Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/35

Henry III council at St. Paul's, at which Ottoboni promulgated a number of constitutions, and at midsummer he held a parliament at Northampton, at which Edward and a crowd of nobles took the cross. Ottoboni left England on 1 Aug. Henry held a parliament at Winchester in November, in which he conferred divers honours on his son [see under ], and in that and each remaining year of his life spent Christmas there. He gratified his people by assenting to a statute forbidding the Jews to acquire the land of their debtors, at a parliament held in London at Easter 1269 (ib.). In August he made a treaty with Magnus of Norway, containing provisions respecting trade and the protection to be accorded to shipwrecked persons of either country (Fœdera, i. 480). On 13 Oct. he held a great assembly at Westminster, which was attended by all the prelates and magnates of his kingdom, and by men from all the cities and boroughs. During many years he had been rebuilding the abbey church of Westminster. It was at last in a state to be used for service, and the gorgeous shrine which he set up for the body of the Confessor being complete, he caused the saint to be translated and laid within it. The ceremony was performed with magnificence. He intended to ‘wear his crown’ as kings did at their solemn festivals in older days, but finding that there was a dispute between the citizens of London and of Winchester as to the right of acting as cupbearers gave up his design (Ann. Winton. p. 108; Liber de Antiquis Legibus, p. 117). After the ceremonies were over the magnates discussed his request for a twentieth of moveables and granted it. A parliament of magnates, which met on 27 April 1270, and was adjourned until after midsummer, arranged the collection of the twentieth, and set the king's mind at ease with respect to his vow of crusade by forbidding him to fulfil it. While he was still under his vow, on 12 May he addressed a letter to the clergy, asking them to grant a twentieth, as the bishops had done, for the crusade, which he declared he was about to undertake. On 5 Aug. he took leave of Edward at Winchester.

In the winter he was very ill at Westminster, and wrote to Edward on 6 Feb. 1271 to say that his physicians had no hope of his recovery, and that his son would do well to return. By 16 April his health had mended. He was grieved at the death of Edward's son John on 1 Aug. After Christmas he was detained at Winchester by sickness, and was unable to leave until after Epiphany. In May 1272 he wrote to Philip III, the new French king, excusing himself from coming to do homage for the duchy of Aquitaine, on the ground of serious ill-health. In August he was expecting to cross to France for that purpose, and borrowed a large sum for his expenses from certain merchants, to whom he made over the fines and judicial profits of six counties for their repayment. A dangerous riot breaking out at Norwich in the same month, he went thither in person, and severely punished the offenders. On 4 Nov. he ordered preparations to be made for his spending the ensuing Christmas at Winchester, but he died on Wednesday the 16th, the day of St. Edmund of Canterbury, at Westminster (so Ann. Winton. p. 112; Ann. of Worcester, p. 461;, p. 242, and decisively Liber de Antiq. Leg. p. 115; but, by a double confusion between time and place and between the two Sts. Edmund, Rishanger (p. 74) has at Bury St. Edmunds). He was in his sixty-sixth year, and had reigned fifty-six years and twenty days. On the 20th his corpse, richly dressed and wearing a crown, was borne to the grave by his nobles, and was buried in Westminster Abbey church, which he had himself built, being laid in the tomb from which he had translated the body of the Confessor, before the high altar. Edward I prepared a more splendid tomb for his father, and had his body placed in it; this tomb stands on the north side of the altar, and presents an effigy, once gilded, the work of William Torell [see under ]. In 1292 the abbot of Westminster delivered Henry's heart to the abbess of Fontevraud, to whom the king had promised it when he visited her house in 1254 (Monasticon, i. 312). His queen survived him [see under for his children].

Henry was of middle height, had a well-knit frame, and much muscular strength; one of his eyelids drooped so as partly to hide the eye; the forehead of his effigy is much and deeply lined. He had a refined mind and cultivated tastes; and was liberal and magnificent. The arts and elegance of Southern Europe were brought within his reach by his marriage, and his delight in them had no doubt much to do with his disastrous attachment to his queen's family. He took interest in the work of Matthew Paris, and enjoyed his society. His love of art is exemplified by the orders which he gave for paintings to be executed at Westminster, Windsor, Woodstock, and the Tower, and in a higher degree by the abbey church of Westminster, which he erected at his sole cost. The work of pulling down the church of the Confessor was begun in 1245, and the rebuilding was continued during the rest of the king's life. Other reli-