Page:The Queens of England.djvu/87

BERENGARIA. 71 been invaded by the King of France, on account of Queen Eleanor forcibly detaining there the Princess Alice, that fruit- ful cause of discord. After a short stay in England, Richard went over to France, and resided some months in his Angevin territories. Here Berengaria was living, but Richard went not near her, and his conduct at that time is described as dissolute and disgraceful. It was not till 1196 that Richard, beginning to repent of his sinful life, became reconciled to his queen. Higden, in his "Polychronicon," says : "The king took home to him his queen Berengaria, whose society he had for a long time neglected, though she were a royal, eloquent, and beautiful lady, and for his love had ventured for him through the world." This took place at Poitiers, at Christmas, which he kept in that city in princely state. From that time Berengaria and Richard were never again parted. But from that time till his death he was totally absent from England, where Berengaria, though queen of the country, never was. The death of Richard, which occurred in April, 1199, was occasioned by his cupidity. He had heard a tale that Vidomac, Count of Limoges, had found in a field a great treasure of golden statues and vases. Richard demanded his share, as sovereign of the country. There being no such treasure, none could be delivered; and Richard, besieging the count's castle of Chaluz, was killed by an arrow. Berengaria was with him at the time. The death of Richard was immediately followed by that of his sister, Joanna of Naples, who came to solicit his aid against the enemies of her second husband, Raimond of Provence, and was laid with her royal brother in the same vault. This was immediately followed by the death of Beren- garia's only sister, Blanche; and thus was this unfortunate queen at once deprived of all who were dear to her in the world. She resolved, therefore, to retire from it, and fixed her resi- dence at Mans, in the Orleanois, where she founded the noble Abbey of L'Espan. Berengaria lived many years after the death of her husband ; but, if her married state did not attach to her celebrity, of course her widowhood was still more obscure. Nothing fur- ther is known of her than that she was occasionally engaged in pecuniary strife with that very fraudulent person John, and subsequently with Henry the Third, neither of these monarchs paying regularly their stipulated composition for her English