demeanour in Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 593. It seems
impossible to make out who this man really was. R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 166, the Ann. Margam, a. 1199 (Luard,
_Ann. Monast._, vol. i. p. 24), the anonymous continuator of
Geoff. Vigeois (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._, vol. ii. p. 342) and
Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 135, call him Peter Basilius or
Basilii. Gervase calls him John Sabraz; Rog. Howden, Bertrand
de Gourdon; and Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. v. (Duchesne,
_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. p. 156), Guy, without any
surname at all. But as Géraud proves (art. “Mercadier,” in
_Bibl. de l’Ecole des Chartes_, ser. i. vol. iii. pp. 433, 434,
442), it cannot have been Bertrand de Gourdon; for the only man
who is known to have borne that name was still living in 1231,
while Rog. Howden himself tells us that Richard’s pardon did
not avail to save the life of his slayer. Mercadier detained
the man till the king was dead, and then had him flayed and
hanged; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 84;--or, according to
another account, he sent him to Jane, and it was she who took
this horrible vengeance for her brother’s death. Ann. Winton.
a. 1199 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p. 71).
[1932] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 96. This must be, at any
rate, an exaggeration; for Richard had certainly communicated
upon at least one occasion within the last five years--at his
crowning at Winchester in April 1194. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs),
vol. i. p. 526.
[1933] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 166; Gerv. Cant. (as
above), p. 593; Rog. Howden as above; Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol.
iii. p. 136; Ann. Winton. and Waverl. a. 1199 (Luard as above,
pp. 71, 251); Geoff. Vigeois Contin. (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._,
vol. ii.), p. 342. R. Coggeshall as above, and the Chron. S.
Flor. Salm. a. 1199 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 194), make it
April 7; on the part of R. Coggeshall, however, this is clearly
a mere slip, for he rightly places the death on the eleventh
day after the wound. Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._,
vol. v.), p. 42, and the Chron. S. Serg. a. 1199 (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, p. 151), date it April 8, and the Ann. Margam, a.
1199 (Luard, as above, vol. i. p. 24), April 10.
[1934] Rog. Howden as above. Cf. Rog. Wend. as above.
[1935] “Cum jam dies clauderetur, diem clausit extremum.” R.
Coggeshall as above.
[1936] _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), p. 286. The funeral was on
Palm Sunday; _ibid._
[1937] She seems not to have got his letter in time to see him
alive. Berengaria was at Beaufort in Anjou, whither S. Hugh
turned aside to visit and comfort her on his way from Angers to
Fontevraud; and the state of intense grief in which he found
her supplies another proof of Richard’s capacity for winning
love which he did not altogether deserve. _Mag. Vita S. Hug._
(Dimock), p. 286.
[1938] Ann. Winton. a. 1199 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p.
71).
[1939] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. v. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 157.
[1940] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 593. According to the
Ann. Winton. as above, it was “paulo majus pomo pini.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE FALL OF THE ANGEVINS.
1199–1206.
“In the year 1199,” says a contemporary French writer, “God visited the
realm of France; for King Richard was slain.”[1941] Richard’s death
was in truth the signal for the break-up of the Angevin dominions
to the profit of the French Crown. John, who was at the moment in
Britanny, hurried southward as soon as he heard the news. Three days
after the funeral--on April 14, the Wednesday before Easter--he
arrived at Chinon, the seat of the Angevin treasury; the wardens of
the castle[1942] welcomed him as their lord in his brother’s stead;
the household of the late king came to meet him and acknowledged him
in like manner, after receiving from him a solemn oath that he would
carry out Richard’s testamentary directions and maintain the customs of
the lands over which he was called to rule.[1943] On this understanding
the treasury was given up to him by the Angevin seneschal, Robert of
Turnham.[1944] After keeping Easter at Beaufort,[1945] he proceeded
into Normandy; here he was received without opposition, and on the
Sunday after Easter was invested with the sword, lance and coronet
of the duchy by Archbishop Walter at Rouen.[1946] As the lance was
put into his hands he turned with characteristic levity to join in
the laughing comments of the young courtiers behind him, and in so
doing let the symbol of his ducal authority fall to the ground. His
irreverent behaviour and refusal to communicate on Easter-day had
already drawn upon him a solemn warning from S. Hugh; and this fresh
example of his profane recklessness, and its consequence, were noted
as omens which later events made but too easy of interpretation.[1947]
For the moment, however, the Normans were willing to transfer to
Richard’s chosen successor the loyalty which they had shewn towards
Richard himself; and so, too, were the representatives of the English
Church and baronage who happened to be on the spot, Archbishop Hubert
and William the Marshal.[1948] But in the Angevin lands Philip’s
alliance with the Bretons, fruitless so long as Richard lived, bore
fruit as soon as the lion-heart had ceased to beat. While Philip
himself invaded the county of Evreux and took its capital,[1949]
Arthur was at once sent into Anjou with a body of troops;[1950] his
mother, released or escaped from her prison, joined him at the head
of the Breton forces;[1951] they marched upon Le Mans, whence John
himself only escaped the night before it fell into their hands;[1952]
Angers was given up to them by its governor, a nephew of the seneschal
Robert of Turnham;[1953] and on Easter-day,[1954] while John was
actually holding court within fifteen miles of them at Beaufort, the
barons of Anjou, Touraine and Maine held a council at which Arthur was
unanimously acknowledged as lawful heir to his uncle Richard according
to the customs of the three counties, and their capital cities were
surrendered to him at once.[1955] At Le Mans he met the French king
and did homage to him for his new dominions, Constance swearing fealty
with him.[1956] Shortly afterwards, at Tours, Constance formally
placed her boy, who was now twelve years old, under the guardianship
of Philip; and Philip at once took upon himself the custody and the
administration of all the territories of his ward.[1957]
[1941] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 80.
[1942] “A proceribus quibusdam _Anglorum_ castrum ipsum
servantibus.” _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), p. 287.
[1943] _Ibid._
[1944] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 86. R. Coggeshall
(Stevenson), p. 99.
[1945] Rog. Howden as above, p. 87.
[1946] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 166. Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 87, 88. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p.
99. _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), p. 293.
[1947] _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), pp. 291–294.
[1948] Rog. Howden as above, p. 86.
[1949] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.
43. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 80. Cf. R.
Coggeshall as above.
[1950] Rigord as above.
[1951] Cf. R. Coggeshall as above, and _Mag. Vita S. Hug._
(Dimock), p. 296, with Rog. Howden as above, p. 87.
[1952] _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ as above.
[1953] Rog. Howden as above, p. 86.
[1954] Chron. S. Albin. a. 1199 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 50).
[1955] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 86, 87. Cf. R. Coggeshall as
above.
[1956] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.
43.
[1957] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 87. The Chron. S.
Albin. a. 1200 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 51) places this a year
later.
Neither in personal influence nor in political skill, however, was
Constance a match for her mother-in-law. Eleanor was, as has been seen,
at Fontevraud when Richard died. Feeling and policy alike inclined her
to favour the cause of his chosen successor, her own only surviving
son, rather than that of a grandson whom most likely she had never
even seen. She therefore effected a junction with Mercadier and his
Brabantines as soon as they had had time to march up from Châlus,
and the whole band of mercenaries, headed by the aged queen and the
ruthless but faithful Provençal captain, overran Anjou with fire and
sword to punish its inhabitants for their abandonment of John.[1958]
Having given this proof of her undiminished energy, Eleanor, to take
away all pretext for French intermeddling in the south, went to meet
Philip at Tours and herself did homage to him for Poitou.[1959] By this
means Aquitaine was secured for John. John himself had made a dash
into Maine and burned Le Mans in vengeance for the defection of its
citizens.[1960] He could, however, venture upon no serious attempt at
the reconquest of the Angevin lands till he had secured his hold upon
Normandy and England; and for this his presence was now urgently needed
on the English side of the Channel.
[1958] Rog. Howden as above, p. 88.
[1959] Rigord as above.
[1960] Rog. Howden as above, p. 87. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson),
p. 99.
Archbishop Hubert and William the Marshal had already returned to
England charged with a commission from John to assist the justiciar
Geoffrey Fitz-Peter in maintaining order there until the new king
should arrive.[1961] The precaution was far from being a needless one.
The news of Richard’s death reached England on Easter Eve; and its
consequences appeared the very next morning, when some of the nobles
and knights went straight from their Easter feast to begin a course
of rapine and depredation which recalls the disorders after the death
of Henry I., and which was only checked by the return of the primate.
Hubert at once excommunicated the evil-doers,[1962] and, in concert
with the Marshal, summoned all the men of the realm to swear fealty and
peaceable submission to John, as heir of Henry Fitz-Empress. The peace,
however, was not so easy to keep now as it had been during the interval
between Henry’s death and Richard’s coronation. Since then John himself
had set an example which those whom he now claimed as his subjects
were not slow to follow. All who had castles, whether bishops, earls
or barons, furnished them with men, victuals and arms, and assumed
an attitude of defence, if not of defiance; and this attitude they
quitted only when the archbishop, the marshal and the justiciar had
called all the malcontents to a conference at Northampton, and there
solemnly promised that John should render to all men their rights,
if they would keep faith and peace towards him. On this the barons
took the oath of fealty and liege homage to John. The king of Scots
refused to do the like unless his lost counties of Northumberland and
Cumberland were restored to him, and despatched messengers charged with
these demands to John himself; the envoys were, however, intercepted by
the archbishop and his colleagues, and the Scot king was for a while
appeased by a promise of satisfaction when the new sovereign should
arrive in his island-realm.[1963]
[1961] Rog. Howden as above, p. 86.
[1962] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 98.
[1963] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 88, 89.
On May 25 John landed at Shoreham; next day he reached London;[1964]
on the 27th--Ascension-day--the bishops and barons assembled for the
crowning in Westminster abbey.[1965] John’s coronation is one of the
most memorable in English history. It was the last occasion on which
the old English doctrine of succession to the crown was formally
asserted and publicly vindicated, and that more distinctly than it had
ever been since the Norman conquest. In the midst of the crowded church
the archbishop stood forth and spoke: “Hearken, all ye that are here
present! Be it known unto you that no man hath any antecedent right
to succeed another in the kingdom, except he be unanimously chosen
by the whole realm, after invocation of the Holy Spirit’s grace, and
unless he be also manifestly thereunto called by the pre-eminence of
his character and conversation, after the pattern of Saul the first
anointed king, whom God set over his people, although he was not of
royal race, and likewise after him David, the one being chosen for his
energy and fitness for the regal dignity, the other for his humility
and holiness; that so he who surpassed all other men of the realm in
vigour should also be preferred before them in authority and power. But
indeed if there be one of the dead king’s race who excelleth, that one
should be the more promptly and willingly chosen. And these things have
I spoken in behalf of the noble Count John here present, the brother of
our late illustrious King Richard, now deceased without direct heir;
and forasmuch as we see him to be prudent and vigorous, we all, after
invoking the Holy Spirit’s grace, for his merits no less than his royal
blood, have with one consent chosen him for our king.” The archbishop’s
hearers wondered at his speech, because they could not see any occasion
for it; but none of them disputed his doctrine; still less did they
dispute its immediate practical application. “Long live King John!” was
the unanimous response;[1966] and, disregarding a protest from Bishop
Philip of Durham against the accomplishment of such an important rite
in the absence of his metropolitan Geoffrey of York,[1967] Archbishop
Hubert proceeded to anoint and crown the king. A foreboding which he
could not put aside, however, moved him to make yet another significant
interpolation in the ritual. When he tendered to the king-elect the
usual oath for the defence of the Church, the redressing of wrongs and
the maintenance of justice, he added a solemn personal adjuration to
John, in Heaven’s name, warning him not to venture upon accepting the
regal office unless he truly purposed in his own mind to perform his
oath. John answered that by God’s help he intended to do so.[1968] But
he contrived to omit the act which should have sealed his vow. For the
first and last time probably in the history of Latin Christendom, the
king did not communicate upon his coronation-day.[1969]
[1964] _Ib._ p. 89.
[1965] _Ib._ pp. 89, 90. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 166.
R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 99, 100.
[1966] Mat. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ (Luard), vol. ii. pp. 454, 455.
[1967] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 90.
[1968] Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 140.
[1969] _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), p. 293.
On that very day he made his arrangements for the government of the
realm which he was already anxious to leave as soon as he could do
so with safety. Geoffrey Fitz-Peter was confirmed in his office of
justiciar, William in that of marshal, and both were formally invested
with the earldoms whose lands and revenues they had already enjoyed
for some years--Geoffrey with the earldom of Essex, William with
that of Striguil. At the same time, in defiance alike of precedent,
of ecclesiastical propriety, and of the warnings of an old colleague
in the administration, Hugh Bardulf, Archbishop Hubert undertook the
office of chancellor.[1970] Next day John received the homage of the
barons, and went on pilgrimage to S. Alban’s abbey;[1971] he afterwards
visited Canterbury and S. Edmund’s,[1972] and thence proceeded to keep
the Whitsun feast at Northampton.[1973] An interchange of embassies
with the king of Scots failed to win either the restitution of the two
shires on the one hand, or the required homage on the other; William
threatened to invade the disputed territories if they were not made
over to him within forty days; John retorted by giving them in charge
to a new sheriff, the brave and loyal William de Stuteville, and by
appointing new guardians to the temporalities of York, as security for
the defence of the north against the Scots,[1974] while he himself
hurried back to the sea, and on June 20 sailed again for Normandy.[1975]
[1970] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 90, 91.
[1971] Rog. Wend. as above.
[1972] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 166.
[1973] _Ibid._ Rog. Howden as above, p. 91, says _Nottingham_;
but John was at Northampton on Whit-Monday according to Sir T.
D. Hardy’s _Itin. K. John_, a. 1 (_Introd. Pat. Rolls_).
[1974] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 91, 92.
[1975] _Ib._ p. 92. R. Diceto (as above) says June 19, but
Sir T. D. Hardy’s _Itinerary_, a. 1 (as above), shews John at
Shoreham on the 20th.
On Midsummer-day he made a truce with Philip for three weeks.[1976] At
its expiration the two kings held a personal meeting; John’s occupation
of his brother’s territories without previous investiture from and
homage to Philip was complained of by the latter as an unpardonable
wrong; and John was required to expiate it by the cession of the whole
Vexin to Philip in absolute ownership, and of Poitou and the three
Angevin counties for the benefit of Arthur. This John refused.[1977]
His fortunes were not yet so desperate as to compel him to such
humiliation. He had already secured the alliance of Flanders;[1978]
his nephew Otto, now fully acknowledged by the Pope as Emperor-elect,
was urging him to war with France and promising him the aid of the
imperial forces;[1979] and his refusal of submission to Philip was at
once followed by offers of homage and mutual alliance from all those
French feudataries who had been in league with Richard against their
own sovereign.[1980] The war began in September, with the taking of
Conches by the French king; this was followed by the capture of Ballon.
Philip, however, chose to celebrate these first successes by levelling
Ballon to the ground. As the castle stood upon Cenomannian soil, it
ought, according to the theory proclaimed by Philip himself, to have
been handed over by him to Arthur; Arthur’s seneschal William des
Roches therefore remonstrated against its demolition as an injury done
to his young lord. Philip retorted that “he would not for Arthur’s
sake stay from dealing as he pleased with his own acquisitions.” The
consequence was a momentary desertion of all his Breton allies. William
des Roches not only surrendered to John the city of Le Mans, which
Philip and Arthur had intrusted to him as governor, but contrived to
get the boy-duke of Britanny out of Philip’s custody and bring him to
his uncle, who received him into seeming favour and peace.[1981] That
very day, however, a warning reached Arthur of the fate to which he
was already doomed by John; and on the following night he fled away
to Angers with his mother and a number of their friends. Among the
latter was the viscount Almeric of Thouars, who had just been compelled
to resign into John’s hands the office of seneschal of Anjou and the
custody of the fortress of Chinon, which he held in Arthur’s name; and
it seems to have been shortly afterwards that Constance, apparently
casting off Ralf of Chester without even an attempt at divorce, went
through a ceremony of marriage with Almeric’s brother Guy.[1982]
[1976] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 93.
[1977] _Ib._ pp. 94, 95.
[1978] The count of Flanders did homage to John at Rouen on
August 13 [1199]. _Ib._ p. 93.
[1979] _Ib._ pp. 95, 96.
[1980] _Ib._ p. 95.
[1981] _Ib._ p. 96. This must have been on September 22; see
Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 1 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).
[1982] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 96, 97. The marriage
of Guy and Constance must however have been legalized somehow,
for their child was ultimately acknowledged as heiress of
Britanny.
The year’s warfare again ended in a truce, made in October to last
till S. Hilary’s day.[1983] Its author was that Cardinal Peter of
Capua[1984] who had negotiated the last truce between Philip and
Richard, and who now found another occupation in punishing the
matrimonial sins of the French king:--Philip having sent away his queen
Ingebiorg of Denmark immediately after his marriage with her in 1193,
and three years later taken as his wife another princess, Agnes of
Merania.[1985] At a Church council at Dijon on December 6, 1199, the
legate passed a sentence of interdict upon the whole royal domain, to
be publicly proclaimed on the twentieth day after Christmas[1986]--the
very day on which Philip’s truce with John would expire. It was no
doubt the prospect of this new trouble which moved Philip, when he met
John in conference between Gaillon and Les Andelys,[1987] to accept
terms far more favourable to the English king than those which he
had offered six months before. As a pledge of future peace and amity
between the two kings, Philip’s son Louis was to marry John’s niece
Blanche, a daughter of his sister Eleanor and her husband King Alfonso
of Castille; John was to bestow upon the bride, by way of dowry, the
city and county of Evreux and all those Norman castles which had been
in Philip’s possession on the day of Richard’s death; he was also to
give Philip thirty thousand marks of silver, and to swear that he would
give no help to Otto for the vindication of his claim to the Empire.
The formal execution of the treaty was deferred till the octave of
midsummer; and while the aged queen-mother Eleanor went to fetch her
granddaughter from Spain, John at the end of February took advantage of
the respite to make a hurried visit to England,[1988] for the purpose
of raising the thirty thousand marks which he had promised to Philip.
This was done by means of a carucage or aid of three shillings on every
ploughland.[1989] As a scutage of a most unusual amount--two marks
on the knight’s fee--had already been levied since John’s accession,
this new impost was a sore burthen upon the country. The abbots of
some of the great Cistercian houses in Yorkshire withstood it as an
unheard-of infringement of their rights, to which they could not assent
without the permission of a general chapter of their order. John in a
fury bade the sheriffs put all the White Monks outside the protection
of the law. The remonstrances of the primate compelled him to revoke
this command; but he rejected all offers of compromise on the part of
the monks, and “breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the
disciples of the Lord” went over sea again at the end of April.[1990]
As France had been suffering the miseries of an interdict ever since
January,[1991] Philip was now growing eager for peace. He therefore
met John at Gouleton, between Vernon and Les Andelys, on May 22, and
there a treaty was signed. Its solid advantages were wholly on the
side of John. In addition to the concessions made in January, he did
indeed resign in favour of Blanche and her bridegroom his claims upon
the fiefs of Berry; but the thirty thousand marks due to Philip were
reduced to twenty thousand; Arthur was acknowledged as owing homage
to his uncle for Britanny; and John was formally recognized by the
French king as rightful heir to all the dominions of his father and
his elder brother.[1992] On the morrow Louis and Blanche were married,
by the archbishop of Bordeaux, and on Norman soil, in consequence of
the interdict in France;[1993] and on the same day, at Vernon, John
received in Philip’s presence Arthur’s homage for Britanny,[1994]
Philip having already accepted that of John for the whole continental
dominions of the house of Anjou.[1995]
[1983] _Ib._ p. 97. Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._,
vol. v.) p. 43, says S. John’s day.
[1984] Rog. Howden as above.
[1985] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 224, 306, 307. R.
Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 111. Rigord (as above), pp. 36,
37, 40, 42. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), pp. 77,
78. “Merania” is Moravia. Rigord and William both call the lady
Mary, but all scholars seem agreed that Agnes was her real name.
[1986] Rigord (as above), p. 43. Will. Armor. (as above), p.
80. Cf. R. Diceto (as above), pp. 167, 168.
[1987] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 106.
[1988] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 106, 107. John
crossed on February 24; Ann. Winton, a. 1200 (Luard, _Ann.
Monast._, vol. ii. p. 73).
[1989] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 101. Rog. Howden as above,
p. 107.
[1990] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 102, 103. The date of
John’s crossing lies between April 28 and May 2. Hardy, _Itin.
K. John_, a. 1 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).
[1991] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.
43; Rog. Howden as above, p. 112. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii.
p. 168, says only since Mid-Lent.
[1992] Treaty in Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 79, and Rog.
Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 148–151. Its date is not quite
clear; the document itself bears only “mense Maii”; Rigord
(Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. p. 43) says it
was made on Ascension-day (May 18); Rog. Howden (as above,
p. 114) begins by placing it at the date for which it had
been originally fixed--the octave of S. John Baptist--but in
the next page corrects this into “xi kalendas Junii, feria
secunda,” _i.e._ Monday, May 22. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p.
103, believed the thirty thousand marks to have been paid in
full. The remission of ten thousand of them clearly made no
difference to England; they were pocketed by John.
[1993] Rog. Howden as above, p. 115. He says it was at
Portmort, on the morrow of the treaty--_i.e._ according to
his reckoning, on Tuesday, May 23. Rigord however (as above),
p. 44, dates it “at the same place, on the Monday after
[Ascension],” _i.e._ Gouleton, May 22. Hardy’s _Itinerary_, a.
2, shews John at La Roche-Andelys (Château-Gaillard) daily from
May 17 to May 25. The places however are all close together.
[1994] Rog. Howden as above.
[1995] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 101.
The next six weeks were spent by John in a triumphant progress
southward, through Le Mans, Angers, Chinon, Tours and Loches, into
Aquitaine, where he remained until the end of August.[1996] While
there, he received the homage of his brother-in-law Count Raymond
of Toulouse for the dower-lands of Jane,[1997] who had died in the
preceding autumn.[1998] Of all these successes, however, John went far
to cast away the fruit by a desecration of the marriage-bond almost as
shameless and quite as impolitic as that which had brought upon Philip
the wrath of Rome. He persuaded the Aquitanian and Norman bishops to
annul his marriage with his cousin Avice of Gloucester, apparently by
making them believe that the dispensation granted by Clement III. had
been revoked by Innocent.[1999] Instead however of restoring to Avice
the vast heritage which had been settled upon her at her betrothal, he
gave her county of Gloucester to her sister’s husband Count Almeric of
Evreux as compensation for the loss of his Norman honour,[2000] and
apparently kept the remainder of her estates in his own hands. These
proceedings were enough to excite the ill-will of a powerful section
of the English baronage. John’s next step was a direct challenge to
the most active, turbulent and troublesome house in all Aquitaine. He
gave out that he desired to wed a daughter of the king of Portugal,
and despatched an honourable company of ambassadors, headed by the
bishop of Lisieux, to sue for her hand; after these envoys had started,
however, and without a word of notice to them, he suddenly married the
daughter of Count Ademar of Angoulême.[2001] Twenty-nine years before,
Richard, as duke of Aquitaine, had vainly striven to wrest Angoulême
from Ademar in behalf of Matilda, the only child of Ademar’s brother
Count Vulgrin III. Matilda was now the wife of Hugh “the Brown” of
Lusignan, who in 1179 or 1180 had in spite of King Henry made himself
master of La Marche,[2002] and whose personal importance in southern
Gaul was increased by the rank and fame which his brothers Geoffrey,
Guy and Almeric had won in the kingdoms of Palestine and Cyprus. His
son by Matilda--another Hugh the Brown--had through Richard’s good
offices been betrothed in boyhood to his infant cousin Isabel, Ademar’s
only child; the little girl was educated with her future husband, and
it was hoped that in due time their marriage would heal the family feud
and unite the lands of Angoulême and La Marche without possibility
of further dissension. No sooner however did Count Ademar discover
that a king wished to marry his daughter than he took her away from
her bridegroom; and at the end of August she was married to John at
Angoulême by the archbishop of Bordeaux.[2003]
[1996] See Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 2 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).
[1997] Rog. Howden as above, p. 124.
[1998] _Ib._ p. 96.
[1999] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 103, says the divorce was
made “per mandatum domini Papæ ... propter consanguinitatis
lineam.” But R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 167, says it
was made because John was “sublimioris thori spe raptatus,”
and adds: “unde magnam summi pontificis, scilicet Innocentii
tertii, et totius curiæ Romanæ indignationem incurrit.” He
dates it 1199, and attributes it to the Norman bishops; Rog.
Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 119, places it in 1200, and names
only the archbishop of Bordeaux and the bishops of Poitiers and
Saintes.
[2000] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 101.
[2001] R. Diceto as above, p. 170.
[2002] See above, p. 220.
[2003] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 119, 120. Cf. R.
Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 103. No one gives a date; but John
was at Angoulême on August 26 (Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 2,
_Intr. Pat. Rolls_); and “his settlement on Isabella is dated
Aug. 30. _Rot. Chart._, p. 75” (Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iv.
p. 168, note 1). Rog. Howden and R. Coggeshall both say this
marriage was advised by Philip.
Heedless of the storm which this marriage was sure to raise in
Aquitaine, John in the first days of October carried his child-queen
with him to England, and on the 8th was crowned with her at
Westminster.[2004] His first business in England was to renew his
persecution of the Cistercians;[2005] the next was to arrange a meeting
with the king of Scots. This took place in November at Lincoln, where
John, defying the tradition which his father had carefully observed,
ventured to present himself in regal state within the cathedral
church.[2006] The two kings held their colloquy on a hill outside the
city; William performed his long-deferred homage,[2007] although his
renewed demand for the restitution of the northern shires was again
put off till Whitsuntide.[2008] Next day the king of England helped
with his own hands to carry the body of the holy bishop Hugh to its
last resting-place in the minster which he had himself rebuilt.[2009]
Some haunting remembrance of Hugh’s saintlike face, as he had seen it
in London only a few weeks before the good bishop’s death,[2010]
may have combined with a sense that the White Monks were still too
great a power in the land to be defied with impunity, and moved
John on the following Sunday to make full amends to the Cistercian
abbots, promising to seal his repentance by founding a house of
their order[2011]--a promise which he redeemed by the foundation of
Beaulieu abbey, in the New Forest.[2012] After keeping Christmas at
Guildford[2013] he came back again to Lincoln, and quarrelled with
the canons about the election of a new bishop.[2014] He thence went
northward, accompanied by his queen, through Lincolnshire, Yorkshire,
Northumberland and Cumberland, taking fines everywhere for offences
against the forest-law. At Mid-Lent he was at York,[2015] and on
Easter-day he and Isabel wore their crowns at Canterbury.[2016] A few
days later, rumours of disturbances in Normandy and in Poitou paused
him to issue orders for the earls and barons of England to meet him at
Portsmouth at Whitsuntide, ready with horses and ships to accompany him
over sea. The earls however held a meeting at Leicester, and thence by
common consent made answer to the king that they would not go with him
“unless he gave them back their rights.” It is clear that they already
looked upon personal service beyond sea as no longer binding upon them
without their own consent, specially given for a special occasion.
John retorted by demanding the surrender of their castles, beginning
with William of Aubigny’s castle of Beauvoir, which William was only
suffered to retain on giving his son as a hostage.[2017] This threat
brought the barons to Portsmouth on the appointed day; but the quarrel
ended in a compromise. After despatching his chamberlain Hubert de
Burgh, with a hundred knights, to act as keeper of the Welsh marches,
and sending William the Marshal and Roger de Lacy, each with a hundred
mercenaries, to resist the enemies in Normandy, John took from the
remainder of the host a scutage in commutation of their services, and
bade them return to their own homes.[2018] On Whit-Monday the queen
crossed to Normandy, and shortly afterwards her husband followed.[2019]
[2004] Rog. Howden as above, p. 139. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol.
ii. p. 170. R. Coggeshall as above, with a wrong date.
[2005] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 103, 104.
[2006] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 140, 141.
[2007] _Ib._ p. 141.
[2008] _Ib._ p. 142.
[2009] _Ibid._ R. Diceto as above, p. 171. _Mag. Vita S. Hug._
(Dimock), pp. 370, 371.
[2010] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 140, 141.
[2011] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 107–110. _Mag. Vita S.
Hug._ (Dimock), pp. 377, 378.
[2012] On Beaulieu see R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 147; Ann.
Waverl. a. 1204 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p. 256); and
Dugdale, _Monast. Angl._, vol. v. pp. 682, 683.
[2013] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 172. Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 156.
[2014] Rog. Howden as above.
[2015] _Ib._ p. 157. See details of his movements in Hardy,
_Itin. K. John_, a. 2 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).
[2016] Rog. Howden as above, p. 160. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol.
ii. p. 172.
[2017] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 160, 161.
[2018] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 163.
[2019] _Ib._ p. 164.
After a friendly meeting near the Isle of Andelys,[2020] Philip
invited John to Paris, where he entertained him with the highest
honours, vacating his own palace for the reception of his guest, and
loading him with costly gifts.[2021] From Paris John went to meet his
sister-in-law, Richard’s queen Berengaria, at Chinon,[2022] where he
seems to have chiefly spent the rest of the summer. He came back to
Normandy in the autumn,[2023] and the Christmas feast at Argentan[2024]
passed over in peace; but trouble was fast gathering on all sides.
Philip was at last free of his ecclesiastical difficulties, for Agnes
of Merania was dead, and he had taken back his wife.[2025] John was
now in his turn to pay the penalty for his unwarrantable divorce and
his lawless second marriage. As if he had not already done enough to
alienate the powerful house of Lusignan by stealing the plighted bride
of its head,[2026] he had now seized the castle of Driencourt, which
belonged to a brother of Hugh the Brown, while its owner was absent
in England on business for the king himself;[2027] and he had further
insulted the barons of Poitou by summoning them to clear themselves in
his court from a general charge of treason against his late brother
and himself, by ordeal of battle with picked champions from England
and Normandy. They scorned the summons,[2028] and appealed to the king
of France, John’s overlord as well as theirs, to bring John to justice
for their wrongs.[2029] On March 25 Philip met John at Gouleton,[2030]
and peremptorily bade him give up to Arthur all his French fiefs,
besides sundry other things, all of which John refused.[2031] Hereupon
Philip sent, through some of the great French nobles,[2032] a citation
to John, as duke of Aquitaine, to appear in Paris fifteen days after
Easter at the court of his lord the king of France, to stand to its
judgement, to answer to his lord for his misdoings, and to undergo the
sentence of his peers.[2033] John made no attempt to deny Philip’s
jurisdiction; but he declared that, as duke of Normandy, he was not
bound to obey the French king’s citation to any spot other than the
traditional trysting-place on the border. Philip replied that his
summons was addressed to the duke of Aquitaine, not to the duke of
Normandy, and that his rights over the former were not to be annulled
by the accidental union of the two dignities in one person.[2034] John
at length yielded so far as to promise that on the appointed day he
would present himself before the court in Paris, and would give up to
Philip the two castles of Tillières and Boutavant as security for his
abiding by the settlement then to be made. The day however came and
went without either the surrender of the forts or the appearance of
John.[2035] The court of the French peers condemned him by default,
and sentenced him to be deprived of all his lands.[2036]
[2020] _Ibid._ John was at the Isle June 9–11, and again June
25–27 [1201]. Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 3 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).
[2021] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.
44. Rog. Howden as above; on the date see Bishop Stubbs’s note
1, _ibid._
[2022] Rog. Howden as above. The purpose was to settle with her
about her dowry; _ibid._, and p. 172 and note 2.
[2023] See Hardy as above.
[2024] Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 167.
[2025] Rigord as above. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._
(_ibid._), p. 81. Rog. Howden as above, pp. 146–148.
[2026] Strictly speaking, its future head. The elder Hugh,
father of Isabel’s bridegroom, lived till 1206.
[2027] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vi. (Duchesne, as above), p.
159. This was Ralf of Issoudun, a brother of the elder Hugh,
and count of Eu in right of his wife.
[2028] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 176.
[2029] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 135. Will. Armor. _Gesta
Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.
81; _Philipp._, l. vi. (_ibid._) p. 159.
[2030] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 174.
[2031] Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 167.
[2032] “Per proceres regni Francorum.” R. Coggeshall as above.
[2033] _Ib._ pp. 135, 136. The date fixed for the trial--April
29 [1202]--is from Rigord (Duchesne as above), p. 44. This
writer and Will. Armor. (_Gesta Phil. Aug._ as above) give a
version somewhat different from Ralf’s, saying that Philip
summoned John to do right to Philip himself for the counties of
Anjou, Touraine and Poitou. William however in the _Philipp._
(as above) substantially agrees with the English writer as to
the ground of Philip’s complaint.
[2034] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 136.
[2035] Will. Armor. as above, pp. 81, 161.
[2036] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 136.
Philip at once marched upon Normandy to execute the sentence by force
of arms. He began by taking Boutavant[2037] and Tillières;[2038]
thence he marched straight up northward by Lions,[2039] Longchamp, La
Ferté-en-Bray,[2040] Orgueil and Mortemer,[2041] to Eu;[2042] all these
places fell into his hands. Thus master of almost the whole Norman
border from the Seine to the sea, he turned back to lay siege on July
8 to Radepont on the Andelle, scarcely more than ten miles from Rouen.
Dislodged at the end of a week by John,[2043] he again withdrew to the
border. The castle of Aumale and the rest of its county were soon in
his hands.[2044] Hugh of Gournay alone, the worthy bearer of a name
which for generations had been almost a synonym for loyalty to the
Norman ducal house, still held out in his impregnable castle; Philip
however, by breaking down the embankment which kept in the waters of
a reservoir communicating with the river and the moat, let loose upon
the castle a flood which undermined its walls and almost swept it away,
thus compelling its defenders to make their escape and take shelter as
best they could in the neighbouring forest.[2045] At Gournay Philip
bestowed upon Arthur the hand of his infant daughter Mary,[2046] the
honour of knighthood,[2047] and the investiture of all the Angevin
dominions except the duchy of Normandy,[2048] which he evidently
intended to conquer for himself and keep by right of conquest.
[2037] _Ibid._ Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 168. Rigord
(Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 45. Will.
Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 81; _Philipp._,
l. vi. (_ibid._), p. 161. Boutavant was a small fortress
built by Richard in 1198, on the Seine, four miles above
Château-Gaillard, on the border-line between Normandy and
France (Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ as above. Rog. Howden,
Stubbs, vol. iv. p. 78). Philip had retorted by building hard
by it a rival fortress which he called Gouleton (Rog. Howden
as above)--the scene of his treaty with John in May 1202; see
above, p. 396.
[2038] Will. Armor. as above.
[2039] Rog. Wend. and Will. Armor. _Philipp._ as above.
[2040] Will. Armor. as above.
[2041] _Ibid._ _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 81. Rigord
(_ibid._), p. 45.
[2042] Rog. Wend. as above.
[2043] _Ibid._ p. 167; he says Philip besieged Radepont for
eight days. John got there on July 15; Hardy, _Itin. K. John_,
a. 4 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).
[2044] R. Coggeshall as above.
[2045] Rog. Wend. as above, pp. 167, 168. Will. Armor. _Gesta
Phil. Aug._ as above; _Philipp._ (_ibid._), pp. 161, 162.
[2046] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ as above, p. 82;
_Philipp._ (_ibid._), p. 162. Cf. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson),
p. 137. Mary (or Jane, as Rigord calls her) was one of the two
children of Agnes of Merania, legitimatized by Innocent III.;
cf. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 81, and Rigord (_ibid._), p. 44.
[2047] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 137. Rigord as above,
p. 45; Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 82;
_Philipp._ (_ibid._), p. 162. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p.
94, says that Arthur was knighted by Philip when he first did
him homage in 1199.
[2048] Rigord as above. The order of the campaign above
described is not easy to make out, for no two contemporary
writers name the castles in the same order. Taking geography
for a guide, it would at first glance seem more natural that
Philip should have gone to Radepont from Tillières, and that
the whole northward expedition should come afterwards. But
it is certain that the siege of Radepont happened July 8–15
(see above, p. 403, note 8{2043}); and on the one hand, the
northern campaign, or at any rate part of it, seems needed to
fill up the interval between the breaking-out of the war at the
beginning of May and July 8; while on the other, it seems
impossible to crowd in the whole campaign between July 15 and
the knighting of Arthur, which clearly took place before that
month had expired. Lions, however, was not taken till after May
29, for on that day John was there; Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a.
4 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).
What John had been doing all this time it is difficult to understand.
Between the middle of May and the end of June he had shifted his
quarters incessantly, moving through the whole length of eastern
Normandy, from Arques to Le Mans; throughout July he was chiefly in
the neighbourhood of Rouen;[2049] but, except in the one expedition to
Radepont, he seems to have made no attempt to check the progress of his
enemies. After the knighting of Arthur at Gournay, however, he tried to
make a diversion by sending a body of troops into Britanny. With their
duchess dead[2050] and their young duke absent, the Bretons were in no
condition for defence; Dol and Fougères were taken by John’s soldiers,
and the whole country ravaged as far as Rennes.[2051] This attack stung
Arthur into an attempt at independent action which led to his ruin. He
and Philip divided their forces; while the French king led the bulk
of his army northward to the siege of Arques,[2052] Arthur with two
hundred knights[2053] moved southward to Tours,[2054] sending forward
a summons to the men of his own duchy and those of Berry to meet him
there for an expedition into Poitou.[2055] At Tours he was met by the
disaffected Aquitanian chiefs:--the injured bridegroom young Hugh of La
Marche, and two of his uncles, Ralf of Issoudun the dispossessed count
of Eu, and Geoffrey of Lusignan, the inveterate fighter who had taken a
leading part in every Aquitanian rising throughout the last twenty-two
years of Henry’s reign, who after being Richard’s bitterest foe at home
had been one of his best supporters in Palestine, and who had come
back, it seems, to join in one more fight against his successor. The
three kinsmen, however, brought together a force of only seventy-five
knights; to which a Gascon baron, Savaric of Mauléon, added thirty
more, and seventy men-at-arms.[2056] Arthur, mere boy of fifteen though
he was, had enough of the hereditary Angevin wariness to shrink from
attempting to act with such a small force, and in accordance with
Philip’s instructions proposed to wait for his expected allies.[2057]
But the Poitevins would brook no delay; and a temptation now offered
itself which was irresistible alike to them and to their young leader.
On her return from Castille with her granddaughter Blanche in the
spring of 1200, Queen Eleanor, worn out with age and fatigue, had
withdrawn to the abbey of Fontevraud,[2058] where she apparently
remained throughout the next two years. The rising troubles of her
duchy, however, seem to have brought her forth from her retirement
once more, and she was now in the castle of Mirebeau, on the border
of Anjou and Poitou. All John’s enemies knew that his mother was, in
every sense, his best friend. She was at once his most devoted ally and
his most sagacious counsellor, at least in all continental affairs;
moreover, in strict feudal law, she was still duchess of Aquitaine in
her own right, a right untouched by the forfeiture of John; and she
therefore had it in her power to make that forfeiture null and void
south of the Loire, so long as she lived to assert her claims for
John’s benefit.[2059] To capture Eleanor would be to bring John to his
knees; and with this hope Arthur and his little band laid siege to
Mirebeau.[2060]
[2049] See Hardy, as above, a. 3, 4 (_ibid._)
[2050] Constance died September 3 or 4, 1201. Chronn. Britt.
_ad ann._ (Morice, _Hist. Bret., preuves_, vol. i. cols. 6,
106).
[2051] Will. Armor. _Philipp._ as above, p. 163. In the _Gesta
Phil. Aug._ (as above) he places this after Arthur’s capture.
In both works he says that _John_ did all this in Britanny;
but Hardy’s _Itinerary_ (as above) shews that John did it
vicariously.
[2052] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.
45. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 138. Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol.
iii. p. 169.
[2053] Rog. Wend., as above, p. 168.
[2054] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vi. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 162. Rigord as above.
[2055] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne as above), p.
82. To the Bretons and the men of Berry he adds “Allobroges.”
What can they have had to do in the case, or what can he mean
by the name?
[2056] Will. Armor. _Philipp._ as above. He says Geoffrey
brought twenty picked knights, Ralf forty, and Hugh fifteen. R.
Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 137, makes the total force of Arthur
and the Poitevins together two hundred and fifty knights.
[2057] Will. Armor, as above, p. 163.
[2058] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 114.
[2059] On the relations of Eleanor, John, and Aquitaine see
Bishop Stubbs’s note to W. Coventry, vol. ii., pref. p.
xxxiv, note 1. His conclusion is that “certainly the legal
difficulties were much greater than Philip’s hasty sentences of
forfeiture could solve.”
[2060] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vi. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 164; _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p.
82. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 137. Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol.
iii. p. 168.
John, however, when once roused, could act with all the vigour and
promptitude of his race. On July 30, as he was approaching Le Mans,
he received tidings of his mother’s danger; on August 1 he suddenly
appeared before Mirebeau.[2061] The town was already lost, all the
gates of the castle save one were broken down, and Eleanor had been
driven to take refuge in the keep; the besiegers, thinking their
triumph assured, were surprised and overpowered by John’s troops,
and were slain or captured to a man, the Lusignans and Arthur
himself being among the prisoners.[2062] Philip, who was busy with
the siege of Arques, left it and hurried southward on hearing of
this disaster;[2063] John however at once put an end to his hopes of
rescuing Arthur by sending the boy to prison at Falaise;[2064] and
Philip, after taking and burning Tours,[2065] withdrew into his own
domains.[2066] John in his turn then marched upon Tours, and vented
his wrath at its capture by completing its destruction.[2067] Shortly
afterwards he had the good luck to make prisoner another disaffected
Aquitanian noble, the viscount of Limoges.[2068] It was however
growing evident that he would soon have nothing but his own resources
to depend upon. His allies were falling away; the counts of Flanders,
Blois and Perche and several of the other malcontent French barons
had taken the cross and abandoned the field of western politics to
seek their fortunes in the East;[2069] he had quarrelled with Otto of
Germany;[2070] William des Roches, after pleading in vain for Arthur’s
release, was organizing a league of the Breton nobles which some of
the Norman border-chiefs were quite ready to join, and by the end of
October the party thus formed was strong enough to seize Angers and
establish its head-quarters there.[2071] It was probably the knowledge
of all this which in the beginning of 1203 made John transfer his
captive nephew from the castle of Falaise to that of Rouen.[2072]
Sinister rumours of Arthur’s fate were already in circulation, telling
how John had sent a ruffian to blind him at Falaise, how the soldiers
who kept him had frustrated the design, and how their commandant,
John’s chamberlain Hubert de Burgh, had endeavoured to satisfy the king
by giving out that Arthur had died of wounds and grief and ordering
funeral services in his memory, till the threats of the infuriated
Bretons drove him to confess the fraud for the sake of John’s own
safety.[2073] How or when Arthur really died has never yet been clearly
proved. We only know that at Easter 1203 all France was ringing with
the tidings of his death, and that after that date he was never
seen alive. In his uncle’s interest an attempt was made to suggest
that he had either pined to death in his prison, or been drowned in
endeavouring to escape across the Seine;[2074] but the general belief,
which John’s after-conduct tends strongly to confirm, was that he
had been stabbed and then flung into the river by the orders, if not
actually by the hands, of John himself.[2075]
[2061] These dates are given by John himself in a letter to the
barons of England, inserted by R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp.
137, 138. Hardy’s _Itin. K. John_, a. 4 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_),
shews John at Bonport on July 30, and then gives no further
indication of his whereabouts till August 4, when he appears at
Chinon.
[2062] R. Coggeshall as above. Rog. Wend., as above, p. 169.
Cf. Rigord (Duchesne as above), p. 45; Will. Armor. _Gesta
Phil. Aug._ as above; and _Philipp_, (_ibid._), pp. 164, 165.
According to this last, John got into Mirebeau by night, by a
fraudulent negotiation with William des Roches.
[2063] Rog. Wend., Rigord, and Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._,
as above.
[2064] Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. pp. 169, 170. Will. Armor.
_Philipp._, l. vi. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol.
v.), p. 165.
[2065] Rigord (Duchesne, as above), p. 45. Will. Armor. _Gesta
Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 82.
[2066] Rog. Wend. (as above), p. 170. He adds “residuum anni
illius imbellis peregit.”
[2067] Rigord as above. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ as
above. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 138.
[2068] Rigord as above. This was Guy, son and successor to
Ademar, who had been slain in 1199 by Richard’s son Philip in
vengeance for the quarrel which had led to Richard’s death.
Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 97.
[2069] Rigord and Will. Armor, as above.
[2070] In 1200 Otto had demanded the lands and the jewels
bequeathed to him by Richard; John had refused to give them up.
Rog. Howden as above, p. 116.
[2071] Chron. S. Albin. a. 1202 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 51).
R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 139. The former gives the date,
Wednesday before All Saints’ day.
[2072] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 143. Rog. Wend., as above.
Will. Armor. _Philipp._ as above, p. 166.
[2073] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 139–141.
[2074] Mat. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ (Madden), vol. ii. p. 95.
[2075] On Arthur’s death see note at end of chapter.
The fire which had been smouldering throughout the winter in Britanny
now burst into a blaze. The barons and prelates of the duchy, it
is said, held a meeting at Vannes, and thence sent to the king of
France, as overlord alike of Arthur and of John, their demand for a
judicial inquisition before the peers of the realm--that is, before
the supreme feudal court of France--into John’s dealings with their
captive duke.[2076] A citation was accordingly sent to John, as duke
of Normandy, either to present Arthur alive,[2077] or to come and
stand his trial before the French king’s court on a charge of murder.
John neither appeared nor sent any defence; the court pronounced him
worthy of death, and sentenced him and his heirs to forfeiture of all
the lands and honours which he held of the Crown of France.[2078] The
trial seems to have been held shortly after Easter. The legal force
of the sentence need not be discussed here.[2079] Its moral justice
can hardly be disputed, so far as John himself is concerned; and
Philip’s action did little more than precipitate the consequences
which must sooner or later have naturally resulted from John’s own
deed. John in committing a great crime had committed an almost greater
blunder. Arthur’s death left him indeed without a rival in his own
house. It left him sole survivor, in the male line, alike of the
Angevin and Cenomannian counts and of the ducal house of Normandy.
Even in the female line there was no one who could be set up against
him as representative of either race. Eleanor of Britanny, the only
remaining child of his brother Geoffrey, was a prisoner in her uncle’s
keeping. The sons of his sister Matilda had cast in their lot with
their father’s country and severed all ties with their mother’s people;
the children of his sister Eleanor were still more complete strangers
to the political interests of northern Gaul, and the only one of them
who was known there at all was known only as the wife of the heir to
the French crown. But these very facts set John face to face with a
more dangerous rival than any of the ambitious kinsmen with whom the
two Williams or the two Henrys had had to contend. They drove his
disaffected subjects to choose between submission to him and submission
to Philip Augustus. The barons of Anjou, of Maine, of Britanny or of
Normandy had no longer any chance of freeing themselves from the yoke
of the king from over-sea who had become a stranger to them all alike,
save by accepting in its stead the yoke of the king with whom they had
grown familiar through years of political and personal intercourse, and
whom, in theory at least, even their own rulers had always acknowledged
as their superior. Anjou, Maine and Britanny had all resolved upon
Richard’s death that they would not have John to rule over them;
Normandy was now fast coming to the same determination. Under the
existing circumstances it would cost them little or no sacrifice to
accept their titular overlord as their real and immediate sovereign. So
long as Arthur lived, Philip had been compelled to veil his ambition
under a shew of zeal for Arthur’s rights; now he could fling aside
the veil, and present himself almost in the character of a deliverer.
If the barons did not actually hail him as such, they were at any rate
for the most part not unwilling to leave to him the responsibility of
accomplishing their deliverance, and to accept it quietly from his
hands.
[2076] Le Baud, _Hist. de Bretagne_, pp. 209, 210, with a
reference to Robert Blondel, a writer of the fifteenth century.
On the value of this account see Bishop Stubbs, pref. to W.
Coventry, vol. ii. p. xxxii, note 3.
[2077] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 143–145.
[2078] Proclamation of Louis of France, a. 1216, in Rymer,
_Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 140. Ann. Margam, a. 1204 (Luard, _Ann.
Monast._, vol. i. p. 27). Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 373.
Le Baud as above, p. 210. Stubbs, _W. Coventry_, vol. ii. pref.
p. xxxii.
[2079] Bishop Stubbs’s remark (_W. Coventry_, vol. ii. pref. p.
xxxiv, note 1), quoted above, p. 406, note 1{2058}, applies to
this case also. On the vexed question as to the composition of
the court I do not feel bound to enter here at all.
Philip took the field as soon as the forfeiture was proclaimed.
Within a fortnight after Easter he had taken Saumur[2080] and entered
Aquitaine; there he seems to have spent some weeks in taking sundry
castles, with the help of the Bretons and the malcontent Poitevin
nobles.[2081] One great Norman baron, the viscount of Beaumont, had
already openly joined the league against John;[2082] and as Philip
turned northward again, the count of Alençon formally placed himself
and all his lands at the disposal of the French king.[2083] Thus
secure of a strong foothold on the southern frontier of Normandy,
and already by his last year’s conquests master of its north-eastern
border from Eu to Gisors, Philip set himself to win the intervening
territory--the remnant of the viscounty of Evreux. One by one its
castles--Conches,[2084] Vaudreuil[2085] and many others--fell into
his hands. Messenger after messenger came to John as he sat idle in
his palace at Rouen,[2086] all charged with the same story: “The king
of France is in your land as an enemy, he is taking your castles, he
is binding your seneschals to their horses’ tails and leading them
shamefully to prison, and he is dealing with your goods according to
his own will and pleasure.” “Let him alone,” John answered them all
alike; “I shall win back some day all that he is taking from me now.”
The barons who still clave to him grew exasperated as they watched
his unmoved face and heard his unvarying reply; some of them began to
attribute his indifference to the effects of magic; all, finding it
impossible to break the spell, turned away from him in despair. One by
one they took their leave and withdrew to their homes, either passively
to await the end, or actively to join Philip. Even Hugh of Gournay, who
had held out so bravely and so faithfully a year ago, now voluntarily
gave up his castle of Montfort.[2087] Not till near the middle of
August did John make any warlike movement; then he suddenly laid siege
to Alençon; but at Philip’s approach he fled in a panic;[2088] an
attempt to regain Brezolles ended in like manner,[2089] and John
relapsed into his former inactivity. That the conqueror did not march
straight to the capture of Rouen, that he in fact made no further
progress towards it for six whole months, was owing not to John but to
his predecessor. Richard’s favourite capital was safe, so long as it
was sheltered behind the group of fortifications crowned by his “saucy
castle” on the Rock of Andely.
[2080] Chron. S. Albin. a. 1203 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 52).
[2081] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.),
p. 46. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 82; both
under a wrong year, viz. 1202 instead of 1203.
[2082] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 139.
[2083] Rigord and Will. Armor. as above.
[2084] Rigord as above.
[2085] _Ibid._ R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 143.
[2086] John was not literally there all the while; but he only
quitted it for short excursions, never going further than
Moulineaux, Pont-de-l’Arche, Orival or Montfort, from the
middle of May till the beginning of August, when he suddenly
went as far west as Caen, and thence as suddenly south again to
Falaise and Alençon. Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 5 (_Intr. Pat.
Rolls_).
[2087] Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. pp. 171, 172.
[2088] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 82. John was at Alençon August 11–15;
Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 5 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).
[2089] Will. Armor. as above.
Upon the winning of Château-Gaillard, therefore, Philip now
concentrated all his energies and all his skill. There was no hope
of voluntary surrender here; John had given the fortress in charge
to Roger de Lacy the constable of Chester, an English baron who had
no stake in Normandy, whose private interests were therefore bound
up with those of the English king, and who was moreover a man of
dauntless courage and high military capacity.[2090] The place was only
to be won by a regular siege. Crossing the Seine higher up, perhaps
at Vernon, Philip led his troops along its left bank, and encamped
in the peninsula formed by the bend of the river just opposite Les
Andelys. The garrison of the fort in the Isle of Andely no sooner
beheld his approach than they destroyed the bridge between the island
and the left bank. Philip was thus deprived of the means not only of
reaching them, but also of opening communications with the opposite
shore; for this could only be done with safety at some point below
Château-Gaillard, and the transport of the materials needful for the
construction of a bridge or pontoon was barred by the stockade which
crossed the river-bed directly under the foot of the castle-rock. The
daring of a few young Frenchmen, however, soon cleared this obstacle
away. While the king brought up his engines close to the water’s edge
and kept the garrison of the island-fort occupied with the exchange
of a constant fire of missiles, a youth named Gaubert of Mantes with
a few bold comrades plunged into the water, each with an axe in his
hand, and, regardless of the stones and arrows which kept falling upon
them from both sides, hewed at the stockade till they had made a breach
wide enough for boats to pass through in safety. A number of the broad
flat-bottomed barges used for transport were then hastily collected
from the neighbouring riverside towns, and moored side by side across
the stream; these served as the foundation of a wooden bridge, which
was further supported with stakes and strengthened with towers, and
by means of which Philip himself, with the larger part of his host,
crossed the river to form a new encampment under the walls of the
Lesser Andely. The garrison of the Isle were thus placed between two
fires;[2091] and the whole Vexin was laid open as a foraging-ground for
the besieging army, while the occupants of the Lesser Andely and of
Château-Gaillard itself found their communications and their supplies
cut off on all sides.[2092]
[2090] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 144. Rog. Wend. as above,
p. 180.
[2091] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), pp. 82, 83; _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 86–131
(_ib._ p. 170; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, pp. 127–129).
[2092] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 132–139 (Duchesne,
p. 170; Deville, p. 129).
John was now again hovering about at a safe distance in the
neighbourhood.[2093] To the peril of Château-Gaillard his fatuous
indifference was at last beginning to yield. A year ago he had shewn
some appreciation of his brother’s work, by making an addition to
the buildings in the second ward;[2094] and he had shewn his sense
of the military importance of the place yet more significantly, by
appointing Roger de Lacy as its commander. He now gathered up all his
remaining forces--still, it seems, a formidable array[2095]--with
the apparent intention of dislodging the French from Les Andelys. As
Philip’s biographer remarks, however, John feared and hated the light;
he resolved, according to his wont, upon a night attack; and even that
attack he did not lead in person.[2096] He intrusted its command indeed
to a far braver man than himself, but a man who was better fitted for
action in the light of day than for such deeds of darkness as John
delighted in. William the Marshal, the favourite comrade-in-arms of
the younger King Henry, the faithful friend and servant of the elder
one even unto death, the honoured minister of Richard, still clave
to the last survivor of the house which he had loved so long and so
well. To him John confided his plan for the relief of Les Andelys.
The marshal was to lead a force of three hundred knights, three
thousand mounted serving-men and four thousand foot, with a band of
mercenaries under a chief called Lupicar,[2097] along the left bank of
the Seine, and to fall under cover of darkness upon the French camp
in the peninsula. Meanwhile seventy transport-vessels, constructed by
Richard to serve either for sea or river-traffic, and as many more as
could be collected, were to be laden with provisions for the besieged
garrison of the Isle, and convoyed up the river by a flotilla of
small war-ships, manned by pirates[2098] under a chief named Alan,
and carrying, besides their own daring and reckless crews, a force of
three thousand Flemings. Two hundred strokes of the oar, John reckoned,
would bring these ships to the French pontoon; they must break it if
they could; if not, they could at least co-operate with the land-forces
under the Marshal in cutting off the northern division of the French
army from its comrades and supplies on the left bank, and throw into
the island-fort provisions enough to save it from the necessity of
surrender till John himself should come to its relief.
[2093] “Non multum distabat a loco illo” says Will. Armor.
_Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, as above), p. 83. The date must
fall between August 16, when John was at Alençon, and September
5, when he was at Bonneville. His whereabouts during the
interval vary between Chambrai, Trianon, Montfort and Rouen.
Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 5 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).
[2094] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 84; _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 737–746
(_ib._ p. 181; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, p. 145).
[2095] “Maximum congregaverat exercitum.” Will. Armor. _Gesta
Phil. Aug._, as above, p. 83.
[2096] _Ibid._; _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 140–143, 188–194 (_ib._
pp. 170, 171; Deville as above, pp. 129, 130).
[2097] On this man see Géraud, _Les Routiers_ (_Bibl. de
l’Ecole des Chartes_, ser. i. vol. iii. p. 132). In his
native tongue he was called “Lobar”; in Latin he appears
as “Lupicarius,” “Lupescarus,” “Lupatius.” M. Géraud calls
him in French “Louvart”; the name was doubtless an assumed
one, meaning “wolf.” He was a fellow-countryman and old
comrade-in-arms of Mercadier; Mat. Paris introduces them both
at once, in 1196, as “natione Provinciales”--“qui duces fuerunt
catervæ quam ruttam vocamus, militantes sub comite Johanne
regis fratre.” _Chron. Maj._ (Luard), vol. ii. p. 421. Lupicar
however had made his first historical appearance some years
earlier than Mercadier, as a leader of the Brabantines in the
Limousin, about 1177. See Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 70 (Labbe,
_Nova Biblioth._, vol. ii. p. 324).
[2098] It seems a strange return to long-past times to hear
of “_pirates_” sailing up the Seine to attack a king of the
French. Of what nationality are these men likely to have been?
The flower of the French host, as John knew, had crossed the river
with its king. Those who remained in the peninsula were hampered
by the presence of a crowd of unwarlike serving-men, sutlers and
camp-followers, many of whom, after spending the day in drunken
revelry, were lying asleep in the fields outside the camp. The night
was drawing to its close--for the cock had crowed thrice--when the
Marshal’s troops fell upon these sleepers and slew more than two
hundred of them as they lay. The soldiers within the camp quickly
caught the alarm; in their terror they rushed to the pontoon in such
numbers that it broke under their weight, and they sought safety in
swimming across the river to join their comrades on the opposite
shore. These however had now been aroused by the tumult; the bravest
of the French knights, headed by William des Barres, confronted the
fugitives with indignant reproaches for their cowardice, and drove
them back across the stream. By the light of torches and fires,
hastily kindled, the whole host was soon got under arms, the bridge
repaired, and the Marshal’s troops, surprised in their turn while
groping about in the darkness of the deserted camp, were routed with
heavy loss. The victors, thinking the fight was over, went back to
their sleeping-quarters, but had scarcely reached them when they
were roused up again, to see, in the dim light of the August sunrise,
the hostile fleet bearing down upon them. In a few minutes the two
river-banks and the pontoon were lined with armed Frenchmen. Still
the boats held on their course till the foremost of them touched the
bridge; and despite a ceaseless shower of arrows from either shore, and
of stones, iron missiles, and boiling oil and pitch from the engines
mounted on the wooden turrets of the bridge, the crews began to hew
at the cables and stakes in a desperate effort to break it down, and
kept its defenders at bay till the Seine ran red with blood. At last an
enormously heavy oaken beam fell directly upon the two foremost ships
and sank them. The rest, stricken with sudden terror, rowed away in
disorder as fast as oars could move them. Gaubert of Mantes and three
other gallant French sailors sprang each into a little boat, set off in
pursuit, and succeeded in capturing two of the fugitive ships, which
they brought back in tow, with their stores and all of their crews who
survived.[2099] The delay in the arrival of the fleet, caused by the
difficulties of navigation in the Seine,[2100] had ruined John’s plan
for the relief of the Isle of Andely. The fate of its garrison was soon
decided; and again the hero of the day was Gaubert of Mantes. The fort
was encircled by a double palisade or rampart of wood, outside the
walls. Gaubert tied a rope round his waist, took in his hand two iron
vessels coated with pitch and filled with burning charcoal,[2101] swam
to the easternmost point of the island, which the garrison, trusting
to the proximity of Château-Gaillard on this side, had ventured to
leave unguarded, and threw these missiles against the palisade. The
wood instantly caught fire; the wind carried the flames all round the
ramparts and into the fort itself. Some of the garrison made their
escape by swimming or on rafts; some were stifled in the cellars
and galleries in which they sought a refuge from the fire; the rest
surrendered to the French king. Philip lost no time in repairing and
garrisoning the fort and rebuilding the bridge on its western side. At
the sight of his success the whole population of the Lesser Andely fled
in a body to Château-Gaillard; Philip entered the town in triumph, sent
for new inhabitants to fill the places of the fugitives, and intrusted
its defence to two companies of mercenaries, whose strength may be
estimated from the statement that the leader of one of them, Cadoc by
name, received from the royal treasury a thousand pounds daily for
himself and his men.[2102]
[2099] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 144–335 (Duchesne,
_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. pp. 171–174; Deville,
_Château-Gaillard_, pp. 129–134). Cf. _Gesta Phil. Aug._
(Duchesne as above), p. 83.
[2100] Will. Armor. as above, vv. 206, 207 (Duchesne as above,
p. 172; Deville as above, p. 131).
[2101] See Deville’s note, _Château-Gaillard_, p. 66.
[2102] Will. Armor., _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 336–398 (Duchesne,
_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. pp. 174, 175; Deville,
_Château-Gaillard_, pp. 134–136). Cf. _Gesta Phil. Aug._
(Duchesne as above), p. 83.
Philip’s mastery of the river was still precarious and incomplete
without the reduction of Château-Gaillard. For an attack upon the Saucy
Castle itself, however, his courage seems as yet to have failed; and
striking north-westward by the road which leads from Les Andelys into
the valley of the Andelle, on the last day of August he again sat down
before Radepont. In two or three weeks it surrendered.[2103] This time
John made no attempt to save it, but fled away to the depths of his own
old county of Mortain,[2104] leaving Rouen to its fate. Philip however
dared not advance upon Rouen with Château-Gaillard still unconquered
in his rear; and at the opening of the vintage-season he moved back
to Les Andelys and girded himself up for his task. A brief survey of
the Rock convinced him that assault was well-nigh hopeless; his best
chance was in a blockade. On the north the Lesser Andely occupied by
his mercenaries, on the west the river commanded by his troops in
the island-fort, sufficed to imprison the garrison. The next step
was to dig out a double trench two hundred feet deep, starting from
the brow of the hill over against the south-eastern extremity of the
castle-rock, extending northward to the margin of the lake of Andely
and westward to the bank of the Seine, and completely enclosing the two
ravines which furrowed the sides of the rock. Each line of entrenchment
was garnished with seven _bretasches_ or wooden forts, placed at
regular intervals, each surrounded by a ditch of its own, furnished
with a wooden draw-bridge, and filled with as many soldiers as it could
hold. The rest of the army took up their quarters in the trenches,
where they built themselves little huts of wood and thatch for a
shelter against the wet and cold of the coming winter--shelter against
other foes they needed none, for they were out of bowshot from the
castle[2105]--and whiled away their time in jesting and making songs in
mockery of the straits to which the Saucy Castle was reduced--“So many
thousands girt about with a single girdle,”--“The eyrie overcrowded
with nestlings, who will have to turn out when the spring comes.”[2106]
The greater part of the “nestlings” were turned out before the
spring came. The blockade once formed, Roger de Lacy soon perceived
the terrible blunder he had made in admitting within his walls the
townsfolk of the Lesser Andely. According to one computation, the
number of these non-combatants now huddled within the castle-enclosure
was no less than two thousand two hundred souls; at the lowest
reckoning, they seem to have amounted to fourteen hundred--all, in a
military point of view, simply useless mouths, devouring in a few weeks
the stores of food that should have furnished rations for a year and
more to the little garrison which was amply sufficient to hold the
castle for John. One day, therefore, Roger opened the castle-gate and
turned out five hundred of the oldest and weakest. They were suffered
to pass unmolested through the blockading lines, and were followed a
few days later by five hundred more. Philip however, who meanwhile had
returned to his own dominions, no sooner heard what was going on than
he issued strict orders that every man, woman or child, of whatever age
or condition, who might issue from the castle should be driven back
again without mercy. A large number still remained of whom Roger was
as eager to be rid as Philip was anxious that he should be obliged to
keep them. He took account of his stores, and found that he had enough
to feed the regular garrison for a whole year. Hereupon he called
together all the remaining non-combatants, and sent them forth, as they
thought, to rejoin their families and friends. To their horror, as
soon as they approached the French lines, they were overwhelmed with a
volley of arrows. They rushed back to the castle-gate, only to find it
closed against them. For three months this multitude of people dragged
out a wretched existence in the ravines around the fortress, with no
shelter against the wet and the cold but what they might find in the
clefts of the rock, and no food but the dry leaves and scant herbage
which they could pick up at its foot, and the flesh of the dogs which
the garrison soon let loose for the purpose of yet further economizing
their rations. This last resource was exhausted, and the horrors of
cannibalism were already reached, when Philip came back to see how the
siege was progressing. As he was crossing the bridge to the island-fort
these unhappy beings caught sight of him and lifted up their voices in
agonizing appeal; the king, moved with a tardy compassion, and perhaps
also by fear of the not improbable outbreak of a pestilence which might
easily have spread into his own entrenchments, ordered that immediate
relief should be given to all who survived. These however amounted to
no more than half of the original number, which seems to have been
something over four hundred; and most of them had been so long without
food that their first meal proved fatal.[2107]
[2103] Rigord (Duchesne as above), p. 47, says the siege of
Radepont began on the last day of August and lasted fifteen
days. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 82, makes
it last three weeks; in _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 399, 400 (_ib._
p. 175; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, p. 136), he extends its
duration to a month.
[2104] He went to Falaise on September 13--the day after the
fall of Radepont, according to Rigord’s reckoning. Thence he
went on the 17th to Mortain, on the 19th to Dol, and back to
Mortain again on the 22d. Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 5 (_Intr.
Pat. Rolls_).
[2105] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), pp. 83, 84; _Philipp._, l. vii. vv.
414–450 (_ib._ pp. 175, 176; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, pp.
136, 137).
[2106] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 451–456 (Duchesne,
p. 176; Deville, p. 137).
[2107] Cf. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist.
Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 84, and _Philipp._, l. vii. vv.
467–606 (_ib._ pp. 176–179; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, pp.
138–142).
The last act of this tragedy must have taken place soon after
Christmas. For three months the whole military power of the French
Crown had been concentrated on the investment of Château-Gaillard; and
in all this time John had done absolutely nothing. From his expedition
to the Breton border he had indeed returned to Rouen for a few days in
the beginning of October. Not a hand did he lift, however, to check
the progress of the blockade which was being formed almost before his
eyes. Soon he was again far away in the Bessin; thence he suddenly
moved across the duchy to Verneuil, and in the second week of November
he was once more at Rouen.[2108] It was probably during one of these
visits to the capital that he wrote to Roger de Lacy: “We thank you
for your good and faithful service, and desire that, as much as in
you lies, you will persevere in the fealty and homage which you owe
us, that you may receive a worthy meed of praise from God and from
ourselves, and from all who know your fidelity to us. If, however,
which God forbid, you should find yourselves in such straits that you
can hold out no longer, then do whatsoever our trusty and well-beloved
Peter of Préaux, William of Mortemer and Hugh of Howels our clerk
shall bid you in our name.”[2109] Whether this letter ever found its
way through the blockading lines into the castle it is scarcely worth
while to inquire. If it did, it failed to shake the courage or the
loyalty of the garrison, although it must have proved to them what they
doubtless guessed already, that their sovereign had forsaken them, and
that they were serving him for nought. Of the crowning proof of his
desertion they probably remained unconscious until all was over for
them. After dismantling Pont-de-l’Arche, Moulineaux and Montfort,[2110]
John, on November 12, again left Rouen; for three weeks he flitted
aimlessly up and down the country, from Bonneville and Caen to Domfront
and Vire, and back again to Barfleur and Cherbourg;[2111] on December
6 he quitted Normandy altogether;[2112] and while the burghers of
the Lesser Andely were starving and freezing to death in the valleys
round Château-Gaillard, and the garrison of the castle were anxiously
reckoning how much longer their provisions would enable them to hold
out for his sake, he was keeping his Christmas feast at Canterbury at
the expense of Archbishop Hubert.[2113]
[2108] Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 5 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).
[2109] Letter in Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 1059.
[2110] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 826–828 (Deville,
_Château-Gaillard_, pp. 147, 148; Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v. p. 182).
[2111] Hardy as above.
[2112] Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 173, says he landed at
Portsmouth on S. Nicolas’s day. The _Itinerary_ (as above)
shews him at Barfleur on December 5 and at Portsmouth on the
7th.
[2113] “H. archiepiscopo omnia necessaria festivitati regiæ
ministrante.” Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 174.
By the end of February 1204[2114] Philip grew impatient of the blockade
of Château-Gaillard, and probably also uneasy lest John should
return from England with an overwhelming force for its relief. He
therefore resolved to try whether it could not, after all, be taken
by assault. He himself took up his station at the central point of
the entrenchment, on the crest of the hill, facing the narrow neck
of land by which it was joined to the castle-rock. This isthmus, the
only direct approach to the castle itself, he caused to be levelled
and widened till he could erect upon it a wooden gallery or covered
way leading from his own lines up to the edge of the outermost ditch
of the fortress. When, with considerable difficulty and loss of life,
this was accomplished, he caused a _beffroy_ or wooden tower on wheels
to be carried through the gallery, set up when it reached the further
end, and moved along the edge of the fosse, the cross-bowmen with whom
it was filled doing deadly execution upon the soldiers on the ramparts,
who however made a gallant defence. Meanwhile, the French were bringing
through their covered way earth, wood, stones, turf, everything they
could find to fill up the ditch. Before it was half full they lost
patience and adopted a quicker method of approach. They dropped down
the perpendicular counterscarp by means of their scaling-ladders, and
set these up again on the sloping inner side of the ditch, under the
foot of the great round tower which formed the head of the first ward.
The ladders were too short for the ascent; but despite a heavy fire
of stones and arrows from the tower, the storming-party scrambled up,
crawling on hands and knees, or using their swords and daggers by way
of Alpine-staves, till the base of the wall was reached. Then, while
a shower of missiles rattled down upon the shields held over them by
their comrades, the sappers dug and hewed at the foundations till the
tower was undermined; the fuse was inserted and fired, and the miners
had just had time to withdraw when a large portion of the wall fell
crashing into the ditch. The French rushed to the breach; Roger de
Lacy, seeing that the first ward was lost, ordered the wooden buildings
within it to be fired; he and his men withdrew across the drawbridge
into the second ward, and when the fire died down, they saw the ruined
fragment of the tower crowned by the banner of Cadoc.[2115]
[2114] “Superveniente cathedrâ S. Petri” (February 22). Rigord
(Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 47.
[2115] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 84; _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 612–726
(_ib._ pp. 179–181; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, pp. 142–145).
The French were one step nearer to the goal; but the next step looked
as impracticable as ever. Between them and the besieged there yawned
another ditch as wide and deep, there rose another rampart as mighty
and as inaccessible as the first. In vain they prowled about the edge
of the fosse seeking for a point at which they could venture upon an
attack, till a young squire or man-at-arms, by name Peter, but more
commonly known in the camp as “Bogis” or “Snub-nose,” caught sight of
a little window just above the wall at the south-eastern corner of the
rampart.[2116] This window was the sole external opening in John’s new
building, which was otherwise accessible only on the inner side, by two
doors, one leading into the storehouse which formed the lower story,
one into the chapel above it, and both opening towards the courtyard.
Bogis at once communicated his discovery to a few trusty comrades; they
reconnoitred the ditch till they found a somewhat shallower place on
its southern side, where it was possible to scramble down; thence they
crawled along the bottom till they were directly under the window, and
then clambered up the sloping side to the foot of the wall. By standing
on the shoulders of a comrade Bogis managed to reach the window; he
found it unbarred, unguarded, and wide enough for his body to pass
through; he sprang in, let down to his companions a rope which he had
brought for the purpose, and drew them up one by one till they were
all safe inside the building, which proved to be the storehouse under
the chapel.[2117] Finding the door locked, they began to hammer at it
with the hilts of their daggers. This noise and the shouts with which
they accompanied it soon alarmed the garrison. They, thinking that the
French had entered the new building and occupied it in force, hastily
set it on fire; unhappily, the wind caught the flames and spread them
in a few minutes over the whole enclosure. The garrison fled to their
sole remaining refuge, the citadel; Bogis and his companions escaped
out of the blazing ruins into the casemates; the bulk of the French
host, anxiously watching the scene from the opposite side of the ditch,
thought they had all perished; but when the flames died down and the
smoke began to clear away, Bogis himself appeared at the gate and let
down the drawbridge for the army to pass over in triumph.[2118]
[2116] I cannot understand M. Deville’s idea of this window.
In his plan of the castle he marks it about the middle of the
south-western side of John’s building--the side looking towards
the river. But Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (as above), p.
85, says it was “in latere orientali.” And if it had not been
there, how could Bogis, from the foot of the rampart of the
first ward, ever have seen it at all?
[2117] So says M. Deville (_Château-Gaillard_, p. 82),
following the _Philippis_; but in the _Gesta Phil. Aug._
William makes it the chapel, _i.e._ the upper instead of the
lower story. One would naturally expect the solitary window to
be in the chapel rather than in the storehouse under it.
[2118] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug_. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 85; _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 727–791
(_ib._ pp. 181, 182; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, pp. 145–147).
Philip’s engines and their own too hastily-kindled fires had made
havoc among the besieged garrison; they were now reduced to a hundred
and eighty fighting-men.[2119] Even this small number, however,
might have sufficed to hold for an indefinite time the remains of
Richard’s matchless fortress, but for one strange error on the part
of the royal architect. Richard had indeed taken the precaution of
making the sole gate of his citadel open not directly towards the
courtyard of the second ward, but at a much less accessible point to
the north-eastward, where only a narrow strip of ground intervened
between the counterscarp of the ditch and the outer rampart. Most
unaccountably, however, instead of furnishing this gate with a
drawbridge, he left a portion of the rock itself to serve as a natural
passage over the ditch hollowed out beneath it. Across this immovable
bridge a machine known by the name of “cat”--a sort of tent upon
wheels, moved by the men inside it--was, as the epic bard of the
siege expresses it, “made to crawl” close up to the gate, which the
sappers, hidden under this shelter, at once began to undermine. Roger
de Lacy, alarmed no doubt by the fate of the first tower which had been
thus dealt with, tried the effect of a countermine, which was so far
successful that the French were for a moment compelled to retire; but
the “cat” was speedily replaced by a mighty engine discharging heavy
stones with immense force. At the third discharge, the wall, undermined
as it was from both sides, suddenly fell in. The French troops poured
through the breach; Roger and his little band were quickly surrounded,
and it was no fault of theirs that they were not slaughtered to a
man, for every one of them refused to yield, and was only disarmed
by main force. The hundred and twenty men-at-arms and thirty-six
knights who still remained were, however, made prisoners without
further bloodshed; and thus, on March 6, 1204, Philip became master of
Château-Gaillard.[2120]
[2119] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. v. 775 (Duchesne as
above, p. 181; Deville, p. 146).
[2120] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 792–811
(Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. p. 182; Deville,
_Château-Gaillard_, p. 147). Cf. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne
as above), p. 85. The date is from Rigord (_ibid._), p. 47
(who, however, puts it under a wrong year, 1202), and Rog.
Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 180. This last writer has a wholly
different version of the capture, but it is not worthy of
consideration. The number of prisoners is stated by Will.
Armor. in the _Gesta Phil. Aug._ as forty knights, a hundred
and twenty men-at-arms, “and many others.” (By his own account
in _Philipp._, l. vii. v. 775, these “many” cannot have been
more than twenty. See above, p. 422). Rigord speaks only of the
knights, whom he reduces to thirty-six, saying that four had
been slain during the siege.
On that March day the king of England really lost not only his Saucy
Castle, but his whole continental dominions north of Loire. Thenceforth
all resistance in Normandy was at an end; and in three months the
whole duchy laid itself without a struggle at the victor’s feet. Soon
after John’s departure over sea Philip had opened negotiations with
the citizens of the chief Norman towns, representing to them that the
king of England had deserted them, that he himself was their rightful
overlord and sovereign, and bidding them either receive him as such, or
prepare to be all hanged or flayed alive when he should have overcome
their resistance by force. After some discussion they made a truce
with him for a year, promising that if no succour came from England
within that time, they would submit to him without reserve.[2121] On
the fall of Château-Gaillard they all, together with the constables
of the remaining fortresses throughout John’s trans-marine dominions,
sent messages to John setting forth the difficulties of their position
and remonstrating earnestly with him on his tardiness in coming to
their aid. He bade them look for nothing from him, but do each of them
whatsoever they might think good.[2122] A few weeks later he despatched
the bishops of Norwich and Ely with the earls of Pembroke and Leicester
to see if there was any possibility of coming to terms with the king of
France.[2123] But it was too late. Philip sarcastically retorted that
the first preliminary to peace must be the restoration of Arthur;[2124]
and on the Sunday after Easter he marched again into Normandy. Falaise
surrendered after a week’s siege;[2125] Domfront, Séez, Lisieux, Caen,
Bayeux, Barfleur, Cherbourg, Coutances,[2126] opened their gates at
his mere approach. Meanwhile Guy of Thouars, who had been governing
Britanny since Arthur’s death,[2127] with four hundred knights and
an immense host of Bretons attacked and burned the Mont-St.-Michel,
sacked Avranches, and marched ravaging and burning through the Bessin
to join the king at Caen. Philip sent them back again, together with
the count of Boulogne, William des Barres, a large body of French
knights, and a troop of John’s mercenaries who had changed sides
after the surrender of Falaise, to finish the subjugation of Mortain
and the Avranchin,[2128] while he himself returned to complete his
conquest of eastern Normandy. Only three important places were still
unsubdued there: Arques on the northern coast, Verneuil on the southern
border, and Rouen itself. The three bodies of soldiers and townsfolk
came to a mutual understanding whereby those of the capital, on the
Tuesday in Rogation-week--June 1--made a truce with Philip for thirty
days, stipulating that their brethren at Arques and Verneuil should
receive the same benefit if they applied for it within a certain
time, and promising in the name of all alike that if no succour came
from John within the specified interval, they would give themselves
up unreservedly to the king of France.[2129] None of them, however,
waited for the expiration of the truce. On midsummer-day Rouen opened
its gates;[2130] Arques and Verneuil followed its example,[2131] and
Normandy was won.
[2121] Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. pp. 173, 174.
[2122] _Ib._ pp. 180, 181.
[2123] “Post mediam Quadragesimam,” _i.e._ in the beginning of
April. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 144. The earl of Pembroke
(or Striguil), it will be remembered, was William the Marshal.
[2124] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 145.
[2125] _Ibid._ Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. viii. (Duchesne,
_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. p. 183); _Gesta Phil. Aug._
(_ibid._), p. 85. Rigord (_ibid._), p. 47. The dates come from
the two last, both of whom however make the year 1203 instead
of 1204.
[2126] Cf. Rigord as above; Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._
as above; _Philipp._ l. viii. (_ibid._), pp. 183, 184; and R.
Coggeshall as above.
[2127] As guardian of his own daughter by Constance, the infant
Alice, whom the Bretons and the French recognized as heiress of
Britanny, in place of her half-sister Eleanor, who was in the
custody of John.
[2128] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 85. _Philipp._, l. viii. (_ibid._), pp.
184, 185.
[2129] Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, pp. 1057–1059.
[2130] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 146. Rigord (Duchesne,
_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 47, giving the date.
Cf. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 85, and
_Philipp._, l. viii. (_ibid._), p. 186.
[2131] R. Coggeshall as above.
Cadoc and his mercenaries had established their head-quarters at
Angers;[2132] the whole of Anjou and Touraine, except the strongholds
of Chinon and Loches, was already secured; Aquitaine alone still
remained to be conquered. This, indeed, was likely to prove a more
difficult task; for however bitterly the men of the south might
hate their Norman or Angevin rulers, their chances of regaining or
preserving their independence under a sovereign who must henceforth
be parted from them by the whole width of the Bay of Biscay would be
obviously so much better than under one whose direct sway now stretched
all along the northern bank of the Loire from its mouth almost to its
source, that they were certain to veer round at once to the side of
John, simply for the purpose of keeping Philip out. Such was in fact
the result throughout the whole country south of the Dordogne; Savaric
of Mauléon, lately John’s enemy and prisoner, at once became his most
energetic and devoted champion;[2133] while Angoulême was secured
for John as the heritage of his queen Isabel. But the link which had
bound Guyenne to the Angevin house was broken at last; Queen Eleanor
had died on April 1.[2134] There was no longer any legal obstacle to
the execution of the sentence of forfeiture passed two years ago; and
on S. Laurence’s day Philip assembled his host for the conquest of
Poitou.[2135] Robert of Turnham, John’s seneschal,[2136] did what he
could in its defence, but he was powerless against the indifference
of the people and the active hostility of William des Roches and the
Lusignans.[2137] Poitiers was soon taken; and in a few weeks all
Poitou, except La Rochelle, Niort and Thouars, submitted to Philip as
its liege lord.[2138] At the approach of winter Philip returned to his
own dominions, leaving a body of troops to blockade Chinon, which was
held for John by Hubert de Burgh, and another to form the siege of
Loches, no less bravely defended by Gerald of Atie.[2139] At Easter
1205 the king marched with a fresh host upon Loches and took it by
assault.[2140] On midsummer-eve Chinon fell in like manner.[2141]
Robert of Turnham had already been made prisoner by the French;[2142]
the viscount of Thouars now made his submission to Philip, and received
from him the seneschalship of Poitou in Robert’s stead;[2143] Niort and
La Rochelle were left alone in their resistance to the French king.
[2132] Will. Armor. as above, pp. 86 and 188.
[2133] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 146.
[2134] Ann. Waverl. a. 1204 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p.
256). R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 144, and Mat. Paris, _Hist.
Angl._ (Madden), vol. ii. pp. 102, 103, give the same year;
the latter takes occasion to describe Eleanor as “admiribalis
domina pulchritudinis et astutiæ,” and says she died at
John’s newly-founded abbey of Beaulieu. The Chron. S. Albin.
(Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 53) places her death a year earlier,
and at Poitiers.
[2135] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.
47.
[2136] Brother of Stephen of Turnham, and apparently seneschal
of Anjou at the close of Richard’s reign; transferred to Poitou
in 1201. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 86, 142, 176.
[2137] R. Coggeshall as above.
[2138] _Ibid._ Rigord as above. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._
(_ibid_.), p. 86. Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 181.
[2139] R. Coggeshall and Rigord as above. Will. Armor. as
above; _Philipp._, l. viii. (_ibid._), pp. 189, 190.
[2140] Rigord (as above), pp. 47, 48, and Will. Armor. _Gesta
Phil. Aug._ as above; both under a wrong year. R. Coggeshall
(Stevenson), p. 152.
[2141] Rog. Wend. (Coxe, vol. iii.), pp. 182, 183; R.
Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 154, 155; cf. Rigord (Duchesne,
_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 48; Will. Armor. _Gesta
Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 86; and Chron. S. Albin. a. 1203
(Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 54).
[2142] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 152.
[2143] Will. Armor. as above.
John, however, was now at last threatening an attack from over sea.
Three weeks after his return to England, in January 1204, he had held
a council at Oxford and compelled all the tenants-in-chief, including
the bishops and abbots, to promise a scutage of two marks and a half on
the knight’s fee,[2144] and a contribution, from which even the parish
churches were not exempt, of a seventh of all moveable goods;[2145]
all under the plea of gathering a great host for the recovery of his
lost dominions.[2146] In May he held a council at Northampton,[2147]
which resulted in a summons to the fleet and the host to meet him at
Porchester at Whitsuntide, prepared to accompany him over sea. When all
was ready, however, the expedition was countermanded, at the urgent
entreaty, it was said, of Archbishop Hubert and William the Marshal,
the latter of whom had lately returned from Gaul, and might therefore
be supposed to know the condition of affairs there better than the king
could know it himself. John, after a great shew of resistance, yielded
to their entreaties; the soldiers and sailors were made to pay a fine
in commutation of their services, and dismissed, grumbling bitterly,
to their homes.[2148] The king gained a considerable sum of money by
the transaction; and the primate and the marshal, in their boundless
loyalty, were content to take upon themselves the burthen of its shame,
which John felt, or affected to feel, so keenly that he actually put
to sea with a small escort several days after the dispersion of the
fleet. He landed again, however, at Wareham on the third day,[2149]
and contented himself with sending his half-brother Earl William of
Salisbury and his own son Geoffrey with a body of knights to reinforce
the garrison of La Rochelle.[2150] A year later he again assembled his
fleet at Portsmouth;[2151] and this time he led it in person direct to
La Rochelle. He landed there on June 7,[2152] and marched to Montauban,
which he besieged and captured;[2153] the fickle viscount of Thouars,
being now in revolt against Philip, speedily joined him;[2154] they
advanced to Angers together, won it on September 6,[2155] ravaged
Anjou with fire and sword, and were doing the like in south-eastern
Britanny[2156] when Philip again crossed the Loire and harried the
viscounty of Thouars under their very eyes.[2157] John at once proposed
a truce; the terms were formally drawn up at Thouars on October
26;[2158] but when the English king’s signature was required, he was no
longer to be found. He had slipped away the night before, and was out
of reach at La Rochelle;[2159] and thence, on December 12, he sailed
for England once more.[2160]
[2144] Rog. Wend. as above, p. 175.
[2145] Mat. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ (Luard), vol. ii. p. 483.
[2146] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 144.
[2147] _Ibid._ Date, May 21–25; Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 7
(_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).
[2148] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 152, 153. Cf. Rog. Wend.
as above, p. 183.
[2149] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 154. Rog. Wend. (Coxe),
vol. iii., p. 183. This happened June 13–15; see note 1 to R.
Coggeshall as above, and Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 7 (_Intr.
Pat. Rolls_).
[2150] R. Coggeshall as above.
[2151] Rog. Wend. (as above), p. 186. John was at Porchester
from Whit-Monday, May 22, to Friday, May 26. Hardy, _Itin. K.
John_, a. 8 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).
[2152] He crossed from Stoke to Yarmouth on Trinity Sunday, May
28, and thence to La Rochelle on Wednesday, June 7; cf. Hardy,
as above, with Rog. Wend. as above, who has twice written
“Julii” for “Junii.”
[2153] On August 1, after fifteen days’ siege, says Rog. Wend.
(as above), p. 187; but see Hardy as above.
[2154] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.
48. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 86.
[2155] _Ibid._ Date from Chron. S. Albin. a. 1206 (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, pp. 54, 57).
[2156] Will. Armor. as above.
[2157] Rigord (_ibid._), p. 48. Chron. S. Albin. a. 1206 (as
above, pp. 56, 57).
[2158] Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 95.
[2159] Will. Armor. as above. He was at La Rochelle on October
25; Hardy as above.
[2160] Rog. Wend. as above, p. 188.
Of the two devoted English ministers who had stood by him through
so much obloquy, only the Marshal was now left. A month after the
humiliating scene at Porchester in 1205, Archbishop Hubert died.[2161]
“Now for the first time am I truly king of England!” was the comment
of his ungrateful master upon the tidings of his death.[2162] The words
were words of ill omen for John himself, even more than for his people.
He was indeed king of England, and of England alone. The prophecy of
Merlin, which had been working itself out for a hundred years in the
history of the Norman and Angevin houses, was fulfilled in yet one more
detail: “the sword was parted from the sceptre.”[2163] The sword of
Hrolf the Ganger and William the Conqueror, of Fulk the Red and Fulk
the Black, had fallen from the hand of their unworthy descendant. The
sceptre of his English forefathers was left to him. But the England
over which he had to wield it was no longer the exhausted and divided
country which had been swallowed up almost without an effort in the
vast dominions of the young Count Henry of Anjou. It was an England
which was once more able to stand alone--a new England which had been
growing up under the hands of Henry himself, of his ministers, and
of the ministers of his successor, silently and imperceptibly, they
themselves knew not when or how; and between this new England and its
stranger-king the day of reckoning was now to come.
[2161] _Ib._ p. 183. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 156.
[2162] Mat. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ (Madden), vol. ii. p. 104.
[2163] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 146.
NOTE.
THE DEATH OF ARTHUR.
Only two contemporary writers even pretend to give a circumstantial
account of Arthur’s death: the Annalist of Margam and William of
Armorica. The former tells us that John, “post prandium, ebrius et
dæmonio plenus” [did John, as well as Richard, make the demon-blood
answerable for his sins?], slew Arthur with his own hand, and having
tied a great stone to the body, flung it into the Seine; thence it
was drawn up in a fisherman’s net, recognized, and buried secretly,
“propter metum tyranni,” in Notre-Dame-des-Prés (Ann. Margam, a. 1204;
Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. i. p. 27). William allows the murderer
no such excuse, if excuse it be, but works up the story into a long
and horrible romance, in which John deliberately and of set purpose
takes Arthur out alone with him by night in a boat on the Seine,
plunges a sword into his body, and then rows along for three miles
before he flings the corpse overboard (Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l.
vi.; Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. pp. 166, 167). Both
these writers place the scene at Rouen. The Chron. Brioc. (Morice,
_Hist. Bret., preuves_, vol. i. col. 39) transfers it to Cherbourg:
“Apud Cæsaris-burgum duxit, et ibi proditorie et tyrannice eum in
mare submersit.” Rigord says not a word of the matter. R. Coggeshall
(Stevenson, p. 145) only speaks of it incidentally, saying that Philip
“sæviebat ... permaxime pro nece Arthuri, quem in Sequanâ submersum
fuisse audierat.” Rog. Wend. (Coxe, vol. iii. p. 170) says merely
“subito evanuit.” Mat. Paris in _Chron. Maj._ (Luard, vol. ii. p.
480) copies this, and adds: “modo fere omnibus ignorato; utinam non
ut fama refert.” In _Hist. Angl._ (Madden, vol. ii. p. 95) he gives
three stories as currently reported: accidental drowning, death from
grief, and the third, “ipsum manibus vel præcepto regis Johannis fuisse
peremptum”--this last being the assertion of the French, “quibus
propter hostilitatem plena fides non est adhibenda.” But his own
words in the _Chron. Maj._ shew that he could not wholly reject the
unavoidable conclusion of John’s guilt.
The date of Arthur’s disappearance or death is given only by the Margam
annalist. He places it on Maunday Thursday; but unluckily he has
damaged his own authority on chronological matters by putting the whole
affair a year too late, viz. in 1204 instead of 1203. Will. Armor., on
the other hand, tells us that for three days before the murder John was
at Moulineaux, near Rouen. These two chronological indications do not
exactly agree, for in 1203 Maunday Thursday was April 3, and the _Itin.
K. John_, a. 4 (Hardy, _Intr. Pat. Rolls_), shews that the king was at
Moulineaux on Wednesday, April 2, but on the two preceding days he was
at Rouen. It is however plain from the after-history that the deed must
have been done shortly before Easter.
CHAPTER X.
THE NEW ENGLAND.
1170–1206.
In the eyes of all contemporary Europe the most striking and important
event in English history during the half-century which had passed away
since the accession of Henry II. was the murder of Archbishop Thomas.
The sensation which it produced throughout western Christendom was
out of all proportion both to the personal influence of its victim
during his lifetime and to its direct political results. The popular
canonization bestowed upon the martyr was ratified by Rome with
almost unprecedented speed, in little more than two years after his
death;[2164] the stream of pilgrims which flowed to his shrine, from
the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, was
such as had hardly been seen even at the “threshold of the Apostles”
or at the Holy Sepulchre itself; and it flowed on without a break for
more than three hundred years. Yet Pope and pilgrims all alike were
probably as blind as Thomas himself had been to the true significance
for England of his life and his death. The great ecclesiastical
struggle of which he was the hero and the martyr marks a turning-point
in the social history of the reign of Henry II. even more than in
its political history. With the quarrel between Henry and Thomas the
direction of the moral and intellectual revival whose growth we have
in earlier chapters endeavoured to trace from the accession of Henry
I. to the death of Archbishop Theobald passed altogether out of the
hands in which it had prospered so long and so well--the hands of the
higher clergy and the monastic orders. The flight of Thomas scattered
to the winds the little band of earnest churchmen who had been sharers
with him in the inheritance of Theobald’s policy and Theobald’s work,
and left the reforming party in the Church without a rallying-point
and without a leader. One man alone still remained among the higher
clergy who under more favourable circumstances might have taken up the
work with a far more skilful hand than that of Thomas himself; but the
leadership of Gilbert Foliot was made impossible by the subsequent
course of events, which ranged all the religious opinion and all
the popular sympathies of England on the side of the persecuted and
martyred primate, and set Gilbert, as the primate’s most conspicuous
adversary, in the light of an enemy to the Church, a rebel against her
divine authority, and almost a denier of her faith.[2165]
[2164] He was canonized by Alexander III. on Ash-Wednesday,
February 21, 1173. Epp. dcclxxxiii.–dcclxxxvi., Robertson,
_Becket_, vol. vii. pp. 544–550.
[2165] The story of Gilbert’s dream, in Mat. Paris, _Chron.
Maj._ (Luard), vol. ii. p. 240, was probably suggested by a
line in the French _Life of S. Thomas_:
--“Gilebert Foliot, De lettres sout assez e servi Astarot”--
(Garnier, ed. Hippeau, p. 77)--where again in all likelihood the last
words were prompted by nothing more than the exigencies of rime. That
some such charges were however brought against Foliot we have seen
above, p. 70, note 5{295}.
The final settlement of the controversy was in some sense a defeat
of both parties; but the one which seemed to have gained the victory
really suffered the heaviest loss. The king was indeed compelled to
abandon his scheme for reforming the morals of the priesthood by the
strong hand of his royal justice; the privilege of the clergy was
saved, to fall at last before another King Henry four centuries later.
Yet its staunchest champions must surely have felt their cause reduced
well-nigh to an absurdity when they found that the first result of its
triumph was to secure the primate’s very murderers from the penalty
due to their crime;[2166] and far greater than the seeming gain of
Henry’s surrender at Avranches was the loss to the English Church
involved in the break-down of Theobald’s plans for the reform of the
episcopate. The cowardice of the bishops during the struggle left
them at its close wholly at the mercy of the king. The vacant sees,
of which there were eight besides Canterbury, were filled after long
delays with secular clerks wholly subservient to the royal will; and
before the end of Henry’s life the English episcopate was as completely
secularized as it had been in the worst days of his grandfather. The
inevitable consequences followed. As were the bishops, so, and even
worse, were the lower clergy. The cry against the extortion and tyranny
of the diocesan officials which rang at the opening of Henry’s reign
through the _Polycraticus_ of John of Salisbury rang yet more loudly
and bitterly at its close through the pages of Walter Map and Gerald
de Barri; the immorality which had once stirred the indignant zeal of
Henry himself grew more wide-spread and more frightful year by year,
as a direct result of his own shortsighted and selfish ecclesiastical
policy. To that policy there were, indeed, two honourably marked
exceptions. In 1186 Henry raised to the bishopric of Lincoln one of
the holiest and wisest men then living, Hugh of Avalon. His dealings
with the important and difficult question of the succession to the
metropolitan see itself appear to have been prompted by equally
disinterested motives. It was not the apathy or procrastination of
the king, but the determination of the monks of Christ Church to
use to the uttermost the favourable opportunity for asserting their
independence, and the difficulty of finding any willing candidate for
such a siege--perilous as the chair of S. Thomas was felt to be,
that delayed the election of his successor for two years and a half,
and his consecration for nine months longer still.[2167] The new
Archbishop Richard was a monk of unblemished character, and though
possessed of little talent or learning, fulfilled his office creditably
for ten years;[2168] while Baldwin, who took his place in 1185, was a
Cistercian of the best type--a type which, however, was now rapidly
passing away.
[2166] Henry, not knowing what to do with the archbishop’s
murderers, counselled or connived at their flight into
Scotland. The Scot king and people, however, shewed such a
strong disposition to hang them that they were driven to
re-cross the border (MS. Lansdown., Robertson, _Becket_, vol.
iv. p. 162). They then, it seems, took refuge at Knaresborough,
and there lay hid till hunger compelled them to issue from
their lurking-place. Finding themselves everywhere shunned like
wild beasts, they at last in desperation gave themselves up to
the mercy or the vengeance of the king. But the murderer of
a priest was legally amenable to none save an ecclesiastical
tribunal; Henry could do nothing with them but send them on
to the Pope; and all that the Pope could do with them was to
sentence them to lifelong exile and penance in Holy Land.
Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 25 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 163, 164);
cf. MS. Lansdown (as above), pp. 162, 163. See also a minor
illustration of the inconveniences attaching to this other side
of the clerical immunities, in a letter of Archbishop Richard
to some of his suffragans; Ep. dccxciv., Robertson, _Becket_,
vol. vii. pp. 561–564.
[2167] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 239–245, 247.
[2168] “Homo quidem mediocriter literatus, sed laudabiliter
innoxius, et, ne ambularet in magnis, modulo suo prudenter
contentus.” Will. Newb., l. iii. c. 8 (Howlett, vol. i. pp.
235, 236).
The monastic revival which had shed such brightness over the earlier
half of the twelfth century died down long before its close. S. Bernard
had not yet been seven years in his grave when John of Salisbury,
certainly not a hostile witness, was compelled to acknowledge that the
love of power and the greed of gain had infected the whole monastic
body, not excepting even the White Monks. Rome herself soon found it
needful to make an attempt, although a vain one, to curb the arrogance
of the military orders.[2169] Reformers in the next generation vied
with each other in denouncing the vices and crimes of the Cluniacs and
those of the “white-robed herd, the abominable order” of Cîteaux.[2170]
The fall of the Cistercians indeed was the most terrible of all;
within the space of two generations their name, once the symbol of
the highest moral and spiritual perfection which the men of their
day were capable of conceiving, had become a by-word for the lowest
depths of wickedness and corruption. Startling as was the change, its
causes are not far to seek. Pledged though they were by the origin and
primitive constitution of their order to be a standing protest against
the wealth and luxury of the Benedictines, they had nevertheless
become, in less than a hundred years from their first appearance in
England, the richest and most powerful body of monks in the realm.
At the time of their coming, almost the whole extent of arable land
throughout the country was already occupied; the only resource open to
the new-comers was the yet unexhausted and, as it seemed in England
at least, well-nigh inexhaustible resource of pasturage. They brought
to their sheep-farming the same energy, skill and perseverance which
characterized all their undertakings; and their well-earned success in
this pursuit, together with the vast increase of the wool-trade which
marked the same period, made them in a few years masters of the most
productive branch of English industry. Temptation came with prosperity.
But the more obvious temptations of wealth, the temptations to ease
and vanity and luxurious self-indulgence, had little power over the
stern temper of the White Monks; it was a deeper and a deadlier snare
into which they fell; not sloth and gluttony, but avarice and pride,
were their besetting sins. In the days of Richard and John, when we
find them struggling and bargaining almost on equal terms with the
king’s ministers and the king himself, they were indeed a mighty power
both in Church and state; but the foundation on which their power now
rested was wholly different from that upon which it had first arisen;
its moral basis was gone. As an element in the nation’s spiritual life
the Order of Cîteaux, once its very soul, now counted for worse than
nothing.
[2169] See a canon of the third Lateran Council (A.D. 1179),
in Will. Newb., l. iii. c. 3 (as above, pp. 221–223). On the
Templars and Hospitaliers see also W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._,
dist. i. c. 23 (Wright, pp. 36–38).
[2170] See especially Gir. Cambr. _Spec. Eccles._, distt. ii.
and iii. (Brewer, vol. iv. pp. 29 _et seq._). “Grex albus,
ordo nefandus,” is a description of the Cistercians quoted
apparently from W. Map by his opponent W. Bothewald; Wright,
_Latin Poems attributed to W. Mapes_, introd. p. xxxv. See also
King Richard’s opinion of these two orders and of the Templars,
in Gir. Cambr. as above, dist. ii. c. 12 (p. 54).
Still the monastic impulse which had guided so many religious movements
in the past was not wholly dead. On the continent it was giving indeed
fresh proofs of its vitality in the growth of two remarkable orders,
those of Grandmont and of the Chartreuse, both of earlier origin
than that of Cîteaux, but overshadowed until now by its transcendent
fame. These however had little influence upon English religious
life. The “Good Men” of Grandmont--as the brotherhood were commonly
called--although special favourites of King Henry, never set foot in
his island realm; the Carthusians reached it only in his last years,
and the few settlements which they formed there never rose to any
great importance.[2171] Out of all the English monasteries, of various
orders, whose dates of foundation are known, only one hundred and
thirteen arose during the thirty-five years of Henry’s reign, while
a hundred and fifteen owed their origin to the nineteen troubled
winters of his predecessor. In Yorkshire alone no less than twenty
new houses had been founded under Stephen; only eleven were founded
there under Henry.[2172] Towards the close of the century, indeed, the
reputation of English monachism had fallen so low that in the high
places of the Church a reaction in favour of secular clerks began to
set in once more. One bishop, Hugh of Coventry, not only ventured to
repeat the experiment which had been vainly tried elsewhere under the
Confessor and the Conqueror, of turning the monks out of his cathedral
and replacing them by secular canons, but actually proposed that all
the cathedral establishments served by monks should be broken up and
put upon a new foundation of a like secular character. Hugh himself
was however scarcely the man to meet with general recognition in the
capacity of a reformer; and his bold anticipation of the ecclesiastical
revolution which was to come four centuries later ended in ignominious
failure.[2173] It was, however, no less a personage than Archbishop
Baldwin himself who in 1186 proposed to endow out of his archiepiscopal
revenues a college of secular priests at Hackington by Canterbury,
with the avowed object of providing a dwelling-place and a maintenance
for the scholarship which monkish jealousy and monkish sloth had all
but driven out of the cloisters where from the days of Theodore to
those of Theobald it had found a home. This scheme was at once met by
a determined opposition on the part of the monks of Christ Church,
who suspected, perhaps not without reason, that it was part of a
design for curtailing the privileges and destroying the independence
of the metropolitan chapter. They instantly appealed to Rome, and the
appeal opened a contest which absorbed the unlucky primate’s energies
throughout the remainder of his life. He was steadily supported by
the king; but the weight of the whole monastic body, except his own
order, was thrown into the opposite scale; the general drift of
ecclesiastical feeling still lay in the same direction; and after
nearly four years of wearisome litigation at Rome and almost open
warfare at Canterbury, the building of the new college was stopped by
order of the Pope. The undaunted primate transferred his foundation
to a new site at Lambeth, where it might have seemed less open to
suspicion of rivalry with the Canterbury chapter; but the jealousy of
the monks pursued it with relentless hatred, and Baldwin’s absence
and death in Holy Land enabled them to secure an easy victory a year
later. The next archbishop, Hubert Walter, took up his predecessor’s
scheme with a zeal doubtless quickened by the fact that he was himself
a secular clerk. The dispute dragged on for five more years, to end at
last in the defeat of the primate, and, with him, of the last attempt
made in England systematically to utilize the superfluous wealth of
a great monastic corporation for the promotion of learning and the
endowment of study.[2174] The attempt was made under unfavourable
circumstances, perhaps by unskilful hands; and it was moreover made
too soon. In English national sentiment, monachism was inseparably
bound up with Christianity itself. To the monastic system England
owed her conversion, her ecclesiastical organization, her earliest
training as a nation and as a Church. Even if the guides to whom she
had so long trusted were failing her at last, the conservatism and the
gratitude of Englishmen both alike still shrank from casting aside
a tradition hallowed by the best and happiest associations of six
hundred years. The bent of popular sympathy was strikingly shewn by
an episode in Baldwin’s quarrel with his monks, when their insolent
defiance of his authority provoked him to cut off all their supplies,
in the hope of starving them into submission. For eighty-four weeks
not a morsel of food reached them save what was brought by their
friends or by the pilgrims who crowded to the martyr’s shrine; so
great however was the amount of these contributions, some of which
came even from Jews, that--if we may believe the tale of one who was
himself an inmate of the convent at this time--the brethren were able
out of their superabundance to give a daily meal to two hundred poor
strangers.[2175] As a spiritual force, however, monachism in England
was well-nigh dead. Though it still kept a lingering hold upon the
hearts of the people, it had lost its power over their souls. It might
produce individual saints like Hugh of Lincoln; but its influence had
ceased to mould the spiritual life of the nation. The time was almost
ripe for the coming of the Friars.
[2171] On Grandmont (founded in 1176, by Stephen of Tierny,
near Muret in the diocese of Limoges) see _Gall. Christ._, vol.
ii. col. 645; _Vita S. Steph. Muret._ (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._,
vol. ii. pp. 674–683); Bern. Guidon, _De Ordine Grandimont._
(_ib._ p. 275 _et seq._); W. Map, _De Nug. Curial._, dist. i.
cc. 17, 27 (Wright, pp. 28, 29, 58, 59); and Gir. Cambr. _Spec.
Eccles._, dist. iii. c. 21 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 254). Henry’s
reverence for the brethren showed itself not only in frequent
visits and benefactions to their house, and also in his desire
to be buried there (above, p. 270), but also by the remarkable
way in which he deferred to their suggestions and sought their
counsel on grave matters of policy. Examples of this are
frequent during the Becket controversy; another may be seen
in _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 194. For the Chartreuse
(diocese of Grenoble--founded in 1084 or 1086 by Bruno of
Cöln, a canon of Reims) see W. Map, _De Nug. Cur._, dist. i.
cc. 16 and 28 (Wright, pp. 26–28, 59, 60); Gir. Cambr. _Spec.
Eccles._, dist. iii. c. 20 (as above, pp. 248–252); _Gall.
Christ._, vol. xvi. cols. 268, 269. The history of the English
Carthusian houses is in Dugdale’s _Monasticon_, vol. vi. pt.
i.; a full account of one, Witham, is given in the Life of S.
Hugh of Lincoln, who had been its first prior.
[2172] These figures are from Mr. Howlett’s introduction to
Will. Newb., vol. i. pp. xiii, xiv.
[2173] Gir. Cambr. _Spec. Eccles._, dist. ii. c. 23 (as above,
pp. 65, 67). Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 65–67. Gerv. Cant.
(Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 470, 488, 489, 550.
[2174] The history of this quarrel is told at wearisome length
by Gervase of Canterbury, and in the _Epistolæ Cantuarienses_.
It is summed up and explained by Bishop Stubbs in his preface
to the last-named book.
[2175] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 405.
Meanwhile the decay of holiness and learning in the cloister was
brought into more vivid light by a great outburst of intellectual
vigour of a wholly new type. The literary activity of the reign of
Henry I. had been all but quenched by the troubles of Stephen’s
reign. Chronicler after chronicler lays down his pen, as if in
disgust or despair, in the middle of the dreary story, till Henry
of Huntingdon and the nameless English annalist at Peterborough are
left to struggle almost alone through the last years of anarchy to
welcome the new king; and he is no sooner crowned than they, too,
pass away into silence.[2176] The first half of Henry’s reign has
no contemporary historian at all. The other branches of literature
continued equally barren; and a promise of better things had scarcely
dawned in the miscellaneous treatises of John of Salisbury when the
whole intellectual horizon was darkened by the great ecclesiastical
storm. No sooner had it subsided, however, than the literary impulse
revived under wholly changed conditions. Its bent was still mainly
historical; and, as might be expected, the first subject-matter upon
which it seized was the history of the new martyr. Within twenty
years of his death, no less than ten different biographies of S.
Thomas were composed by writers of the most diverse characters--his
old comrade John of Salisbury, three of his own confidential clerks,
a Benedictine abbot of Peterborough, an Augustinian prior of Oxford,
a monk of Canterbury who was probably an Irishman by blood, a French
poet who had seen the primate in his chancellor-days, a Cambridge
clerk who had joined him on the eve of his martyrdom. But meanwhile a
new school of English history was springing up in the court instead
of the cloister. Modern research has ascertained that the book which
may fairly be called the foundation-stone of this new school, as well
as the primary authority for English political history from the death
of S. Thomas to the third year of Richard Cœur-de-Lion--- the “Acts
of King Henry and King Richard,” long attributed to Benedict abbot
of Peterborough--is really the work of Richard Fitz-Nigel, bishop of
London and treasurer. Its continuator, Roger of Howden, was a clerk
of the royal chapel and an active and trusted officer of the royal
administration under both Henry and Richard.[2177] A third chronicler
of the period, Ralf de Diceto, was archdeacon of Middlesex from 1153 to
1180, when he became dean of S. Paul’s, an office of great political
as well as ecclesiastical importance, which he filled with distinction
until his death in the fourth year of King John.[2178] The works of
these three writers are examples of a species of historical composition
which is one of the most valuable literary products of the later
twelfth century. They are chronicles in the strictest sense of the
word:--records of facts and events arranged year by year in orderly
chronological sequence, and for the most part without any attempt at
illustration, comment or criticism. But the gap which parts them from
the ordinary type of monastic chronicle is as wide as that which parted
the highly-placed ecclesiastical dignitary, the trusted minister of
the Crown, or the favourite court-chaplain from the obscure monk who
had spent, it may be, well-nigh his whole life in copying manuscripts
in the scriptorium of Burton or Dunstable or Waverley. Their writers
were not merely chroniclers; they were statesmen and diplomatists
as well. Their position as members of the royal administration,
dwelling in the capital or at the court, placed them in constant and
intimate communication with the chief actors in the events which they
narrate, events of which not only were they themselves frequently
eye-witnesses, but in which they even took a personal, though it might
be subordinate, share; it gave them access to the most authentic
sources of political intelligence, to the official records of the
kingdom, to the state-papers and diplomatic correspondence of the
time, whereof a considerable part, if not actually drawn up by
themselves, must at any rate have passed through their hands in the
regular course of their daily business. The fulness and accuracy, the
balance of proportion, the careful order which characterize the work
of these statesmen-chroniclers are scarcely more remarkable than its
cosmopolitan range; Henry’s historiographers, like Henry himself, sweep
the whole known world into the wide circle of their intelligence and
their interest; the internal concerns of every state, from Norway to
Morocco and from Ireland to Palestine, find a place in the pages of
Richard Fitz-Nigel and Roger of Howden, side by side with the narrative
of their sovereign’s wars with France or with the text of the various
assizes whereby he was reforming the legal and judicial administration
of their own native land. While, however, the first works of this new
historical school thus rose far above the level of mere annals, they
still stood far below the literary standard of history in the higher
sense, which had been set up by a monk at Malmesbury half a century
before. The only writer who in the latter half of the twelfth century,
like William of Malmesbury in its earlier half, looked at history in
its true light, not as a mere record of facts, but according to its
old Greek definition, as “philosophy teaching by examples,” must be
sought after all not in the court but in the cloister. William indeed
had left no heir to his many-sided literary genius; but if some shreds
of his mantle did fall upon any historian of the next generation, they
fell upon one who bore his name, in an Augustinian priory among the
Yorkshire moors.
[2176] Henry of Huntingdon, we know, intended to “devote a new
book to the new king”; but it seems that this intention was not
fulfilled.
[2177] On the _Gesta Hen._ and Rog. Howden see Bishop Stubbs’s
prefaces to his editions of them in the Rolls series.
[2178] Stubbs, _R. Diceto_, vol. i. pref. pp. xxvi–lxxxiii.