“Then came John, in whose veins flowed the worst blood of King Henry’s family. Prince Arthur, Geoffrey’s son, had the best claim to the crown, but somehow John got himself crowned, and he began to reign so terribly that the hearts of the barons quaked within them; and so, for a time, he silenced all opposition. He was as cunning as bad Queen Eleanora, and he loved to make mischief as well. He would order that a man should be killed, apparently with as little conscience as he would have ordered a butcher to slay a sheep. Most bad kings have been notable for some good qualities; King John, so far as I know, had none.
“In Nottinghamshire there is an old town, removed from the great centres of life and activity, called Gotham. The inhabitants were of good Saxon stock, and they hated the whole race of Norman Plantagenets. These people had learned something of liberty from bold Robin Hood, ‘all under the greenwood tree.’
“One day there came a report to Old Gotham that King John was making a progress, and would pass through the town. Now it was an old custom in feudal times that the course that a king took, in passing for the first time through a district or a shire, should become ever after a public highway. The people of Gotham wanted no public highway to their town, no avenue that would open their retreat to the Normans, and put them more easily in the power of brutal kings. And they hated John. So they held a council, and resolved that the feet of John Lackland, the murderer, should never dishonor the town of Gotham.
RICHARD’S FAREWELL TO THE HOLY LAND.
“But the people understood that it would be a foolhardy work to oppose the progress of the king openly. They must rely upon their [!-- original location of 'Richard's farewell to the Holy Land' --] [!-- blank page --] wits. The men decided to go in a body and fell large trees across a certain upland, over which the royal party must pass to enter the town. This they did, making a barrier through which mounted horsemen would find it difficult to break, and which would compel a party like the king’s to turn off by another way.
“When King John came to the eminence, and found his progress arrested, he was very angry, and, finding a couple of rustics near the place, he demanded of them who had made the barrier.
“‘The people of Gotham,’ answered one of the rustics.
“‘Go you to Gotham,’ said the king, ‘and tell the people from me, that as soon as I return to camp I will send a troop to cut off their noses.’