ns hesitated: others even went over to King John.

It seemed to be the turning-point of King John's fortunes, for, in his
savage and murderous course, he had now taken some towns and met with
some successes. But, happily for England and humanity, his death was
near. Crossing a dangerous quicksand, called the Wash, not very far from
Wisbeach, the tide came up and nearly drowned his army. He and his
soldiers escaped; but, looking back from the shore when he was safe, he
saw the roaring water sweep down in a torrent, overturn the waggons,
horses, and men, that carried his treasure, and engulf them in a raging
whirlpool from which nothing could be delivered.

Cursing, and swearing, and gnawing his fingers, he went on to Swinestead
Abbey, where the monks set before him quantities of pears, and peaches,
and new cider--some say poison too, but there is very little reason to
suppose so--of which he ate and drank in an immoderate and beastly way.
All night he lay ill of a burning fever, and haunted with horrible fears.
Next day, they put him in a horse-litter, and carried him to Sleaford
Castle, where he passed another night of pain and horror. Next day, they
carried him, with greater difficulty than on the day before, to the
castle of Newark upon Trent; and there, on the eighteenth of October, in
the forty-ninth year of his age, and the seventeenth of his vile reign,
was an end of this miserable brute.

CHAPTER XV--ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD, CALLED, OF WINCHESTER

If any of the English Barons remembered the murdered Arthur's sister,
Eleanor the fair maid of Brittany, shut up in her convent at Bristol,
none among them spoke of her now, or maintained her right to the Crown.
The dead Usurper's eldest boy, HENRY by name, was taken by the Earl of
Pembroke, the Marshal of England, to the city of Gloucester, and there
crowned in great haste when he was only ten years old. As the Crown
itself had been lost with the King's treasure in the raging water, and as
there was no time to make another, they put a circle of plain gold upon
his head instead. 'We have been the enemies of this child's father,'
said Lord Pembroke, a good and true gentleman, to the few Lords who were
present, 'and he merited our ill-will; but the child himself is innocent,
and his youth demands our friendship and protection.' Those Lords felt
tenderly towards the little boy, remembering their own young children;
and they bowed their heads, and sai