[5]Rennes, capital of Ille-et-Vilaine, France, was the capital of ancient Brittany.
[6]Philip Augustus, King of France, was born in 1165, and died in 1223. He was the son of Louis VII, and was noted for his banishment of the Jews, his participation in the Third Crusade with Richard the Lion-hearted, and the crusade against the Albigenses.
[7]“The King left only two legitimate sons,—Richard, who succeeded him, and John, who inherited no territory, though his father had often intended to leave him a part of his extensive dominion. He was thence commonly denominated ‘Lackland.’”—Hume.
[8]Henry the Second, King of England, died July 6, 1189. In the last year of his reign he was confronted with the rebellion of his sons Richard and John, in which they were assisted by Philip Augustus of France.
[9]Geoffrey, the father of Arthur, had been concerned in a previous rebellion against his father, instigated, like that of Richard and John, by Queen Eleanor.
[10]This was the Third Crusade (1189-92), which was led by Frederick Barbarossa of Germany (see the volume “Barbarossa” in this series), Richard the Lion-hearted of England, and Philip Augustus of France. They failed to recover Jerusalem, which had been recaptured by the Mussulmans in 1187.
[11]Richard the First, surnamed the Lion-hearted, was born September 8, 1157, and was the third son of Henry the Second. He was killed in a war with Philip Augustus of France, John’s ally.
[12]The author’s chronology is at fault in this connection. Godfrey of Bouillon was a leader in the First Crusade, and died at Jerusalem in 1100, before the period of this story.
[13]Acre, in Palestine, was captured by the Crusaders in 1191, and Ascalon in 1153. The latter city was the birthplace of Herod the First.
[14]Henry the Sixth, born in 1165, was the son of Barbarossa, whom he succeeded as King of Germany in 1190.