heart of a Lion. It would have been far better, I think, to have
had the heart of a Man. His heart, whatever it was, had cause to
beat remorsefully within his breast, when he came – as he did –
into the solemn abbey, and looked on his dead father’s uncovered
face. His heart, whatever it was, had been a black and perjured
heart, in all its dealings with the deceased King, and more
deficient in a single touch of tenderness than any wild beast’s in
the forest.
There is a pretty story told of this Reign, called the story of
FAIR ROSAMOND. It relates how the King doted on Fair Rosamond, who
was the loveliest girl in all the world; and how he had a beautiful
Bower built for her in a Park at Woodstock; and how it was erected
in a labyrinth, and could only be found by a clue of silk. How the
bad Queen Eleanor, becoming jealous of Fair Rosamond, found out the
secret of the clue, and one day, appeared before her, with a dagger
and a cup of poison, and left her to the choice between those
deaths. How Fair Rosamond, after shedding many piteous tears and
offering many useless prayers to the cruel Queen, took the poison,
and fell dead in the midst of the beautiful bower, while the
unconscious birds sang gaily all around her.
Now, there WAS a fair Rosamond, and she was (I dare say) the
loveliest girl in all the world, and the King was certainly very
fond of her, and the bad Queen Eleanor was certainly made jealous.
But I am afraid – I say afraid, because I like the story so much –
that there was no bower, no labyrinth, no silken clue, no dagger,
no poison. I am afraid fair Rosamond retired to a nunnery near
Oxford, and died there, peaceably; her sister-nuns hanging a silken
drapery over her tomb, and often dressing it with flowers, in
remembrance of the youth and beauty that had enchanted the King
when he too was young, and when his life lay fair before him.
It was dark and ended now; faded and gone. Henry Plantagenet lay
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Dickens, Charles – A Child’s History of England
quiet in the abbey church of Fontevraud, in the fifty-seventh year
of his age – never to be completed – after governing England well,
for nearly thirty-five years.
CHAPTER XIII – ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE FIRST, CALLED THE LIONHEART
IN the year of our Lord one thousand one hundred and eighty-nine,
Richard of the Lion Heart succeeded to the throne of King Henry the
Second, whose paternal heart he had done so much to break. He had
been, as we have seen, a rebel from his boyhood; but, the moment he
became a king against whom others might rebel, he found out that
rebellion was a great wickedness. In the heat of this pious
discovery, he punished all the leading people who had befriended
him against his father. He could scarcely have done anything that
would have been a better instance of his real nature, or a better
warning to fawners and parasites not to trust in lion-hearted
princes.
He likewise put his late father’s treasurer in chains, and locked
him up in a dungeon from which he was not set free until he had
relinquished, not only all the Crown treasure, but all his own
money too. So, Richard certainly got the Lion’s share of the
wealth of this wretched treasurer, whether he had a Lion’s heart or
not.
He was crowned King of England, with great pomp, at Westminster:
walking to the Cathedral under a silken canopy stretched on the
tops of four lances, each carried by a great lord. On the day of
his coronation, a dreadful murdering of the Jews took place, which
seems to have given great delight to numbers of savage persons
calling themselves Christians. The King had issued a proclamation
forbidding the Jews (who were generally hated, though they were the
most useful merchants in England) to appear at the ceremony; but as
they had assembled in London from all parts, bringing presents to
show their respect for the new Sovereign, some of them ventured