CHAPTER VII.

Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend, More to be dreaded when thou showest thee in a child, Than the sea-monster.

The protracted imprisonment of Queen Eleanor infuriated her Provençal subjects. The southern court, deprived of its most brilliant gem, no longer attracted the gifted and the gay from all parts of Europe. The troubadours in effect hung their harps on the willows, and the faithful Peyrol, banished from the presence of his beloved mistress, attempted to console the weary hours of her captivity, by tender _Plaintes_, in which with touching simplicity he bewailed her misfortunes. "Daughter of Aquitaine," wrote he, "fair fruitful vine, thou hast been torn from thy country, and led into a strange land. Thy harp is changed into the voice of mourning, and thy songs into sounds of lamentation. Brought up in delicacy and abundance, thou enjoyedst a royal liberty, living in the bosom of wealth, delighting thyself with the sports of thy women, with their songs, to the sound of the lute and tabor; and now thou mournest, thou weepest, thou consumest thyself with sorrow. Return, poor prisoner--return to thy cities, if thou canst; and if thou canst not, weep and say, 'Alas! how long is my exile.' Weep, weep, and say, 'My tears are my bread both day and night.' Where are thy guards, thy royal escort?--where thy maiden train, thy counsellors of state? Thou criest, but no one hears thee! for the king of the north keeps thee shut up like a town that is besieged. Cry then--cease not to cry. Raise thy voice like a trumpet, that thy sons may hear it; for the day is approaching when thy sons shall deliver thee, and then shalt thou see again thy native land."

But the warlike chiefs of Guienne did not confine themselves to expressions of tenderness. Richard and Geoffrey, though often hostile to each other, were always ready to lead the barons of the south to battle, and for two years the Angevin subjects of Henry and the Aquitaine subjects of Eleanor, incited by her sons, gave battle in the cause of the captive queen, and from Rochelle to Bayonne the whole south of France was in a state of insurrection. The melancholy death of Geoffrey added to the afflictions of his already wretched mother. In a grand tournament at Paris he was thrown from his horse and trodden to death beneath the feet of the coursers. He was distinguished for his manly beauty and martial grace, and Eleanor had regarded him with an affection as intense as was the causeless hatred she bore to his wife Constance. His infant son Arthur, for whom Eleanor's namesake had been set aside, inherited the dower of his mother both in possessions and enmity. Not long after the death of her favorite son Eleanor was called upon to part with her youngest daughter Joanna, who became the bride of William II. King of Sicily. Thus deprived of all affection, Eleanor dragged on a monotonous existence during Henry's protracted search for Rosamond.

The innocence of his queen being fully proved, the softened monarch began to regard her with more complacency: but the vindictive spirit of Eleanor, incensed by the indignities she had suffered, and enraged by being the victim of unjust suspicions, could not so easily repass the barriers that had been interposed between their affections, and though she accompanied her lord to Bordeaux, she set herself to widen the breach between him and Richard, and he soon found it necessary to remand her again to the seclusion of Winchester palace.

When Henry received absolution from the pope for the murder of Becket, he solemnly swore to visit the Holy Land in person, and the day had been fixed for his departure with Louis King of France. The death of that monarch prevented the expedition, and Henry had delayed it from time to time, though the patriarch of Jerusalem and the grand-master of the knights Hospitallers, had made the long and difficult journey to England, and in name of Queen Sibylla, had delivered to him as the successor of Fulk of Anjou, the royal banner and the keys of the Holy City and Sepulchre. Now impressed with a sense of the vanity of human hopes, and the fading grandeur of earthly distinction, he determined if possible, to divert his mind from the endless train of sad recollections, by plunging into the excitement of novel scenes and rekindling his wasting energies at the fane of Religion. The eyes of all the European nations were at this time directed, with peculiar anxiety to the distresses of the Christians in Palestine. At the death of Baldwin III. the sceptre passed to the hands of his brother Almeric, who wasted his subjects and treasure in a fruitless war with the Vizier of Egypt. The crown from Almeric descended to Baldwin IV., his son by Agnes de Courteney, heiress to the lost principality of Edessa. Baldwin IV. was a leper; and finding that disease incapacitated him for performing the royal functions, he committed the government to his brother-in-law Guy de Lusignan, a French knight whom Henry had banished for murder. At the death of Baldwin his sister Sibylla and her husband Guy became King and Queen of Jerusalem, but the Count of Tripoli refused to do them homage. At last he consented to proffer his allegiance to the queen, on condition that she should be divorced from Lusignan and choose a partner who should be able to protect the kingdom. Sibylla was a woman of great beauty, majestic person and commanding talents. She consented to the proposal of the Count of Tripoli, only requiring in return the oath of the barons that they would accept for sovereign whomsoever she should choose. The terms were settled, the divorce obtained, and the ceremony of her coronation took place. As soon as she was crowned, turning proudly to the rebel lords, she placed the diadem on the head of Lusignan, saluted him as her husband, bent the knee to him as king, and with a voice of authority, cried aloud, "Those whom God has joined together let not man put asunder." The simple truth and affection of the queen, and the grandeur of the spectacle awed the assembly; and the astonished barons submitted without a murmur.

The famous Saladin, about the same time, began his career of conquest in the East. Tiberius, Acre, Jaffa, Cesarea and Berytus were the trophies of his victories. One hundred thousand people flying from the sword of the Turks crowded into Jerusalem, and the feeble garrison was not able to defend them. Saladin, unwilling to stain with human blood the place which even the Moslems held in reverence, offered the inhabitants peace on condition of the surrender of the city, and money and lands in Syria; but the Christians declared that they would not resign to the Infidels the place where the Saviour had suffered and died. Indignant at the rejection of his offer, Saladin swore that he would enter the city sword in hand and retaliate upon the Franks the carnage they had made in the days of Godfrey de Boulogne. For fourteen days the battle raged around the walls with almost unexampled fury. The Moslem fanatic fearlessly exposed his life, expecting that death would give him at once to drink of the waters of Paradise,--the Christian, hoping to exchange an earthly for a heavenly Jerusalem, poured out his blood in protecting the Holy Sepulchre. When it was found that the wall near the gate of St. Stephen was undermined, all farther efforts at defence were abandoned; the clergy prayed for a miraculous interposition of heaven, and the soldiers threw down their arms and crowded into the churches. Saladin again offered favorable conditions of peace. The miserable inhabitants spent four days in visiting the sacred places, weeping over and embracing the Holy Sepulchre, and then, sadly quitting the hallowed precincts, passed through the enemy's camp, and took their disconsolate way towards Tyre, the last stronghold of the Latins in Palestine.

Thus after the lapse of nearly a century, the Holy City that had cost Europe so much blood and treasure, once more became the property of the Infidel. The great cross was taken down from the church of the Sepulchre and dragged through the mire of the street, the bells of the churches were melted, while the floors and walls of the mosque of Omar, purified with Damascene rose-water, were again consecrated to the worship of the false prophet. The melancholy tidings of this event occasioned the greatest sensation throughout the Christian world. The aged pontiff died of a broken heart. The husband of Joanna put on sackcloth and vowed to take the cross. Henry, Philip, the new King of France, the Earls of Flanders and Champagne, and a great number of knights and barons resolved to combine their forces for the redemption of the Holy City.

Immediately upon the death of Rosamond, Henry had made all the reparation in his power to her injured name, by acknowledging her children and placing them at Woodstock to be educated with his son John. The boys grew up to manhood, and developed a perfection of personal elegance and strength of character more befitting the sons of a king than any of the children of Eleanor. He promoted them to offices of honor and trust, and made Geoffrey chancellor of the realm.

Everything was now ready for the king's departure. In a general council held at Northampton it was enacted that every man who did not join the crusade should pay towards the expense of the expedition one tenth of all his goods; and the Jews were fined for the same purpose one fourth of their personal property. Henry wrote letters to the emperors of Germany, Hungary and Constantinople, for liberty to pass through their dominions, and receiving favorable answers, passed over to France to complete the arrangement with Philip, when the whole plan was defeated by that monarch's demanding that his sister Alice should be given to Richard, and that the English should swear fealty to the prince as heir-apparent to the throne. Henry refused; and his son Richard, in the public conference, kneeling at the feet of the French monarch, presented him his sword, saying, "To you, sir, I commit the protection of my rights, and to you I now do homage for my father's dominions in France."

The king, amazed at this new act of rebellion, retired precipitately from the council, and prepared with some of his former alacrity, to meet the combination against him. But Fortune, that had hitherto smiled upon him, seemed now to forsake him. He was defeated in every battle, driven from city to city, his health became impaired, his spirits failed, and at last he submitted to all the demands of his enemies, agreeing to pay twenty thousand marks to Philip, to permit his vassals to do homage to Richard, and above all, to give up Alice, the cause of so much domestic misery.

He stipulated only for a list of the disaffected barons who had joined the French king. The first name that caught his eye was that of John, the idolized child of his old age. He read no further, but throwing down the paper, fell into one of those violent paroxysms of rage to which of late years he had been so fearfully subject. He cursed the day of his birth, called down maledictions upon his unnatural children and their treacherous mother, flung himself upon the couch, tore the covers with his teeth, and clutched the hair from his head, and swooned away in a transport of anger and grief. A raging fever succeeded; but in his lucid moments he superintended an artist, who, at his command, painted upon canvass, the device of a young eaglet picking out the eyes of an eagle. Day after day the monarch lingered and suffered between paroxysms of pain and grief, and intervals of lassitude and insensibility; and when others forsook his bedside in weariness or alarm, Geoffrey, unconscious of drowsiness or fatigue, stood a patient watcher by his dying father. The feeble monarch recognized in the voice of this son the tones which his ear had loved in youth, and obeyed its slightest bidding; and the only alleviation of his agony was found in gazing upon the face that revived the image of his lost Rosamond. Taking the signet-ring from his finger, he placed it upon the hand of Geoffrey; "Thou art my true and loyal son," said he. "The blessing of heaven rest upon thee for thy filial service to thy guilty sire. Commend me to thy brother William and his beautiful bride. As for the others, give them yon parable," pointing to the picture of the eagle, "with my everlasting curse." He leaned his head upon the breast of his son, and supported in his arms, expired.

* * * * *

Eleanor survived her unhappy consort more than twenty years, and in that time made some amends for the follies and vices of her early life. The first step of her son Richard on his accession to the throne, was to release his mother from her confinement, and make her regent of the kingdom. She employed her freedom and her power in acts of mercy and beneficence, making a progress through the kingdom, and setting at liberty all persons confined for breach of the forest-laws, and other trivial offences, and recalling the outlawed to their homes and families. During the absence of Richard in the Holy Land, she administered the government with prudence and discretion, and after the accession of John, resumed the sceptre of her own dominions, slowly and painfully gathering, in the crimes and miseries of her children, the fruit of the evil counsels she had given them in their childhood. At the age of eighty she retired into the convent of Fontevraud, and three years after died of sorrow, when the peers of France branded her son John as the murderer of Arthur.

BERENGARIA OF NAVARRE.