of Rouen.

Arthur was soon forced from the good Hubert--of whom he had never stood in
greater need than then--carried away by night, and lodged in his new
prison: where, through the grated window, he could hear the deep waters of
the river Seine, rippling against the stone wall below.

One dark night, as he lay sleeping, dreaming perhaps of rescue by those
unfortunate gentlemen who were obscurely suffering and dying in his cause,
he was roused, and bidden by his jailer to come down the staircase to the
foot of the tower. He hurriedly dressed himself and obeyed. When they came
to the bottom of the winding stairs, and the night air from the river blew
upon their faces, the jailer trod upon his torch and put it out. Then,
Arthur, in the darkness, was hurriedly drawn into a solitary boat. And in
that boat he found his uncle and one other man.

He knelt to them, and prayed them not to murder him. Deaf to his
entreaties, they stabbed him and sunk his body in the river with heavy
stones. When the spring morning broke, the tower-door was closed, the boat
was gone, the river sparkled on its way, and never more was any trace of
the poor boy beheld by mortal eyes.

The news of this atrocious murder being spread in England, awakened a
hatred of the King (already odious for his many vices, and for his having
stolen away and married a noble lady while his own wife was living) that
never slept again through his whole reign. In Brittany, the indignation
was intense. Arthur's own sister Eleanor was in the power of John and shut
up in a convent at Bristol, but his half-sister Alice was in Brittany. The
people chose her, and the murdered prince's father-in-law, the last
husband of Constance, to represent them; and carried their fiery
complaints to King Philip. King Philip summoned King John (as the holder
of territory in France) to come before him and defend himself. King John
refusing to appear, King Philip declared him false, perjured, and guilty;
and again made war. In a little time, by conquering the greater part of
his French territory, King Philip deprived him of one-third of his
dominions. And, through all the fighting that took place, King John was
always found, either to be eating and drinking, like a gluttonous fool,
when the danger was at a distance, or to be running away, like a beaten
cur, when it was near.

You might suppose that when he was losing his dominions at this rate, and
when his own nobles cared so little for