Non tamen pigebit vel incondita ac rudi voce memoriam prioris fervitutis, as TACIT. Agricola, LONDON: Printed for JAMES RIVINGTON and JAMES FLETCHER, at the MDCCLVIII. THE HISTORY O F ENGLAND. BOOK SECON D. ekecilo. ceckockscJ R 1. A t #tt ttttt. t RICHARD I Surnamed Cœur de Leon. ICHARD fucceeded without oppofition to his fa- Richard," ther's throne, and began his reign with fuch an act Cœur de of tyranny and oppreffion, as must have afforded a very afcends the Leon, uncomfortable omen to his fubjects. His fathers's obfequies the throne. were scarce performed, when he ordered Stephen de Tours, the late king's fenefchal, to be arrested and loaded with shackles, until he had delivered up, not only the treasure committed to his charge, but alfo his own fortune, amounting to five and forty thousand Angeven livres: then he caufed him to be divorced from his wife, because she was a gentlewoman, and he of ignoble descent; and declared he would, by his own authority, annul all fuch unequal marriages. This man, however, whom he knew to be a faithful fervant of his father, he would not difmifs from his employment; for he continued ftill to manage the revenue of Anjou; and indeed it must be owned for the credit of Richard's good fenfe, that he retained in his service all the loyal adherents of the late king; and discarded those who had deferted their master, even in his own favour. A. C. 1189. Thefe, whether ecclefiaftic or layman, he expelled from his court, and ever after defpifed as perfidious traitors; and when fome barons, who had served him in his laft revolt, demanded B VOL. II. refti A. C. 1189. reftitution of their lands and caftles, which they had forfeited in former rebellions, he ordered them to be reftored according, to his promife, but he ejected them the very next day, obBrompton, ferving, that thofe who deferted their legal fovereign, fhould always be rewarded in this manner. Richard is abfolved, divers no blemen. The affairs of Guienne and Anjou being fettled according invested, and to his pleasure, he repaired to Normandy, and was, by the beftows fa- archbishops of Canterbury and Rouen, abfolved at Seez of the vours upon crime he had committed in taking up arms against his father, after having engaged in the crufade. After his abfolution he was invefted with the ducal fword and banner, and received the homage of all the nobility in the province; upon which occafion he difplayed his generofity in divers acts of favour. He bestowed his niece Maude upon Geoffry, fon of Rotrou count de Perche; he gave the daughter of Richard Strongbow in marriage to his favourite William Marefchal; and to Gilbert, the fon of. Roger Fitz-Rainfray, Eloifa, daughter and heiress of William de Lancaster, baron of Kendal. He confirmed his brother John in poffeffion of the four thousand marks a year in England, and the county of Mortaign in Normandy, which had been fettled upon him by his father, befides the honour of Gloucester, by virtue of his marriage with the late earl's daughter; and gave the royal affent to the election of his natural brother Geoffry to the fee of York, though he afterwards feized his caftles in Normandy, which he obliged him to redeem with a confiderable fum of money. In a few days after his inauguration, he had an interview, between Chaumont and Trie, with the king of France, who restored the places he had taken in the late war, and waved his demand Dueto. Col. of Gifors, on Richard's promifing to add four thousand Matth. Par. marks to the twenty thousand, which the late king had agreed to pay for the expences of the war. His inter view with Philip of France. Bened. Abb. He is fter. Having regulated his foreign affairs, he refolved to visit his crowned at British dominions, which, fince his father's death, had been Weftmin- governed by his mother Eleanor, whom he had impowered to publish an act of grace, in favour of all prifoners and tranfgreffors, except fuch as had turned evidence against their accomplices, which informers had no benefit of this indulgence. Robert, earl of Leicester, now retrieved his caftles, which Henry had kept as fecurity for his good behaviour; and other forfeited barons were indulged with the like reftitution. The appenage of prince. John was confiderably increased by grants of lands and caftles; and by marrying the heiress of the late earl of Gloucefter, though within the prohibited degrees of confanguinity, he became mafter of a very confiderable part of of the realm. All the freemen throughout the kingdom had, A. C. 1ifg. by order of the queen-mother, taken the oath of fealty to Richard before his arrival, and now the fame was taken by the prelates and nobility at his coronation, which was folemnized in the abbey of Westminster, Ralph de Dueto, dean of St. Paul's, officiating in the room of the bishop of London, because the fee happened to be then vacant. are maf Stamford, Richard had iflued a proclamation forbidding all Jews to The Jewe enter the church, during the coronation fervice, or intrude facred at into the palace while he should be at dinner. Notwithitand- London, ing this prohibition, which feems to have been intended Lyme, merely for the prevention of a croud, a few wealthy Hebrews, and York inftigated by curiofity, endeavoured to pass unobferved in the multitude; but were detected, and roughly repelled. This violence produced a fray, in which feveral Jews were troden under foot and flain, as that people were extremely odious at this juncture, when the fuperftition of the Chriftians was inflamed by the preaching of monks in favour of the crufade. The populace of London, hearing the king had ordered the Jews to be exterminated, immediately took to arms, and befieged the merchants of that nation in their houses, after having murdered all the Ifraelites that fell in their way. The king was no fooner apprifed of this tumult than he fent Ralph de Glanville, the chief jufticiary, and other noblemen, into the city, to quell the difturbance and prevent further mischief; but all their endeavours proved ineffectual; and they were obliged to fly for the fafety of their own lives. The rabble finding it impracticable to force the strong houses to which the Jews had retired, fet them on fire; fo that a confiagration began at different corners of the city; and the mob taking advantage of the confufion and terror which they produced, plundered Jews and Chriftians without diftinction. The former perished either by the flames or the fury of an enraged populace; a great number of citizens were burned out of their habitations, and utterly ruined; and the difturbance continued till morning, when the rabble difperfed. Richard ordered the ringleaders of this outrageous tumult to be apprehended, and tried by the laws of the land: and they being convicted and executed, he published a proclamation, prohibiting fuch tumults for the future, and taking the Jews under his royal protection. Notwithstanding this precaution, the Jews were afterwards maffacred at Lyme, Stamford, and York, though avarice feems to have been more concerned than religious zeal, in those instances of baroarity for many gentlemen of the province were concerned in the carnage of York, who, having G. Neubrig. d Mat. Par. |