ordered his judges to see that every man swore fealty to him, and made sterner punishments for robbers and outlaws. In 1177 he held a grand review of all his knights, barons, and earls at London. In 1178 he set a board of five judges to hear appeals from the Assizes, this new court was called King's Bench. Next year the great Justiciar, Richard of Lucy, became a monk in the monastery he had founded at Lesnes in honour of S. Thomas, and Ranulf of Glanville took his place. Their faithful comrade against the rebels, Geoffrey, Bishop of Lincoln, the king's base son, was made Chancellor soon after. In 1181, too, the Assize of Arms was put forth, regulations for better ordering of the militia, which had done such good service in 1173. Every freeman according to his degree was to furnish himself with arms and attend regular musters before the king's judges of assize-the knight or squire with helmet, mail-coat, shield, and lance; the yeoman with hauberk, iron headpiece, and lance; the burgess and artisan with wadded coat, headpiece, and lance -under penalty of losing their lives or limbs. 8. Henry was now at the height of his power. He married his daughters Joan and Eleanor to Henry's last the kings of Sicily and Castile, and acted as days and death, umpire for the latter and his uncle the King of 1183-1189. Navarre. Henry the Lion, who had quarrelled with the emperor, took refuge at his court, and the young King of France, Philip, sought his friendship and alliance. But the folly of his sons brought fresh troubles: Earl Richard had refused to do homage for Aquitaine to his jealous brother Henry, who listened to his friend Bertran of Born, and in alliance with Geoffrey of Brittany attacked him fiercely. This Bertran was a good knight, a good lover, and a good poet, wise and fair-spoken, and well skilled to work either good or evil. He could govern King Henry and his sons as he liked. But he would always have them warring together, father and brother and son, one against the other. And he would always have the kings of France and England warring together. And if there were peace or truce, then would he labour to egg them on by his satires to undo the peace, and persuade them that peace was a dishonour to each of them. In his songs he used to call the Earl of Brittany Rassa, and Earl Richard Yea and Nay, and the young king Sailor." Henry started to succour Richard, when the young king fell ill and died, begging his father's forgiveness, 11th June 1183. He was rash, proud, and faithless, but his bravery, generosity, and handsome face had won him many friends. In one of his laments for him Bertran says— "From this weak world, so full of bitterness, Love speeds, its joy is far too false to stay, Bertran was one of the last that held out against Henry and Earl Richard, and when his castle was stormed, he was taken and brought before the angry king. "You boasted, Bertran, that you would never need more than half your wits, you need them all now to save your head.' 'It was a true boast, sire; but the day your son, the brave young king, died, I lost all my wits and senses and skill.' When the king heard what Bertran said, sorrowing for his son, great grief filled his heart and his eyes and he swooned away for sorrow. And when he came to himself he said with tears, ' O Bertran, you are right indeed, and it is small wonder that you should have lost your senses at my son's death, for he wished your welfare more than any one in the world. And for love of him I set you and your land and castle free, and give you back my love and favour and grant you 500 marks for the damage I have done you.' Then Bertran fell at the king's feet and thanked him with all his heart." Next year John and Geoffrey quarrelled with Richard, and the king with difficulty stopped this civil war. For a time, however, these disputes were stayed; for Heraklios, Patriarch of Jerusalem, came to England on behalf of the barons and knights and clergy of that kingdom, to offer the crown to Henry as the only prince that could save them from Saladin. But in spite of the Patriarch's prayers, tears, and even curses, Henry was too wise to leave his Western kingdom exposed to the attacks of the French king and the misbehaviour of his sons. In 1186 Earl Geoffrey again rebelled, but his death from a fall at a tournament in Paris, and the evil tidings from the East, restored peace between Philip and Henry at Gisors, 1188, where both kings and Earl Richard took the Cross, and laid tithes on all men's goods for the equipment of their armies. For Saladin had overthrown the Christians at Tiberias, taking the king and the True Cross, and seized Ascalon and the Holy City itself, disasters which called for a fresh crusade. However, before Henry could take steps to fulfil his vow, Philip broke the peace, and Earl Richard, jealous of his father's love for John, suddenly went over to him with all his vassals. Fever-stricken and disheartened by his son's treachery, Henry saw his birthplace, Le Mans, taken before his eyes, and was unable to save Tours. His luck had left him, and he made peace at Colombières, July 4, 1189, promising to make Richard his heir, and to let his barons swear homage to him. As he gave the kiss of peace to his traitor son, he prayed God to let him live long enough to punish him; but when he found that John, for whom he had suffered this dishonour, had been leagued against him, his heart broke, he threw himself on his bed, with his face to the wall, and groaned, "Let things go as they will, I care no more for myself or anything in the world." Two days more he lingered, crying in his fever, "Shame, shame on a conquered king!" and then, on the 7th July, died in the arms of his one faithful son, Geoffrey the Chancellor. Richard now repented, but all he could do was to follow his father's body with bitter tears to its grave at Font-Evraud. Eyewitnesses describe Henry as of a ruddy weatherbeaten countenance, round head, reddish hair, and fierce grey eyes; of middle height, strong limbed, deep chested, and somewhat stout of body in spite of his temperate fare and ceaseless exercise; for he rose at daybreak, passed most of his time on horseback, and when he came home in the evening, would tire out his courtiers by standing, for he would never sit down save at council or dinner. His ungloved hands were rough and scarred with work, his legs bowed with riding, and his voice harsh from shouting to his soldiers and his hounds. His subjects knew him as a wise and mighty king, merciful and careful of his people's rights, but bearing not the sword in vain, the father of the poor, the wayfarer, and the stranger, "the flower of the princes of this world;" but we must look on him as the great lawyer who linked the free old English local moots to the strong central Royal Court by his plan of petty juries and judges of assize, a system which in substance is ours of to-day. We may be thankful also to the wise statesman who saved England from the barons' tyranny and the despotism of the Church, and made firm the foundations upon which his successors have reared the free Constitutions under which the English-speaking peoples are now living. CHAPTER II. Richard Lion-Heart, 1189-1199. 1. On June 20 Richard was girt with the sword of the Duchy of Normandy at Rouen, where he made his brother John Earl of Mortain, and named Geoffrey to the archbishopric of York. He also sent to England to free his mother, Eleanor, from the imprisonment she had been in since 1173, and made her Regent of the realm till he could cross the sea. This he was soon able to do, and on September 3, in great state and before a mighty gathering of clergy and barons, he was hallowed king at Westminster. As he had made up his mind to fulfil his vow, he now busied himself with getting together money for his journey and settling for the good rule of domains whilst he was away. Meaning to make his nephew Arthur of Brittany his heir, in order to bind his brother John to faithfulness he gave him the earldoms of Cornwall, Derby, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset, many castles, and a rich wife, Hawis, heiress of Gloster. He freed the King of Scots from the homage of Falaise for 10,000 marks, and sold the earldom of Northumberland to the crafty Bishop of Durham, Hugh of Puiset, so turning "an old bishop into a young earl." William of Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, bought the Chancery for £3000, and was made Justiciar, for Ranulf of Glanville wished to join the Crusade. The sheriffs were shifted, the vacant sees and offices filled, and many grants of crown lands made, a goodly sum being paid in each case to the king, who swore "he would have sold London could he have found a bidder," for he put everything up for sale. In December Richard left England and set out on his journey through France. Richard makes ready for the Crusade, 11891190. The slaughters 1189-1190. 2. For some time companies of Jews had been dwelling under the kings' care in many English towns. of the Jews, As for the most part they gained their living by money-lending, which the Church forbade to Christians, and as they were thought to use witchcraft and believed to kidnap Christian children and slay them for sacrifice at their passover, they were much hated by the people. The Church also looked with disfavour upon them because of their religion. But the kings, who took care to make them pay highly for the rights they gave them and shared in their gains, found them a useful source of income. They used to wear a dress of their own, and dwell apart from their fellow-townsmen in walled and gated quarters of the town called Jewries, governed by their own rabbis, and living under their own law. On Richard's coronation day no Jew or woman was allowed to come into the king's presence for fear of witchcraft, but in the afternoon, while the people were crowding. at the gate of the banqueting-room to get a sight of Richard, some hapless Jewish Elders, who had come up (as the custom was) to bring gifts to the new king, were thrust by the press inside the doors. The royal servants cast them out with blows and curses, whereon the mob fell upon them and beat them shamefully, and raising a cry that the king had commanded all the Jews to be slain, rushed off to attack the London Jewry. House after house was broken into, sacked and fired, and the inmates cruelly slain. The rioting was so great, and the mob so savage (for all the prisoners had been set free in honour of the new king, and many vagabonds and outlaws from all parts of the country had thronged up to London to join in the merry-making of the coronation day), that Ranulf could not quell the tumult, and peace was not restored till next day, when Richard punished some of the ringleaders and proclaimed peace for the Jews. But as soon as he left the country the hatred and greed of the people broke out afresh against them. At the great fair at Lynn, a rich trading town, a quarrel between a converted Jew and his kinsfolk brought on a massacre. At Stamford, where many zealous crusaders had gathered at Lent for their journey abroad, the Jewry was plundered. At Lincoln the Jews only saved their lives by fleeing to the castle. In York they also took refuge with their treasures in the keep, and fearing treachery, refused to let in even the governor. He therefore ordered the castle to be beset, and a furious mob of crusaders, apprentices, and country-folk, headed by a hermit and a reckless fellow named Richard Ill-Beast, assaulted it for several days, shouting continually, "Down with the foes of the Lord!" The despairing Jews kept them off with stones which they tore from the inside of the building, for they had no weapons; but when the war-engines were brought up one night and set ready for next morning's attack they knew that they could hold out no longer. Then Rabbi Eliezer, a learned elder, said to his brethren, "O men of Israel, Godof whom no man asketh, Why doest Thou this?-hath commanded us to lay down our lives for His Law, and behold Death standeth at the door. Now therefore, unless ye would |
