A.C. 1189. ACCESSION OF RICHARD TO THE THRONE. Il l touched -with grief at heart, cursed the day on which he was born, and pronounced upon his sons the curse of God and of himself, which he would never withdraw, although bishops and other religious men frequently admonished him so to do. Being sick even unto death, he ordered himself to be carried into the church, before the altar, and there devoutly received the communion of the body and blood of Christ ; and after confessing his sins, and being absolved by the bishop and clergy, he departed this life in the thirty-fifth year of his reign, on the octave of the Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, being the fifth day of the week ; after a reign of thirty-four years, seven months, and four days. After his death, having plundered him of all his riches, all forsook him ; so true it is that just as flies seek honey, wolves the carcase, and ants corn, this crew followed not the man, but his spoils. At last however, his servants returned, and buried him with royal pomp. On the day after his death, when he was being carried out for burial in the Church of the Nuns at Pontevraud, earl Bichard, his son and heir, came to meet him, and, smitten with compunction, wept bitterly; immediately on which the blood flowed in streams from the nostrils of the body at the approach of his son. His son, however, proceeded with the body of his father to the abbey of Fontevraud, and there buried him in the choir of the Nuns, and thus it was that he was " among the veiled women as one wearing the veil."" EICHABD THE FIBST. THE king being thus buried, earl Bichard, his son, immediately laid hands on Stephen de Tours, the seneschal of Anjou, and, throwing him into prison, loaded him with heavy fetters and iron manacles, and demanded of him the castles and treasures of the king, his father, which he had in his possession ; and, after the same had been delivered up, earl Eichard13 took ransom from him to the uttermost farthing. Just the time at which the before-named king of England died, Matilda, duchess of Saxony, his daughter, died. After this, the said earl Eichard came to Eouen, and was girded with the sword of the dukedom of Normandy by "Walter, the archbishop of Bouen, in presence of the bishops, earls, and '* Alluding to the prophecy of the Cistercian monk, mentioned before in p. 100. " So called, as not yet being crowned king of England.