Henry entered Brittany, assembled the States at Nantes, and claimed the
guardianship of his grandson’s person and domains. They were at first
intimidated by his threats, but Constance showed so much spirit, that
she obtained the keeping of her son, and the immediate government,
though she was not to act without the advice and consent of the King
of England, who received the oaths of the barons present. The widowed
heiress suffered much persecution from the different suitors for her
hand, among whom figured her brother-in-law, John Lackland; and Henry,
fearing her marriage with some powerful prince, so tormented her by
threats of removing her son from her charge, that he forced her into a
marriage with Ranulf de Blondeville, Count of Chester, grandson to an
illegitimate son of Henry I., a man of violent, and ambitious temper,
and of mean and ungraceful appearance. In a dispute which took place
between him and the Count de Perche, in Lincoln Cathedral, the latter
contemptuously called him a dwarf. “Sayest thou so?” cried Ranulf; “ere
long I shall seem to thee as high as that steeple!”--and his words were
fulfilled, when, as Duke of Brittany, he claimed the allegiance of the
Count.
He made himself extremely hated in Brittany by his cruelty and
injustice; and no sooner had the news arrived of the death of Henry II.,
than the people rose with one consent, drove him away, and restored the
power to Constance. Richard I. did not interfere in his behalf,
and appeared favorable to his nephew Arthur, acknowledging him as
heir-presumptive of England, and, when at Messina, betrothing him to the
daughter of Tancred, King of Sicily. It was probably in honor of
this intended alliance that Richard presented Tancred with the sword
Excalibar, which certainly should never have passed out of the
possession of the British.
Constance remained at peace for the present, though Richard’s absence
left the other territories over which he asserted his power exposed to
much disturbance. He had left the government of England in the hands of
Hugh, Bishop of Durham (the young Earl), and William Longchamp, Bishop
of Ely--a native of Beauvais, who had risen to high favor in the employ
first of Geoffrey, the son of Rosamond, Archbishop of York, and was now
chancellor, and afterward of Richard. He was an arrogant man, and broke
through all restraint, imprisoned his colleague, deprived him of his
offices, and forced him to resign his earldom; then, when Richard
despatched orders that he should be re-instated, declared that he knew
what were the King’s private intentions, and should obey no public
instructions. He sealed public acts with his own seal instead of the
King’s, kept a guard of fifteen hundred rapacious and disorderly
mercenaries, plundered men of every rank, so that it was said “the
knight could not keep his silver belt, the noble his ring, the lady her
necklace, nor the Jew his merchandise.” He travelled in great state,
with a train of minstrels and jesters, who drowned the outcries of the
injured people by songs in his praise. Again Richard sent orders to
restrain him, but in vain; he only declared them a forgery, and pursued
his careless course.
Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, had sworn not to enter the kingdom for
three years, but he now returned; whereupon the chancellor seized
him while at mass, and kept him prisoner. John had no love for his
half-brother: but this was a good opportunity of overthrowing the
chancellor, after such an outrage on the person of an archbishop; and,
at the head of the barons and bishops, he forced Longchamp to resign the
chancellorship, and promise to give up the keys of the King’s castles.
To avoid yielding the castles, he attempted to escape from England in
disguise, and arrived at the seashore of Kent in the dress of an old
woman--a gown with large sleeves, a thick veil, and a bundle of linen
and ell-wand in his hand. The tide did not serve, and he was forced to
seat himself on a stone to wait for his vessel. Here the fisherwomen
came up and began to examine his wares, and ask their price; but the
English chancellor and bishop understood no English, and only shook
his head. Thinking him a crazy woman, they peeped under his veil, and,
“spying a great beard under his muffler,” raised a shout which brought
their husbands to the spot, who, while he vainly tried to explain
himself, dragged him in derision through the mud, and shut him up in a
cellar. He was, however, released, gave up the keys, and left England.
Geoffrey became chancellor in his stead, and took possession of the see
of York. The next disturbance was caused by the return of Philippe
of France, begging Pope Celestine III. to absolve him of his oath to
respect Richard’s dominions. Celestine refused, and no one was found to
second his plans but Richard’s own brother John, whom he brought over
by promises of securing to him the succession, and bestowing on him
the continental fiefs. The English, and with them William the Lion of
Scotland and his brother David, maintained the rights of the young
Arthur, and matters continued in suspense till Richard’s release from
his captivity.
Easily subduing and more easily pardoning his traitor brother, Richard
carried his arms into France, gained a victory at Vendome, and took the
great seal of France; then entered Guienne, where the turbulent nobility
had revolted, and reducing them, enjoyed a short space of tranquillity
and minstrelsy, and kept on a poetical correspondence with Count Guy of
Auvergne.
Arthur, who was now nine years old, was, in 1196, introduced by his
mother to the assembly of the States of Brittany, and associated with
her in the duchy. His uncle at the same time claimed the charge of him
as his heir, and invited Constance to a conference at Pontorson. On her
way--it is much to be feared with his connivance--she was seized by a
body of troops under her husband, the Earl of Chester, and carried a
prisoner to the castle of St. James de Beuvron.
Her nobles met at St. Malo, and deputed the seneschal of Rennes to
inquire of her how they should act, and to assure her of their fidelity.
She thanked them earnestly, but her whole entreaty was that they would
guard her son, watch him like friends, servants, and parents, and save
him from the English. “As for me,” wrote she, “that will be as God
wills; but whatever may befall me, do your best for Arthur my son. I
shall always be well, provided he is well, and in the care of good
subjects.”
The vassals wept at this letter, full of maternal love; they swore to
devote themselves to their young lord, even to the death, and obtained
from him a promise never to treat with the English without their
consent. They placed him under the charge of the Sieur de Vitré, who
conducted him from castle to castle with so much secrecy, that Richard
continually failed in his attempts to seize on him. Treaties were
attempted, but failed, with mutual accusations of perfidy, and while
Constance continued a prisoner, a most desolating war raged in the
unfortunate duchy. The dislike and distrust that existed between
Constance and her mother-in-law, Queen Eleanor, seem to have been the
root of many of these troubles; Eleanor was all-powerful with her son,
and contrived to inspire him with distrust of Constance--a suspicion
naturally augmented by her refusal to allow him the care of her son, his
own heir, whom she placed in the hands of the foe of the English.
Richard’s troops were chiefly Brabançon mercenaries, or
free-companions--a lawless soldiery, deservedly execrated; and their
captain, Mercadet, was a favorite of the King on account of his
dauntless courage and enterprise. In a skirmish, Mercadot took prisoner
the Bishop of Beauvais, one of the warlike prelates who forgot their
proper office. The Pope demanded his liberation, and Richard returned
the suit of armor in which the bishop had been taken, with the message,
“See if this be thy son’s coat, or no.”
“No, indeed,” said Celestine; “this is the coat of a son of Mars; I will
leave it to Mars to deliver him.”
Vitré succeeded in lodging young Arthur, his charge, in the hands of
the King of France, who espoused his cause as an excuse for attacking
Richard. Several battles took place, and at length another treaty of
peace was made, by which Constance was liberated, after eighteen months’
captivity. Doubtless this would soon have proved as hollow as every
other agreement between the French King and the Plantagenet; but it was
Coeur de Lion’s last.
The Vicomte de Limoges, in Poitou, sent him two mule-burdens of silver,
part of a treasure found in his hands. Richard rapaciously claimed the
whole. “No,” said the Vicomte, “only treasure in gold belongs to the
suzerain; treasure in silver is halved.”
Richard, in anger, marched to Poitou with his Brabançons, and besieged
the Castle of Chaluz, where he believed the rest of the riches to be
concealed. In the course of the assault his shoulder was pierced by an
arrow shot from the walls by an archer named Bertrand de Gourdon, and
though the wound at first appeared slight, the surgeons, in attempting
to extract the head of the arrow, so mangled the shoulder, that fever
came on, and his life was despaired of. Mercadet, in the meantime,
pushed on the attack, took the castle, and brought Gourdon a prisoner to
the King’s tent.
“Villain, wherefore hast thou slain me?” said Richard.
“Because,” replied Gourdon, “thou hast with thine own hand killed my
father and my two brothers. Torture me as thou wilt; I shall rejoice in
having freed the world of a tyrant.”
The dying King ordered that the archer should be released, and have a
sum of money given to him; but the Brabançons, in their rage and grief,
flayed the unhappy man alive. Richard’s favorite sister Joan, Queen of
Sicily, had married Raymond, Count of Toulouse, who was at this
juncture in great distress from having taken the part of the persecuted
Albigenses. She travelled to her brother’s camp to ask his aid, but
arriving to find him expiring, she was taken ill, and, after giving
birth to a dead child, died a few hours after her brother. They were
buried together, at their father’s feet, at Fontevraud. Queen Berengaria
survived him thirty years, living peacefully in a convent at Mans, where
she was buried in the church of St. Julien, an English Queen who never
set foot in England.
Loud were the lamentations of the troubadours of Aquitaine over their
minstrel King, Bertrand de Born especially, bewailing him as “_le
roi des courtois, l’empereur des preux_,” and declaring that barons,
troubadours, jongleurs, had lost their all. This strange, contradictory
character, the ardent friend yet the turbulent enemy of the Plantagenet
princes, ended his life of rebellion and gallantry as a penitent in the
Abbey of Citeaux. Dante nevertheless introduces him in his Inferno, his
head severed from his body, and explaining his doom thus:
“Sappi ch’i’son Bertram dal Bornio, quelli
Che diedi al re Giovanni i ma’ comforti
I’ feci’l padre e’l figlio in se ribelli
Achitofel non fè pir d’Absalone
E di David co’ malvagi pungelli
Perch’ i’ parti cosi giunte persone
Partito porto il mio cerebro, lasso
Dal suo principio ch’é n questo troncone
cosi s’osserva in me lo contrapasso.”
Queen Eleanor’s influence and Richard’s own displeasure at the Duchess
of Brittany so prevailed, that Arthur was not even named by the dying
Coeur de Lion; but he directed his barons to swear fealty to his brother
John, and the wish was universally complied with.
Philippe Auguste’s voice was the only one uplifted in favor of
Arthur, but it was merely as a means of obtaining a bribe, which John
administered in the shape of the county of Evreux, as a marriage-portion
for his niece, Blanche, the eldest daughter of Eleanor Plantagenet,
Queen of Castile. John, though half-married to various ladies, had no
recognized wife, and to give her to Louis, the eldest son of the King
of France, would therefore, as John hoped, separate France from the
interests of the Breton prince. He little thought what effect that claim
would have on himself! Queen Eleanor, though in her seventieth year,
travelled to Castile to fetch her granddaughter, a beautiful and noble
lady, innocent of all the intrigues that hinged on her espousal, and in
whom France received a blessing.
Philippe Auguste brought young Arthur to this betrothal, and caused him
to swear fealty to his uncle for Brittany as a fief of Normandy. Arthur
was now thirteen, and had newly received the order of knighthood,
adopting as his device the lion, unicorn, and griffin, which tradition
declared to have been borne by his namesake, and this homage must have
been sorely against his will. He was betrothed to Marie, one of the
French King’s daughters, and continued to reside at his court, never
venturing into the power of his uncle.
His mother, Constance, had taken advantage of this tranquillity to
obtain a divorce from the hated Earl of Chester, and to give her hand to
the Vicomte Guy de Thouars; but the Bretons appear to have disapproved
of the step, as they never allowed him to bear the title of Duke. She
survived her marriage little more than two years, in the course of which
she gave birth to three daughters, Alix, Catherine, and Marguerite, and
died in the end of 1201.
Arthur set off to take possession of his dukedom, and was soon delighted
to hear of a fresh disturbance between his uncle and the King of France,
hoping that he might thus come to his rights.
John had long ago fallen in love with Avice, granddaughter of Earl
Robert of Gloucester, and had been espoused to her at his brother’s
coronation; but the Church had interposed, and refused to permit their
union, as they were second cousins. He was now in the south of France,
where he beheld the beautiful Isabelle, daughter of the Count of
Angoulême, only waiting till her age was sufficient for her to fulfill
the engagement made in her infancy, and become the wife of Hugh de
Lusignan, called _le brun_, Count de la Marche, namely, the borders of
English and French Poitou. Regardless of their former ties, John at once
obtained the damsel from her faithless parents, and made her his queen;
while her lover, who was ardently attached to her, called upon the King
of France, as suzerain, to do him justice.
Philippe was glad to establish the supremacy of his court, and summoned
John to appear. John promised compensation, and offered as a pledge two
of his castles; then broke his word, and refused; whereupon Philippe
took up arms, besieged the castles, and had just destroyed them both,
when Arthur arrived, with all the Breton knights he could collect, and
burning with the eagerness of his sixteen years.
At once Philippe offered to receive his homage for the county of Anjou,
and to send him to conquer it with any knights who would volunteer to
follow him. Hugh de Lusignan was the first to bring him fifteen, and
other Poitevin barons joined him; but, in all, he could muster but one
hundred knights and four or five hundred other troops, and the wiser
heads advised him to wait for reinforcements from Brittany. The fiery
young men, however, asked, “When was it our fashion to count our foes?”
and their rashness prevailed. Arthur marched to besiege the town
of Mirabeau, where there resided one whom he should never have
attacked--his aged grandmother; but Constance had taught him no
sentiment toward her but hatred, and with this ill-omened beginning to
his chivalry he commenced his expedition.
The town was soon taken: but Eleanor’s high spirit had not deserted her;
she shut herself up in the castle, and contrived to send intelligence
to her son. John was for once roused, and marched to Mirabeau with such
speed, that Arthur soon found himself surrounded in his turn. The Queen
was in the citadel, the prince in the town, besieging her, and himself
besieged by the King on the outside; but the town wall was strong, and
John could not easily injure his nephew, nor send succor to his mother.
He recollected a knight named Guillaume dos Roches, who had once been
attached to Arthur’s service, but was now in his camp; and sending for
him, the wily King thus addressed him: “It is hard that persons who
should be friendly kindred should so disturb each other for want of
meeting and coming to an understanding. Here is Eleanor, my honored
mother, discourteously shut up in a tower in danger of being broken down
by engines of war, and sending forth nothing but cries and tears. Here
is Arthur, my fair nephew, who some day will be an honor to chivalry,
going straight forward, fancying nothing can hurt him, looking on
battles as feasts and sports. And here am I, John, his lord and King,
who could easily take from him at a blow all the rest of his life; I am
waiting, and endeavoring to spare him, though his men-at-arms may come
and catch me like a fox in the toils. Cannot you find some expedient?
Can you remember no friend of my fair nephew who could help you to
restore peace, and obtain a guerdon from me?”
“The only guerdon I desire,” replied Des Roches, “is the honor of
serving my lord; but one gift I entreat.”
“I grant it, by the soul of my father,” said John.
“To-morrow, then,” said Des Roches, “the young Duke and all his young
lords shall be at your disposal; but I claim the gift you granted me. It
is, that none of the besieged shall be imprisoned or put to death, and
that Duke Arthur be treated by you as your good and honorable nephew,
and that you leave him such of his lands as rightfully pertain to him.”
John promised, and even swore that, if he violated his word, he released
his subjects from their oaths. Arthur’s stepfather, Guy de Thouars,
witnessed the agreement, and, thus satisfied, Des Roches introduced his
troops into the town at midnight, and Arthur and his followers were
seized in their sleep. But for John’s promise, he regarded it no more
than the wind; he sent twenty-two knights at once to Corfe Castle,
chained two and two together in carts drawn by oxen, where all but Hugh
de Lusignan were starved to death by his orders. He threw the rest into
different prisons, and closely confined his nephew at Falaise. Des
Roches remonstrated, upon which John attempted to arrest both him and
De Thouars, but they escaped from his dominions; and Des Roches was so
grieved at the fatal consequence of his treachery, that he became a
hermit, and ended his life in penance.
The old Queen, whose disposition had softened with her years, charged
John, on pain of her curses, not to hurt his nephew, and exerted herself
to save the victims from barbarity. She prevailed so far as to obtain
the life of Lusignan; but he was shut up at Bristol Castle, where John
likewise imprisoned the elder sister of Arthur, Eleanor, a girl of
eighteen, of such peerless beauty that she was called the Pearl of
Brittany. John held a parley with his nephew at Falaise, when the
following dialogue took place; [Footnote: These particulars are from old
chronicles of slight authority.]
“Give up your false pretentions,” said John, “to crowns you will never
wear. Am I not your uncle? I will give you a share of my inheritance as
your lord, and grant you my friendship.”
“Better the hatred of the King of France!” exclaimed the high-spirited
boy; “he has not broken his faith, and with a noble knight there is
always a resource in generosity.”
“Folly to trust him!” sneered John. “French kings are the born enemies
of Plantagenets.”
“Philippe has placed the crown on my brow--he was my godfather in
chivalry--he has granted me his daughter,” said Arthur.
“And you will never marry her, fair nephew! My towers are strong; none
here resist my will.”
The boy burst out proudly: “Neither towers nor swords shall make me
cowardly enough to deny the right I hold from my father and from God.
He was your elder brother, now before the Saviour of men. England,
Touraine, Anjou, Guienne, are mine in his right, and Brittany through my
mother. Never will I renounce them, but by death.”
“So be it, fair nephew,” were John’s words, and with them he left his
captive alone, to dwell on the horrors thus implied.
Soon after, John secretly sent a party of men into Arthur’s dungeon,
with orders to put out his eyes. The youth caught up a wooden bench, and
defended himself with it, calling so loudly for help as to bring to the
spot the excellent governor of the castle, Hubert de Burgh, who had been
in ignorance of their horrible design. He sent away the assassins, and,
as the only means of saving the poor prince, he caused the chapel bell
to be tolled, and let it be supposed that he had perished under their
hands. All the world believed it, and Brittany and Normandy began to
rise, to call the murderer to account. Hubert thought he was doing a
service in divulging the safety of the prisoner, but the effect was,
that John transferred the poor boy to Rouen, and to the keeping of
William Bruce.
He was an old man, and dreaded the iniquity that he saw would soon be
practised; and, coming to the King, gave up his charge in these words:
“I know not what Fate intends for your nephew, whom I have hitherto
faithfully kept. I give him up to you, in full health, and sound in
limb; but I will guard him no longer; I must return to my own affairs.”
John’s eyes flashed fury; but the baron retired to his own fiefs, which
he put in a state of defence. A few days after, John and his wicked
squire, Pierre de Maulac, left the court, giving notice that he was
going to Cherbourg, and, after wandering for three days in the woods of
Moulineau, came late at night in a little boat to the foot of the tower
where Arthur was confined. Horses were ready there, and he sent Maulac
to bring him his nephew.
“Fair nephew,” said he, “come and see the day you have so long desired.
I will make you free as air: you shall even have a kingdom to govern.”
Arthur began to ask explanations, but John cut him short, telling him
there would be time for questions and thanks; and Maulac helped him to
his horse, for he was so much weakened by his imprisonment that he could
hardly mount. They rode on, Arthur in front, till they came to a spot
where the river flowed beneath a precipitous bank. It was John’s chosen
spot; and he spurred his horse against his nephew’s, striking him down
with his sword. The poor boy cried aloud for mercy, promising to yield
all he required.
“All is mine henceforth,” said John, “and here is the kingdom I promised
you.”
Then striking him again, by the help of Maulac he dragged him to the
edge of the rock, and threw him headlong into the Seine, whose waters
closed over the brave young Plantagenet, in his eighteenth year, ending
all the hopes of the Bretons. The deed of darkness was guessed at,
though it was long before its manner became known; and John himself
marked out its consummation by causing himself to be publicly crowned
over again, and by rewarding his partner in the crime with the hand of
the heiress of Mulgrave. His mother, Queen Eleanor, is said to have died
of grief at the horror he had perpetrated. She had retired, after the
siege of Mirabeau, to the convent of Fontevraud, where she assumed the
veil, and now shared the same fate as her husband, King Henry--like him,
dying broken-hearted for the crimes of their son. She was buried beside
him and her beloved Coeur de Lion.
The Bretons mourned and raged at the loss of their young duke. His
sister Eleanor was wasting her youth and loveliness in a prison,
which she only left, after her oppressor’s death, to become a nun at
Ambresbury; and they therefore proclaimed as their duchess her little
half-sister, Alix de Thouars, who was, at four years old, presented
to the States in her father’s arms, and shortly after married to an
efficient protector, Pierre de Dreux, called, from his quarrels with the
clergy, Mauclerc.
Never had the enemy of the Plantagenets been so well served as by King
John. Such was the indignation and grief of the whole French noblesse,
that, when Pope Innocent III sent out a legate to mediate between the
two kings, the barons bound themselves by a charter, “to second their
lord, King Philippe, in his war against King John, notwithstanding the
will of the Pope, exhorting him to contrive it without being dismayed by
vain words, and agreeing to give him all assistance, and enter into no
treaty with the Pope save with his consent.”
Finding his nobles in this disposition, Philippe ventured on an
unprecedented step, namely, that of summoning the King of England, as
his vassal for Normandy and Anjou, to answer for the crime done on the
person of his nephew, before his peers, namely, the other great crown
vassals and barons holding fiefs directly from the King.