CHAPTER I

Transcriber’s Note

Words in italics are marked with _underscores_.

Words in small capitals are shown in UPPER CASE.

Most pages started with a sidenote showing the year. These were printed

in bold and partially underlined. They have been moved to the start of

paragraphs, and kept only when they change. For some long paragraphs,

which were printed over several pages, a range of dates is shown.

Other sidenotes, originally in italics, give the actual date of an

event. These have been moved next to the description of the date, and

are shown in parentheses, e.g. {30 May}. Others, which merely repeat

a date, have been removed.

Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of chapters.

All references to footnote numbers (i.e. page and note number) have

been changed to the footnote numbers used here.

Some formatting and punctuation in citations, sidenotes and the index

have been standardized.

Variant spelling, inconsistent hyphenation and inconsistent spelling

of people’s names are retained, however a few palpable printing errors

have been corrected. Opening brackets within brackets have been left

unclosed. Other changes are listed at the end of the book.

+--------------------------------+

| _By the same Author_ |

| |

| JOHN LACKLAND |

| |

| 8vo. 8_s._ 6_d._ net. |

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| LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. |

+--------------------------------+

THE MINORITY OF HENRY THE THIRD

[Illustration: Publisher’s logo]

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA

MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO

DALLAS . SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

TORONTO

THE MINORITY

OF

HENRY THE THIRD

BY

KATE NORGATE

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON

1912

_COPYRIGHT_

RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED,

BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E.,

AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

I was set to work at the history of Henry III’s early years by a

letter from Thomas Andrew Archer which only reached me after his

death. To his memory I dedicate this book.

_4 January, 1912._

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

THE WAR WITH LOUIS, 1216–1217 1

CHAPTER II

THE REGENCY OF WILLIAM THE MARSHAL, 1217–1219 61

CHAPTER III

THE LEGATION OF PANDULF, 1219–1221 108

CHAPTER IV

TUTORS AND GOVERNORS, 1221–1223 173

CHAPTER V

THE YOUNG KING, 1223–1227 208

NOTES

I--The Truces of 1216–1217 269

II--The Blocked Gate at Lincoln 273

III--Falkes de Bréauté at Lincoln 275

IV--The End of the Battle of Lincoln 276

V--The Treaty of Kingston 278

VI--The Tenure of Crown Offices during the Minority 280

VII--The Papal Letters of 1223 286

VIII--The Royal Castles in 1223–1224 290

IX--Falkes and the “thirty pairs of letters” 292

X--Bedford Castle 293

XI--The Hanging of the Bedford Garrison 296

INDEX 301

_Filius non portabit iniquitatem patris._

THE MINORITY OF HENRY III

CHAPTER I

THE WAR WITH LOUIS

1216–1217

Iniit ergo omnis multitudo pactum in domo Dei cum rege, dixitque ad eos

Joiada: Ecce, filius regis regnabit.

[Sidenote: 1216]

On the 19th of October, 1216, King John lay dead in Newark castle.

Nearly half of his realm, including the capital, was in the hands of a

foreign invader who was supported by a numerous and powerful section

of the English baronage as well as by the citizens of London; and the

sole surviving male representatives of the royal house of England were

two boys, the elder of whom was but nine years old. The King had been

cut off suddenly, at a moment when not one of his English counsellors

was at his side; and the small body of troops which he had brought with

him from the west consisted almost entirely of foreign mercenaries.

It might well have been expected that these men would, as soon as the

“landless king” was dead, transfer their services to his rival. But

John had possessed that mysterious gift which seems to have been common

to the whole Angevin house, the gift of inspiring a personal attachment

out of all proportion to the merits of its object. These men, seemingly

without any leader to direct their action, took upon themselves and

faithfully and successfully fulfilled the duty of carrying into effect

John’s last wishes, so far as lay in their power, by conveying his

corpse across England from Newark to Worcester, and calling on the

loyal barons to meet them there for the double purpose of burying the

dead King and concerting offensive and defensive measures to secure the

rights of his heir.[1]

John’s last act had been to commend his eldest son to the care of the

Earl of Pembroke, William the Marshal. “Sirs”--thus he is said to have

addressed the few friends who stood around his death-bed--“I must die.

For God’s sake, pray the Marshal to forgive me the wrongs that I have

done him. He has always served me loyally, and never requited me an ill

turn for any evil that I have done to him or said to him. Sirs, for

God’s sake Who made the world, pray him that he will forgive me; and

because I trust in his loyalty more than in that of any other man, I

beg you that he may have my son in his charge, and always keep him and

guard him; for the child will never be able to hold his land through

any one, unless it be through the Marshal.”[2] When the Marshal, who

was at Gloucester, “heard say that the King his lord was dead, he

was grieved thereat.” He set out at once to meet the funeral train

at Worcester; Gualo the Legate, who no doubt also was somewhere in

the west of England, did the like; and a goodly company of clerks and

knights were present with them at the burial. As soon as it was over,

“the great men”--that is, probably, the Legate and the Marshal--hurried

back to Gloucester, and sent out a summons to all those barons who held

with the King to join them there without delay. The appeal met with a

quick response; a council was held, and all present unanimously agreed

that they should send for little Henry “and do with him what God should

teach them to be reasonable and right.” The child had been placed for

safety in the castle of Devizes; Sir Thomas de Sandford was despatched

to fetch him thence, and the Marshal went as far as Malmesbury to meet

him.[3]

The heir of England was gifted with more than the ordinary

attractiveness inherent in youth and innocence; he had a beautiful

face, with golden hair, and he was already noted for a gravity and

dignity of speech beyond his years.[4] A faithful retainer, Ralf of

Saint-Samson,[5] was “carrying him in his arms”--that is, probably,

holding him on the horse’s neck before him--when, in the plain outside

Malmesbury, William the Marshal met the little company coming from

Devizes. The Marshal saluted the future King; “and the well-trained

child said to him, ‘Welcome, Sir! Truly, I commit myself to God and

to you, that for God’s sake you may take care of me; and may the true

God Who takes care of all good things grant that you may so manage

our business that your wardship of me may be prosperous.’ ‘Fair Sir,’

answered the Marshal, ‘I tell you loyally, as I trust my soul to God, I

will be in good fealty to you, and never forget you, so long as I have

power to do anything.’” The boy burst into tears, and the bystanders

and the Marshal did the like “for pity.”[6]

Most of the barons of the King’s party were now at Gloucester, and

anxious that the coronation should take place without delay. One,

however, who ranked next to the Marshal in importance--Ranulf, Earl of

Chester--had not yet arrived, and it was not without some hesitation

that the others ventured to take so important a step in his absence.

The urgency of the case however overcame their scruples and their

fears of Ranulf’s displeasure;[7] and on the eve of S. Simon and S.

Jude {27 Oct.}--ten days after John’s death--a council over which

the Legate presided made the final arrangements for crowning the King

the next morning.[8] At the last moment a question arose: who was to

knight the boy? “Who should do it,” one of the assembly answered,

“save he who, if we were a thousand here, would still be the highest

and worthiest and bravest of all--he who has already knighted one young

king[9]--William the Marshal? God has given him such grace as none of

us can attain. Let him gird the sword on this child; so shall he have

worthily knighted two kings.” It was done; and next morning {28 Oct.}

the “pretty little knight, clad in his little royal robes,”[10] was

led in solemn procession to the abbey church. Standing before the high

altar, he recited, under the dictation of the Bishop of Bath,[11] the

old traditional coronation oath: that he would, all the days of his

life, maintain the honour, peace, and reverence due to God, His Church,

and His ordained ministers; that he would render right and justice to

the people committed to him; that he would abolish bad laws and evil

customs, if any such were in the realm, and would observe good laws and

customs and cause them to be observed by all men. He then did homage

to the Holy Roman Church and the Pope for the realms of England and

Ireland, and swore that so long as he held them, he would faithfully

pay the thousand marks promised by his father to the Roman see. This

homage must have been done to Gualo as the Pope’s representative. It

was followed by the crowning and anointing which made Henry king.

This most solemn rite was carried out with as much of the customary

ceremonial as circumstances permitted.[12] The Archbishop of

Canterbury, who according to immemorial precedent should have performed

it, was beyond the sea. Gualo alone had, as Legate, a right to take the

Primate’s place on such an occasion; but it seems that he tactfully

declined to do so, and commissioned a member of the English episcopate

to act in his stead, while he himself undertook the more ordinary

duty of singing the Mass. The very crown was a makeshift, “a sort of

chaplet”[13]--probably an ornament for a woman’s hair, belonging to

the Queen-mother. Under the sanction of the legatine authority Bishop

Peter of Winchester, assisted by the Bishops of Worcester and Exeter,

anointed the child and placed this improvised crown on his head.[14]

When the service was over Philip d’Aubigné caught up the tired child

in his arms, carried him back to his apartments, and caused him to be

relieved of his heavy robes before proceeding to the hall where the

coronation banquet was spread.[15] The company at the high table must

have been a small one; besides the Legate, the Queen-mother,[16] and

six bishops,[17] there seem to have been present at the coronation

only six persons of sufficiently high rank to be mentioned by name

in the chronicles of the time; the Earls of Pembroke and Ferrers,

Philip d’Aubigné, John Marshal,[18] William Brewer, and Savaric de

Mauléon.[19] There was however a considerable gathering of abbots and

priors, and “a very great crowd” of lesser folk.[20] In the midst of

the banquet a messenger made his way into the hall and delivered

to the Earl Marshal aloud, in the hearing of all, an urgent appeal

for succour from the constable of Goodrich castle, besieged on the

preceding afternoon by some partisans of Louis. Goodrich was only

twelve miles distant, and the incident was naturally felt to be a bad

omen.[21] Guided by a common instinct, all the little company around

the King turned, as John had turned many a time, to William the Marshal

as their one hope, and before they separated for the night they went to

him with the same request which had already been made to him by John

and by little Henry himself: “You have made our young lord a knight; he

owes his crown to you; we all of us together pray you to take him into

your keeping.” “I cannot,” answered William, “I am old; the task is too

heavy for me. Leave the matter till the Earl of Chester comes.” With

this answer he dismissed them for the night.[22]

Next morning {29 Oct.} Ranulf of Chester arrived, just as they were

all about to do homage, as was usual on the morrow of a coronation,

to the new King. Ranulf did his homage like the rest, and expressed

his approval of all that had been done in his absence. A meeting

was then held “in the King’s hall,” for the purpose of choosing “a

valiant man to guard King and kingdom.” The Bishop of Winchester--no

doubt according to arrangement made on the preceding night after the

Marshal had withdrawn--called on Alan Basset to speak first. “By my

faith!” spoke Alan, “fair sir, though I look up hill and down dale, I

see no one fitted for this, save the Marshal or the Earl of Chester.”

Again the Marshal protested that the matter was too hard for him: “I

am too feeble and broken, I have passed fourscore years. Take it upon

you, Sir Earl of Chester, for God’s sake! for it is your due; and

I will be your aid so long as I have strength in life, and will be

under your command loyally to the uttermost of my power; never shall

you command me aught, by word or by writing, that I will not do as

well as I may by God’s helping grace.” “Out upon it!” cried Chester,

“Marshal, this cannot be. You, who in every way are one of the best

knights in the world--valiant, experienced, wise, and as much loved

as you are feared--you must take it; and I will serve you and do your

behests, without contradiction, in every way that I can.” Hereupon

Gualo called the Earl, the Marshal, the Bishop of Winchester, and one

or two others into an inner room, where the matter was discussed among

them privately. No conclusion, however, was reached, till at last the

Legate “besought the Marshal for God’s sake, and required of him that

he should undertake the charge for the remission and pardon of his

sins, that he might be fully absolved of them before God at the Day of

Judgement.” “In God’s Name!” said the Marshal, “if I am saved from my

sins, this charge befits me well; I will take it, however burdensome it

may be.” “Then,” adds his biographer, “the Legate gave it to him, as

was right; and the good Marshal received the King and the guardianship

both together.”[23]

The Marshal’s forethought went beyond that of the others. Having

accepted the charge of the regency, he at once made a suggestion which

shewed that he intended to do the work of that office thoroughly. “My

lords, you see the King is young and tender; I should not like to lead

him about the country with me. So please you, I would seek out, by

your counsel, a wise man who should keep him somewhere at ease. This

is necessary; I will not drag him about with me. I shall not be able

to stay in one place, but must travel about and look to the safety of

the Marches. Wherefore, I would have some master provided and chosen

for him in your presence, to whom I can intrust him with security.”

“Let the choice be yours, Sir,” said the Legate, “for we have no fear

but you will choose rightly.” “Then,” answered William, “since you

leave the whole matter to me, I will give him in charge to a very good

master, the Bishop of Winchester, who has already had the charge of him

and has brought him up carefully and well.” To this all agreed,[24] and

it seems to have been in this way that “by common consent, the care of

King and kingdom was committed to the Legate, the Bishop of Winchester,

and William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke.”[25]

There was no fear of these arrangements being unacceptable to the

rest of the King’s party. Throughout all England there was but one

opinion of William the Marshal; and when “the folk outside” heard that

he had undertaken the governorship of the King and the realm, “they

rejoiced greatly.” But within the castle, when darkness fell, the old

Earl once more called around him “his sure council”--three faithful

friends; his nephew John Marshal, his squire John of Earley, and Ralph

Musard[26]--with whom he had already had an anxious consultation on the

preceding night, after the first informal offer of the regency.[27]

Now, setting his back against a wall, he began: “Give me your counsel!

for, by my faith, I have embarked on a wide sea where, cast about as

one may, neither bottom nor shore can be found, and it is a marvel

if a man come safely into port. But may it please God to bear me up!

They have given me this charge, which is like to miscarry,[28] as you

may see and know; and the child has no possessions, worse luck! and I

am an aged man.” He paused, choked by tears; “and they, who loved him

with all their hearts, wept too for pity.” Recovering himself, he asked

them: “Have you nothing to say to me?” “Yes,” answered John of Earley.

“You have undertaken a business from which there is no drawing back.

But so long as you hold to it, I tell you that the worst that may come

can only bring you honour. Suppose that all your adherents should join

Louis, and surrender all the castles to him, so that you could find no

shelter anywhere in England;--that you had to quit the country, and

that Louis pursued you till you fled to Ireland;--still that would be

great honour! And if a losing game could thus turn to your praise, how

much greater will be your joy when you get the better of the adversary,

as, please God, you may! Then all men will say that never man of any

race won such honour upon earth. Is it not worth the winning?” “By

God’s sword!” swore the aged hero, “your counsel is true and good, and

goes so straight to my heart that if all the world should forsake the

King, save myself, know you what I would do? I would carry him on my

shoulders from one land to another, and never fail him, though I had to

beg my bread.” His friends applauded his resolution, and he, having now

cast aside all misgivings, closed the conference with characteristic

simplicity. “Now let us go to bed; and may God Who rules over all

things give us His counsel and aid, as He surely does aid those who

wish to do right and cleave unto loyalty.”[29]

He took up his new duties without further hesitation. Under his

direction letters were immediately despatched to all the sheriffs and

wardens of castles throughout England, bidding them render obedience

to the new King;[30] and Gualo called upon the prelates and the loyal

barons to meet the King and his guardians in a council at Bristol on

November 11. When the council met, it comprised the whole strength

of the loyal party. Only eleven bishops indeed were present; but the

statement made in a royal letter that “all the prelates”[31] of England

were there was practically true nevertheless; for the two metropolitans

were both out of the country, the Bishops of London, Lincoln, and

Salisbury were ill, and the sees of Durham, Norwich, and Hereford were

vacant. The laymen who attended were the Earls of Pembroke, Chester,

Derby (or Ferrers), and Aumale, the Justiciar Hubert de Burgh, Savaric

de Mauléon, the two William Brewers (father and son), Robert de

Courtenay, Falkes de Bréauté, Reginald de Valtort, Walter de Lacy, Hugh

and Robert de Mortimer, John of Monmouth, Walter de Beauchamp, Walter

and Roger de Clifford, William Cantelupe, Matthew FitzHerbert, John

Marshal, Alan Basset, Philip d’Aubigné, and John L’Estrange, besides

others whose names are not recorded; and there were also some “other

prelates,”--that is, abbots and priors--and knights.[32] Gualo, who as

representing the overlord of King and kingdom necessarily acted as

president of the council, began by causing every man present to swear

fealty to the King; he then laid an interdict upon the whole of Wales

“because it held with the barons,” and repeated his excommunication of

the rebels and their allies, with Louis of France at their head.[33]

Next day {12 Nov.} there was issued a provisional Charter, purporting

to be granted by the boy-King “under the guidance of God, and for

the salvation of our soul and of the souls of all our ancestors and

successors, to the honour of God, and the exaltation of Holy Church,

and the amendment of our realm, by the counsel of our venerable

fathers” Gualo and the other prelates and magnates enumerated. Of

course it began with the declaration which had already been, and was

to be again, so often made, and so often proved but an empty form:

“The English Church shall be free, and have her rights and liberties

entire and undisturbed;” but the recital in the first article of the

Great Charter of John’s grant, made to the Church before his quarrel

with the barons, of one special liberty--that of free election--was

omitted.[34] The clauses of John’s Charter regulating the reliefs due

from tenants-in-chief,[35] the wardship of heirs under age,[36] the

marriage of heirs and widows,[37] were reproduced with a few very

slight alterations, of which the most significant was an addition to

the clause relating to the custody of estates: that the obligations

laid down as binding on the guardian of a lay fief were to be binding

likewise on the custodian of a vacant ecclesiastical dignity, and

that a wardship of this kind was not to be bought or sold.[38] The

article protecting the King’s debtors and their sureties against

arbitrary distraint;[39] that which protected free tenants against

arbitrary requirement of service other than what was legally due

from their lands;[40] that which ordered common pleas to be held in

a fixed place instead of following the King;[41] the regulations for

taking recognitions of novel disseisin, mort d’ancester, and darrein

presentment;[42] the clause protecting men of all classes against the

infliction of arbitrary fines for offences;[43] the clauses which

forbade the exaction of contributions for bridge-building from persons

or places not legally bound thereto,[44] and the holding of pleas of

the Crown by sheriffs or other royal bailiffs,[45] the regulations

concerning ward-penny and castle-guard;[46] the royal promises to

seize no timber for building without the owner’s consent,[47] not to

withhold the lands of a convicted felon from his lord beyond a year and

a day,[48] to abolish all weirs except on the sea-coast,[49] to issue

no more writs of _praecipe_ in cases where a freeman might thereby

be deprived of the means of obtaining justice,[50] to grant writs of

inquisition concerning life or limb freely without payment,[51] to

cease from unjust interference with other men’s rights of wardship in

the case of heirs holding land of a mesne lord by military service and

other land of the Crown by some other tenure;[52] the clause ordaining

equal weights and measures to be used throughout the realm;[53] that

which forbade any man to be sent to the ordeal on the sole accusation

of an officer of the Crown;[54] the King’s undertaking not to punish

or prosecute any man in any way except by the lawful judgement of his

peers and according to the law of the land,[55] and neither to sell,

deny, or delay, right and justice to any,[56] not to exact unfair

reliefs from escheated baronies,[57] not to summon men to the Forest

Courts from districts outside the Forest jurisdiction and on pleas

unconnected with it;[58] the clause securing the custody of vacant

abbeys to those who were entitled to it as founders,[59] and that

which forbade arrest or imprisonment for manslaughter on the appeal of

any woman other than the wife of the slain man[60]--were all renewed,

as were also the promises given by John that the Forests made in his

reign should be disafforested and the river enclosures made during the

same period destroyed.[61] Henry pledged himself, as John had done, to

give immediate redress to any Welshmen whom John had dispossessed of

their lands without lawful judgement of their peers.[62] The article

concerning the ancient liberties and customs of London and other towns

was renewed, with the insertion of a special mention of the Cinque

Ports.[63] That which forbade the King’s constables to seize any man’s

corn or cattle without immediate payment, except by the owner’s leave,

was modified; if the owner belonged to the township in which the

castle stood, payment might be deferred for three weeks.[64] Another

article of the Great Charter had forbidden all sheriffs and other

officers of the Crown to use any freeman’s horses or carts without

the owner’s consent; they were now permitted to do so on payment of

a sum “anciently fixed”--tenpence a day for a cart with two horses,

fourteenpence a day for a cart with three horses.[65] The general rule

laid down in 1215 that “all merchants should come and go and dwell and

trade in England, in time of peace, without the imposition of arbitrary

customs” (“maltotes”), was limited by the insertion of a proviso,

“unless they have been publicly forbidden.”[66] Nineteen articles were

entirely omitted. There was no renewal of the articles forbidding

the exaction of interest, during the minority of a debtor’s heir, on

money borrowed from the Jews or others; nor of the royal promises

to institute an inquiry into the abuses of the Forest law and of the

Crown’s rights over escheated baronies, to remove from all offices in

England certain of John’s foreign adherents, to make restitution to

persons illegally disseised under John, to remit fines made illegally

with him, to reinstate Welshmen illegally disseised under Henry II.

and Richard, and to appoint no justiciars, constables, sheriffs, or

bailiffs, save those who knew the law of the realm and were minded

to observe it well.[67] The articles declaring that the ferms of

the shires, wapentakes, and hundreds should be reduced to their old

figures, without increment (except on royal manors); sanctioning the

distribution of the chattels of an intestate freeman by his next-of-kin

under the direction of the Church, after his debts were paid; and

giving leave to all men to go in and out of England freely, except in

time of war,[68] were also omitted. Above all, there was no renewal of

two provisions of the highest importance: that no scutage or aid should

be imposed except by the common consent of the realm, unless it were

for the King’s ransom, the knighting of his eldest son, or the marriage

of his eldest daughter, and of “reasonable” amount, and that for the

assessment of an aid or scutage on occasions other than those named,

the common council should be summoned in a certain manner and for a

fixed day, and the matter should proceed according to the counsel of

those who answered the summons.[69] As a natural consequence of this

omission, the article providing that no mesne lord should henceforth

receive permission to take an aid from his freemen except of reasonable

amount and for the before-named purposes[70] was omitted likewise.

The weighty sixtieth article of the Great Charter, however--“All

these aforesaid customs and liberties which we have granted in our

realm, so far as in us lies, to be kept towards our own men, all the

people of our realm, both clerks and laymen shall observe, so far as

in them lies, towards their men,”--was retained.[71] The provisions

for the return of hostages and charters, and for a settlement of

terms with King Alexander of Scotland,[72] were of course omitted,

being no longer applicable under the altered political circumstances.

The grounds on which the other omissions and modifications were made

are thus set forth in the clause with which the Charter concludes,

and which replaces the sixty-first clause of the Great Charter (the

clause containing the arrangement about the twenty-five “over-kings”):

“Forasmuch as in the former charter there were certain chapters which

seemed weighty and doubtful, to wit, concerning the assessment of

scutages and aids, the debts of Jews and others, the liberty to go in

and out of our realm, the forests and foresters, warrens and warreners,

and the customs of the shires, and the river-enclosures and their

keepers: it has pleased the prelates and magnates that these should be

deferred till we shall have taken counsel more fully; and then we will

do to the full, concerning these and other matters which may require

amendment, whatever things may appertain to the common good of all and

the peace and stability of our self and our realm.”[73]

The seals with which, in place of the non-existent royal seal, this

Charter was confirmed in the King’s name were those of Gualo the

Cardinal Legate and William the Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, “governor

of ourself and our realm.” The form of the document must have been

determined by Gualo and William conjointly; and it reflects the

utmost credit upon the wisdom, tact, and moderation of both. Their

explanation, given in the clause just quoted, as to the omissions in

the new Charter was reasonable and true. The matters omitted were

such as a provisional government, especially under the existing

circumstances, could not safely deal with. They were all, more or less,

matters of controversy; they were also matters affecting the relations

of the Crown not with the nation as a whole, but with certain members

or sections of the nation; matters, in a word, as to which it would

have been neither politic nor just to tie the hands of a King who was

not yet capable of acting for himself--above all at a moment when any

surrender of the powers and claims of the Crown might have deprived him

and his counsellors of the already sufficiently small means which they

possessed of carrying on the war against the invader. Most “grave and

doubtful” of all was the question which had furnished the immediate

pretext, though it was certainly not the sole incentive, for the rising

of the barons against John: the question of scutage. If the limitations

imposed by the twelfth and fourteenth articles of the Great Charter

upon the King’s rights of scutage were not actually new, they had been

obsolete so long as to be practically an innovation on the established

custom of the realm. This fact was the coign of vantage on which John

had taken his stand when appealing to the Pope against the barons;

and it was on this ground that Innocent had condemned the Charter.

The accession of a child-King was not the moment for gratuitously

surrendering on his part a claim whose illegality was, to say the

least, not proven, and which the Pope, as overlord of the kingdom, had

upheld; and the postponement of this question enabled Gualo at once

to give the papal sanction to the new Charter. The publication of the

Charter, with that sanction, left no valid excuse for the continuance

of a refusal to recognize the native sovereign. Henry was now as

definitely pledged as Louis to the redress of all grievances which were

really national, and the security for the fulfilment of the pledge was

at least as strong on Henry’s side as on the side of the stranger.

But the stranger was in the land, with a force of armed followers of

his own, sufficient, if not indeed for its conquest, at least to keep

the footing which he had gained there; and the men who had called

him to their aid were bound to his cause by engagements from which

they could not easily extricate themselves, even if they wished to

do so. When they heard of Henry’s coronation they were furious, and

many of them took a solemn oath that they would never hold land of

any of John’s heirs. Gualo retorted by interdicting their lands; and

his arguments, pleadings, and threatenings had a considerable effect

not only on the clergy to whom they were primarily addressed,[74] but

also on the lay folk of the King’s party, whose loyalty was greatly

encouraged by hearing their enemies excommunicated every Sunday and

holiday. This, together with a general feeling that “the sins of the

father should not be visited on the son,” inclined John’s old adherents

to serve the new King even more zealously than they had served the late

one; and they set to work vigorously at the fortification of their

castles in his behalf.[75]

At the moment of John’s death Louis was still, with the greater part

of his forces, encamped, as he had been for three months, before Dover

castle, and was awaiting the results of a truce which had been made

between him and its warden--Hubert de Burgh--in the early part of

October, to enable Hubert to communicate with John and obtain from him

either succour, or leave to surrender. When fully certified of John’s

death, Louis invited Hubert to a parley and addressed him thus: “Your

lord, King John, is dead; it is useless for you to hold this castle

longer against me, seeing you have no succour; surrender the castle

and come into my fealty, and I will enrich you with great honours and

you shall be great among my counsellors.” “If my lord be dead,” Hubert

is reported to have answered, “he has sons and daughters who ought to

succeed him; as to surrendering the castle, I would fain speak with

my comrades of the garrison.” These all agreed that he should refuse,

“lest by shamefully surrendering the place he should incur the mark

of treason.”[76] On this Louis consented to another truce with Hubert

till after Easter,[77] and withdrew to London.[78] The Dover garrison

immediately sallied forth and foraged around till they had stocked

the castle with all necessaries, after burning all the buildings which

Louis had set up round about it;[79] while Hubert was by this somewhat

unexpected release enabled to join the council at Bristol.

The French party now held, besides London, the chief strongholds of

Surrey and Hampshire--Reigate, Guildford, Odiham, Farnham, Winchester,

Southampton, Porchester; Marlborough, just within the Wiltshire border,

seems to have been their extreme western outpost. In the Midlands and

the North they held Mountsorel and most of the castles of Yorkshire.

Between these northern fortresses and London, however, lay a tract of

hostile country. The Thames Valley was blocked by Windsor and Oxford;

two of John’s foreign followers, Engelard d’Athée (or de Cigogné) and

Andrew de Chanceaux, were in command of Windsor; while the castles of

Oxford, Buckingham, Hertford, Bedford, Cambridge, and Northampton, and

the whole of the six shires in which they stood, were under the charge

of the most devoted and energetic, as well as the most ruthless, of

John’s soldiers from over sea, Falkes de Bréauté. Beyond these lay

Nottingham, Newark, Sleaford, and Lincoln, whose castles were all in

the possession of the royalists.[80] To the east, though the Earls of

Essex and Norfolk were among the partisans of Louis, the castles of

Pleshy, Colchester, Norwich, and Orford were garrisoned by the troops

of the King.[81] In the far north Newcastle-on-Tyne was held for Henry

by Hugh de Baliol,[82] and the fortresses of the see of Durham by the

constables of the Palatine bishop. The western shires were entirely

in the hands of the Royalists. On the Dorset coast Peter de Maulay,

to whom John on the eve of his last campaign had entrusted his second

boy, Richard, was in command of Corfe, a fortress which on account

of its remote position and great strength had been chosen for the

depository of the greater part of the royal treasure.[83] The French

had apparently no hold upon the coast anywhere except at Southampton

and Porchester, and at Rye, where the castle was held for Louis by

Geoffrey de Say.[84] Some of the Cinque Ports had indeed submitted to

Louis in 1215, but they had almost immediately thrown off his yoke,

resumed their allegiance to John, and joined hands with a motley band

of adventurers and country folk who under the leadership of William de

Casinghem occupied the Weald of Kent and were a perpetual danger to the

French troops engaged in the siege of Dover.

That siege Louis seems to have now finally decided to abandon, probably

with the intention of devoting himself instead to the consolidation

of his conquests by the acquisition of eastern England. On 11th

November--the meeting-day of the Council at Bristol--he appeared

before Hertford and laid siege to the castle. For twenty-five days

he plied his machines against it in vain, its commandant, Walter de

Godardville, a knight of Falkes’s household, making a brave defence

and a great slaughter of the assailants, till the siege was ended on

6th December[85] by a general truce made between the Royalist leaders

and Louis on the condition that Hertford and Berkhamsted should be

evacuated and surrendered to the French prince.[86] The constable of

Berkhamsted, however--a German knight named Waleran, who had long been

in John’s service--was unwilling to accept the truce, and held out

against siege and assault till an order in the King’s name compelled

him to surrender on 20th December.[87] When the truce expired, another

was made, the condition being the evacuation and surrender of the

royal castles of Orford and Norwich;[88] and this second truce seems

to have been followed by a third, purchased probably by the surrender

of Cambridge and either Colchester or Pleshy. At some date between the

middle and the end of January, 1217, Louis called his adherents to a

council at Cambridge, while the King’s guardians brought up their young

sovereign from Gloucestershire to Oxford,[89] and opened negotiations

for a peace, or, failing that, a further prolongation of the truce.

Of peace Louis’s English supporters would not hear; and as the

arrangements for another truce made but slow progress, Louis laid siege

to the castle of Hedingham. Finally, however, a truce was made, its

conditions being apparently the surrender of Hedingham and Colchester

(or, if Colchester had been surrendered earlier, Pleshy), and perhaps

some minor strongholds, and the continuance of “all things”--castles

and other matters--as they were at that moment until a month after

Easter.[90]

[Sidenote: 1217]

Thus by the beginning of February, 1217, Louis’s mastery of eastern

England was completed, seemingly without a struggle. At first glance,

the action of Henry’s representatives seems unaccountable; there is,

however, reason to think that it was really part of a scheme for

bringing the desultory war to a crisis. Their aim seems to have been

first to induce Louis to scatter his forces, and then to lure him back

to the coast, hoping that there they might either cut off his retreat,

or compel him to return to his own country.[91] For the accomplishment

of this design it would be necessary to concentrate their own forces;

and this could only be done by withdrawing the garrisons from such of

the royal castles as were least worth retaining at the moment. These

were the castles of East Anglia and Essex. Unlike the fortresses of the

west, which it was of paramount importance to maintain in a state of

efficiency as a protection against encroachments of the King’s enemies

from the Welsh border, these eastern castles were practically isolated

outposts in a district of which the greater part was under the enemy’s

control. Surrounded as they were by the territories of powerful barons

who supported Louis, they were not available as bases for concerted

action; and the stores, arms, horses, and men in them could be made

far more useful elsewhere.[92] To the enemy, on the other hand, the

bait would be a tempting one; and the possible consequences of taking

it might well have escaped the penetration of a more wary general

than was Louis of France at this stage of his career. The possession

of these castles placed the whole of eastern England under his

uninterrupted sway, and removed all serious obstacles, except one, to

his communications with his allies in the north. That one obstacle was

the castle of Lincoln, which under the command of a woman had hitherto

resisted every assailant. Louis appears to have made a circuit of his

new possessions--no doubt placing a garrison in each of them--and

then proceeded to Lincoln, hoping that his personal presence and the

isolation in which she was now placed might tempt or frighten Dame

Nicolaa into a betrayal of her trust. In this hope he was disappointed.

The city received him, as it had already received his adherents; but

the castle “held out,” for the Dame “kept it very loyally.” Louis could

only return to London and thence send the castellan of Arras to take up

his quarters in Lincoln city, that he might “hold the country with the

help of the Northerners.”[93]

Louis was now anxious to get back to France. According to one account,

his father was again urgently calling him home;[94] according to

another, he was alarmed by letters from his agents at Rome, telling

him that unless he left England the Pope intended to confirm on Maundy

Thursday the excommunication which had been pronounced on him by

Gualo.[95] When he announced to his English friends in London his

intention of leaving the country they were highly displeased, and he

had to take a solemn oath that he would return before the expiration

of the truce.[96] None of the successive truces made during this

winter seem to have been very scrupulously kept by either party. On

the morrow of the surrender of Berkhamsted {_1216 21 Dec._} Louis had

marched upon S. Alban’s and demanded homage of the abbot, and on its

refusal had only been restrained from burning both abbey and town by

the intervention of Saer de Quincy, whereby the abbot was persuaded

to give him eighty marks for a respite till Candlemas.[97] A month

later {_1217 22 Jan._}, at the very time when the King’s Council were

endeavouring to arrange a conference of commissioners from both sides

for the redress of infractions of the first and second truces and

for securing the observance of the truce then existing,[98] Falkes

de Bréauté sacked the same unlucky town and wrung from the abbot

another heavy fine.[99] Louis’s visit to Lincoln was not an overt act

of hostility such as these, but it was distinctly a violation of the

spirit of the conditions on which the last truce had been made; and the

Royalists may perhaps have considered themselves thereby released from

their own obligation to abide by those conditions. However this may

be, Louis, seemingly on the point of setting out from London for the

coast, received information that the castle of Rye had been “taken by

subtlety” by the English.[100]

As early as 17th December, 1216, “the brave men of Ireland who are with

their ships on the coasts of Normandy” had been bidden, and encouraged

by the promise of liberal reward, to come in force to Winchelsea, ready

and prepared to go forth in the King’s service on S. Hilary’s day, or

as soon after as possible.[101] They seem to have obeyed the summons,

and to have been joined by an English fleet, gathered no doubt from

the loyal Cinque Ports, and commanded by the governor of the Channel

Islands, Philip d’Aubigné.[102] {Jan.} A detachment of Royalists,

protected by, if not actually landed from, these ships, had “by the

wise counsel of the Marshal” now surprised and occupied Rye.[103] Louis

at once set out for the coast; he went, however, not direct to Rye, but

to Winchelsea--still, it seems, intending to sail for France. At his

approach the burghers of Winchelsea broke up all the mills in their

town, and then took to their boats and went to join Philip d’Aubigné

and his fleet off Rye. Louis had no sooner entered Winchelsea than he

found himself caught in a trap whence there was no way of escape--shut

in between the new garrison of Rye, the ships, and the Weald, where

“Willikin” de Casinghem was still in command of a dauntless and

reckless band of loyalists who broke down every bridge and blocked

every passage in the rear of the French, and cut off the head of every

straggler who came within their reach.[104]

Louis and his men were soon on the verge of starvation; there was

plenty of corn in the town, but no means of grinding it save the slow

process of rubbing it between their hands; they could get neither flesh

nor fish; their “best food” consisted of some “large nuts” which they

found in the town. For a while they struggled on, making occasional

truces with the ships’ men, probably for the purpose of being able

to fish without molestation and thus procure a little food; but the

sailors paid little or no regard to these truces, and even came ashore

to shoot at the enemies.[105] At last Louis sent some messengers who

contrived to slip through the Weald to London for succour. Some of his

knights there set out to rescue their lord; but they dared not attempt

to pass through the Weald, so they went by the high road through

Canterbury to Romney, and thence--as it was impossible for them to

proceed from Romney to Winchelsea without passing Rye--despatched a

message to the governor of the county of Boulogne asking him to send

them all the ships he could get. He sent, it is said, over two hundred

vessels--probably only small boats--all of which save one came into

port at Dover, and were speedily occupied by the French knights who

hastened thither from Romney; but a succession of storms kept them

waiting a fortnight before they could sail. Meanwhile Louis and his men

had possessed themselves of several large ships which were lying in

the harbour of Winchelsea; and one of the vessels sent from Boulogne

had, “by the hardihood of the mariners,” contrived to evade the English

fleet and reach the same place, “where it was very welcome.” In all

likelihood the captain of the ship which achieved this exploit was a

man who for many years past had been known on both sides of the Channel

as the most daring of seamen and the most ruthless of pirates, Eustace

“the Monk”; for it was Eustace who now proposed to build, on one of

the large ships, a “castle” wherewith to attack the English. This

“castle” was “so big that everyone stared at it with wonder, for it

overpassed the sides of the ship in every direction.” A stone-caster

was next set up on another ship, to hurl stones at the English fleet;

Louis had already set up on the shore for the same purpose two similar

machines, whose missiles went almost across the channel which separates

Winchelsea from Rye; and these did the English ships considerable

damage. But one evening the English brought up some of their vessels

close to the town, stole away the galley which bore the “castle,” and

hewed it in pieces before the very eyes of the French. Louis laid the

blame of this mishap on the Viscount of Melun, who apparently was

responsible for the watch that night; Melun bluntly declared the men

were so hungry that not four knights could be found to undertake the

watch; Louis retorted that he would take it himself. Then Eustace de

Neville interposed, saying he would find forty knights to watch with

him as long as Louis pleased. That night he did it, with forty of his

friends, “very honourably”; and next morning the relieving squadron

from Dover came in sight. The English ships threatened to intercept

it; but the first English vessel which came to close quarters by some

accident struck one of its own consorts and sank it with all its crew,

and amid the confusion resulting from this catastrophe the French

ships made their way safely into the harbour of Winchelsea.[106]

With these ships Louis, whose force is said to have now consisted of

more than three thousand men, proceeded to Rye, which the English

garrison, seeing they could not defend it, evacuated.[107] By this time

the Marshal[108] and the other members of the Council were on their way

up from the west of England to a general muster of the Royalist forces

at Dorking. Thence, on 28th February, a letter was despatched in the

King’s name to the townsfolk of Rye, bidding them take courage, give no

hostages to Louis, and make no terms with him, for they would speedily

receive “greater succour than they could believe possible.” The Bishop

of Winchester, the Marshal, the Earls of Chester, Ferrers, and Aumale,

nearly all the barons of the western March (Walter de Lacy, Hugh and

Roger de Mortimer, Walter and Roger de Clifford, William de Beauchamp,

John of Monmouth, “and others”), and several other well-known leaders

(William de Harcourt, Engelard de Cigogné, William de Cantelupe, Falkes

de Bréauté, Robert de Vipont, Richard FitzRoy), with a multitude of

knights, men-at-arms, and crossbowmen, and some loyal Welshmen, were

setting out for Rye at once, and the King himself was about to follow

with the Legate and a crowd of clergy and “crusaders.”[109] But before

this letter was written Louis had made his escape. After appointing

his nephew Enguerrand de Coucy as his representative in England, with

orders to go to London “and not stir thence upon any account,” and

leaving a French garrison in Rye,[110] he had slipped away to Dover,

and thence sailed on 27th or 28th February to France.[111]

The Legate meanwhile had turned the war into a crusade. He had set

the example, which the prelates followed, of assuming in token of the

sacredness of the young King’s cause the white cross which marked the

English warriors in Holy Land; all loyal subjects were exhorted to do

the like; and those who had already taken the cross with the intention

of joining the host now on its way to Egypt were encouraged to exchange

their intended pilgrimage for the struggle with the excommunicate

enemies at home.[112] Nobles and common folk alike responded to this

appeal, “preferring to have a king from their own land rather than a

foreign one.”[113] All through the winter the tide had been turning

surely though slowly. As early as the end of November, 1216, William

of Aubigny, the lord of Belvoir, who in the preceding year had

defended Rochester castle for the rebel party with a stubborn bravery

worthy of a better cause, and on its capture had been sent by John to

prison at Corfe, bought his release by a fine of six thousand marks

and homage to the new King; he was at once intrusted with the castle

of Sleaford, “and he kept it right valiantly.”[114] Two recruits of

yet greater importance joined the Royalist forces a few days after

Louis left England: the younger William Marshal--eldest son of the

regent--and the king’s uncle, William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury.

These two, “who loved each other like brothers,”[115] seem to have

been already contemplating a return to their natural allegiance in

the second week of December, 1216;[116] but their scruples or their

fears kept them in the hostile camp for three months longer. Then,

in the first days of March, the elder Marshal “met them by the way”

somewhere between Shoreham and Knepp.[117] The meeting was evidently

pre-arranged.[118] All three spent the night together at Knepp; and

when the two younger men parted from the elder one next morning, it was

to lead their followers to Winchester and besiege it for the King.[119]

The old Marshal followed them with another body of troops, and laid

siege to Farnham in the first week of March.[120] By 12th March it

was taken;[121] and so, too, about the same time, was the city of

Winchester and “the lesser castle” there--that is, the Bishop’s castle,

known as Wolvesey.[122] The “tower,” or royal castle,[123] however,

held out against the united forces of the two friends and the regent,

who on leaving Farnham came to their assistance. At last it was decided

that he should continue the siege,[124] while his son and Longsword led

their forces to Southampton or Odiham,[125] and another party under

Philip d’Aubigné was sent to besiege Porchester.[126] On the last day

of March the younger Marshal laid siege to Marlborough; and “after

great difficulty” he took it.[127] Southampton and Odiham had now been

regained;[128] Chichester was won before 16th April, and Porchester

before 27th April.[129] Meanwhile Falkes de Bréauté had made a raid

on the Isle of Ely and recovered possession of it for the King.[130]

The royal forces were swelling fast; “converts”--as the rebels who

returned to allegiance are called in the official records--came

crowding in;[131] and after Easter the Marshal, while still blockading

the “tower” of Winchester, felt himself strong enough to despatch the

Earls of Chester, Aumale, and Ferrers, with Robert de Vipont, Brian de

Lisle, William de Cantelupe, and Falkes, and a number of knights and

men-at-arms drawn from the garrisons of the evacuated royal castles,

to form the siege of the rebel Earl of Winchester’s great fortress of

Mountsorel in Leicestershire.[132]

Tidings of these things reached Louis in France; “and when he heard

them,” says a contemporary, “he was not at all glad.” About Easter

time he had betaken himself to Calais, but with only a very small

following; if he had gone to France with the hope of gathering forces

there, he must have been disappointed. He had, however, procured a

new machine called a trebuchet, “about which there was much talk, for

at that time few of them had been seen in France.” With this machine,

and a handful of knights--only one hundred and forty--he at last set

sail[133] for England once more on Saturday, 22nd April.[134] As the

French ships drew near to Dover on the morning of S. George’s day

{_Sunday, 23 April_}, their occupants saw the huts which had been

built to shelter the besiegers of the castle still standing, empty

but intact. At that very moment, however, King John’s son Oliver and

Willikin of the Weald came down upon the huts and set them on fire,

after slaughtering some of the few men who had been left to guard them.

To attempt a landing at Dover in the face of an enemy whose numbers and

position it was impossible to distinguish amid the smoke thus raised,

and who could so easily pour down a murderous fire of arrows and other

missiles from the cliffs, would have been to court destruction. Louis

therefore altered his course and made for Sandwich. There he succeeded

in landing,[135] though not without opposition from some of the local

ships.[136] Next day he rode to Dover and took up his quarters in the

priory. There he heard dismal reports of the losses suffered by his

adherents in other parts of England; so he hurriedly arranged with

the constable of the castle for a further prolongation of the local

truce,[137] and returned to Sandwich. Having now been joined by the

Count of Nevers with a few followers, he dismissed the inferior portion

of his own forces to the ships, which he sent back to France,[138]

but, as the sequel showed, with instructions to return.[139] Then,

after firing the town of Sandwich in vengeance for the hostility of

its mariners,[140] he moved on to Canterbury; next day (Tuesday, 25th

April) he set out for Winchester. At Malling he was met by Saer de

Quincy, Simon de Langton, and some others of his English partisans. On

the morrow (Wednesday, 26th) he “made a long day’s march, for he went

from Malling to Guildford”; his baggage could not get beyond Reigate.

On this day he was joined by Enguerrand de Coucy and the greater part

of the garrison which he had left in London. Next day (Thursday, 27th)

he reached Farnham, but only to find it prepared for defence against

him, and to learn that Winchester castle was lost to him,[141] its

castellans having surrendered it before they knew of his return to

England.[142]

No sooner did the Marshal hear that Louis was back than he gave orders

for the immediate razing of all the castles which had been retaken,

except Farnham.[143] It was Farnham that Louis now turned to attack.

The outer bailey was speedily captured by assault; but the keep, as

a foreign chronicler quaintly says, “heeded it not.”[144] Next day

(Friday, 28th April) Earl Saer of Winchester came to Louis asking

for help to relieve Mountsorel.[145] Its garrison of ten knights and

some men at arms under Henry de Braybroke had held out manfully for

nearly a month, but had now found it needful to ask their lord, Saer,

for succour.[146] After some consultation Louis, “being unable to get

rid of him otherwise,”[147] sent him to London with orders that some

of the leaders there should supply him with troops and accompany him

to Mountsorel for the twofold purpose of relieving that fortress and

“subduing the whole province” to Louis himself. Under the joint command

of Saer, the count of Perche, Robert Fitz Walter, and some other

barons, a large body of knights and men-at-arms, some English, some

French, and “all coveting their neighbour’s goods,” as an indignant

chronicler says, set out accordingly from London on Monday, 1st

May.[148]

From S. Alban’s, where they halted for the night, the French

mercenaries went about plundering churches, desecrating cemeteries,

and putting “all sorts of people” to torture and ransom; at the abbey

they got nothing but food and drink, Louis having apparently given it

to be understood that he was “satisfied” with the larger sum which he

had recently extorted from the abbot, and that they must exact nothing

more. A marvellous experience which befell some of the sacrilegious

spoilers at Redburn[149] probably sobered them somewhat, for they

passed through Dunstable “without doing much harm.”[150] When, a few

days later, they reached Mountsorel, they found that, so far as that

castle was concerned, their work was done. The leaders of the besieging

force had had timely warning from their scouts, and had withdrawn to

Nottingham.[151]

Louis meanwhile had on Saturday, 29th April, marched from Farnham to

Winchester, his rearguard chased by a party of Royalists from Windsor,

who, however, failed to overtake it. The Marshal, after demolishing

the castle as much as haste permitted, had evacuated the city, and the

few Royalists left in it fled at the approach of the French. Louis

stayed there five days, to put in train the restoration of the castle.

On 4th May--Ascension Day--he left the completion of this work and

the custody of the city to the Count of Nevers, and set out once more

for London.[152] There he heard that the garrison of Dover had broken

their truce, and chased and slain some of his men who had arrived at

Dover after he left it. He stayed in London two nights and then went on

to Dover, and on the Friday before Whit-Sunday, 12th May, set up his

trebuchet before the castle, while his men built themselves huts all

around in preparation for a renewal of the siege. Next day (Whitsun

Eve) forty of his ships reappeared, seeking to enter the harbour; but

a contrary wind drove them back to Calais, all except five, which made

their way in together. On Monday, 15th, the other thirty-five came

again from Calais. At the same time there hove in sight some eighty

or more ships “great and small,” among them twenty “great ships armed

and prepared for battle,” coming from Romney under Philip d’Aubigné

and Nicolas Haringot. The small French transports, not daring to risk

a meeting with these big vessels, fled towards Calais; twenty-seven

of them however had advanced so far that they could not withdraw in

time to avoid an encounter; eight of these were captured, the sailors

and men-at-arms whom they carried were slain at once, and the knights

imprisoned in the holds of the ships, “where they were uncomfortable

enough.” The victorious English ships then anchored before the

castle, thus effectually cutting off its besiegers from all chance of

reinforcement by sea. Louis vented his rage by sending some of his men

by land to burn Hythe and Romney; the “Wealdsmen” attacked them, but

seemingly without success.[153]

While Louis was in London, the host which had gone to relieve

Mountsorel moved eastward to Lincoln, at the urgent request of Hugh

of Arras, who went in person to beg that they would all join him and

his “Northern” friends at the siege of Lincoln Castle. He was, he

said, almost on the point of taking it, and its capture would be a

great advantage to the cause of Louis. After some debate the leaders

consented, and the whole force marched to Lincoln and quartered

itself in and around the city.[154] Tidings of this movement reached

the Marshal on the Friday before Whit-Sunday {12 May}--the day on

which Louis set up his trebuchet at Dover--when the council and the

loyal barons were gathered round the King at Northampton for the

approaching festival.[155] Hereupon, says his biographer, “God, Who

supports, maintains, and counsels all loyal men, put into their hearts

a marvellous counsel, of which came much good and much honour to

them. List, then, the sum of the counsel with which God inspired the

man chosen and renowned and trusted above them all. ‘Hearken,’ spoke

William the Marshal, ‘loyal knights and all ye who are in fealty to the

king! For God’s sake hearken to me, for what I have to say deserves a

hearing. This day we bear the burden of arms to defend our fame, and

for ourselves and our dear ones, our wives and children, and to keep

our land in safety, and to win great honour, and for the peace of

Holy Church, which these men have wronged and ill-used, and to gain

remission and pardon of all our sins. Take heed then that there be no

backsliders amongst us.’”[156] After this solemn exordium he put the

situation clearly before his audience. Part of the enemies were sieging

Lincoln Castle, but only a part; Louis was elsewhere, and “those who

accompanied him had got themselves foolishly into a tangle.”[157] Here,

then, was an opportunity not to be lightly thrown away. “For God’s

sake, let us stake everything upon it! Remember that if we gain the

victory, we shall increase our honour, and preserve for ourselves and

our posterity the freedom which these men seek to take from us. We

_will_ keep it. God wills us to defend it! Therefore every man must

bestir himself to the utmost of his power, for the thing cannot be done

else. There must be no gaps in our armed ranks; our advance upon the

foe must be no mere threat; but we must fall upon them swiftly. God of

His mercy has granted us the hour for vengeance upon those who are come

hither to do us ill; let no man draw back!” The whole assembly “took

heart and hope, strength and hardihood” from his words, and became

eager to go forward at all costs.[158] So, with the unanimous consent

of Gualo and the other members of the royal council, the Marshal

called upon all loyal castellans and knights to muster at Newark on

Whit-Monday, 15th May.[159] They came gladly, to the number of four

hundred knights, near two hundred and fifty cross-bowmen, and so many

sergeants and horsemen as might well make up for the small number of

knights.[160] The leaders of the host were the two William Marshals,

Bishop Peter of Winchester (who was “learned in the art of war”), the

Earls of Chester, Ferrers, and Aumale, William d’Aubigny, John Marshal,

William de Cantelupe with his son of the same name, Falkes de Bréauté,

Thomas Basset, Robert de Vipont, Brian de Lisle, Geoffrey de Lucy,

Philip d’Aubigné, “and others.”[161]

Next day arose a new peril, which recalls one of the incidents that

preceded another battle at Lincoln, seventy-six years before. “The

Normans who were in the host” went to the younger William Marshal and

addressed him thus: “Fair sir, you were born in Normandy; you ought to

know that it is the right of the Normans to strike the first blow in

every battle. Take heed that we lose not our right.” Earl Ranulf of

Chester, however--like his father in 1141--claimed the same privilege

for himself, and bluntly declared that unless he were placed in the

van, he would not go with the host, and they should have no help from

him. The Earl Marshal and the other leaders were obliged to pacify him

by granting his demand, on the understanding that the right of the

Normans should not be thereby prejudiced for the future.[162] Three

days were spent at Newark {Tues., 16 May}, as a breathing-time for

men and horses and an opportunity for religious exercises to prepare

the men for their task. On the third morning {Fri., 19 May}, after

Mass, the Legate and clergy again excommunicated Louis by name,

with all his accomplices and abettors, especially those who were

sieging Lincoln castle, “together with the city of Lincoln and all

its contents.” The Legate then gave plenary absolution to all who,

having made a truthful confession, were about to take part in the

expedition.[163] This done, the whole host flew to horse and arms.[164]

The Legate set out for Nottingham,[165] taking with him the young King.

For the fighting men, the direct route would have been the Foss Way,

which ran in an almost straight line from Newark to Lincoln. But it ran

to the southernmost gate of the city, below the hill; and their aim

was to reach the western side of the castle on the hill-top without

passing through the city, which was in the hands of the enemy. They

therefore fetched a compass to the northward as far as Torksey;[166]

and there, or at Stow[167] hard by, they spent the night. On Saturday

morning (May 20th), after Mass, they drew up in full array for their

final march upon Lincoln.[168] Once more the Marshal bade them fight,

“for honour or Paradise,” against the enemies of God and the Church.

“God has given them into our hands; up and at them! The hour is come!”

“And all who heard him bore themselves joyfully, as if they were

going to a tournament.”[169] Chester led the van; the Marshal and

his sons commanded the next division; Earl William of Salisbury the

third, and Bishop Peter of Winchester the fourth, which consisted of

cross-bowmen.[170] Another body of cross-bowmen--perhaps commanded by

Falkes--seems to have formed an advanced guard which marched a mile in

front of the rest of the host.[171]

The boundaries of medieval Lincoln were determined by those of the

Roman city on the site of which it was built. They formed, roughly

speaking, a parallelogram whose length from north to south was

considerably greater than its width, and whose northern half stood on

the summit of a steep and rocky hill whence the southern half sloped

down almost to the bank of the river Witham; the whole was divided

longitudinally by the Roman road known as Ermine Street. The city

“above hill” represented the original Roman camp; to this the part

“below hill” had been added in the later days of the Roman occupation.

The wall wherewith, in the thirteenth century and for many centuries

after, the whole was encompassed, followed in the main the outlines of

the Roman enclosure thus enlarged. The castle, founded by William the

Conqueror and partly reconstructed in the twelfth century, occupied

the south-western angle of the first Roman city: it was thus enclosed

on the north, east, and south within the later city, from which it was

separated by a wide and deep ditch. This ditch was continued along

its outer or western side; and on this side the walls of castle and

city formed one continuous line, the wall being carried across the

ditch at the north-western and south-western extremities of the castle

enclosure. Immediately north of the ditch at the former of these two

points of junction between the city wall and the castle wall, stood the

West Gate of the city; whether there was also a gate at the southern

junction point is not known. The castle had two main entrances; one

on the east, towards the city; the other on the west side, towards

the open country. The keep was on the south side. Beyond the western

wall and ditch the plateau formed by the hill-top extended some little

distance; and it was here that King Stephen had entrenched himself

when he besieged the castle in 1141, leaving the bishop and citizens

to watch the other three sides. The partisans of Louis seem not to

have been sufficiently sure of the citizens to venture on following

Stephen’s example; for they had evidently made no attempt to occupy

the site of his encampment, but had set up all their machines and

concentrated all their forces within the city, directing all their

attacks upon the castle from thence, and taking no steps to prevent its

garrison from communicating through the western sally-port with their

friends outside.

The main road from Torksey and Stow to Lincoln now enters the city

south of the castle; but there is a branch road connecting it at Burton

with an old Roman way which runs from Kirton-in-Lindsey and enters

Lincoln by the West Gate; and this appears to have been the way taken

by the Royalists. At some distance from the gate they halted, and the

Marshal sent forward his nephew John to open communications with the

garrison.[172] On his way John met Dame Nicolaa’s lieutenant constable,

Geoffrey de Serland, whom she had despatched from the castle secretly

to tell the leaders of the relieving host how matters stood within, and

that a “little door,” or “postern at the back”--that is, the small door

of the western sally-port, by which no doubt Geoffrey himself had gone

out--was already open to receive them.[173] With this welcome message

John Marshal hastened back; he was seen and chased by some Frenchmen,

but escaped unharmed.[174] Two of the English barons who were in the

city, Robert Fitz-Walter and Saer de Quincy the Earl of Winchester,

rode out to reconnoitre as soon as the Royalists’ approach was known.

On their return they said: “These warriors come on in good order, but

we are far more in number than they; let us go out to meet them at the

ascent of the hill, and then we can catch them all like larks in a

cage.” The Count of Perche, however, who was in command of the French

troops, was too cautious to act upon a report so vague and went out

himself with another of the French leaders, to count the enemies, as he

said, “according to the custom of France.” He was, however, deceived

in his reckoning; for each of the Royalist chieftains had two banners,

one of which led his contingent in the fighting host while the other

was with his baggage, so that the baggage, forming a separate group in

the rear, looked like another army and was mistaken for such by the two

Frenchmen, who went back doubting what was best to do. They finally

decided to shut the city gates and thus, as they hoped, hold the city

till they should have won the castle[175]; thinking that the English,

with men and horses wearied from a long march, would not attempt to

penetrate within the walls. When this movement came to the knowledge

of the Marshal, he made it an argument for instant attack. “See, they

retire behind their walls! The victory is ours already, when these men,

ever foremost in tourney, hide themselves at our approach. Let us do

the right, for God wills it!”[176]

It was easy to introduce troops into the castle by the western

sally-port; but it would not be so easy to pass the whole relieving

force through the castle into the city. Bishop Peter of Winchester, who

according to the Marshal’s biographer “was the master in counselling

our people that day,”[177] seems to have resolved on trying to

ascertain for himself where a direct entrance into the city could be

effected. He led his men up to the castle wall, bade them await him

there, and with a single attendant entered the fortress. He found it

greatly damaged by the long siege, and in such constant peril from the

French mangonels and stone-casters, still actively at work, that its

occupants begged him to withdraw from the great court into the shelter

of the keep. Thence, after complimenting and encouraging the “good

dame,”[178] he stole out, evidently by the small south door,[179] on

a yet more hazardous reconnoitring expedition into the city, “wishing

to see how it stood.”[180] Looking about him, he caught sight of a

gate “which joined the walls of the city with those of the castle,”

and which was “blocked with stone and cement.” This was apparently the

West Gate of the city.[181] The reason for which it had been blocked,

whether this was done by the French or (as is more probable) under

orders from Nicolaa[182] at an earlier period of the war, is not

difficult to guess. Lincoln had more gates than could easily be guarded

all at once;[183] if one of them was rendered impassable, there was

one less to watch and defend. The sequel implies that the “stone and

cement” were not so put together as to form a wall of solid masonry;

probably the door on the inner side of the gateway had been closed and

the obstruction piled up, rather than built up, on the outer side; if

so, it might be cleared away without its removal being noticed inside

the city until the door was forced open.[184] In all likelihood Peter’s

discovery of this possible entrance had really been made as he passed

the outer side of the gate on his way to the castle, and the purpose of

his daring venture was to learn whether its inner side was penetrable

and unguarded. He found that it was so, and having made his way back

safely to his friends, gave orders for the gate to be cleared out. His

comrades of the host came to meet him joyously, “every man in the ranks

singing as if the victory were already won”; Peter merrily told them

that when they had gained possession of the city he should claim the

bishop’s house for his own residence, as a reward for having prepared

them a safe way of entry.[185]

Possibly, however, the lay leaders may have been unwilling to stake the

safety of their enterprise solely on the judgement of their episcopal

counsellor; for it seems that while Falkes de Bréauté, with his own

followers and all the cross-bowmen, was sent into the castle, the main

body of the host went round to the north gate--the Roman “Porta Nova,”

“New Port,” now reduced to a single great arch with a smaller one at

its side, but in the Marshal’s day probably still almost complete in

the pristine strength of its solid Roman masonry, forming an arched

passage flanked by two smaller passages, some twenty feet long,[186]

and closed with heavy doors which the Royalists set to work to batter

in.[187] The French party were plying their engines vigorously on

the castle when suddenly they saw its walls and towers bristling with

cross-bowmen; and “as in the twinkling of an eye” a shower of quarrels,

aimed with deadly effect at the destriers of the besiegers, reduced

many knights and barons of high rank among them to the condition of

foot soldiers. The sight of their discomfiture tempted Falkes to make

a dash from the eastern gate of the castle into their midst, with

some of his personal followers; he was, however, quickly surrounded

and captured, but was gallantly rescued by his men.[188] Bishop Peter

meanwhile was protesting to the Marshal against the folly--as he deemed

it--of trying to force an entrance elsewhere than at the “safe” place

where, as he said, there was an opening in the wall ready for use, yet

hidden from and unguarded by the enemy. “By my head! those men are

wrong; they have not found the right way to get in. I will lead you

to it; come with me.” “By God’s sword! hither, my helmet!” was the

Marshal’s reply.[189] Peter however now held him back and proposed

that before risking a general assault two men from each “battle” or

division of the host should be sent to look around for ambushes.[190]

This was done; but the Marshal was too impatient to await the result.

He at once “put himself forward on his way,” calling his own men to

the onset: “Forward! Now shall ye see your enemies vanquished in a few

hours; shame to him who longer delays!” Again Peter tried to check him,

begging him to wait till the whole host could be reunited and the

attack made in full force. The aged warrior would not listen; “swifter

than a merlin he struck spurs into his horse, so that all who were with

him gathered hardihood as they beheld him.” A “valet” called after him

that he was, after all, going without his helmet; “Stop here while I

fetch it,” said the Marshal to his son. In a moment he was back again,

“and when he had thus covered his head, he was goodly to look upon

beyond all the rest--light in movement as a bird, hawk or eaglet.”

“Hungry lion never rushed on its prey so hotly as the Marshal on his

foes”; at the first onset he dashed three spears’ length into their

midst, cutting his way through them and scattering them on all sides,

while Bishop Peter followed shouting “God help the Marshal!”[191]

By this time the stubborn attack on the north gate had succeeded, and

all the Royalist forces thus poured in at once upon the besiegers of

the castle,[192] who, although numerically stronger, were unable to

withstand their onset,[193] aided as it was by the murderous fire which

Falkes’s cross-bowmen, from their vantage-ground on the castle wall,

poured down upon the horses of the French knights, the animals falling

“like stuck pigs” while the riders were captured without possibility

of rescue.[194] The French force is said to have consisted of six

hundred and eleven knights and full a thousand footmen; it is not quite

clear whether this reckoning includes their English allies.[195] Yet,

small as were the numbers engaged on both sides, the fight lasted from

between seven and eight o’clock in the morning till nearly three in the

afternoon.[196] It was protracted partly by the stubborn persistence

of the two parties, who both alike felt that the destiny of England

was involved in its result, and partly by the impossibility, in the

steep and narrow streets of a city such as Lincoln, of bringing it

to a decisive issue in one general encounter. It thus became a

battle of the old-world epic type, full of separate incidents and

individual encounters; and this peculiar character, together with the

extraordinarily small amount of actual bloodshed and loss of life that

took place in it, probably suggested the name afterwards given to by

the victors--“the Tournament,” or as the word is commonly but in this

case perhaps less accurately rendered, “Fair of Lincoln.”[197]

The first recorded incident was one of good omen for the Royalists.

Some of them found the enemy’s chief engineer[198] working a

stone-caster which hurled stones against one of the towers of the

castle. Mistaking the new-comers for knights of his own party, he, all

the more eagerly, placed a stone in his machine, but as he was giving

the signal for its discharge they came up behind him and struck off his

head.[199] The Marshal and the Earl of Salisbury “turned to the right,

leaving a minster on their left,”[200] and came upon a cluster of

enemies, one of whom, Robert of Ropsley, levelled his spear “to joust,”

and struck that of Longsword with such force that it shivered into

fragments; but the Marshal gave him such a blow between the shoulders

that he fell to the ground “and crawled away to hide himself.” The

fight swept onward almost to the brow of the hill on which the city

was set, till on a level space near the great minster,[201] the French

made a resolute stand under the direction of the Count of Perche.[202]

He was only a youth, of scarce two and twenty years,[203] “handsome,

tall, and noble-looking.”[204] He stood at bay as bravely as King

Stephen had stood in somewhat like circumstances in the earlier battle

of Lincoln; and for a while he and his men succeeded in checking

the progress of the Royalists. By degrees, however, the French lost

ground and began to fall back down the hill. Perche, with a few of his

personal followers, alone kept his post, and was at last surrounded

by almost the whole force of the English. They called upon him to

surrender, but he refused with an oath, saying he would never yield

to one of a race “who had been traitors to their king.”[205] Reginald

Croc, a knight of Falkes’s household,[206] then levelled a spear at

him and struck him in the eye. The Marshal, coming up at that moment,

seized the bridle of the count’s horse, “and it seemed right, as the

count was the chief man on the French side.” Perche dropped the bridle,

took his sword in both hands, and struck with it on the Marshal’s

helmet three blows in quick succession, “so mighty that they dinted it

visibly,” and then suddenly fell from his horse. The Marshal thought he

had fainted, “and feared that he himself should be blamed therefor.”

“Dismount and take off his helmet,” said one of Perche’s men, William

of Montigny, “for it hurts him; but I doubt he will stand up no more.”

Croc’s spear had in fact pierced through the eye to the brain, and when

the helmet was removed the friends and foes who crowded round saw that

the gallant youth was dead.[207]

Perche’s comrades at once rushed down the hill[208] and rejoined the

bulk of the French troops, to whom his heroism and the concentration

of the English around his person had given a breathing-space of which

they had made good use. They and their English allies had rallied in

the lower town, and now came, in close array, up the hill, hoping

to regain possession of its summit. Meanwhile the young Marshal had

rejoined his father. “Are you hurt?” asked the Earl. “No, Sir.”

“Forward then! This day we will conquer, or chase them from the

field.” Attacked on their right flank by Chester and his “good folk”

before they reached the hill-top, confronted when they did reach it

by the Marshals, and shut in between the minster and the castle, the

French, after another stubborn fight, were again driven down the slope;

and this time they were chased right out of the city and through

its southern gate, or Stone-Bow,[209] to Wigford Bridge.[210] There

they made a last gallant stand, fighting with such desperate fury

that “if God had spoken by thunder, He would not have been heard.”

Their pursuers were no less daring and impetuous: William Bloet, the

young Marshal’s standard-bearer, charged into the crowd on the bridge

with such vehemence that he and his horse went sheer over into the

river, only, however, to struggle out again with equal quickness and

gallantry. Gradually the cry of “King’s men! King’s men!”[211] rose

higher above the din. Saer de Quincy and his son Robert were taken;

so was Robert FitzWalter; so were several other rebel barons;[212] at

last the rest turned and fled across the suburb of Wigford by “the

street which goes straight to the hospital”[213]--in other words, the

whole length of the present High Street--till they reached the outer

or furthermost gate of Lincoln.[214] This gate, known as the Great or

Western Bar-Gate, protected the bridge by which the main road from

Lincoln to the south crossed the great drain called the Sincil Dyke.

Here the fugitives were checked by a double obstacle. The bar of the

gate was so constructed that the gate closed of itself after every

individual who passed in or out. Just as the foremost of them reached

it, a cow tried to enter, and, the gate falling upon her, stuck fast,

so that egress was altogether impossible till the animal was slain; and

even then, as there was apparently no means of fixing the gate open,

each man as he came up had to dismount and open it for himself.[215]

The unhappy fugitives might, it seems, have been captured or even slain

almost to a man, had their pursuers so willed it; but many of them were

English, and the ties of blood restrained their kinsmen in the royalist

host from carrying the pursuit to extremity.[216] Notwithstanding this

forbearance, however, a large number of prisoners were captured.[217]

Among these were nearly all the English barons who had sided with

Louis;[218] no less than seven were taken by John Marshal, and

several by Bishop Peter and his men;[219] forty-six in all are named

by contemporary historians;[220] and the prisoners of knightly rank

numbered three hundred,[221] besides many others of lesser degree.

Those who escaped “stopped neither by night nor by day, in town or

house, for they thought that on every hill-side and in every dale the

bushes were all full of Marshals.”[222] Only three of the “great men”

among the French--Simon of Poissy, Hugh the castellan of Arras, and

Eustace de Merlinghem the constable of Boulogne--reached London with

some two hundred knights. The foot-soldiers were nearly all slain by

the country folk who came out “with swords and staves” to intercept

their flight.[223] In the actual battle only five men had been slain;

on one side the Count of Perche, two of his knights,[224] and a

man-at-arms whom no one recognized; on the other, Perche’s slayer,

Reginald Croc.[225]

Unhappily, the English sullied their victory by sacking Lincoln. Not

content with seizing the baggage and valuable goods of the French

nobles and the rebel barons, which they found piled up in waggons

in some of the streets, they “despoiled the whole city, even to the

uttermost farthing”; and on the strength of Gualo’s exhortation to

treat the canons of the cathedral chapter as excommunicate (owing

to their having been throughout the war in opposition to the King),

they plundered every church, breaking open chests and presses and

carrying off plate, jewels, vestments, and money; the precentor of

the cathedral lost eleven thousand marks. Many women fled from the

city with their children and household goods, and sought to escape in

boats, but through their overcrowding and ignorance of rowing all the

little vessels capsized, the occupants were drowned, and the goods

became the prize of anyone who fished them up from the bottom of the

river.[226] All these things were done after the Marshal had left the

city. As soon as the fight was over he and the other leaders held a

council to consider what they should do next. Some were for marching

on London, some for trying to dislodge Louis from Dover. As they could

not agree, the Marshal with his usual practical good sense bade them

all go home and place their respective prisoners in safety, and meet

him again, with the Legate, on a day which he named, at Chertsey,[227]

or, according to another account, at Oxford.[228] He then, without

stopping even to eat, hurried with his tidings of victory to the King

and the Legate at Nottingham. Thither, next morning {_Trinity Sunday,

21 May_}, came news of another gain to the royal cause; the garrison

of Mountsorel, whose constable, Henry de Braybroke, had gone with Saer

de Quincy to Lincoln, had fled and left the castle deserted.[229] The

Earl of Salisbury appears to have been sent to secure it for the King;

two days later {23 May} an order was issued to him from Lincoln, in

the King’s name, to deliver it to Earl Ranulf of Chester,[230] who

forthwith razed it to the ground.[231]

On Thursday, 25th May,[232] the news of the Fair of Lincoln reached

Louis in his camp before Dover. He took counsel with his friends; and

they all agreed that he must raise the siege, concentrate in London,

and send to France for reinforcements. Unwillingly he caused his

trebuchet to be taken down, and prepared to withdraw, but determined

to stay over Sunday 28th, “to see whether he would get any news.” On

the Sunday “it was very clear at sea, and looking towards Calais they

saw many ships with their sails set, whereof they rejoiced greatly.”

Next day {29 May} the ships “came sailing over the sea right merrily,

to the number of full six score.” The English, when they saw them,

hoisted their sails and put to sea; the French set off in chase, but

finding they could not catch them put about again and made straight for

Dover. The English then put about likewise, overtook the hindermost

ships of the French fleet, and captured eight of them; the rest got

safe into the harbour, and were met by Louis on the beach. To his

great disappointment and rage, however, he found that, except one

large vessel in which were eighteen knights, they brought nothing but

sailors, merchants, and men-at-arms. Next day {30 May} he sent them

all back again, with two messengers charged with letters to his father.

Then he set fire to “all the ships which were ashore before the haven,”

and betook himself to Canterbury and thence to London, where he arrived

on Thursday, 1st June.[233]

The Royalists meanwhile had advanced by way of Windsor and Staines

to Chertsey;[234] thence they made secret overtures to some of the

leading citizens of London for the surrender of the city. Tempted

on the one hand by the promise of a confirmation of its liberties

“under the King’s seal,” and terrified on the other hand by the fate

of Lincoln, London was clearly beginning to waver; and Louis, on

discovering these secret negotiations, could only secure himself in the

city by closing all its gates save one and insisting upon a renewal

of homage from the citizens to himself.[235] At the beginning of June

the Archbishop of Tyre, who had come to Europe to preach a crusade,

arrived in England from France, accompanied by the abbots of Citeaux,

Clairvaux, and Pontigny, and endeavoured to reconcile the contending

parties.[236] Several parleys were held,[237] and a draft treaty was

actually prepared[238] and seems to have been discussed between four

of Louis’s counsellors and four of Henry’s, who met, accompanied by

twenty knights of each party, between Brentford and Hounslow,[239] on

13th June. But the meeting proved useless because Louis insisted upon

including in the peace four clerks whose conduct had been, alike in an

ecclesiastical and a political point of view, so outrageous that the

Legate absolutely refused to admit them to any terms without previously

consulting the Pope.[240] The unsuccessful mediators returned to France

at the end of the month.[241]

Meanwhile Falkes de Bréauté had taken Lynn.[242] On 23rd June the

sheriffs were ordered to publish the Charter in their shires and see

that it was put in execution.[243] The King and his council then

withdrew to Gloucester;[244] and it was probably during their temporary

absence from the neighbourhood of London that Louis sent the Viscount

of Melun and Eustace de Neville on a plundering raid into East Anglia,

whence they returned laden with the spoils of the famous abbey of S.

Edmund.[245]