Ch. 14 - King John

ENGLAND UNDER KING JOHN, CALLED LACKLAND

AT two-and-thirty years of age, JOHN became King of England. His
pretty little nephew ARTHUR had the best claim to the throne; but
John seized the treasure, and made fine promises to the nobility,
and got himself crowned at Westminster within a few weeks after his
brother Richard's death. I doubt whether the crown could possibly
have been put upon the head of a meaner coward, or a more
detestable villain, if England had been searched from end to end to
find him out.

The French King, Philip, refused to acknowledge the right of John
to his new dignity, and declared in favour of Arthur. You must not
suppose that he had any generosity of feeling for the fatherless
boy; it merely suited his ambitious schemes to oppose the King of
England. So John and the French King went to war about Arthur.

He was a handsome boy, at that time only twelve years old. He was
not born when his father, Geoffrey, had his brains trampled out at
the tournament; and, besides the misfortune of never having known a
father's guidance and protection, he had the additional misfortune
to have a foolish mother (CONSTANCE by name), lately married to her
third husband. She took Arthur, upon John's accession, to the
French King, who pretended to be very much his friend, and who made
him a Knight, and promised him his daughter in marriage; but, who
cared so little about him in reality, that finding it his interest
to make peace with King John for a time, he did so without the
least consideration for the poor little Prince, and heartlessly
sacrificed all his interests.

Young Arthur, for two years afterwards, lived quietly; and in the
course of that time his mother died. But, the French King then
finding it his interest to quarrel with King John again, again made
Arthur his pretence, and invited the orphan boy to court. 'You
know your rights, Prince,' said the French King, 'and you would
like to be a King. Is it not so?' 'Truly,' said Prince Arthur, 'I
should greatly like to be a King!' 'Then,' said Philip, 'you shall
have two hundred gentlemen who are Knights of mine, and with them
you shall go to win back the provinces belonging to you, of which
your uncle, the usurping King of England, has taken possession. I
myself, meanwhile, will head a force against him in Normandy.'
Poor Arthur was so flattered and so grateful that he signed a
treaty with the crafty French King, agreeing to consider him his
superior Lord, and that the French King should keep for himself
whatever he could take from King John.

Now, King John was so bad in all ways, and King Philip was so
perfidious, that Arthur, between the two, might as well have been a
lamb between a fox and a wolf. But, being