All through that day and the next he lay there, trembling from head to foot, sometimes appearing to see and hear nothing, and to be conscious of nothing but pain, murmuring broken words which no one could understand.[1309] At other times his delirium shewed itself in frenzied curses upon himself and his sons, which the attendant bishops vainly besought him to revoke.[1310] It was Geoffrey who at length managed to bring him to a somewhat calmer frame both of body and of mind. With his head on his son’s shoulder and his feet on the knees of a faithful knight, Henry at last seemed to have fallen asleep. When he opened his eyes again and saw Geoffrey patiently watching over him and fanning away the flies which buzzed around his head, he spoke in accents very different from any that he had used for some days past. “My dearest son! thou, indeed, hast always been a true son to me. So help me God, if I recover of this sickness, I will be to thee the best of fathers, and will set thee among the chiefest men of my realm. But if I may not live to reward thee, may God give thee thy reward for thy unchanging dutifulness to me!” “O father, I desire no reward but thy restoration to health and prosperity” was all that Geoffrey could utter, as the violence of his emotion so overcame his self-control that he was obliged to rush out of the room.[1311] The interval of calmness passed away, and the ravings of delirium were heard again; “Shame, shame upon a conquered king!” Henry kept muttering over and over again, till the third morning broke—the seventh day of the fever[1312]—and brought with it the lightning before death. Once more Geoffrey, stifling his own distress, came to his father’s side; once more he was rewarded by seeing Henry’s eyes open and gaze at him with evident recognition; once more the dying king recurred wistfully to his plans, not this time of vengeance upon his rebellious sons, but of advancement for the loyal one, faintly murmuring in Geoffrey’s ear how he had hoped to see him bishop of Winchester, or better still, archbishop of York;[1313] but he knew that for himself all was over. He took off a gold finger-ring, engraved with a leopard[1314]—the armorial device of the Angevin house—and handed it to Geoffrey, bidding him send it to the king of Castille, the husband of his daughter Eleanor; he also gave directions that another precious ring which lay among his treasures should be delivered to Geoffrey himself, and gave him his blessing.[1315] After this he was, by his own desire, carried into the chapel of the castle and laid before the altar; here he confessed his sins to the attendant bishops and priests, was absolved, and devoutly made his last Communion. Immediately afterwards he passed away.[1316]

Then followed one of those strange scenes which so often occurred after the death of a medieval king. The servants who should have laid out the body for burial stripped it and left it naked on the ground; and as during the three days that he lay dying they had plundered him of everything on which they could lay their hands, the few friends who were shocked at the sight could not find a rag wherewith to cover the dead king, till one of his knights, William de Trihan, took off his own cloak for the purpose.[1317] All this, however, was speedily set right by William the Marshal. He at once took the command of the little party—a duty for which Geoffrey was evidently unfitted by the violence of his grief—sent to call as many barons as were within reach to attend the funeral, and gave directions for the proper robing of the corpse.[1318] It was no easy matter to arrange within four-and-twenty hours, and utterly without resources, anything like a regal burial for this fallen king.[1319] William, however, managed to do it; and next day Henry Fitz-Empress, robed as if for his coronation, with a crown of gold upon his head, a gold ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, and a sceptre in his gloved right hand,[1320] was borne upon the shoulders of his barons down from his castle on the rock of Chinon, across the viaduct which he himself had built over the swampy meadows beneath, and thence northward along the left bank of the silvery, winding Vienne to his burial-place at Fontevraud.[1321] He had wished to be buried at Grandmont;[1322] but this of course was impossible now. “He shall be shrouded among the shrouded women”—so ran the closing words of a prophecy which during the last few months had been whispered throughout Henry’s dominions as a token of his approaching end. It was fulfilled now to the letter, as he lay in state in the abbey-church of Fontevraud, while the veiled sisters knelt by night and day murmuring their prayers and psalms around the bier.[1323]

None of the dead king’s friends had thought it necessary to wait for any instructions from his heir. The marshal, however, had sent to apprise Richard of his father’s death, and delayed the burial long enough to give him an opportunity of attending it if he chose to do so. The other barons were in great dread of meeting the future king against whom they had been in arms; and several of them were even more anxious for the marshal than for themselves, for they could not but imagine that Richard’s heaviest vengeance would fall upon the man who had unhorsed and all but killed him at Le Mans. More than one of them offered to place himself and all his possessions at the service of the comrade whom they all held in such reverence, if thereby anything could be done to save him from Richard’s wrath. But he only answered quietly: “Sirs, I do not repent me of what I did. I thank you for your proffers; but, so help me God, I will not accept what I cannot return. Thanks be to Him, He has helped me ever since I was made a knight; I doubt not He will help me to the end.”[1324] Before nightfall Richard overtook them.[1325] He came, it seems, alone. Vainly did the bystanders seek to read his feelings in his demeanour; he shewed no sign of either grief or joy, penitence or wrath; he “spoke not a word, good or bad,”[1326] but went straight to the church and into the choir, where the body lay.[1327] For awhile he stood motionless before the bier;[1328] then he stepped to the head, and looked down at the uncovered face.[1329] It seemed to meet his gaze with all its wonted sternness; but there were some who thought they saw a yet more fearful sight—a stream of blood which flowed from the nostrils, and ceased only on the departure of the son who was thus proclaimed as his father’s murderer.[1330] Richard sank upon his knees; thus he remained “about as long as one would take to say the Lord’s Prayer;”[1331] then he rose and, speaking for the first time, called for William the Marshal. William came, accompanied by a loyal Angevin baron, Maurice of Craon. Richard bade them follow him out of the church; outside, he turned at once to the marshal: “Fair Sir Marshal, you had like to have slain me; had I received your spear-thrust, it would have been a bad day for both of us!” “My lord,” answered William, “I had it in my power to slay you; I only slew your horse. And of that I do not repent me yet.” With kingly dignity Richard granted him his kingly pardon at once;[1332] and on the morrow they stood side by side while Henry Fitz-Empress was laid in his grave before the high altar by Archbishop Bartholomew of Tours.[1333]

CHAPTER VII.
RICHARD AND ENGLAND.
1189–1194.