The magnanimous Coeur de Lion treated these rebels with great lenity; and when Prince John, on the arrival of the king at Rouen, being introduced by Queen Eleanora, knelt at his brother's feet for pardon, he raised him with this remarkable expression:

"I forgive you, John, and I wish I could as easily forget your offence as you will my pardon.”

King Richard finished his progress by residing some months in his Angevin territories. Although he was in the vicinity of the loving and faithful Berengaria, he did not return to her society. The reason of this estrangement was, that the king had renewed his connexion with a number of profligate and worthless associates, the companions of his long bachelorhood in his father's lifetime. His conduct at this time infinitely scandalised all his subjects, as he abandoned himself to drinking and great infamy; for which various virtuous churchmen reproved him boldly, to their credit be it spoken.

“The spring of 1195, Richard was hunting in one of his Norman forests,1 when he was met by a hermit, who recognised him, and preached him a very eloquent sermon on his irregular life, finishing by prophesying, that unless he repented, his end and punishment were close at hand. The king answered slightingly, and went his way; but the Easter following he was seized with a most severe illness which threatened to be fatal, when he remembered the saying of the hermit-prophet, and, greatly alarmed, he began to repent of his sins."

1 Tyrrell, from a Chronicle by Rigord. Maître Rigord was originally a medical man he was the contemporary of King Richard and King John.

Richard sent for all the monks within ten miles round, and made public confession of his iniquities, vowing that if Queen Berengaria would forgive him, he would send for her, and never forsake her again. When he recovered, these good resolutions were strengthened by an interview he had with an English bishop.

While Richard was parted from the queen, he quarrelled with the virtuous St. Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, on the old ground of exacting a simoniacal tribute on the installation of the prelate into his see. Willing to evade the direct charge of selling the see, King Richard intimated that a present of a fur mantle worth a thousand marks might be the composition. St. Hugh said he was no judge of such gauds, and therefore sent the king a thousand marks, declaring, if he would devour the revenue devoted to the poor, he must have his wilful way. But as soon as Richard had pocketed the money, he sent for the fur mantle. St. Hugh set out for Normandy, to remonstrate with the king on this double extortion. His friends anticipated that he would be killed; but St. Hugh said, "I fear him not," and boldly entered the chapel where Richard was at mass, when the following scene took place.

"Give me the embrace of peace, my son," said St. Hugh.

"That you have not deserved," replied the king. "Indeed I have," said St. Hugh, "for I have made a long journey on purpose to see my son."

So saying, he took hold of the king's sleeve, and drew him on one side. Richard smiled, and embraced the old man. They withdrew to the recess behind the altar, and sat down.

"In what state is your conscience?" asked the bishop.

"Very easy," said the king.

"How can that be, my son," said the bishop," when you live apart from your virtuous queen, and are faithless to her when you devour the provision of the poor, and load your people with heavy exactions? Are these light trangresssions, my son ?"

The king owned his faults, and promised amendment; and when he related this conversation to his courtiers, he added:

"Were all our prelates like Hugh of Lincoln, both king and barons must submit to their righteous rebukes !" 1

Whether the interview with St. Hugh took place before or after the king's alarming illness, we have no data to declare; but as Richard was evidently in a tamer state when St. Hugh visited him than when he lawlessly demanded the fur mantle, we think the good bishop must have arrived opportunely, just as Richard was beginning to forget his sick-bed vows, without quite relapsing into his original recklessness.

2

The final restoration of Berengaria to the affections of her royal husband took place a few months after, when Richard proceeded to Poictiers, where he was reconciled to his queen, and kept Christmas and the new year of 1196 in that city in princely state and hospitality. It was a year of great scarcity and famine, and the beneficent queen exerted her restored influence over the heart of her king, by persuading him to give all his superfluous money in bountiful alms to the poor, and through 2 Rigord, French Chron.

1 Berrington.

her goodness many were kept from perishing. From that time Queen Berengaria and King Richard were never parted. She found it best to accompany him in all his campaigns, and we find her with him at the hour of his death.

Higden, in the Polychronichon, gives this testimony to the love that Berengaria bore to Richard: "The king took home to him his queen Berengaria, whose society he had for a long time neglected, though she were a royal, eloquent, and beauteous lady, and for his love had ventured with him through the world."

The same year the king, despairing of heirs by his consort, sent for young Arthur duke of Bretagne, that the boy might be educated at his court as future king of England. His mother Constance, out of enmity to Queen Eleanora, unwisely refused this request, and she finished her folly by declaring for the king of France, then waging a fierce war against Richard. This step cost her hapless child his inheritance, and finally his life. From this time Richard acknowledged his brother John as his heir.

The remaining three years of Richard's life were spent in petty provincial wars with the king of France. In one of his treaties, the Princess Alice was at last surrendered to her brother, who, at the age of twenty-five, gave her, with a tarnished reputation and the dowry of the county of Ponthieu, in marriage to the count of Aumerle.

After the reconciliation between Richard and Berengaria, the royal revenues arising from the tin mines in Cornwall and Devon, valued at two thousand marks per annum, were confirmed to the queen for her dower.

1

Rymer's Fœdera.

Her continental dower was the city of Bigorre in Aquitaine, and the whole county of Mans.

It was the lively imagination of Richard, heated by the splendid fictions of Arabian romance, that hurried him to his end. A report was brought to him that a peasant ploughing in the fields of Vidomar, lord of Chaluz in Aquitaine, had struck upon a trap-door which concealed an enchanted treasure,1 and going down into a cave, discovered several golden statues with vases full of diamonds, all of which had been secured in the castle of Chaluz, for the private use of the Sieur de Vidomar. Richard, when he heard this fine tale, sent to Vidomar, demanding, as sovereign of the country, his share of the golden statues. The poor castellan declared that no such treasure had been found; nothing but a pot of Roman coins had been discovered, and those he was welcome to have.

As Richard had set his mind on golden statues and vases of diamonds, and had thriven so well when he demanded the golden furniture from King Tancred, it was not probable he could lower his ideas to the reality stated by the unfortunate lord of Vidomar. Accordingly he marched to besiege the castle of Chaluz, sending word to Vidomar either to deliver the statues, or abide the storming of the castle. To this siege Queen Berengaria accompanied the king. Here Richard met his death, being pierced from the walls by an arrow from an arbalista, or cross-bow, aimed by the hand of Bertrand de Gordon. It was the unskilfulness of the surgeon, who

1 Brompton. Newbury. Hemmingford and Willis.

? We find the name of Gordon among the inflamma tory sirventes of Bertrand de Born.