HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF RICHARD CEUR-DE-LION. WHEN Prince Richard, afterwards King of England, first entered upon the busy scene of life, by flying from the court of his father, and taking part with two of his brothers in their rebellion, he had not yet completed his sixteenth year; but was even then robust, powerful, and active in body, and haughty, bold, and decided in character. The fierceness, as well as the strength and courage of the lion, showed itself at a very early age; though he pursued with all the eagerness of his nature those softer arts which were calculated to mitigate his harsher qualities. In regard to his early education, we have but few minute particulars. It was undoubtedly such as was then usually given VOL. II. B to the sons of nobles and princes; but, in all probability, his father Henry, who was well versed in polite literature himself, took pains to afford his sons as complete a knowledge of letters as was to be obtained in those days. We know, indeed, that Richard, though inferior to his father in learning, was superior, in that respect, to most of the princes of his time; his fondness for music and skill in poetry, are attested by contemporaries; and those two arts formed the relaxation of his idle hours, and his consolation in sorrow and captivity. In all the sports and exercises of chivalry, Richard was preeminent; and to obtain the degree of proficiency which he had acquired, not only great dexterity and activity of body was necessary, but long and early training. The cultivation of those corporeal powers which were required to obtain great military renown in those days, was indeed a natural consequence of the feudal system; and the chivalrous education which every baron bestowed upon his son in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, forms so curious and characteristic a point in the history of that age, that I must dwell upon it here, in order to show, in some degree, the discipline which Richard had already gone through before he quitted the court of his father. Till the young noble had entered the seventh year of his age, he was, in almost all cases, left tò the care and government of women. The nurse, the mother, and her attendants taught, during that period, all that the infant mind was capable of receiving, gave the first notions of religion, and first. bade the young heart aspire to honour and renown. At seven years of age, from those tender hands which had smoothed the pillow of his infancy, the boy was taken and consigned to the rougher charge of men, who immediately began to prepare him for the life of danger, toil, and strife that he was to undergo. His first station was usually as page; and I cannot discover that there was any difference in the treatment and occupations of the sons of the highest noblemen while in this capacity, and that of the youths of inferior rank, who were admitted to aid in the task. In king's courts, indeed, the former were sometimes styled "children of honour;" but still the page served his master at table, gave him the wine-cup, held the basin in which he washed before dinner, and rendered to him a thousand other offices of the same kind. The services of the page, however, were amply repaid by the instruction he received, not only in military exercises, but in demeanour, in conduct, and in religion. We find from Joinville, who was himself educated by St. Louis, that the great and good king to whom he attached himself through life, took infinite pleasure in exercising the minds of the young men at his court, in making them discuss various questions thrown out at random, in aiding their judgment, and directing their views aright. Indeed, nothing can give us a better or a more pleasing view of the domestic life of the princes of that day, in those cases where it was governed by virtue and wisdom, than the picture afforded us of the court of St. Louis by the good Seneschal of Champagne. The houses of all the great nobility, more especially in France, were in fact schools for chivalrous education. The castle of each lord was open for the reception of the sons of all his friends and relations; and we are assured that it would have been considered a great want of courtesy in any baron to refuse admission to the son of a noble friend into his household as a page. Thus the number of these youths in every large family was very great; for it is to be remarked that in almost all cases, parents, diffident of their own resolution and firmness, entrusted the care of their sons between seven and fourteen years of age to any distinguished person, upon whom they had claims either by friendship or by blood. The more celebrated was the knight or warrior, the more eagerly was his protection and instruction sought for the youth of his kinsmen and friends; and though his reputation might thus sometimes produce a severe tax upon him, yet many great objects were gained by attaching to his family and person a number of youths growing up to manhood, eager for military glory, and imbued with the principles which he himself had instilled. The children of kings and sovereign princes indeed were generally, though not always, educated in their own court; and it is probable that Henry had |