Chapter XXII

The End

The English army invaded France again, only to meet with defeat. England lost both fame and possessions: Philip wrested the latter from her. The entire population of Brittany rushed to arms after Arthur’s murder, and drove the enemy out of their country. Alan, their leader, continually roused them to resistance and incited them to avenge their murdered Duke. He would not tolerate any foreign ruler, and encouraged all classes to maintain their independence both against England and France. He demonstrated his patriotism and achieved victory, but at the cost of his life in defence of his fatherland.

Arthur was avenged. The contempt of all England, worse even than death to bear, was visited upon John when he returned from France. Detested by his subjects, mistrusted by the nobles, shamefully begging help from the Pope to keep his throne, his life came to an end in an era of turbulence. His lords, joining hands with the commons, extorted from him that important concession of rights, Magna Charta,[22] and compelled this execrable despot to lay the foundations of the greatness of the English people. Old and worn out with sickness, believing himself poisoned, racked with remorse, harassed by rebellious leaders, John died in the midst of an insurrection.

The derisive epithet, “John Lackland,” has branded him in history as a spurious and cruel sovereign. The figure of Arthur of Brittany, glorified in poetry, beautified with the immortal lustre of youth, stands out brightly against the dark background of those bloody days.[23]

Appendix

The following is a chronological statement of the principal events treated of in this volume:

1133 Birth of Henry the Second. 1152 Henry marries Eleanor. 1157 Birth of Richard the First. 1158 Birth of Geoffrey. 1165 Birth of Philip Augustus of France. 1167 Birth of John, surnamed Lackland. 1180 Philip Augustus succeeds to the throne. 1186 Death of Geoffrey. 1187 Birth of Arthur, Duke of Brittany. 1189 Death of Henry the Second. 1189 Rebellion of Richard and John. 1189 Richard succeeds to the throne. 1189 Period of the Third Crusade. 1195 War between Philip Augustus and Richard. 1199 Death of Richard. 1203 Assassination of Arthur. 1216 Death of John. 1223 Death of Philip Augustus.

LIFE STORIES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

_Translated from the German by_ _George P. Upton_

_20 Volumes Ready_

Beethoven Mozart Bach Haydn Maid of Orleans The Little Dauphin Marie Antoinette’s Youth Frederick the Great Maria Theresa Arnold of Winkelried William of Orange Barbarossa William Tell The Swiss Heroes Herman and Thusnelda Undine Gudrun The Nibelungs The Frithiof Saga The Duke of Brittany

_Each, illustrated, 60 cents net_ A. C. McCLURG & CO., CHICAGO

Footnotes

[1]Geoffrey was born September 23, 1158, and died August 19, 1186. He married Constance of Brittany.

[2]Henry II was the first king of England of the house of Plantagenet. Outside of England he possessed Normandy and the suzerainty of Brittany, which he inherited from the Norman kings; Anjou and Maine from his father, and by marriage with Eleanor, Poitou, Guienne, and Gascony.

[3]This is one version of the manner in which Geoffrey came to his death. The generally accepted historical version is that he was killed at a tournament in Paris.

[4]Duke Arthur of Brittany was born at Nantes, France, March 29, 1187, and was killed at Rouen, April 3, 1203. According to the author of this story, he was murdered on shipboard by King John, his uncle, because he refused to waive his lawful claim to the throne of England. History fails to make an authoritative statement of the manner of the young hero’s death, but it is unanimously conceded that John procured his assassination, if he did not commit the deed himself.

[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.

[15]Trifels was an imperial fortress in the Rhine Palatinate, near Annweiler, which was the resort of mediæval emperors. Only its ruins remain.

[16]The Louvre, now one of the world’s famous art museums, was a castle of the kings of France from the thirteenth century, and the chief royal palace until Versailles was built by Louis the Fourteenth. Most of the interior has been occupied as a museum since 1793.

[17]Marie of France was the daughter of Philip Augustus.

[18]Montjoie is the name of a hill near Paris where Saint Denis was murdered. In tournaments “Montjoie” was the cry of the French heralds; and “Montjoie St. Denis” was the French battle-cry.

[19]Compiègne is a town in the Department of Oise, France, and is famous for the royal palace rebuilt by Louis the Fifteenth. Napoleon the First greatly enriched its interior.

[20]Blondel was a _trouvère_, or minstrel, who accompanied Richard the Lion-hearted, and is said to have discovered him when he was imprisoned by singing a song under the King’s tower, to which Richard responded.

[21]Hume accepts the following account of the murder as the most reliable: “John first removed him to the castle of Rouen; and coming in a boat, during the night time, to that place, commanded Arthur to be brought forth to him. The young prince, aware of his danger, and now more subdued by the continuance of his misfortunes and by the approach of death, threw himself on his knees before his uncle and begged for mercy; but the barbarous tyrant, making no reply, stabbed him with his own hands, and, fastening a stone to the dead body, threw it into the Seine.”

[22]Magna Charta, the charter of English liberties, signed by John and his barons at Runnymede, June 15, 1215.

[23]Hume says of John: “Cowardice, inactivity, folly, levity, licentiousness, ingratitude, treachery, tyranny, and cruelty,—all these qualities appear too evidently in the several incidents of his life to give us room to suspect that the disagreeable picture has been anywise overcharged by the prejudices of the ancient historians.”

Transcriber’s Notes

--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.

--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)

--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Duke of Brittany, by Henriette Jeanrenaud