ough these many troubles! Have you betrayed me too!' And
then he lay down with a heavy groan, and said, 'Now let the world go as
it will. I care for nothing more!'
After a time, he told his attendants to take him to the French town of
Chinon--a town he had been fond of, during many years. But he was fond
of no place now; it was too true that he could care for nothing more upon
this earth. He wildly cursed the hour when he was born, and cursed the
children whom he left behind him; and expired.
As, one hundred years before, the servile followers of the Court had
abandoned the Conqueror in the hour of his death, so they now abandoned
his descendant. The very body was stripped, in the plunder of the Royal
chamber; and it was not easy to find the means of carrying it for burial
to the abbey church of Fontevraud.
Richard was said in after years, by way of flattery, to have the 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
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