Chapter VIII: The Later Years of Richard (3)

Yet all the while, there lurked in Richard’s heart a misgiving that, in the last resort, his diplomacy would prove to have been in vain; that, strive as he might to turn away the tide of war from his own borders by stirring up north and east and south to overwhelm the Crown of France, still, after all, the day must come when the Angevins would have to stake their political existence solely upon their own military resources, and to stand at bay, unaided, unsupported, alone, behind whatever bulwark they might be able to devise by their own military genius. It was the genius and the foresight of Richard himself which insured that when the crisis came, the bulwark was ready, even though it were doomed to prove unavailing in the end. The last and mightiest of the many mighty fortresses reared by Angevin hands since the first great builder of the race had begun his castle-building in the Loire valley was the Château-Gaillard, the “saucy castle” of Richard the Lion-heart. He “fixed its site where the Seine bends suddenly at Gaillon in a great semicircle to the north, and where the valley of Les Andelys breaks the line of the chalk cliffs along its banks. Blue masses of woodland crown the distant hills; within the river curve lies a dull reach of flat meadow, round which the Seine, broken with green islets and dappled with the grey and blue of the sky, flashes like a silver bow on its way to Rouen.”[1877] Some three-quarters of a league from the right bank of the river, in a valley opening upon it from the eastward and watered by the little stream of Gambon, stood the town of Andely. Between the town and the river stretched a lake, or rather perhaps a marsh,[1878] through which the Gambon and another lesser rivulet descending from the hills to the north of Andely found their way by two separate issues into the Seine, nearly opposite two islets, of which the larger and more northerly was known as the Isle of Andely.[1879] The space enclosed between the three rivers and the marsh seems to have been a tract of waste land, occupied only by a toll-house for the collection of dues from the vessels passing up and down the Seine[1880]--dues which formed one of the most important items in the revenue of the archbishop of Rouen, to whom Andely and its neighbourhood belonged.[1881] Over against this spot, on the southern bank of the Gambon, in the angle formed by its junction with the Seine, a mass of limestone crag rose abruptly to the height of three hundred feet. Its western side, almost perpendicular, looked down upon the great river, the northern, scarcely less steep, over the Gambon and the lake beyond; to the north-east and south-west its rocky slopes died down into deep ravines, and only a narrow neck of land at its south-eastern extremity connected it with the lofty plateau covered with a dense woodland known as the Forest of Andely, which stretches along the eastern side of the Seine valley between Andely and Gaillon. One glance at the site was enough to rivet a soldier’s gaze. If, instead of the metropolitan church of Normandy, a lay baron had owned the soil of Andely, we may be sure that long ago that lofty brow would have received its fitting crown; if the power of Fulk the Builder had reached to the banks of the Seine, we may doubt whether the anathemas of the Norman primate would not have availed as little to wrest such a spot from his grasp as those of the archbishop of Tours had availed to wrest from him the site of Montrichard. But a greater castle-builder than Fulk Nerra himself was the architect of Château-Gaillard.

[1877] I copy Mr. Green’s picture, _Hist. of the English
People_, vol. i. p. 187.

[1878] Now dried up. See Deville, _Hist. du Château-Gaillard_,
pp. 27, 28.

[1879] “Est locus Andelii qui nunc habet insula nomen.” Will.
Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. v. 29 (Deville, _Château-Gaillard_,
p. 126; Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. p. 169).

[1880] See a charter of Archbishop Malger (11th century) and
one of Pope Eugene III., a. 1148, quoted in Deville as above,
p. 26, note 2.

[1881] The archbishops seem to have looked upon Andely as
their most profitable territorial possession; Rotrou called it
his “unicum vivendi subsidium” (Rotr. Ep. xxiv., _Rer. Gall.
Scriptt._, vol. xvi. p. 632); Walter called it “patrimonium
ecclesiæ solum et unicum” (R. Diceto, Stubbs, vol. ii. p. 148).

Richard’s historical connexion with the “rock of Andely” has its ill-omened beginning in a ghastly story of the fate of three French prisoners whom he flung from its summit into the ravine below, in vengeance for the slaughter of some Welsh auxiliaries who had been surprised and cut to pieces by the French king’s troops in the neighbouring valley.[1882] By the opening of 1196, however, he had devised for it a more honourable use. In a treaty with Philip, drawn up in January of that year, the fief of Andely was made the subject of special provisions whereby it was reserved as a sort of neutral zone between the territories of the two kings, and a significant clause was added: “Andely shall not be fortified.”[1883] As by the same treaty the older bulwarks of Normandy--Nonancourt, Ivry, Pacy, Vernon, Gaillon, Neufmarché, Gisors--were resigned into Philip’s hands, this clause, if strictly fulfilled, would have left the Seine without a barrier and Rouen at the mercy of the French king. The agreement in short, like all those which bore the signatures of Philip and Richard, was made only to be broken; both parties broke it without delay; and while Philip was forming his league with the Bretons for the ruin of Anjou, Richard was tracing out in the valley of the Gambon and on the rock of Andely the plan of a line of fortifications which were to interpose an insurmountable barrier between his Norman capital and the French invader. His first act was to seize the Isle of Andely.[1884] Here he built a lofty octagonal tower, encircled by a ditch and rampart, and threw a bridge over the river from each side of the island, linking it thus to either shore.[1885] On the right, beyond the eastern bridge, he traced out the walls of a new town, which took the name of the New or the Lesser Andely,[1886] a secure stronghold whose artificial defences of ramparts and towers were surrounded by the further protection of the lake on its eastern side, the Seine on the west, and the two lesser rivers to north and south, a bridge spanning each of these two little streams forming the sole means of access from the mainland.[1887] The southern bridge, that over the Gambon, linked this New Andely with the foot of the rock which was to be crowned with the mightiest work of all. Richard began by digging out to a yet greater depth the ravines which parted this rock from the surrounding heights, so as to make it wholly inaccessible save by the one connecting isthmus at its south-eastern extremity. On its summit, which formed a plateau some six hundred feet in length and two hundred in breadth at the widest part, he reared a triple fortress. The outer ward consisted of a triangular enclosure; its apex, facing the isthmus already mentioned, was crowned by a large round tower,[1888] with walls ten feet in thickness; the extremities of its base were strengthened by similar towers, and two smaller ones broke the line of the connecting curtain-wall. This was surrounded by a ditch dug in the rock to a depth of more than forty feet, and having a perpendicular counterscarp. Fronting the base of this outer fortress across the ditch on its north-western side was a rampart surmounted by a wall ninety feet long and eight feet thick, also flanked by two round towers; from these a similar wall ran all round the edges of the plateau, where the steep sides of the rock itself took the place of rampart and ditch. The wall on the south-west side--the river-front--was broken by another tower, cylindrical without, octagonal within; and its northern extremity was protected by two mighty rectangular bastions. Close against one of these stood a round tower, which served as the base of a third enclosure, the heart and citadel of the whole fortress. Two-thirds of its elliptical outline, on the east and south, were formed by a succession of semicircular bastions, or segments of towers, seventeen in number, each parted from its neighbour by scarcely more than two feet of curtain-wall--an arrangement apparently imitated from the fortress of Cherbourg, which was accounted the greatest marvel of military architecture in Normandy, until its fame was eclipsed by that of Richard’s work.[1889] This portion of the enclosure was built upon a rampart formed by the excavation of a ditch about fifteen to twenty feet in width; the counterscarp, like that of the outer ditches, was perpendicular; and a series of casemates cut in the rock ran along on this side for a distance of about eighty feet. On the western side of the citadel stood the keep, a mighty circular tower, with walls of the thickness of twelve feet, terminating at an angle of twenty feet in depth where it projected into the enclosure; it had two or perhaps three stages,[1890] and was lighted by two great arched windows, whence the eye could range at will over the wooded hills and dales of the Vexin, or the winding course of the river broadening onward to Rouen. Behind the keep was placed the principal dwelling-house, and under this a staircase cut out of the rock gave access to an underground passage leading to some outworks and a tower near the foot of the hill, whence a wall was carried down to the river-bank, just beyond the northern extremity of a long narrow island known as the “isle of the Three Kings”--doubtless from some one of the many meetings held in this district by Louis VII. or Philip Augustus and the two Henrys.[1891] The river itself was barred by a double stockade, crossing its bed from shore to shore.[1892]

CHATEAU-GAILLARD

(From Deville, “Histoire du Château-Gaillard”).

Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic. London, Macmillan & Co.
]

[1882] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. v. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 151.

[1883] Treaty in Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 66. For date see
Rigord (Duchesne as above), p. 39.

[1884] Letter of Walter of Rouen (a. 1196), R. Diceto (Stubbs),
vol. ii. pp. 148, 149. Cf. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p.
14, and Will. Newb., l. v. c. 34 (Howlett, vol. ii. p. 499).

[1885] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 29–43 (Deville,
_Château-Gaillard_, p. 126; Duchesne as above, p. 169).

[1886] A poet of the thirteenth century, William Guiart, calls
it “le Nouvel-Andeli.” It is known now as “le Petit-Andely.”
Deville as above, p. 26.

[1887] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 81. Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, p. 27.

[1888] Now known as “tour de la Monnaie.” Deville as above, p.
30, note 1.

[1889] See Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, p. 34, and the passage
there quoted from _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes
d’Anjou_, p. 300).

[1890] See Deville as above, p. 38, note 2.

[1891] _Ib._ p. 36. The island is now joined to the mainland;
_ib._ note 1.

[1892] For description see Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._
(Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 81;
_Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 48–85 (_ib._ pp. 169, 170; Deville as
above, pp. 126, 127), and Deville as above, pp. 25–40.

All this work was accomplished within a single year.[1893] Richard, who had watched over its progress with unremitting care, broke into an ecstasy of delight at its completion; he called his barons to see “how fair a child was his, this child but a twelvemonth old”;[1894] he called it his “saucy castle,” “Château-Gaillard,”[1895] and the name which he thus gave it in jest soon replaced in popular speech its more formal title of “the Castle on the Rock of Andely.”[1896] The hardness of the rock out of which the fortifications were hewn was not the sole obstacle against which the royal builder had had to contend. Richard had no more thought than Fulk Nerra would have had of asking the primate’s leave before beginning to build upon his land; the work therefore was no sooner begun than Archbishop Walter lifted up his protest against it; obtaining no redress, he laid Normandy under interdict and carried his complaint in person to the Pope.[1897] Richard at once sent envoys to appeal against the interdict and make arrangements for the settlement of the dispute.[1898] Meanwhile, however, he pushed on the building without delay. Like Fulk of old, the seeming wrath of Heaven moved him as little as that of its earthly representatives; a rain of blood which fell upon the workmen and the king himself, though it scared all beside, failed to shake his determination; “if an angel had come down out of the sky to bid him stay his hand, he would have got no answer but a curse.”[1899] He had now, however, made his peace with the Church; in the spring of 1197 he offered to the archbishop an exchange of land on terms highly advantageous to the metropolitan see; and on this condition the Pope raised the interdict in May of the same year.[1900] The exchange was carried through on October 16,[1901] and ratified by John in a separate charter, a step which seems to indicate that John was now recognized as his brother’s heir.[1902]

[1893] That is, the castle on the rock, built 1197–1198. See
the story of the rain of blood in May 1198 (R. Diceto, Stubbs,
vol. ii. p. 162), which fixes its completion after that date.
The tower on the island and the Nouvel-Andely were the work of
the previous year, 1196–1197.

[1894] “Ecce quam pulcra filia unius anni!” J. Bromton,
Twysden, _X. Scriptt._, col. 1276.

[1895] “Totamque munitionem illam vocavit Gaillardum, quod
sonat in Gallico petulantiam.” Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._
(Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 81.

[1896] “Castrum” or “castellum de Rupe Andeleii” or
“Andeliaci,” it is called in the charters of Richard and John.
The first document in which it appears as “Château-Gaillard” is
a charter of S. Louis, “actum in Castro nostro Gaillard,” A.D.
1261; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, p. 40. Will. Armor. however
uses the name, and other writers soon begin to copy him.

[1897] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 14. Cf. Will. Newb.,
l. v. c. 28 (Howlett, vol. ii. pp. 487, 488), R. Coggeshall
(Stevenson), p. 70, and Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 544.

[1898] The envoys were William of Longchamp, William bishop of
Lisieux and Philip elect of Durham; Rog. Howden (as above), pp.
16, 17. They must have started early in 1197, for William of
Longchamp died on the journey, at Poitiers, on January 31 or
February 1; see above, p. 373, note 4{1866}.

[1899] Will. Newb., l. v. c. 34 (as above, p. 500). This is
William’s last sentence. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 162,
also tells of the portent, and gives its date, May 8, 1198.

[1900] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 17–19. Will. Newb.,
l. v. c. 34 (Howlett, vol. ii. pp. 499, 500).

[1901] Richard’s charter, of which Deville gives a fac-simile
in his _Château-Gaillard_, p. 18, and a printed copy in his
“pièces justificatives,” _ib._ pp. 113–118, is also in R.
Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 154–156. According to this last
writer (_ib._ pp. 158, 159), and Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs, vol. i.
p. 544), the settlement was due to the mediation of Archbishop
Hubert.

[1902] See Deville, as above, pp. 21, 22. John’s charter is in
the “pièces justificatives,” _ib._ pp. 119–123.

It was probably about the same time that the treaty with Flanders, the corner-stone of the league which Richard was forming against the king of France, was signed within the walls of the new fortress.[1903] Yet, as has been already seen, the coalition was not fully organized till late in the following summer; and even then the complicated weapon hung fire. Want of money seems to have been Richard’s chief difficulty, now as ever--a difficulty which after Hubert Walter’s defeat in the council at Oxford and his resignation in the following July must have seemed well-nigh insurmountable. At last, however, in the spring of 1199, a ray of hope came from a quarter where it was wholly unexpected. Richard was leading his mercenaries through Poitou to check the viscount of Limoges and the count of Angoulême in a renewal of their treasonable designs[1904] when he was met by rumours of a marvellous discovery at Châlus in the Limousin. A peasant working on the land of Achard, the lord of Châlus, was said to have turned up with his plough a treasure[1905] which popular imagination pictured as nothing less than “an emperor with his wife, sons and daughters, all of pure gold, and seated round a golden table.”[1906] In vain did Achard seek to keep his secret and his prize to himself. Treasure-trove was a right of the overlord, and it seems to have been at once claimed by the viscount Ademar of Limoges, as Achard’s immediate superior. His claim, however, had to give way to that of his own overlord, King Richard; but when he sent to the king the share which he had himself wrung from Achard, Richard indignantly rejected it, vowing that he would have all. This Achard and Ademar both refused, and the king laid siege to Châlus.[1907]

[1903] R. Diceto (as above), p. 153.

[1904] Rog. Howden as above, p. 80, says merely that Richard
was on his way to Poitou. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 94,
says he was marching against the viscount of Limoges, to
punish him for a treasonable alliance with the French king.
The writer of the _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), p. 280, says
“expeditionem direxerat adversus comitem Engolismensem”; and
that Angoulême had some share in the matter appears also from
the confused story of Gerv. Cant. (as above), pp. 592, 593, who
makes Richard receive his death-wound while besieging “castrum
comitis Engolismi, quod Nantrum erat appellatum.” A joint
rebellion of the lords of Limoges and Angoulême would be very
natural, for they were half-brothers. On the other hand, the
two men were very likely to be confounded by historians, for
they both bore the same name, Ademar. See above, p. 220 and
note 3{1035}.

[1905] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. v. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 155. Rigord (_ib._ p. 42) describes the
finder as a soldier.

[1906] “Qui posteris, quo tempore fuerant, certam dabant
memoriam,” adds Rigord (as above), p. 43. Is it possible that
the thing can have been a real relic of some of the old Gothic
kings of Aquitania?

[1907] This seems to be the only way of reconciling the
different accounts in Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 82,
Rigord (as above), p. 42, Will. Armor. as above, and R.
Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 94.

This place, not far from the western border of the Limousin, is now represented by two villages, known conjointly as Châlus-Chabrol, and built upon the summits of two low hills, at whose foot winds the little stream of Tardoire. Each hill is crowned by a round tower of late twelfth-century work; the lower one is traditionally said to be the keep of the fortress besieged by Richard with all his forces at Mid-Lent 1199.[1908] In vain did Achard, who was utterly unprepared to stand a siege, protest his innocence and offer to submit to the judgement of the French king’s court, as supreme alike over the duke of Aquitaine and over his vassals; in vain did he beg for a truce till the holy season should be past; in vain, when the outworks were almost wholly destroyed and the keep itself undermined,[1909] did he ask leave to surrender with the honours of war for himself and his men. Richard was inexorable; he swore that he would hang them all.[1910] With the courage that is born of despair, Achard, accompanied by six knights and nine serving-men, retired into the keep, determined to hold it until death.[1911] All that day--Friday, March 26[1912]--Richard and his lieutenant Mercadier, the captain of his mercenaries,[1913] prowled vainly round the walls, seeking for a point at which they could assault them with safety.[1914] Their sappers were all the while undermining the tower.[1915] Its defenders, finding themselves short of missiles, began throwing down beams of wood and fragments of the broken battlements at the miners’ heads.[1916] They were equally short of defensive arms; one of the little band stood for more than half the day upon a turret, with nothing but a frying-pan for a shield against the bolts which flew whistling all around him, yet failed to drive him from his post.[1917] At last the moment came for which he had been waiting so long and so bravely. Just as Richard, unarmed save for his iron head-piece, paused within bow-shot of the turret, this man caught sight of an arrow which had been shot at himself from the besieging ranks--seemingly, indeed, by Richard’s own hand--and had stuck harmlessly in a crevice of the wall within his reach. He snatched it out, fitted it to his cross-bow, and aimed at the king.[1918] Richard saw the movement and greeted it with a shout of defiant applause; he failed to shelter himself under his buckler; the arrow struck him on the left shoulder, just below the joint of the neck, and glancing downwards penetrated deep into his side.[1919] He made light of the wound,[1920] gave strict orders to Mercadier to press the assault with redoubled vigour,[1921] and rode back to his tent as if nothing was amiss.[1922] There he rashly tried to pull out the arrow with his own hand.[1923] The wood broke off, the iron barb remained fixed in the wound; a surgeon attached to the staff of Mercadier was sent for, and endeavoured to cut it out; unluckily, Richard was fat like his father, and the iron, buried deep in his flesh, was so difficult to reach that the injuries caused by the operator’s knife proved more dangerous than that which had been inflicted by the shaft of the hostile crossbow-man.[1924] The wounded side grew more swollen and inflamed day by day; the patient’s constitutional restlessness, aggravated as it was by pain, made matters worse;[1925] and at last mortification set in.[1926]

[1908] Will. Armor. (as above) says the treasure was discovered
_after_ Mid-Lent. But Rog. Howden (as above, p. 84), Gerv.
Cant. (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 593), R. Coggeshall (Stevenson,
p. 95), and the Ann. of Margam, Winton. and Waverl. a. 1199
(Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. i. p. 24, vol. ii. pp. 71, 251),
all tell us that Richard received his death-wound on March
26--Friday, the morrow of Mid-Lent--and R. Coggeshall adds that
this was the third day of the siege, which must therefore have
begun on Wednesday, March 24.

[1909] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. v. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 155.

[1910] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 82. Cf. Gerv. Cant.
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 593.

[1911] Will. Armor. as above.

[1912] See above, p. 382, note 4{1908}.

[1913] On this man’s history see an article by H.
Géraud--“Mercadier; les Routiers au xiiiᵉ siècle”--in
_Bibl. de l’Ecole des Chartes_, ser. i. vol. iii. pp. 417
_et seq._ The writers of his own time call him “Marcadeus,”
“Mercaderius,” in every possible variety of spelling; in a
charter of his own, printed by Géraud (as above, p. 444),
his style is “ego Merchaderius”; it seems best therefore
to adopt the form “Mercadier,” which Géraud uses. He was a
Provençal by birth (Mat. Paris, _Chron. Maj._, Luard, vol. ii.
p. 421). He makes his first historical appearance in 1183,
in Richard’s service, amid the disorders in Aquitaine after
the death of the young king (Geoff. Vigeois, l. ii. c. 25,
Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._, vol. ii. p. 340). He reappears by
Richard’s side at Vendôme in 1194 (Rog. Howden, Stubbs, vol.
iii. p. 256); about this time Richard endowed him with the
lands of Bainac in Périgord (see his own charter, a. 1195, as
referred to above, and Géraud’s comments, _ib._ pp. 423–427).
He played a considerable part in Richard’s wars with Philip
(see authorities collected by Géraud, as above, pp. 428–431),
remained, as we shall see, with Richard till his death, and
afterwards helped Eleanor to regain Anjou for John. He was
slain at Bordeaux in April 1200 (Rog. Howden, Stubbs, vol. iv.
p. 114).

[1914] Rog. Howden (as above), p. 82.

[1915] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 94.

[1916] _Ibid._ Will. Armor. as above.

[1917] R. Coggeshall, p. 95.

[1918] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. v. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 156. Cf. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv.
p. 82.

[1919] “Percussitque regem super humerum sinistrum juxta colli
spondilia, sicque arcuato vulnere telum dilapsum est deorsum
ac lateri sinistro immersum.” R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p.
95. See also the briefer accounts of the scene and the wound
in Rog. Howden and Will. Armor. as above, and Gerv. Cant.
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 593.

[1920] R. Coggeshall as above.

[1921] Rog. Howden as above.

[1922] _Ibid._ R. Coggeshall as above.

[1923] R. Coggeshall as above. Rog. Howden (as above), p. 83,
lays the blame of this unskilful operation upon the doctor.

[1924] Rog. Howden and R. Coggeshall as above.

[1925] The English writers--Rog. Howden and R. Coggeshall--try
to shift the blame of their king’s death as much as possible
upon the foreign surgeon. Will. Armor. (as above) attributes
it wholly to Richard’s disregard of the doctor’s orders; and
even R. Coggeshall (Stevenson, p. 96) is obliged to add at
last “rege ... præcepta medicorum non curante.” Rog. Wendover.
(Coxe), vol. iii. p. 135, says the arrow was poisoned, but this
seems to be only an inference from the result.

[1926] R. Coggeshall as above.

Then Richard, face to face with death, came to his better self once more, and prepared calmly and bravely for his end. Until then he had suffered no one to enter the chamber where he lay save four barons whom he specially trusted, lest the report of his sickness should be bruited about,[1927] to discourage his friends or to rejoice his foes. Now, he summoned all of his followers who were within reach to witness his solemn bequest of all his dominions to his brother John, and made them swear fealty to John as his successor.[1928] He wrote to his mother, who was at Fontevraud, requesting her to come to him;[1929] he bequeathed his jewels to his nephew King Otto, and a fourth part of his treasures to be distributed among his servants and the poor.[1930] By this time Châlus was taken and its garrison hung, according to his earlier orders--all save the man who had shot him, and who had apparently been reserved for his special judgement. Richard ordered the man to be brought before him. “What have I done to thee,” he asked him, “that thou shouldest slay me?” “Thou hast slain my father and two of my brothers with thine own hand, and thou wouldst fain have killed me too. Avenge thyself upon me as thou wilt; I will gladly endure the greatest torments which thou canst devise, since I have seen thee upon thy death-bed.” “I forgive thee,” answered Richard, and he bade the guards loose him and let him go free with a gift of a hundred shillings.[1931] The story went that Richard had not communicated for nearly seven years, because he could not put himself in charity with Philip.[1932] Now, on the eleventh day after his wound--April 6, the Tuesday in Passion-week[1933]--he made his confession to one of his chaplains, and received the Holy Communion. His soul being thus at peace, he gave directions for the disposal of his body. It was to be embalmed; the brain and some of the internal organs were to be buried in the ancient Poitevin abbey of Charroux; the heart was to be deposited in the Norman capital, where it had always found a loyal response; the corpse itself was to be laid, in token of penitence, at his father’s feet in the abbey-church of Fontevraud.[1934] Lastly, he received extreme unction; and then, “as the day drew to its close, his day of life also came to its end.”[1935] His friends buried him as he had wished. S. Hugh of Lincoln, now at Angers on his way to protest against a fresh spoliation of his episcopal property, came to seal his forgiveness by performing the last rites of the Church over this second grave at Fontevraud,[1936] where another Angevin king was thus “shrouded among the shrouded women”--his own mother, doubtless, in their midst.[1937] He was laid to sleep in the robes which he had worn on his last crowning-day in England, five years before.[1938] His heart was enclosed in a gold and silver casket, carried to Rouen, and solemnly deposited by the clergy among the holy relics in their cathedral church;[1939] and men saw in its unusual size[1940] a fit token of the mighty spirit of him whom Normandy never ceased to venerate as Richard Cœur-de-Lion.

[1927] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 96.

[1928] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 83. And this, although
he and John had parted on bad terms shortly before. R.
Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 99. _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), p.
287.

[1929] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 96.

[1930] Rog. Howden as above.

[1931] _Ibid._ Cf. the different account of the captive’s
demeanour in Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 593. It seems
impossible to make out who this man really was. R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 166, the Ann. Margam, a. 1199 (Luard,
_Ann. Monast._, vol. i. p. 24), the anonymous continuator of
Geoff. Vigeois (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._, vol. ii. p. 342) and
Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 135, call him Peter Basilius or
Basilii. Gervase calls him John Sabraz; Rog. Howden, Bertrand
de Gourdon; and Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. v. (Duchesne,
_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. p. 156), Guy, without any
surname at all. But as Géraud proves (art. “Mercadier,” in
_Bibl. de l’Ecole des Chartes_, ser. i. vol. iii. pp. 433, 434,
442), it cannot have been Bertrand de Gourdon; for the only man
who is known to have borne that name was still living in 1231,
while Rog. Howden himself tells us that Richard’s pardon did
not avail to save the life of his slayer. Mercadier detained
the man till the king was dead, and then had him flayed and
hanged; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 84;--or, according to
another account, he sent him to Jane, and it was she who took
this horrible vengeance for her brother’s death. Ann. Winton.
a. 1199 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p. 71).

[1932] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 96. This must be, at any
rate, an exaggeration; for Richard had certainly communicated
upon at least one occasion within the last five years--at his
crowning at Winchester in April 1194. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs),
vol. i. p. 526.

[1933] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 166; Gerv. Cant. (as
above), p. 593; Rog. Howden as above; Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol.
iii. p. 136; Ann. Winton. and Waverl. a. 1199 (Luard as above,
pp. 71, 251); Geoff. Vigeois Contin. (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._,
vol. ii.), p. 342. R. Coggeshall as above, and the Chron. S.
Flor. Salm. a. 1199 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 194), make it
April 7; on the part of R. Coggeshall, however, this is clearly
a mere slip, for he rightly places the death on the eleventh
day after the wound. Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._,
vol. v.), p. 42, and the Chron. S. Serg. a. 1199 (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, p. 151), date it April 8, and the Ann. Margam, a.
1199 (Luard, as above, vol. i. p. 24), April 10.

[1934] Rog. Howden as above. Cf. Rog. Wend. as above.

[1935] “Cum jam dies clauderetur, diem clausit extremum.” R.
Coggeshall as above.

[1936] _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), p. 286. The funeral was on
Palm Sunday; _ibid._

[1937] She seems not to have got his letter in time to see him
alive. Berengaria was at Beaufort in Anjou, whither S. Hugh
turned aside to visit and comfort her on his way from Angers to
Fontevraud; and the state of intense grief in which he found
her supplies another proof of Richard’s capacity for winning
love which he did not altogether deserve. _Mag. Vita S. Hug._
(Dimock), p. 286.

[1938] Ann. Winton. a. 1199 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p.
71).

[1939] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. v. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 157.

[1940] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 593. According to the
Ann. Winton. as above, it was “paulo majus pomo pini.”