72 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 195. 



Like snakes on the plain ; 

 And each one has roll'd up 



A bright flashing streak 

 Of the white moonlight 



On his glassy green neck : 

 On every one's forehead 



There glitters a star, 

 With a hairy train 



Of Vight Jloatinc/ from afar. 

 And pale or fiery red. 

 Now old Eolus goes 



To each muttering blast. 

 Scattering blows : 



And some he binds fast 



In hollow rocks vast. 



And others he gags 

 AVith thick heavy foam, 

 « Twing them round 



The sharp rugged crags 



That are sticking out near,' 



Growls he, ' for fear 

 They all should rebels 

 And so play hell.' 

 Those that he bound; 



Their prison-walls grasp, 

 And through the dark gloorr* 



Scream fierce and yell :; 



While all the rest gasp,^ 



In rage fruitless and vain. 

 Their shepherd now leaves thenrr 



To howl and to roar — 

 Of his presence bereaves them. 



To feed some young breeze 

 On the violet odour, 

 And to teach it on shore 

 To rock the green trees. 

 But iw more can be said 

 Of what was transacted 

 And what was enacted 

 In the heaving abodes. 

 Of the great sea-gods." 



THE IMPOSSIBILITIES OF HISTORY. 



In The Tablet of June 18 is a leading article 

 on the proposed erection of Baron Marochetti's 

 statue of Richard Coeur de Lion. Theology and 

 history are mixed : of course I shall carefully ex- 

 clude the former. I have tried to trace the state- 

 ments to their sources ; and where I have failed, 

 perhaps some of your readers may be able to help 

 me. 



" When the physicians told him that they could do 

 nothing more for him, and when his confessor had 

 done his duty faithfully and with all honesty, the stern 

 old soldier commanded his attendants to take him ofiT 

 the bed, and lay him naked on the liare floor. Wlien 

 this was done, he then bade them take a discipline 

 and scourge him with all their might. This was the 

 last command of their royal master ; and in this he 

 was obeyed with more zeal than he found displayed 

 when at the head of his troops in Palestine." 



I find no record that "the stern old soldier," 

 who was then forty-two years of age, and whom 

 the writer oddly calls Richard II., had any reason 

 to complain of want of zeal in his troops. They 

 fought well, and flogged well — if they flogged at 

 all. Richard died of gangrene in the shouWer ; 

 and I have the authority of an eminent physician 

 for saying, that gangrene, so near the vital parts, 

 would produce such mental and bodily prostra- 

 tion, that it is highly improbable that the patient, 

 unless in delirium, should give such an order, 

 and impossible that he should live through its 

 execution. 



Hume and Lingard do not allude to the " disci- 

 pline ;" and the silence of the latter is important. 

 Henry says : 



" Having expressed great penitence for his vices, and 

 having undergone a very severe discipline from the 

 hands of the clergy, who attended him in his last mo- 

 ments," &c. — Vol. iii. p. 161. ed. 1777. 



He cites Brompton, and there I find the penance 

 given much stronger than in 2'he Tablet: 



" Prsecepitque pedes sibi ligari, et in altum suspendi 

 nudumque corpus flagellis ca;di et lacerari, donee ipse 

 prKciperat ut silerent. Cumque diu casderetur, ex prae- 

 eepto, ad modicum siluerunt. Et spiritu iterum 

 reassumpto, hoc idem secundo ac tertio in abundantiSi 

 sanguinis compleverunt. Tamdiu in se revertens, afferrf 

 viaticum sibi jussit et se velut proditorem et hostem, 

 contra dominum suum ligatis pedibus fune trahi." 



This is taken from Brompton's Chronicle in De- 

 cern Scriptores Historice Anglicance, 1652, p. 1279., 

 edited by Selden. As Brompton lived in the 

 reign of Edward HI., he is not a high authorit;^ 

 upon any matter in that of Richard I. I cannot 

 find any other. Hoveden and Knyghton are silent. 

 Is the fact stated elsewhere? Hoveden states^ 

 and the modern historians follow him, that after 

 the king's death, Marchader seized the archer^ 

 flayed him alive, and then hanged him. My 

 medical authority says, that no man could be 

 flayed alive: and that the most skilful operator 

 could not remove the skin of one arm from the 

 elbow to the wrist, before the patient would die 

 from the shock to his system. 



Mr. Riley, in a note on the passage in Hoveden, 

 cites from the Winchester Chronicle a possible 

 account of Gurdum being tortured to death. The 

 historian of The Tablet, in the same article, says : 



" We are far from attributing absolute perfection to 

 the son of Henry II., one of that awful race popularly 

 believed to be descended from the devil. When 

 Henry, as a boy, practising Whiggery by revoltmg 

 against his father, was presented to St. Bernard at the 

 Court of the King of France, the saint looked at hun 

 with a sort of terror, and said, ' From the Devil you 

 came, and to the Devil you will go.' " 



The fact that Henry II. rebelled against his 

 father is not given in any history which I have 



