'I will tell my loving uncle that,'replied the boy,'when he does me right.Let him restore to me my kingdom of England,and then come to me and ask the question.'
The King looked at him and went out.'Keep that boy close prisoner,'said he to the warden of the castle.
Then,the King took secret counsel with the worst of his nobles how the Prince was to be got rid of.Some said,'Put out his eyes and keep him in prison,as Robort of Normandy was kept.'Others said,'Have him stabbed.'Others,'Have him hanged.'Others,'Have him poisoned.'
King John,feeling that in any case,whatever was done afterwards,it would be a satisfaction to his mind to have those handsome eyes burnt out that had looked at him so proudly while his own royal eyes were blinking at the stone floor,sent certain ruffians to Falaise to blind the boy with red-hot irons.But Arthur so pathetically entreated them,and shed such piteous tears,and so appealed to HUBERT DE BOURG (or BURGH),the warden of the castle,who had a love for him,and was an honourable,tender man,that Hubert could not bear it.To his eternal honour he prevented the torture from being performed,and,at his own risk,sent the savages away.
The chafed and disappointed King bethought himself of the stabbing suggestion next,and,with his shuffling manner and his cruel face,proposed it to one William de Bray.'I am a gentleman and not an executioner,'said William de Bray,and left the presence with disdain.
But it was not difficult for a King to hire a murderer in those days.King John found one for his money,and sent him down to the castle of Falaise.'On what errand dost thou come?'said Hubert to this fellow.'To despatch young Arthur,'he returned.'Go back to him who sent thee,'answered Hubert,'and say that I will do it!'
King John very well knowing that Hubert would never do it,but that he courageously sent this reply to save the Prince or gain time,despatched messengers to convey the young prisoner to the castle of Rouen.
Arthur was soon forced from the good Hubert-of whom he had never stood in greater need than then-carried away by night,and lodged in his new prison:where,through his grated window,he could hear the deep waters of the river Seine,rippling against the stone wall below.
One dark night,as he lay sleeping,dreaming perhaps of rescue by those unfortunate gentlemen who were obscurely suffering and dying in his cause,he was roused,and bidden by his jailer to come down the staircase to the foot of the tower.He hurriedly dressed himself and obeyed.When they came to the bottom of the winding stairs,and the night air from the river blew upon their faces,the jailer trod upon his torch and put it out.Then,Arthur,in the darkness,was hurriedly drawn into a solitary boat.And in that boat,he found his uncle and one other man.
He knelt to them,and prayed them not to murder him.Deaf to his entreaties,they stabbed him and sunk his body in the river with heavy stones.When the spring-morning broke,the tower-door was closed,the boat was gone,the river sparkled on its way,and never more was any trace of the poor boy beheld by mortal eyes.
The news of this atrocious murder being spread in England,awakened a hatred of the King (already odious for his many vices,and for his having stolen away and married a noble lady while his own wife was living)that never slept again through his whole reign.In Brittany,the indignation was intense.Arthur's own sister ELEANOR was in the power of John and shut up in a convent at Bristol,but his half-sister ALICE was in Brittany.The people chose her,and the murdered prince's father-in-law,the last husband of Constance,to represent them;and carried their fiery complaints to King Philip.King Philip summoned King John (as the holder of territory in France)to come before him and defend himself.King John refusing to appear,King Philip declared him false,perjured,and guilty;and again made war.In a little time,by conquering the greater part of his French territory,King Philip deprived him of one-third of his dominions.And,through all the fighting that took place,King John was always found,either to be eating and drinking,like a gluttonous fool,when the danger was at a distance,or to be running away,like a beaten cur,when it was near.
You might suppose that when he was losing his dominions at this rate,and when his own nobles cared so little for him or his cause that they plainly refused to follow his banner out of England,he had enemies enough.But he made another enemy of the Pope,which he did in this way.
The Archbishop of Canterbury dying,and the junior monks of that place wishing to get the start of the senior monks in the appointment of his successor,met together at midnight,secretly elected a certain REGINALD,and sent him off to Rome to get the Pope's approval.The senior monks and the King soon finding this out,and being very angry about it,the junior monks gave way,and all the monks together elected the Bishop of Norwich,who was the King's favourite.The Pope,hearing the whole story,declared that neither election would do for him,and that HE elected STEPHEN LANGTON.The monks submitting to the Pope,the King turned them all out bodily,and banished them as traitors.The Pope sent three bishops to the King,to threaten him with an Interdict.The King told the bishops that if any Interdict were laid upon his kingdom,he would tear out the eyes and cut off the noses of all the monks he could lay hold of,and send them over to Rome in that undecorated state as a present for their master.The bishops,nevertheless,soon published the Interdict,and fled.
After it had lasted a year,the Pope proceeded to his next step;