Читать книгу Men Who Have Made the Empire онлайн

30 страница из 39

It was during his return from this Crusade, as he was journeying through Calabria, that he met the messengers who told him that his father was dead and that he was King of England. Charles of Anjou, who was riding with him at the moment, wondered at the great grief he showed, and, being himself a man almost incapable of feeling, asked him why he should show more grief at his father’s death than he had done for the loss of his baby son who had died a short time before. The answer was to the point and worthy of the man.

EDWARD GRIPPED THE WOULD-BE MURDERER.

“By the goodness of God,” he said, “the loss of my boy may be made good to me, but not even God’s own mercy can give me a father again.”

It was on the same journey that there occurred that curious incident which is called the “Little Battle of Chalons,” and which is also instructive in giving us another view of the man who could use such wise and pious words as these. While he was travelling through Guienne, the Count of Chalons, one of the best and starkest knights of his age, sent a friendly message to request the favour of being allowed to break a lance with him. Edward, though he had been repeatedly warned of plots against his life by those who had designs on his French dominions, and though as a king he had a perfect right to decline the challenge of a vassal, was, as we should say nowadays, too good a sportsman to say no; but he took the precaution of going to the knightly trysting-place with an escort of a thousand men—in doing which he was well justified by the fact that the Count of Chalons was there waiting for him with about two thousand.