A.D 1170-1175. REVOLT OF THE KING'S SONS. 121 § 11. Under these circumstances Henry resolved to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of the martyr, and humble himself before the ashes of the saint. He crossed over from Normandy in 1174, and on July 12 entered Canterbury. As soon as he came within sight of the cathedral he dismounted, walked barefoot toward it, prostrated himself before the shrine of the saint, remained in fasting and prayer during a whole day, and watched all night the holy relics. He even submitted to a penance still more singular and humiliating. He assembled a chapter of the monks, disrobed himself before them, put a scourge of discipline into the hands of each, and presented his bare shoulders to the lashes which these ecclesiastics successively inflicted upon him. Next day he received absolution; and, departing for London, got soon after the agreeable intelligence of a great victory which his generals had obtained over the Scots at Alnwick, and of the capture of their king William. As this victory was gained on the very day of his absolution, it was regarded as the earnest of his final reconciliation with Heaven and with Saint Thomas. This great and important victory proved at last decisive in favor of Henry, and entirely broke the spirit of the English rebels, who hastened to make their submissions. Louis was glad to conclude a peace with Henry; his sons returned to their obedience; and William, King of Scotland, was compelled with all his barons and prelates to do homage to Henry in the cathedral of York, and to acknowledge him and his successors for their superior lord (1175). Berwick and Roxburgh were ceded to the English monarch, and the castle of Edinburgh was placed in his hands for a limited time. This was the first great ascendant which England obtained over Scotland; and, indeed, the first important transaction which had passed between the kingdoms. § 12. Henry, having thus, contrary to expectation, extricated himself with honor from a situation in which his throne was exposed to great danger, was employed for several years in the internal administration of his kingdom. One of the most important of his enactments was the appointment of itinerant justices, of which institution an account is given at the close of this book.* Another was the substitution in certain cases of a trial by sixteen sworn recognitors in place of the trial by battle. These recognitors were taken from the county in which the case was to be tried, and bear a close analogy to a modern jury.† The success which had attended Henry in his wars did not much encourage his neighbors to form any attempt against him; and his transactions with them, during several years, contain little memorable. He sent over his fourth son, John, into Ireland with a view of making a more complete conquest of the island; but the + Ibid. * See p. 131. F petulance and incapacity of this prince, by which he enraged the Irish chieftains, obliged the king soon after to recall him. The latter years of Henry's reign were imbittered by the renewed rebellion of his sons, and by their quarrels with one another. In 1183 Prince Henry was seized with a fatal illness in the midst of his criminal designs, and died expressing deep sorrow for his filial ingratitude. Richard and Geoffrey made war upon each other; and when this quarrel was accommodated, Geoffrey, the most vicious perhaps of all Henry's unhappy family, levied forces against his father. Henry was freed from this danger by his son's death, who was killed in a tournament at Paris (1186). The § 13. In the year 1187 the city of Jerusalem fell into the hands of Sultan Saladin. A new crusade was determined upon. French and English monarchs and the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa took the cross. In the midst of these preparations Prince Richard, who was supported by Philip of France, again took up arms against his father (1188). After much fruitless negotiation the King of England was obliged to defend his dominions by arms, and to engage in a war with France, and with his son, in which his reverses so subdued his spirit that he submitted to all the rigorous terms which were imposed upon him. But the mortification which Henry received from these 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 connections with Richard, he was astonished to find at the head of them the name of his favorite son John. 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. 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 (July 6, 1189). His natural son, Geoffrey, who alone had behaved dutifully toward him, attended his corpse to Fontevraud, where it lay in state in the abbey church. Next day Richard, who came to visit the dead body of his father, was struck with horror and remorse at the sight; and he expressed a deep sense, though too late, of that undutiful behavior which had brought his parent to an untimely grave. Thus died, in the 58th year of his age, and 34th of his reign, the greatest prince of his time for wisdom, virtue, and abilities. 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 com A.D. 1175-1189. ACCESSION OF RICHARD 1. 123 mand. He loved peace, but possessed both bravery and conduct in war; was provident without timidity, severe in the execution of justice without rigor, 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. Henry had five sons by Eleanor, of whom only two, Richard and John, survived him. Of his natural children the most distinguished were his two sons by the "fair" Rosamond, daughter of Walter Clifford, a baron of Herefordshire. The celebrated story of the labyrinth at Woodstock and of the tragic fate of Rosamond is an invention of later times. Her elder son William, who received the surname of Longsword, married the daughter of the Earl of Salisbury. Her youngest son Geoffrey, already mentioned, became Bishop of Lincoln and Archbishop of York. Richard I. From his monument at Fontevraud. § 14. RICHARD I., 1189-1199. The compunction of Richard for his undutiful behavior toward his father was durable, and influenced him in the choice of his ministers. The faithful servants 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 honorably discharged to their former master. One of Richard's first acts was to send orders for releasing his mother Eleanor from the confinement in which she had long been detained by Henry. The history of Richard's reign consists of little more than his personal adventures. Impelled more by the love of military glory than by superstition, he acted 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 (Sept. 3). The king had issued an edict prohibiting Jews from appearing 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 by-standers; they took to flight; the people pursued them; the rumor was spread that the king had issued orders to massacre all the Jews; a command so agreeable was executed in an instant on such as fell into the hands of the populace, who, moved by rapacity and zeal, broke into their houses, which they plundered, after having murdered the owners. The inhabitants of the other cities of England imitated the example; in York 500 Jews, who had retired into the castle for safety, and found themselves unable to defend the place, murdered their own wives and children, and then, setting fire to the houses, perished in the flames. The king, negligent of every consideration but his present object, endeavored to raise money 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, and the offices of greatest trust and power; and even sold, for so small a sum as 10,000 marks, the vassalage 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. Leaving the administration in the hands of the bishops of Durham and Ely, whom he appointed justiciaries and guardians of the realm, Richard proceeded to the plains of Vezelay, on the borders of Burgundy, the place of rendezvous agreed on with the French king. Philip and Richard, on their arrival there (29th June, 1190), found their combined army amount to 100,000 men. $15. The French prince and the English here reiterated their promises of cordial friendship, and pledged their faith not to invade each other's dominions during the crusade. They then separated; Philip took the road to Genoa, Richard that to Marseilles, with a view of meeting their fleets, which were severally appointed to rendezvous in these harbors. They put to sea; and, nearly about the same time, were obliged, by stress of weather, to take shelter in Messina, where they were detained during the whole winter. Here Richard was joined by Berengaria, daughter of the King of Navarre, with whom he had become enamored in Guienne. In the spring of the following year (1191), the English fleet, on leaving the port of Messina, met with a furious tempest, and the squadron in which Berengaria and her suite were embarked was driven on the coast of Cyprus. In consequence of their inhospitable treatment by Isaac, the ruler of Cyprus, Richard landed on the island, dethroned Isaac, and established governors over the island. Richard then espoused Berengaria (May 12), and immediately afterward sailed for Palestine. $ 16. The arrival of Philip and Richard inspired new life into the Christians. The emulation between those rival kings and rival nations produced extraordinary acts of valor: Richard in particular drew to himself the general attention, and acquired a great and splendid reputation. Acre, which had been attacked for above two years by the united force of all the Christians in Palestine, now surrendered; but Philip, instead of pursuing the hopes of farther conquest, being disgusted with the ascendant assumed and acquired by Richard, declared his resolution of returning to France. The Christian adventurers under Richard's command determined, on opening the campaign, to attempt the siege of Ascalon, in order to prepare the way for that of Jerusalem; and they marched along the sea-coast with that intention. The march of 100 miles from Acre to Ascalon was a great and perpetual battle of 11 days. Ascalon fell into the hands of the Christians; other sieges were carried on with equal success; Richard was even able to advance within sight of Jerusalem, the ob`ject of his enterprise; when he had the mortification to find that, from the irresistible desire of all his allies to return home, there appeared an absolute necessity of abandoning for the present all hopes of farther conquest, and of securing the acquisitions of the Christians by an accommodation with Saladin. Richard therefore concluded a truce with that monarch (1192), and stipulated that Acre, Joppa, and other sea-port towns of Palestine should |