As Hugh de Moreville and Oliver Icingla, guided by a gentleman attached to the royal household, walked up the hall and approached the elevation of the daïs, this personage, whose array was so magnificent, and whose air was so imperious, turned round and directed, first at one and then at the other, a glance which indicated so clearly that his sentiments towards them were the very reverse of favourable, that Oliver halted in alarm, and for a moment or two stood staring wildly before him with his hand on the hilt of his sword. Before him, and regarding him with a scowl which would have made even nobler and more refined features unpleasant to look upon, and with an eye that glared on him as the tiger glares when about to spring on its victim, was the prince for the sake of whose crown he had scorned the friendship of Fitzarnulph and defied the enmity of De Moreville. It was the man to whose tender mercies he was now to be intrusted. It was King John. CHAPTER VI KING JOHN On the 27th of May, 1199, the Abbey of Westminster was the scene of an impressive ceremony. On that day, and in that edifice, a man of thirty-two years of age was solemnly crowned King of England, and took the oaths to govern justly. He had seen much of life, enjoyed considerable experience in affairs of state, and was not deficient in intellectual culture. Moreover, he had the advantage of a healthy and vigorous frame, and of a countenance sufficiently well formed to be thought handsome. But on his face there appeared an expression, now of dissolute audacity, now of sullen temper, which might have made an intelligent spectator presage that, ere long, the cry of “Long live the king!” would give way to the stern shout of “Death to the tyrant!” The personage who had the distinction of being on that memorable occasion “the observed of all observers” was John of Anjou, the youngest of the five sons who sprang from the marriage of the second Henry and Eleanor of Guienne. Of the five sons, four had gone the way of all flesh. William died in childhood; Henry died of fever while in rebellion against his father; Geoffrey was trampled to death while taking part in a tournament at Paris; Richard expired of a mortal wound inflicted by the arrow of Bertrand de Gordon, while he was besieging the castle of Chalus; and John, as the survivor, claimed not only the kingdom of England, but that vast Continental empire which the first of our Plantagenet kings had extended from the Channel to the Pyrenees.