Then he said everything he could to comfort him; and all the time he was with him he behaved with the greatest kindness and respect.

When Prince Edward brought his prisoner, the King of France, to London, as there were no carriages then, they rode on horseback into the city. King John was well dressed, and mounted on a beautiful

white horse, which belonged to the prince; while Edward himself rode by his side upon a black pony, to wait upon him, and do anything he might want. And in that manner he went with King John to the palace belonging to the King of England, called the Savoy, where John the Good passed the rest of his life, because the French never could afford money enough to pay the English what they asked for letting him go back to his people.

This goodness and gentleness of the Black Prince made everybody love him. And his bravery in battle, and his wisdom in governing those parts of France which his father and he had conquered, gave the English hopes that when he became king he would be as good a king as his father, and that England would be still happier.

And all the
Their good

But the Black Prince died while he was a young man, just one year before his father. His good mother, Philippa, died some years before. people of England grieved very much. queen, their favourite prince, and their wise and brave King Edward the Third, all died while the Black Prince's son was quite a child. And though some of the prince's brothers were brave and clever men, the people knew, by what had happened in former times, that the country is never well ruled while the king is too young to govern for himself.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

RICHARD II.-1377 to 1399.

How Richard the Second sent men round the country to gather the taxes; how Wat Tyler killed one of them, and collected an army; how he met the King in Smithfield, and was killed by the Mayor; how King Richard behaved cruelly to his uncles; how he was forced to give up the crown to his cousin Henry of Hereford, and was killed at Pomfret.

RICHARD II. was only eleven years old when his grandfather, King Edward III., died. He was made king immediately. The people, who loved him for the sake of his good and brave father, the Black Prince, were very peaceable and quiet in the beginning of his reign. And his uncles, who were all clever men, went on very well, as governors of different parts of the kingdom, for some time.

But when Richard was about sixteen, a civil war had very near taken place. I will tell you how it happened.

The king was not so well brought up as he ought to have been, and he loved eating and drinking and fine clothes, and he made a great many feasts, and gave fine presents to his favourites, so that he often wanted money before it was the right time to pay the taxes. It happened, as I said, when the king was about sixteen, that he wanted money, and so did his uncles, who were in France, where the French and English still continued to fight now and then. The great lords sent the men who gathered the king's taxes round the country, and one of them, whose business was to get the poll-tax, that is, a tax on

everybody's head, was so cruel, and so rude to the daughter of a poor man named Wat Tyler, that Wat, who could not bear to see his child ill-used, struck him on the head with his hammer and killed him.

Wat Tyler's neighbours, hearing the noise, all came round, and, finding how much the tax-gatherer had vexed Wat, they took his part, and got their friends to do the same, and a great many thousands of them collected together at Blackheath, and sent to the king, who then lived in the Tower of London, to beg him to listen to their complaints, and not to allow the noblemen to oppress them, nor to send to gather taxes in a cruel manner. He did not go to them, but he read the paper of complaints they sent, and promised to do his people justice. A few days afterwards, the king, with his officers, met Wat Tyler, and a great many of the people who had joined him, in Smithfield, and spoke with him about the complaints the people had made. The Mayor of London, who was near them, fancied Wat Tyler was going to stab the king, so he rode up to him and killed him.

Wat Tyler's friends now thought it best to make peace with the king; so for this time the civil war was stopped.

I have told you this story, to show you what mischief is done by cruelty and injustice. It was unjust to collect the taxes at a wrong time, and for a bad purpose. It was cruel in the tax-gatherer to behave ill to Tyler's daughter. That injustice and cruelty brought about the death of the tax-man, and that of Wat Tyler, who seems to have been a bold, brave man, wishing to do what was right.

Soon after this disturbance, the king was married to a princess of Bohemia, who was so gentle and kind to the people, that they called her the good Queen

F

Anne, and they hoped that she would persuade the king to send away his bad companions; but they were disappointed, for Richard II. was too ill-tempered to take her advice, and the people, who had loved him when he was a child for his father's sake, now began to hate him.

In the mean time he was at war with Scotland, and with Ireland, and with France; and instead of gaining battles, and making the name of our dear England glorious, he lost, by degrees, all credit, and was laughed at by foreigners, as well as his own subjects.

I have told you that the king had several uncles, who tried to teach him his duty, and took care of the kingdom while he was a child. Instead of being grateful for this, he ordered one to be put to death, and ill-used another; and when his third uncle, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, died, he took all his money and lands away from John's son, whose name was Henry of Hereford, and made use of his riches to spend in eating, drinking, and riot of all kinds.

The good Queen Anne died soon, and she had no son, and the people all began to wish they had another king instead of this Richard, who was a disgrace to his good father the Black Prince.

Now Henry of Hereford, who was the king's cousin, was very clever; and the people knew he was very brave, for he had fought in the armies of some foreign princes at one time, when Richard would not let him stay in England. Then Henry behaved kindly and good-naturedly to the people, so a good many of them began to wish him to be king.

These persons sent word to Henry that King Richard was gone to Ireland to quiet some disturbance there, and that, if he pleased to come to England