He gave orders to be carried to Chinon, oppressed with a profound melancholy, which was succeeded by a violent fever. In his fits he raised himself in his bed, invoking the vengeance of Heaven upon his children. "Shame, shame upon a vanquished king--a king dispossessed of his rights," he cried; "accursed be the day when I was born; accursed be the children that I leave behind me!" He directed his attendants to carry him into the church, where he expired at the foot of the altar on the 6th of July, 1189. He had not yet completed his fifty-fifth year, but his features were worn like those of an aged man. When Richard, stricken with horror at the intelligence which he had received, hastened to Fontevrault, whither the corpse of his father had been removed without ceremony, some one had surrounded the royal forehead with a golden fringe in imitation of a crown, and it had been necessary to employ hired horses in order to convey to his last resting-place the powerful master of so many dominions. {182} Richard approached the coffin. A drop of blood appeared under the nostrils of the corpse. "Yes, it is I who have killed him!" cried Richard, stricken with repentance. He fell on his knees beside the dead body of his father, remained there a moment prostrate, then rising, went out precipitately. Ten years later, when Richard was dying at the siege of Chalus, he ordered that his body should be conveyed to Fontevrault, to be interred at the feet of his father. Chapter VIII. (1189-1216.) Richard Cœur-de-lion. John Lackland. Magna Charta.