Page:Ivanhoe (1820 Volume 2).pdf/14

 land or the privileges of the crown. He returns to avenge upon the Orders of the Temple and the Hospital, the preference which they shewed to Philip of France during the wars in the Holy Land. He returns, in fine, to punish as a rebel every adherent of his brother Prince John. Are ye afraid of his power?" continued the artful confidant of that prince; "we acknowledge him a strong and valiant knight, but these are not the days of King Arthur, when a champion could encounter an army. If Richard indeed comes back, it must be alone,—unfollowed—unfriended. The bones of his gallant army have whitened the sands of Palestine. The few of his followers who have returned, have straggled hither like this Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, beggared and broken men. And what talk ye of Richard's right of birth?" he continued, in answer to those who objected scruples on that head. "Is Richard's title of primogeniture more decidedly certain than that of Duke Robert of Normandy, the Conqueror's eldest son? And yet William the Red, and Henry, his second and third brothers, were successively preferred to him by the voice of the nation. Robert had every merit which can be