Here, then, he lies, in full armour, as he had enjoined in his will, the likeness of the spurs he won at Crecy on his heels, his head resting on his helmet, and his hands joined in prayer. The face and head are clearly an excellent portraiture of him, so masterly is the work, and so like the features to those of his father in Westminster Abbey and his grandfather at Gloucester! Traces remain of the gilding with which the effigy was covered; the shields of arms and the curious Norman-French inscription are uninjured, and every little detail of his magnificent memorial is as perfect now as when it was finished five hundred years ago. The wooden canopy suspended over his tomb has survived the march of time and the fury of revolution; his wooden shield; his blazoned tabard, colourless now and in the semblance of a dirty rag, but once a truly royal adornment of velvet, glowing with the red and blue and golden quarterings of England and France,--all these things are left to speak of the grief with which the nation saw its most perfect gentle knight borne to his grave. His gauntlets, too, and his tilting helmet are here, and only one thing is missing from its place. The sword wielded at Crecy and Poictiers, and at many another fight, has vanished from its scabbard. If, as tradition says, Cromwell stole that weapon, how much more impressive it is to think of the hero-worship thus felt by one great captain for another. The Black Prince was the darling of England. He had won a glory for this country the like of which had never before been known, and he was the flower of chivalry. But do those who gather round his tomb, and feel themselves the greater for being countrymen of his, ever think how little his chivalry would have spared them? His humble and dutiful bearing towards his father, and even to his captive, the King of France, shows that his reverence was for rank and titles; the cruelty he exhibited when, the city of Limoges having revolted, he ordered a general massacre of the inhabitants and was carried through the streets in a litter, to see his bidding done, dims the glory of his arms. Men, women, and children were alike butchered in those streets, and when, crying for mercy, they were hewed in pieces before his eyes, their fate left him unmoved. It was only when he saw three French knights fighting valiantly in the market-place against overwhelming odds, that the chivalry of the Black Prince was touched. That hundreds or thousands of the citizens should be slain was nothing to him, for _they_ were nothing, but to see gentlemen of rank and birth fighting a hopeless fight was too much. He ordered the massacre to be stayed. XXXVII [Sidenote: THOMAS A BECKET]