STRONGBOW.

“O’er the rough stones that pave the ancient way,Barefoot, a king in penitent array,Crawls humbly to the canonizèd bones.Doffing his state, he eagerly atones,Performs the penance haughty priests decide,And stills the throbbings of rebellious pride.Prostrate, he feels the stroke of chastening rod,And cleansed, he rises, reconciled with God.”

“O’er the rough stones that pave the ancient way,

Barefoot, a king in penitent array,

Crawls humbly to the canonizèd bones.

Doffing his state, he eagerly atones,

Performs the penance haughty priests decide,

And stills the throbbings of rebellious pride.

Prostrate, he feels the stroke of chastening rod,

And cleansed, he rises, reconciled with God.”

Death of Becket.(After the painting by John Cross, in Canterbury Cathedral.)

“The lovely and the lonely brideWhom we have wedded but have never won.”

“The lovely and the lonely bride

Whom we have wedded but have never won.”

Now, for the first time, let Ireland figure in our pageant. So far England has never intruded upon this “green isle of the west.” Centuries have come and gone since the Kelts first crossed into Erin and subdued the primitive inhabitants by force of arms. Legends, many and wondrously beautiful, still remain of those early times, and men read them to-day with a new and kindling interest. A strange dreamland it is of gods and wizards, heroes and beauteous ladies.

“The isle is full of noises,Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.”

“The isle is full of noises,

Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.”

We do not, however, tread the solid ground of history until the coming of St. Patrick, who “preached, baptized, and prayed; from the praise of God he ceased not.” In the days of his successors Ireland became theIsle of Saints, and sent forth her missionaries to less favoured lands. At length invaders arrived; the Vikings descended with fire and sword, and after terrible conflicts settled in certain coastwise towns of the eastern shore. Bold Brian Boru, however, clipped their wings at Clontarf, and Ireland still remained unsubdued. When, however, King Henry of England began to meditate on the conquest of the sister isle, Ireland had long fallen from her high estate. All that St. Patrick and his successors had done to civilize the island had disappeared during the long and desperate struggle with the Danes. Ireland was a sad, despairing land, where peace never reigned and men never ceased from foray and slaughter.

Now, turn your eyes to the historic figures who pass us by. Foremost among them you see a dark-visaged “king,” with his collar of gold and his mantle of fur. He is Diarmid, King of Leinster, though his kingdom is shadowy enough at present; for he has been driven out of Ireland by the high-king and a chief whom he has grievously wronged. This Diarmid, smitten by the charms of Devorgilla, wife of the one-eyed chief of Breffni, has carried off the lady, and now he is suffering for his gallantry. He has posted to King Henry, offering him homage in return for assistance in recovering his throne. Henry has other business on hand just now, and he cannot entertain the enterprise in person. He gives the errant king, however, letters-patent permitting all liegemen of the English crown to assist him in recovering his territory.

So Diarmid hies him to Bristol, the great western seaport, and there meets with the second figure in the group now passing before us. Look well at this tall, ruddy, gray-eyed Norman knight, for he is the first to set up English rule in Ireland. He is Richard Strongbow of Clare, Earl of Pembroke, a “landless resolute,” a man of no very good character, but warlike, and with the courage and cunning of his race. You would not think so to speak with him. His voice is soft and gentle, his manner is courteous, but behind it all there is unmistakable determination and daring. Strongbow agrees to throw in his lot with Diarmid, and the price of his assistance is the fair maiden who walks by her father’s side. Eva is nothing loath to accept the debonair Norman knight as her husband, so all goes well.

The buds are bursting into leaf on the Irish trees when the advance-guard of the invaders see the blue hills of Wicklow before them. After some dubious fighting, they seize Wexford, and begin to harry the surrounding country. Raymond the Fat, Strongbow’s nephew, a stout, rosy, valiant knight, arrives in May with reinforcements, and several hard-fought successes are gained. Then comes Strongbow with the main force, and a combined attack is made on Waterford, which is, in sooth, a hard nut to crack. It is Raymond who perceives the means of shelling the kernel. In his reconnoitring he observes a small wooden house built on props and clinging with its timbers to the stones of the walls. His men hew down the posts which support it, and as the building falls it reveals a gap in the wall, through which the besiegers enter. The town is seized, a pitiless slaughter follows, and the dead lie in heaps in the streets.

Strongbow and Eva are forthwith wedded. And now begins a period of fierce strife amidst the woods and bogs, where the Irish can strike shrewd blows at the invader and vanish into security by secret paths. When, emboldened by success, they leave the broken ground and meet the enemy on the plain, they are crushed and scattered by the whirlwind charge of the mailed horsemen. Slowly but surely the newcomers gain ground, and at length Dublin falls. Then Diarmid, “the traitor,” sinks into his grave. His work is done, and no longer will his hoarse voice urge on the enemies of his country. Strongbow is his heir, and he now calls himself King of Leinster.

By this time Henry is alarmed, for Strongbow bids fair ere long to be King of Ireland. He issues a proclamation forbidding Englishmen to engage in warfare in the distracted isle, and Strongbow soon perceives that Henry will brook no vassal of his building up a rival kingdom. Raymond the Fat is at once dispatched with a humble letter of homage; but Henry receives the messenger coldly, and disdains to reply.

Henry himself now prepares to invade Ireland. The month of October, in the year 1171, sees his great fleet of four hundred ships laden with soldiers set sail from Milford Haven. The fame of this fierce, bullet-headed king with the bloodshot eyes and the dark red hair has preceded him, and at his landing all Ireland hastens to do him homage. In a wicker-work hall with walls of peeled osiers, Henry holds his court in Dublin during one of the stormiest winters ever known. He feasts the Irish chieftains on dainty Norman dishes; he grants charters bestowing all the soil of Ireland on ten of his leading knights, and, leaving Strongbow out in the cold, invests Hugh de Lacy with cap and sword as the first governor of Dublin. When the April showers begin to fall, the royal Plantagenet embarks his host and returns to England.

But what of Strongbow? Conscious of the royal displeasure, he joins Henry in Normandy, and fights bravely against the king’s rebel sons. Then once more the sun of royalty deigns to smile on him, and at length he is rewarded with the long-coveted governorship of Dublin. In Ireland he discovers that Raymond the Fat is most popular with the soldiery, and is likely to prove a troublesome rival. A marriage is arranged between Strongbow’s sister and the popular knight, and Strongbow feels that he has staved off a disaster. The wedding festivities are rudely interrupted by news of native risings, and away goes Raymond to the congenial work of quelling the revolting chieftains. He gains success after success. The soldiers will have no other leader but him; and all the while Strongbow jealously intrigues against him. One day when Raymond is in the south he receives this message from his wife: “Be it known unto your sincere love that the great jaw-tooth which used to give me such uneasiness has fallen out. If you have any care or regard for me or yourself, return with all speed.”

The “great jaw-tooth” is none other than Strongbow, who has just died from the effects of an ulcer in his foot. So passes the man who ushers the English race into Ireland. He came to bring not peace but a sword, and with his advent began five long centuries of battle and murder, oppression, confiscation, rebellion, famine, crime, and misery unspeakable.

“The knight’s bones are dust,And his good sword rust;His soul is with the saints, I trust!”

“The knight’s bones are dust,

And his good sword rust;

His soul is with the saints, I trust!”

Almost the best-known character in all our pageant now makes his appearance. Clad in coat of mail, his shield blazoned with the leopards of England, his surcoat broidered with the Red Cross, he is the verybeau-idealof a knight. Tall, stalwart, handsome, fair-haired, and blue-eyed, the gaze of all men lingers admiringly on him. A good general, a skilful engineer, a wise judge of men, he might have been a renowned king; but, alas, his lust for war, his thirst for adventure, his fierce delight in conflict made him a mere soldier—the foremost of his time, it is true, but nevertheless a killer of men, and not a builder of states or a benefactor of his land. Still, he shines beyond all other English kings as the hero of song and story, and as the mirror of the knighthood which prevailed in his day.

Richard figures in history as the outstanding hero of the third Crusade. Well-nigh a century before he was crowned king at Westminster, Peter the Hermit had harrowed men’s hearts by a recital of the infamies done by the Saracen to Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. With frenzied words he bade his hearers, “Go, deliver the sepulchre of the Lord;” and everywhere arose the answering cry, “God wills it!” A tumultuary horde, burning with enthusiasm, plundered its way to the East, but perished without touching Asiatic shores. Behind it came an organized army, which suffered terribly on the burning sands of Syria, but nevertheless achieved its object, and set up a Latin kingdom in the Holy Land. Half a century went by, and the Crescent was once more in the ascendant. Again a Crusade was preached, and again an immense army set forth to deliver the tomb of our Lord from the infidel. It had to fight against treachery of the worst type, and its career was inglorious in the extreme.

Sixteen years ago a new conqueror arose in the East, the great Sultan Saladin, a knight worthy to cross swords with Richard himself. Jerusalem was now in his hands, and pious Christians felt a deep pang of shame that it should be so. Once more a Crusade was preached, and once more the good and the bad, the pious and the impious, the just and the unjust of Christendom swore to drive the Saracen from the holy soil which his foot polluted. Religious enthusiasm blazed up fiercely, and its first-fruits in England was an awful massacre of Jews on the coronation day of Richard. “Down with the foes of the Lord!” shouted the mob, and thousands of innocent Israelites were murdered in cold blood. At Lincoln the brave Jews defended themselves in the castle until all hope was gone. Then they slew their women and children, lest a worse fate should befall them, and perished by their own hands rather than surrender to their Christian foes.

But all this was forgotten in the bustle and tumult of warlike preparation. Never was Richard so busy, never was he in higher spirits. He worked all day, snatching an hour or two in the evening to spend with his loved troubadours. In the August of the year 1189 his galleyTrenche-merset sail from Marseilles, and spread its sails for Messina, where Richard and Philip of France were to forgather. Winter was to be spent peacefully under Sicilian skies; but trouble was not long in brewing. The townsfolk having beaten and insulted his men, Richard forthwith stormed their city. As a notable squire of dames, he then took up the cause of his widowed sister Joan, who had been despoiled of her dowry by her brother-in-law, the new king. Restitution was made perforce, and Richard by his gallantry and lavish bounty soon became the theme of all tongues. Philip of France, as proud and haughty as Richard himself, looked on sullenly, and a passionate jealousy of the English king began to take possession of him.

At last Richard sailed for Cyprus, where he proposed to land and await the coming of his bride, the fair Berengaria of Navarre. But a storm overtook his fleet, and two of his vessels were driven ashore. Isaac Comnenus, the churlish ruler of the island, little guessing with whom he had to deal, seized the cargoes and imprisoned the crews. This was intolerable, and Richard’s hot blood boiled with rage. To avenge the insult, he pounced upon the capital of the island and captured it. Then, to crown his triumph, came Berengaria, and, amidst scenes of splendour, his marriage was celebrated. He spent his honeymoon in conquering the rest of the island, nor did he rest until Isaac, loaded with silver chains, was sent into banishment.

Twice he had fought and conquered since leaving Marseilles, and yet a third adventure awaited him before the real business of his enterprise began. During the voyage to Acre a big merchant ship was sighted flying false colours. Speedily she was discovered to be a Saracen vessel striving to run the blockade of Acre, now besieged by the Crusaders. Forthwith Richard mustered his crew. “I will hang every mother’s son of you if you let yonder dromond go,” was the burden of his speech, and having thus heartened his men, he bore down on the foe. The Saracens let fly a shower of arrows and threw Greek fire aboard theTrenche-mer, but, nothing daunted, Richard rammed the Saracen vessel with the sharp prow of his galley. Through the gaping rent in the dromond’s side the sea poured in, and down she went with all her rich cargo and most of her crew.

There were no more adventures before Acre was reached. The ancient town was closely beleaguered by the Crusaders, but little progress had been made. A change came over the spirit of the attackers when Cœur de Lion arrived. Up rose a great wooden castle to top the walls; here and there huge catapults hurled missiles into the town; while beneath the pent-houses was heard the sound of pick and spade as the sappers undermined the walls. Now ague seized the king, but his ardent spirit would not let him rest. Carried in a litter to the trenches, he himself pulled a bow against the Saracens on the ramparts, and by example, stirring words, and promises of reward encouraged his soldiers to press the siege with all possible vigour.

Early in July the town was yielded, and in the first moment of success bickerings began amongst the Christian leaders.

When the Crusaders entered the city, Richard perceived Leopold of Austria’s flag planted side by side with his own on St. George’s Mount. “Who has dared,” he said, laying his hand upon the Austrian standard, and speaking in a voice like the sound which precedes an earthquake, “who has dared to place this paltry rag beside the banner of England?”

“It was I, Leopold of Austria.”

“Then shall Leopold of Austria presently see the rate at which his banner and his pretensions are held by Richard of England.”

So saying, he pulled up the standard-spear, splintered it to pieces, threw the banner itself on the ground, and placed his foot upon it.

“Thus,” said he, “I trample on the banner of Austria.”

In these words does Sir Walter Scott recount the story. Peace was ultimately made between the two, but Richard had made another foe, who was soon to take ample revenge on the haughty island king.

The fame of Richard dwarfed that of every knight who wore the Cross in Palestine, and the bruit of his valorous deeds made him a terror to every Saracen in the land. For years after, an Arab would cry to the steed that stumbled, “Fool, dost thou think thou sawest King Richard?” But the odds were fearfully against him. Every day disease thinned his ranks, and in the long march from Acre along the coast his men suffered terribly, though they turned in wrath and smote, hip and thigh, the Saracens who harried them. Barely, too, did Richard escape the daggers of the assassins sent to do their murderous work by the Old Man of the Mountain, who dwelt at Lebanon. One of them entered Richard’s tent, and was about to strike when the English king caught up the stool on which he had been sitting, and with it crashed in his assailant’s skull. No wonder men believed that he bore a charmed life.

And now he turned his steps to Jerusalem itself, but the Frenchmen forsook him, lest it should be said that an English king had recovered the Holy Sepulchre. Never was he so cast down as at this defection. Without their aid his little army could not hope to succeed. As he wrestled with his grievous disappointment, a knight begged him to ascend a mount from which he might gaze upon Jerusalem. But the king snapped the switch which he held in his hand, and cast his surcoat over his head, while the angry tears gushed forth. “O Lord God,” he prayed, “suffer not mine eyes to behold Thy holy city, since Thou wilt not grant that I deliver it from the hands of Thy foes!”

Back again over the weary sands of the desert he toiled, sick at heart and sick of body, but not so sick that he could not again drive the enemy before him. But he had failed, though he had done all that man could do. Saladin agreed to a truce of three months, three days, and three hours, and with this poor result Richard was forced to be content. So he left the Holy Land, never to return.

Richard, however, was never long without the adventures which he so ardently sought. On the homeward voyage he landed at Ragusa, on the Adriatic shore, meaning to pass through Germany in disguise. But the gloves in the belt of his page betrayed him as a great personage, and he fell into the hands of his foe, Leopold of Austria, who at length found himself able to pay off old scores. Ultimately Richard was sold to the emperor, who put him in chains, and raked the past for offences wherewith to accuse his royal captive. For a time Richard disappeared entirely from view, but the place of his captivity leaked out at last. An old story tells us that his whereabouts were discovered by the minstrel Blondel, who loved the king, and set out on a weary quest to seek him. From castle to castle he passed, singing under the walls a song which Richard had composed. One day, to his great delight, he heard a voice which he knew full well troll out the second verse of the song from a dungeon cell. Forthwith he hastened to England and told the news. Historians, however, frown upon this pleasing story.

Richard was tried at a Great Council, where he defended himself boldly, and cleared himself of all the charges urged against him. Nevertheless, his captor would not let him go without ransom, which was valued at twenty-seven times the king’s weight, and amounted to the colossal sum for those days of £100,000. Richard wrote home to his ministers and begged them to collect the money as speedily as possible, as he was weary of captivity. While they were raising the ransom, which was a grievous burden even to rich England, Richard whiled away the weary hours by writing ballads, one of which ran thus:——

“Never can captive make a song so fairAs he can make that has no cause for care,Yet may he strive by song his grief to cheer.I lack not friends, but sadly lack their gold!Shamed are they, if unransomed I lie here a second Yule in hold.”

“Never can captive make a song so fair

As he can make that has no cause for care,

Yet may he strive by song his grief to cheer.

I lack not friends, but sadly lack their gold!

Shamed are they, if unransomed I lie here a second Yule in hold.”

But his people were not “shamed.” The Pope and other Christian powers were indignant at the ill-usage to which the champion of the Cross had been subjected, and the Emperor thought it wise to yield to that public opinion which almost unanimously condemned him. So when three-fourths of the ransom had been paid, Richard was set free, and sailed with all speed for England.

Not even now was peace to be his lot, for his false brother John was in arms against him. John, however, was soon pleading that forgiveness which Richard of the generous heart was always ready to grant. Then he was crowned afresh, to rid him of the stain of his captivity; and now that his kingdom was regained and all was peaceful, he looked about for new battles to fight.

He had not far to look. Philip of France was an old enemy, and he had treacherously supported John in his endeavours to gain the English crown while Richard was “in hold.” An uneasy peace followed a French defeat, but a few years later war broke out again, and once more a truce was proclaimed. Soon after, Richard’s subjects in Poitou were in rebellion, and Richard went south to quell the rising. By chance he learned that one of his vassals had unearthed a rich treasure-trove in the shape of a golden chess-table and men. Richard claimed the prize, but his vassal was unwilling to surrender it, whereupon the king laid siege to his castle of Chaluz.

During the siege an archer in the beleaguered keep shot at the king and hit him in the breast. The wound was not serious, but the doctor who attended him soon made it mortal. Ere long the king knew that he must die. As he lay on his deathbed the keep was taken, and the archer who had shot the fatal arrow was brought before him.

“What have I done to thee, that thou shouldest slay me?” demanded the dying king.

“Thou hast slain my father and my brothers with thine own hand,” replied the man undauntedly. “Torture me as thou wilt, I shall die gladly, since I have slain him who did me so much ill.”

“Well, I forgive thee,” said Richard, always generous to a bold foe. Then he bade his servants give the man money and dismiss him unhurt. Let us ever remember that, with all his faults, all his pride, his love of pleasure, his vainglory, his animal passion for warfare, Richard’s dying request was for mercy to the man who had robbed him of life. When the breath was out of the king’s body his soldiers flayed the bowman alive, but that foul deed may not be laid to Richard’s charge.

So they buried the Lion’s heart at Rouen, and laid his body at Fontevraud, beside that of the father whose gray hairs he had brought down long years ago with sorrow to the grave.

“GOD WILLS IT!”(From the picture by James Archer, R.S.A. By permission of the Autotype Co.)

Crusaders on the March.(From the picture by Sir John Gilbert, R.A., in the South Kensington Museum.)

King Richard and the Young Archer.(From the fresco by John Cross in the Houses of Parliament.)

“Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign.”

Runnymede spreads before you, the famous field on which the English people wrested from a tyrannous monarch their great table of laws. You see a green meadow stretching along the marge of “silver-footed Thames,” a pasturage in no degree distinguished from scores of others in that fair valley. Fronting it is a little island, set like an emerald in the shining waters. Meadow and island should enchain your attention, for here a deed is to be done of deep and solemn import, immeasurable in its effects upon the lives and fortunes of generations yet unborn.

Here you shall see the seed sown which is to shoot up into a goodly tree, bearing as its fruits that liberty, civilization, and knowledge in which we rejoice to-day. Long centuries of toil and struggle will elapse before it is deep-rooted in the soil; the weeds of error and wrong will threaten to choke it; the fierce sun of tyranny will scorch it; the piercing winds of privilege will numb it: but the hardy plant will not succumb. It will be tended by devoted hands, and watered with blood and tears, until it spreads its branches far and wide, and is reckoned the glory of the land. New-graffed with every generation, and branching into offshoots which bear little semblance to the parent stock, it still remains, worthy of all our reverence and regard as the sturdy root of the Constitution under which Britons dwell as the freest nation of the world.

Look at the meadow on this side of the Thames. Busy hands are setting up a pavilion of white and gold, for the sojourn of a king. Other pavilions are rising on Runnymede itself, and on the island too, where a canopied throne is set up. Now the actors in the scene begin to arrive. Mail-clad barons armed as for the fray, grim and determined, solemn of port and sober of converse, draw near. An archbishop with his train of priests joins the armed throng. All the magnates of England, spiritual and secular, are here—and they are here to coerce a king.

All is ready, and now the king leaves his bannered pavilion, and crossing the narrow waters to the isle proceeds towards the throne. Watch him closely, for his like has never before worn the English crown, and—please God—never will again. Look at his fierce, dark countenance, over which waves of passion continually spread, like the ripples on yonder waters. He is the scourge of his land, the worst monarch with which England has been cursed—worse even than Rufus. Bad son, bad husband, bad father, bad king, there is scarce a crime in the whole black calendar of which he may not be justly accused. He is cruel, false, greedy, untruthful, and vile; yet out of his wickedness wondrous good shall come.

He has fought his father, he has wronged his brother, and he has murdered the little nephew who stood in his way. The poor child Arthur, heir to the English throne and to England’s wide realms in France, fell into his hands twelve years ago. John offered him terms, but the lad, brimful of the spirit of his race, would strike no bargain with the “shameless king.” He was close pent in a Norman castle, and thither John dispatched his unwilling minister, Hubert de Burgh, to put out the lad’s eyes. But the frenzied appeals of the little prince so moved Hubert’s heart that he forswore his foul commission, preferring to brave the wrath of his ruthless master than to suffer the sting of conscience. But there were others with no bowels of compassion, and by their aid the lad was slain. How he actually died we do not know. Perhaps John inveigled the boy into a boat and there stabbed him and flung his body overboard, or perhaps he compassed his death by subtler means. Shakespeare tells us that, goaded to madness, the little prince leaped from the walls of his prison, crying,—

“O me! my uncle’s spirit is in these stones—Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones.”

“O me! my uncle’s spirit is in these stones—

Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones.”

At any rate, the king you now see approaching has murder on his soul. But this is only the beginning of his villainy. Seven years ago the Archbishop of Canterbury went to his rest, and the monks of the cathedral elected another and sent him to Rome for his pall. John chose for the high office a minion of his own, “a servant of Mammon, and an evil shepherd that devoured his own sheep.” Pope Innocent, the proudest and most powerful man who ever wore the triple crown, set both candidates aside and appointed Stephen Langton, a wise and pious Englishman, against whom no word of scandal could be breathed. But John would have none other but his own nominee. He defied the Pope, and then the thunders of Rome were heard in the land. For the king’s sins a religious boycott was imposed upon the people.

The most dreaded terror in the Papal armoury—an interdict—was placed on the land. The churches were closed, no bell rang for prayers, all rites were withheld from the people, and even the dead lay in unconsecrated ground. But John was not yet brought to his knees; he seized the goods and lands of the Church, and then Innocent in wrath cast him out of its pale. Still John was unsubdued; he plundered the Church even more remorselessly.

He treated the Jews as a money-sucking sponge, squeezing them by every conceivable cruelty until they gave up their wealth. One rich Jew, so the story goes, was forced to disgorge by the simple process of having a tooth drawn every day until he had to choose between his remaining molars and his money bags. Others were starved in cages fastened to castle walls until their spirit of resistance was broken.

Military success did not fail the wicked king at this crisis. He compelled William the Lion of Scotland to do homage and pay heavy tribute, and he did the only really good work of his life in Ireland. From that country, which had been destined as his principality, John had been driven in the lifetime of his father by an onslaught of the Irish chiefs, whom he had abominably insulted and goaded into rebellion. Now he returned, and made short work of them and of the quarrelsome Anglo-Normans. He pacified the distracted land, made good laws, appointed capable officers, and sailed home in triumph. Then he turned his victorious arms against his son-in-law, Llewellyn, and forced the Welsh prince to do homage in the midst of his mountain fastnesses. And all the time John snapped his fingers at the Pope.

Innocent’s patience being now well-nigh exhausted, he sent to England his legate Pandulf, who solemnly declared John’s subjects free of their oath of fealty. But most of the nobles and many of the more worldly clergy still stuck to John, and his hired troops feared neither Pope nor devil. So John still held out, and even began to win the goodwill of his subjects by regulating the seaport trade, and by pardoning offenders against the barbarous forest laws of the time. Now came the Pope’s final sentence—John was to be hurled from the throne, and another and a worthier king should reign in his stead.

Philip of France was chosen to carry out the decree, and speedily he mustered an army for the venture. On all hands foes arose, and though the English barons and people were quite ready to fight for their king, John was for the first time thoroughly frightened. He feared to die outside the Church, and he was terrified by a monkish prophecy that he should lose his crown ere next Ascension Day. So he begged forgiveness of Innocent, knelt before Pandulf, and gave up his kingdom, which he received back on promise of amendment and a yearly tribute as vassal of the Pope. The anger of the English people at this base act knew no bounds. “He has become the Pope’s man,” they sneered; “he is no longer a king, but a slave.” Still more angry did they become when John sent an expedition to France, which, after capturing Philip’s fleet and burning his stores, was hopelessly beaten and driven back to England.

Many of the barons had refused to join this ill-fated expedition, and now John began to punish them. This was the last straw. They met in wrath, and Stephen Langton showed them the charter which Henry the First had granted to his people one hundred years before. The barons, utterly disgusted with John and all his works, now knelt before the high altar of St. Edmund’s minster and swore that they would make the king put his seal to a similar charter, even if they had to plunge the land in civil war. They girded on their armour, and under Robert Fitzwalter, “marshal of the army of God and of holy Church,” marched on London, where the citizens threw open the gates to receive them. “These articles,” cried the king, when they were presented to him, “are pure foolishness. Why do they not ask me for the kingdom at once? I will never give them such freedom as would make me their slave.” Brave words these, but when John perceived that all his knights but seven had deserted him he saw that he had no alternative but to yield.

And now let us turn again to the scene on the little island in the Thames. John has ascended his throne, and, holding the sword of state in his hand, battles hard with the fierce rage that is gnawing in his heart. Now he must repress his feelings, but to-night he will give them full fling. He will throw himself on the ground, gnash his teeth, and in a torrent of rage utter curses loud and deep. But here he must dissemble his wrath. Around him are the barons in full armour, their hearts as hard and their wills as unyielding as the mail which clothes them. A monk reads the charter, but the king is not listening. He is plotting and planning how to make these barons eat dirt for the insult they are putting upon him. By his side is Pandulf, urging him to defy them; but the king knows the resistless might of angry Englishmen better than any foreign churchman. He is in a trap; he must yield, but woe betide those who have made him do so!

The reading of the charter is finished, and John cries reluctantly, “Let it be sealed.” Then the charter is placed on the table in front of him, the wax is melted and placed on the parchment, the seal is screwed down, and the great charter becomes, for all time, the law of the land.

Now, what is this charter which has just been sealed? It is really a treaty of peace between king and people. “We will retain you as king,” they say, “only on condition that you swear to keep the law thus written down.” It is no new thing this law, but the old rights and the old liberties of the people collected together, and for the first time put into black and white. All the freemen of the land have united to extort this charter from the king, and the rights of all classes are laid down in it. Naturally, much of the charter deals with the rights of the barons and the clergy, for they have had the chief hand in securing it, but one-third of it contains promises and guarantees for the people in general. All praise to the barons! Unlike those of some foreign lands, they are not selfish now that they have got the upper hand of the king. Of course they take very good care of themselves, but to their credit be it said that they do not neglect the welfare of the nation at large.

In days to come men will regard this charter as the cure for every kind of royal lawlessness and tyranny. Well-nigh forty times will our kings be forced to sign it, and every time the national faith in the principles laid down in it will grow stronger and stronger. It will be greatly changed in form as the years run by, for new conditions will bring the need for new applications of its provisions. Nevertheless, the three main principles of the charter which you have witnessed in the making have been carried into every land where the British flag waves, and to every shore where the spirit of British freedom has penetrated. Let them be set down here before the scene closes and the pageant moves on:—The people can only be taxed with the consent of their representatives. There shall be justice for all, and it must not be sold, delayed, or refused. No freeman shall be taken, imprisoned, or in any way hurt, unless he be tried by his peers or equals according to the law.

In our days of widespread freedom these priceless principles seem to us the merest commonplaces, yet we must never forget that stout hearts, strong wills, and eternal vigilance were needed before they became the unchallenged possession of all who glory in the name of Briton.

Hubert and Arthur.(From the picture by William F. Yeames, R.A. By permission of the Corporation of Manchester.)

Chapter VII.THE THREE EDWARDS.

“God bless the Prince of Wales.”

AND now “gallant little Wales” shall supply a scene to our pageant. History may not sanction the subject of it, but it may not be omitted. You are spectators within the gray walls of Carnarvon Castle, that grim old fortress which overlooks the fair waters of Menai Strait. From its soaring towers your eye takes in the wild mountain region of Snowdonia, a land of hoary summits and green valleys, in the recesses of which the old Celtic inhabitants of Britain stubbornly maintained their independence for more than five long centuries. You are now to see the nation subdued and an English king assert his sway. But you will not see it lose those essential things which mark its nationality—its language, its literature, its genius. To-day they are still dear to the Welsh nation, and are more jealously guarded and fostered than ever. Go to an Eisteddfod and hear twice a thousand Welsh voices unite in the stirring strains ofHen Wlad fy Nhadau(“Land of my fathers.”) You will then understand how ardently the flame of patriotism burns in the breast of the men and women who have been reared in this ancient land of beauty and song.

As the scene opens, you perceive that the death-knell of the nation’s independence has tolled. You gaze upon an assembly of chieftains—handsome, active men with long hair and moustaches and shaven chins. Their arms, their coats of mail, their helms and shields are laid aside, and they are clad simply in tunic and cloak, bare-kneed, and shod with brogues of hide. All are depressed, all are sorrowful, for they are here to acknowledge the surrender of their land.

As they wait the coming of the English king their minds fly back over the long story of resistance which they and their sires before them have made against their persistent and greedy foes. As they cast their thoughts back they recall the awful slaughter of Roman times, when the Druids of Mona were sacrificed on their own altars; they dimly remember how the deep snow of their hills baffled the haughty Conqueror, who, not to be beaten, planted his barons on their borders, and bade them win the land by never-ceasing strife. It was Griffith ap Rees—was it not?—who made the Norman bite the dust, and taught him to respect the might of the Cymric arm and the fury of the Cymric onset. Then they remember what their bards have told them of the brave days of Owen Gwynedd and the Lord Rees—how these twain drove back the Norman who called himself “Fine Scholar,” and baffled him too. For all his scholarship, he could not add the laurel of Wales to the wreath that encircled his brow.

Then they would think of Llywelyn the Great, and of that golden age which their fathers were never tired of recalling—how that wise and powerful prince strove to unite all Wales, and live on good terms with the Saxon on his borders. ’Twas Llywelyn, they remind one another, who married King John’s daughter, and aided the Saxon barons to make that false sovereign swear to observe the rights of the Cymry and keep their laws inviolate. ’Twas in his day, too, that the monk and the friar came into their land with a blessed ministry to the poor and the outcast. Strange that the great Llywelyn should have begotten so feeble a son as David, he who weakly threw in his lot with the Saxon and sent his patriot brother Griffith in chains to the Tower of London. Ah! it was a sad day when the rope broke by which that gallant prince was trying to escape, and he was killed by the fall!

But his son Llywelyn, their late king, was worthy of his sire, look you! He and the great Simon de Montfort had fought shoulder to shoulder, and the Saxon king had been obliged to recognize Llywelyn as Prince of Wales. And now he has gone too—slain by a foe who knew him not, in a mere skirmish down by Builth. Yes, and the old prophecy has come true—that Llywelyn should ride crowned through London. Crowned he was, in very sooth, but, alas, the crowned head was carried on a spear. Woe worth the day! David, his brother, had been caught too, and had suffered the awful death penalty of a traitor. Even now his head was rotting over Shrewsbury gate. Had Llywelyn but lived, even Edward’s great army might have been driven back, especially as winter was coming on, and the storms and the snows would fight on their side. But with Llywelyn’s death all hope has vanished, and what can they do but submit?

And now Edward, the Saxon king before whom they are to bow, comes on the scene. The chieftains scan him closely. Some of them have never seen him eye to eye before; but his warlike fame has long been familiar to them. As he strides into the courtyard, towering above his attendants, they can readily believe those wonderful stories which they have heard of his mighty prowess and physical strength—how, for example, he slew the assassin in the Holy Land, and how he bore himself at Châlons when the Burgundian knight strove to drag him from his saddle. What a fool the fellow must have looked when Edward clapped spurs to his horse and shook the man to the ground as though he had been a bag of straw! He is pitiful, too, and boasts—does he not?—that no man ever begged his life of him in vain. And what is that device which he bears so proudly on his shield? “Keep faith.” Ah, but will he keep faith with stricken Wales? Has he not slaughtered the very bards, lest their songs should keep the memory of the old free days fresh and green in their hearts?

And now the handsome, stern king with the drooping eyelid begins to speak in deep, vibrant tones, and the interpreter turns his words into the tongue of old Britain. He will give them a prince of their own. “Nay,” they cry out, “we will have no prince but one born in our own land and speaking our own tongue.” Edward turns to the nurse who stands by, takes from her his newly-born son, and holds him aloft to the astonished gaze of the chieftains. “Here is your prince,” he cries; “he was born in Wales, and he knows not a word of the English tongue.”

The humour of it appeals to the assembled throng. Yes, yes, they will swear fealty to him, but he must have a Welsh nurse, and he must learn to speak their language. Edward gladly agrees, and swears on the hilt of his sword to “keep faith.” So the Welsh have once more a prince of their own, and thus it comes about that the eldest son of an English king bears the proud title Prince of Wales.

Now Edward betakes himself to the more serious work of settling the government of the land. Wales is to keep her old customs and laws, and Welshmen are to retain the freedom and the estates which they enjoyed under their own princes. All is done that can be done to make the foreign yoke easy and the burden light; but many a wicked deed will be perpetrated and many an injustice will be wrought before Welshmen are reconciled to the loss of their independence. But the day will come when, secure in their freedom and reinforced by their union with the mightier land on their borders, there will be no more loyal and stauncher hearts in the whole Empire than those which beat in “gallant little Wales.”

THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES.(From the picture by P. R. Morris, A.R.A.)

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