where the "Ate-the stirrer to blood and strife," stoutly defended herself. John, with an activity of which he was not deemed capable, marched to her rescue; and his troops were before Mirebeau, and had invested that town, ere his nephew was aware of his departure from Normandy. The unnatural discords of the Norman and Plantagenet race had already and repeatedly presented the spectacle of son warring against father, brother against brother, but here was a boy of fifteen besieging his grandmother of eighty, and an uncle besieging his nephew-all at one point. On the night between the 31st of July and the 1st of August the savage John, by means of treachery, got possession of the town. Arthur was taken in his bed, as were also most of the nobles who had followed him on that dismal expedition. The Count of le Marche, Isabella's husband, on whom he had inflicted the most insupportable wrongs, and whom John considered as his bitterest enemy, the Viscounts of Limoges, Lusignan, and Thouars, were among the distinguished captives, who amounted in all to 200 noble knights. The captor revelled in base vengeance; he caused them to be loaded with irons, tied in open carts, drawn by bullocks, and afterwards to be thrown into dungeons in Normandy and England. Of those whose confinement fell in England, twenty-two noblemen. are said to have been starved to death in Corfe Castle--a mode of destruction, indeed, "worthy of a being of unmingled malignity." Young Arthur was carried to Falaise, and from Falaise he was removed to the castle of Rouen, where all positive traces of him are lost. Such damnable deeds are not done in the light of day, or in the presence of witnesses, and some obscurity or mystery must always rest upon their horrors. The version of Shakspeare has made an impression which no time and no scepticism will ever efface; and, after all, it is probable not far from being the true one. Of the contemporary writers who mention the disappearance of Arthur, Mathew Paris is the one who expresses himself in the most measured terms; yet his words convey a fearful meaning. He says, John went to his nephew at Falaise, and

besought him with gentleness to trust his uncle. Arthur replied indignantly, "Give me mine inheritance-restore to me my kingdom of England." Much provoked, John immediately sent him to Rouen, with orders that he should be more closely guarded. "Not long after," proceeds Macintosh, "he suddenly disappeared; I trust not in the way that malignant rumour alleges. It was suspected by all that John murdered his nephew with his own hand, and he became the object of the blackest hatred. The monks of Margan tell us, in their brief yearly notes, 'that John being at Rouen in the week before Easter, 1203, after he had finished his dinner, instigated by drunkenness and malignant fiends, literally imbrued his hands in the blood of his defenceless nephew, and caused his body to be 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 Bec secretly, for fear of the tyrant.'"

According to the popular tradition of the Bretons, John, pretending to be reconciled with his nephew, took Arthur from his dungeon, in the castle of Rouen, and proceeded with him towards Cherbourg, travelling on horseback, and keeping near the coast. Late one evening, when the king and his nephew had outridden the rest of the party, John stopped on a high cliff which overhung the sea: after looking down the precipice he drew his sword, and, riding suddenly at the young prince, ran him through the body. Arthur fell to the ground and begged for mercy, but the murderer dragged him to the brink of the precipice, and hurled him, yet breathing, into the waves below. But Ralph, the abbot of Coggeshall, who tells the pitiable tale most minutely, is probably the most correct of all. His account is as follows:Some of the king's counsellors (we believe John needed no counsel save from his own depraved heart), representing how many slaughters and seditions the Bretons were committing for their lord Arthur, and maintaining that they would never be quiet so long as that prince lived in a sound state, suggested that he should deprive the noble youth of his eyes, and so render him incapable of government. Some wretches

were sent to his prison at Falaise to execute this detestable. deed: they found Arthur loaded with chains, and were so moved with his tears and prayers that they staid their bloody hands. The compassion of his guards, and the probity of Hubert de Burgh,-the kind Hubert of Shakspeare,-saved him for this time. Hubert, who was warden of the castle, took upon him to suspend the cruelties till the king should be further consulted. This merciful appeal only produced his removal from Falaise to Rouen. On the 3d of April, in the year of mercy 1203, the helpless orphan was startled from his sleep and invited to descend to the foot of the tower, which was washed by the peaceful waters of the Seine. At the portal he found a boat, and in it his uncle, attended by Peter de Maulac, his esquire. The lonely spot, the dark hour, and the darker countenance of his uncle, told the youth his hour was come. Making a vain and last appeal, he threw himself on his knees and begged that his life at least might be spared. But John gave the sign, and Arthur was murdered. Some say that Peter de Maulac shrunk from the deed, and that John seized his nephew by the hair, stabbed him with his own hands, and threw his body into the river. Hemingford and Knyghton, who wrote near the time, say that the squire was the executioner, and this statement is confirmed by the circumstance which they mention, and which is otherwise established, of John having bestowed on De Maulac, the heiress of the barony of Mulgref in marriage, as the reward of his iniquity. In the essential parts of the crime all writers agree. "The small number of English writers," says a recent historian, "who do not speak of the murder, are equally silent respecting the notorious fact of the disappearance of Arthur, which they could have no reason for being afraid to relate, but their conviction of the guilt of John. In all who have dared to speak, we can evidently perceive a sort of rivalship in expressing the horror felt by their contemporaries, which more than outweighs in the scales of evidence any mistakes or exaggerations into which these honest feelings may have betrayed them."

EXPLOITS OF ROBERT BRUCE.

OBERT the Bruce was a remarkably brave and strong man: there was no man in Scotland that was thought a match for him except Sir William Wallace; and now that Wallace was dead, Bruce

was held the best warrior in Scotland.

He was very wise and prudent, and an excellent general; that is, he knew how to conduct an army, and place them in order for battle, as well or better than any great man of his time. He was generous, too, and courteous by nature; but he had some faults, which perhaps belonged as much to the fierce period in which he lived as to his own character. He was rash and passionate, and in his passion, he was sometimes relentless and cruel.

Robert the Bruce had fixed his purpose, to attempt once again to drive the English out of Scotland, and he desired to prevail upon Sir John the Red Comyn, who was his rival in

his pretensions to the throne, to join with him in expelling the foreign enemy by their common efforts. With this purpose, Bruce posted down from London to Dumfries, on the borders of Scotland, and requested an interview with John Comyn. They met in the church of the Minorites in that town, before the high altar. What passed betwixt them is not known with certainty; but they quarrelled either concerning their mutual pretensions to the crown, or because Comyn refused to join Bruce in the proposed insurrection against the English; or, as many writers say, because Bruce charged Comyn with having betrayed to the English is purpose of rising up against King Edward. It is, however, certain, that they came to high and abusive words, until at length Bruce, who was extremely passionate, forgot the sacred character of the place in which they stood, and struck Comyn a blow with his dagger. Having done this rash deed, he instantly ran out of the church and called for his horse. Two gentlemen of the country, Lindesay and Kirkpatrick, friends of Bruce, were then in attendance on him. Seeing him pale, bloody, and in much agitation, they eagerly inquired what was the matter.

"I doubt," said Bruce, "that I have slain the Red Comyn." "Do you leave such a matter to doubt ?" said Kirkpatrick. "I will make sicker"-that is, 1 will make certain.

Accordingly, he and his companion Lindesay, rushing into the church, despatched the wounded Comyn with their daggers. His uncle, Sir Robert Comyn was slain at the same time.

The slaughter of Comyn was a cruel action; and the historian of Bruce observes, that it was followed by the displeasure of heaven; for no man ever went through more misfortunes than Robert Bruce, although he at length rose to great honour.

THE CROWNING OF BRUCE.

After the slaughter of Comyn, Bruce might be called desperate. He had committed an action which was sure to