inst his three friends than Hugh against the three
unanimous Chapters, and his main argument was that the peace of the
church must never be bought with money or this would endow its
disturbers. His wisdom was well evidenced by events in the next reign.
With this advice he urged them to sleep over the matter and discuss it
next day. But the struggle to avoid compromising principles in order not
only to serve the hour, but to save the love and, perhaps, the lives of
friends was a very severe strain to him. When they had gone out he was
dismally cast down and acknowledged that he had rarely compressed so
much grief into so little space. Then he sat in silence, thought, and
prayer that the tangle might be so unknotted, that God not be offended
nor his own friends and sons slighted and alienated. Upon this he slept
and dreamed sweet dreams of lovely sights and heard the roll of the
Psalm of Divine Battle chaunted by heavenly voices, "O God, wonderful
art Thou in Thy holy places, even the God of Israel; He will give
strength and power unto His people; blessed be God."{15} He woke up
refreshed, and at his weekly Saturday Confession deeply blamed himself
for some hesitation he had felt, when baleful advice was given him.

A little after this the Abbess of Fontevrault came to see him. The
King's mother Eleanor, her guest, had been sent for in a hurry. The king
had been hurt. A serf of Achard of Chalus had ploughed up a golden
relic, an emperor with his family seated round a golden table. Ademar of
Limoges had seized it. Richard demanded the whole and was after it sword
in hand. The holders were in Castle Chalus, short of weapons but not of
valour, and held out gallantly armed with frying-pans and whatnot. The
place was undermined. Richard, without his hauberk, was directing the
crash, when a man pulled an arrow from the mortar; aimed it and hit him
on the neck and side. He went to his tent, and plucked at it, broke it
off; was operated upon; would not keep quiet. The wound turned angry and
then black, and the Lion lay dying. He made his will, a generous and
charitable one, confessed his sins, was houselled and anhealed, and died
on Passion Tuesday, April 6th. His brain and bowels were buried at
Charroux, his heart at Rouen, and his body at his father's feet, in
penitence, in the nunnery of Fontevrault. Hugh was on his way to the
Cathedral at Angers to take duty the next day, Palm Sunday, when Gilbert
de Lacy, a clerk, rode up to