CAMEO Death of my force, my bloody sweat, to the aid of you all that are in the field.' He alighted, kneeled on his knees, kissed the cross of his sword, ran his horse through, saying, 'Thou shalt never serve against me that so worthily hast served with me.' All the horses were then killed but two, on which he mounted two of the youngest of his followers, bidding them watch the fight from the next hill, then make all speed to bear his greetings to his brother De Courcy, and report that day's service." When the Irish saw the devoted band so firmly awaiting their attack, they fancied that succour must be near, and did not venture their onset till the whole country had been reconnoitred. Every Englishman was slain, but one thousand Irish also fell, and the death of these brave men was not in vain. Cathal was so impressed by their courage that he sued for peace, and never ventured another pitched battle. He afterwards told Sir Hugo de Lacy that he thought verily there never was the like seen on earth; for when the Englishmen could not stand, they set themselves back to back, and fought on till the last man was slain. De Courcy long survived his faithful brother-in-arms, and stood so high in all men's estimation, that De Lacy in jealousy sent information to King John, soon after the death of Arthur, that the Earl of Ulster was sowing disaffection by accusing him of his nephew's murder. This was the very thing for which John had lately starved to death the Lady de Braose and her children, and he sent orders to De Lacy to attack the person of De Courcy. Every means of open force failed, and De Lacy was reduced to tamper with his servants, two of whom at length informed him that it was vain to think of seizing their master when he had his armour on, as he was of immense strength and skill, nor did he ever lay aside his weapons, except on Good Friday, when he was wont to walk up and down the churchyard of Downe, alone and unarmed. Accordingly De Lacy sent a band of horsemen, who fell upon the betrayed knight. He caught up a wooden cross, and made brave resistance, and so did his two nephews, sons of Sir Almeric, who were with him; but they had no weapon, and were both slain, while De Courcy was overpowered and carried a prisoner to London. The two traitors begged De Lacy to give them passports to go to England, on which he gave them a sealed paper, on condition of their not opening it themselves, nor returning on pain of death. Now the paper set forth that they were traitors no better than Judas, and exhorted every true man to spit in their faces, and drive them away. However, these letters were never delivered, for the wretched men were driven by stress of weather back on the coast of Ireland, and De Lacy had them hanged. De Courcy continued in captivity till one of the many disputes between John and Philippe Auguste was to be decided by the ordeal of battle. The most stalwart of all John's subjects was his prisoner, and he immediately sent to release him from the Tower, offering him immense rewards if he would become his champion. The old knight answered that King John himself was not worthy to have one drop of blood shed for him; and as to rewards, he could never requite the wrongs he had done him, nor restore the heart's ease he had robbed him of. For John Lackland he would never fight, nor for such as him, but for the honour of the Crown and of England he undertook the cause. The old warrior, wasted with imprisonment, was prepared by good feeding, and received his weapons: the Frenchman fled at once, and De Courcy prepared to return to Ireland. He made fifteen attempts to cross, and each time was forced to put back. At length, as old chronicles relate, he was warned in a dream to make the trial no more, for, said the voice, "Thou hast done ill, thou hast pulled down the Master, and set up the servant." This was thought to refer to his having newly dedicated the cathedral of Downe in the name of St. Patrick, whereas before it had been the Church of the Holy Trinity. He took blame to himself, submitted, and going to France, there died at an advanced age. For his championship, the right of wearing the head covered in the presence of royalty was granted to him and his heirs, and it is still the privilege of his descendants, the Earls of Kinsale; "For when every head is unbonneted They walk in cap and plume." CAMEO De Courcy's САМЕО Marriage of Fair Popes of Rome. 1154. Adrian IV. 1159. Alexander III. 1181. Lucius III. 1185. Urban III. 1187. Gregory VIII. "THE gods are just, and of our pleasant sins make whips to scourge us. The root of his misfortunes may be traced to his ambitious marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine, twelve years older than himself, and divorced by Louis VII. of France on account of her flagrant misconduct in Palestine, in the course of the miserable expedition called the Second Crusade. For her broad lands, he deserted the woman whom he loved, and who had left her home and duty for his sake, and on his promise of marriage. 66 Fair Rosamond Clifford was the daughter of a Herefordshire baron, with whom Henry became acquainted in his seventeenth year, when he came to England in 1149 to dispute the crown with Stephen. He lodged her at Woodstock, in the tower built, according to ballad lore, ' most curiously of stone and timber strong," and with such a labyrinth leading to it that "none, but with a clue of thread, could enter in or out." There Rosamond remained while he returned to France to receive Normandy and Anjou on the death of his father, and on going to pay homage to Louis VII. ingratiated himself with Queen Eleanor, whose divorce was then impending. Eleanor and her sister Petronella were joint heiresses of the great duchy of Aquitaine, their father having died on pilgrimage to the shrine of Santiago de Compostella, and the desire САМЕО of the fairest and wealthiest provinces of the south of France led the young prince to forget his ties to Rosamond and her infant son William, and never take into consideration what the woman must be, of whom Rosamond's her present husband was resolved to rid himself at the risk of seeing half his kingdom in the hands of his most formidable enemy. For some time Rosamond seems to have been kept in ignorance of Henry's unfaithfulness, but in 1152, the year of his coronation and of the birth of her second child, Geoffrey, she quitted Woodstock, and retired into the nunnery of Godstow, which the king richly endowed. It has been one of the favourite legends of English history that the queen traced her out in her retreat by a ball of silk that had entangled itself in Henry's spurs, and that she offered her the choice of death by the dagger or by poison; but this tale has been refuted by sober proof; there is no reason to believe that Eleanor was a murderess, and it is certain that Rosamond, on learning how she had been deceived, took refuge in the nunnery, where she ended her days twenty years after, in penitence and peace, far happier than her betrayer. Her sons, William and Geoffrey, were honourably brought up, and her remains were placed in the choir, under a silken canopy, with tapers burning round, while the sisters of the convent prayed for mercy on her soul and King Henry's. Even King John paid the costs of this supposed expiation; but St. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, not thinking it well that her history should be before the minds of the nuns, ordered the corpse to be interred in the ordinary burial-place of the convent. During most of those twenty years of Rosamond's repentance, all apparently prospered with Henry. The rigorous justice administered by his excellent chancellor, Ranulf de Glanville, had restored order to England; the only man bold enough to gainsay him had been driven from the kingdom. Ireland was in course of conquest, and his astute policy was continually overreaching the simple-minded Louis VI., who, having derived the surname of le jeune from his age at his accession, was so boyish a character all his life as never to lose it. Four sons and three daughters were born to Henry and Eleanor, and in their infancy he arranged such alliances as might obtain a still wider power for them; nay, even the kingdom of France. Louis VI. had married again, but his second wife died, leaving two infant girls, named Margaret and Alice, and to them Henry betrothed his two eldest sons, Henry and Richard. It was to ask the hand of Margaret for the prince that Becket took his celebrated journey to Paris, and the young pair, Henry and Margaret, were committed to his care for education; but the disputes with the King prevented their being sufficiently long in his hands for the correction of the evil spirit of the Angevin princes. By threats of a war, Henry obtained for Geoffrey, his third son, Constance, the only child of Conan, Duke of Brittany; though the Bretons, who hated Normans, Angevins, and English with equal bitterness, were extremely angry at finding themselves thus connected with all three. On Conan's death, Geoffrey, then ten years old, was called Duke of retreat. 1152. Marriage of young Henry. Marriage of CAMEO XXIII. Aquitaine. The Troubadours. Brittany, but his father took the whole government into his hands, and made it a heavy yoke. John, Count of Mortagne, for whom no heiress had been obtained, was gaily called by his father Lackland, a name which his after-life fitted to him but too well. Richard was intended to be the inheritor of his mother's beautiful duchy of Aquitaine, where he spent most of his early years. It was a strange country, where the ordinary events of life partook so much of romance that we can hardly believe them real. It had never been so peopled by the Franks as to lose either the language or the cultivation left by the Romans. The langue d'oc had much resemblance to the Latin, and was beautifully soft and adapted to poetry, and when the nobles adopted chivalry they ornamented it with all the graces of their superior education. The talent of improvising verses was common among them, and to be a minstrel, or, as they called it, a troubadour (a finder of verses), was essential to the character of a complete gentleman. Courts of beauty and love took place, where arguments were held on cases of allegiance of a knight to his lady-love, and competitions in poetry, in which the reward was a golden violet. Each troubadour thought it needful to be dedicated to the service of some lady, in whose honour all his exploits in arms or achievements in minstrelsy were performed. To what an extravagant length this devotion was carried is shown in the story of Jauffred Rudel, Lord of Blieux, who having heard from some Crusaders a glowing account of the beauty and courtesy of the Countess of Tripoli, on their report made her the object of his affections, and wrote poem after poem upon her, of which one has come down to our times : "No other love shall e'er be mine, Thus his last verse may be translated, and his "amour luench," or love far away, occurs in every other line. He embarked for Palestine for the sole purpose of seeing his amour lunch, but fell sick on the voyage, and was speechless when he arrived. The countess hearing to what a condition his admiration had brought him, came on board the vessel to see him; the sight of her so charmed him that he was able to say a few words to her before he expired. She caused him to be buried with great splendour, and erected a porphyry tomb over him, with an Arabic inscription. The romance of the Languedoçians was unhappily not accompanied by purity of manners, and much of Queen Eleanor's misconduct may be ascribed to the tone prevalent in her native duchy, to which she was much attached. Her brave son, Richard, growing up in this land of minstrelsy, became a thorough troubadour, and loved no portion of his father's domains so well as the sunny south; and his two brothers, Henry and Geoffrey, likewise fell much under the influence of the |