A.D. 1195. After an absence of more than four years, Richard arrived in England in company with Queen Eleanora.
During his imprisonment, John, his younger brother, had tried to possess himself of the crown of England. It was the mother who prevented anything so disgraceful, and who kept all Richard's dominions intact, and it was she who proudly sat beside her brave son at his second coronation, which took place in his own country.
Berengaria remained in France, and Richard was not at all anxious to join her there, or to have her with him. The reason for this remarkable conduct on the part of a husband is that on his return to England Richard had been met by his former bachelor friends, into whose way of living he fell, much to the disgust of the more sober of his subjects. He drank with them to excess, and led such a gay, bad life, that Berengaria could not join him.
At last he became alarmingly ill, and began to repent of his neglect of his wife; but he knew that she was justly displeased with him, and did not dare to approach her. So he assembled at his bedside all the monks within ten miles and publicly confessed his sins, vowing that if Queen Berengaria would forgive him he would never forsake her again.
A few months later he went to France and became reconciled to his wife. It was a year of famine and of suffering among the poor, and the queen used her newly-restored influence over the heart of Richard to persuade him to many acts of charity that preserved the lives of a number of families. The Christmas of the year 1196, which occurred shortly after the king's arrival in France, was celebrated in grand style.
Berengaria accompanied her husband in all his campaigns after that, and never left him during the remaining three years of his life.
It was when Richard was storming the Castle of Chaluz, in April, 1199, that an arrow pierced his breast and caused his death. He was buried at the Abbey of Fontevraud.
Queen Berengaria went to live at Mans, where she founded the Abbey of L'Espan, and devoted her life to deeds of charity.
She lived to an advanced age, and was buried at the abbey she had founded.
She deserves to be remembered as a Queen of England who was never in that country, and as a woman possessed of many noble virtues.