p. 985, 986, &c. Girald. Camb. p. 783, &c.]

[MN Miscellaneous transactions of this reign.]

This prince, like most of his predecessors of the Norman line, except Stephen, pa.s.sed more of his time on the continent than in this island: he was surrounded with the English gentry and n.o.bility, when abroad: the French gentry and n.o.bility attended him when he resided in England: both nations acted in the government as if they were the same people: and, on many occasions, the legislatures seem not to have been distinguished. As the king and all the English barons were of French extraction, the manners of that people acquired the ascendant, and were regarded as the models of imitation. All foreign improvements, therefore, such as they were, in literature and politeness, in laws and arts, seem now to have been, in a good measure, transplanted into England; and that kingdom was become little inferior, in all the fashionable accomplishments, to any of its neighbours on the continent. The more homely but more sensible manners and principles of the Saxons were exchanged for the affectations of chivalry, and the subtleties of school philosophy: the feudal ideas of civil government, the Romish sentiments in religion, had taken entire possession of the people: by the former, the sense of submission towards princes was somewhat diminished in the barons; by the latter the devoted attachment to papal authority was much augmented among the clergy.

The Norman and other foreign families established in England had now struck deep root; and being entirely incorporated with the people, whom at first they oppressed and despised, they no longer thought that they needed protection of the crown for the enjoyment of their possessions, or considered their tenure as precarious. They aspired to the same liberty and independence which they saw enjoyed by their brethren on the continent, and desired to restrain those exorbitant prerogatives and arbitrary practices, which the necessities of war and the violence of conquest had at first obliged them to indulge in their monarch. That memory also of a more equal government under the Saxon princes, which remained with the English, diffused still farther the spirit of liberty, and made the barons both desirous of more independence to themselves, and willing to indulge it to the people.

And it was not long ere this secret revolution in the sentiments of men produced, first violent convulsions in the state, then an evident alteration in the maxims of government.

The history of all the preceding Kings of England since the Conquest gives evident proofs of the disorders attending the feudal inst.i.tutions; the licentiousness of the barons, their spirit of rebellion against the prince and laws, and of animosity against each other: the conduct of the barons in the transmarine dominions of those monarchs afforded perhaps still more flagrant instances of these convulsions; and the history of France, during several ages, consists almost entirely of narrations of this nature. The cities, during the continuance of this violent government, could neither be very numerous nor populous; and there occur instances which seem to evince, that though these are always the first seat of law and liberty, their police was in general loose and irregular, and exposed to the same disorders with those by which the country was generally infested. It was a custom in London for great numbers, to the amount of a hundred or more, the sons and relations of considerable citizens, to form themselves into a licentious confederacy, to break into rich houses and plunder them, to rob and murder the pa.s.sengers, and to commit with impunity all sorts of disorder. By these crimes, it had become so dangerous to walk the streets by night, that the citizens durst no more venture abroad after sunset than if they had been exposed to the incursions of a public enemy. The brother of the Earl of Ferrars had been murdered by some of those nocturnal rioters; and the death of so eminent a person, which was much more regarded than that of many thousands of an inferior station, so provoked the king, that he swore vengeance against the criminals and became thenceforth more rigorous in the execution of the laws [f].

[FN [f] Bened. Abb. p. 196.]

There is another instance given by historians, which proves to what a height such riots had proceeded, and how open these criminals were in committing their robberies. A band of them had attacked the house of a rich citizen, with an intention of plundering it; had broken through a stone wall with hammers and wedges; and had already entered the house sword in hand; when the citizen armed cap-a-pie, and supported by his faithful servants, appeared in the pa.s.sage to oppose them; he cut off the right hand of the first robber that entered; and made such stout resistance, that his neighbours had leisure to a.s.semble, and come to his relief. The man who lost his hand was taken; and was tempted by the promise of pardon to reveal his confederates; among whom was one John Senex, esteemed among the richest and best-born citizens in London. He was convicted by the ordeal; and though he offered five hundred marks for his life, the king refused the money, and ordered him to be hanged [g]. It appears from a statute of Edward I. that these disorders were not remedied even in that reign. It was then made penal to go out at night after the hour of the curfew, to carry a weapon, or to walk without a light or lantern [h]. It is said in the preamble to this law, that, both by night and by day, there were continual frays in the streets of London.

[FN [g] Ibid. p. 197, 198. [h] Observations on the ancient Statutes, p. 216.]

Henry's care in administering justice had gained him so great a reputation, that even foreign and distant princes made him arbiter, and submitted their differences to his judgment. Sanchez, King of Navarre, having some controversies with Alphonso, King of Castile, was contented, though Alphonso had married the daughter of Henry, to choose this prince for a referee; and they agreed each of them to consign three castles into neutral hands as a pledge of their not departing from his award. Henry made the cause be examined before his great council, and gave a sentence, which was submitted to by both parties. These two Spanish kings sent each a stout champion to the court of England, in order to defend his cause by arms, in case the way of duel had been chosen by Henry [i].

[FN [i] Rymer, vol. iv. p. 43. Bened. Abb. p. 172. Diceto, p. 597.

Brompton, p. 1120.]

Henry so far abolished the barbarous and absurd practice of confiscating ships which had been wrecked on the coast, that he ordained, if one man or animal were alive in the ship, that the vessel and goods should be restored to the owners [k].

[FN [k] Rymer, vol. i. p. 36.]

The reign of Henry was remarkable also for an innovation which was afterwards carried farther by his successors, and was attended with the most important consequences. This prince was disgusted with the species of military force which was established by the feudal inst.i.tutions, and which, though it was extremely burdensome to the subject, yet rendered very little service to the sovereign. The barons, or military tenants, came late into the field; they were obliged to serve only forty days; they were unskilful and disorderly in all their operations; and they were apt to carry into the camp the same refractory and independent spirit, to which they were accustomed in their civil government. Henry, therefore, introduced the practice of making a commutation of their military service for money; and he levied scutages from his baronies and knights' fees, instead of requiring the personal attendance of his va.s.sals. There is mention made, in the History of the Exchequer, of these scutages in his second, fifth, and eighteenth year [l]; and other writers give us an account of three more of them [m]. When the prince had thus obtained money, he made a contract with some of those adventurers in which Europe at that time abounded: they found him soldiers of the same character with themselves, who were bound to serve for a stipulated time: the armies were less numerous, but more useful, than when composed of all the military va.s.sals of the crown: the feudal inst.i.tutions began to relax: the kings became rapacious for money, on which all their power depended: the barons, seeing no end of exactions, sought to defend their property: and as the same causes had nearly the same effects in the different countries of Europe, the several crowns either lost or acquired authority, according to their different success in the contest.

[FN [l] Madox, p. 435, 436, 437, 438. [m] Tyrrel, vol. ii. p. 466, from the records.]

This prince was also the first that levied a tax on the moveables or personal estates of his subjects, n.o.bles as well as commons. Their zeal for the holy wars made them submit to this innovation; and a precedent being once obtained, this taxation became, in following reigns, the usual method of supplying the necessities of the crown.

The tax of Danegelt, so generally odious to the nation, was remitted in this reign.

It was a usual practice of the Kings of England to repeat the ceremony of their coronation thrice every year, on a.s.sembling the states at the three great festivals. Henry, after the first years of his reign, never renewed this ceremony, which was found to be very expensive and very useless. None of his successors revived it. It is considered as a great act of grace in this prince, that he mitigated the rigour of the forest laws, and punished any transgressions of them, not capitally, but by fines, imprisonments, and other more moderate penalties.

Since we are here collecting some detached incidents which show the genius of the age, and which could not so well enter into the body of our history, it may not be improper to mention the quarrel between Roger, Archbishop of York, and Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury. We may judge of the violence of military men and laymen, when ecclesiastics could proceed to such extremities. Cardinal Haguezun being sent, in 1176, as legate into Britain, summoned an a.s.sembly of the clergy at London; and as both the archbishops pretended to sit on his right hand, this question of precedency begat a controversy between them. The monks and retainers of Archbishop Richard fell upon Roger, in the presence of the cardinal and of the synod, threw him to the ground, trampled him under foot, and so bruised him with blows that he was taken up half dead, and his life was with difficulty saved from their violence. The Archbishop of Canterbury was obliged to pay a large sum of money to the legate, in order to suppress all complaints with regard to this enormity [n].

[FN [n] Bened. Abb. p. 138, 139. Brompton, p. 1109. Chron Gerv. p.

1433. Neubrig. p. 413.]

We are told by Giraldus Cambrensis, that the monks and prior of St.

Swithun threw themselves one day prostrate on the ground and in the mire before Henry, complaining, with many tears and much doleful lamentation, that the Bishop of Winchester, who was also their abbot, had cut off three dishes from their table. How many has he left you?

said the king. Ten only, replied the disconsolate monks. I myself, exclaimed the king, never have more than three; and I enjoin your bishop to reduce you to the same number [o].

[FN [o] Gir. Camb. cap. 5. in Anglia Sacra, vol. ii.]

This king left only two legitimate sons, Richard who succeeded him, and John who inherited no territory, though his father had often intended to leave him a part of his extensive dominions. He was thence commonly denominated LACKLAND. Henry left three legitimate daughters: Maud, born in 1156, and married to Henry, Duke of Saxony; Eleanor, born in 1162, and married to Alphonso, King of Castile; Joan, born in 1165, and married to William, King of Sicily [p].

[FN [p] Diceto, p. 616.]

Henry is said by ancient historians to have been of a very amorous disposition: they mention two of his natural sons by Rosamond, daughter of Lord Clifford; namely, Richard Longespee, or Longsword, (so called from the sword he usually wore,) who was afterwards married to Ela, the daughter and heir of the Earl of Salisbury; and Geoffrey, first Bishop of Lincoln, then Archbishop of York. All the other circ.u.mstances of the story, commonly told of that lady, seem to be fabulous.

CHAPTER X.

RICHARD I.

THE KING'S PREPARATIONS FOR THE CRUSADE.--SETS OUT ON THE CRUSADE.-- TRANSACTIONS IN SICILY.--KING'S ARRIVAL IN PALESTINE.--STATE OF PALESTINE.--DISORDERS IN ENGLAND.--THE KING'S HEROIC ACTIONS IN PALESTINE.--HIS RETURN FROM PALESTINE.--CAPTIVITY IN GERMANY.--WAR WITH FRANCE.--THE KING'S DELIVERY.--RETURN TO ENGLAND.--WAR WITH FRANCE.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF THE KING.--MISCELLANEOUS TRANSACTIONS OF THIS REIGN.

[MN 1189.] The compunction of Richard for his undutiful behaviour towards his father was durable, and influenced him in the choice of his ministers and servants after his accession. Those who had seconded and favoured his rebellion, instead of meeting with that trust and honour which they expected, were surprised to find that they lay under disgrace with the new king, and were on all occasions hated and despised by him. The faithful ministers of Henry, who had vigorously opposed all the enterprises of his sons, were received with open arms, and were continued in those offices which they had honourably discharged to their former master [a]. This prudent conduct might be the result of reflection; but in a prince like Richard, so much guided by pa.s.sion, and so little by policy, it was commonly ascribed to a principle still more virtuous and more honourable.

[FN [a] Hoveden, p. 655. Bened. Abb. p. 547. M. Paris, p. 107.]

Richard, that he might make atonement to one parent for his breach of duty to the other, immediately sent orders for releasing the queen- dowager from the confinement in which she had long been detained; and he intrusted her with the government of England till his arrival in that kingdom. His bounty to his brother John was rather profuse and imprudent. Besides bestowing on him the county of Mortaigne, in Normandy, granting him a pension of four thousand marks a year, and marrying him to Avisa, the daughter of the Earl of Gloucester, by whom he inherited all the possessions of that opulent family, he increased his appanage, which the late king had destined him, by other extensive grants and concessions. He conferred on him the whole estate of William Peverell, which had escheated to the crown: he put him in possession of eight castles, with all the forests and honours annexed to them: he delivered over to him no less than six earldoms, Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Nottingham, Dorset, Lancaster, and Derby. And endeavouring by favours, to fix that vicious prince in his duty, he put it too much in his power, whenever he pleased, to depart from it.

[MN The king?s preparations for the crusade.]

The king, impelled more by the love of military glory than by superst.i.tion, acted from the beginning of his reign, as if the sole purpose of his government had been the relief of the Holy Land, and the recovery of Jerusalem from the Saracens. This zeal against infidels, being communicated to his subjects, broke out in London on the day of his coronation, and made them find a crusade less dangerous, and attended with more immediate profit. The prejudices of the age had made the lending of money on interest pa.s.s by the invidious name of usury; yet the necessity of the practice had still continued it, and the greater part of that kind of dealing fell everywhere into the hands of the Jews; who being already infamous on account of their religion, had no honour to lose, and were apt to exercise a profession, odious in itself, by every kind of rigour, and even sometimes by rapine and extortion. The industry and frugality of this people had put them in possession of all the ready money, which the idleness and profusion, common to the English with other European nations, enabled them to lend at exorbitant and unequal interest. The monkish writers represent it as a great stain on the wise and equitable government of Henry, that he had carefully protected this infidel race from all injures and insults; but the zeal of Richard afforded the populace a pretence for venting their animosity against them. The king had issued an edict prohibiting their appearance at his coronation; but some of them, bringing him large presents from their nation, presumed, in confidence of that merit, to approach the hall in which he dined: being discovered, they were exposed to the insults of the bystanders; they took to flight; the people pursued them; the rumour was spread that the king had issued orders to ma.s.sacre all the Jews; a command so agreeable was executed in an instant on such as fell into the hands of the populace; those who had kept at home were exposed to equal danger; the people, moved by rapacity and zeal, broke into their houses, which they plundered, after having murdered the owners; where the Jews barricaded their doors, and defended themselves with vigour, the rabble set fire to the houses, and made way through the flames to exercise their pillage and violence; the usual licentiousness of London, which the sovereign power with difficulty restrained, broke out with fury, and continued these outrages; the houses of the richest citizens, though Christians, were next attacked and plundered; and weariness and satiety at last put an end to the disorder: yet, when the king empowered Glanville, the justiciary, to inquire into the authors of these crimes, the guilt was found to involve so many of the most considerable citizens, that it was deemed more prudent to drop the prosecution; and very few suffered the punishment due to this enormity. But the disorder stopped not at London. The inhabitants of the other cities of England, hearing of this slaughter of the Jews, imitated the example: in York, five hundred of that nation, who had retired into the castle for safety, and found themselves unable to defend the place, murdered their own wives and children, threw the dead bodies over the walls upon the populace, and then setting fire to the houses perished in the flames. The gentry of the neighbourhood, who were all indebted to the Jews, ran to the cathedral, where their bonds were kept, and made a solemn bonfire of the papers before the altar. The compiler of the Annals of Waverley, in relating these events, blesses the Almighty for thus delivering over this impious race to destruction [b].

[FN [b] Gale's Collect. vol. iii. p. 165.]

The ancient situation of England, when the people possessed little riches and the public no credit, made it impossible for sovereigns to bear the expense of a steady or durable war, even on their frontiers; much less could they find regular means for the support of distant expeditions like those into Palestine, which were more the result of popular frenzy than of sober reason or deliberate policy. Richard, therefore, knew that he must carry with him all the treasure necessary for his enterprise, and that both the remoteness of his own country and its poverty made it unable to furnish him with those continued supplies, which the exigencies of so perilous a war must necessarily require. His father had left him a treasure of above a hundred thousand marks; and the king, negligent of every consideration but his present object, endeavoured to augment this sum by all expedients, how pernicious soever to the public, or dangerous to royal authority. He put to sale the revenues and manors of the crown; the offices of greatest trust and power, even those of forester and sheriff, which anciently were so important [c], became venal; the dignity of chief justiciary, in whose hands was lodged the whole execution of the laws, was sold to Hugh de Puzas, Bishop of Durham, for a thousand marks; the same prelate bought the earldom of Northumberland for life [d]; many of the champions of the cross, who had repented of the vow, purchased the liberty of violating it; and Richard, who stood less in need of men than of money, dispensed, on these conditions, with their attendance. Elated with the hopes of fame, which, in that age, attended no wars but those against the infidels, he was blind to every other consideration; and when some of his wiser ministers objected to this dissipation of the revenue and power of the crown, he replied that he would sell London itself, could he find a purchaser [e].

Nothing, indeed, could be a stronger proof how negligent he was of all future interests in comparison of the crusade, than his selling, for so small a sum as ten thousand marks, the va.s.salage of Scotland, together with the fortresses of Roxburgh and Berwick, the greatest acquisition that had been made by his father during the course of his victorious reign; and his accepting the homage of William in the usual terms, merely for the territories which that prince held in England [f]. The English of all ranks and stations were oppressed by numerous exactions; menaces were employed, both against the innocent and the guilty, in order to extort money from them; and where a pretence was wanting against the rich, the king obliged them, by the fear of his displeasure, to lend him sums which, he knew, it would never be in his power to repay.

[FN [c] The sheriff had anciently both the administration of justice and the management of the king's revenue committed to him in the county. See HALE, OF SHERIFF?S ACCOUNTS. [d] M. Paris, p. 109. [e]

W. Heming. p. 519. Knyghton, p. 2402. [f] Hoveden, p. 662. Rymer, vol. i. p. 64. M. West. p. 257.]

But Richard, though he sacrificed every interest and consideration to the success of this pious enterprise, carried so little the appearance of sanct.i.ty in his conduct, that Fulk, curate of Neuilly, a zealous preacher of the crusade, who, from that merit, had acquired the privilege of speaking the boldest truths, advised him to rid himself of his notorious vices, particularly his pride, avarice, and voluptuousness, which he called the king's three favourite daughters.

YOU COUNSEL WELL, replied Richard, and I HEREBY DISPOSE OF THE FIRST TO THE TEMPLARS, OF THE SECOND TO THE BENEDICTINES, AND OF THE THIRD TO MY PRELATES.

Richard, jealous of attempts which might be made on England during his absence, laid Prince John, as well as his natural brother, Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, under engagements, confirmed by their oaths, that neither of them should enter the kingdom till his return; though he thought proper, before his departure, to withdraw this prohibition.

The administration was left in the hands of Hugh, Bishop of Durham, and of Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, whom he appointed justiciaries and guardians of the realm. The latter was a Frenchman, of mean birth, and of a violent character; who, by art and address, had insinuated himself into favour, whom Richard had created chancellor, and whom he had engaged the pope also to invest with the legatine authority, that, by centering every kind of power in his person, he might the better ensure the public tranquillity. All the military and turbulent spirits flocked about the person of the king, and were impatient to distinguish themselves against the infidels in Asia; whither his inclinations, his engagements, led him, and whither he was impelled by messages from the King of France, ready to embark in this enterprise.

The Emperor Frederic, a prince of great spirit and conduct, had already taken the road to Palestine, at the head of one hundred and fifty thousand men, collected from Germany and all the northern states. Having surmounted every obstacle thrown in his way by the artifices of the Greeks and the power of the infidels, he had penetrated to the borders of Syria; when, bathing in the cold river Cydnus during the greatest heat of the summer season, he was seized with a mortal distemper, which put an end to his life and his rash enterprise [g]. His army, under the command of his son, Conrade, reached Palestine; but was so diminished by fatigue, famine, maladies, and the sword, that it scarcely amounted to eight thousand men; and was unable to make any progress against the great power, valour, and conduct of Saladin. These reiterated calamities attending the crusades had taught the Kings of France and England the necessity of trying another road to the Holy Land; and they determined to conduct their armies thither by sea, to carry provisions along with them, and, by means of their naval power, to maintain an open communication with their own states, and with the western parts of Europe. The place of rendezvous was appointed in the plains of Vezelay, on the borders of Burgundy [h]: [MN 1190. 29th June.] Philip and Richard, on their arrival there, found their combined army amount to one hundred thousand men [i]; a mighty force, animated with glory and religion, conducted by two warlike monarchs, provided with every thing which their several dominions could supply, and not to be overcome but by their own misconduct, or by the unsurmountable obstacles of nature.

[FN [g] Bened. Abb. p. 556. [h] Hoveden, p. 660. [i] Vinisauf, p.

305.]