emely indignant at the message which he
had received. The more he reflected upon it, indeed, the more angry he
became. He felt as if he had been insulted in having had such a
summons from a foreign potentate served upon him by a lawyer in his
own house. The knights and barons around him, sharing his anger,
proposed that they should pursue and seize the commissioners, with a
view of punishing them for their audacity in bringing such a message.
At first the prince was unwilling to consent to this, as the persons
of embassadors and messengers of all sorts sent from one sovereign to
another were, in those days as now, considered sacred. At last,
however, he said that he thought the men were hardly to be considered
as the messengers of the King of France.

"They are virtually," said he, "the messengers of D'Albret and the
other factious and rebellious barons among our own subjects, who
complained to the King of France and incited him to interfere in our
affairs, and, as such, I should not be sorry to have them taken and
punished."

This was sufficient. The knights who heard it immediately sent off a
small troop of horsemen, who overtook the commissioners before they
reached the frontier. In order not to compromise the prince, they said
nothing about having been sent by him, but arrested the men on a
charge of having taken a horse which did not belong to them from the
inn. Under pretense of investigating this charge, they took the men to
a neighboring town and shut them up in a castle there.

Some of the attendants of the commissioners, who had come with them
from France, made their escape, and, returning to Paris, they reported
to the King of France all that had occurred. It now came his turn to
be angry, and both parties began to prepare for war.

The King of England took sides with his son, and so was drawn at once
into the quarrel. Various military expeditions were fitted out on both
sides. Provinces were ravaged, and towns and castles were stormed. The
Prince of Wales was overwhelmed with the troubles and perplexities
which surrounded him. His people were discontented, his finances were
low, and the fortune of war often turned against him. His health, too,
began to fail him, and he sank into a state of great dejection and
despondency. To complete the sum of his misfortunes, his oldest son,
Richard's brother, fell sick and died. This was a fortunate event for
Richard, for it advanced him to the position of the oldest