great a show as if he were king himself but the king hearing of it at and a new this for that was his name had fled to france in a woman s dress and had there been encouraged and supported by the french king with all these causes of against philip in his mind king richard had no sooner been welcomed home by his enthusiastic subjects with great display and splendor and had no sooner been crowned afresh at than he resolved to show the french king that the devil was indeed and made war against him with great fury richard the first there was fresh trouble at home about this time arising out of the of the poor people who complained that they were far more heavily than the rich and who found a spirited champion in william called he became the leader of a secret society fifty thousand men he was seized by surprise he the citizen who first laid hands upon him and retreated bravely fighting to a church which he maintained four days until he was by fire and run through the body as he came out he was not killed though for he was dragged half dead at the tail of a horse to and there hanged death was long a favorite remedy for the people s but as we go on with this history i fancy we shall find them difficult to make an end of for all that the french war delayed occasionally by a was still in progress when a certain lord named of chanced to find in his ground a treasure of ancient as the king s he sent the king half of it but the king claimed the whole the lord refused to yield the whole the king the lord in his castle swore that he would take the castle by storm and hang every man of its on the there was a strange old song in that part of the country to the effect that in an arrow would be made by which king richard would die it may be that de a young man who was one of the of the castle had often sung it or heard it sung of a winter night and remembered it when he saw from his post upon the the chapter xiv england under king john called at two and thirty years of age john became king of england his pretty little nephew had the best claim to the throne but john seized the treasure and made fine promises to the nobility and got himself crowned at westminster within a few weeks after his brother richard s death i doubt whether the crown could possibly have been put upon the head of a coward or a more detestable villain if the country had been searched from end to end to find him out the french king philip refused to acknowledge the right of john to his new dignity and declared in favor of arthur you must not suppose that he had any generosity of feeling for the boy it merely suited his ambitious schemes to oppose the king of england so john and the french king went to war about arthur he was a handsome boy at that time only twelve years old he was not born when his father had his brains trampled out at the and besides the misfortune of never having known a father s guidance and protection he had king john the additional misfortune to have a foolish by name lately married to her third husband she took arthur upon john s accession to the french king who pretended to be very much his friend and made him a knight and promised him his daughter in marriage but who cared so little about him in reality finding it lis interest to make peace with king john for a time he did so without the least consideration for the poor little prince and sacrificed all his interests young arthur for two years afterward lived quietly and in the course of that time his mother died but the french king then finding it his interest to quarrel with king john again again made arthur his and invited the orphan boy to court you know your rights prince said the french king and you would like to be a sang is it not so truly said prince arthur i should greatly like to be a king then said philip you shall have two hundred gentlemen who are knights of mine and with them you shall go to win the provinces belonging to you of which your uncle the king of england has taken possession i myself meanwhile will head a force against him in poor arthur was so flattered and so grateful that he signed a treaty with the french king agreeing to consider him his superior lord and that the french king should keep for himself whatever he could take from king john now king john was so bad in all ways and king philip was so that arthur between the two might as well have been a lamb between a fox � and a wolf but being so young he was ardent and vol i� l � history of flushed with hope and when the people of which was his inheritance sent him five hundred more knights and five thousand foot soldiers he he his fortune was made the people of had heen fond of him from his and had requested that he might he called arthur in of that dimly famous english arthur of whom i told you early in this hook whom they believed to have heen the brave and companion of an old king of their own they had tales among them about a prophet called of the same old time who had foretold that their own king should be restored to them after hundreds of years and they believed that the prophecy would be 