JOHN COUNT OF MORTAIN
1189–1199
Then ther com most wykke tydyng
To Quer de Lyoun Richard our kyng,
How off Yngelonde hys brother Ihon,
That was accursyd off flesch and bon,
. . . . . .
... wolde with maystry off hand
Be crownyd kyng in Yngeland.
_Richard Coer de Lion_, ll. 6267–70, 6273–4.
[Sidenote: 1189]
On July 6 Henry died; on the 8th he was buried at Fontevraud. Richard
attended the burial; John did not, but immediately afterwards, either
at Fontevraud or on the way northward, he sought the presence of his
brother. Richard received him graciously, and on reaching Normandy
“granted him all the lands which his father had given him, to wit, four
thousand pounds’ worth of lands in England, and the county of Mortain
with its appurtenances.”[112] These words, and similar expressions used
by two other writers of the time,[113] would seem to imply that John
had been count of Mortain before Henry’s death, and that Richard merely
confirmed to him a possession and a dignity which he already enjoyed.
John, however, is never styled “count” during Henry’s lifetime;[114]
and the real meaning of the historians seems to be that Henry had in
his latter days reverted to his early project of making John count of
Mortain, but had never carried it into effect, probably because he
could not do so without Richard’s assent. Richard’s grant was thus an
entirely new one, though made in fulfilment of his father’s desire.
It set John in the foremost rank among the barons of Normandy, though
the income which it brought him was not very large. The grant of lands
in England, said to have been made to him at the same time, can only
have been a promise; Richard was not yet crowned, and therefore not yet
legally capable of granting anything in England at all. On his arrival
there in August, one of his first acts was to secure the Gloucester
heritage for John by causing him to be married to Isabel. The wedding
took place at Marlborough on August 29.[115] Five days later the king
was crowned; John figured at the coronation as “Earl of Mortain and
Gloucester,” and walked before his brother in the procession, carrying
one of the three swords of state, between Earl David of Huntingdon and
Earl Robert of Leicester, who bore the other two swords.[116]
At the end of the month, or early in October, Richard despatched John
at the head of an armed force, to secure for the new king the homage of
the Welsh princes. They all, save one, came to meet John at Worcester,
and “made a treaty of peace” with him as his brother’s representative.
The exception was Rees of South Wales, who was in active hostility to
the English Crown,[117] being at that very time engaged in besieging
Caermarthen castle. John led “the host of all England” to Caermarthen,
the siege was raised,[118] and Rees accompanied John back to England
for a meeting with Richard at Oxford; Richard, however, declined the
interview.[119] His refusal may have been due to some suspicion of
a private agreement between Rees and John which is asserted in the
Welsh annals;[120] but his suspicions, if he had any, did not prevent
him from continuing, almost to the eve of his own departure from
England, to develope an elaborate scheme of provision for John. The
very first step in this scheme had already led to trouble, though the
trouble was easily overcome. John and Isabel had been married without a
dispensation and in defiance of Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury, who
had forbidden, as contrary to canon law, a union between cousins under
such circumstances. After the marriage had taken place he declared it
invalid, and laid an interdict upon the lands of the guilty couple.
John, however, appealed to Rome, and got the better of the primate; in
November the interdict was raised by a papal legate.[121]
[Illustration:
IV.
ENGLAND, A.D. 1190.
_John’s lands_ {LANCASTER, DERBY, NOTTINGHAM, GLAMORGAN, SOMERSET,
DEVON, DORSET, CORNWALL, part of IRELAND}
{_Royal castles_ are marked on the map.}
_Stanford’s Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. London._
London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.]
The Pipe Roll drawn up a month after John’s marriage shows him as
holding, besides his wife’s honour of Gloucester, the honours of
Peverel, Lancaster and Tickhill, two manors in Suffolk, three in
Worcestershire, and some lands in Northamptonshire, together with the
profits of the Forest of Sherwood in Nottinghamshire and of that of
Andover in Wiltshire. All these grants were construed as liberally
as possible in John’s favour; he was allowed the profits of the two
forests for a whole year past, and the revenues of the other lands
for a quarter of a year, while the third penny of Gloucestershire
was reckoned as due to him for half a year--that is, from a date
five months before his investiture with the earldom.[122] The grants
of Peverel’s honour and Lancaster included the castles[123]; in the
cases of Tickhill and Gloucester the castles were reserved by the
king, and so too, apparently, was a castle on one of John’s Suffolk
manors, Orford.[124] Four other honours appear to have been given
to John at this time--Marlborough and Luggershall, including their
castles; Eye and Wallingford, seemingly without their castles.[125]
The aggregate value of all these lands would be about £1170; but a
much greater gift soon followed. Before the end of the year six whole
counties--Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon and
Cornwall--were added to the portion of the count of Mortain. The words
in which this grant is recorded by the chroniclers convey a very
inadequate idea of its real importance; taken by themselves, they
might be understood to mean merely that Richard gave his brother the
title and the third penny of the revenue from each of the counties
named.[126] That what he actually did give was something very different
we learn from the Pipe Rolls, or rather from the significant omission
which is conspicuous in them for the next five years. From Michaelmas
1189 to Michaelmas 1194 these six counties made no appearance at all
in the royal accounts. They sent no returns of any kind to the royal
treasury; they were visited by no justices appointed by the king. In a
word, just as Chester and Durham were palatinates in the hands of earl
and bishop respectively, so John’s two counties in mid-England and four
in the south-west formed a great palatinate in his hands. He received
and retained their ferms and the profits of justice and administration
within their borders, and ruled them absolutely at his own will, the
Crown claiming from him no account for them whatever.
The total revenue which the Crown had derived from these six counties
in the year immediately preceding their transfer to John was a little
over £4000.[127] But their money value was a consideration of trifling
importance compared with the territorial and political power which
accompanied it. Such an accumulation of palatine jurisdictions in the
hands of one man was practically equivalent to the setting up of an
under-kingdom, with a king uncrowned indeed, but absolutely independent
of every secular authority except the supreme king himself; and that
exception, as every one knew, was only for the moment; Richard was
on the eve of his departure for the Holy Land, and as soon as he was
out of reach John would have, within his little realm, practically no
superior at all. Moreover, his “lordship of Ireland” had changed its
character at his father’s death. Until then it had been, save during
his five months’ visit to that country in 1185, merely titular. Most
of the few known charters and grants issued in his name during his
father’s lifetime are dateless, and it seems possible that, with one
exception, all of them may have been issued during that visit.[128] On
Henry’s death, however, John’s lordship of the English March in Ireland
became something more than a name. In virtue of it he already possessed
a staff of household officers whose titles and functions reproduced
those of the royal household itself. Henry had had his seneschal, his
butler, his constable for Ireland as well as for England; and this
Irish household establishment had apparently been transferred to John,
at any rate since 1185. No doubt the men of whom it consisted were
appointed by Henry, or at least with his sanction, and were in fact his
ministers rather than the ministers of his son; but to the new king
they owed no obedience save the general obedience due from all English
or Norman subjects; from the hour of Henry’s death their service
belonged to the “Lord of Ireland” alone, and John thus found himself at
the head of a little court of his own, a ready-made ministry through
which he might govern both his Irish dominion and the ample possessions
which Richard bestowed upon him in England, as freely as the rest of
the English realm was governed by Richard himself through the ministers
of the Crown.[129]
Of the way in which John was likely to use his new independence he
had already given a significant indication. Shortly after Richard’s
accession the wardship of the heiress of Leinster, Isabel de Clare, was
terminated by her marriage with William the Marshal.[130] Her great
Irish fief, as well as her English and Welsh lands, thus passed into
the hands of a man who was already one of the most trusted friends and
counsellors of Richard, as he had been of Henry, and whose brother
had once been seneschal to John himself.[131] No sooner had William
entered upon the heritage of his wife than John disseised him of a
portion of Leinster and parcelled it out among friends of his own.
The Marshal appealed to Richard; Richard insisted upon John’s making
restitution, and John, after some demur, was compelled to yield, but
not entirely; he managed to secure the ratification of a grant which he
had made to his butler, Theobald Walter, out of the Marshal’s lands,
although, by way of compromise, it was settled that Theobald should
hold the estate in question as an under-tenant of William, not as a
tenant-in-chief of John.[132] On the other hand, John did not at once
displace the governor whom his father had set over the Irish march
four years before, John de Courcy. He had no thought of undertaking
the personal government of his dominions in Ireland. To do so he must
have turned his back upon the opportunities which Richard’s misplaced
generosity was opening to him in England--opportunities of which it
was not difficult to foresee the effect upon such a mind as his. As
William of Newburgh says, “The enjoyment of a tetrarchy made him covet
a monarchy.”[133]
[Sidenote: 1190]
That Richard presently awoke to some consciousness of the danger which
he had created for himself and his realm maybe inferred from the fact
that in February 1190 he summoned John to Normandy, and there made
him swear not to set foot in England for the next three years. The
queen-mother, however, afterwards persuaded her elder son to release
the younger one from this oath;[134] or, according to another account,
to leave the decision of the matter to the justiciar and chancellor,
William of Longchamp, bishop of Ely. John was to visit the chancellor
in England, and either remain there or go into exile, as William might
choose.[135] It is clear, however, that William had no real choice. He
was legate in England, and therefore absolution from him was necessary
to protect John against the ecclesiastical consequences of a violated
oath; but as the violation was sanctioned by the king to whom the
oath had been sworn, no ground was left to William for refusing the
absolution.
[Sidenote: 1191]
In the course of the year 1190, therefore, or very early in 1191, John
returned to England.[136] In February 1191 the sole remaining check
upon both John and William of Longchamp was removed: Queen Eleanor went
to join her elder son at Messina.[137] As soon as she was gone, the
results of the concession which he had made to her wishes in John’s
behalf began to show themselves. On Mid-Lent Sunday, March 24, the
count of Mortain and the chancellor had an interview at Winchester
“concerning the keepers of certain castles, and the money granted
to the count by his brother out of the exchequer.”[138] What passed
between them we are not told; but it is clear that they disagreed.
Three months elapsed without any overt act of aggression on either
side. Then, all at once, about midsummer, it became apparent that a
party which for more than a year had been seeking an opportunity to
undermine the chancellor’s power had found a rallying-point and a
leader in the king’s brother. The sheriff of Lincolnshire and constable
of Lincoln Castle, Gerard de Camville, being summoned to answer before
the justiciars for having made his great fortress into a hold of
robbers and bandits, defied their authority on the plea that he had
become John’s liegeman, and was therefore answerable to no one except
John.[139] The chancellor deprived Gerard of his sheriffdom and gave
it to another man, and laid siege to Lincoln Castle.[140] While he was
thus occupied, the castles of Nottingham and Tickhill were given up by
their custodians to John.[141] Thereupon John sent to the chancellor
a message of insolent defiance. If William did not at once withdraw
from Lincoln and leave Gerard in unmolested possession, the count of
Mortain threatened to “come and visit him with a rod of iron, and with
such a host as he would not be able to withstand.”[142] With a cutting
allusion at once to the chancellor’s humble origin and to the readiness
with which the commandants of Nottingham and Tickhill had betrayed the
fortresses committed to their charge, he added that “no good came of
depriving lawful freeborn Englishmen of the offices of trust to which
they were entitled, and giving them to unknown strangers; the folly
of such a proceeding had just been proved in the case of the royal
castles which William had entrusted to men who left them exposed to
every passer-by; any chance comer would have found their gates open
to him as easily as they had opened to John himself. Such a state of
affairs in his brother’s realm he was resolved to tolerate no longer.”
The chancellor’s retort was a peremptory summons to John to give up
the two castles, and “answer before the king’s court for the breach
of his oath.”[143] William probably hoped to get John expelled from
England, on the plea that Richard had never really consented to his
return and that his absolution was therefore invalid, as having been
extorted on a false pretence. The summons appears to have been carried
by Archbishop Walter of Rouen, who had come from Messina charged
with a special commission from Richard to deal with the crisis in
England.[144] John, on receiving the chancellor’s message, burst into
one of the paroxysms of fury characteristic of his race. “He was more
than angry,” says a contemporary; “his whole body was so contorted with
rage as to be scarcely recognizable; a scowl of wrath furrowed his
brow; his eyes flashed fire, his colour changed to a livid white, and I
know what would have become of the chancellor if in that hour of fury
he had come within reach of John’s hands!” In the end, however, the
archbishop persuaded both John and William to hold another conference
at Winchester on July 28.[145]
John secured the services of four thousand armed Welshmen, whom he
apparently brought up secretly, in small parties, from the border, and
hid in various places round about the city. No disturbance, however,
took place; some of the bishops, under the direction of Walter of
Rouen, drew up a scheme of agreement which, for the moment, both John
and William found it advisable to accept. The castles of Nottingham
and Tickhill were surrendered by John to the king {1191 July 28} in
the person of his special representative the archbishop of Rouen, who
was to give them in charge, one to William of Venneval--a liegeman of
the king, but a friend and follower of John--the other to William the
Marshal; these two custodians were to hold them for the king till his
return, and then “act according to his will concerning them”; but if he
should die, or if meanwhile the chancellor should break the peace with
John, they were to restore them to John. New custodians were appointed,
on the like terms, to six royal castles which stood within John’s
territories,[146] and also to two castles which Richard had expressly
granted to him,--Bolsover and the Peak. Any new castles built since the
king’s departure were to be razed, and no more were to be built till
his return, save, if necessary, on the royal demesnes, or elsewhere
in pursuance of special orders, written or verbal, from himself. No
man was to be disseised either by the king’s ministers or by the count
of Mortain, save in execution of a legal sentence delivered after
trial before the king’s court; and each party was pledged to amend, on
complaint from the other, its own infringements of this rule, which
was at once applied to the case of Gerard de Camville. Gerard, having
been disseised without trial, was reinstated in his sheriffdom; but
his reinstatement was ordered to be immediately followed by a trial
before the Curia Regis on the charges brought against him, and the
decision of the Curia was to be final; if it went against him, John
was not to support him in resistance to it; and John was further bound
not to harbour any known outlaws or enemies of the king, nor any
person accused of treason, except on condition of such person pledging
himself to stand his trial in the king’s court. The archbishop of Rouen
received a promise from John and from the chancellor, each supported by
seven sureties, that they would keep this agreement. After it was drawn
up, a postscript appears to have been added: “If any thing should be
taken or intercepted by either party during the truce, it shall be
lawfully restored and amends made for it. And these things are done,
saving always the authority and commands of our lord the king; yet so
that if the king before his return should not will this agreement to be
kept, the aforesaid castles of Nottingham and Tickhill shall be given
up to Lord John, whatever the king may order concerning them.” The last
clause is obscure; but its meaning seems to be that if the arrangement
just made should prove to be, in the judgment of the king’s ministers,
untenable, it was to be treated as void, and matters were to be
restored to the position in which they had been before it was made.[147]
The contingency which seems to have been contemplated in this
postscript very soon occurred. Some mercenaries whom the chancellor had
summoned from over sea landed in England, and he at once repudiated
the agreement, declaring there should be no peace till either he or
John was driven out of the realm.[148] Hereupon it seems that Venneval
and the Marshal, in accordance with the clause above quoted, restored
the castles of Tickhill and Nottingham to John. On the other hand, an
outrage on John’s part, which is recorded only as having occurred some
time in this year (1191), certainly took place before October, and most
likely before the middle of September. Roger de Lacy, the constable
of Chester, who was responsible to Longchamp for the safe keeping of
these two castles, made a vigorous effort to bring to justice the
subordinate castellans to whom he had entrusted them, and who had
betrayed them to John. Of these there had been two in each castle.
Two managed to keep out of Lacy’s reach; the other two he caught and
hanged, although one of them offered to swear with compurgators that he
had never consented to the treason of his colleague, and even brought a
letter from John requesting that the compurgation might be allowed--the
chancellor, to whom the question had been referred, having remitted it
to the decision of Lacy. While this man’s body was hanging in chains,
his squire drove the birds away from it; whereupon Roger de Lacy hanged
the squire. Then John took upon himself to avenge them both, not only
by disseising Roger of all the lands which he held of him, but also by
ravaging the lands which Roger possessed elsewhere.[149]
Some time in August or September another assembly was called to
endeavour after a pacification between John and the chancellor. Three
bishops and twenty-two laymen were appointed arbitrators--the laymen
chosen by the bishops, eleven from the party which had hitherto
adhered to William, eleven from the followers of John. The terms which
these twenty-five laid down amounted to a decision wholly in John’s
favour. They did, indeed, again require him to restore the two royal
castles of Nottingham and Tickhill; but they made the restoration an
empty form. They decreed that the chancellor should put these castles
under the control of two men whom they named, William of Venneval
and another friend of John’s, Reginald de Vasseville. These two were
to hold the castles for the king and give William hostages for their
fidelity; but if Richard should die before reaching home, they were
at once to surrender the castles to John, and William was to restore
their hostages. The arbitrators further confirmed Gerard de Camville
in the constableship of Lincoln castle; they ordered the chancellor
to remove the constables of royal castles situated within the lands
of the count of Mortain, and appoint others in their stead, “if the
count showed reason for changing them”; and they added that “if the
king should die, the chancellor was not to disinherit the count, but
to do his utmost to promote him to the kingdom.”[150] This last clause
was pointed at a negotiation which William had been carrying on with
the Scot king, for the purpose of obtaining his recognition of Arthur
of Britanny as heir-presumptive to the English Crown. The negotiation
was secret; but John had discovered it,[151] and the discovery was
a useful weapon in his hands. William’s dealings with Scotland were
most probably sanctioned by Richard; their object was certainly in
accord with Richard’s own plans for the succession at this time; but
Richard’s choice of Arthur as his heir was probably unknown as yet to
the majority of his subjects, and if it was known to them, it could not
commend itself to their ideas either of policy or of constitutional
practice. In their eyes the king’s next-of-kin and natural successor
was not his boy-nephew, but his brother. It was therefore easy for John
to win their sympathies by representing the scheme as part of a plot
contrived against himself by the chancellor.
The new agreement lasted no longer than its predecessor. Scarcely was
it drawn up when there occurred an excellent opportunity for John
to secure for himself a new and valuable ally in the person of his
half-brother Geoffrey, the eldest son of Henry II. and the predecessor
of Longchamp in the office of chancellor of England. Geoffrey, like
John, had in the spring of 1190 been sworn to keep out of England for
three years; but, like John too, he had obtained from Richard a release
from his oath.[152] His election to the see of York had been confirmed
by the Pope on May 11, 1191,[153] and it was known that he intended
to return to England immediately after his consecration.[154] Richard
had given him a written release from his vow of absence,[155] but had
neglected to apprise the chancellor of the fact; William therefore
no sooner heard of Geoffrey’s purpose to return than he issued, on
July 30, a writ ordering that the archbishop should be arrested on
landing.[156] Geoffrey had written to John, begging for his help; John
in reply promised to stand by him.[157] On August 18 Geoffrey was
consecrated at Tours,[158] and John then urged him to come over at
once.[159] On September 14 Geoffrey reached Dover; he escaped from an
attempt to arrest him as he landed, but four days later he was forcibly
dragged from sanctuary in S. Martin’s priory and flung into prison in
the castle.[160]
John immediately wrote to the chancellor, demanding whether these
things had been done by his authority. According to one account,
William answered that they had.[161] A letter from William himself to
the chapter of Canterbury, however, declares that he had merely ordered
his officers to administer to Geoffrey the oath of fealty to the king
(which it was usual for a bishop to take before entering upon his
see), and if he refused it, to send him back to the Continent.[162]
However this might be, it is clear that, outwardly at least, the
chancellor had put himself in the wrong. He was already the most
unpopular man in England; now, all parties in Church and State joined
hands against him at once; and it was inevitable that they should
rally under the command of John. John sent another letter or message
to William, bidding him release the archbishop, and swearing that if
this were not done immediately, he, the count of Mortain, would go in
person “with a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm” to set his brother
at liberty.[163] On September 21 or 26 Geoffrey was released.[164]
Meanwhile John, with his confidant Hugh of Nonant, the bishop of
Coventry, hurried down from Lancaster to Marlborough and invited all
whom he thought likely to take his side to join him there. Three of the
co-justiciars--William the Marshal among them--answered his call; three
bishops, one of whom was the venerated Hugh of Lincoln, did likewise;
and so did Archbishop Walter of Rouen. From Marlborough the party
moved on to Reading; thence John despatched a personal invitation, or
summons, to Geoffrey,[165] and at the same time issued, in conjunction
with the three justiciars, letters calling the rest of the bishops and
barons to a council to be holden on October 5 at the bridge over the
Lodden between Reading and Windsor, and a summons to the chancellor
to appear there and answer for his conduct.[166] William retorted by
issuing counter writs, summoning all those who had joined the count
of Mortain to withdraw from him, “forasmuch as he was endeavouring to
usurp the kingdom to himself.”[167]
John and all his party came to the Lodden bridge on the day which they
had appointed; the chancellor, who was at Windsor, sent the bishop of
London and three earls to excuse his absence on the plea of illness.
The outcome of the day’s discussion was that the assembly, by the voice
of Walter of Rouen, pledged itself to depose William from the office of
chief justiciar. Their warrant was a letter from the king which Walter
had brought from Messina, and in which the subordinate justiciars were
bidden to obey Walter’s guidance in all things. The party then returned
to Reading; there, next day (Sunday, October 6), the bishops among them
excommunicated Longchamp and his adherents; at night a message was sent
to him, bidding him appear at the bridge next morning without fail;
and this he promised to do.[168] John and his friends were resolved to
make sure of their game this time. On the Monday morning they took care
to be first at the bridge; but instead of waiting for the chancellor,
the heads of the party rode forward along the Windsor road as if to
meet him, and sent their men-at-arms and servants towards London by
way of Staines. Tidings of these movements reached William just after
he had set out from Windsor. He at once turned back and rode towards
London with all speed, and reached the junction of the two roads at the
same time as the men-at-arms of John’s party. A skirmish took place in
which John’s justiciar, Roger de Planes, was mortally wounded.[169]
While the chancellor made his way into the Tower, John and the barons
were following him to London. Next morning (Tuesday, October 8)
they assembled at S. Paul’s, renewed their resolution to depose the
chancellor, and, in the king’s name, granted to the Londoners their
coveted “commune”;[170] whereupon the citizens joined unreservedly
with them in voting the deposition of Longchamp and the appointment of
Walter of Rouen as chief justiciar in his stead.[171] According to one
account, the assembly went still further, and proposed to make John
“chief governor of the whole kingdom,” with control of all the royal
castles except three which were to be left to the chancellor.[172] As a
token that all this was done “for the safety of the realm,” every man
present, John first of all, renewed his oath of fealty to the king; and
this ceremony was followed by a second oath of fidelity taken by all
the rest to John himself, “saving their fealty” [to the king], together
with a promise that they would acknowledge him as king if Richard
should die without issue.[173]
The barons, the bishops, the justiciars, all London, all England,
save a handful of Longchamp’s own relatives, personal friends and
followers, was on John’s side; Longchamp himself, besieged in the Tower
by overwhelming forces, could not possibly hold it for more than a day
or two, and there was no hope of relief. There was, however, still one
chance of escape from all his difficulties,--John might be bribed.
The project seemed a desperate one, for William had already tried it
without success, two days before;[174] yet he tried it again on the
Wednesday, and this time he all but succeeded. “By promising him much
and giving him not a little, the chancellor so nearly turned the count
of Mortain from his purpose that he was ready to withdraw from the
city, leaving the business unfinished, had not the bishops of Coventry
and York recalled him by their entreaties and arguments.”[175] Next day
the chancellor submitted. On the Friday {Oct. 11} he gave up the keys
of the Tower and of Windsor; within another fortnight he was reduced
to surrender all the other royal castles except the three which had
been nominally reserved to him, Dover, Cambridge, and Hereford.[176]
Hereupon John ordered him to be released, and allowed him to sail on
October 29 for France.[177]
[Sidenote: 1192]
The truth of Longchamp’s assertion that John was “endeavouring to usurp
the kingdom for himself” was soon made evident. Just before Christmas
Philip Augustus of France came home from Acre. After a vain attempt to
entrap the seneschal of Normandy into surrendering some of the border
fortresses of the duchy to him, he opened negotiations for Richard’s
damage in a more likely quarter; he invited John to come over and
speak with him immediately, proposing to put him in possession of “all
the lands of England and Normandy on this (_i.e._ the French) side
of the sea,” on one condition, that he should marry the bride whom
Richard had refused, Philip’s sister Adela.[178] To this condition
John’s existing marriage was a bar, but not an insuperable one; it
would be easy for him to divorce Isabel on the plea of consanguinity
if he were so minded. He responded eagerly to Philip’s invitation,
and was on the point of sailing from Southampton for France, when his
plans were upset by his mother’s landing at Portsmouth on February
11.[179] The French king’s treachery had come to Eleanor’s knowledge,
and she had hastened back to England to do what lay in her power for
the protection of her elder son’s interests. The justiciars, who seem
to have already had their suspicions of John’s loyalty, rallied round
her at once. She was in fact the only person whose right to represent
the absent king was treated by all parties as indisputable, although
she had never held any formal commission as regent. She and the
justiciars conjointly forbade John to leave the country, threatening
that if he did so they would seize all his lands for the Crown.[180]
For a while John hesitated, or affected to hesitate; he had indeed at
least two other secret negotiations on hand beside that with France,
and he was probably waiting to see which of the three most required
his personal superintendence, or was likely to prove most profitable.
Another proposition besides Philip’s had come to him from over sea:
Longchamp had offered to give him five hundred pounds if he would get
him reinstated as chief justiciar of England.[181] John cared very
little who bore the title of justiciar, if he could secure the power
for himself; his main object in England was to gain possession of the
royal castles; with these in his hands, he could set any justiciar
at defiance. The arrangement made in the previous July had been
terminated by the chancellor’s fall, and the castles of Nottingham
and Tickhill had therefore, in accordance with the last clause of
the July agreement, been restored in October to John. The very rash
project of placing all the royal castles under John’s control, said
to have been mooted in London at the same time, had evidently not
been carried into effect;[182] but John himself had never lost sight
of it, and, as a chronicler says, “he did what he could” towards its
realization. He began with two of the most important fortresses near
the capital, Windsor and Wallingford. He dealt secretly with their
commanding officers, so that they were delivered into his hands and
filled with liegemen of his own.[183] This would be easy to manage in
the case of Wallingford, which stood within an “honour” belonging to
John himself. The custody of Windsor castle seems to have been, after
the chancellor’s fall, entrusted for a time to the bishop of Durham,
Hugh of Puiset,[184] a near kinsman of the royal house. In spite of
the fact that Hugh was under sentence of excommunication from his
metropolitan, Geoffrey of York, John had chosen to spend the Christmas
of 1191 with him at Howden; thereby of course rendering himself, in
Geoffrey’s estimation at least, _ipso facto_ excommunicate likewise,
till he made satisfaction for his offence.[185] Hugh of Durham had
once hoped himself to supersede Longchamp as chief justiciar, and
it is perhaps not too much to suspect that John may have so wrought
upon the old bishop’s jealousy of Walter of Rouen as to induce him
to connive at a proceeding on the part of his representatives at
Windsor which would more than compensate his wily young cousin for the
temporary ecclesiastical disgrace brought upon him by that otherwise
unaccountable Christmas visit.
The actual transfer of these two castles to John probably did not take
place till after a council held at Windsor by the queen-mother and
the justiciars, towards the end of February or beginning of March.
This council was followed by another at Oxford. After Mid-Lent (March
12) a third council was called, to meet this time in London, and for
the express purpose of “speaking with Count John about his seizure of
the castles.”[186] John, however, had taken care that another matter
should come up for discussion first. He had answered Longchamp’s
proposal by bidding him come over and try his luck. Thus the first
piece of business with which the council had to deal was a demand
from the chancellor, who had just landed at Dover, for a trial in
the Curia Regis of the charges on which he had been deposed. Eleanor
inclined to grant the demand. One contemporary says that Longchamp
had bribed her. In any case she probably knew, or suspected, that
Longchamp now had John at his back; she certainly knew in what regard
he was held by Richard; and she urged, with considerable reason,
that his deprivation must be displeasing to the king, if it were not
justified by process of law. The justiciars and the barons, however,
represented the chancellor’s misdoings in such glaring colours that
she was reduced to silence.[187] But she was evidently not willing
to join the justiciars in driving William out of the country; and in
the face of her reluctance the justiciars dared not act without John.
He was at Wallingford, “laughing at their conventicles.” Messenger
after messenger was sent to him with respectful entreaties that he
would come to the council and lend it his aid in dealing with the
chancellor. He took the matter very composedly, letting them all go on
begging and praying till they had humbled themselves enough to satisfy
him and he had got his final answer ready for every contingency; then
he went to London. The council, originally summoned to remonstrate
with him for his misconduct, now practically surrendered itself
wholly to his guidance. Of the castles not a word was said; the one
subject of discussion was the chancellor. All were agreed in desiring
his expulsion, if only the count would declare himself of the same
mind. The count told them his mind with unexpected plainness. “This
chancellor will neither fear the threats nor beg the favour of any one
of you, nor of all of you put together, if he can but get me for his
friend. Within the next seven days he is going to give me seven hundred
pounds, if I meddle not between him and you. You see that I want
money; I have said enough for wise men to understand”--and therewith
he left them.[188] The justiciars saw that unless they could outbid
the chancellor, their own fate was sealed. As a last resource, “it
was agreed that they should give him or lend him some money, but not
of their own; all fell upon the treasury of the absent king.” John’s
greed was satisfied by a gift, or a loan, out of the exchequer; when
this was safe in his hands, he gave the justiciars his written sanction
to their intended proceedings against the chancellor;[189] they ordered
William to quit the country, and he had no choice but to obey. They
had, however, purchased his expulsion at a ruinous cost to themselves;
its real price was of course not the few hundreds of which they had
robbed the exchequer for John’s benefit, but their own independence.
John had outwitted them completely, and they had practically confessed
themselves to be at his mercy. Before the council broke up, every
member of it, including the queen-mother, took another oath of fealty
“against all men” to the king “and to his heir”--in other words, to
John himself.[190]
[Sidenote: 1193]
John’s obvious policy now was to keep still and let things remain as
they were till there should come some definite tidings of Richard.
For nine months all parties were quiescent. Then, on December 28,
the Emperor wrote to Philip of France the news of Richard’s capture.
If the messenger who brought the letter was “welcome above gold and
topaze”[191] to Philip, no less welcome to John was the messenger
whom Philip immediately despatched to carry the news to England. John
hurried over to Normandy, where the seneschal and barons of the duchy
met him with a request that he would join them in a council at Alençon
to deliberate “touching the king’s affairs, and his release.” John’s
answer was at least frank: “If ye will acknowledge me as your lord
and swear me fealty, I will come with you and will be your defender
against the king of France; but if not, I will not come.”[192] The
Normans refused thus to betray their captive sovereign; whereupon John
proceeded to the court of France. There an agreement was drawn up, to
which the count swore in person and the French king by proxy, and which
curiously illustrates their mutual distrust and their common dread of
Richard. It provided that in the event of John’s succession, he should
cede the Vexin to France, and should hold the rest of the Norman and
Angevin dominions as his forefathers had held them, with the exception
of the city of Tours and certain small underfiefs, concerning which
special provisions were made, evidently with a view to securing the
co-operation of their holders against Richard. On the other hand, John
promised to accept no offer of peace from Richard without Philip’s
consent, and Philip promised to make no peace with Richard unless the
latter would accept certain conditions laid down in behalf of John.
These conditions were that John should not be disseised of any lands
which he held at the time of the treaty; that if summoned to trial by
Richard, he should always be allowed to appear by proxy; and that he
should not be held liable to personal service in Richard’s host. After
sealing this document in Paris, in January 1193,[193] John hurried back
to England and set to work secretly to stir up the Welsh and the Scots,
hoping with their support to effect a junction with a body of Flemings
who were to come over in a fleet prepared by Philip at Wissant.
The Scot king rejected John’s overtures; but a troop of Welsh were, as
usual, ready to join in any rising against the king of England.[194]
With these Welshmen, and “many foreigners” whom he had brought with
him from France, John secured himself at Wallingford and Windsor. Then
he proceeded to London, told the justiciars that Richard was dead, and
bade them deliver up the kingdom and make its people swear fealty to
himself. They refused; he withdrew in a rage, and both parties prepared
for war.[195] The justiciars organized their forces so quickly and
so well that when the French fleet arrived, just before Easter, it
found the coast so strongly guarded that no landing was possible. John
meanwhile had openly fortified his castles, and his Welshmen were
ravaging the country between Kingston and Windsor when the justiciars
laid siege to the latter fortress.[196] This siege, and that of
Tickhill, which was undertaken by Archbishop Geoffrey of York and
Bishop Hugh of Durham, were in progress when on April 20 Hubert Walter,
the bishop of Salisbury, landed in England.[197] Hubert had come direct
from the captive king, and it was now useless for John to pretend
any longer that Richard was dead. On the other hand, Hubert knew the
prospect of Richard’s release to be still so remote and so uncertain
that he deemed it highly imprudent to push matters to extremity with
John. He therefore, although both Windsor and Tickhill were on the
verge of surrender, persuaded the justiciars to make a truce whose
terms were on the whole favourable to the count of Mortain. The castles
of Tickhill and Nottingham were left in John’s hands; those of Windsor,
Wallingford and the Peak were surrendered by him, to be given over to
the custody of Queen Eleanor and other persons named, on the express
understanding that unless Richard should reach home in the meanwhile,
they were to be restored to John at the expiration of the truce, which
was fixed for Michaelmas, or, according to another account, All Saints’
Day.[198]
The immediate object of the justiciars and the queen-mother in
making this truce was to gain John’s co-operation in their measures
for raising the king’s ransom. Considering how large a portion of
the kingdom was held by John in what may almost be called absolute
property, it is obvious that a refusal on his part to bear his
share of the burden would make a serious difference in the result
of their efforts. It appears that John undertook to raise from his
own territories a certain sum for his brother’s ransom, that he
confirmed this undertaking by an oath, and that he put it on record
in writing.[199] He had, however, taken no steps towards its execution
when at the beginning of July a warning reached him from Philip
Augustus--“Take care of yourself, for the devil is loosed!”--which
meant that the terms of Richard’s release had been finally agreed upon
between Richard and the Emperor on June 29. John immediately hurried
over to France, to shelter himself under Philip’s wing against the
coming storm, as was thought in England;[200] more probably to keep a
watch upon Philip and take care that he should not break his promises
as to the conditions of peace with Richard. The two allies could have
no confidence in each other, and they seem to have been both almost
ridiculously afraid of the captive Lion-heart. He, however, was at
the moment equally afraid of them, and not without good reason. Three
months before he had complained bitterly to the first messengers from
England who reached him in his prison of the treachery and ingratitude
of John. “Yet,” he added, “my brother is not a man to win lands for
himself by force, if there be any one who will oppose him with another
force, however slight.”[201] The words were true; and no less true
was the implication underlying the words. Of John as an open enemy
Richard could afford to be contemptuous; of John’s capacity for
underhand mischief, especially in conjunction with Philip, he was in
such fear that no sooner was his treaty with the Emperor signed than he
despatched his chancellor and three other envoys to France with orders
to make with the French king “a peace of some sort.”[202] The envoys
executed their commission literally, by accepting in Richard’s name
the terms which were dictated to them by Philip with John at his side.
These included the cession by Richard to Philip of the places taken by
the French king during his late campaign in Normandy; the ratification
of the arrangements made by Philip and John for certain of their
partisans; and the payment to Philip of twenty thousand marks, for
which four castles were given to him in pledge. “Touching Count John,”
the treaty ran, “thus shall it be: If the men of the king of England
can prove in the court of the king of France that the same John has
sworn, and given a written promise, to furnish money for the English
king’s ransom, he, John, shall be held bound to pay it; and he shall
hold all his lands, on both sides of the sea, as freely as he held them
before his brother the king of England set out on his journey over sea;
only he shall be free from the oath which he then swore of not setting
foot in England; and of this the English king shall give him security
by himself, and by the barons and prelates of his realm, and by the
king of France. If, however, Count John shall choose to deny that those
letters are his, or that he swore to do that thing, the English king’s
men shall prove sufficiently, by fitting witnesses, in the French
king’s court, that he did swear to procure money for the English king’s
ransom. And if it shall be proved, as hath been said, that he did swear
to do this, or if he shall fail to meet the charge, the king of France
shall not concern himself with Count John, if he should choose to
accept peace for his lands aforesaid.”[203]
[Sidenote: 1193–1194]
This treaty was drawn up at Nantes on July 9.[204] John at once
returned to Normandy and there took an oath of liege homage to his
brother; whereupon Richard ordered all the castles of John’s honours
to be restored to him, on both sides of the sea. “But the keepers
thereof would not give up any castle to him” on the strength of this
order.[205] John in a rage went back to France, and Philip immediately
gave him the custody of two Norman castles, Driencourt and Arques,
which by the recent treaty had been intrusted to the archbishop of
Reims in pledge for the twenty thousand marks promised to Philip by
Richard.[206] At Christmas the two allies made a last desperate effort
to prevent the “devil” from being “loosed.” They offered the Emperor
three alternatives: either Philip would give him fifty thousand marks,
and John would give him thirty thousand, if he would keep Richard
prisoner until the following Michaelmas (1194); or the two between them
would pay him a thousand pounds a month so long as he kept Richard
in captivity; or Philip would give him a hundred thousand marks and
John fifty thousand, if he would either detain Richard for another
twelvemonth, or deliver him up into their hands. “Behold how they loved
him!” says a contemporary writer.[207] A hundred and fifty thousand
marks was the ransom which had been agreed upon between Henry VI. and
Richard, and the one question which troubled Henry was whether he had
a better chance of actually getting that sum from Richard or from his
enemies. He unblushingly stated this fact to Richard himself, and on
February 2, 1194, showed him the letters of Philip and John. Richard
appealed to the German princes who had witnessed his treaty with Henry,
and by promises of liberal revenues to be granted to them from England
induced them to take his part and insist upon Henry’s fulfilling
his agreement. On February 4 the English king was set at liberty,
and a joint letter from the Emperor and the nobles of his realm was
despatched to Philip and John, bidding them restore to Richard all that
they had taken from him during his captivity, and threatening that
if they failed to do so, the writers would do their utmost to compel
them.[208]
[Sidenote: 1194]
Before this letter could have reached its destination, John sent
to England a confidential clerk, Adam of S. Edmund’s, with secret
letters, ordering that all the castles which he held there should be
made ready for defence against the king. This man, having reached
London without hindrance, foolishly presented himself on February 9
at the house of the new archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter. The
archbishop invited him to dinner, an unexpected honour by which Adam’s
head was so completely turned that he boasted openly at table of his
master’s hopes of political advancement. Hubert listened without
remark, and thinking that to arrest the babbler on the spot would be
a breach of hospitality, suffered him to depart after dinner; but
the mayor of London--warned no doubt by the archbishop himself or by
one of the other guests--seized Adam on his way back to his lodging,
took possession of his papers, and sent them to Hubert, who on the
following day laid them before a council of bishops and barons. The
council unanimously decreed that John should be disseised of all his
lands in England, and that his castles should be reduced by force;
the bishops excommunicated him and all his adherents. Then the old
bishop of Durham set off to renew the siege of Tickhill; the earls of
Chester, Huntingdon and Ferrars laid siege to the castle of Nottingham;
Archbishop Hubert himself undertook that of Marlborough, which he
won in a few days; and Lancaster was given up to him by his brother
Theobald. On March 13 Richard arrived in England. His arrival was
speedily followed by the surrender of Tickhill. On the 25th he appeared
before Nottingham; on the 28th he was once again master of its castle,
and of all England.[209]
At Nottingham Richard held a council, on the second day of which (March
31) he “prayed that justice should be done him”[210] on John and on
John’s chief abettor, Bishop Hugh of Chester. The council cited both
delinquents to appear for trial within forty days, and decreed that if
they failed to do so, or to “stand to right,” Hugh should be liable to
a double sentence--from the bishops as a bishop, and from the laity as
a sheriff,[211]--and John should be accounted to have “forfeited all
claims to the kingdom,”[212] or, as a later annalist explains, should
be “deprived and disinherited not only of all the lands which he held
in the realm, but also of all honours which he hoped or expected to
have from the Crown of England.”[213] Neither in person nor by proxy
did John answer the citation. At the end of the forty days three earls
set out for the court of France “to convict him of treason there”;
but of their proceedings, too, he took no notice. The forty days had
expired on May 10; on the 12th Richard sailed for Normandy.[214]
Landing at Barfleur, he went to Caen and thence turned southward to
relieve Verneuil, which Philip was besieging. On the way he halted at
Lisieux, where he took up his quarters with the archdeacon, John of
Alençon, who had been his vice-chancellor.[215] He soon noticed that
his host was uneasy and agitated, and at once guessed the cause. “Why
do you look so troubled? You have seen my brother John; deny it not!
Let him fear nought, but come to me straightway. He is my brother,
and should have no fears of me; if he has played the fool, I will
never reproach him with his folly. Those who contrived this mischief
shall reap their due reward; but of that no more at present.” Joyfully
John of Alençon carried the tidings to his namesake of Mortain: “Come
forward boldly! You are in luck’s way. The king is simple and pitiful,
and kinder to you than you would have been to him. Your masters have
advised you ill; it is meet they should be punished according to their
deserts. Come! the king awaits you.” In spite of these assurances, it
was “with much fear” that Count John approached his brother and threw
himself at his feet. Richard raised him with a brotherly kiss, saying:
“Think no more of it, John! You are but a child, and were left to ill
guardians. Evil were their thoughts who counselled you amiss. Rise,
go and eat. John,” he added, turning to their host, “what can he have
for dinner?” At that moment a salmon was brought in, as a present for
the king. As the chronicler remarks, “it did not come amiss”; Richard
immediately ordered it to be cooked for his brother.[216]
For any other man of six-and-twenty, to be thus forgiven--even though
it were by a brother who was ten years older, and a king--expressly on
the ground that he was a child, not responsible for his actions, would
surely have been a humiliation almost more bitter than any punishment.
Nor did John escape altogether unpunished. Richard’s forgiveness was
strictly personal; the decree of the council of Nottingham was carried
into effect with regard to all John’s English and Norman lands;[217]
and for the next eighteen months he was, save for his lordship of
Ireland, once more in fact as well as in name “John Lackland.” He
was thus wholly dependent on Richard’s goodwill, and it was obviously
politic for him to throw himself into Richard’s service with the utmost
energy and zeal. Philip withdrew from Verneuil at the tidings of
Richard’s approach, May 28.[218] After securing the place the English
king divided his forces; with part of them he himself went to besiege
Beaumont-le-Roger; the other part he entrusted to John for the recovery
of Evreux,[219] which had been taken by Philip in February.[220] Of the
manner in which John accomplished this mission there are at least two
versions. One writer states that John “laid siege to Evreux, and it was
taken next day.”[221] Another says that its garrison were surprised and
slain by a body of Normans;[222] while a third explains the surprise as
having been effected by means which are perhaps only too characteristic
of John. The city of Evreux, says William the Breton, had been made
over to John by Philip. John contrived that his reconciliation with his
brother should remain unknown to the French troops who had been left
there. He now returned to the city and invited these Frenchmen to a
banquet, at which he suddenly brought in a troop of “armed Englishmen”
who massacred the unsuspecting guests. His success, however, was only
partial and shortlived; for he was still unable to gain possession of
the castle;[223] and he had no sooner quitted the place than Philip
returned, drove out the Norman troops, and destroyed the town.[224]
Shortly afterwards Richard set off on a campaign in the south, leaving
John in Normandy. About the middle of June Philip again threatened
Rouen, taking and razing Fontaines, a castle only four miles from the
city. On this John, the earl of Leicester, and “many other barons”
held a meeting at Rouen to consider what should be done; “but because
they had no one to whom they could adhere as to the king himself,” and
their forces were no match for Philip’s, they decided upon a policy of
inaction.[225] This decision was probably dictated by their experience
of Philip’s ways. He, in fact, made no further attempt upon the Norman
capital, but soon afterwards proceeded southward against Richard, only
to meet with an ignominious defeat at Fréteval. On hearing of this,
John and the earl of Arundel laid siege to Vaudreuil; Philip, however,
marched up from Bourges and relieved it.[226] John’s next military
undertaking, the siege of Brezolles, met with no better success.[227]
Still he had done the best he could for his brother’s interest, and
thereby also for his own. Accordingly, next year Richard “laid aside
all his anger and ill-will towards his brother John,” and restored
to him a portion of his forfeited possessions. It was indeed only a
small portion, consisting of the county of Mortain and the honours of
Gloucester and Eye “in their entirety, but without their castles.” To
this was added, as some compensation for the other lands which he had
lost, a yearly pension of £8000 Angevin.[228]
[Sidenote: 1196–1198]
This arrangement seems to have taken effect from Michaelmas 1195.[229]
It gave John once more an honourable and independent maintenance, but
left him without territorial power. His only chance of regaining this
in Richard’s lifetime was to earn it by loyalty to Richard. For the
next three years, therefore, he kept quiet; nothing is heard of him
save an occasional notice of his presence in Normandy, either in his
brother’s company or acting for his brother’s interest. When Philip
seized Nonancourt in 1196, John retaliated by seizing Gamaches.[230]
On May 19 in the same year he and Mercadier, the leader of Richard’s
foreign mercenaries, made a plundering expedition into the French
king’s territories as far as Beauvais, where they captured the bishop,
who had long been one of Richard’s most determined enemies; they then
went on to the bishop’s castle of Milli, took it by assault, razed
it, and returned to Normandy in triumph to present their captive to
Richard.[231] On October 16, 1197, when the king and the archbishop of
Rouen made their agreement for the building of a castle at Andely--the
famous Château-Gaillard--it was ratified in a separate charter by John;
an unusual proceeding, which has been thought to imply that he was
now again acknowledged as his brother’s destined heir.[232] In 1198
Philip made another attack upon Normandy and burned Evreux and seven
other towns. John fired a ninth, Neubourg; Philip, seeing the flames
and supposing them to have been kindled by his own men, sent a body of
troops to bid them go no farther, on which John fell upon the troops
and captured eighteen knights and a crowd of men-at-arms.[233]
[Sidenote: 1199]
The alliance of Richard and John had now lasted too long for Philip’s
satisfaction, and early in 1199 he set himself to break it. He began
by making a truce with Richard. Then, when the Lion-heart, thinking
himself safe for the moment in Normandy, was on his way to Poitou,
“that sower of discord, the king of France, sent him word that his
brother John, the count of Mortain, had given himself to him (Philip);
and he offered to show him John’s own letter proving the fact. O
marvel! The king of England believed the king of France, and took to
hating his brother John, insomuch that he caused him to be disseised
of his lands on both sides of the sea. And when John asked the reason
of this wrath and hatred, he was told what the king of France had sent
word to his brother about him. Thereupon the count of Mortain sent two
knights to represent him at the French king’s court, and they offered
to prove him innocent of this charge, or to defend him as the court
should direct. But there was found no one in that court, neither the
king nor any other man, who would receive the offered proof or defence.
And thenceforth the king of England was on more familiar terms with
his brother John, and less ready to believe what was told him by the
king of France.”[234] This story does not necessarily show either that
Philip’s accusation of John was false, or that it was true. Philip
may have invented it with the hope of driving John to throw himself
again into his arms; but it is perhaps more likely that the two were
in collusion, and that the scene in the French Curia Regis was a piece
of acting on both sides. However this might be, by about the middle of
March John had again left his brother “because he kept him so short
of money, and on account of some disputes which had arisen between
them.”[235] Suddenly, at the end of the month, the question of the
Angevin succession was brought to a crisis by a cross-bowman who,
at the siege of Châlus, on March 26, gave Richard his death-wound.
That question had haunted Richard throughout his reign; his wishes
respecting its solution had wavered more than once; now that it had
to be faced, however, he faced it in what was, after all, the wisest
as well as the most generous way. In the presence of as many of his
subjects as could be gathered hastily round him, he devised all his
realms to John, gave orders that on his own death John should be
put in possession of all the royal castles and three-fourths of the
royal treasure, and made the assembly swear fealty to John as his
successor.[236]
Richard died on April 6.[237] On the 3rd there had been delivered at
Rouen a letter from him appointing William the Marshal commandant
of the castle and keeper of the treasure which it contained. On the
10th--the eve of Palm Sunday--the news of the king’s death came, late
at night, just as the Marshal was going to bed. He dressed again in
haste and went to the palace of the archbishop, who marvelled what
could have brought him at such an hour, and when told, was, like
William himself, overwhelmed with grief and consternation. What
troubled them both was the thought of the future. William went
straight to the point. “My lord, we must hasten to choose some one
whom we may make king.” “I think and believe,” answered Archbishop
Walter, “that according to right, we ought to make Arthur king.” “To my
thinking,” said the Marshal, “that would be bad. Arthur is counselled
by traitors; he is haughty and proud; and if we set him over us he will
seek evil against us, for he loves not the people of this land. He
shall not come here yet, by my advice. Look rather at Count John; my
conscience and my knowledge point him out to me as the nearest heir to
the land which was his father’s and his brother’s.” “Marshal, is this
really your desire?” “Yea, my lord; for it is reason. Unquestionably,
a son has a nearer claim to his father’s land than a grandson; it is
right that he should have it.” “So be it, then,” said the archbishop;
“but mark my words, Marshal; of nothing that ever you did in your life
have you so much cause to repent as you will have of what you are now
doing.” “I thank you,” answered William; “nevertheless, I deem that
thus it should be.”[238]
In the conversation thus reported by the Marshal’s confidential squire
there are several noticeable points. The divergent views enunciated
by the two speakers as to the respective legal claims of Arthur and
of John illustrate the still uncertain condition of the rules of
hereditary succession. It is, however, plain that the legal aspect
of the case was but a minor matter in the eyes of both primate and
Marshal. For them the important question was not which of Richard’s
two possible heirs had the best legal right to his heritage, but which
of the two was likely to make the least unsatisfactory sovereign. The
outlook was in any case a gloomy one; the only choice was a choice
of evils. Of the two evils, it was natural that Walter should regard
John as the worst, if he thought of personal character alone. Every one
knew by this time what John was; the most impartial of contemporary
historians had already summed up his character in two words--“Nature’s
enemy,” a monster.[239] What Arthur might become was as yet uncertain;
the duke of Britanny was but twelve years old. Yet even at that age,
the “haughtiness and pride” ascribed to him by the Marshal are by
no means unlikely to have shown themselves in a child whose father,
Geoffrey, had been the evil genius of John’s early life, and whose
mother had for years set her second husband Earl Ralf of Chester, her
brother-in-law King Richard, and her supreme overlord King Philip,
all alike at defiance. Not so much in Arthur’s character, however, as
in his circumstances, lay the main ground of the Marshal’s objection
to him as a sovereign. From his cradle Arthur had been trained in
hostility to the political system at the head of which the Norman
primate now proposed to place him. His very name had been given him by
his mother and her people in defiance of his grandfather King Henry,
as a badge of Breton independence and insubordination to the rule
of the Angevin and Norman house. From the hour of Henry’s death in
1189, if not even from that of her son’s birth in 1187, Constance of
Britanny had governed her duchy and trained its infant heir as seemed
good to herself and her people, till in 1196 she was at last entrapped
and imprisoned in Normandy; and then the result of her capture was
that her boy fell into the keeping of another guardian not a whit
less “traitorous,” from the Norman or Angevin point of view, than the
patriotic Bretons who had surrounded him hitherto--the king of the
French, at whose court he was kept for some time, sharing the education
of Philip’s own son. To confer the sovereignty of the Angevin dominions
upon the boy Arthur would thus have been practically to lay it at the
feet of Philip Augustus. The only chance of preserving the integrity of
the Angevin empire was to put a man at its head, and a man to whom the
maintenance of that integrity would be a matter of personal interest as
well as of family pride. It was the consciousness of this that had made
Richard abandon his momentary scheme of designating Arthur as his heir,
and revert finally to John; and it was the same consciousness which
made William the Marshal, with his eyes fully open to John’s character,
hold fast, in the teeth of the primate’s warning, to his conviction
that “thus it should be.”
John, after his last parting from his brother, had made a
characteristic political venture; he had sought to make friends with
his boy-rival. It was in Britanny, at Arthur’s court, that he received
the news of Richard’s death. He set off at once for Chinon; money was
his first need, and the Angevin treasury was there. When he reached
the place, on the Wednesday before Easter,[240] April 14--three days
after Richard’s burial at Fontevraud--the castle and the treasure which
it contained were at once given up to him by the commandant, Robert
of Turnham, the seneschal of Anjou.[241] The officers of the late
king’s household had hurried to meet his chosen heir, and now came to
John demanding of him a solemn oath that he would carry into effect
Richard’s last wishes, and maintain the customs of the Angevin lands.
He took the oath, and they then acknowledged him as their lord in
Richard’s stead.[242]
The most venerated of English bishops then living, Hugh of Lincoln,
had officiated at Richard’s funeral and was still at Fontevraud. John
sent an urgent request for his presence at Chinon, welcomed him there
with a great show of attachment, and proposed that they should travel
to England together. This Hugh declined, but he consented to accompany
John for a few days on his journey northward. They set out at once
for Saumur, and stopped at Fontevraud to visit the tombs of Henry and
Richard. When John knocked at the choir-door for admittance, however,
he was told that the abbess was away, and no visitor might enter
without her leave. He then asked Hugh to communicate to the sisters,
in his name, a promise of benefactions to their house, and a request
for their prayers. “You know,” said Hugh, “that I detest all falsehood;
I will utter no promises in your name unless I am assured that they
will be fulfilled.” John swore that he would more than fulfil them; and
the bishop did what he had been asked to do. As they left the church,
John drew forth an amulet which hung round his neck and showed it to
his companion, saying it had been given to one of his forefathers
with a promise from Heaven that whosoever of his race had it in his
possession should never lose the fulness of his ancestral dominion.
Hugh bade him trust “not in that stone but in the Chief Corner Stone”;
and turning round as they came out of the porch, over which was
sculptured a representation of the Last Judgement, he led him towards
the group on the left of the Judge, and besought him to take heed of
the perils attending the responsibility of a ruler during his brief
time upon earth. John dragged his monitor across to the other group,
saying, “You should rather show me these, whose good example I purpose
to follow!” During the three days of his journey in Hugh’s company,
indeed, his affectation of piety and humility was so exaggerated that
it seems to have rather quickened than allayed Hugh’s distrust of his
good intentions.[243] On Easter Day the mask was suddenly dropped.
Bishop and count spent the festival (April 18) at Beaufort,[244]
probably as the guests of Richard’s widow, Berengaria. John was said to
have never communicated since he had been of an age to please himself
in such matters; and now all Hugh’s persuasions failed to bring him to
the Holy Table. He did, however, attend the high mass on Easter Day,
and at the offertory came up to Hugh--who was officiating--with some
money in his hand; but instead of presenting the coins he stood looking
at them and playing with them till Hugh asked him, “Why do you stand
staring thus?” “I am staring at these gold pieces, and thinking that
a few days ago, if I had had them, I should have put them not into
your hands, but rather into my own purse; however, take them now.” The
indignant bishop, “blushing vehemently in John’s stead,” drew back and
bade him “throw into the bason what he held, and begone.” John obeyed.
Hugh then followed up his rebuke with a sermon on the characters of a
good and of a bad prince, and the future reward of each. John, liking
neither the matter of the sermon nor its length, thrice attempted to
cut it short by a message that he wanted his dinner; Hugh only preached
the longer and the more pointedly, and took his leave of John on the
following day.[245]
On that day John discovered that he was in a situation of imminent
peril. While he had been travelling from the Breton border to Chinon
and thence back to Beaufort, Philip had mastered the whole county of
Evreux and overrun Maine as far as Le Mans; and a Breton force, with
Constance and Arthur at its head, had marched straight upon Angers[246]
and won it without striking a blow. City and castle were surrendered
at once by Thomas of Furnes, a nephew of the seneschal Robert of
Turnham;[247] and on Easter Day a great assembly of barons of Anjou,
Touraine and Maine, as well as of Britanny, gave in their adhesion
to Arthur as their liege lord and Richard’s lawful heir.[248] The
forces thus gathered in the Angevin capital, from which Beaufort was
only fifteen miles distant, must have been more than sufficient to
overwhelm John, whose suite was evidently a very small one. His only
chance was to make for Normandy with all possible speed. Hurrying away
from Beaufort on Easter Monday, he reached Le Mans the same night; its
citizens received him coldly, its garrison refused to support him, and
it was only by slipping away before daybreak on Tuesday that he escaped
being caught between two fires. On that very morning {April 20} the
Bretons and their new allies entered Le Mans in triumph,[249] and they
were soon met there by the French king, to whom Arthur did homage for
the counties of Anjou, Touraine and Maine.[250]
Meanwhile, however, John had made his way to Rouen, and there he was
safe. Richard on his death-bed had declared that the people of Rouen
were the most loyal of all his subjects; they proved their loyalty
to his memory by rallying round the successor whom he had chosen for
himself, and all Normandy followed their example. “By the election
of the nobles and the acclamation of the citizens,”[251] John was
proclaimed duke of the Normans, and invested with the symbols of his
dukedom in the metropolitan church on Low Sunday, April 25.[252] The
ducal crown--a circlet of gold, with gold roses round the top--was
placed on his head by Archbishop Walter, and the new-made duke swore
before the clergy and people, on the holy Gospels and the relics of
saints, that he would maintain inviolate the rights of the Church,
do justice, establish good laws, and put down evil customs.[253] The
archbishop then girded him with the sword of justice, and presented
him with the lance which held among the insignia of a Norman duke the
place that belongs to the sceptre among those of a king. A group of
John’s familiar friends stood close behind him, audibly mocking at the
solemn rites. He chose the moment when the lance was put into his hands
to turn round and join in their mockery; and, as he turned, the lance
slipped from his careless grasp and fell to the ground.[254]
In after years it was only natural that this incident should be
recalled as an omen.[255] The indecent levity which had caused the
mishap was in itself ominous enough. Still, however, the Marshal and
the Norman and English primates--for Hubert of Canterbury, too, was at
Rouen, and fully in accord with the policy of William and Walter--clave
to their forlorn hope and persevered in their thankless task. In
obedience to John’s orders, Hubert and William now returned to England
to assist the justiciar, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, in securing the realm for
him.[256] John himself turned southward again to try whether it were
possible, now that he had the strength of Normandy at his back, to win
the Angevin lands before he went over sea. No sooner had the French
and the Bretons withdrawn from Anjou than it was overrun with fire
and sword by Richard’s mercenaries, acting under the orders of their
captain Mercadier and of Queen Eleanor, who had enlisted them in John’s
interests as soon as they had had time to march up from Châlus to the
Angevin border. John despatched a body of troops to join them, while he
proceeded in person to Le Mans. There he wreaked his vengeance to the
full. City and castle fell into his hands; he razed the castle, pulled
down the city walls, destroyed the houses capable of defence, and flung
the chief citizens into captivity.[257] But the danger in his rear was
still too great to allow of his advance farther south. To throw the
whole forces of Normandy upon the Angevin lands would have been to
leave Normandy itself open to attack from two sides at once, and expose
himself to have his own retreat cut off by a new junction between
Philip and the Bretons. He could only venture to open negotiations
with the barons of Anjou and of Aquitaine, endeavour to win them over
by fair words and promises,[258] and then leave his interests in the
south to the care of his mother. Accompanied only by a few personal
friends,[259] he went back through Normandy to the sea; on May 25 he
landed at Shoreham;[260] on the 26th he reached London, and on the
27th--Ascension Day--he was crowned at Westminster.[261]
FOOTNOTES:
[112] _Gesta Ric._ vol. ii. pp. 72, 73.
[113] “Paternae in Hibernia acquisitionis plenitudinem et comitatum in
Normannia Moritanensem, de quibus scilicet paternam donationem ratam
habuit” [Ricardus], W. Newb. l. iv. c. 3. “Comitatum de Moritonio,
quem dono patris pridem perceperat” [Johannes], Ric. Devizes (Howlett,
_Chronn. of Stephen_, etc., vol. iii.), p. 385. Cf. above, p. 6.
[114] The biographer of William the Marshal, indeed, does on two
occasions before Henry’s death speak of “le conte Johan,” “li quens
Johan” (vv. 8543, 9078). But although in one sense contemporary, he
did not write till after 1219; his use of the title therefore proves
nothing.
[115] _Gesta Ric._ p. 78.
[116] _Ib._ pp. 80, 81.
[117] _Ib._ pp. 87, 88.
[118] _Ann. Cambr._ p. 57.
[119] _Gesta Ric._ p. 97.
[120] _Ann. Cambr._ p. 57.
[121] R. Diceto, vol. ii. pp. 72, 73.
[122] Gloucester (honour), Pipe Roll 1 Ric. I. p. 7; Lancaster, p. 18;
Orford (Suffolk), p. 40; Staverton (_ib._), p. 54; Hanley, Edersfield
and Bisley (Worcestershire), p. 250; Hecham (Northamptonshire), p. 97;
“other lands” in Northamptonshire, p. 104; Sherwood, p. 172; Andover,
_ib._; Gloucestershire, third penny, p. 163.
[123] _Gesta Ric._ p. 78. The Peverel castles were those of Bolsover
and the Peak.
[124] Tickhill castle appears as garrisoned by the Crown in Pipe Roll 2
Ric. I. (1190) m. 7; so does Orford in 1191–92, P.R. 5 Ric. I. (1193)
m. 2 (among accounts “de veteri firma” of Suffolk); Gloucester castle
was repaired by the sheriff of the county in 1191, P.R. 3 Ric. I. m.
12; Bristol, the other great castle of the Gloucester earldom, was held
by the Crown in 1192, P.R. 4 Ric. I. m. 20.
[125] For Marlborough, Wallingford and Luggershall, see _Gesta Ric._
p. 78; Eye is added by R. Howden, vol. iii. p. 6. There is no mention
of any of these in the Pipe Rolls of 1188–93, except that the men of
the soke of Eye pay tallage to the Crown in 1190 (P.R. 2 Ric. I. m. 9
d), and that in 1192 the sheriff of Suffolk charges for livery of a
garrison in Eye castle for a year (_i.e._ Michaelmas 1191 to Michaelmas
1192; P.R. 5 Ric. I. m. 2, among accounts “de veteri firma” of Suffolk).
[126] “Eodem mense [Decembri] Ricardus Rex Angliae dedit Johanni
fratri suo in augmentum comitatum Cornubiae, et comitatum Devoniae,
et comitatum de Dorset, et comitatum de Sumerseta,” _Gesta Ric._ p.
99. According to this writer, Richard had granted to John “villam de
Notingham cum honore illo ... et Derebisiram” at the same time as
Gloucester, Lancaster, etc. (_ib._ p. 78). But the sheriffs of all six
shires account for them to the Crown up to Michaelmas in Pipe Roll 1
Ric. I.; so they must all have been granted after that date. “Villam
de Notingham cum honore illo” stands for the town and the shire;
there was no “honour” of that name. W. Newburgh, though his list of
John’s counties is very incomplete (l. iv. c. 3), rightly mentions
“Notingehamesciram” as one of them; it disappears from the Pipe Rolls
like the other five after Michaelmas 1189. Sherwood Forest disappears
likewise, being included in the shire. On the other hand, later events
show that Nottingham _castle_ was retained by the Crown. At this period
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, Dorset and Somerset, Cornwall and
Devonshire, were always administered and accounted for in pairs.
[127] Stubbs, pref. to R. Howden, vol. iii. p. xxv. note 4.
[128] Gilbert, _Hist. Doc. of Ireland_, p. 49; _Rot. Canc. Hib. Cal._
vol. i. pt. i. pp. 1, 3; Carte, _Life of Ormonde_ (ed. 1851), vol. i.
introd. pp. xlv., xlvi.; _Hist. MSS. Commission_, 3rd Report, p. 231;
Harris’s Ware, _Antiq. Hibern._ p. 197. The exception referred to is a
grant of land in Ireland, without date of day or year, but issued by
“Johannes filius Regis Angliae, Dominus Hiberniae,” “apud Ceneman’,”
_i.e._ Le Mans, and witnessed by John the Marshal, “dapifer Johannis,”
_Rot. Canc. Hib. Cal._ vol. i. pt. i. p. 3.
[129] We hear of John’s chancellor, Stephen Ridel, in 1191, _Gesta
Ric._ p. 224; of his seneschal, William de Kahanger, and his butler,
Theobald Walter, in 1192, _Foedera_, vol. i. pt. i. p. 55. We have seen
already that at some date between 1185 and 1189 he had as “dapifer” no
less a personage than John the Marshal; and in 1191 Roger de Planes
appears as “in tota terra comitis Johannis justiciarius,” R. Diceto,
vol. ii. p. 99.
[130] _Gesta Ric._ p. 73.
[131] See above, footnote 128.
[132] _Hist. de G. le Mar._ vv. 9581–618. See charters in Carte’s _Life
of Ormonde_ (1851), vol. i. introd. p. xlvi.
[133] W. Newb. l. iv. c. 3.
[134] _Gesta Ric._ p. 106.
[135] R. Devizes, p. 392.
[136] Stubbs, pref. to R. Howden, vol. iii. p. 41.
[137] _Gesta Ric._ p. 157.
[138] R. Devizes, p. 402.
[139] R. Howden, vol. iii. pp. 242, 243. Cf. W. Newb. l. iv. c. 16, and
R. Devizes, p. 406.
[140] _Gesta Ric._ p. 207; R. Howden, vol. iii. p. 134. Cf. W. Newb.
_l.c._ Gerard was constable of Lincoln in right of his wife, Nicola de
Haye.
[141] R. Devizes, p. 407; _Gesta Ric._ p. 207. Cf. W. Newb. l. iv. c.
16.
[142] _Gesta Ric._ _l.c._
[143] R. Devizes, pp. 407, 408.
[144] Walter left Messina April 2 (cf. R. Howden, vol. iii. p. 100;
_Itin. Ric. Reg._ p. 176, and R. Devizes, p. 404), and landed either
about midsummer (Gerv. Cant. vol. i. p. 497), or, more probably, April
27 (see Bishop Stubbs’s note to R. Diceto, vol. ii. p. 90).
[145] R. Devizes, p. 408.
[146] Wallingford, Eye, Bristol, Exeter, Launceston and “Hereford”; R.
Howden, vol. iii. p. 136. Hereford is quite out of place among “castra
de honoribus a domino rege sibi” [_i.e._ Johanni] “datis.” The name may
be a mistake for Oxford; see above, p. 26.
[147] R. Howden, vol. iii. pp. 135–7. One other clause in the agreement
may be noticed. After the provisions about the castles already
mentioned, it is added: “Sed et tria castella ad coronam domini regis
pertinentia, scilicet castellum de Windeshoveres comiti de Arundel;
castellum de Wintonia Gilleberto de Lasci; castellum de Northampton
Simoni de Pateshille, tradita sunt custodienda; qui fidelitatem domini
Regis de ipsis ad opus ipsius fideliter custodiendis juraverunt,” _ib._
p. 136. The earl of Arundel figures, at the end of the document, as
one of the chancellor’s sureties, and the Lacys were in close alliance
with the Longchamps; taken by itself, therefore, this clause would seem
to indicate a change of custodians made at the chancellor’s desire,
and dictated by a discovery or suspicion that the actual commandants
of these three castles were in treasonable alliance with John. But the
Pipe Rolls show that the appointment of Simon de Pateshill implied
no change at all, for he had custody of Northampton castle without
interruption from Michaelmas 1189 to Michaelmas 1191 (P.R. 2 Ric. I.
m. 4; 3 Ric. I. m. 1); while the other appointments were speedily
annulled, owing to the breakdown of the whole agreement.
[148] W. Newb. l. iv. c. 16.
[149] _Gesta Ric._ pp. 232, 234.
[150] R. Devizes, pp. 409, 410. The date which he has appended to
the agreement is impossible, not only for this particular document,
but for any personal meeting of John and the chancellor this year at
Winchester, where he places it. See Round, _Commune of London_, p. 214,
and _Cal. Doc. France_, vol. i. p. 17. As to the agreement itself, cf.
W. Newb. l. iv. c. 16.
[151] W. Newb. l. iv. c. 14.
[152] Gir. Cambr. vol. iv. p. 382.
[153] _Monast. Angl._ vol. vi. pt. iii. p. 1188.
[154] Gir. Cambr. vol. iv. p. 389.
[155] _Ib._ p. 382.
[156] Gir. Cambr. vol. iv. p. 389.
[157] R. Devizes, p. 410.
[158] R. Diceto, vol. ii. p. 96.
[159] _Gesta Ric._ p. 210.
[160] R. Diceto, vol. ii. p. 97; Gir. Cambr. vol. iv. pp. 388–93; R.
Devizes, pp. 411, 412.
[161] _Gesta Ric._ p. 211.
[162] _Epp. Cantuar._ pp. 344, 345; Gerv. Cant. vol. i. p. 506. Cf. R.
Devizes, p. 413.
[163] _Gesta Ric._ p. 211.
[164] September 21, R. Devizes, p. 412; September 26, R. Diceto, vol.
ii. p. 97.
[165] Gir. Cambr. vol. iv. pp. 394–7.
[166] _Ib._ p. 397; R. Devizes, p. 413. Cf. _Gesta Ric._ p. 212. One of
the summons is given in R. Diceto, vol. ii. p. 98.
[167] Gir. Cambr. _l.c._
[168] _Ib._ vol. iv. pp. 398–402. For date see R. Diceto, vol. ii. p.
98.
[169] Cf. Gir. Cambr. vol. iv. pp. 402–5; R. Devizes, pp. 413, 414; R.
Diceto, vol. ii. p. 99; _Gesta Ric._ p. 212, and W. Newb. l. iv. c. 17.
[170] Gir. Cambr. vol. iv. p. 405; _Gesta Ric._ pp. 213, 214; R.
Diceto, _l.c._; R. Devizes, pp. 416, 417.
[171] _Gesta Ric._ pp. 213, 214.
[172] R. Devizes, p. 415.
[173] _Gesta Ric._ p. 214. Cf. R. Diceto, vol. ii. p. 97.
[174] Gir. Cambr. vol. iv. p. 402.
[175] _Ib._ p. 406.
[176] _Ib._ pp. 106, 107; R. Devizes, pp. 417, 418; R. Diceto, vol.
ii. p. 100. The reservation was merely nominal; R. Diceto says the
constables appointed by William to these castles were allowed to
remain, but made to give hostages for their loyalty; while Gerald says
the constables were to be appointed by the new ministry. Probably the
ministry decided to retain or reappoint the actual constables, on the
condition mentioned by Ralph.
[177] _Gesta Ric._ p. 220; R. Diceto, vol. ii. pp. 100, 101.
[178] _Gesta Ric._ p. 236.
[179] R. Devizes, pp. 430, 432; _Gesta Ric._ p. 236.
[180] _Gesta Ric._ p. 237.
[181] R. Howden, vol. iii. p. 188; in _Gesta Ric._ p. 239, the sum is
given as five hundred thousand marks, “which,” as Bishop Stubbs says
(note to R. Howden, _l.c._), “is of course impossible.”
[182] Richard of Devizes, indeed, says (p. 418) that on the
chancellor’s departure over sea “Comes omnia munita terrae quibus
voluit et plus credidit sibi reddita liberavit”: but his own story
about Windsor and Wallingford shows this to be incorrect.
[183] R. Devizes, p. 433.
[184] “Episcopo Dunelmensi £34: 15s. in Pickering pro escambio
custodiae castelli de Windsor quamdiu regi placuerit,” Pipe Roll 4 Ric.
I. (1192) m. 7.
[185] _Gesta Ric._ pp. 235, 236.
[186] R. Devizes, p. 433.
[187] _Gesta Ric._ p. 239.
[188] R. Devizes, pp. 433, 434.
[189] “Dare placet vel commodare pecuniam, sed non de proprio,
tandemque totum cadit in absentis aerarium. Creduntur comiti de
fisco per fiscarios quingentae librae sterlingorum, et recipiuntur
ad placitum literae in cancellarium,” R. Devizes, p. 343. “Johannes
... acceptis a Rothomagensi archiepiscopo et a caeteris justitiariis
Angliae duobus millibus marcis argenti de thesauro regis fratris sui,
consilio eorum adquievit,” _Gesta Ric._ p. 239. Possibly the smaller
sum was handed over to John at once, and the remainder only promised.
[190] _Gesta Ric._ pp. 239, 237.
[191] W. Newb. l. iv. c. 32.
[192] R. Howden, vol. iii. p. 204.
[193] _Foedera_, vol. i. pt. i. p. 57. The document (of which no
original is known) may be slightly corrupt, but it is obviously more
trustworthy than the version of John’s and Philip’s agreement given by
Roger of Howden, vol. iii. p. 204.
[194] Gerv. Cant. vol. i. pp. 514, 515.
[195] R. Howden, vol. iii. pp. 204, 205.
[196] Gerv. Cant. vol. i. p. 515; R. Howden, vol. iii. p. 205.
[197] Gerv. Cant. vol. i. p. 516.
[198] _Ib._; R. Howden, vol. iii. p. 207.
[199] R. Howden, vol. iii. p. 217.
[200] _Ib._ pp. 216, 217.
[201] “‘Johannes frater meus non est homo qui sibi _vi_ terram
subjiciat, si fuerit qui vim ejus vi saltem tenui repellat,’” R.
Howden, vol. iii. p. 198. I think there can be no doubt as to the
significance of the first “_vi_.”
[202] “Ad pacem cum illo faciendam qualemcumque,” _ib._ p. 217.
[203] “De comite autem Johanne sic erit: quod si homines regis Angliae
poterunt sufficienter monstrare in curia domini regis Franciae quod
idem Johannes juraverit ad perquirendam pecuniam ad liberationem regis
Angliae, et de hoc dederit litteras suas, ipse Johannes tenebitur ad
solvendum, et totam terram quam ipse tenebat quando rex Angliae frater
ejus iter arripuit ultra mare, tenebit, citra mare et ultra, ita
libere sicut prius tenebat; excepto eo quod liber erit a sacramento
quod fecerat de non intranda terra Angliae; et de hoc dictus rex
Angliae faciet dominum Johannem securum per se, et per barones et
archiepiscopos et episcopos terrae suae, et insuper per regem Franciae.
Si autem comes Johannes vellet negare quod litterae illae non essent
suae, aut quod illud non jurasset, homines regis Angliae sufficienter
in curia regis Franciae monstrabunt, per idoneos testes, quod juraverit
ad querendam pecuniam ad liberationem regis Angliae. Si autem
monstratum fuerit, sicut dictum est, quod comes juraverit ad quaerendam
pecuniam ad liberationem regis, vel si defecerit de recipienda
monstratione, rex Franciae non intromittat se de comite Johanne, si
pacem de terra sua praedicta recipere voluerit,” R. Howden, vol. iii.
pp. 217, 218.
[204] _Ib._ p. 220.
[205] “Sed custodes illorum noluerunt tradere illi aliquod castellum
per breve,” R. Howden, vol. iii. pp. 227, 228. Did they suspect John
of having forged the king’s writ? Or should the words be “_nisi_ per
breve,” and do they mean that the individual castellans refused to act
upon what seems to have been a merely general order, and require a
special writ for each castle?
[206] _Ib._ p. 228.
[207] _Ib._ p. 229. Cf. W. Newb. l. iv. c. 40.
[208] R. Howden, vol. iii. pp. 232, 234.
[209] _Ib._ 236–40.
[210] “Petiit sibi fieri judicium de comite Johanne,” etc., _ib._ p.
241.
[211] Hugh was sheriff of Warwickshire and Leicestershire.
[212] “Demeruisse regnum,” R. Howden, vol. iii. p. 242.
[213] _Ann. Margan._ a. 1199.
[214] R. Howden, vol. iii. p. 251.
[215] For John of Alençon see Round, _Calendar of Doc. in France_, vol.
i. pp. 14, 15, 90, 91, 210, 454, 528.
[216] _Hist. de G. le Mar._ vv. 10365–419. R. Diceto, vol. ii. p. 114,
places the meeting of the brothers at Brueis; and Roger of Howden, vol.
iii. p. 252, says their reconciliation took place “mediante Alienor
regina matre eorum.” This may mean either that she had interceded with
Richard before he left England, or that it was she who had counselled
John to throw himself on the king’s clemency.
[217] R. Howden, vol. iii. p. 252. Some of John’s English lands had
been seized before the council of Nottingham; no doubt, by virtue of
the decree passed at the council in London on February 10. In the Pipe
Roll of Michaelmas 1194 the king’s officers accounted to the king’s
treasury for the ferms of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Dorset and
Somerset, the third penny of Gloucestershire, and the ferm of Eye, for
half a year (P.R. 6 Ric. I. m. 6, 13, 16, 4 d); but the sheriff of
Devon and Cornwall rendered his account for three-quarters of a year
(_ib._ m. 12); while the forfeiture of John’s private estates in Dorset
and Somerset seems to have been dated from Ash-Wednesday, February
23 (_ib._ m. 13 d); a part at least of the honour of Gloucester,
viz. Bristol, had been seized at Mid-Lent, four days after Richard’s
landing in England, and the whole not later than Easter (_ib._ m. 16
d); and for the honours of Peverel and Tickhill a whole year’s ferm was
reckoned as due to the treasury at Michaelmas (_ib._ m. 6). The king’s
escheators rendered a separate account of a number of escheats in the
honour of Lancaster and in the counties which John had held (_ib._ m.
2, 2 d); and the sheriff of Dorset and Somerset gathered in for the
king a quantity of “arrears of debts which were owed to Count John for
pleas and amercements of the men and townships” of those two counties
(_ib._ m. 13). The commission issued to the itinerant justices in the
same month of September contained an express order that they should
inquire into and report upon all John’s property, real and personal,
and all the moneys owed to him, to the intent that the whole might be
secured for the king, R. Howden, vol. iii. pp. 263, 264.
[218] R. Howden, vol. iii. p. 252.
[219] _Hist. de. G. le Mar._ vv. 10491–517.
[220] W. Newb. l. iv. c. 40; Rigord, c. 94.
[221] _Hist. de. G. le Mar._ vv. 10516–20.
[222] Rigord, c. 96.
[223] W. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ c. 72; _Philipp._ l. iv. vv.
445–62. The last detail seems to imply that the victims of the
surprise--whatever its character--were, after all, not the whole
garrison, but probably only the officers.
[224] Rigord, c. 96.
[225] R. Howden, vol. iii. p. 253.
[226] Rigord, c. 100; W. Armor. _Gesta P. A._ c. 74; _Philipp._ l. iv.
vv. 530–69.
[227] W. Armor. _Philipp._ l. v. vv. 30–32.
[228] R. Howden, vol. iii. p. 286.
[229] I can find no mention either of the honour of Eye or of that of
Gloucester in Pipe Roll 7 Ric. I. (1196).
[230] R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 5.
[231] R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 16. Cf. W. Newb. l. v. c. 31.
[232] Deville, _Hist. du Château-Gaillard_, pp. 21, 22, 119–23.
[233] R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 60.
[234] R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 81.
[235] R. Coggeshall, p. 99.
[236] R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 83. The fourth part of the royal treasure
was to be given to Richard’s servants and to the poor.
[237] _Ib._ p. 84.
[238] _Hist. de G. le Mar._ vv. 11877–908. These lines may be an almost
literal report of the interview as described by the Marshal himself
to John of Earley (_d’Erlée_), on whose relation to the _Histoire_
in its present form see M. Meyer’s introduction, vol. iii. pp.
ii.–xiv. John was the Marshal’s favourite squire, and was immediately
despatched by him on an important mission to England; see vv. 11909–16.
It has been suggested (_Dic. Nat. Biog._ “Marshal, William”) that
“li arcevesques”--as John calls him, without either Christian name
or title of see--may have been not Walter of Rouen, but Hubert of
Canterbury. Hubert was in Normandy at the time; but the advocacy of
Arthur’s claims, intelligible enough in the mouth of a Norman prelate,
is so contrary to the English political traditions of those days that
I cannot, without further evidence, ascribe it to such a thoroughly
English statesman as Archbishop Hubert Walter.
[239] “Hostis naturae Johannes,” W. Newb. l. iv. c. 40.
[240] _Magna Vita S. Hugonis_, p. 287.
[241] R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 86; R. Coggeshall, p. 99.
[242] _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ _l.c._
[243] _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ pp. 287–91.
[244] R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 87.
[245] _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ pp. 291–5.
[246] Rigord, c. 127.
[247] R. Coggeshall, p. 99; R. Howden, vol. iv. pp. 85, 86.
[248] R. Howden, pp. 86, 87; date from _Chron. S. Albini Andeg._ a.
1199.
[249] _Mag. Vita S. Hugon._ p. 296.
[250] Rigord, c. 127; W. Armor. _Gesta P. A._ c. 101.
[251] R. Coggeshall, p. 99.
[252] _Ib._; R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 87; R. Diceto, vol. ii. p. 166;
_Mag. Vita S. Hugon._ p. 293; Gerv. Cant. vol. ii. p. 92.
[253] R. Howden, vol. iv. pp. 87–88.
[254] _Mag. Vita S. Hugon._ p. 293.
[255] _Ib._ pp. 293, 294.
[256] R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 86. The writer of the _Hist. de G. le
Mar._ asserts, vv. 11909–16, that John of Earley had been sent to
England by the Marshal three weeks earlier, to “take seisin” of the
land, castles, towns and royal demesnes for the count of Mortain.
Probably he was really sent to bid the Marshal’s own men in England
secure for John the castles, etc., which they held; and also to act as
a medium of communication between the Marshal and the justiciar.
[257] R. Howden, vol. iv. pp. 87, 88, where, however, the order of
events is wrong. Cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 99.
[258] _Hist. de G. le Mar._ vv. 11925–40.
[259] “Cum privatis suis,” R. Coggeshall, p. 99.
[260] R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 89; Gerv. Cant., vol. ii. p. 92, says
Seaford.
[261] R. Howden and R. Coggeshall, _ll.cc._; R. Diceto, vol. ii. p. 166.