beware of your wife and sons,” were words addressed to Henry, with a warning to look after Aquitaine.

One night the king and his son stopped to sleep a night at Chimon; in the night Henry escaped and fled to the French king, where a few days after he was joined by Richard and Geoffrey. Queen Eleanor attempted to join them, but she was seized—dressed in men’s clothes—escaping to the French court, and soon after Henry came over to fetch her and take her back to England, where he kept her as a sort of prisoner, safely guarded in her palace at Winchester, for many years.

Then there was peace for a time. Richard, the darling of his imprisoned mother, was the first to renew the war. On being told to do homage to young Henry for Aquitaine, he refused; whereupon Henry and Geoffrey marched against him. But peace was made. Nevertheless, the people of Aquitaine were more enraged than ever. In their eyes Eleanor was their chief, and Henry had no power over them, except through her and by affectionate treatment of her. Now she was in prison,—Eleanor, the princess of their old stock,—the princess born among them, brought up in their midst.

“Daughter of Aquitaine,” sang the troubadours, “thou hast been torn from thy country and led into a strange land. Return, poor prisoner, return to thy faithful cities, if thou canst; if thou canst not, weep and cry, ‘Alas, how long is my exile!’ Raise thy voice like a trumpet, that thy sons may hear thee; for the day is at hand when thy sons shall deliver thee, and then thou shalt see thy native land again!”

In 1183 young Henry the heir died. When he found he could not live much longer, he sent for his father to implore forgiveness for his wrongdoings. Henry, who had always loved his son, forgave him readily, and the prince—almost passionate in his sorrow—died on sackcloth and ashes as an atonement for his sins.

The following year there was a solemn peace-making between Henry and his three sons. Eleanor was released from her prison to be present, and “peace and final concord” was established. Soon after Geoffrey was killed, and the King of France at once invited Richard to his court. The oft-repeated risings and rebellions of Henry’s sons were making his last days very unhappy. He longed to make peace with Richard, but he could not. The people of the South were against him, his vassals were even forsaking him for Richard. A list was brought of those who had left him; he ordered the names to be read. The first name on the list was John. The king leapt from his bed in agony.

“Is it true,” he cried, “that John, the child of my heart, the best beloved of all my sons, has forsaken me?”

He looked at the name, as if to make sure there was no mistake; then, turning his face to the wall, he groaned: “Now let everything go as it will; I care no more for myself, nor for the world.”

Richard’s first act as King of England was to release his mother from her captivity, and make her Queen Regent of England. She made a royal progress through England, releasing prisoners throughout the country to pray “for the soul of Henry II.,” pardoning offences against the crown, making the forest laws easier, and restoring to their families those who had been put in prison for disobeying them.

Her long captivity and sorrow for her two dead sons had softened her character, and the latter part of her life was kinder, more merciful, and, therefore, more powerful than the former. When Richard had settled a dower on her, she went back to France. Soon after Richard joined the King of France to go to the crusade, leaving a regent to govern England, and that regent was not his brother John. John felt the slight, but waited till Richard had gone before he put in his claims.

Eleanor’s next step was to go to Spain to fetch Berengaria, the beautiful daughter of the King of Navarre, and take her to Richard, who had fallen in love with her some years before. The royal ladies set off from the court of Navarre together, crossed the Pyrenees, and went to Naples, where they found ships, and crossed to Messina, where Richard met them.

Now Eleanor had several reasons for taking this long journey to Messina. There was a question who should succeed Richard as King of England, and it was therefore important he should have an heir. Geoffrey’s son Arthur was the rightful heir, as matters stood, but Eleanor hated Arthur and Arthur’s mother, and was anxious to prevent his ever being king. Again, England was not in a happy state, and Eleanor wanted to talk to Richard about it.

Richard left matters entirely in his mother’s hands, and Eleanor returned to England. It required all her efforts to keep the country at peace; it was she who conferred with the barons, she who at last prevailed over her youngest unruly son to remain quiet. After a time came the joyful news that Richard had started for home, but it was followed by the tidings that he had been taken prisoner. Then came a letter from Richard:

“Richard, King of England, to his esteemed lady and dearest mother Eleanor, by the same grace Queen of England, health and all happiness, which a devoted son can wish for his mother. In the first place to God, and afterward to your serene highness, sweetest mother, we send our utmost thanks, although we cannot render enough for the faithfulness which you keep for us, and the faithful care and diligence which you spend so devotedly for the peace and defence of our countries.”

Then he tells her that if a ransom can be raised, he will receive his freedom. Eleanor at once held a meeting of the barons, and ordered a tax to be made, and the ransom raised. Then she herself set out for Germany with the ransom, and received back her son Richard.

When John heard through the King of France that Richard was returning, he fled. Then Eleanor and Richard held a council, and decreed that if John did not appear in forty days all his English estates should be forfeited. Then John threw himself at his brother’s feet, and implored forgiveness. Richard was loth to forgive, but Eleanor begged him not to refuse, and he always obeyed her.

“I forgive him,” he cried, “and I hope I shall as easily forget his injuries as he will forget my pardon.”

In 1199 Richard died, leaving the kingdom to John. It was due mostly to Eleanor’s influence that Arthur was set aside, and John appointed to reign. But many of the French people hated John, and wanted Arthur to reign over them, and Arthur and his friends marched against a French town where his grandmother Eleanor was staying. On hearing of his mother’s danger, John, with unwonted energy, marched to the rescue, and Arthur was taken as prisoner to the castle of Rouen. From this time he disappeared. Some say his uncle drowned him; tradition gives a tragic history of how his eyes were burnt out by Hubert. Our poet Shakspere represents him as throwing himself from a high wall and being killed, but we do not know what the truth really is. Then Eleanor retired to Fonteraux, where she died at the age of eighty-two.

With his mother’s death John lost all fear and shame, and relapsed into depths of wickedness. Sorrow and adversity had taught Eleanor many a stern lesson, and few women have lived to a more honourable old age than “Eleanor, beloved of God and man,” as the monks of Canterbury used to address her.

PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT (1313-1369).

Philippa, afterwards Queen of Edward III. of England, was born in the province of Hainault in Belgium, in 1313. Her mother, the Countess of Hainault,