The Sun.
London, England, 1830-08-19 00:00:00

MURDER OF PRINCE ARTHUR.

Arthur, Duke of Brittany, was brought psi-
loner to Falaise, where all accounts agree in re-
presenting him as confined fur some time. The
short remainder and tragic conclusion of his life
have been variously related. The variety, how-
ever, is such, that it may exist without contra
diction. The scenes described by different
writers may have all occurred at different atitgp
in the long agitation, which ended in the fotilesi
of deeds. " John," says Matthew Paris,
" went to his nephew at Falaise, and kindly _be-
sought him to trust his uncle. Arthur, fool-
ishly betraying his indignation, cried out Re-
store to me my kingdom of England Ile
was immediately sent to a close prison at Rouen.
Not long after, he suddenly disappeared—l
trust, not in the way that malignant rumour
alledges. It was suspected by all that John
murdered his nephew with his own hand, and
he became the object of the blackest hatred of
mankind." The monks of Marg,lll tell us, in
in their brief yearly notes, " that John being at
Rouen, in the week before Easter, 1203, after
he had finished his dinner, instigated by drunk-
enness and malignant fiends, literally imbrued
his hands in the blood of his defenceless ne-
phew, and caused his body to ha thrown into
the Seine, with heavy stones fastened to his feet ;
that the body was, notwithstanding, cast on shore,
and buried at the abbey of Bee, secretly, for
fear of the tyrant." Ralph, abbot of Cogges-
hall, the most nearly contemporary of the chro-
niclers, tells the
'pitiable tale inure minutely
" Some of John m counsellors," according to
him, "suggested to the kirig the necessity at
unfitting Arthur for rule by blinding him, and
depriving him of the hope of posterity by Imr•.
rible mutilations. The wretches who were sent
to Falaise to execute this command were die-
armed by the tears and cries of the poor boy.
Hubert de Burgh, his Warden, took upon' hin
to suspend the cruelties till the king 1.414 further
consulted. This appeal only produced his re-
moval to Boum On the 3d of April, at
midnight, Arthur was suddenly awakened, and
ordered to come out of the tower. At the door
he found his merciless uncle, with Walter. de
Maulue, his equerry, in a boat, where he went
to them. The hour of the night, perhaps fem.',
mer BCelleS of horror, above all, the threatening,
countenance of John, filled the unhappy' yr nth.
with sorrow and terror. Ile threw himself on
his knees, and with a flood of tears implPre4his
uncle to spare hie life. But John had gone too
far to retreat. Some say that Alsulue, whets
essentialordered
from the deed, and that John seised his nephew
by the hair, stabbed him with Ids own hands,
and threw his body into the Seine. The liar-
rative of Hemingfonl nod of Knighton, which
thet(/ teicii(ii)ritirmlitgildeetirsitaitl.lllll‘,oevlr‘li,ltrirotio!trejsr,r,esa:. brook
describes Maulue as the
.execotioner, is con-
hey
firmed by the circumstance which they mention,
and which is otherwise establi4ied, of John
cif the disappearance
having bestowed on Mauluc the heiress ofloal;:rtetti.01(1:-:
gref in marriage, as the assassin's fee. In the
not speak of the murder are equally silent
of riThe sitlialitarltari hi;
dewtuhoi memberictr
clo notorious factt
being
te but
we can evidently perceive alesirorovvflertilvi'lls
guilt of John. In all who have dared to speak,
expressing the horror felt by their conte;iirroPtririii
ries, which more than outweighs the scales of
evidence any mistakes or exaggerations into
which these honest feelings MuyliSiO' fietrusPcit
them.--Dr. Larditei•ir Cyci*idi4
„
Vol, VIII,
by
partsil olonfl