The reverses of King Henry.--Negotiating a peace.--The thunder-storm.--Henry's horsemanship.--The hard conditions of peace imposed by Philip and Richard.--The sick king.--His distress at the conduct of John.--The palace at Chinon.--The imprecations of the dying king.--The heartless conduct of the courtiers of the dead king.--Richard following the funeral train to the Abbey Fontevraud.--Richard immediately secures the succession to the throne.--Sorrow often results in happiness.--Eleanora queen regent.--Her change of character.--Richard's return to England.--Richard's proposed crusade.--John's dissimulation.--A delusion.--The treasures of the crown.--Circumstances alter cases.--Accomplices ill rewarded. Richard was called to the throne when he was about thirty-two years of age by the sudden and unexpected death of his father. The death of his father took place under the most mournful circumstances imaginable. In the war which Richard and Philip, king of France, had waged against him, he had been unsuccessful. He had been defeated in the battles and outgeneraled in the manoeuvres, and his barons, one after another, had abandoned him and taken part with the rebels. King Henry was an extremely passionate man, and the success of his enemies against him filled him with rage. This rage was rendered all the more violent by the thought that it was through the unnatural ingratitude of his own son, Richard, that all these calamities came upon him. In the anguish of his despair, he cursed the day of his birth, and uttered dreadful maledictions against his children. At length he was reduced to such an extremity that he was obliged to submit to negotiations for peace, on just such terms as his enemies thought fit to impose. They made very hard conditions. The first attempt at negotiating the peace was made in an open field, where Philip and Henry met for the purpose, on horseback, attended by their retainers. Richard had the grace to keep away from this meeting, so as not to be an actual witness of the humiliation of his father, and so Philip and Henry were to conduct the conference by themselves.