Having thus rescued England from the danger of a foreign yoke, and having established tranquillity throughout the country, and secured the young king Henry in the peaceable and undisputed possession of the throne, he died (A. D. 1219) at Caversham, leaving behind him, says Matthew Paris, such a reputation as few could compare with. His dead body was, in the first instance, conveyed to the abbey at Reading, where it was received by the monks in solemn procession. It was placed in the choir of the church, and high mass was celebrated with vast pomp. On the following day it was brought to Westminster Abbey, where high mass was again performed; and from thence it was borne in state to the Temple Church, where it was solemnly interred on Ascension-day, A. D. 1219.[517] Matthew Paris tells us that the following epitaph was composed to the memory of the above distinguished nobleman:—
“Sum quem Saturnum sibi sensit Hibernia, solem
Anglia, Mercurium Normannia, Gallia Martem.”
For he was, says he, always the tamer of the mischievous Irish, the honour and glory of the English, the negotiator of Normandy, in which he transacted many affairs, and a warlike and invincible soldier in France.
The inscription upon his tomb was, in Camden’s time, almost illegible, as before mentioned, and the only verse that could be read was,
“Miles eram Martis Mars multos vicerat armis.”
All the historians of the period speak in the highest terms of the earl of Pembroke as a warrior[518] and a statesman, and concur in giving him a noble character. Shakspeare, consequently, in his play of King John, represents him as the eloquent intercessor in behalf of the unfortunate prince Arthur.
Surrounded by the nobles, he thus addresses the king on his throne—
“Pembroke. I (as one that am the tongue of these,
To sound the purposes of all their hearts,)
Both for myself and them, (but, chief of all,
Your safety, for the which myself and them
Bend their best studies,) heartily request
The enfranchisement of Arthur; whose restraint
Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent
To break into this dangerous argument,—
If, what in rest you have, in right you hold,
Why then your fears, (which, as they say, attend
The steps of wrong,) should move you to mew up
Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days
With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth
The rich advantage of good exercise?
That the time’s enemies may not have this
To grace occasions, let it be our suit
That you have bid us ask his liberty;
Which for our goods we do no further ask,
Than whereupon our weal, on you depending.
Counts it your weal, he have his liberty.”
Afterwards, when he is shown the dead body of the unhappy prince, he exclaims—
“O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!
The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.
·······
All murders past do stand excused in this:
And this, so sole, and so unmatchable,
Shall give a holiness, a purity,
To the yet unbegotten sin of times,
And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,
Exampled by this heinous spectacle.”