CHAPTER VII

JOHN LACKLAND

1215–1216

Dicitur ... “Sine Terra,” quia moriturus nil terrae in pace possedit.

M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. p. 191.

[Sidenote: 1215]

The Pope’s letters evidently did not reach England till after the

primate and the bishops had set out for Rome, so that there was no one

left to publish the new sentence; and it seems, in fact, never to have

been published in England at all. But its existence soon became known

there; and when once the barons knew of it, they knew, too, that they

must make their choice between unconditional surrender and war to the

uttermost with both king and Pope; for there was no one left to act as

their mediator with either. They chose war; but they were not ready

for war, and the king was. Poitevins, Gascons, Brabantines, Flemings,

were flocking to him from over sea.[1097] On October 2 he ordered his

brother, Earl William of Salisbury, to visit ten royal castles and

select from their garrisons troops for service in the field. On the 4th

he committed the superintendence of military affairs in mid-England

and the west to Falkes de Bréauté, and issued a general safe-conduct

to “all who may wish to return to our fealty and service” through

the medium of Falkes or the earl.[1098] He himself had, towards the

end of September, advanced as far inland as Malling;[1099] but this

seems to have been merely a sort of reconnoitring expedition; his

plan evidently was to wait till all his expected reinforcements had

arrived from over sea, and then march with them upon London, while

William and Falkes did the same with the troops which they could bring

up from the west, so as to place the capital between two fires. While

his forces were concentrating, those of the barons were scattering;

they had no scheme of united action; one party had renewed the siege

of Northampton castle, another was engaged in that of Oxford.[1100]

At last the leaders in London decided that something must be done to

bar John’s way to the capital; and they advanced into Kent as far as

Ospring. When they reached it John was at Canterbury; having only a

small escort he, on hearing of his enemies’ approach, hurriedly fell

back to Dover; they, however, were so scared by a report that he had

set out from Canterbury to offer them battle that they beat an equally

hasty retreat towards Rochester.[1101] Their great fear was lest he

should gain possession of Rochester castle, which he had vainly tried

to induce the archbishop to give up to him two months before.[1102] On

October 11 Reginald of Cornhill, in whose charge Stephen had left it,

suffered it to be occupied by a band of picked knights under William

of Aubigny. But the triumph of the intruders was shortlived; two days

later the king was at the gates of Rochester.[1103]

“Certes, sire,” said one of John’s Flemish allies as the royal host

set out for Rochester, “you make little account of your enemies if

you go to fight them with so small a force!” “I know them too well,”

answered John; “they are to be nothing accounted of or feared. With

fewer men than we have we might safely fight them. Certes, one thing

I may tell you truly, I grieve not so much for the evil which the men

of my land are doing to me, as that their wickedness should be seen by

strangers.”[1104] The king knew what the stranger did not know, that

so long as he could keep the Medway between himself and the main body

of the barons he was safe. He therefore began his operations by an

attempt to destroy the bridge, and thus to cut off the communications

between Rochester and London. It seems that he sent a party up the

river in boats to fire the bridge from beneath, and that they succeeded

in so doing, but that Robert Fitz-Walter, with a picked body of knights

and men-at-arms, was guarding the bridge at the time and managed to

extinguish the flames and drive off the assailants.[1105] Fitz-Walter,

however, appears to have immediately returned to London;[1106] and in a

second attack on the bridge John was completely successful; the bridge

was destroyed, and the king proceeded to invest the castle[1107] and

assault the town.

On his first approach the citizens had manned their walls and

“made a great show of defending themselves”; but “when they saw

he was preparing to assault them they broke into a rout, left the

battlements, and fled on all sides. Then his men entered through

the gates, and began to chase them through the town to the bridge

so vigorously that they drove all the knights by force into the

castle; of whom”--sarcastically adds the Flemish soldier of fortune

who tells the tale--“many would gladly have fled to London if they

could.”[1108] But they could not, the bridge being now gone. The whole

party thus gathered in the castle numbered about ninety-five knights

and forty-five men-at-arms.[1109] The castle when given to William of

Aubigny and his followers was destitute of provisions; they had had no

time to procure any, save what little they could get in the town;[1110]

and they saw before them an imminent prospect of starvation. John

pressed the siege vigorously; on the day after its commencement he

ordered “all the smiths in Canterbury” to devote their whole time,

“day and night,” to making pickaxes, which were to be sent to him at

Rochester as fast as they were made.[1111] His forces increased daily

till they became “such a multitude that they struck fear and horror

into all who beheld them.”[1112] They ravaged all over Kent, and

wrought havoc in Rochester, stabling their horses in the cathedral and

committing every kind of sacrilege in the holy places.[1113]

At all this the barons in London looked on in helpless consternation.

They had plighted a solemn oath to William of Aubigny, when he

undertook the expedition to Rochester, that if the king besieged him

there they would succour him without fail.[1114] A fortnight passed

before they made any movement to redeem their promise; then, on

October 26, some seven hundred knights[1115] set out under the command

of Robert Fitz-Walter; but they got no farther than Dartford. One

chronicler says they “retreated before the breath of a very soft south

wind as if beaten back by swords”;[1116] another, that they turned back

in dismay on hearing how numerous were the forces of the king;[1117] a

third, that they were misled on this point by an exaggerated account

given them by a Templar sent to meet them for that purpose by John

himself.[1118] In any case, they returned to London, and having taken

care to provide themselves with ample stores, they sat down to “play at

the fatal dice and drink the best wine, according to each man’s taste,

and do it is needless to say what besides,”[1119] till S. Andrew’s Day.

By that time they expected important reinforcements; and they reckoned

that the besieged could hold out till then.[1120]

William of Aubigny and his comrades did hold out, but at desperate

odds. Every possible mode of attack--mining, battery, assault--was

tried in turn upon the fortress. Five great slinging engines were

plied incessantly, day and night, against its walls. The garrison,

already short of food, and expecting no mercy from the king if they

surrendered, were minded to sell their lives dearly; they fought like

heroes; “nor,” says the Barnwell annalist, “does living memory recall

any siege so urgently carried on and so manfully resisted.”[1121] A

strange contrivance at last shattered the mighty keep. On November 25

John ordered the justiciar to send him with all possible speed “forty

bacon-pigs of the fattest, and of those which are least good for

eating, to be put to set fire to the stuff that we have got together

under the tower.”[1122] Of the results of the blaze thus kindled a

token remains to this day, in the round tower which at the south-west

angle of the keep contrasts so markedly with the square towers at

the other corners, and which replaces the original square one thus

destroyed by John. Even after its fall the garrison fought on until

their last morsel of food was gone; then at last they surrendered on S.

Andrew’s Day.[1123] The king set up a gallows in front of the army and

declared he would hang them all; but he yielded to Savaric de Mauléon’s

warning that if he hanged brave knights such as these, the barons would

surely do the like to any friends of his who might fall into their

hands, and that in view of such a prospect no man would remain in his

service.[1124] On this he contented himself with sending the knights

to prison, leaving the men-at-arms to ransom themselves as best they

could, and hanging only a few cross-bowmen.[1125]

Three times since the siege began the barons in London, or some of

them, had opened negotiations with the king. On October 17 Richard

of Argentan and others had a safe-conduct “to treat with us for

peace between ourself and our barons”;[1126] on October 22 Roger de

Jarpeville and Robert de Coleville had a safe-conduct till the 27th

to treat with the king concerning peace between him and “the barons

who may come with the Master of the Temple and the Prior of the

Hospital”;[1127] and on November 9 a safe-conduct till the 12th was

given to Earl Richard of Clare, Robert Fitz-Walter, Geoffrey de Say,

and the mayor and two, three or four citizens of London, that they

might go and speak with the bishop of Winchester, the earls of Warenne

and Arundel, and Hubert de Burgh, “to treat of peace between ourself

and our barons.”[1128] On the side of the barons these overtures were

nothing but a cloak for the cowardice and incapacity which kept them

from taking any active steps for the relief of their besieged comrades.

They were all the while pushing on negotiations for bringing in a

foreign power to aid them in their selfish scheme of revolution.

One chronicler asserts that as long ago as the year 1210 some of the

barons had contemplated driving John from his throne and setting up as

king in his stead a man who, though born on foreign soil and engaged

throughout his whole life in the service of foreign powers, had yet

a claim to rank as one of themselves, and certainly not as the least

distinguished among them--Simon, count of Montfort and titular earl

of Leicester.[1129] To modern eyes the cruelties of the war against

the Albigenses, in which Simon was the leader of the “crusading” host,

have somewhat obscured the nobler aspects of a character which was not

without a heroic side. It was indeed by a strange instinct that--if

the Dunstable annalist’s tale be true--the chiefs of the English

revolutionary party fixed their hopes for a moment on the father of

that other Simon de Montfort, at that time still but a boy, who was

one day to seal with his blood the work of England’s deliverance

which they professed to have at heart, but which in their narrow and

short-sighted selfishness they were alike unworthy and incapable of

achieving. The instinct was at any rate a loftier one than that which

guided them in their choice of a rival to John five years later. The

scheme put forth by the group of barons in London in the summer of 1215

for electing a new king “by the common consent of the whole realm” of

course came to nothing; the magnates would have none of it, and the

northern barons who had separated from the other malcontents before the

sealing of the Charter had, as will be seen later, made an independent

choice of their own. The mad little faction in London, headed now by

Earl Geoffrey de Mandeville, acted by themselves and for themselves

alone when they “chose for their lord” the eldest son of the king of

France, “begging and praying him that he would come with a mighty arm

to pluck them out of the hand of this tyrant.”[1130]

Only one English chronicler gives or even pretends to give any hint

of the grounds on which this choice was, either really or nominally,

based. In no English writer of the time do we find any indication

that the connexion of Louis of France with the reigning royal house

of England, through his marriage with John’s sister’s daughter, had,

or was supposed to have, anything to do with it. The claim to the

English crown which Louis afterwards put forth on this ground seems to

have been an idea of purely French origin, which not only had never

suggested itself to any English mind, but, when it was suggested,

failed to meet with general recognition even among Louis’s partizans in

England. The intricate rules of succession, and especially of female

succession, which it pre-supposed were as yet, when applied to the

Crown at least, completely strange to English statesmen. Moreover, it

is by no means clear that the barons who offered the Crown to Louis

had any real intention of transferring it to him and his heirs for

ever. Roger of Wendover tells us that “after hesitating for some time

whom they should choose, they at length agreed upon this, that they

would set over themselves Louis, the son of King Philip of France, and

raise him up to be king of England. Their reason was that if through

the agency of Louis and his father King John could be deprived of the

host of foreign soldiers who surrounded him, most of whom were subjects

of Louis[1131] or Philip, he, being without support from either side

of the sea, would be left alone and unable to fight.”[1132] In other

words, they wanted Louis as a tool wherewith to crush John; and to gain

him for their tool they offered him the bribe of the crown, thinking

that when their immediate purpose should be accomplished it would be

time enough to consider whether the annexation of England to France

would or would not really profit them better than to break faith with

their new lord as they had broken it with their old one.

The first direct overtures of the barons to Louis seem to have been

made before the outbreak of hostilities, in September or October

1215;[1133] and these overtures were renewed at some time after the

commencement of the siege of Rochester, when the earls of Winchester

and Hereford went over with a message from their comrades in London to

Louis, that “if he would pack up his clothes and come, they would give

him the kingdom and make him their lord.”[1134] These envoys were at

once confronted by Philip with a letter which he had just received,

purporting to come from the same barons and informing him that his

son’s intervention was no longer needed, as peace had been made between

them and their own sovereign. The earl of Winchester offered to pledge

his head that the letter was forged by John.[1135] The French king

accepted this assurance; but he was too wary to commit himself hastily

to a scheme so full of perils and difficulties as that which the earls

so lightly proposed, and he merely gave it a negative countenance by

standing altogether aloof from their negotiations with his son. Louis

promised that he would at once send to England as many knights as he

could get, and would himself follow them at Easter. He then called his

own vassals together at Hesdin, and at the end of November some hundred

and forty of his knights with their followers--in all about seven

thousand men--landed at the mouth of the Orwell[1136] and made their

way to London, “where they were very well received and led a sumptuous

life; only they were there in great discomfort because they ran short

of wine and had only beer to drink, to which they were not accustomed.

Thus they remained all the winter.”[1137]

John spent the winter in other fashion. On November 28--two days

before the surrender of Rochester--Tonbridge castle, which belonged

to the rebel earl of Clare, had surrendered to Robert de Béthune,

one of John’s Flemish allies, and on the same day the castle of

Bedford yielded to Falkes de Bréauté. In each case the garrison had

sent to their lord for help, and in each case no help had been given

them.[1138] John left Rochester on December 6, marched through Essex

and Surrey into Hampshire, and thence proceeded to Windsor.[1139]

On the 20th he held a council at S. Albans.[1140] Two of his envoys

had recently come back from Rome with a papal confirmation of the

suspension of Archbishop Stephen.[1141] This was read to the convent

assembled in the chapter-house, and committed to them for transmission

to all cathedral and conventual churches throughout England. The king

then retired with his counsellors into the cloister “to arrange how

he might confound the magnates of England who were his enemies, and

how he might find pay for the foreigners who were fighting under him.”

He decided upon dividing his host into two bodies; one was placed

under the command of Earl William of Salisbury, assisted by Falkes de

Bréauté, Savaric de Mauléon, William Brewer, and a Brabantine captain

known as Walter Buck, with orders to check the irruptions of the

barons who were in London; of the other the king himself took the

command, “intending to go through the northern provinces of England,

and destroy with fire and sword everything that came in his way.”[1142]

That same night {Dec. 20} John, with his division, moved on to

Dunstable; before daybreak on the morrow he set out for Northampton,

and by Christmas he was at Nottingham.[1143] All along his route he

sent out parties in every direction to burn the houses of the hostile

barons and seize their cattle and their goods; every obstacle that

stood in his path was destroyed; and as if the day were not long enough

to satiate his love of destruction, he would send men out at night

to fire the hedges and the villages along his line of march, that he

might rejoice his eyes with the damage done to his enemies; while the

other question which had occupied his deliberations at S. Albans, the

remuneration of his followers, was solved with the produce of the

rapine in which they were not merely indulged but encouraged. Every

human being, of whatever rank, sex or age, who crossed the path of

this terrible host was seized, tortured, and put to heavy ransom. The

constables of the baronial castles dared not trust to the protection of

their walls; at the report of the king’s approach they fled, leaving

their fortresses to be occupied by him and his troops.[1144] Thus, “not

in the usual manner, but as one on the war-path,” he kept Christmas

at Nottingham.[1145] On the following day {Dec. 26} he moved on to

Langar, and thence, next morning, {Dec. 27} despatched a notice to the

garrison of William of Aubigny’s castle of Belvoir that if they did

not surrender at once, their lord should be starved to death. To this

threat they yielded.[1146]

[Sidenote: 1215–16]

Meanwhile, the barons in London had made no use of the reinforcements

sent to them by Louis. They seem to have despaired of overcoming John

by any means short of an invasion headed by Louis in person with the

whole forces of the French kingdom at his back. Towards the close of

the year Saher de Quincy and Robert Fitz-Walter went on another embassy

to Philip and Louis, “urgently imploring the father that he would send

his son to reign in England, and the son that he would come thither to

be crowned.” How or by whom he was to be crowned, when the only prelate

competent to perform the rite was in exile and under suspension, and

the rival sovereign was under the direct protection of the Pope, they

did not explain. Philip refused to entertain their proposals without

further security, and demanded “twenty-four hostages at least, of the

noblest of the whole land.” The hostages were sent under the charge of

the earls of Gloucester and Hereford. When they arrived, Louis began

to prepare eagerly for his expedition; but there were still weighty

reasons why, as an English chronicler says, “he himself could not

hastily set out to undertake so arduous a matter.” So, “to raise the

hopes of the barons and try their fidelity,”[1147] he sent his marshal

and some others of his vassals with a second contingent, some three

hundred knights and cross-bowmen and a proportionate number of foot

soldiers, all of whom, together with the English earls, sailed up the

Thames and arrived in London just after Epiphany 1216 {_c._ Jan. 8};

he himself promising on oath that he would be at the coast, ready to

cross, “with a great multitude of people,” at latest on the octave of

S. Hilary, January 20.[1148]

So, while John was pursuing his northward march, the barons sat still

and waited. The southern division of John’s host meanwhile was far from

idle. Between Christmas and the middle of January detachments of it

overran the whole of Essex, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Cambridgeshire

and Huntingdonshire, while the main body marched to S. Edmund’s, drove

the insurgents who had taken refuge there to seek another shelter

in the Isle of Ely, followed them thither, and sacked, burned and

ravaged the patrimony of S. Etheldreda as they did every other place

to which they came.[1149] Their leaders, before setting out, had

charged the constables of Windsor, Hertford and Berkhamsted to keep

a watch upon all who went into and out of London, and if possible

to stop the supplies of the barons there. This latter charge either

proved impossible to execute, or the constables deemed its execution

impolitic, and deliberately preferred to let the king’s enemies in

London ruin themselves by “lying there like delicate women, anxiously

considering what variety of food and drink could be set before them

to renew their wearied appetites.”[1150] The advance of Savaric de

Mauléon on Colchester, on January 29, perhaps roused them at last, for

a report reached him that they were hastening to relieve it, and caused

him to retire towards S. Edmunds,[1151] probably to rejoin the other

royalist leaders who had been doing the work of destruction at Ely. But

the barons, still vainly waiting for their foreign ally who came not,

made no further movement; and even when the royalists fired a suburb of

London itself, and carried off “plunder of inestimable value,”[1152] no

retaliation seems to have been attempted.

[Sidenote: 1215]

While the barons slumbered--as a chronicler says--the king was not

asleep;[1153] he was wreaking his long-delayed vengeance on the north.

The malcontents in the land beyond the Humber had been quicker than

their southern comrades to recognize their need of foreign help in

their struggle against John, and they had taken a short and easy way

of obtaining it for themselves. No sooner had civil war broken out in

England in the autumn of 1215 than the young Scottish king, Alexander,

who owed his throne and almost his life to the timely help which John

had given to his father four years before, marched into Northumberland

and laid siege, on October 19, to Norham castle.

[Sidenote: 1215–16]

Three days later the Northumbrian barons did homage to him at Felton.

No immediate results, indeed, followed from this new league; the

garrison of Norham seem to have been as loyal as their castle was

strong; at the end of forty days {Nov. 28} Alexander raised the siege

and returned home,[1154] just as John was on the point of receiving the

surrender of Rochester; and for more than a month no further movement

took place in the north except an obscure rising at York.[1155] When

at the opening of 1216 John entered Yorkshire, the terror of his

march to Nottingham had gone before him and all thought of resistance

was abandoned. He reached Pontefract on January 2; its constable

“came there to his mercy.”[1156] He went on to “his city of York,”

and “wrought all his will with it.”[1157] On January 7 and 8 he was

at Darlington.[1158] The horrors wrought by his troops seem to have

equalled, if not surpassed, those which the Scots had been wont to

perpetrate in their raids upon Northumbria in their days of savage

heathenism before the conversion of Malcolm Canmore.[1159] A few barons

“submitted themselves to the mercy of the merciless one”; the rest

“fled before his face.”[1160] From Darlington he seems to have advanced

on the 8th to Durham; thence he was about to turn southward again, when

he learned that Alexander had set fire to Newcastle-on-Tyne. Swearing

“by God’s teeth” that he would “run the little sandy fox-cub to his

earth,”[1161] John dashed forward to Newcastle; the place was indeed

burnt, but Alexander had withdrawn into his own territory,[1162] and on

the 11th the English refugees gathered round him in the chapter-house

at Melrose and renewed their oath to him on the relics of the saints.

John was on their track, burning and ravaging what little there was

left to ravage--little enough, for the fugitives had set fire to their

own fields and villages that he might get no benefit from them.[1163]

On the day of the homage at Melrose John reached Alnwick.[1164]

On the 14th he assaulted Berwick; town and castle were taken next

day,[1165] and the population butchered, after horrible tortures, by

his mercenaries. From Berwick he made, in the following week, a series

of raids across the Tweed, and swept the country as far as Dunbar and

Haddington, both of which he burned. At last, seeing that the “fox-cub”

was not worth a longer chase and that there was more important work to

be done elsewhere, he ordered Berwick to be burnt, fired with his own

hand--so the Scottish story runs--the house in which he had himself

been lodging,[1166] and on January 23 or 24 began to move southward.

After stopping two days at Newcastle[1167] and granting a new charter

to its citizens,[1168] he made his way slowly back through Yorkshire.

When at the end of February he reached Fotheringay,[1169] all the

castles in the shire save two were in his power and garrisoned by

followers of his own, who were charged to hold the country and continue

the work of destruction on the lands of the rebels wherever there was

anything left to destroy.[1170] Alexander’s dreams of conquest, the

Northumbrian barons’ dream of independence--if subjection to their

country’s hereditary foe could be called independence--were alike at

an end. Alexander, indeed, made a raid upon Carlisle as soon as John’s

back was turned;[1171] but it was a mere raid which led to nothing.

Far more significant is the string of safe-conducts which shows how

throughout the winter and the spring the terror-stricken English rebels

came crowding in to make their peace with John.[1172]

[Sidenote: 1216]

John had now regained the mastery over the whole eastern side of

England, from the south coast to the Scottish border,[1173] except

a few castles in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. After spending a week

in Bedfordshire,[1174] probably to concert measures with Falkes de

Bréauté, he marched into East Anglia. On March 12 he was at the gates

of Roger Bigod’s castle of Framlingham; it surrendered at once.[1175]

Next day he moved on to Ipswich; on the 14th he laid siege to

Colchester.[1176] Here the garrison had been reinforced by a detachment

of Louis’s Frenchmen, who agreed to surrender on condition that they

should be suffered to march out free and their English comrades held

to ransom. John, however, broke his promise to the Englishmen and put

them in chains. The Frenchmen on reaching London were accused by the

barons of having betrayed their comrades by making separate terms for

themselves; they were arrested and even threatened with death, but

it was finally determined to keep them in custody till Louis should

arrive.[1177] On the 25th John proceeded to Hedingham, which belonged

to the earl of Oxford, Robert de Vere; three days later it surrendered,

and the earl himself “came there to the king’s mercy, and swore that

he would thenceforth serve him loyally.” Robert’s oath was soon

broken;[1178] but his submission, insincere though it was, indicates

that the barons were losing heart. So, too, does an application made at

the same time by the earl of Clare and his son for a safe-conduct to

and from the king’s court.[1179] A yet more important result of John’s

recent campaign was the supply of money which he had acquired by the

plunder of his enemies. This enabled him during his stay at Hedingham

to satisfy his mercenaries by a general distribution of pay and gifts.

Thus secured against the risk of their desertion, he prepared to march

upon London.[1180]

[Sidenote: 1215–16]

A third body of troops sent by Louis had arrived in London at the end

of February,[1181] and a letter had been received from Louis himself,

announcing that “by God’s grace” he would “most certainly” be at Calais

ready to cross on Easter Day, April 10.[1182] Encouraged on the one

hand by this assurance, on the other the Londoners had been stirred

into a mood of dangerous defiance by tidings from Rome. On December 16,

1215, the Pope renewed his condemnation of the barons in such a manner

that it could no longer remain what circumstances had made it hitherto,

a dead letter. He excommunicated the rebels, this time not merely in

general terms, but mentioning thirty-one of them by name; he also

placed the city of London under interdict, and he appointed the abbot

of Abingdon and two other commissioners to execute this mandate.[1183]

It seems to have reached England about the end of February 1216.[1184]

The commissioners sent it to all the cathedral and conventual churches

for immediate publication, and it was soon published everywhere except

in London. There the clergy of S. Paul’s, the barons and the citizens

all alike rejected it and appealed against it, declaring that it had

been obtained by “false suggestions, and was therefore of no account,

more especially as the ordering of lay affairs pertained not to the

Pope.”[1185] This last assertion seems ridiculous in the mouths of the

barons, who scarce twelve months before had professed pride in having

compelled the king to surrender to the Pope the temporal overlordship

of England. It was in a spirit of mingled rage at the downfall of the

expectations which they had once founded upon that surrender, and

revived hope of speedy help from France, that the revolutionists who

held the capital met the king’s threat of attack. The citizens opened

their gates and arrayed themselves “ready to go forth and fight with

him if he should approach within ten leagues of the city.”[1186]

Advancing slowly and cautiously, he reached Enfield on the last day of

March;[1187] on the following night he seems to have slept at Waltham

Abbey, “seven little English leagues from London.”[1188] But he came no

nearer. Savaric de Mauléon, venturing on a closer approach, was caught

at unawares and barely escaped with heavy loss of men and with a wound

of which he all but died; a band of “pirates” who attempted to block

the Thames were all either slain, drowned or captured by the Londoners;

and evil tidings came from the north how the rebels there had risen

anew, laid siege to York, and pressed it so hard that the citizens had

been compelled to purchase for a thousand marks a truce till Trinity

Sunday.[1189] From Enfield the king passed round by Berkhamsted to

Windsor and Reading, and thence went south into Hampshire.[1190]

Of the northern rising we hear no more, but it seems to have proved

a failure, for before April 12 three of the chief northern barons,

Eustace de Vesci, Robert de Ros and Peter de Brus, offered to return to

the king’s service on one condition--that he would allow them to do so

without a fine. John’s answer was as politic as it was dignified. “What

we desire to have from our barons,” he wrote, “is not so much money as

their good and faithful service”; and he sent the three petitioners a

safe-conduct to come and speak with him on their own terms.[1191] On

the previous day he had given orders that the mayor of York should be

“competently provided” out of the lands of the king’s enemies “for his

good and faithful service which he did to the king,”[1192] no doubt in

the defence of the city during the recent siege. The mayor’s loyalty

and the king’s promptitude in rewarding it illustrate a feature of

John’s home policy which is traceable through all the vicissitudes of

his career: his interest in the towns and the trading classes, and

his constant endeavours to cultivate their friendship. All the while

that he was harrying the open country, burning villages and plundering

castles, he was making careful provision for the furtherance of

trade, the security of travelling merchants[1193] and the preservation

of foreign commerce from disturbance or interruption. With a French

invasion close at hand, he was still issuing safe-conducts to French

merchants in London and elsewhere.[1194] For this, indeed, there

may have been a political reason; John was anxious to keep on good

terms with France in order to counterwork the schemes of the barons

in that quarter. He had lately sent an embassy to try whether Philip

Augustus could by any means be induced to forbid his son’s proposed

expedition.[1195] One of the envoys at least, William the Marshal,

was back by Easter,[1196] the day which Louis had fixed for his own

departure. That day passed and Louis came not--hindered, it seems,

by contrary winds.[1197] About this time John sent a letter to Louis

himself, signifying his willingness to amend any injury which Louis

might have received at his hands;[1198] and on April 28 he wrote to

the guardians of the truce in France proposing that they should hold a

meeting with his proctors for the settlement of all disputes which had

arisen from infractions of the truce.[1199]

[Sidenote: 1216]

By that time the projected expedition of Louis had assumed an aspect

very different from that which it had worn when first suggested by the

English barons in the previous autumn. Philip as well as Louis was

naturally tempted by what looked like a golden opportunity for annexing

England to France; but he was held back by the dread of offending

the Pope, who had no sooner heard of the scheme than he despatched a

legate, Gualo, with instructions to proceed to France and England for

the express purpose of forbidding it. Philip saw that to make his son’s

project tolerable in the Pope’s eyes, and therefore safe in those of

his own feudataries, he must invent for it some more plausible excuse

than the flimsy pretence of election by the excommunicate English

barons. He had made out an elaborate case in behalf of Louis and

planned his own course of action with characteristic wariness and

skill, by the time that Gualo arrived in the spring of 1216. On April

25 the legate was publicly received at Melun[1200] by the French king,

to whom he presented the Pope’s letters desiring that Philip would

not permit his son to invade England or to molest the English king in

any way, but rather that he would protect and assist John as a vassal

of the Roman Church. Philip answered at once: “The realm of England

never was S. Peter’s patrimony; it is not so now, and never shall be.

John was convicted long ago of treason against his brother Richard,

and condemned by the judgement of Richard’s court; therefore John was

never rightfully king, and had no power to surrender the kingdom.

Moreover, if he ever was rightfully king, he afterwards forfeited his

right to the crown by the murder of Arthur, for which he was condemned

in our court. And in any case no king or prince can give away his

realm without the consent of his barons, who are bound to defend it.”

This last proposition was loudly applauded by the French magnates.

Next day a second meeting took place. Louis, according to a previous

arrangement with his father, came in after the rest of the assembly and

seated himself by his father’s side, scowling at the legate. Gualo,

without appearing to notice his discourtesy, besought him “not to go

to England to invade or seize the patrimony of the Roman Church,” and

again begged Philip to forbid his doing so. “I have always been devoted

and faithful,” answered Philip, “to the Pope and the Roman Church, and

by my counsel and help my son will not now attempt aught against them;

yet if Louis claims to have any rights in the realm of England, let him

be heard, and let justice be done.” On this a knight whom Louis had

appointed as his proctor rose and set forth the case thus: “My Lord

King, it is well known that John, who is called king of England, was

in your court by sentence of his peers condemned to death for treason

against his nephew Arthur, whom he had slain with his own hands, and

that he was afterwards rejected by the barons of England from reigning

over them by reason of the many murders and other enormities which he

had committed there; wherefore they began war against him, that they

might drive him from the throne without hope of restoration. Moreover,

the said king, without the consent of his magnates, made over the realm

of England to the Pope and the Roman Church, to receive it back from

them for an annual tribute of a thousand marks. Although he could not

give the crown of England to any one without consent of the barons, yet

he could resign it; and when he resigned it he ceased to be king, and

the throne was vacant. Now a vacant throne ought not to be filled save

by consent of the barons; wherefore the barons elected the Lord Louis

on account of his wife, whose mother, the queen of Castille, was the

sole survivor of all the brothers and sisters of the English king.”

With this ingeniously-woven tissue of perverted truths and dressed-up

lies it was obviously impossible for Gualo to deal on the spur of the

moment. He evaded the point at issue by pointing out that John had

taken the cross, and was therefore entitled to be left unmolested

till his vow of crusade was fulfilled. Louis’s proctor retorted that

John had made war upon Louis both before and after taking the cross,

and that Louis was therefore justified in retaliating. Gualo, without

further argument, again forbade Louis to invade England, and his father

to suffer him to do so, under pain of excommunication. Louis turned

to his father: “Sire, although I am your liegeman for the fief which

you have given me on this side of the sea, yet concerning the realm

of England it appertaineth not to you to decree anything; wherefore

I submit me to the judgement of my peers whether you ought to forbid

me to prosecute my right, and especially a right concerning which you

cannot yourself do me justice. I beseech you therefore not to hinder

me, since for my wife’s heritage I will fight, if need be, even unto

death.” With these words he left the assembly. Gualo made no remark,

but simply asked the king for a safe-conduct to the sea, that he

might proceed on his mission to England. “I will gladly give you a

safe-conduct through my own domains,” answered Philip; “but should you

chance to fall into the hands of any of my son’s men who are guarding

the coast, blame me not if evil befall you.” The legate departed in a

rage. As soon as he was gone, Louis returned, asked and received his

father’s blessing on his enterprize, despatched messengers to Rome to

lay his case before the Pope, and himself went to collect his forces at

Calais.[1201]

On April 14 John had ordered twenty-one coast towns to send all

their ships to the mouth of the Thames.[1202] On the 17th he bade

the sheriffs throughout England make a proclamation calling upon all

persons who had been in arms against the king to join him within a

month after the close of Easter (April 24), on pain of forfeiture for

ever.[1203] On the 20th he returned to Windsor; thence he went through

Surrey back to Rochester;[1204] on the 25th--the day of the council

at Melun--he issued from Canterbury orders to the soldiers then at

Rochester to follow him immediately “wheresoever he might be.”[1205]

He reached Canterbury that night, Dover on the morrow, and spent the

next three weeks flitting up and down along the coast of Kent,[1206]

watching for the arrival of both Gualo and Louis, and superintending

the gathering of the fleet and the preparation of the coast towns for

defence. The Cinque Ports were again pledged, by oaths and hostages,

to his service. Yarmouth, Lynn, Dunwich and other sea-ports sent their

ships to the muster[1207] at Dover. As soon as it was complete, the

king intended to sail with his whole fleet to Calais and block up Louis

in the harbour, “for he well knew,” says a contemporary, “that the

little vessels which Louis had could not defend themselves against his

ships, which were so large; one of his ships was well worth four of

those of Louis.” But towards evening on May 18 a storm arose and swept

over the fleet as it lay off Dover, and by the morning the ships were

so broken and scattered that all hope of bringing them together again

was lost.[1208] On the night of the 20th Louis set sail from Calais.

Next morning the watchmen on the shore of Thanet saw some of his ships

in the distance; they sent word to the king, who was at Canterbury,

on the point of setting out to meet the legate, of whose arrival at

Romney he had just been apprised. He told the messengers from Thanet

that what had been seen were not the enemy’s ships, but some of his own

which the storm had driven out to sea. But his words were only spoken

to encourage his followers; in his heart he knew that the watchmen were

not mistaken. He seems to have ridden only a few miles towards Romney

when he met Gualo, clad in his scarlet robes as cardinal, and mounted

on a white palfrey, as beseemed the representative of the Pope. King

and legate dismounted and embraced. John at once told Gualo that Louis

had arrived; Gualo pronounced the invader excommunicate, and rode with

John into Canterbury.[1209]

Louis meanwhile had landed at Stonor almost alone; the greater part

of his fleet did not even come in sight till the next day, Sunday,

May 22. John had now hurried to Sandwich; thence he saw with his own

eyes the approach of the hostile fleet as it sailed past the mouth of

Pegwell Bay. To prevent its reaching the shore was impossible; the

only question was whether he should encounter the French host as soon

as it had disembarked and stake everything upon a pitched battle. The

trumpets were sounded, the troops arrayed; but as he rode up and down

along the shore surveying their ranks his heart sank within him.[1210]

They were, almost to a man, mercenaries and foreigners, most of them

born subjects of the French king; what if, when the fight was at the

hottest, they should go over in a body to their fellow-countrymen

and their own king’s son? The risk was too grave to be faced; it

was better to withdraw than to court an encounter so likely to prove

fatal.[1211] Such was the counsel given to John by one of the few

Englishmen still at his side, the wisest and truest of them all,

William the Marshal.[1212] For a while John hesitated; then, as was

his wont in moments of disappointment and distress, he stole away in

silence, and had galloped a league on the road to Dover before the

greater part of his men knew that he was gone.[1213] Leaving Dover

under the charge of Hubert de Burgh, with a strong garrison and ample

provisions,[1214] and appointing the earl of Warren warden of the

Cinque Ports,[1215] he made his way through Sussex to Winchester,

where he remained watching the course of events during the next ten

days.[1216]

The first act of Louis after landing his troops was to issue a

manifesto to the English clergy, setting forth, in somewhat more

blunt terms than he had ventured to use in presence of the legate

at Melun, his pretensions to the English Crown, and exhorting those

whom he addressed not to be persuaded into thwarting his endeavours

“for the good of the English Church and realm” by anything that they

might hear from Gualo, whom he represented as having no just grounds

for opposition to him, and as having been brought to England “by

the suggestions and bribes” of John.[1217] He then, after seizing

a few English ships which had put in at Sandwich after the storm,

and plundering the town, marched upon Canterbury. The citizens

admitted him without resistance;[1218] Gualo fled from his lodgings

in S. Augustine’s abbey; the abbot, who was John’s foster-brother,

alone refused all submission to the invader.[1219] From Canterbury

Louis proceeded to Rochester, where he was joined by his men from

London.[1220] The mighty fortress which had cost John a siege of nearly

two months surrendered to Louis in less than a week, on Whit Monday,

May 30.[1221] Already the forebodings of the king and the Marshal were

more than justified; John’s mercenaries were deserting, and not only

those barons who had been recently preparing, or pretending to prepare,

to return to their allegiance, but even many of those who had hitherto

seemed loyal to him, now joined the leaders of the revolution in doing

homage to the invader.[1222] On Whitsun Eve (May 28) Gualo had rejoined

the king at Winchester,[1223] after issuing a citation to the English

bishops and clergy to meet him there “in aid of the king and the

kingdom.” On Whit Sunday, in their presence, he excommunicated Louis by

name, together with all his followers and adherents, whose lands, as

well as the city of London, he laid under interdict.[1224] The sentence

was disregarded; on June 2 Louis entered London;[1225] the citizens

welcomed him joyously, and the canons of S. Paul’s received him with

a procession in their cathedral church.[1226] Next day he received

the homage of the barons and citizens, headed respectively by Robert

Fitz-Walter and the mayor, William Hardel.[1227] He then swore on the

Gospels “that he would restore to all of them their good laws and their

lost heritages,” and wrote to the king of Scots and all the English

magnates who had not yet joined him “bidding them either come and do

him homage, or quit the realm of England without delay.”[1228]

On June 6 Louis started from London[1229] to seek out his rival at

Winchester,[1230] but he was already too late; John had quitted

Winchester the day before,[1231] leaving it, with its two castles,

under the command of Savaric de Mauléon.[1232] Louis’s first day’s

march from London brought him to Reigate, which he entered without

opposition, the earl of Warren having withdrawn his garrison from the

castle. The royal castle of Guildford surrendered on the 8th, Farnham,

which belonged to the see of Canterbury, on the 10th.[1233] On the

14th Louis reached Winchester.[1234] Savaric de Mauléon was, it seems,

under orders to rejoin the king when he saw the enemy approaching the

city and had completed his preparations for its defence. With the

idea, doubtless, of checking the entrance of the foe, he, or some of

his followers, set fire to the suburb before he left it. Unluckily

the flames spread into the city and laid half of it in ashes. Defence

became impossible, and the French marched in to take undisputed

possession.[1235] John and Savaric had, however, left a strong garrison

in the “chief castle”[1236] at the west end of the city; the bishop’s

stronghold of Wolvesey too, at the eastern end, was well provided with

defenders, among whom was one of the king’s sons, a young squire named

Oliver.[1237] For ten days Louis plied his engines against the “chief

castle”; then on June 24 Savaric returned with a licence from the king

to negotiate for its surrender and that of Wolvesey. The garrisons were

suffered to withdraw, and Louis gave the city into the custody of the

count of Nevers.[1238]

In the ten days of the siege Louis had gained something besides

Winchester. Before the castles surrendered “there came thither to

his will” four of “the greatest and most powerful men in England of

those who stood by the king”--the earls of Warren, Arundel, Albemarle

and Salisbury.[1239] Albemarle was a turncoat whose adhesion was too

uncertain to be of much value to either party;[1240] but the other

three had hitherto been steadfast in their loyalty, and Salisbury,

moreover, was half-brother to the king.[1241] Still the invader did

not seem much nearer to the attainment of the crown which he coveted.

From Winchester he went to Porchester,[1242] and thence to Odiham;

both places surrendered to him, but the latter cost him a week’s

siege, though its garrison consisted only of three knights and ten

men-at-arms {July 9}, who of course marched out with the honours of

war, “amid the great admiration of the French.”[1243] The conflicting

claims and mutual jealousies of his French and English followers were

already a source of trouble. The office of marshal of the host, held

by Adam de Beaumont, who was marshal to Louis in France, was claimed

as an hereditary right by Earl William of Pembroke’s eldest son; Louis

transferred it to him “as one who durst not do otherwise, for if he

gave it him not, he deemed he should lose the hearts of the English.”

Young William the Marshal further claimed the castle of Marlborough,

which had been voluntarily surrendered to Louis by Hugh de Neville.

Louis, however, bestowed it on his own cousin, Robert of Dreux;

whereat the young Marshal “was very angry.” The French followers and

continental allies of Louis were already weary of an expedition which

they doubtless saw would bring them little honour and less gain. The

count of Holland had taken the cross and hurried home to prepare for

his crusade. Soon afterwards a number of the men of Artois departed to

London and thence took ship for their own land; and before they could

reach it they had to beat off “the English in their boats” who attacked

them at the mouth of the Thames. Louis himself, after an unsuccessful

attempt to make terms with the legate, returned to London,[1244]

seemingly about the middle of July.

While Louis was in Hampshire, the barons whom he had left in London,

with some of his French troops, overran the eastern counties; they

sacked some of the towns, ravaged the country, exacted “tenseries”

everywhere, and returned “laden with countless booty and spoils.”[1245]

Another party, under Gilbert de Gant and Robert de Ropesley, had been

charged by Louis to check the excursions whereby the baronial castles

in the neighbourhood of Nottingham and Newark were being reduced

to ashes, and the baronial lands around them to subjection, by the

garrisons of those two royal fortresses. Gilbert and Robert took the

city of Lincoln and laid a tax on the whole of Lindsey; but Lincoln

castle was too strong for them, so they went on to invade Holland,

which they ravaged and likewise placed under tribute. A third body

of troops under Robert de Ros, Peter de Brus and Richard de Percy

was meanwhile conquering Yorkshire for Louis;[1246] and Alexander of

Scotland had again set out “with all his host, except the Scots from

whom he took money,” to renew the siege of Carlisle.[1247] This, like

all other sieges of that famous fortress, proved a long and wearisome

business; Alexander, however, relieved its tediousness by expeditions

into the counties of Northumberland and Durham. He had no purpose now

of conquering them for himself; his aim was simply to join hands with

the other invader. The Scot king was the natural ally of the English

king’s adversary.

Thus by the end of July the power of Louis extended from the Channel

to the Scottish border, but not without some important breaks. The

castles of the bishopric of Durham were still held for John by Hugh

de Balliol and Philip de Ulecotes.[1248] The stranger’s hold upon the

south coast was precarious in the extreme so long as Dover, the “key

of England,” defied him under Hubert de Burgh; and Windsor at once

threatened his hold upon London, and barred his way to the Midlands

and the West. These were the districts in which John counted upon

making good his defence. Throughout June, while Louis was in Hampshire,

John was perambulating Wiltshire and Dorset, personally seeing to

the fortification and replenishing of the fortresses in those two

shires, planning schemes and giving orders for the security of the

royal castles in all parts of his realm, and issuing instructions

to their custodians how to act in every possible contingency.[1249]

Diplomacy went hand in hand with military precautions. Overtures

were made to Reginald de Braose, the deadliest of John’s personal

foes, and one of those who had most influence on the western border,

for his return to allegiance at the price of the restoration of his

heritage.[1250] Safe-conducts were offered to “all who might choose

to return to the king’s service” through the intervention of certain

appointed persons.[1251] A temporary submission to the invader’s demand

of “tenserie” was formally sanctioned in special cases where it was

clear that resistance would be ineffectual at the moment.[1252] Help

was again sought from over sea; on June 2 the town of Bayonne was

desired to send its galleys “for the annoyance and confusion of our

enemies.”[1253] John’s own movements indicate that he, very naturally,

expected Louis to follow up his conquest of Hampshire by an attack on

the western shires. It was obviously with this expectation, and with

the double purpose of putting the border in a state of defence and

securing for himself a refuge at need, that soon after the middle of

July he began to advance northward from Sherborne to Bristol, Berkeley,

Gloucester, Tewkesbury and Hereford, reaching Leominster on the last

day of the month.[1254] He was at the same time negotiating with some

of the Welsh chieftains for their aid and support;[1255] and on August

2 he was actually on Welsh soil, at Radnor. That night, however, he was

again in England, at Kingsmead; thence he moved on to Clun, Shrewsbury

and Whitchurch. On the 11th he turned southward again; he reached

Bridgenorth on the 14th, and stayed there till the 16th, when he went

back to Worcester for one night; next day he was at Gloucester.[1256]

A letter written on the 19th from Berkeley shows that these movements

were dictated by the belief that Louis was preparing an attack upon

Worcester and Hereford.[1257] This fact illustrates one of the greatest

difficulties of medieval warfare, the difficulty of obtaining correct

information as to the whereabouts and movements of the adversary.

Louis, at the moment when John was thus anxiously looking out for him

in the west, had been for nearly four weeks absorbed in the siege of

Dover.

According to Matthew Paris, Philip Augustus had taunted his son with

not understanding his business as a commander-in-chief, because he was

attempting to conquer England without first securing its key.[1258]

At any rate Louis, soon after his return to London, perceived that

his hold on the country would never be assured till Dover and Windsor

were both in his hands. On July 25 he set out for Dover,[1259] and

a day or two later the counts of Dreux and Nevers, with some English

barons, laid siege to Windsor.[1260] Of this latter party the Flemish

soldier-chronicler of the war says, “Long were they there, and little

did they gain.”[1261] They in fact sat before the place for nearly

two months in vain.[1262] The siege of Dover proved longer still, and

for many weeks bade fair to be equally unprofitable. Many of Louis’s

followers went back over sea to their homes, “so that the host dwindled

marvellously.”[1263] On August 8, however, the town--not the castle--of

Carlisle surrendered to Alexander;[1264] and he at once began to move

southward for the purpose of joining Louis. Still a whole month elapsed

before the junction was effected. On his way the Scot king stopped to

besiege Barnard castle, held by Hugh de Balliol for John. The siege

appears to have been unsuccessful, and it cost the life of one of

the foremost leaders of the baronial party in the north, Eustace de

Vesci.[1265] Some of the other northerners were now helping Gilbert

de Gant at the siege of Lincoln castle. This time its constable, Dame

Nicola de Haye,[1266] bought off her assailants, who thereupon united

their forces to those of Alexander.[1267] The combined host seems to

have reached Kent about the second week in September.[1268] Louis went

to meet Alexander at Canterbury, brought him back to Dover,[1269] and

there received his homage for the lands which he held of the English

crown.[1270]

Meanwhile John had at last learned the truth as to his adversary’s

movements, and was acting on the information. Gathering a numerous

host from the garrisons of the western castles, which he now saw to be

out of danger, and from his old allies the Welsh,[1271] he marched up

on September 2 from Cirencester to Burford, spent the three following

days at Oxford, then struck across the Thames to Wallingford, and on

the 6th appeared at Reading. From the 8th to the 13th he fixed his

quarters at Sonning.[1272] His advance looked as if intended for the

relief of Windsor; he did in fact approach so near that castle that

its besiegers “thought they were going to have a battle.” His Welshmen

“came by night to shoot into the host, and gave them a great fright.

They were a long time armed to await the battle, but they did not get

it, for the king retired, I know not by what counsel,” says the Flemish

chronicler.[1273] John had in truth never intended to attack them;

his real “counsel” is given us by the English writers--his aim was

the eastern counties, where he purposed to intercept the Scot king on

his homeward journey, and to punish the local landholders and owners

of castles for their submission to the invader.[1274] The relief of

Windsor he probably hoped to effect by other means, if there is any

truth in the assertion of some English chroniclers that the count of

Nevers was secretly in his pay.[1275] It may have been for the purpose

of communicating with Nevers, as well as for that of frightening

Nevers’s companions and reconnoitring the district, that the king

lingered in Berkshire. On September 15 he suddenly struck northward

from Walton-on-Thames to Aylesbury and Bedford; next day he went on to

Cambridge.[1276] The immediate consequence was the relief of Windsor;

its besiegers were no sooner assured of his departure from their

neighbourhood than they struck their tents, set fire to their military

engines, and hurried in pursuit of him. They hoped to overtake him at

Cambridge; but, warned by his scouts, he escaped in time, on the night

of September 17. A dexterous movement southward to Clare and Hedingham

threw his pursuers off the track, and another rapid march brought him

to Stamford before they reached Cambridge.[1277] They avenged their

disappointment by harrying Cambridgeshire--this was the second, if not

the third, harrying which that unhappy county had suffered within four

months--carried their spoils back to London, and then proceeded to join

Louis at the siege of Dover.[1278]

The count of Nevers was immediately sent off again to escort the Scot

king safely homeward as far as Cambridge.[1279] Thence Alexander made

his way towards Lincoln, which Gilbert de Gant, with a few followers,

had continued to occupy after the other barons had abandoned the

siege of the castle.[1280] John meanwhile had gone from Stamford to

Rockingham; thence, on September 21,[1281] he set out to begin the

work for which he had come from the west. The story of that day and

the next, as told by Matthew Paris--how the king went first to Oundle

and thence to the other manors of the abbey of Peterborough, burning

the houses and barns; how he passed on to Crowland and bade Savaric de

Mauléon fire the abbey church and the village while he himself stood

at a distance to watch the blaze; how Savaric yielded to the monks’

prayer for mercy, and accepted from them, as the price of their escape,

a sum of money which he brought back to John, and how the furious king,

after overwhelming his too placable lieutenant with abuse, helped with

his own hands to fire the harvest-fields, running up and down amid

the smoke and the flames till the whole territory of S. Guthlac was

a blackened desert[1282]--whether its details be literally exact or

not, pictures vividly the mood of the tyrant. It is little wonder

that when the tidings of his advance reached Lincoln {Sept. 22},

Gilbert and his men “fled before his face, dreading his presence like

lightning.”[1283] They probably fled into the Isle of Axholme, for

from Lincoln John went by way of Barton[1284] and Scotter to Stowe,

where he stayed three days {Sept. 26–28}, and whence he appears to have

sent his mercenaries across the Trent to ravage the Isle with fire and

sword. He returned to Lincoln on the 28th, to find that Alexander had

spent two or three days there in his absence,[1285] and had slipped

past him into Yorkshire. John, however, was less eager for the capture

of “the little sandy fox” than for vengeance upon the English rebels.

From Lincoln northward to Grimsby, and thence south again to Spalding,

the Lincolnshire fields--now, at the beginning of October, all white

to harvest[1286]--were given to the flames, and the houses and

farm-buildings sacked and destroyed by the terrible host with the king

at its head.[1287] On October 9 he appeared before Lynn;[1288] here the

townsfolk, like most of their class throughout England, were on his

side, and they gave him not only a joyous welcome, but a substantial

contribution in money.[1289] He committed the custody of the town

and the duty of fortifying it to Savaric de Mauléon,[1290] whom on

September 30 he had sent back to Crowland to “seek out and capture the

knights and men-at-arms, enemies of the king, who were hiding in secret

places” among the fens around the monastery. Savaric had “failed to

find those whom he sought”; but he had dragged some fugitives out of

sanctuary in the abbey, and brought back a valuable spoil of flocks and

herds to his master at Lynn.[1291]

Louis had now been besieging Dover for more than two months, and had

made no progress at all. The strength of the castle, the skill and

valour of Hubert de Burgh and the hundred and forty knights who, with

the usual complement of men-at-arms, constituted its garrison, were

more than a match for all his forces. He swore that he would not

quit the place till he had hanged every man within its walls;[1292]

but even the fall of one of its towers seemed to have brought him no

nearer to effecting an entrance.[1293] He could only turn the siege

into a blockade, and wait till starvation should accomplish the work

in which battery and assault had failed. In the country at large he

was distinctly losing ground. Throughout the summer he had been set

at nought in Sussex by a young Flemish adventurer called William

of Casinghem, who, “scorning to do him homage, gathered together a

thousand bowmen, lodged in the wilderness and woods with which that

country abounded, and gave the French great trouble all through the

time of war, slaying many thousands of them.”[1294] On September 2

John wrote a letter of encouragement to an association extending

through Sussex, Kent, Surrey and Hampshire, composed of persons whom

he describes as “sworn and confederate together for fealty and service

to ourself,” although they had been compelled against their will to

swear allegiance to his rival. The “barons”--that is, the citizens--of

Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Romney, Winchelsea, Rye, Pevensey,

Shoreham and Portsmouth, who had also, under compulsion, taken the

oath to Louis, had likewise assured John of their devotion to himself,

and were in return assured of his favour; while the men of Seaford

had resisted all the pressure put upon them by their lord, Gilbert de

Laigle, to forsake their allegiance, and were on September 3 warmly

thanked by John for their loyalty.[1295] Soon after the beginning of

the siege of Dover Louis was joined from over sea by the count of

Perche, and in September or October by Peter of Britanny; the arrival

of this last, however, brought no real gain, for as soon as Peter

reached England, his brother, Robert of Dreux, returned to France.

Louis’s English partizans, too, were falling away. Earl William of

Albemarle offered his repentance and his services to John, who of

course “forgave him most kindly.”[1296] Of yet greater importance was

the return to allegiance of William of Salisbury; it was he who, in

conjunction with Falkes de Bréauté, captured or put to flight a body of

Louis’s adherents who were besieging Exeter.[1297] At last, however, a

gleam of light fell across the gloomy prospects of the French party.

Towards the middle of October Hubert de Burgh and his lieutenant,

Gerard de Sotinghem, felt that they could not hold out much longer, and

asked for a truce, that they might send to John either for succour, or

for leave to surrender the castle. The truce was granted, and on the

14th the siege of Dover was suspended.[1298]

The crisis had come; it had, however, really come not on the cliffs of

Kent, but on the shores of the Wash. Sumptuously entertained by the

burghers of Lynn, John, who--unlike most of his race--was a notorious

glutton, feasted till his excesses brought on a violent attack of

dysentery[1299] which he himself seems to have recognized as the

beginning of the end. One of the latest entries on the Patent Rolls of

his reign is probably significant of the remorse awakened in him, for

one at least of his many crimes, by the terror of approaching death; on

October 10 he granted to Margaret, wife of Walter de Lacy, some land in

the royal forest of Acornbury, that she might build thereon a religious

house for the souls of her father, mother and brother[1300]--William,

Maud and the younger William de Braose. He could not rest; ill as he

was, he moved next day {Oct. 11} from Lynn to Wisbeach; and early on

the following morning {Oct. 12} he set out again. “Like a swiftly

advancing storm,” before which all men fled, he swept northward to the

mouth of the Welland, and thence in his impatience set out to cross the

Wash without waiting either for the ebb of the tide or for any one who

knew the way to guide him across the treacherous soil, covered as it

was with brackish water. Suddenly the whole host, while struggling with

the waves, felt the ground opening beneath its feet. The king himself

and a part of his troops with difficulty reached the further shore;

the rest of his followers and the whole of his baggage train, with all

his treasure and his lately gathered spoils, men, horses, arms, tents,

provisions, “everything in the world that he held most dear, short of

his own life,” went down into the quicksand.[1301] When at night he

reached Swineshead abbey, rage and grief threw him into a fever, which

he aggravated by supping greedily on peaches and new cider.[1302] With

great difficulty he made his way on the 14th to Sleaford.[1303] There

he was found, probably on the 15th, by the messengers whom Hubert de

Burgh had sent from Dover to seek him. Their tidings brought on a

fresh access of fever, which bleeding failed to relieve.[1304] Nothing

could check his restlessness; that night or next morning {Oct. 15–16}

he set out for Newark, and in spite of grievous bodily suffering,

he set out on horseback. He had, however, ridden only three or four

miles, “panting and groaning,” when increasing sickness compelled him

to dismount, and he bade his followers make him a litter in which he

might travel more easily. There was no workman to make it, and nothing

to make it of; all that his men could do was to cut down with their

swords and knives the willows by the roadside, weave them together

as best they might, and throw a horse-cloth over them. This litter,

without cushions or even straw to relieve its hardness, had for want

of carriage-horses to be either slung between some of the high-mettled

destriers of the knights, or carried on the shoulders of the men. Its

shaking and jolting soon proved intolerable: “This accursed litter has

broken all my bones, and well-nigh killed me,” cried the king in an

agony of pain and rage. Matthew Paris quotes a French rime concerning

the sons of Henry II. which thus foretold their fate: “Henry, the

fairest, shall die at Martel; Richard, the Poitevin, shall die in the

Limousin; John shall die, a landless king, in a litter.” The prediction

was all but fulfilled; John, however, gathered up strength and spirit

enough to avoid a literal fulfilment of its closing words, and to ride

“on an ambling nag” into Newark.[1305]

For three days {Oct. 16–18}, in the bishop of Lincoln’s castle

whose ruins still look down upon the Trent, the king lay dying. The

abbot of Croxton, who was skilled in medicine, attended him as his

physician,[1306] and also ministered to his soul, for he persuaded

him to confess his sins and receive the Holy Communion.[1307] Then

the one natural affection traceable in John’s character broke out in

anxiety for his two little sons, especially for the elder of them, to

whom the crown must devolve. He solemnly declared Henry his heir, made

those around him take an oath of fealty to the boy, and sent letters

to the sheriffs and the constables of the royal castles, bidding them

look to him as their lord.[1308] He had already, on October 15, before

leaving Sleaford, dictated a letter entreating for Henry the special

protection of the Pope.[1309] He now appointed Peter de Mauley guardian

of his younger son Richard, whom he had apparently left under Peter’s

charge in Corfe castle. There was but one man in England to whom he

could confidently entrust the guardianship of the heir to the throne.

“Before he died, he sent word to William the Marshal, the earl of

Pembroke, that he placed his eldest son, Henry, in God’s keeping and

his, and besought him for God’s sake that he would take thought for

Henry’s interest.”[1310]

The abbot of Croxton then asked the king where he wished to be buried.

“I commend my body and my soul to God and to S. Wulfstan” was John’s

reply.[1311] His last act seems to have been the dictation of the

fragmentary document which has come down to us as his will. “Being

overtaken,” he says, “by grievous sickness, and thus incapable of

making a detailed disposition of all my goods, I commit the ordering

and disposing of my will to the fidelity and discretion of my faithful

men whose names are written below, without whose counsel, were they at

hand, I would not, even if in health, ordain anything; and I ratify

and confirm whatsoever they shall faithfully ordain and determine

concerning my goods, for the purposes of making satisfaction to God

and Holy Church for the wrongs I have done them, sending help to the

realm of Jerusalem, furnishing support to my sons for the recovery

and defence of their heritage, rewarding those who have served us

faithfully, and distributing alms to the poor and to religious houses

for the salvation of my soul. And I pray that whosoever shall give them

counsel and assistance herein may receive God’s grace and favour; and

may he who shall violate the settlement made by them incur the curse

and wrath of God Almighty and the Blessed Mary and all the saints.

First, then, I desire that my body be buried in the church of the

Blessed Mary and S. Wulfstan of Worcester. Now I appoint as ordainers

and disposers of my will the following persons:--the lord Gualo, by

God’s grace cardinal priest of the title of S. Martin, legate of

the Apostolic See; Peter, lord bishop of Winchester; Richard, lord

bishop of Chichester; Silvester, lord bishop of Worcester; Brother

Aimeric of Ste. Maure; William the Marshal, earl of Pembroke; Ranulf,

earl of Chester; William, earl of Ferrars; William Brewer; Walter de

Lacy; John of Monmouth; Savaric de Mauléon; Falkes de Bréauté.”[1312]

Here, without date, signature or seal, the so-called will breaks off

abruptly; evidently the testator had not time to complete it. At

midnight {Oct. 18–19} a whirlwind swept over Newark with such violence

that the townsfolk thought their houses would fall, and in that hour

of elemental disturbance and human terror the king passed away.[1313]

A monk named John of Savigny, entering the town at daybreak {Oct.

19}, met the servants of the royal household hurrying out laden with

everything of their master’s that they could carry. The corpse--for

which they had not left even a decent covering[1314]--had meanwhile

been hastily embalmed by the abbot of Croxton; John having, it is said,

made a grant of his heart, with ten pounds’ worth of land, to Croxton

abbey.[1315] The abbot, too, fled as soon as his work was done and

his strange relic secured; it was John of Savigny who, at the request

of the constable of Newark, kept the last watch beside the body and

offered his mass that morning for the soul of the dead king.[1316]

The body was then dressed in such semblance of royal attire as could

be procured, and the remnant of John’s soldiers--nearly all foreign

mercenaries--formed themselves into a guard for its protection on the

journey from Newark to Worcester. The grim funeral train, every man in

full armour, passed unhindered across England, and John was buried by

Bishop Silvester in Worcester cathedral according to his desire.[1317]

Within this tomb lies buried a monarch’s outward form,

Whose inner man’s departure hath stilled war’s raging storm.

Thus may be roughly rendered the opening lines of an epitaph on King

John preserved by Roger of Wendover.[1318] The poet’s words are true;

John’s death virtually ended the war. From his burial the Marshal,

the Legate, and the bishops passed to the crowning of his heir and

the publication, in the boy-king’s name, of the Great Charter in a

revised form to which Gualo had no hesitation in giving the papal

sanction, and which, thus safeguarded, left the revolutionary party no

excuse for continuing the struggle. Thenceforth it was idle for Louis

and his adherents to pretend that they were fighting for England’s

deliverance from bondage; all men could see that they were fighting

for her enslavement to a foreign conqueror. The majority of the barons

had already become conscious of the blunder, or worse than blunder,

which they had committed in calling the stranger to their aid, and

were ready now to join in a national movement for his expulsion. His

enterprise was doomed to fail when the kingdom ceased to be divided

against itself; and the one insuperable obstacle to the healing of

its divisions was removed in the person of John. It was John whose

very existence had made peace impossible. “Forasmuch as when he came

to die he possessed none of his land in peace,” says Matthew Paris,

“he is called Lackland.”[1319] John had indeed earned for himself in

a new sense the name which his father had given him at his birth; and

he had earned it not by blunders in statecraft or errors in strategy,

not by weakness or cowardice or sloth, but by the almost superhuman

wickedness of a life which, twenty years before its end, a historian

of deeper insight than Matthew had characterized in one memorable

phrase--“Nature’s enemy, John.”

FOOTNOTES:

[1097] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 331; W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 226.

[1098] _Rot. Pat._ vol. i. p. 156 b.

[1099] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1100] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 226.

[1101] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 157. The date seems to be either September

20 to 22 or October 5 to 6; see _Itin._ a. 17.

[1102] _Rot. Pat._ vol. i. p. 181 b.

[1103] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 330, 331. The dates are not quite

clear. Roger gives none, but says John laid siege to the castle “on

the third day” after the barons entered it; Ralph of Coggeshall,

p. 175, says John entered the city on Sunday October 11. But the

_Itinerary_ shows that John was on the 11th at Ospring and on the 12th

at Gillingham, and he does not date from Rochester till the 13th. I

have therefore ventured to suppose that Ralph has given the date of the

barons’ arrival by mistake for that of the king’s.

[1104] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 158, 159.

[1105] R. Coggeshall, p. 175.

[1106] See below, p. 250.

[1107] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 226.

[1108] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 159.

[1109] Cf. _ib._ p. 157; W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 226; R. Wendover,

vol. iii. p. 330; and R. Coggeshall, p. 176.

[1110] R. Wendover, _l.c._

[1111] _Rot. Claus._ vol. i. p. 231 b.

[1112] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 331. Cf. _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 160.

One party under Hugh de Boves was wrecked in a storm on the Norfolk

coast, September 26; their leader was drowned, so were many others,

and a large quantity of money also went down; but the survivors made

their way to the king in time to join him at Rochester and help in the

siege, _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 155, 156; _Chron. Mailros_, a. 1215; R.

Coggeshall, pp. 174, 175; R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 332.

[1113] R. Coggeshall, p. 176.

[1114] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 226; R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 333.

[1115] W. Coventry, _l.c._

[1116] R. Wendover, _l.c._

[1117] W. Coventry, _l.c._

[1118] M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. p. 165. It is Matthew

alone who gives the name of the leader of the party. His version

of the expedition is important, as he--notwithstanding his strong

anti-royalist feeling--shows up the cowardice of the barons, and

especially of Fitz-Walter, on this occasion, quite as strongly, and is

quite as sarcastic upon it, as the royalist Roger of Wendover.

[1119] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 333.

[1120] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 226. R. Coggeshall, p. 177, says that

John had contrived to prevent some of the northern barons from joining

them by means of forged letters purporting to come from Fitz-Walter and

his comrades, telling the Northerners that their help was no longer

needed.

[1121] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 227.

[1122] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 334, 335.

[1123] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 163; R. Wend. vol. iii. p. 335.

[1124] R. Wend. vol. iii. p. 336.

[1125] In W. Coventry, _l.c._, John is said to have hanged only one

cross-bowman, whom he had had in his service from boyhood. See the

names of the knights made prisoners, in R. Wend. vol. iii. pp. 335,

336, _Rot. Claus._ vol. i. p. 241 b, and _Rot. Pat._ p. 161.

[1126] _Rot. Pat._ p. 157.

[1127] _Ib._ p. 157 b.

[1128] _Ib._ p. 158.

[1129] _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1210.

[1130] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 225.

[1131] Louis had inherited the county of Artois from his mother.

[1132] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 359.

[1133] W. Coventry, vol. ii. pp. 225, 226.

[1134] “S’il voloit venir en Engletierre sa cape toursée, il li

donroient le règne en boine pais et le feroient seigneur d’eus,” _Hist.

des Ducs_, p. 160. Cf. W. Coventry, _l.c._

[1135] R. Coggeshall, pp. 176, 177.

[1136] Cf. _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 160, and R. Coggeshall, p. 176.

[1137] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 160, 161.

[1138] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 349, 350; _Hist. des Ducs_, pp.

161, 162. John had granted the earldom of Clare to Robert de Béthune;

_Hist._, _l.c._

[1139] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1140] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 347.

[1141] _Ib._ pp. 344–6.

[1142] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 347. Cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 177. Ralf

substitutes Gerard of Sotteghem for William Brewer; but in R. Wendover,

p. 348, Gerard is named among those who accompanied the king.

[1143] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 348, 350; confirmed by _Itin._ a. 17.

[1144] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 348.

[1145] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 228.

[1146] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 350.

[1147] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 359, 360.

[1148] R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 189, note 4. Cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 178,

and _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 162. R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 360, has

confused this second French contingent with the first, which had come

in November 1215, and seemingly also with a third. See below, pp. 261,

262.

[1149] Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 349, 358; W. Coventry, vol. ii.

p. 229, and R. Coggeshall, pp. 177, 178.

[1150] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 349, 352.

[1151] R. Coggeshall, p. 178.

[1152] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 349.

[1153] _Ib._ p. 352.

[1154] _Chron. Mailros_, a. 1216.

[1155] See footnote 1157 below.

[1156] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 163; date from _Itin._ a. 17.

[1157] “Puis s’en ala-il à Wrewic [_var._ Euerwic] sa cité, qui

encontre lui s’iert revelée; si en fist toute sa volenté.” _Hist. des

Ducs_, _l.c._ John was at York on January 4, _Itin._ a. 17.

[1158] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1159] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 351, 352.

[1160] R. Coggeshall, pp. 178, 179.

[1161] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 163, 164. Cf. M. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ vol.

ii. pp. 641, 642, and _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. p. 172.

[1162] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 164; for dates see _Itin._ a. 17.

[1163] _Chron. Mailros_, a. 1216.

[1164] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1165] Cf. _ll.cc._ and _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 164.

[1166] _Chron. Mailros_ and _Hist. des Ducs_, _ll.cc._

[1167] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1168] _Rot. Chart._ p. 219.

[1169] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1170] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 352, 353.

[1171] February, _Chron. Mailros_, a. 1216.

[1172] _Rot. Pat._ pp. 162, 162 b, 168, 169.

[1173] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 352.

[1174] February 29–March 8, _Itin._ a. 17.

[1175] Cf. _Itin._ a. 17, and _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 165.

[1176] Cf. _ib._ and R. Coggeshall, p. 179.

[1177] R. Coggeshall, pp. 179, 180; for dates see _Itin._ a. 17.

The king’s safe-conduct to the French soldiers (names given) from

Colchester to London is dated March 24, _Rot. Pat._ pp. 171 b, 172.

[1178] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 165.

[1179] _Rot. Pat._ vol. i. p. 172 b.

[1180] R. Coggeshall, p. 180.

[1181] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 360, who, however, has confused this

contingent with the former ones.

[1182] _Ib._ p. 363.

[1183] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 354–6.

[1184] R. Coggeshall, p. 179, mentions its arrival just after the death

of Geoffrey de Mandeville, which occurred on February 22.

[1185] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 357.

[1186] R. Coggeshall, p. 180.

[1187] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1188] Cf. _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 165, and _Itin._ a. 17.

[1189] R. Coggeshall, p. 180.

[1190] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1191] _Rot. Pat._ p. 176.

[1192] _Rot. Claus._ vol. i. p. 260.

[1193] _Rot. Pat._ pp. 170, 170 b, 171.

[1194] _Ib._ p. 172 b.

[1195] R. Coggeshall, pp. 180, 181.

[1196] _Rot. Pat._ vol. i. p. 175 b.

[1197] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 229.

[1198] _Rot. Pat._ p. 176.

[1199] _Ib._ p. 179.

[1200] See _Revue historique_, vol. xxxii. p. 49, note 2.

[1201] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 364–7. The version of M. Paris,

_Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. pp. 176, 177, is as M. Petit-Dutaillis says

(_Louis VIII._ p. 95, note), obviously nothing but an oratorical

amplification.

[1202] _Rot. Claus._ vol. i. p. 270.

[1203] _Ib._ p. 270 b.

[1204] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1205] _Rot. Pat._ p. 178 b.

[1206] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1207] R. Coggeshall, p. 181.

[1208] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 167, 168. Cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 181.

[1209] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 168, 169. Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. p.

368, and _Ann. Winton._ a. 1216, both of which give the same date for

Louis’s arrival. R. Coggeshall, p. 181, gives a date which, though

self-contradictory, is, I think, meant for the same--“die sabbati

post Ascensionem Domini, scilicet xiiii kalendas Junii.” W. Coventry,

p. 229, is quite wrong. John had gone on May 19 (Ascension Day) to

Folkestone; on the 20th and 21st he was at Canterbury. _Itin._ a. 17,

18.

[1210] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 169.

[1211] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 368; W. Coventry, vol. ii. pp. 229,

230.

[1212] _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1215.

[1213] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 170. The assertion of William the Breton,

_Gesta P. A._ c. 221, that John actually did await the attack of the

French, and was driven away by their vigorous onset, certainly is, as

M. Petit-Dutaillis says (_Louis VIII._ p. 100), an error. That error is

grounded, like the sneering comments of Ralf of Coggeshall (p. 181),

the _Ann. Winton._ (a. 1216), and some later writers, on the mistaken

idea that John was on the spot when Louis first landed on the 21st.

[1214] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 170.

[1215] _Rot. Pat._ p. 184.

[1216] _Itin._ a. 18.

[1217] Thorne, _Gesta Abb. S. Aug. Cant._ in Twysden, _X Scriptt._

cols. 1868–70. The letter as there given is addressed to the abbot

and convent of S. Augustine’s, but it was evidently a manifesto of

which copies were sent, or intended to be sent, to all the religious

houses of note, probably also to the secular clergy, and perhaps to be

distributed among the laity as well. The character of Louis’s “case” as

set forth in this letter, and in the arguments of his envoys at Rome

(R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 371–8), has been sufficiently exposed by M.

Petit-Dutaillis, _Louis VIII._ pp. 75–87.

[1218] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 170, 171; cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 181, and

_Ann. Dunst._ a. 1216.

[1219] Thorne, _l.c._ cols. 1864, 1870.

[1220] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 171.

[1221] _Chron. Merton._ in Petit-Dutaillis, _Louis VIII._ p. 514.

[1222] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 230; R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 370.

[1223] _Ann. Winton._ a. 1216.

[1224] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 230. Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp.

369, 370.

[1225] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 171; W. Coventry, _l.c._; _Liber de Antiq.

Legibus_, Appendix, p. 202.

[1226] _Hist. des Ducs_, _l.c._; _Liber de Antiq. Legibus_, _l.c._

[1227] _Chron. Merton._ in Petit-Dutaillis, _Louis VIII._ p. 514. Cf.

_Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 171, 172; R. Coggeshall, pp. 181, 182, and R.

Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 368, 369.

[1228] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 369.

[1229] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 171, 172.

[1230] R. Coggeshall, p. 182.

[1231] _Itin._ a. 18. This disposes of R. Coggeshall’s story (_l.c._)

that John “cognito ejus adventu, draconem suum deposuit et aufugit.”

[1232] _Ann. Winton._ a. 1216.

[1233] _Ann. Waverl._ a. 1216.

[1234] _Ib._ a. 1216. The _Ann. Winton._ a. 1216 give a wrong date.

[1235] Cf. _Ann. Winton._ a. 1216, and _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 173.

Whichever version be the correct one, both alike show that Ralf of

Coggeshall (_l.c._) is wrong in attributing the fire to John himself.

[1236] “Li grans castiaus le roi,” “le maistre castiel,” _Hist. des

Ducs_, p. 173.

[1237] _L.c._

[1238] Cf. _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 174; _Rot. Pat._ p. 188 b, and _Ann.

Waverl._ a. 1216.

[1239] _Hist. des Ducs_, _l.c._ Cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 182, and W.

Coventry, vol. ii. p. 231.

[1240] “Qui tamen cito rediit,” W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 231.

[1241] William of Armorica, _Gesta Phil. Aug._ c. 222, says that

Salisbury changed sides because “ei certo innotuit relatore” that

during his own captivity in France his royal brother had made an

attempt on the honour of his wife (the well-known Countess Ela). As,

however, we shall see that Salisbury “went back” almost as promptly

as Albemarle, and the story seems quite unknown to the English

chroniclers, its truth may be doubted, though the mere fact that such

a story could be told of John with reference to his own sister-in-law

illustrates the character for reckless wickedness which he had earned

for himself.

[1242] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 174.

[1243] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 371. Odiham surrendered July 9, _Ann.

Waverl._ a. 1216.

[1244] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 175–7.

[1245] Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 371, 378–81, _Hist. des Ducs_, p.

172, and M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. p. 182.

[1246] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 379.

[1247] _Chron. Mailros_, a. 1216.

[1248] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 379.

[1249] _Rot. Pat._ pp. 184 b, 185 b, 186, 186 b, 187 b, 188, 193–5.

[1250] _Ib._ p. 184. Cf. _ib._ p. 192.

[1251] _Ib._ pp. 185, 187, 187 b, 188 b, 189, 189 b, etc.

[1252] _Ib._ pp. 187, 188.

[1253] _Ib._ p. 185 b.

[1254] _Itin._ a. 18.

[1255] _Rot. Pat._ p. 191 b; _Brut y Tywysogion_, p. 293.

[1256] _Itin._ a. 18.

[1257] _Rot. Pat._ p. 194. Worcester had been surrendered to the

younger William Marshal, for Louis, early in July, but was retaken on

the 17th by the earl of Chester and Falkes de Bréauté; _Ann. Wigorn._

a. 1215. The castle, according to _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1215, was taken by

“the old Marshal” at some unspecified date. (In both the Worcester and

the Dunstable Annals the history of 1216 is placed under the year 1215.)

[1258] M. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ vol. ii. p. 664.

[1259] _Liber de Antiq. Legibus_, appendix, p. 202; _Ann. Waverl._ a.

1216. R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 380, gives a wrong date.

[1260] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 177. Cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 182; R.

Wendover, vol. iii. p. 381, and W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 230.

[1261] _Hist. des Ducs_, _l.c._

[1262] R. Coggeshall, _l.c._

[1263] _Hist. des Ducs_, _l.c._

[1264] _Chron. Mailros_, a. 1216.

[1265] _Ib._; R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 382, 383.

[1266] Widow of John’s old friend Gerard de Camville; see above, p. 31.

[1267] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 230.

[1268] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 179, relates John’s advance to Reading,

which took place on September 6 (_Itin._ a. 18), and then goes on

“_Puis_ vint li rois d’Escoce,” etc.

[1269] _Ib._

[1270] “Fecit [Alexander] ei [_i.e._ Ludovico] homagium de jure suo,

quod de rege Anglorum tenere debuit,” R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 382.

“Lendemain fist li rois son houmage à Looys de la tierre de Loonnois,”

_Hist. des Ducs_, p. 179. (M. Francisque-Michel and M. Petit-Dutaillis

render the last word “Lennox”; does it not rather represent “Lothian”?)

The Chronicle of Melrose, a. 1216, says cautiously, “Alexander rex ...

humagium fecit dicto Laodowico, ut dicitur.”

[1271] Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 381, and _Hist. des Ducs_, pp.

178, 179.

[1272] _Itin._ a. 18.

[1273] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 179.

[1274] Cf. W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 231, and R. Coggeshall, p. 182.

[1275] Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 382; M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol.

ii. p. 185; and _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1215.

[1276] _Itin._ a. 18.

[1277] Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 382; R. Coggeshall, p. 183; W.

Coventry, vol. ii. p. 231; _Itin._ a. 18; and _Rot. Pat._ p. 197 b.

[1278] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 382.

[1279] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 179.

[1280] R. Wendover, _l.c._

[1281] _Itin._ a. 18.

[1282] M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. pp. 189–190. Cf. _Chron. Maj._

vol. ii. p. 667. Matthew gives no precise date; but he implies that it

was before Michaelmas; and the _Itinerary_ shows that the only possible

date is September 21–22, on the way from Rockingham to Lincoln.

[1283] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 382; for date see _Itin._ a. 18.

[1284] _Rot. Claus._ vol. i. p. 289; probably one of several small

places so called, on the eastern side of the Trent.

[1285] Cf. W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 231, and _Itin._ a. 18.

[1286] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 381.

[1287] Cf. _ib._, W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 231, and _Itin._ a. 18.

[1288] _Itin._ a. 18.

[1289] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 384.

[1290] R. Coggeshall, p. 183.

[1291] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 232.

[1292] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 380.

[1293] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 179.

[1294] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 370. The leader’s name comes from

_Hist. des Ducs_, p. 181; M. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ vol. ii. p. 655, has

corrupted it into “Collingham.” See also _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1215. On

William de Casinghem’s relations with John see _Rot. Pat._ pp. 185,

186. He figures frequently in the Rolls of the next reign.

[1295] _Rot. Pat._ p. 196.

[1296] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 179.

[1297] _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1215.

[1298] R. Coggeshall, p. 182. Cf. _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 180, and W.

Coventry, vol. ii. p. 232.

[1299] R. Coggeshall, p. 183. Cf. W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 231.

[1300] _Rot. Pat._ p. 199.

[1301] Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 384; M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol.

ii. p. 190; and R. Coggeshall, pp. 183, 184.

[1302] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 385; M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii.

p. 191. The later legends about the cause of John’s death are not worth

notice.

[1303] R. Wendover, _l.c._, says John left Swineshead “summo diluculo.”

The _Itinerary_ shows him there on October 12 and 13, and at Sleaford

on the 14th and 15th.

[1304] R. Coggeshall, p. 183. Louis had raised the siege of Dover only

on the 14th, but the truce must have been arranged and the messengers

despatched at least a day or two earlier, or the latter could not

possibly have overtaken John at Sleaford. They must in any case have

travelled with marvellous rapidity.

[1305] M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. pp. 191, 192. He relates all

this as having occurred on the road from Swineshead to Sleaford, where

he makes John die; a characteristic piece of confusion, illustrative of

Matthew’s careless way of reading the author on whose work his own is

based. The itinerary given by Roger of Wendover, vol. iii. p. 385, is

perfectly accurate and perfectly clear.

[1306] M. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ vol. ii. p. 668.

[1307] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 385. The long account inserted by

Matthew Paris in his _Hist. Angl._ (vol. ii. p. 193)--_not_, it is to

be observed, in his _Chron. Maj._--of John’s forgiveness of the barons

and good advice to his heir is evidently intended for the edification

of Henry III. and of posterity, and if it has any foundation at all,

it is inserted in a wrong place; for it is put after John’s last

Communion, whereas the abbot obviously must have insisted upon John’s

declaring himself to be in charity with all men (the barons, by

implication at least, included) _before_ he gave him the Sacrament.

[1308] R. Wendover, _l.c._

[1309] Baronius, _Annales_ (ed. Mansi), vol. xx. p. 397.

[1310] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 180. Cf. _Hist. de G. le Mar._ vv. 15167–88.