dominions, made him wish to be at home; and in 1192 he began
negotiations with Saladin. He might even yet have been successful.
In the course of the year he marched within sight of the Holy City.
But his allies insisted that the capture was impossible, and he
withdrew to Ascalon. There all causes for giving up his enterprise
became stronger. The split with France widened. He quarrelled
deeply with the Archduke of Austria, and with the faction of Conrad
of Montferrat, who was also intriguing with Saladin. News of the
disturbances in his own kingdom reached him. Everything urged him
to go home. He summoned a council to settle the dispute as to the
kingdom, was astonished when Conrad was named, but unwillingly gave
his consent. At this very time, in what appeared to be only too
opportune a moment for Richard, Conrad was murdered, as there seems
no reason to doubt, by two members of the sect of the Assassins
sent by the Old Man of the Mountain;[32] but the crime was soon
fastened upon Richard. For the present, however, he was free to
take advantage of the death of Montferrat. Sure of the incompetence
of Lusignan, he gave the kingdom to Henry of Champagne. To save
appearances, he made one more rapid advance towards Jerusalem,
but halted within sight of the city, apparently overborne by the
argument that an attack on Egypt would be more profitable. Hearing
that Saladin was besieging Joppa, he hastened to the relief of that
town, and there won his final victory. Both he and Saladin were
worn in health and weary of the strife. A three years’ truce was
arranged between them. By this it was agreed that Ascalon should
be shared with the Turks, while the Christians should possess from
Joppa to Tyre, the Counts of Tripoli and Antioch should be included
in the treaty, and pilgrims have free access to Jerusalem. He then
set off on his homeward voyage.
[Sidenote: John’s behavior in England. 1191.]
It was indeed time for the King to return. Richard had left William
of Ely the chief command both in Church and State. An ambitious
upstart, of ostentatious habits, William speedily roused against
himself the bitterest hatred. He had one dangerous enemy who could
give a voice to this unpopularity. This was the King’s brother
John, who wished to secure what he believed would be the speedy
succession to the throne, while William sought to give a seeming
legality to his position by upholding the claim of young Arthur
of Brittany. Hence arose two great factions in the kingdom. The
King, hearing in Sicily of the misdeeds of his Chancellor, had
commissioned Archbishop Walter of Rouen, and William, the heir
of Strongbow of Pembroke, if necessary, to remove him from the
regency; at all events to join themselves with him and Fitz-Peter
in a committee of government. Archbishop Walter shrank from the
task. The quarrel came to an issue at Lincoln, which Gerard of
Camville held in the interests of John, and which the Chancellor
claimed for the crown. John seized the royal castles of Nottingham
and Tickhill, and the question was brought before a meeting at
Winchester, where a compromise was effected. A second cause of
quarrel occurred, when the Bishop caused Geoffrey, the King’s
natural brother, the new Archbishop of York, who had landed in
England contrary to his oath, to be apprehended in the very church
at Dover. The two brothers made common cause. They demanded
satisfaction for Geoffrey, and summoned a meeting between Reading
and Windsor. Meanwhile the Chancellor suddenly left Windsor, and
shut himself up in the Tower of London, and the meeting reassembled
in St. Paul’s. There all the charges against the Chancellor were
produced; Hugh of Durham produced his old grievances, Geoffrey of
York his late injuries. The Tower was ill provided with food; the
Chancellor was obliged to appear and to plead; but now at length
Richard’s envoys produced their authority. Longchamp was dismissed
from his offices. Walter of Rouen was put in his place, and the
fallen Chancellor took refuge in France. The Pope received him,
and excommunicated his enemies; but as usual this proceeding, when
against the popular feeling, had but little effect.
[Sidenote: Return of Philip Augustus.]
Meanwhile Philip Augustus had been returning from the Holy Land.
In December 1192 he reached Paris, and early in the following year
demanded from the Seneschal of Normandy the restoration of his
sister Alice, the Castle of Gisors, and the towns of Aumale and
Eu, which he said that Richard had promised him. On the refusal of
this request he began to tamper with John, begging him to come to
him, when Normandy and England should be assured to him. John was
stopped from immediate action by the influence of Queen Eleanor,
but the disorder in the country was becoming flagrant. Richard’s
French vassals in Aquitaine were with difficulty suppressed.
[Sidenote: Need of Richard’s return.]
[Sidenote: His imprisonment in Germany.]
[Sidenote: John and Philip combine against him.]
It was plain that the return of the King alone could save the
kingdom. Yet those English pilgrims who returned home before
Christmas were surprised to find the King yet absent. He did not
come, and the gloomy news was at length noised abroad that he
was in a dungeon in Germany. He had attempted to return by sea,
but afraid to travel through France, he had made his way up the
Adriatic, intending to cross Germany to the dominions of his
friend and relative the Duke of Saxony. Travelling in disguise,
he had been discovered while in the Duchy of Austria; and the
Archduke, whose anger he had roused at Ascalon, made him his
prisoner. He shortly after sold him to Henry VI., Emperor of
Germany. The capture of the King, whose name was in every one’s
mouth, strongly excited the feelings of Europe, and steps were
immediately taken for his liberation. But to John his imprisonment
served only as a means of aggrandizement. He hurried abroad, did
homage to Philip, purchasing his favour with Gisors, the Vexin,
and with Tours, and pledging himself not to make peace with his
brother without Philip’s permission. He tried to persuade the
English justiciaries that his brother was dead, and secured, with
his auxiliaries, Wallingford and Windsor. Philip, too, basely
took advantage of his rival’s position, used all his influence to
lengthen his imprisonment, broke off the feudal connection between
them, and invaded his dominions. Richard’s subjects were, however,
remarkably true to him. The justiciaries, assisted by Queen
Eleanor, boldly opposed John in England, and the burghers of Rouen
put Philip to a shameful flight.
[Sidenote: England ransoms him.]
In Germany Richard did homage to Henry for England. The connection
of England with Germany makes it possible that there may have been
some political meaning in this act. Some general action against
France, or against Apulia, may have been thought of. But it came
to nothing. It was afterwards cancelled by Henry himself, and has
been generally regarded as a mere formality. However formal the
act of homage may have been, Richard was certainly much connected
with the German Empire. He mixed authoritatively in the next
imperial election, after the death of Henry VI. in 1198; and it
was chiefly by his influence that Otho, his nephew, a prince of
the Guelphic royal family, and generally regarded as an English
prince, was elected to succeed him. Of more immediate importance
to England than this connection was the sum of money demanded for
the King’s ransom. The form of a trial was gone through at Spiers.
All the charges which had been brought against him in the East
were repeated;--his friendship with Tancred, his victory over
Isaac, the murder of Conrad, his insults to Austria, even his final
treaty with Saladin. He replied frankly and eloquently to these
charges, and it was finally agreed that he should be liberated on
the payment of 100,000 marks of silver, and 50,000 additional as
a contribution to the Emperor’s proposed march against Apulia. He
was to be liberated as soon as the first sum was paid; for the
payment of the second hostages were to be left. With considerable
difficulty the money was collected, chiefly from the estates of
the Church; and after some further difficulties, caused by the
intrigues of Philip Augustus, in 1194, on the 13th of March the
King landed at Sandwich.
[Sidenote: Destruction of John’s party.]
[Sidenote: War with France.]
[Sidenote: Richard’s death at Chaluz. 1199.]
His appearance in England at once destroyed the influence of John’s
party. Hubert the Justiciary had been doing his best to suppress
it; such castles as still held out surrendered at the presence of
Richard. His residence in England was short. He caused himself to
be re-crowned, to remove the stain of his captivity, had recourse
to his old nefarious means of gathering money, and then, weary of
idleness, crossed into the more troubled country of France. With
Philip it was impossible that he should have peace. An almost
continuous war between the kings occupied the rest of the reign.
Richard never displayed the talents of a general, and the war
dwindled into an uninteresting series of petty skirmishes. These
were usually decided in favour of Richard. Once, in the year 1196,
united action among the enemies of France seemed to threaten Philip
with a heavy blow. Raymond of St. Gilles, Richard’s old enemy,
married his sister, Joanna of Sicily; the Count of Flanders, the
Bretons, and the Count of Champagne joined in the league; and in
the following year, Count Baldwin of Flanders succeeded in taking
Philip prisoner, but he was freed on promising peace; nor for want
of leaders did the alliance get much beyond the ordinary petty
warfare of the time. At length, in 1198, a truce was patched up by
the Papal influence, but before disbanding his troops, Richard led
them to attack the Castle of Chaluz, where the Count of Limoges was
said to be keeping some treasure which the King claimed. He was
there wounded in the shoulder, as he rode round the walls, and the
wound proved fatal. During his illness the castle was taken, and
all the garrison hanged, with the exception of Bertrand de Gourdon,
who had discharged the fatal arrow. He was reserved for the King’s
own judgment. “What have I done,” asked the King, “that you should
take my life?” “You have killed my father and my two brothers,”
answered he, “and I would willingly bear any torture to see you
die.” King Richard is said, in spite of his merciless temper, to
have ordered his life to be spared. Mercadi, the chief of his
mercenaries, was not so scrupulous; he had him flayed and hanged.
Although the King himself was but a few months in his own
country, the conduct of affairs in England possesses some
interest, as showing the further advance of the administrative
system established by Henry II. After the King’s return from his
captivity, and final triumph over the machinations of John, the
kingdom was left in the hand of Hubert Walter, Archbishop of
Canterbury. He had been trained by Glanvill, and belonged to the
class of officials created by the late King. It was through his
activity that, while the ransom was still being collected, the
kingdom was reduced to tranquillity, and John’s castles captured
in the name of the King. On Richard’s withdrawal to his native
dominions, Hubert held the three high offices of Justiciary,
Archbishop, and Papal Legate. The whole government of the
kingdom was virtually in his hands. It was carried on by him in
harmony with the system in which he had been trained; and in the
instructions given to the justices, for a great visitation of the
kingdom in the year 1194, we find the superiority of the central
to the local courts still further increased by an order, that
sheriffs should not act as justices in their own counties. The
dangerous power of these officers was for the time destroyed,
when afterwards by the Magna Charta they were forbidden to hold
the pleas of the crown at all, that is to say, all business in
which the crown was interested was removed from their jurisdiction
to that of the central courts. The demands of Richard for money
were incessant. And on one occasion, when a large carucage, or
tax upon every carucate of land, was demanded, which was in fact
a renewal of the Danegelt in another shape, a fresh survey of
the country, established by sworn and representative witnesses,
and very similar to the Domesday survey, was ordered. In this
system of representative inquiry for financial purposes is to be
found the beginning of the representative system subsequently
employed in Parliament. So heavy were the taxes, that opposition
was finally excited, and Hugh of Lincoln followed the example of
Thomas à Becket, and refused payment from his Church land. It was
apparently in connection with this opposition that Hubert, in 1198,
withdrew from his secular work, and was succeeded by Geoffrey
Fitz-Peter. Politically, the strength of the crown exhibited in
these transactions, the very completeness and excellence of Henry’s
system, tended to change the interests of the various classes in
England. The crown, hitherto the champion of the people against
the feudal barons, began to overstrain its power, and all classes
were gradually forced into opposition to it,--a work completed by
the greater and less glorious tyranny of John, and by the increased
feeling of nationality excited among the barons, when the loss of
Normandy severed them entirely from France.
_Lines of Jerusalem and Sicily._
Godfrey de Bouillon, 1st King of Jerusalem; his brother Baldwin I.,
2nd King.
Baldwin II., cousin of Godfrey, 3rd King.
|
Melisenda = Fulk of Anjou.
|
+--------+------+
| |
Baldwin III. Almeric.
|
+----------------+----------------+------------+
| | |
Baldwin IV., Sybilla = Guy of Lusignan. Elizabeth = Conrad of
the leper. Montferrat.
=======================================================================
Tancred of Hauteville, descended from Rollo, Duke of Normandy.
|
+----+------------------------+
| |
Robert Guiscard, Roger.
conquered Sicily, |
1090. Roger, 1st King of Sicily, 1130-1154.
|
+----------------------+-------+------------+
| | |
Roger, died 1148. William I., 1154. Constance = Henry VI.,
| | Emperor.
Tancred, 1189. William II., 1166 = Joanna.
JOHN.
1199-1216.
Born 1167 = 1. Hadwisa of Gloucester.
= 2. Isabella de la Marche.
|
+-------+----+----------+-----+-------------------+
| | | | |
Henry III. | Jane=Alexander Isabella=Frederick Eleanor = 1. William of
| II. II. Pembroke.
Richard. = 2. Simon de
d. 1272. Montfort.
CONTEMPORARY PRINCES.
_Scotland._ | _France._ | _Germany._ | _Spain._
| | |
William, 1165. | Philip Augustus, | Philip, 1198. | Alphonso IX.,
Alexander II., 1214. | 1180. | Otho IV., 1209. | 1158.
| | | Henry I., 1214.
POPE.--Innocent III., 1198.
_Archbishops._ | _Chief-Justices._ | _Chancellors._
| |
Hubert Walter, | Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, 1199. | Hubert Walter, 1199.
1193-1205. | Peter des Roches, 1214. | Walter Grey, 1205.
Stephen Langton, | Hubert de Burgh, 1215. | Peter des Roches, 1213.
1207-1228. | | Walter Grey, 1214.
| | Richard de Marisco, 1214.
[Sidenote: John secures the crown.]
King Richard had nominated John as his successor, having never
renewed the recognition of Arthur of Brittany which he had made in
Sicily. The new King at once set about securing his possession.
He succeeded in laying hands upon the treasury at Chinon and the
castles of Normandy. In Brittany, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine,
there were signs of opposition. The barons put forward the claim
of Arthur; Constance, his mother, took the young prince to the
court of Philip, and that king proceeded in his name to master the
towns and fortresses. But the assistance of his mother Eleanor, who
had taken possession of her old inheritance Poitou and Aquitaine,
enabled John to make successful opposition to the invasion, and
on the 25th of April he was crowned at Rouen, and felt himself
strong enough to establish his claims in England. Thither he
had already sent the chief of his brother’s ministers--Hubert
Walter, the Archbishop of Canterbury; Fitz-Peter, justiciary, and
afterwards Earl of Essex; and William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke.
These ministers had already obliged the nobles to tender their
oath of allegiance; and John, on his arrival in May, was crowned
at Westminster, taking the usual oaths to guard the Church, to do
justice, and to repeal bad laws, but giving no further charter.
The Archbishop is said to have begun the coronation with the
declaration that the throne was elective, an assertion received
with acclamation by those who were present. He is said afterwards
to have declared that he took this step, knowing the King’s
character; he was, however, throughout his life a devoted servant
of the crown.
[Sidenote: His strong position.]
[Sidenote: His danger from France. 1200.]
John’s position at the beginning of his reign was good. He was
accepted in England; he was strong enough to refuse the Scottish
King’s demands on Northumberland and Cumberland; the Counts of
Flanders and Boulogne made offers of friendship; and Otho of
Germany even pressed him not to make peace with the French king,
promising to come to his assistance. It was from Philip only that
he appeared to have to dread any danger; for that king’s early
friendship for him had now changed to hatred, as he declared
because he had accepted his continental dominions without asking
leave of him, his feudal superior. We have thus early the key to
the policy of Philip Augustus, who was determined to make use
of the letter of the feudal law to bring his great vassal into
subjection and establish royalty in France. He had a ready weapon
in the person of young Arthur, who had already done homage to him
for Maine, Anjou, Touraine, and Brittany. The efforts of the Church
were however constantly exerted to keep the peace between these
rivals; and Philip had a difficulty on his own hands which induced
him to desire peace. He had married Ingelborga of Denmark, but had
almost immediately separated from her and married Agnes de Méranie.
The cause of the divorced princess was warmly taken up at Rome, and
in this year Innocent III. had laid France under an interdict.
[Sidenote: Peace with Philip, and marriage treaty.]
[Sidenote: Marriage with Isabella de la Marche.]
[Sidenote: Homage of Scotland.]
Under these circumstances a treaty was patched up. John promised
to young Louis, the heir of France, the hand of his niece Blanche
of Castile, and along with her the Earldom of Evreux; at the
same time pledging himself not to assist his nephew Otho against
the rival Emperor of Germany, Philip of Swabia. Philip in return
secured to England the disputed province of the Vexin, and for the
time dropped the claims of Arthur. A formal interchange of homage
was then made; on the part of John for his French possessions, on
the part of Louis for his newly acquired earldom, on the part of
Arthur for his provinces in France. John at once began to destroy
his good position. A large aid gathered before his coronation, and
another for the purpose of paying a sum of money demanded by the
late treaty, had already excited anger in England. He now proceeded
to rouse the displeasure of some of his chief French nobles. He
put away his wife Hadwisa, the daughter of the Earl of Gloucester,
and was beginning to treat for the hand of a Portuguese princess,
when he suddenly fell in love with Isabella, the daughter of the
Count of Angoulême, and carried her off from her betrothed husband,
the Count de la Marche. Before the storm broke, however, he was
able to oblige the Scotch king, with whom he had been in constant
correspondence, to meet him at Lincoln, and there to do him homage,
and to swear to be his liegeman for life, limb and land. It must
be supposed that this was real personal homage for the kingdom of
Scotland, as William the Lion’s claims on the Northern counties
were still postponed.
[Sidenote: Outbreak in Poitou.]
[Sidenote: John’s French provinces forfeited. 1202.]
But the King’s difficulties soon began. Wishing to collect an
army to suppress disturbances in Poitou, he was met by a refusal
from his barons, who assembled at Leicester, and demanded the
establishment of their rights. The disturbances in Poitou were
caused by the insurrection of the Count de la Marche, full of
anger at losing his wife. Deserted by his barons, John was unable
to suppress the insurrection. He had been invited to Paris, and
received with every demonstration of friendship; but while there
the barons of Poitou, following the policy of Philip Augustus, and
it is fair to believe induced by him, lodged formal complaints with
the French king as their suzerain. John was called upon to plead
before the feudal Court of Peers. He refused, averring that the
Duke of Normandy had never transacted business with his suzerain
except personally upon the borders of his own duchy. Philip seized
the opportunity, urged that the Duke of Normandy was at the same
time Count of Poitou, obtained judgment against John, declared all
his fiefs forfeited and again raised the claims of Arthur. War was
the immediate consequence. The defection of the Count of Boulogne
opened the west of Normandy, and that side of the country was
speedily in the hands of the French.
[Sidenote: Death of Arthur. 1203.]
Arthur himself now appeared in arms, renounced John, and entered
Poitou in alliance with the insurgent barons. He there besieged
Mirabeau, where the old Queen then was lying ill on her return from
a journey into Spain, whither she had gone to fetch the Princess of
Castile, according to the treaty with the French King. The capture
of the castle seemed inevitable, when John, with one of those
sudden acts of vigour which broke his indolent life, suddenly came
upon the besiegers, and surrounded them, rescued his mother, and
took the young prince captive. The war became still more vehement.
The Bretons claimed the restoration of their prince. Philip moved
his army to the Loire, and town after town was captured, while John
lay in sensual enjoyment at Rouen. The Norman barons, unused to
an unwarlike governor, deserted to Philip, and John was compelled
to return to England. He had hardly reached it when the terrible
rumour spread that the young Prince Arthur had disappeared. His
fate is variously related. The more commonly accepted story is,
that, imprisoned at Falaise, under the care of Hubert de Burgh, he
escaped, by the good will of his custodian, from the designs of
John, who had sent to have his eyes put out. He was thence removed
to Rouen, to the charge of Robert de Vipont, and murdered, perhaps
by his uncle’s own hand, and his body thrown into the Seine.
[Sidenote: Loss of Normandy. 1205.]
However he may have died, his death raised a storm of indignation.
Philip pressed more boldly forward. In March 1204, Chateau
Gaillard, the key of Normandy upon the Seine, was taken. One after
the other, Caen, Bayeux, Coutances, Lisieux, and all the country
to Mont St. Michel, were captured; Rouen alone remained. John was
again summoned before the Peers at Paris. Philip even prepared to
invade England, and to make good there the claims of the Counts of
Brabant and Boulogne, who had married the granddaughters of King
Stephen. In June, Rouen was compelled to capitulate, and in the
following year, Loches and Chinon, south of the Loire, yielded, and
Rochelle, Niort, and Thouars, in Poitou, were the only towns left
in the possession of the English.
[Sidenote: Peace with Philip. 1206.]
Meanwhile John had tried in vain to assemble an effective army in
England. He had raised money and collected troops, but it would
seem that they were disaffected; for at the urgent entreaties of
his faithful servants, Hubert of Canterbury and William Marshall,
they were disbanded. One futile attempt was indeed made from
Rochelle, and John boasted loudly of his capture of Montauban, but
he was none the less compelled in October of this year to make a
two years’ peace with Philip. The connection between England and
Normandy was thus for ever broken; henceforward the country was
thrown upon its own resources, and its life and interests became
more distinctly national.
Many causes had been at work to separate the interests of the crown
and nation, but before mentioning them it will be necessary to
speak of the second great event of John’s reign, his dispute with
Innocent III.
[Sidenote: Election of the Archbishop of Canterbury.]
[Sidenote: Election of Stephen Langton. 1207.]