after the king's death caused him to be flayed alive, and then to be hanged. Like others of the princes, his contemporaries, Richard expressed contrition and remorse at the prospect of death, and in his last moments courted the offices of the Church. He died on the 6th of April, 1199, at the age of forty-two, having reigned, or rather worn the crown, for nearly ten years; during which, with the exception of a few months, he was absent from England. He had no children to succeed to the throne, and he left a will, in which he appointed his successor, and gave directions as to the disposal of his remains. "Take my heart," he said, "to Rouen, and let my body lie at my father's feet in the abbey of Fontevrault." Richard Cœur-de-Lion appears to us as the type of manhood unfettered by a high civilisation--a strong, passionate heart, with great capacities for good or evil, placed above the control of ordinary circumstances, little influenced by the power of religion, and therefore left in a large measure to its own native impulses. Richard was revengeful, but not implacable; passionate, but not vindictive. The story of his life, like that of other kings of the Plantagenet race, cannot be written without the record of many acts of cruelty, which there is little to excuse or palliate. If he wanted money he seized it wherever it was to be had, with or without pretext; if a man opposed him, he crushed him down or hanged him without scruple. When, on his return from captivity, the garrison of Nottingham held out against his troops, doubting the report of his return, it was not until the prisoners taken by the besiegers were hung up before the castle walls that the rebels became convinced of their error, and realised that the king was there. Absolute power is unfitted for human nature; and since the beginning of the world no man has ever wielded it without blame. But if Cœur-de-Lion was not free from the crimes belonging to his age and kingly position, he surpassed his contemporaries as much in nobility of character, as in bodily strength and valour. His courage was of the highest order; for it combined not only the dash and gallantry common to men whose physical organisation is perfect, and who are incited by the love of military fame, but also that calmer, but not less admirable, quality of fortitude, which sustains the heart of the prisoner in chains, or of the soldier in time of famine and disease. The business of his life was war, and its recreation the tournament or the chase. Then, if ever, were the days of chivalry as they are depicted by the poets--stormy and perilous days, when the pulse of life beat high, and there was enough of intellectual culture to show men how to use their passions, but not to restrain them.