Still led thee further from the road,
Dread thou to speak presumptuous doom
On noble 'Montfort's' lowly tomb;
But say, 'he died a gallant knight,
With sword in hand, for England's right.''
For, though the rebellion cannot be justified, it was by the efforts and strife of this reign that Magna Charta was fixed, not as the concession wrung for a time by force from a reluctant monarch, but as the basis of English law.
Prince Edward, in the plenitude of his victory, did not attempt to repeal it; but, at a parliament held at Marlborough, 1267, led his father to accept not this only, but such of the regulations of the Barons as were reasonable, and consistent with the rigid maintenance of the authority of the Crown.
Evesham was the overthrow of the Montfort family. Henry was there slain with his father-though, according to ballad lore, he had another fate-the blow only depriving him of sight, and he being found on the field by a 'baron's faire daughter,' she conveyed him to a place of safety, tended him, and finally became his wife, and made him 'glad father of pretty Bessee.' For years he lived and throve (as it appears) as the blind beggar of Bethnal Green, till his daughter, who had been brought up as a noble lady, was courted by various suitors. On her making known, however, that she was a beggar's daughter,
''Nay, then,' quoth the merchant, 'thou art not for me.'
'Nor,' quoth the inn-holder, 'my wiffe shalt thou be.'
'I lothe,' said the gentle, 'a beggar's degree;
And therefore adewe, my pretty Bessee.''
However, there was a gentle knight whose love for 'pretty Bessee' was proof against the discovery of her father's condition and the entreaties of his friends; and after he had satisfied her by promises not to despise her parents, the blind beggar counted out so large a portion, that he could not double it, and on the wedding-day the beggar revealed his own high birth, to the general joy.
Unfortunately, it does not appear as if Henry de Montfort might not have prospered without his disguise. His mother was generously treated by the King and Prince, and retired beyond sea with her sons Amaury and Richard; and her daughter Eleanor, and his brother Simon, a desperate and violent man, held out Kenilworth for some months, which was with difficulty reduced; afterward he joined his brother Guy, and wandered about the Continent, brooding on revenge for his father's death.
The last rebel to be overcome was the brave outlaw, Adam de Gourdon, who, haunting Alton Wood as a robber after the death of Leicester, was sought out by Prince Edward, subdued by his personal prowess, and led to the feet of the King.
The brave and dutiful Prince became the real ruler of the kingdom, and England at length reposed.
CAMEO XXXI. THE LAST OF THE CRUSADERS. (1267-1291.)
_Kings of England_.
1216. Henry III.
1272. Edward I.
_Kings of Scotland_.
1249. Alexander III.
1285. Margaret.
(Interregnum.)
_Kings of France_.
1226. Louis IX.
1270. Philippe III.
1285. Philippe IV.
_Emperor of Germany_.
1273. Rodolph I.
_Popes_.
1265. Clement IV.
1271. Gregory X.
1276. Innocent V.
1277. John XXI.
1277. Nicholas III.
1281. Martin IV.
1285. Honorius IV.
1288. Nicholas IV.
A hundred and seventy years had elapsed since the hills of Auvergne had re-echoed the cry of _Dieu le veult_, and the Cross had been signed on the shoulders of Godfrey and Tancred. Jerusalem had been held by the Franks for a short space; but their crimes and their indolence had led to their ruin, and the Holy City itself was lost, while only a few fortresses, detached and isolated, remained to bear the name of the Kingdom of Palestine. The languishing Royal Line was even lost, becoming extinct in Conradine, the grandson of Friedrich II. and of Yolande of Jerusalem, that last member of the house of Hohenstaufen on whom the Pope and Charles of Anjou wreaked their vengeance for the crimes of his fore-fathers. Charles of Anjou, brother of St. Louis, but of utterly dissimilar character, had seized Conradine's kingdom of the two Sicilies, and likewise assumed his title to that of Jerusalem, thus acquiring a personal interest in urging on another Crusade for the recovery of Palestine.
Less and less of that kingdom existed. Bibars, or Bendocdar Elbondukdari, one of the Mameluke emirs, who had become Sultan of Egypt during the confusion that followed the death of Touran Chah, was so great a warrior that he was surnamed the Pillar of the Mussulman Religion and the Father of Victories-titles which he was resolved to merit by exterminating the Franks. Cesarea, Antioch, Joppa, fell into his hands in succession, and Tripoli and Acre alone remained in the possession of the Templars and Hospitallers, who appealed to their brethren in Europe for assistance.
The hope of a more effective crusade than his first had never been absent from the mind of Louis IX.; he had carried it with him through court and camp, dwelt on it while framing wise laws for his people, instructing his nobles, or sitting to do justice beneath the spreading oak-tree of Vincennes. Since his return from Damietta, he had always lived as one devoted, never wearing gold on his spurs nor in his robes, and spending each moment that he could take from affairs of state in prayer and reading of the Scripture; and though his health was still extremely frail and feeble, his resolution was taken.
On the 23d of March, 1267, he convoked his barons in the great hall of the Louvre, and entered the assembly, holding in his hand that sacred relic, the Crown of Thorns, which had been found by the Empress Helena with the True Cross. He then addressed them, describing the needs of their Eastern brethren, and expressing his own intention of at once taking the Cross. There was a deep and mournful silence among his hearers, who too well remembered the sufferings of their last campaign, and who looked with despair at their beloved King's worn and wasted form, so weak that he could hardly bear the motion of a horse, and yet bent on encountering the climate and the labors that had well-nigh proved fatal to him before.
The legate, the Cardinal Ottoboni, then made an exhortation, after which Louis assumed the Cross, and was imitated by his three sons, Philippe, Tristan, and Pierre, and his son-in-law, Thibault, King of Navarre, with other knights, but in no great numbers, for the barons were saying to each other, that it was one of the saddest days that France had ever seen. 'If we take the Cross,' they said, 'we lose our King; if we take it not, we lose our God, since we will not take the Cross for Him.' The Sire de Joinville absolutely refused on account of his vassals, and openly pronounced it a mortal sin to counsel the King to undertake such an expedition in his present state of health; but Louis' determination was fixed, and in the course of the next three years he collected a number of gallant young Crusaders.
He had always had a strong influence over his nephew, Edward of England, and the conclusion of the war with Montfort, as well as a personal escape of his own, had at this period strongly disposed the Prince to acts of devotion. While engaged in a game at chess with a knight at Windsor Castle, a sudden impulse seized him to rise from his seat. He had scarcely done so, when a stone, becoming detached from the groined roof over his head, fell
