HENRY RECEIVING THE NEWS OF JOHN'S TREACHERY. (See p. [210.])

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At the news of this fresh rupture, the Bretons, who had been quiet for two years, rose once more in revolt, and the men of Poitou declared for Richard so soon as they perceived him to be finally separated from his father. Many of the nobles and knights of Henry began to desert him, as they had done before, and the party of his son, supported by the King of France, increased in strength daily. On the other hand, the greater part of the Normans remained faithful to their sovereign, and the Pope granted Henry his assistance, causing sentence of excommunication to be declared against all the adherents of the rebellious son. But Henry was no longer young. The repeated vexations and misfortunes he had undergone—the wounds he had received from the disobedience of his children—at length produced their effect, and he resigned himself to sorrow, leaving to the legate of the Pope and to the priests the care of his defence.

The French king attacked his territories in Anjou, while the Poitevins and Bretons, headed by Richard, seized the royal towns and castles in the south. The old king, whom grief and failing health had reft of all his former energy, was compelled once more to sue for peace, and offered to grant whatever terms might be demanded. Philip and Henry met, for the last time, on the plain of Colombières, Richard remaining at a distance, waiting the result of the interview. Philip demanded that the English king should give in his allegiance to him, and place himself at his mercy; that Alice should be committed to the care of persons appointed by Richard, until his return from the Holy Land, whither he intended to proceed immediately; that Henry should give his son the kiss of peace, in token of entire forgiveness of the past, and should pay to the King of France twenty thousand marks of silver, for the restitution of the provinces which he had conquered.

According to Roger of Hoveden, a contemporary historian, the two kings were talking in the open field, when suddenly, although the sky was without a cloud, a loud clap of thunder was heard, and a flash of lightning descended between them. They immediately separated in affright, and when, after a short interval, they met again, a second clap, louder than the first, was heard almost on the instant. The conference was broken off, and Henry, whose weak state of health rendered him liable to be seriously affected by any violent emotion, retired to his quarters, where the articles of the treaty, reduced to writing, were sent to him. Thus the historian would have us believe that Heaven itself interposed to prevent the dishonour of the English king, and his submission to the crown of France.

The envoys of Philip found the old king in bed, and while he lay there they began to read out to him the articles of the treaty. When they came to the part which referred to the persons engaged secretly or avowedly in the cause of Richard, the king desired to know their names, that he might at least learn who they were who had been his enemies. The first name read to him was that of his youngest son, John, whom he had so long believed to be loyal and dutiful. On hearing this name, the old man was seized with a violent agitation or convulsion of the whole frame. Raising himself half up, he exclaimed, "Is it, then, true that John, the joy of my heart, the son of my love, he whom I have cherished more than all the rest, and for love of whom I have brought upon myself these troubles, has also deserted me?" Then falling back on the bed, and turning his face to the wall, he said, in words of despair, "So be it, then; let everything go as it will. I care no more for myself, nor for the world!"

Feeling that he grew rapidly worse, Henry caused himself to be conveyed to Chinon, where he arrived in a dying state. In his last moments he was heard to utter maledictions on himself as a conquered king, and to curse also the sons he was leaving behind him. The bishops and lords who surrounded him exerted themselves in vain to induce him to retract these words, and he continued repeating them until death laid its finger on his lips (July 6, 1189).

No sooner had this great king breathed his last, than his servants and attendants, one and all, deserted his corpse, as had happened a century before to his ancestor, William the Conqueror. It is related that these hirelings stripped the body of their royal master of the very clothes which covered him, and carried off everything of value from the chamber. King Henry had desired to be buried at the abbey of Fontevrault, a few leagues to the south of Chinon; but it was not until after considerable delay that people could be found to wrap the body in a shroud, and convey it thither with horses. The corpse was lying in the great church of the abbey, waiting the time of sepulture, when Richard, who had received the news of his father's death, arrived at Fontevrault. Entering the church, he commanded the face of the dead king to be uncovered, that he might look upon it for the last time. The features were still contracted, and bore upon them the impress of prolonged agony. The son gazed upon the sight in silence, and with a sudden impulse, he knelt down for a few moments before the altar; then, rising up, he quitted the church, not to return. An old superstition of the North, which had descended alike to Normans and Saxons, was to the effect that the body of a murdered man would bleed in the presence of the murderer; and some of the chronicles relate that from the moment when Richard entered the church, until he had again passed the threshold, blood flowed without ceasing from the nostrils of the dead king. Thus it is evident that contemporary writers regarded the conduct of the sons as having accelerated, if indeed it did not cause, the death of their father.

Henry II. died on the 6th of July, 1189, at the age of fifty-six, having reigned nearly thirty-five years. Of the king's personal character, very different estimates have been formed by different historians. Those who look at a many-sided character from their own narrow standpoint, will, necessarily, paint that side only which is presented to them, leaving the rest in shadow; and thus we find Henry II. described on the one hand as a man almost without blemish, and, on the other, as utterly destitute of public or private virtue. It appears probable that he had little abstract regard for the welfare of the people, but he was fully alive to his own interests, and he perceived those interests to be bound up in the national prosperity. He therefore laboured to promote the well-being of his subjects, as absolute monarchs, in later times, have done from a similar motive. He was inordinately ambitious, and was heard to say, in moments of triumph, that the whole world was a portion little enough for a great man. He was skilled in the arts of diplomacy, and accustomed to use dissimulation and falsehood whenever an advantage was to be gained thereby.