John.

REIGNED FROM A.D. 1199 TO A.D. 1216.

Is brother JOHN the sway assumes,

H'S

And on despotic acts presumes;
Curs'd with a heart that could not feel,
His nephew's1 blood defiles his steel.
Against the Church he next contends,
But baffled, to the Pontiff bends;2
And as a vassal from his hands,
Receives his crown and forfeit lands.
The Barons bold next made him sign
Our MAGNA CHARTA,-shield divine!
This King, for vice and weakness known,
For eighteen years disgrac'd the throne.3

1 Prince Arthur, whom he had made prisoner in the castle of Falaise.

2 John actually did homage to Pope Innocent III. for the crown of England, and signed a paper, resigning England and Ireland to the Holy See.

* He died at Newark, aged fifty years.

REIGNED FROM A.D. 1216 TO A.D. 1272.

H

ENRY THE THIRD his sire succeeds,1

A Prince of no heroic deeds;

But weak and vain, to fav'rites prone,

Commotions shook this monarch's throne;
Ambitious Montford, every hour

Encroaching on the royal pow'r,

At length the King a pris'ner led;
Till Glo'ster and Prince Edward fled
To arms; and Montford, on the plain
Of Evesham,3 was subdu'd, and slain.
This HENRY reign'd, as it appears,
The length of six-and-fifty years.

1 He began his reign at nine years of age.

2 Simon de Montford, Earl of Leicester, the King's brotherin-law.

2 At the battle of Evesham, Leicester placed the King in the front, against his own forces, and he was on the point of being killed, when he exclaimed, "I am Henry of Winchester your King!" and he was saved.

REIGNED FROM A.D. 1272 TO A.D. 1307.

DWARD THE FIRST, who bravely shone

EDWA
Ε

In Palestine,' ascends the throne.

He made the Scottish forces yield

To England's arms the conquer'd field;
But stain'd his laurels when he gave

2

Brave Wallace an ignoble grave.

The Welch to England's pow'r he broke,3
But Scottish Bruce still spurn'd his yoke.
At length contending health decays,

And dire disease ends EDWARD's days; 4
Who five-and-thirty years had reign'd,
And well his country's rights maintain'd.

1

Edward, while in the Holy Land, was wounded in the arm by a poisoned dagger, but his Queen, Eleanor, saved his life by sucking the poison from the wound.

2 A brave Scottish patriot, beheaded A.D. 1305.

3 A. D. 1282-3.

4 He died at Carlisle, aged sixty-nine years.