Page images
PDF
EPUB

BERTRAND DE BORN.

391

trated him at Chateau-Martel, in the neighbourhood. Feeling the approach of death, he became penitent, laid himself on a bed of ashes, and sent imploring the king to visit him. Henry dared not comply for fear of treachery, but sent his ring in token of forgiveness. The prince died without sight of his father. His death seemed the judgement of God upon the war. Limoges was taken by assault. Geoffrey made his peace, and died three years afterwards (August, 1186 A.D.) of a fever like his brother's, while he was intriguing anew with the French court. Bertrand de Born was pursued to his castle of Hautefort, and forced to surrender. He was brought before Henry, who jested with him on his defeat. Bertrand excused it by saying that he had lost his senses on the day of his young master's death. The remembrance of his loss overwhelmed Henry, and he fainted away. On recovering, he pardoned Bertrand his rebellion in consideration of the love he had borne the prince. Dante was less merciful to the man who sowed discord between father and son. He has plunged Bertrand in the ninth circle of Hell, the head severed from the trunk, and both animate.

Henry's quarrel with his sons sickened him of state-craft; he renounced the plans of his life for fear their success should benefit his heirs. In two quarrels between France and Flanders (1182-1184 A.D.) he interposed as mediator, instead of supporting the count against the king. He left Auvergne to be reduced by a French army (1185 A.D.) He even proposed to divorce Eleanor, marry the Princess Alix of France, and endow his offspring by her with England and Normandy, bequeathing Poitou and Anjou to his youngest son. Philip

"Eodem quo et frater antea morbo sc. febrili calore lethaliter correptus." -Girald. Camb. de Inst. Princ., p. 34. "Adversâ valetudine pressus."--Gervase; Twysden, 1480. Another account says that he was killed in a tournament.— Hemingburgh, vol. i., p. 121; note by Mr. Hamilton; Martin, Histoire de France, tom. ii., pp. 523, 524.

2 Inferno, canto xxviii., 1. 194. I cannot doubt that the reading, "al giovan re," the title given to prince Henry, is to be preferred to that of “al re Giovanni." John was not a king when he rebelled, and his friendship with Bertrand de Born was not famous.

392

QUARREL BETWEEN HENRY AND EARL RICHARD.

communicated this project to Richard, who never forgave it. It was probably his discontent, and the danger of his defection, that forced Henry to demand a two years' truce at the price of giving up his only remaining fortress in Berri, which Philip had invaded, 1187 A.D. The French king would have preferred to push his advantages, but was restrained by public opinion. All Christendom was panic-struck at the news that Jerusalem was likely to fall again into the hands of the Infidel. Philip consented at Gisors to a three years' truce, during which the territories of either king were placed under the church's guard. Henry and Philip followed Richard's example, and took the cross. Henry, it was said, never meant to perform his vow, and only regarded it as a diplomatic formality. For some inexplicable reason, men thought from jealousy, he hindered instead of expediting his dangerous son's departure. Meanwhile, Jerusalem was lost, and matters reverted to their old uncertainty. The war recommenced in Berri, around ChateauRoux, and Henry and Richard were now superior in the field (June, 1188 A.D.) Philip at last demanded a conference, and proposed that the Princess Alix should be restored and married to Richard, who should be acknowledged as heir-apparent. The demand was not unreasonable; the princess had been confided to Henry as the future bride of his son; and the terrible rumour that Henry had seduced her, required disproof by some official act. Unhappily, the story was true. The king of England refused to give up his ward, or acknowledge his son's title. Richard's suppressed wrath now flamed out. He instantly transferred his homage to Philip, and was accepted as his liegeman. The two best soldiers of their day soon overmatched the king of England. Le Mans, the town he loved best, was accidentally burned by his own soldiers; Tours was taken from him; and he was shut up in Azai. His petition for peace was answered by a demand of absolute submission. The words which had been so often heard in his old quarrel with Becket, "saving my honour and the dignity of my realm," were peremptorily struck out of the treaty. He submitted to pay Philip an indemnity of twenty thousand marks, to give up

CHARACTER OF HENRY II.

393

the princess Alix, and to acknowledge Richard as his heir. At his own request, a list of the barons who had joined Richard against his father was given in. The first name that met his eye was that of the only son whom he still loved and trusted, earl John. He fell back in his bed, and turned his face to the wall. "Let things henceforth go as they will; I renounce myself and the world." A few days' fever carried him off. He had once caused a picture of four eaglets rending an eagle to be painted on a panel of a chamber at Winchester. The prediction was now literally fulfilled.

Henry II. had the features of his mother's family. He was a middle-sized, square man, with a large round head, leonine features, a sanguine complexion, and grey blood-shot eyes. He stooped slightly, and grew fat and gouty as he aged, in spite of moderate diet and frequent exercise. His courage as a soldier was balanced by his timidity as a general. A liberal man in public, he was accused of stinginess in his own household; and his craft as a diplomatist was perpetually undone by the fits of passion which he was powerless to restrain. The seeming inconsistencies of his character are completed by the fact, that the deadly enemy of Becket constantly employed ecclesiastics in preference to laymen about his person. These contrasts are explained by the one fact, that Henry, able and energetic, was wanting in steady principle and character. No man more thoroughly regarded life as a game in which the only stake was success. To bribe God into helping him, and to shuffle oaths like counters, without incurring the direct charge of fraud, were Henry's moral principles. Slender as they were, he did not always adhere to them: his passion constantly mastered his superstition, and in one critical moment of his life he disgusted Louis, who had for once sided with him against Becket, by a wanton breach of faith, that he might punish his revolted subjects in Brittany and Poitou.1 Out of mere anger against his son, he allowed the power of the French

277.

'After the conference of Montmirail.-Herbert de Bosham, Vita Beck., p.

394

MERITS OF HENRY'S GOVERNMENT.

crown to increase, and prepared the way for the loss of Guienne and Normandy. His adulteries were flagrant, and carried on when his hair was grey, and he over sixty. Even the strong justice he administered was not without reproach, and it often degenerated into barbarity. His subjects said that he enforced the rights of his crown unequally; that he plundered orphans of their heritage; that he left his soldiers unpaid; and that his justiciaries were corrupt. The great Ranulf de Glanville has been accused of condemning an innocent man to death, that his own viscount might marry the widow; and Henry, although he remitted the capital sentence, kept the victim of oppression in prison. It is difficult, therefore, to agree with Hume, that Henry's "character, in private as well as in public life, is almost without a blemish." But it had redeeming points. He was singularly learned for his times, a pleasant companion, and a staunch friend. In the great quarrel between church and state, he saw the right side, and fought it out, through much violence and many failures, to a successful end. He reformed the organization of justice, and substituted the grand assize for the duel. The prestige of the English name increased under him. Above all, the country enjoyed a long season of quiet within its borders. The distinction of Norman and Englishman was beginning to disappear, and Henry did nothing to perpetuate it. In a few years after his death, the country began to be studded with free towns.

See the vision of Roger Estreby.—Girald. Camb. de Inst. Princ., p. 43. Hoveden; Savile, p. 355. The charge against Glanville derives some probability from the language of Richard of Devizes (p. 7), who calls him "vir Stephano (sc. of Tours) non inferior nisi moribus," &c.

RICHARD COEUR DE LION.

RICHARD'S ACCESSION.-MASSACRES OF THE JEWS.-PREPARATIONS FOR THE CRUSADE. SICILY.-CYPRUS.-PALESTINE.-REGENCY OF LONGCHAMP.-QUARREL WITH THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK. LONGCHAMP BESIEGED IN THE TOWER, AND EXPELLED FROM POWER.-RICHARD'S RETURN, AND TREACHEROUS CAPTURE IN GERMANY.-CONDUCT OF EARL JOHN.-RICHARD'S HOMAGE TO THE EMPEROR AND RANSOM.-LAST YEARS OF THE REIGN.-RICHARD'S DEATH.-WILLIAM FITZ-OSBERT.-CHARACTER OF RICHARD I.

WHEN Richard met the procession that was bearing the royal bier to the abbey of Fontevraud, it is said that blood gushed from the mouth and nose of the corpse.1 Horror-struck at the sight, and guiltily conscious of a share in his father's death, the new king showed his penitence by at first retaining in place, or promoting, the old servants of the crown. One exception was made against Stephen of Tours, seneschal of Anjou. It was part of his crime that he was low-born. Richard threw him into prison, took away the noble wife of his son, and married her, in defiance of all canons, to a man of her own rank. Generally the new king seemed anxious to conciliate public opinion. He promised to confirm John in the possession of his English estates, and gave his half-brother Geoffrey, the archbishopric of York instead of the chancellorship. Queen Eleanor was released from the prison to which she had been again consigned, and travelled over England, proclaiming acts of grace, and receiving oaths of fealty. There was a general gaol-delivery, by which criminal offences were condoned, while civil debtors were let out under bail for their re-appearance. In August, 1189 A.D., Richard

1 Brompton says (Twysden, 1151) that he was laid out, crowned and sceptred, and with his head uncovered. The account of John of Oxenedes (p. 64) is simpler.

« PreviousContinue »