MAIiKSBUKG.

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feeling for poor old Henry the Fourtli; for, though some dosay he was a bad man—and he certainly seems to have treatedhis two wives in a way that was far from right—still he wasvery good to all that were in want; and we are told he usedto have the sick poor into his own Castle and tend them him-self tili they were well. Yes, and no doubt, as your gracesays, he is made out a bit worse than he really was on accountof his quarreis with the heads of the Church in those days.

" Ah ! many a time, when I have been reading about hismeeting with his son, young Henry, at Coblenz, I have foundmy eyes tingling again — I'm not ashamed to say it, soldier asI am, for I am a father myself; and when I've come to thepart where the old king threw himself into his rebellious boy'sarms, and wept upon his bosom, I've had the tears start intomy own eyes; and yet I've feit so angry at the deceitfulnessof the young prince, that I could have Struck him down—thatI could—if I'd only been beside him at the time; for I knew wellenough it was all a make-believe on Prince Henry's part, andthat he merely wanted to Iure his father up to Mayence,where he had arranged for the archbishops and the troops tobe ready assembled against their Coming. And when he gothis old father to the Castle of Klöpp at Bingen, why, whatdid the deceitful young hypocrite do, but let the Archbishopsof Cöln and Mainz loose upon him — and that was on Christmas-day, of all days in the year for such a deed, in 1105; andthen they and the troops tore the royal robes from the poorking's back, and proclaimed his treacherous son Emperorin his stead. Moreover, because the resolute old monarchrefused to give up the crown and sceptre, which were kept atthe castle of Hammerstein — that's a little below Andernach,your grace—the son had his father imprisoned in the strongholdof Böclcelheim, which is on the banks of the Nahe, near Bingen,and kept the dethroned old king there tili he had forced them