The story was, that, when Richard entered
the Abbey of Fontevraud, in which his father's body lay, the corpse
bled profusely, which was held to indicate that the new king was his
father's murderer. Richard was very penitent, as his elder brother
Henry had been, on his death-bed. They were very sorrowful, were those
Plantagenet princes, when they had been guilty of atrocious acts,
and when it was too late for their repentance to have any practical
effect.
Richard I. had no children, and so he could not get up a perfect
family-quarrel, though he and his brother John were enemies. He died
at forty-two, and but a few years after his marriage with Berengaria
of Navarre, an English queen who never was in England. When on his
death-bed, Richard was advised by the Bishop of Rouen to repent, and
to separate himself from his children. "I have no children," the King
answered. But the good priest told him that he had children, and that
they were avarice, luxury, and pride. "True," said Richard, who was
a humorist,--"and I leave my avarice to the Cistercians, my luxury
to the Gray Friars, and my pride to the Templars." History has fewer
sharper sayings than this, every word of which told like a cloth-yard
shaft sent against a naked bosom.
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