Great Britain -- Kings and rulers -- Biography; Richard I, King of England, 1157-1199
All this took place in Normandy, for it was Normandy that had been the
chief scene of the war between the king and his son. At some little
distance from the place where the king was now lying sick there was a
beautiful rural palace, at a place called Chinon, which was situated
very pleasantly on the banks of a small branch of the Loire. This
palace was one of the principal summer resorts of the dukes of
Normandy, and the king caused himself now to be carried there, in
order to seek repose. But instead of being cheered by the beautiful
scenes that were around him at Chinon, or reinvigorated by the
comforts and the attentions which he could there enjoy, he gradually
sank into hopeless melancholy, and in a few days he began to feel that
he was about to die. As he grew worse his mind became more and more
excited, and his attendants from time to time heard him moaning, in
his anguish, "Oh, shame! shame! I am a conquered king--a conquered
king! Cursed be the day on which I was born, and cursed be the
children that I leave behind me!"
The priests at his bedside endeavored to remonstrate with him against
these imprecations. They told him that it was a dreadful thing for a
father to curse his own children, and they urged him to retract what
he had said. But he declared that he would not. He persisted in
cursing all his children except Geoffrey Clifford, the son of
Rosamond, who was then at his bedside, and who had never forsaken him.
The king grew continually more and more excited and disordered in
mind, until at length he sank into a raving delirium, and in that
state he died.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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