THE “DEATHS OF KINGS."

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 861, 5 July 1910, Page 4

THE “DEATHS OF KINGS."

AN HISTORICAL RECORD. “Sad stories of the deaths of Kings'’ are in everyone’s mouth, and the last words of King Edward —“I shall go on ; I shall work to the end,’’ true and brave words, set us recalling those last words of English Sovereigns which have found their way to the history books. The story of the last hours of five English Kings will never be told. The murderer’s secret was well kept. We do not know how the Red King died under the forest tree, or whether he saw the face of the man whose arrow brought him down. The shrieks of an agonising King, heard through the deep windows of Berkeley, were the last sounds that came from the second Edward. We must take Henry Vl.’s last words from Shakespeare, or be without them. As for Richard 11. and the unhappy child who made way for the third Richard, they were spirited away, and we do not know so much as the place or manner of their death.

Of the other Kings who died by violence, one is glad to believe that Richard of the Lion Heart, with a mortal hurt upon him, could spare a word of pardon for the cross - bowman H who had brought all his warringgto an end. Richard 111., raging like a bear at bay, hewing down Richmond’s bannerer and overthrowing big Sir John Cheyne in his charge, gave those about him other business than listening for a King’s last words. There remains King Charles with his pathetic “Remember,’’ A kindly and sentimental nation, we recall that word and forget the little speech that came before it, an obstinate denial of the people’s right to have any share in the government of their country. As a Dean’s guest in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster, the very walls will encourage you to believe that the last words of Henry of Bolingbroke, spoken there, were truely written down. This King had fallen in a fit before the shrine of St. Edward. When they carried him into that old room he asked its name, and hearing it. he answered, “Laud be to God, for it was said that I should die in Jerusaleum*’’ His son the vicar of Agincourt, dying at Bois de Vincennes, had also In his mind the thought of a crusade on which he had never ridden. Priests about him were reading the penitential psalms. When they came to “Build Thou the walls of Jerusalem” the sick King caught the words. “Good God,” he prayed, “Thou knowest that my mind hath been, and is yet, to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.” Edward 1., “Hammer of the Scots,” ordered as he lay a-dying that his bones should go forward with his banner until Scottish resistance was stamped out. Of the death of his grandson, the third Edward, we have a long and probably an over-true tale, how the old sportsman and soldiers chattered of hawk and hound to the fair Alice Ferrers, When his voice failed him, she slipped the ;rings from her fingers and stole away, leaving a single priest to watch by the King, who uttered a “Jesu, miserere,” before the soul parted. Of Charles ll.’s deathbed, spread in that room full of jangling clocks and yelping puppies, we have a dozen long tales. We loved that worthless man, and even now approve the kindliness that made him ask pardon for being so long in the article of death. For “Don’t let poor Nelly starve” we have a bishop’s authority. Of our later Kings we have not forgotton how King George 1., lying back paralysed in bis coach, cried, ‘ Osnabuerg-Osuabuerg !’ and would not have the horses checked. “My boy, this is death,” said the dying George IV. to his page. Old William IV. seeing death near at hand, hoped that he might see the sunset of another Waterloo day, and had his desire.