ESTIMATES OF THE ENGLISH KINGS.
NT-RICHARD I.
IN one respect, if in no other, Richard Cceur de Lion has experienced the same fortune as his father. Both are among the most bepraised and best abused Kings in history, and in each instance in the estimates for evil and for good there is a consider- able foundation of truth. Neither of them, though stained with not a few crimes, can be pronounced justly an absolutely bad man; and, on the other hand, each of them, though endowed with com- manding qualities, leaves on the mind a certain impression of in- completeness. As the statesmanship of Henry, so the personal ascendancy of Richard stopped short of that impressive grandeur which marked the character of the Conqueror, and of one at least of their own descendants. Yet the nature of Richard of Aqui- taine or Poitou, as he was for some time called, was not poor, purposeless, and fickle, as some modern historians, following too implicitly the statements of his enemies, have depicted it ; and if less complex and less interesting as a study of character than that of his father, it is sufficiently unusual to be worthy of more than passing attention.
That modern writers should have been led to adopt this error of the earlier chroniclers respecting Richard, has probably arisen from a previous false conception on their own part of his character as a whole, owing to the delusive position in which that prince presents himself to our eyes in the early part of his career. He was called "of Aquitaine," which was handed over to his rule, and he appears before us as the favourite son of his mother, the heiress of Southern France, and as the especial hero of the Troubadours of that old land of the Celtiberians, the Romans, and the Visi-Goths. He was rlot only the companion-in-arms of the Knights of Aquitaine, but was himself a poet-warrior, after the true Provencal fashion. Historians have, therefore, naturally enough, leapt to the conclusion that he derived his nature as well as the fashion of his life from this fiery, impulsive, southern popula- tion, and have drawn his character on the assumption that such was its essential structure. Arriving at this conclusion, they have adopted without much investigation those statements respect- ing his personal characteristics which seemed to harmonize
with this general conception. But we cannot but think that although the outward fashion of his education and early training were doubtless derived from the lands south of the Loire, and though he himself spoke and wrote his Sircentes in the soft Langue d'Oc, the main outlines of his organization were derived from a very different source. His analogues are to be found rather in the pages of the Eddas and Sagas of the North, and it was as a Scandinavian Viking that he thought and acted. We do not deny that this Scandinavian type may have been modified in some of its component parts, as well as in its outward garb, by the blood which he derived from Eleanor of Aquitaine ; but while we cannot reconcile the leading features of Richard's character with the Aquitainian type, we do recognize inithem most distinctly some of the most striking traits of those -Scandinavian rovers from whom, through his Norman ancestors, he more remotely spriing. There was the commanding presence which overawed opposition, and seemed to stamp him as a natural leader of men ; there was the chivalrous yet somewhat stern courtesy ; there was the uncom- promising pride, the adventurous spirit in which the love of fame and the lawless greed of acquisition seemed to be blended in almost equal proportions ; there was the devotion to a great purpose of an enthusiast, often distracted for the moment by the temptation of immediate adventure and gain, but using even these distractions as new instruments in its further prosecution ; there was the thirst for battle, and the delight in the mere physical contest, befitting a wild animal rather than an intelligent being, and yet the common-sense and shrewdness of per- ception which could see the limits of acquisition and of fame, and could turn away from fruitless laurels. This was the character of those men who made a home for themselves in the Neustria of the Franks, and who established Norman rule in Southern Italy and Sicily,—and such was the essential foundation of the character of Richard Lion Heart. 'Tall above the middle height, but more remarkable for his broad chest, and strong yet pliant sinews, he was by general confession physically the strongest of living men, as he was also physically the most inaccessible to fear and the most self-confident in his strength. On one occasion, putting to sea with a handful of followers, he hastened to the relief of Joppa, into which town the Turks had already forced their way, and were assailing the remnants of the Christian garrison. After a hasty reconnoitre, Richard drove his vessel on shore, and raising his fierce war-cry, plunged into the midst of the masses of the enemy, and drove them out of the place. On the next day, while encamping with a few hundred horsemen outside the gates, he was suddenly assailed by thousands of the Turks. Driving back the foremost assailants, he himself clove a Turk's head down to the shoulders, and then rode along the enemy's front line, crying, "Now, who will dare to fight for the honour of God ?" Years after the close of the Crusade, the Turkish mothers threatened their children with "King Richard is coining !" and the riders asked their shying horses "if they saw the Lion-hearted King." His mental and moral constitution seemed as if they had been assimilated to, or almost as if they were the developments of, this physical force. He was a magnificent animal, even in his spiritual aspect. 'He was savage when roused to anger, and cruel, as much perhaps from the natural indifference to suffering in itself or others of a powerful physique as from conscious malice ; but placable when the exciting cause was removed, and capable of a strong-hearted masculine mercy much resembling that displayed on occasions by Rufus, with whom one modern writer has fancied a resemblance in the character of his vices. The story of his conduct to the archer whose arrow caused his death, if not true in itself, at any rate represents what it was considered Richard was capable of, and reads very like the stories we have already related of the strange Red King. "He ordered," says Roger de Hoveden, "Bertram de Gurdun, who had wounded him, to come into his presence, and said to him, What harm have I done to you that you have killed me ? ' On which he made answer, 'You slew my father and my two brothers with your own hand, and you had intended now to kill me ; therefore, take any revenge on me that you may think fit, for I will readily endure the greatest torments you can devise, so long as you have met with your end, after having inflicted evils so many and so great upon the world.' On this the King ordered him to be released, and said, 'I forgive you my death.' But the youth stood before the feet of the King, and with scowling features and undaunted neck did his courage demand the sword. The King was aware that punishment was wished for, and that pardon was dreaded. Live on,' he said, 'although thou art unwilling, and by my bounty behold the light of day. To the conquered faction now let there be bright hopes, and the example of myself.' And then, after being released from his chains, he was allowed to depart, and the King ordered one hundred shillings of English money to be given him." But if Richard was not implacable or cruel, he was a very stern man in his bearing even when not roused to anger, and there seems to have been a gravity in his nature from which we might have expected far greater results than any which were achieved. Giraldus, in drawing a comparison
between him and his elder brother Henry, points directly to this cast of character. "In force and largeness of mind," he says, "they were pretty much on a level, but their way of excelling was very different. The one [Henry] was praiseworthy for his mildness and liberality ; the other remarkable for his severity and stability. The one was to be commended for his sweetness, the other for his gravity ; the one gained credit for his easy disposition, the other for his constancy ; the one was conspicuous for his mercy, the other for his justice ; the one was the refuge of the unfortunate ill-deserving, the other was their scourge ; the one was the shield of evil, the other its hammer ; the one was devoted to the game of War, the other to its serious part ; the one to strangers, the other to his own circle ; the one to all men, the other to good men." No one will deny that here we have attributed to Richard a weight of character which is very inconsistent with the mere knight- errantry which is generally associated with his name. But though he was not an empty-headed trifler, the patient statesmanship of his father, Henry, formed no part of the endowments of Richard. He was a great general and a great engineer ; could not only fight, but plan campaigns, and was a master of the science of war. By his strength of purpose and military abilities, he not only maintained his footing in France, but threatened the very exist- ence of the Parisian Crown. One or two great feats of provident statesmanship, such as his alliance with the Court of Rome, and the purchase by his gold of the position of King of the Romans for his nephew Otho, attest the existence of talents of a still higher order. But his naturally frank and overbearing nature revolted alike from the subtleties and the condescensions of diplo- macy, and was, indeed, incapable of either appreciating or em- ploying them. He had a power of quick observation, and a fairly good judgment ; he listened to good advisers, and he relied for the rest on the ascendancy and force of his personal character, and his established reputation as a strong and faithful friend and a dangerous enemy. He was not, indeed (as has been generally supposed), wanting in a sense of his responsibilities as a ruler. He left, it is true, his kingdom to pursue what seems to us a wild and unnecessary enterprise, but he made the best provision he could for the administration of England during his absence. He placed at the head of the Government as Chancellor a man who, whatever may be alleged against him by his enemies, and however unfortunate his career, added to remarkable abilities a strength of will which for some time supplied that stability in the executive which the absence of the King was so calculated to impair. He made his brother, Earl John, and his half-brother, Archbishop Geoffrey, take an oath not to enter England for three years, and he tried to stay their ambition and bind them to the observance of this engagement by loading them with dignities and wealth. He kept a watchful eye on English politics during his absence, and his long stay in Sicily, which has been considered a blot on his character as a zealous Crusader, was probably dictated by a dread of impending civil war in England. The great officers of State and Justice who succeeded Longchamp were men of character and ability, and notwithstanding the King's absence and the treason of Earl John, the kingdom really remained to a great degree under the safeguard of an effective executive. Nor can Richard be accused of want of foresight with respect to the interests of his Continental possessions, when Philip of France, from whose ambition they were most exposed to danger, was his companion to the Holy Land. But had he believed that all would have been lost during his absence, though Richard's steps might have lingered, they would scarcely have been arrested, so confident was he in his power of retrieving everything, and so strong in him was the spirit of the Crusader. The Crusades, indeed, gave exactly the appropriate vent to his adventurous spirit. There was a great cause, that of God himself, at stake, and Richard was a devout believer. The indistinctness of the horizon which lay before him added an imaginative zest to the enterprise, while the concrete possibilities of wealth and royalties in the conquered East awakened the covetous side of his character. He was lavish and magnificent in his expenditure, and the whole Crusade lived on his accumulated wealth for many months ; but he did not lose sight of contingent advantages, and the conquest of Cyprus was valued perhaps even more as the acquisition of a satrapy, than as a base of military operations, or a trophy of his warlike fame.
Richard was not only devout, by which means he conciliated the clergy, but he had the superstition of the Angevins. Although his sensual intrigues do not intrude themselves on the page of history like those of his father, he was, by his own confession, addicted to gross indulgences. Twice before his death we hear of his sudden fits of remorse and penance for these excesses, and the account given of these is a very curious one. "Having called together," says Roger de Hoveden, "all the Archbishops and Bishops who were with him at Messina, in the chapel of Reginald de Moyac, he fell naked at their feet, and did not hesitate to confess to God in their presence the filthiness of his life He received the penance imposed by the Bishops before named, and from that hour forward became a man who feared God, and left what was evil and did what was good." This good conduct was not, however, of a permanent character, for we read in the same chronicler, under the year 1195, "In the same year there came a hermit to King Richard, and preaching the word of eternal salvation to him," warned him to "abstain from what is unlawful," saying, "if thou dost not, a vengeance worthy of God shall overtake thee." The King, however, "despised the person of the adviser," and the hermit went his way.
But "on the Lord's Day, in Easter week the Lord scourged the King with a. severe attack of illness, so that, calling before him religious men, he was not ashamed to confess the guiltiness of his life ; and after receiving absolution, took back his wife, whom for a long time he had discarded, and putting away all illicit intercourse, he remained constant to his wife, and they two became one flesh." His last recorded penitence was on his death-bed ; but before the Bishop could move him on this occasion, he had to encounter a sally of grim wit on the part of the dying man which again reminds us of Rufus. When persuaded of the truth of his impending death, Richard asked what he was to do. "Con- sider of disposing of thy daughters in marriage, and do penance," replied the prelate. "This confirms what I said before," said the King, "that you are jesting with me, for you know that I have never had either daughters or sons." "Of a truth, 0 King !" rejoined the Bishop, "you have three daughters, and have had and nourished them long; for as your first-born daughter you have Pride, as your second Covetousness, as your third Self-Indulgence,—these you have had, and have loved out of all reason, from your very youth." "True it is," said the King, "that I have had these, and thus it is that I will bestow them in marriage. My first-born, Pride, I give to the Templars, who are swollen with insolence, and puffed up beyond all others. My second, that is Covetousness, I give to the Grey Friars, who with their covetousness molest all their neighbours, like mad devils. My last, however, namely, Self-Indulgence, I make over to the Black Friars, who devour roast meat and fried, and are never satiated." For, adds William de Hemingburgh, in explanation, "these three sorts of men the King hated."
The Bishop and the King were certainly both correct in their enumeration of Richard's cherished faults. By his arrogance he lost half the advantages which his acknowledged ascendancy among the Princes of Europe would have secured to him. On this point historians of all nations, English, French, and German, are agreed. He could not conceal his sense of his own superiority, and he could not conceal his opinion of the contemptible character of others, and this fact in itself disqualified him for excellence in statesman- ship, and gave to his rival, Philip of France, an advantage which was not the due of any substantial superiority of mind. Covetousness, too, was, as we have said, one of Richard's undoubted failings, and to it he owes some of the greatest stains on his memory,—his extortion and his "wanton disregard of good faith in regard to money." Where this was required for the purposes of his ambition, no consideration of the dignity and influence of the Crown, of the welfare of the nation, or of the justice due to individuals, was allowed to stand in the way. He abandoned royal privileges; he alienated royal domains ; he sold not only charters to municipalities, but half the honours and dignities of the kingdom to the highest bidder ; he levied heavy taxes, and he wrung large sums from individual barons and officers of State to appease his assumed anger. The better qualities of his mind seemed to disappear under this thirst for the means of war, and he was for the time the scourge of his subjects. Yet, though he was covetous and extortionate, he was no miser. What he thus obtained, he spent,—some of it unworthily, no doubt, much of it unwisely and heedlessly, but much also of it in the prosecution of great ends, which were felt by the nation then, though they might not be now worth the spending of much money. He was generous as well as extortionate ; and by the magnificence of his royal bounty he added to the reputation of the nation abroad, while he impoverished both it and himself at home. Faults thus redeemed were easily forgiven, by a nation which, under a generally good administration and advancing foreign commerce, for which the Crusade had opened fresh outlets, was growing rapidly in wealth and self-importance, and we see little reason for wondering with one Of the chroniclers that the people were contented under Richard's scorpions, while they had murmured under his father Henry's rods, that he died amidst the loud lamentation that with him had departed the glory of the world, and that his name descended to succeeding generations as that of one of the most popular of English Kings.
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