many of the assembly were moved to tears by his eloquence and
earnestness. It was decided that he should be treated, during the
rest of his captivity, in a manner more becoming his dignity than
he had been, and that he should be set free on the payment of a
heavy ransom. This ransom the English people willingly raised.
When Queen Eleanor took it over to Germany, it was at first evaded
and refused. But she appealed to the honour of all the princes of
the German Empire in behalf of her son, and appealed so well that
it was accepted, and the King released. Thereupon, the King of
France wrote to Prince John – ‘Take care of thyself. The devil is
unchained!’
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Dickens, Charles – A Child’s History of England
Prince John had reason to fear his brother, for he had been a
traitor to him in his captivity. He had secretly joined the French
King; had vowed to the English nobles and people that his brother
was dead; and had vainly tried to seize the crown. He was now in
France, at a place called Evreux. Being the meanest and basest of
men, he contrived a mean and base expedient for making himself
acceptable to his brother. He invited the French officers of the
garrison in that town to dinner, murdered them all, and then took
the fortress. With this recommendation to the good will of a lionhearted
monarch, he hastened to King Richard, fell on his knees
before him, and obtained the intercession of Queen Eleanor. ‘I
forgive him,’ said the King, ‘and I hope I may forget the injury he
has done me, as easily as I know he will forget my pardon.’
While King Richard was in Sicily, there had been trouble in his
dominions at home: one of the bishops whom he had left in charge
thereof, arresting the other; and making, in his pride and
ambition, as great a show as if he were King himself. But the King
hearing of it at Messina, and appointing a new Regency, this
LONGCHAMP (for that was his name) had fled to France in a woman’s
dress, and had there been encouraged and supported by the French
King. With all these causes of offence against Philip in his mind,
King Richard had no sooner been welcomed home by his enthusiastic
subjects with great display and splendour, and had no sooner been
crowned afresh at Winchester, than he resolved to show the French
King that the Devil was unchained indeed, and made war against him
with great fury.
There was fresh trouble at home about this time, arising out of the
discontents of the poor people, who complained that they were far
more heavily taxed than the rich, and who found a spirited champion
in WILLIAM FITZ-OSBERT, called LONGBEARD. He became the leader of
a secret society, comprising fifty thousand men; he was seized by
surprise; he stabbed the citizen who first laid hands upon him; and
retreated, bravely fighting, to a church, which he maintained four
days, until he was dislodged by fire, and run through the body as
he came out. He was not killed, though; for he was dragged, half
dead, at the tail of a horse to Smithfield, and there hanged.
Death was long a favourite remedy for silencing the people’s
advocates; but as we go on with this history, I fancy we shall find
them difficult to make an end of, for all that.
The French war, delayed occasionally by a truce, was still in
progress when a certain Lord named VIDOMAR, Viscount of Limoges,
chanced to find in his ground a treasure of ancient coins. As the
King’s vassal, he sent the King half of it; but the King claimed
the whole. The lord refused to yield the whole. The King besieged
the lord in his castle, swore that he would take the castle by
storm, and hang every man of its defenders on the battlements.
There was a strange old song in that part of the country, to the
effect that in Limoges an arrow would be made by which King Richard
would die. It may be that BERTRAND DE GOURDON, a young man who was