de Burgh, and Eustace, Bishop of Ely, to declare that he would willingly
appear, provided a safe-conduct was sent to him. Philippe declared that
he certainly might come in safety; but when they asked if he guaranteed
his security, supposing he was condemned, he replied, “By all the saints
of France, no! That must be decided by the peers.” The bishop declared
that a crowned head could not be tried for murder; the English barons
would not permit it. “What is that to me?” said Philippe. “The Dukes of
Normandy have certainly conquered England; but because a vassal augments
his domain, is the suzerain to lose his rights?”
Two months were allowed for John’s appearance in person; and on the
appointed day the assembly was held in the Louvre: the nobles in ermine
robes, and the heralds paraded the public places, calling on King
John to appear and answer for his felony; then, as no reply was made,
judgment was pronounced that his fiefs of Normandy, Anjou, and Poitou,
were forfeited to the Crown, Guienne alone being excepted, as its
heiress, his mother, was not at that time dead.
The execution followed upon the sentence: Philippe instantly marched
into Normandy, and seized upon towns, his flatterers said, as if he
caught them in a net. Chateau Gaillard, however, held out for more than
a year, and Philippe was forced to blockade it. It had been fortified to
perfection by Richard, who termed it his beautiful Castle on the Rock,
and pertinaciously defended by Roger de Lacy. All the non-combatants
were driven out; but the French would not allow them to pass through
their lines, and they lived miserably among the rocks, trying to satisfy
their hunger with the refuse of the camp. One wretched man was found
gnawing a piece of the leg of a dog, and when some compassionate French
tried to take it from him, he resisted, declaring he would not part with
it till he was satisfied with bread. They fed him, but he could hardly
masticate, though swallowing his food ravenously.
One tower was at last overthrown, and another was gained by a bold
“varlet,” named Bogis, who was lifted on the shoulders of his comrades,
till he could climb in at an undefended window, where he drew up sixty
more with ropes. They burnt down the doors, and entered the castle,
where only one hundred and fifty knights remained alive. Keeping them at
bay, Bogis lowered the drawbridge, and admitted the rest of the army;
the remains of the garrison retreated into the keep, still resolved not
to surrender, though battering-rams, catapults, and every engine of war
was brought to bear on them. A huge piece of wall fell down, still there
was no surrender; but with night, all resistance ceased, and the French,
entering in the morning, found every one of the garrison lying dead in
the dust and ruins, all their wounds in the face and breast--not
one behind, “to the great honor and praise of chivalry,” said their
assailants, who rejoiced in their valor.
Only one feeble attempt had been made by John to succor these noble
and constant men, though no further distant than Rouen, where he was
feasting with his new queen. All his reply to messages of Philippe’s
advance was, “Let him alone; I will regain more in a day than he can
take in a year.”
Chinon was taken after a gallant defence, and in it Hubert de Burgh, for
whom John seems to have had an unusual regard. For a moment it grieved
him, and he awoke from his festivities to say to his queen:
“There, dame, do you hear what I have lost for your sake?”
“Sire,” said Isabella, who had learnt by this time at how dear a price
she had purchased her crown, “on my part, I lost the best knight in the
world for your sake!”
“By the faith I owe you, in ten years’ time we shall have no corner safe
from the King of France and his power!”
“Certes! sir,” she answered, “I believe you are very desirous of being a
king checkmated in a corner.”
She seems to have taken every occasion of showing her contempt for the
mean-spirited wretch to whom she had given her hand: but at present her
treatment only incited the King’s ardor of affection: he formed more
schemes of pleasure for her, and turned a deaf ear to all complaints
from his deserted subjects, until Falaise had surrendered, Mont St.
Michael was burnt, and Rouen itself was threatened. Then he took flight,
and returned to England, where he made his Norman war a pretext for
taxes; but when the Rouennais citizens, who still had a love for the
line of Rollo, came to tell him that they must surrender in thirty days
unless they were succored, he would not interrupt his game at chess to
listen to them; and, when it was finished, only said, “Do as you can: I
have no aid to give you.”
They were therefore forced to surrender, Philippe swearing to respect
their rights and liberties; and thus, after three hundred years, did the
dukedom that first raised the Norman line to the rank of princes pass
from the race of Rollo, disgracefully forfeited by a cowardly murder.
The four little isles of Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, and Sark, are the
only remnant of the duchy won by the Northman. They still belong to the
Queen, as Duchess of Normandy, are ruled by peculiar Norman laws, and
bear on their coinage only the three lions, without the bearings of her
other domains.
Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, were won by the French, without one blow
struck in their defence by Ingelger’s degenerate descendant, “whose
sinful heart made feeble hand.” The recovery of his continental
dominions served as a pretext for a tax of every tenth shilling; but
this being illegal, Geoffrey, the Archbishop of York, refused to consent
to, and threatened excommunication to all in his diocese who should pay
it. John vowed vengeance, and placed his life in such danger that he was
forced to flee from the country, and his death abroad saved the King
from the guilt of the murder of a brother.
With the money John had raised, he levied a force of Brabançons and
free-companions, entered Anjou, burnt Angers, and besieged Nantes; but
on hearing of Philippe’s advance, retreated, and thus ended all hopes of
his regaining his inheritance. The Norman barons, whose lands had passed
to the French, told him that, if their bodies served him, their hearts
would be with the French, and, for the most part, transferred their
allegiance, and he remained with his disgrace. Thus was Arthur avenged.
CAMEO XXVI. THE INTERDICT. (1207-1214.)
_King of England._ 1199. John.
_King of Scotland_ 1163. William.
_King of France_ 1180. Philippe II.
_Emperors of Germany._
1208. Otho IV.
1209. Friedrich III.
_Pope._ 1198. Innocent III.
The election of bishops still remained a subject of dispute in the
Church, in spite of the settlement apparently effected in the time of
Archbishop Anselm, when it was determined that, on the vacancy of a see,
the King should send a _Congé d’élire_ (permission to elect) to the
chapter of the cathedral, generally accompanied with a recommendation,
and that the prelate should receive investiture from the Crown of the
temporalities of his see. However, in the case of archbishoprics, the
matter was complicated by the right of the bishops to have a voice in
the choice of their primate, and by the custom of the Pope’s presenting
him with a pall, which the grasping pontiffs of the thirteenth century
would fain have converted into a power of rejection. At each election to
Canterbury the debate broke out, enhanced by the jealousies between the
secular clergy, who often formed the majority of the bishops, and who
usually held with the sovereign, and the regular monks of St. Augustine,
who were the canons of the cathedral, and looked to the Pope.
Richard, who succeeded Thomas à Becket, was a monastic priest, mild, and
somewhat time-serving, conniving at irregularities, and never apparently
provoked out of his meekness, except by the perpetual struggle for
precedence with the see of York--and no wonder, when, at a synod at
Westminster, Roger, Archbishop of York, fairly sat down in his lap on
finding him occupying the seat of honor next to the legate. Upon this
the Pope interfered, pronouncing the Archbishop of York, Primate of
England, and him of Canterbury, Primate of all England; but the jealousy
as to the right of having the cross carried before them in each other’s
provinces continued for centuries to a lamentable and shameful degree.
Baldwin, who succeeded him, seems to have been secular, but little is
known of him. He, with the consent of Richard Coeur de Lion, laid the
foundation of a convent at Lambeth, which he intended as a residence for
the primate, in order to lessen the preponderance of the canons of St.
Augustine; he then accompanied the King on the Crusade, and died of
fever before the walls of Acre.
Walter Hubert, Bishop of Salisbury, was also a Crusader, and a great
friend of Richard, who, from his imprisonment, wrote letters to point
him out as archbishop--a favor which he returned by great exertions
in raising the King’s ransom. He was a completely worldly and secular
priest, continually giving umbrage to his chapter, who used to complain
of him to the Pope, and obtain censures, of which he took no heed. When
Richard made him Grand Justiciary, they declared that it was contrary
to all rule for him to be judge in causes of blood; whereupon the Pope
ordered the King to remove him from the office, but without much effect.
Sharing Richard’s councils, he had the same dislike to Constance and her
son, and willingly crowned John, making a dangerous and disloyal speech,
in which he pronounced the kingdom elective, and to be conferred on the
most worthy of the royal family. He accepted the chancellorship from
John, and was so fond of boasting of its riches and dignities, that he
drew on himself a rebuke from Hugh Bardolfe, one of the rude barons. “My
Lord, with your leave, if you would consider the power and dignity
of your spiritual calling, you would not undertake the yoke of lay
servitude.” But, unchecked by this rebuke, he gave offence to John by
foolishly trying to vie with the King in the richness of the raiment
given at Christmas to his retainers--an affront to John which a
sumptuous feast at Easter could not efface.
The chief grievance to the Augustine chapter at Canterbury was the
new foundation at Lambeth; they dreaded that Becket’s relics might be
translated thither, and they never ceased appealing to Pope Innocent
III. till they had obtained an order for its demolition. This dispute
made them more than ever bent on an archbishop of their own choice.
Hubert died at Canterbury, July 18th, 1205, and the younger monks were
misled by party-spirit into the attempt to steal a march on the rest.
They assembled on the night of his death, and elected their sub-prior
Reginald, conducted him to the cathedral, placed him on the
archiepiscopal throne, and hurried him off in secret to Rome, with
strict injunctions not to divulge his election till he had obtained
confirmation of it from the Pope.
Reginald was as imprudent as might have been expected from his
acceptance of a dignity thus conferred; he had no sooner crossed the
sea, than he began to boast of his rank as archbishop-elect. These
tidings coming back to England, his own supporters were ashamed of him,
and, willing to have their transaction forgotten, joined with their
elders, the bishops, and the King, in appointing John de Gray, Bishop of
Norwich, a man apparently of the same stamp as Hubert, as he was one of
the Justiciaries, and little attentive to the affairs of his diocese.
Twelve of the canons of St. Augustine were despatched to Rome to explain
the affair to the Pope, offer him a present of 12,000 marks, and obtain
the pall for Gray.
The Pope examined into the subject, and pronounced, of course,
Reginald’s election null, and Gray’s also null, because made before the
former claim had been disposed of. The twelve canons were therefore to
make a fresh election, and as this had been foreseen before they left
home, the King had bound them by oath to choose no one but Gray.
Innocent might justifiably object to such a person, but his proceedings
were in accordance with the violent and domineering spirit which
actuated him. His nominee was an Englishman named Stephen Langton, a
learned man, who had taught in the University of Paris, of which he was
now chancellor; he had been recommended from thence to Innocent, who had
given him high office at Rome, and made him a cardinal. His life was
irreproachable, and he was deeply learned in the Scriptures, which it
is said he was the first to divide into verses. To so distinguished and
excellent a person Innocent hoped no objection could arise; and when
the canons of St. Augustine demurred as to their oath, and the King
and chapter’s right, he silenced their scruples by threats of
excommunication, and they all, excepting one named Elias de Braintefeld,
concurred in appointing Langton and enthroning him, singing _Te Deum_
while Elias stood at the door.
Innocent wrote to John two letters. The first was merely complimentary,
and contained four rings, with explanations of their emblematic meaning.
Their circular form signified eternity; their number, constancy; the
emerald was for faith; the sapphire for hope; the red granite for
charity; the topaz for good works. In his other letter, he recommended
Langton to the King, dwelling on his many high qualities, on which John
himself had previously complimented him.
A good archbishop was the last thing John desired, especially a man of
high spirit and ability, who would act as a restraint on him, and he
refused to receive the letters. The chapter of Canterbury, however,
confirmed the election, and the Pope, after waiting in vain for an
answer from the King, consecrated Stephen Langton at Viterbo, June 17th.
John certainly so far had the advantage that his opponents had placed
themselves in the wrong, but as no one could outdo him in that respect,
he instantly fell on the unfortunate monks of Canterbury, and declaring
them guilty of high treason, sent two of his most lawless men-at-arms
and their followers to drive them out of the country. At the same time
he wrote to the Pope that he was astonished at his thus treating a
country that contributed so largely to the papal revenues; that he was
resolved to support Gray’s election, and that he was determined that
Langton should never set foot in England.
Innocent remonstrated in vain, declaring that this should never be made
a precedent for interference with future appointments. John held out,
and at length the Pope availed himself of the power ascribed to him, to
force the King to compliance, by declaring his country under the ban of
the Church.
It is said that, in the midst of the horrible confusion that followed
the death of Charlemagne, the idea of such an expedient had first
arisen. In the Synod of Limoges, the Abbot Odolric had proposed that,
till the nobles should cease from their ravages, the churches should be
stripped of their ornaments, the mass not be celebrated, no marriages
take place, and the abstinence of Lent be observed. This universal
mourning had brought the ferocious nobles to a sense of their guilt, and
more peaceful times had succeeded, so that an interdict was considered
as one of the mightiest weapons in the armory of the Church.
Only a few years before, Innocent had, by an interdict on the kingdom of
France, forced Philippe Auguste to put away Agnes de Meranie, whom he
had married in the lifetime of his lawful wife Ingeberge. Then (if ever)
it was properly employed, to enforce morality; but it was a different
thing to lay a whole nation under the ban of the Church merely for a
dispute respecting an appointment.
Innocent sent orders to the bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, to
publish the interdict on the Monday of Passion week, 1208 (the second
before Easter). They went to the King, and besought him to be reconciled
with the Pope, and avert this dreadful edict. He grew pale with rage,
foamed at the mouth, and threatened them furiously; swore at the clergy,
drove them from his presence, and issued orders that his officers
should seize, the property of every man who paid any attention to the
interdict. “If you, or any of your body, dare to lay my states under
interdict, I will send you to Rome, and seize your goods; and if I catch
one Roman priest in my realms, I will cut off his nose and put out his
eyes, that all may know he is a Roman!”
Nevertheless, on the appointed day it was pronounced by the three
prelates, according to the appointed form.
At night the clergy assembled, each bearing a torch, and with one voice
chanted the _Miserere_, and other penitential psalms and prayers, while
the church-bells rang out the ‘broken funeral-knell. Veils were hung
over the crucifixes, the consecrated Wafer of the Host was consumed by
fire, the relics and images of the saints were carried into the crypts,
and then the bishops, in the violet robes of mourning used on Good
Friday, announced to the frightened multitude, in the name of Heaven,
that the domains of John, King of England, were laid under the ban of
the Church until he should have rendered submission to the Holy See.
Every torch was then at once extinguished, in token that the light of
the Gospel was denied them!
Thenceforth every church was closed; no bell pealed forth, no mass was
offered, no matins nor vespers were sung. Only the dying were permitted
to communicate, but their corpses were laid in the ground with maimed
rites; infants were baptized, but their mothers were churched only in
the churchyard, where on Sunday a sermon was preached, and on Good
Friday the cross was carried out and exposed for the veneration of the
people.
The monasteries were allowed to carry on their services, on condition
that they did so with closed doors, admitting no one from without; and
the Cistercian order considered it as their privilege to be exempt, and
to open their churches for worship as usual. Neither did the King’s
favorite, Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, nor De Gray himself,
choose to acknowledge the interdict, so that the services continued as
usual in their sees, and in many single parishes. These were the only
two bishops in England; for the three who proclaimed the interdict
had at once to flee for their lives, and the others, few in number at
present, soon followed them. De Gray being soon after sent as deputy to
Ireland, Des Roches was the sole bishop left to all England.
The King made light of it; and when, in the chase, he killed an
unusually fat buck, he said, laughing, “Here is a fellow who has
prospered well enough without ever hearing matins or vespers.” But he
was much enraged; he imprisoned the relatives of the fugitive bishops,
and announced himself ready to drive every priest who should obey the
interdict out of the kingdom, to be maintained, as he said, by the Pope.
The Archdeacon of Norwich experienced his cruelty for consulting with
his brethren on enforcing it. The Angevin soldiers seized him, and
soldered on his neck a cope of lead, so that he perished in prison under
its weight, and from hunger.
Afterward, however, some terror seized on John, and he ordered his
officers to allow the bishops enough to provide them two dishes of meat
each day, while the secular clergy were to receive as much as should be
adjudged needful for their support by four sworn men of their parish.
Moreover, the man who, by word or deed, abused any of the clergy, should
forthwith be hanged upon an oak!
The Pope followed up his interdict by excommunicating John, and
absolving his subjects from their oaths of allegiance, but a strict
watch was kept on the ports, and no one seems ever to have dared to lay
the bull before the King. However, its existence was well known, and
rendered John very uneasy. He wished to hear what his fate was to be,
and his half-brother, William Longsword, brought him a hermit, named
Peter of Wakefield, who told him he would wear his crown no longer than
next Ascension Day. John flew into a rage, and called him idiot-knave;
declared that, as idiot, he pardoned him, but, as knave, he imprisoned
him in Corfe Castle, till he should see whether his tale came true.
The King, to preserve the obedience of the nobles, demanded their
children to be kept as hostages. One of those to whom the order came was
William de Braose, Lord of Bramber, in Sussex, and of a wide district in
Ireland. Herds of the wild white cattle with red ears roamed about his
estate, and his wife is said to have boasted that she could victual
a besieged castle for a month with her cheeses, and yet have some to
spare. When John’s squire, Pierre de Maulac, the hated governor of
Corfe, who was accused of having aided in the murder of Arthur, came to
demand her children, the high-spirited lady answered that the King had
not taken such care of his own nephew as to make her entrust her son to
his keeping. Her husband was alarmed for the consequences of her bold
speech, sent four hundred of the oxen as a present to the Queen, and
fled with his wife to Ireland; but in his absence, two years after, John
made a progress thither, seized upon her and her children, and sent them
back to Corfe, where Maulac, by his orders, starved them all to death in
the dungeons. The eldest son escaped, being with his father in France,
where the unhappy Lord of Bramber died of grief on hearing of their
horrible fate, the most barbarous action which has ever stained the
pages of English history.
Innocent now put forth a bull addressed to the King of France, saying
that the prelates of Canterbury, London, and Ely, having declared to him
the cruel persecution of the English Church, he had, in presence of his
cardinals, solemnly deposed King John; and in order that a greater and
more noble prince might be summoned to the throne, he granted it to
Philippe Auguste, assuring him that all his efforts to conquer it should
be reckoned for the remission of his sins, and that he might transmit
his conquests to his descendants. He wrote other letters, desiring the
French nobles to second their King in their enterprise; and there were
many English who, grieved by the censures of the Church, and suffering
personal injuries from their tyrant, were ready to seek aid in a new
dynasty. Walter Hubert’s doctrine of the most worthy was an unfortunate
one for such a king as John, and he began to reap the fruits of it when
placed in comparison with Louis the Lion, whom, by the marriage with his
niece, Blanche of Castille, he had placed next in succession to his own
infant children.
Louis collected a fleet and army, and put forth a proclamation; while
John forced money from his subjects, robbed the monasteries, and
tortured the Jews. One of them, refusing to pay an exorbitant demand of
10,000 marks, was seized, and condemned daily to lose a tooth until he
should consent. He held out seven days, and did not yield up the sum
till he had lost all his double teeth. Scotland and Wales were also
stirred up against him; and though he made a treaty with William the
Lion, and defeated Llewellyn of Wales, his danger was pressing, and John
de Gray, the chosen archbishop, is said to have done his best, to put
the Pope in the right, by advising his master to seek the alliance of
the Emir of Cordova, Mahomet of Nesser, one of the brave, generous, and
learned Moors of Spain, who had it in his power seriously to damage
France on the southern frontier, and thus make a diversion in his favor.
Two knights and a clerk, it is alleged, were sent on this mission,
proposing to Mahomet to take John under his protection on receiving a
tribute from him, and he even offered himself and De Gray to become
Mahometans, so as to be rid of Pope and cardinals together.