ngland would have any
power over them. When Arthur found himself riding in a glittering suit
of armour on a richly caparisoned horse, at the head of his train of
knights and soldiers, he began to believe this too, and to consider old
Merlin a very superior prophet.

He did not know--how could he, being so innocent and inexperienced?--that
his little army was a mere nothing against the power of the King of
England. The French King knew it; but the poor boy's fate was little to
him, so that the King of England was worried and distressed. Therefore,
King Philip went his way into Normandy and Prince Arthur went his way
towards Mirebeau, a French town near Poictiers, both very well pleased.

Prince Arthur went to attack the town of Mirebeau, because his
grandmother Eleanor, who has so often made her appearance in this history
(and who had always been his mother's enemy), was living there, and
because his Knights said, 'Prince, if you can take her prisoner, you will
be able to bring the King your uncle to terms!' But she was not to be
easily taken. She was old enough by this time--eighty--but she was as
full of stratagem as she was full of years and wickedness. Receiving
intelligence of young Arthur's approach, she shut herself up in a high
tower, and encouraged her soldiers to defend it like men. Prince Arthur
with his little army besieged the high tower. King John, hearing how
matters stood, came up to the rescue, with _his_ army. So here was a
strange family-party! The boy-Prince besieging his grandmother, and his
uncle besieging him!

This position of affairs did not last long. One summer night King John,
by treachery, got his men into the town, surprised Prince Arthur's force,
took two hundred of his knights, and seized the Prince himself in his
bed. The Knights were put in heavy irons, and driven away in open carts
drawn by bullocks, to various dungeons where they were most inhumanly
treated, and where some of them were starved to death. Prince Arthur was
sent to the castle of Falaise.

One day, while he was in prison at that castle, mournfully thinking it
strange that one so young should be in so much trouble, and looking out
of the small window in the deep dark wall, at the summer sky and the
birds, the door was softly opened, and he saw his uncle the King standing
in the shadow of the archway, looking very grim.

'Arthur,' said the King, with his wicked eyes more on the stone floor
than on his nephe