[21]Hume accepts the following account of the murder as the most reliable: “John first removed him to the castle of Rouen; and coming in a boat, during the night time, to that place, commanded Arthur to be brought forth to him. The young prince, aware of his danger, and now more subdued by the continuance of his misfortunes and by the approach of death, threw himself on his knees before his uncle and begged for mercy; but the barbarous tyrant, making no reply, stabbed him with his own hands, and, fastening a stone to the dead body, threw it into the Seine.” [22]Magna Charta, the charter of English liberties, signed by John and his barons at Runnymede, June 15, 1215. [23]Hume says of John: “Cowardice, inactivity, folly, levity, licentiousness, ingratitude, treachery, tyranny, and cruelty,—all these qualities appear too evidently in the several incidents of his life to give us room to suspect that the disagreeable picture has been anywise overcharged by the prejudices of the ancient historians.” Transcriber’s Notes --Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication. --In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.) --Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged. End of Project Gutenberg's The Duke of Brittany, by Henriette Jeanrenaud