This Cœur de Lion appears too in the “Talisman”--one of Scott’s tales of the crusaders: and here we see him set off against other monarchs of Europe; as we find England, also, set off against the other kingdoms. The King came home, you will remember, by the way of Austria, and was caught and caged there many months--for a time none of his people knowing where he was: this is good romance and history too. A tradition, which probably has a little of both, says his prison was discovered by a brother minstrel, who wandered under castle-walls in search of him, and sang staves of old Provençal songs that were favorites of the King’s. Finally Richard responded from the depths of his dungeon. Howsoever this be, he was found, ransomed, and came home--to the great grief of his brother John; all which appears in the story of Ivanhoe, and in the chronicles of the time--based upon the reports of the King’s chaplain, Anselm. _Times of King John._ King John--a base fellow every way--has a date made for him by the grant of _Magna Charta_, A.D. 1215, of which I have already spoken, and of its near coincidence with the writing of the _Brut_ of Layamon. His name and memory also cling to mind in connection with two other events which have their literary associations. First, this scoundrelly King could only keep power by making away with his little nephew Arthur, and out of this tragedy Shakespeare has woven his play of John--not very much read perhaps, and rarely acted; but in the old, school reader-books of my time there used to be excerpted a passage--a whole scene, in fact--representing the interview between Arthur and his gaoler Hubert, who is to put out the poor boy’s eyes. I quote a fragment:-- _Arthur_--Must you with irons burn out both mine eyes? _Hubert_--Young boy, I must. _Arthur_--And will you? _Hubert_--And I will. _Arthur_--Have you the heart? When your head did but ache, I knit my handkerchief about your brows. And again, when the ruffians come in with the irons, Hubert says-- “Give me the irons, I say, and bind him here.” _Arthur_--Alas, what need you be so boisterous rough? I will not struggle; I will stand stone still; For Heaven’s sake, Hubert, let me not be bound. I don’t know how young people are made up nowadays; but in the old times this used to touch us and almost set us upon the “weep” and make us rank King John with Beelzebub and--the Schoolmaster.