66 33. It is no wonder that a day and night so terrible made him very ill. When he got back to London he fell into a dangerous fever. But a very strange thing happened; what we should now call a coincidence," but what looked to people then like a miracle. The penance had taken place on a Saturday. On the next Thursday at midnight, as the king lay ill in his bed, a loud knocking was heard at the gates. It was a messenger from the north, who insisted on being taken to the king's chamber. He brought news that the royal army had gained a great victory on that very Saturday, and that the King of Scotland was taken prisoner. The astonished king sprang, overjoyed, from his bed, and with a full heart returned thanks to God and St. Thomas. On the very same Saturday the fleet with which the Earl of Flanders and young Henry intended to invade the kingdom was driven back. 34. This history shows what a real belief every one in those days had in the power of the saints. It was still quite as strong as when Cnut strove to appease the martyred Edmund and Alphege. Though Becket, we cannot doubt, was honest and conscientious in what he aimed at and strove for, he was very far indeed from our present idea of a saint; but in the esteem of that time he was one of the very greatest the world ever saw. A splendid shrine was made to contain his bones, and people flocked from all parts to visit it and pray to the martyr. And we are told that " glorious miracles were wrought Miracles. One at his tomb. Sick people were cured, the dumb spoke, the blind saw, even the dead were raised to life. miracle, which, if not very "glorious," was at least very strange, was fully believed when the story was first told, and is another instance of how ready people were to give credit to wonderful tales in those days. It is certainly true that the King of France came on a pilgrimage to Canterbury "to implore the patronage of the blessed martyr;" this was the first time a king of France ever set foot on English ground. He gave very handsome offerings to the holy place, and to the monks a valuable golden cup, and 100 tuns of wine; but while he was praying the archbishop noticed on his finger a magnificent ring, with a most splendid jewel in it. The archbishop (very modestly) begged the king to present this ring to the shrine. The king, however, not being willing to part with it, offered instead 100,000 florins, with which the archbishop was fully satisfied, as he well might be. "But scarcely had the refusal been uttered, when the stone leaped from the ring and fastened itself to the shrine, as if a goldsmith had fixed it there." The miracle of course convinced the king, who left the jewel and the florins as well; and the gem was the grandest ornament of the shrine, which was all blazing with gold, diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds. We shall hear more about the Canterbury pilgrimages in the future, as one of the most famous books in the English language was written about them. 35. Not only in England, but in foreign lands Becket's fame spread far and wide, as the hero and martyr of the Church, and foreigners were as anxious for relics of the saint as Englishmen. Parts of his arms, teeth, and brains were long treasured up in Rome, Florence, Lisbon, and many other places. His fame even reached the distant island of Iceland; and in the thirteenth century his life was translated out of Latin into Icelandic, for the benefit of the people of that wild country. LECTURE XX.-THE SONS OF HENRY. Henry's family troubles. His death. Richard Coeur-de-Lion. Chivalry. Richard's absence from England. John Sans-terre. Prince Arthur. Loss of Normandy. Henry prospers. 1. AFTER the strange events of his day of penance Henry's spirit revived; he felt that he was pardoned; his health returned; and he put himself at the head of an army. The English people gathered round him, and the revolt of the barons was put down without a blow. The truth was that the nation was really faithful, and attached to the king's government. It was only some of the older nobility, who had lands in Normandy, and still felt like Normans, who rebelled. The other barons, who felt like Englishmen, nearly all the bishops, and the great towns stood firm on the king's side now that he was no longer fighting in a matter which touched their religion. Thus after his pressing danger he rose stronger than ever. 2. Nor did he entirely give up his schemes for the control of the Church and the clergy; he carried out many of his principles still, though the "Constitutions of Clarendon " had been renounced; and matters were left, as they so often were and are in England, somewhat undecided, each party having to give and take in turn. Family troubles. 3. But this great king's troubles were not over yet. All the later years of his life were made miserable by the ingratitude and rebellion of his sons. Considering what his marriage had been, it is not wonderful that his family life was so unhappy. One son rebelled after another; he forgave them again and again; but they broke his heart at last. As all this was mostly in France, we cannot enter into the details. Henry, who was to have been King of England, died young, before his father. Geoffrey, the third, who had been married to the heiress of Brittany, also died. Richard, the second, was as undutiful as his brothers. The worst and youngest, John, was his father's favourite; Henry said he was the only one who had never rebelled against him. When, at last, the forlorn and aged king found that John too was a traitor, and had sided with his enemies, it was his death-blow. He cared for nothing more in the world, and died. One of his illegitimate children was alone faithful to him, and tended his last hours. His death. 4. The next king of England reigned for ten years. In all that time he was only in England twice, and then but for a few months. He could hardly be looked on as an Englishman at all. Yet he is even to this day a popular Richard I. king. Every one likes the name of Richard the 1189. Lion-hearted. When we come to look at his life and character this seems strange. He was a very fierce and quarrelsome man; he had been an undutiful son; so much so, that it was said and believed that when he went to meet his father's funeral the blood flowed from the dead body; showing, according to the old superstition, that Richard was in some sense his murderer. As to his government of England, all he ever seemed to care about was to wring out of the nation all the money he could. And, as has been truly said, it may be all very well to have the heart of a lion, but it would have been far better to have the heart of a man. Yet we all know he is a popular hero and favourite to this day. Why can this be? 5. The truth seems to be, that though we cannot look on Richard as a good, or great, or wise king, he was in many ways the very model of a knight. In these days we do Chivalry. not think very much of a knight. It is only a title of no great honour. But we think still a good deal of the word "chivalrous." That is the French or Romance word for 66 "knightly." The French word for knight was chevalier," which means one who rides on horseback. The German word for knight means the same thing, a rider (reiter, ritter), and it came to be a title of some honour, because those who could afford to ride on horseback were the richer and more high-born people. 6. Gradually other ideas grew up about the name; and in the days of Richard I., and some time both before and after, the one thing which was thought of and desired was to be a good knight. Even a great king was not satisfied with being wise, clever, honest, and brave unless he were also a good knight—chivalrous. So that we cannot at all enter into the spirit of that age without trying to understand a little of what chivalry meant. 7. We will first look at its good side. We cannot fail to have observed that the one great occupation of a gentleman's life in those days was fighting, and we have had to notice over and over again how fierce and savage some of the barons and warriors were, for this constant fighting and killing men was sure to harden their nature and to make them brutal. The very heart of chivalry was a yearning to rise out of this savagery and brutality. If we use the word "chivalrous" even to-day we mean something courteous and delicately honourable, above the common level of civility and honesty. A good knight was bound to be that. He was bound to be gentle towards ladies, to be generous towards even his enemies, to be full of courtesy towards a fallen foe, and of reverence towards age and authority. Perhaps the truest description of the "ideal" of chivalry is that by Tennyson in the Idylls of the King,' which, though they are about King Arthur, who lived ages before chivalry was invented, give a perfect picture of what knighthood would have been had Arthur, as Tennyson paints him, been living in the middle ages. He says he drew the knights around him "In that fair order of my Table Round, I made them lay their hands in mine and swear Their conscience, and their conscience as their king. To break the heathen, and uphold the Christ; To ride abroad, redressing human wrongs; And love of truth, and all that makes a man. Of course this is only a beautiful picture (and very far was the lion-hearted Richard from being like it), but it gives us an idea of what they aimed at ; and to have noble aims, even though we cannot reach them, makes life noble. 8. The knight, then, was to be brave, gallant, pure, faithful, loving, and courteous. A true knight also loved music, songs, |