All is ready, and now the king leaves his bannered pavilion, and crossing the narrow waters to the isle proceeds towards the throne. Watch him closely, for his like has never before worn the English crown, and—please God—never will again. Look at his fierce, dark countenance, over which waves of passion continually spread, like the ripples on yonder waters. He is the scourge of his land, the worst monarch with which England has been cursed—worse even than Rufus. Bad son, bad husband, bad father, bad king, there is scarce a crime in the whole black calendar of which he may not be justly accused. He is cruel, false, greedy, untruthful, and vile; yet out of his wickedness wondrous good shall come. He has fought his father, he has wronged his brother, and he has murdered the little nephew who stood in his way. The poor child Arthur, heir to the English throne and to England’s wide realms in France, fell into his hands twelve years ago. John offered him terms, but the lad, brimful of the spirit of his race, would strike no bargain with the “shameless king.” He was close pent in a Norman castle, and thither John dispatched his unwilling minister, Hubert de Burgh, to put out the lad’s eyes. But the frenzied appeals of the little prince so moved Hubert’s heart that he forswore his foul commission, preferring to brave the wrath of his ruthless master than to suffer the sting of conscience. But there were others with no bowels of compassion, and by their aid the lad was slain. How he actually died we do not know. Perhaps John inveigled the boy into a boat and there stabbed him and flung his body overboard, or perhaps he compassed his death by subtler means. Shakespeare tells us that, goaded to madness, the little prince leaped from the walls of his prison, crying,— “O me! my uncle’s spirit is in these stones— Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones.” At any rate, the king you now see approaching has murder on his soul. But this is only the beginning of his villainy. Seven years ago the Archbishop of Canterbury went to his rest, and the monks of the cathedral elected another and sent him to Rome for his pall. John chose for the high office a minion of his own, “a servant of Mammon, and an evil shepherd that devoured his own sheep.” Pope Innocent, the proudest and most powerful man who ever wore the triple crown, set both candidates aside and appointed Stephen Langton, a wise and pious Englishman, against whom no word of scandal could be breathed. But John would have none other but his own nominee. He defied the Pope, and then the thunders of Rome were heard in the land. For the king’s sins a religious boycott was imposed upon the people.