2. Richard I. goes on a Crusade.--The Christian kingdom of Jerusalem lasted almost to the end of the reign of Henry II. Then Jerusalem was again conquered by the Mahometans. Before this, very few English had taken part in the crusades. Richard now determined to set out to recover Jerusalem. He was an excellent warrior, fond of adventure, and loving fighting for the sake of excitement and amusement. But he was quarrelsome, and determined not only to do more than any one else, but to make men acknowledge that he did more than any one else. Men like this never succeed. Before he reached the Holy Land he had quarrelled with the King of France. After he reached the Holy Land he quarrelled with the Duke of Austria. He fought bravely and won renown against Saladin, the Mahometan leader. But the men of other nations would not join heartily with him. He could not retake Jerusalem. Once, indeed, he came within sight of it. But he turned proudly and sadly away, and refused to look on the place where a mosque, or building for Mahometan worship, rose on the site which had once been occupied by the temples of Solomon, of Zerubbabel, and of Herod. If he was not worthy, he said, to regain the Holy City, he was not worthy even to look on it.

3. Richard I.returns home. Having accomplished nothing he returned home. He attempted to pass overland through Austria, but he was recognised and detained. The Duke of Austria handed him over to the Emperor, Henry VI., who ruled over Germany and a great part of Italy, and the Emperor kept him in prison till his mother and his friends

ransomed him with a large sum of money. The rest of his life was spent by him in fighting in France. At last he was shot down by a man who aimed at him from a castle wall. The castle was taken before he died, and he ordered his attendants to spare the man to whom he owed his death. There was a nobleness in him besides the bravery, which made him long remembered as Cœur de Lion, or the Lion-Hearted. But he had no thought of making the people over whom he ruled better or happier, and England has no cause to be grateful to him.

4. John loses Normandy. In 1199, Richard's youngest brother John was chosen king in preference to the boy Arthur, who was the son of another brother, Geoffrey, who was dead, and who. was younger than Richard, but older than John. John therefore came to the throne in the same way as Alfred and Stephen, and it is only by mistake that some people call him an usurper. John was as wicked as William Rufus, utterly selfish and rapacious. He feared not God nor regarded man.' He could be very mean and very cruel. At the beginning of his reign he was afraid lest Arthur, when he grew up, should be too strong for him, and Arthur disappeared. No one told how Arthur was murdered. Some said that John had drowned him with his own hands, but it is not known whether this is true. The King of France at once ordered John, who was Duke of Normandy as well as King of England, to come to Paris to be tried for murder, and when he refused to come, took from him a great part of his lands in France. The lands between the English Channel

and the Loire which John had from his father were lost. Only the lands south of the Loire, which John had from his mother, were kept.

5. John's Tyranny in England. In England John tried to enrich himself by heavy taxes, which he laid on at his own pleasure, and by plundering rich persons. It is said that he threw into prison a rich Jew who refused to give him an enormous sum of money, and pulled out one of the Jew's teeth every day till he paid what was asked. Wealthy noblemen were treated in much the same way. In Stephen's time

the great landowners oppressed the people, and the people had therefore supported Henry II., and had made him strong that he might reduce the great landowners to order. John oppressed both great and small, and made them join together against himself. Ready as all classes were to resist the tyrant, it was a long time before they dared to rebel. He brought into England large bodies of foreign mercenaries, or hired soldiers, thoroughly trained for fighting, who would do anything that John ordered them to do as long as they received money from him.

6. John and the Monks of Canterbury.-John fancied that no one could resist him. The monks of Canterbury had the right of electing the archbishop, but as they had always chosen the man whom the king asked them to choose, they had not hitherto had an important part to play in the matter. When the archbishop died, John ordered them to elect his treasurer, the Bishop of Norwich. They chose instead one of themselves, a certain Reginald,

and sent him off to the pope to ask for his support They charged Reginald to hold his tongue till he reached Rome. Reginald, however, was so vain of his election that he chattered about it as soon as he had passed the sea. John was furious when he heard what had happened, and forced the monks to elect the Bishop of Norwich, as if they had never elected Reginald.

7. Stephen Langton chosen Archbishop at Rome. When Reginald arrived at Rome he found himself in the presence of one of the greatest of the popes, Innocent III. Innocent believed that it would be best for the world if kings and nobles had nothing to do with appointing bishops, and if they could be compelled to keep out of war by submitting their quarrels to the arbitration of the pope. Innocent therefore would not accept the treasurer as archbishop, and he saw that Reginald was too foolish a man to make a good archbishop. He told the monks who had come to Rome with Reginald that they had better choose Stephen Langton, a pious and learned Englishman, to the vacant see. This they did, and Reginald had to return a disappointed

man.

8. England under an Interdict.-John was still more furious with the pope than he had been with the monks. He refused to admit Stephen Langton into England, and plundered the clergy. Innocent laid England under an interdict, that is to say, ordered the clergy to put a stop to all the public services of the church. The Holy Communion was no longer to be received, no funeral service was to

be heard at the burial of those who died, baptism was only administered in private. To the mass of the people it was horrible to be cut off from attendance upon the services of the Church. It seemed as though the gate of heaven were closed against them. John did not care whether it was closed or not. He took a malicious pleasure in seizing the lands and goods of the clergy who obeyed the pope by shutting up their churches.

9. John excommunicated. Then Innocent proceeded to excommunicate the king-that is to say, to deprive him of the right of partaking of the Holy Communion. When excommunication had been pronounced, all pious Christians were expected to avoid the society of the excommunicated person. John cared as little for excommunication as he had cared for the interdict, and he treated the clergy more cruelly than ever. Then the pope invited Philip II., King of France, to invade England and dethrone the excommunicated John. Philip was not usually very obedient to the pope, but he found out that it was quite right to obey him when obedience might make him king of England as well as king of France. John had no one to trust but his mercenaries. Almost every Englishman would be on Philip's side. He therefore resolved to make his peace with Innocent. Taking off his crown he laid it at the feet of Pandulph, the pope's legate, and acknowledged that he would thenceforth hold it under the pope, and would pay him a sum of money every year as an acknowledgment of his superiority. He also agreed to acknowledge Langton as Archbishop.