renown high for wisdom, policy, and arms. But all these vast possessions could not diminish—perhaps they rather increased-the spirit of acquisition which was the ruling passion of his nature. There yet remained something to be gained, and Henry prepared to risk a general war rather than not obtain it.

In the year 1158 or 1159, a crusade, against the Moors of Spain, was proposed by Louis King of France, to Pope Adrian, and Henry promised to take part therein with his firm friend and ally, the French monarch. Louis even began to levy troops, and carried on his preparations very far; but Adrian refusing to sanction the crusade, the King of France submitted, and gave up the project. Whether Henry, in listening to the proposal of the neighbouring king, had in view to favour his own purposes in another quarter, without ever really intending to pursue the enterprise; or whether he seriously thought of joining in the crusade, and only turned his mind in another direction when the project was abandoned, I cannot tell. Certain it is that he continued his preparations, gathered together large forces in all his continental states, and, while Louis believed that he was occupied with the design of driving the Moors from Spain, he was in fact putting himself in readiness to assert an old claim of his Queen, Eleanor, to the rich County of Toulouse. In pursuit of this object, he entered into alliance with the Counts of Blois, Nismes, and Montpellier, and for the same purpose negociated a treaty with Ray

mond, Count of Barcelona, who was virtually sovereign of Aragon; though it would seem he did not assume the name of King, in consequence of his marriage with Petronilla, the heiress of that kingdom. In these negociations the name of Richard Plantagenet, afterwards King of England, appears, for the first time in any great diplomatic transaction; and we shall therefore now proceed to the history of that Prince himself, although, of course, for many years after this period, his individual history merges in that of the nation.

HISTORY OF THE LIFE

OF

RICHARD COEUR-DE-LION.

BOOK I.

RICHARD PLANTAGENET, afterwards King of England, was born at Oxford, in the month of September, 1157. He was the third son of Henry the Second and Eleanor of Aquitaine. His eldest brother William being born in France, before his father's accession to the throne, had been acknowledged heir-apparent by the great Council of the nation; while the second son, Henry, was formally recognised as second in the succession. We may deduce, perhaps, from the fact of Henry having required his parliament to acknowledge his second son, then an infant, as heir to the crown in case of

his brother's death, that the eldest son of Henry and Eleanor was from his birth of a weak and sickly habit. Certain it is, however, that he died soon after; and the other children of the King and Queen appear to have inherited a constitution of iron. Thus at the time of Richard's birth very little probability existed of his ever ascending the throne of England. Nevertheless, it would appear that from the very earliest period, Henry the Second destined for his son Richard an important share of his continental dominions. Although the promises of monarchs as well as those of other men, are, unfortunately, not always to be depended upon, and although the treaty, in which the name of Richard first appears in any matter of importance, was afterwards abrogated by unforeseen events, yet we discover therein distinctly the intention of his father, both to divide that territory amongst his children, which he had been at so much pains to unite in his own person, and to bestow upon Richard a large portion in the partition.

The treaty to which I refer was concluded between Henry II. and Raymond, Count of Barcelona, the actual sovereign of Aragon ;* and, by

*Raymond, I believe, as I have said before, never did assume the name of King, and we are told that he actually refused to take that title, which the Aragonese nobles wished to confer upon him. According to William of Newbury, after having pointed out the superiority of Barcelona over all other coun