Yet there lurked in Richard’s heart a misgiving that his diplomacy would prove in vain. The day must come when the Angevins would have to stake their political existence upon their own military resources alone. That day found the bulwark ready in the mightiest of the fortresses reared by Angevin hands—Château-Gaillard. Richard fixed its site where the Seine bends at Gaillon and the valley of Les Andelys breaks the line of the chalk cliffs. In January 1196 a treaty with Philip reserved Andely as a neutral zone with the clause: “Andely shall not be fortified.” Both parties broke the agreement without delay. Richard seized the Isle of Andely, built an octagonal tower encircled by ditch and rampart, and threw bridges linking it to either shore. On the right he traced out the new town of Lesser Andely, dug out the ravines parting the rock from the surrounding heights, and on the summit reared a triple fortress: an outer ward, a rampart with wall and round towers, and a citadel with a circular keep whose walls were twelve feet thick. The river was barred by a double stockade. All this was accomplished within a single year. Richard called his barons to see “how fair a child was his, this child but a twelvemonth old,” and called it Château-Gaillard. Archbishop Walter protested, laid Normandy under interdict, and carried his complaint to the Pope. Richard pushed on the building; a rain of blood upon the workmen and the king himself failed to shake him. In spring 1197 he offered the archbishop an exchange of land highly advantageous to the see; the Pope raised the interdict in May, the exchange was carried through on October 16, and ratified by John in a separate charter.
The treaty with Flanders, the corner-stone of the league against France, was signed within the walls of the new fortress. Yet the coalition was not fully organized till late in the following summer, and even then hung fire for want of money. In spring 1199 Richard was leading his mercenaries through Poitou to check the viscount of Limoges and the count of Angoulême when he met rumours of a treasure discovered at Châlus. A peasant had turned up with his plough what popular imagination pictured as “an emperor with his wife, sons and daughters, all of pure gold.” Viscount Ademar claimed the find; Richard claimed it from him; both shares were refused. Richard laid siege to Châlus.
On Friday, March 26, Richard and his lieutenant Mercadier prowled round the walls while sappers undermined the keep. The defenders, short of missiles, threw down beams and fragments of battlements. One stood for more than half the day upon a turret with nothing but a frying-pan for a shield. Just as Richard, unarmed save for his iron head-piece, paused within bow-shot, this man snatched an arrow stuck in a crevice, fitted it to his cross-bow, and aimed at the king. Richard saw the movement and greeted it with a shout of defiant applause; he failed to shelter himself, and the arrow struck him on the left shoulder, glancing downwards into his side. He made light of the wound, ordered the assault pressed, and rode to his tent. He rashly tried to pull out the arrow; the wood broke, the barb remained. A surgeon’s knife did more damage than the wound: the side swelled and inflamed, and mortification set in.
Richard came to his better self. He summoned his followers to witness his bequest of all his dominions to John, and made them swear fealty. He wrote to his mother at Fontevraud; bequeathed his jewels to his nephew King Otto, and a fourth part of his treasures to his servants and the poor. Châlus was taken and its garrison hanged—all save the man who had shot him. Richard ordered him brought before him. “What have I done to thee, that thou shouldest slay me?” “Thou hast slain my father and two of my brothers with thine own hand, and thou wouldst fain have killed me too.” “I forgive thee,” answered Richard, and bade the guards loose him and let him go free with a hundred shillings.
Richard made his confession on April 6, the Tuesday in Passion-week, received the Holy Communion and extreme unction. He directed that his brain be buried at Charroux, his heart at Rouen, his corpse at his father’s feet in Fontevraud. As the day drew to its close, his life also came to its end. S. Hugh of Lincoln performed the last rites; he was laid in the robes he had worn at his last crowning-day in England. His heart was enclosed in a gold and silver casket, carried to Rouen, and deposited among the holy relics in the cathedral; men saw in its unusual size a fit token of the mighty spirit of him whom Normandy never ceased to venerate as Richard Cœur-de-Lion.
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