CHAPTER IX.

THE FALL OF THE ANGEVINS.

1199–1206.

“In the year 1199,” says a contemporary French writer, “God visited the

realm of France; for King Richard was slain.”[1941] Richard’s death

was in truth the signal for the break-up of the Angevin dominions

to the profit of the French Crown. John, who was at the moment in

Britanny, hurried southward as soon as he heard the news. Three days

after the funeral--on April 14, the Wednesday before Easter--he

arrived at Chinon, the seat of the Angevin treasury; the wardens of

the castle[1942] welcomed him as their lord in his brother’s stead;

the household of the late king came to meet him and acknowledged him

in like manner, after receiving from him a solemn oath that he would

carry out Richard’s testamentary directions and maintain the customs of

the lands over which he was called to rule.[1943] On this understanding

the treasury was given up to him by the Angevin seneschal, Robert of

Turnham.[1944] After keeping Easter at Beaufort,[1945] he proceeded

into Normandy; here he was received without opposition, and on the

Sunday after Easter was invested with the sword, lance and coronet

of the duchy by Archbishop Walter at Rouen.[1946] As the lance was

put into his hands he turned with characteristic levity to join in

the laughing comments of the young courtiers behind him, and in so

doing let the symbol of his ducal authority fall to the ground. His

irreverent behaviour and refusal to communicate on Easter-day had

already drawn upon him a solemn warning from S. Hugh; and this fresh

example of his profane recklessness, and its consequence, were noted

as omens which later events made but too easy of interpretation.[1947]

For the moment, however, the Normans were willing to transfer to

Richard’s chosen successor the loyalty which they had shewn towards

Richard himself; and so, too, were the representatives of the English

Church and baronage who happened to be on the spot, Archbishop Hubert

and William the Marshal.[1948] But in the Angevin lands Philip’s

alliance with the Bretons, fruitless so long as Richard lived, bore

fruit as soon as the lion-heart had ceased to beat. While Philip

himself invaded the county of Evreux and took its capital,[1949]

Arthur was at once sent into Anjou with a body of troops;[1950] his

mother, released or escaped from her prison, joined him at the head

of the Breton forces;[1951] they marched upon Le Mans, whence John

himself only escaped the night before it fell into their hands;[1952]

Angers was given up to them by its governor, a nephew of the seneschal

Robert of Turnham;[1953] and on Easter-day,[1954] while John was

actually holding court within fifteen miles of them at Beaufort, the

barons of Anjou, Touraine and Maine held a council at which Arthur was

unanimously acknowledged as lawful heir to his uncle Richard according

to the customs of the three counties, and their capital cities were

surrendered to him at once.[1955] At Le Mans he met the French king

and did homage to him for his new dominions, Constance swearing fealty

with him.[1956] Shortly afterwards, at Tours, Constance formally

placed her boy, who was now twelve years old, under the guardianship

of Philip; and Philip at once took upon himself the custody and the

administration of all the territories of his ward.[1957]

[1941] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.

Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 80.

[1942] “A proceribus quibusdam _Anglorum_ castrum ipsum

servantibus.” _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), p. 287.

[1943] _Ibid._

[1944] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 86. R. Coggeshall

(Stevenson), p. 99.

[1945] Rog. Howden as above, p. 87.

[1946] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 166. Rog. Howden

(Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 87, 88. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p.

99. _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), p. 293.

[1947] _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), pp. 291–294.

[1948] Rog. Howden as above, p. 86.

[1949] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.

43. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 80. Cf. R.

Coggeshall as above.

[1950] Rigord as above.

[1951] Cf. R. Coggeshall as above, and _Mag. Vita S. Hug._

(Dimock), p. 296, with Rog. Howden as above, p. 87.

[1952] _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ as above.

[1953] Rog. Howden as above, p. 86.

[1954] Chron. S. Albin. a. 1199 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 50).

[1955] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 86, 87. Cf. R. Coggeshall as

above.

[1956] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.

43.

[1957] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 87. The Chron. S.

Albin. a. 1200 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 51) places this a year

later.

Neither in personal influence nor in political skill, however, was

Constance a match for her mother-in-law. Eleanor was, as has been seen,

at Fontevraud when Richard died. Feeling and policy alike inclined her

to favour the cause of his chosen successor, her own only surviving

son, rather than that of a grandson whom most likely she had never

even seen. She therefore effected a junction with Mercadier and his

Brabantines as soon as they had had time to march up from Châlus,

and the whole band of mercenaries, headed by the aged queen and the

ruthless but faithful Provençal captain, overran Anjou with fire and

sword to punish its inhabitants for their abandonment of John.[1958]

Having given this proof of her undiminished energy, Eleanor, to take

away all pretext for French intermeddling in the south, went to meet

Philip at Tours and herself did homage to him for Poitou.[1959] By this

means Aquitaine was secured for John. John himself had made a dash

into Maine and burned Le Mans in vengeance for the defection of its

citizens.[1960] He could, however, venture upon no serious attempt at

the reconquest of the Angevin lands till he had secured his hold upon

Normandy and England; and for this his presence was now urgently needed

on the English side of the Channel.

[1958] Rog. Howden as above, p. 88.

[1959] Rigord as above.

[1960] Rog. Howden as above, p. 87. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson),

p. 99.

Archbishop Hubert and William the Marshal had already returned to

England charged with a commission from John to assist the justiciar

Geoffrey Fitz-Peter in maintaining order there until the new king

should arrive.[1961] The precaution was far from being a needless one.

The news of Richard’s death reached England on Easter Eve; and its

consequences appeared the very next morning, when some of the nobles

and knights went straight from their Easter feast to begin a course

of rapine and depredation which recalls the disorders after the death

of Henry I., and which was only checked by the return of the primate.

Hubert at once excommunicated the evil-doers,[1962] and, in concert

with the Marshal, summoned all the men of the realm to swear fealty and

peaceable submission to John, as heir of Henry Fitz-Empress. The peace,

however, was not so easy to keep now as it had been during the interval

between Henry’s death and Richard’s coronation. Since then John himself

had set an example which those whom he now claimed as his subjects

were not slow to follow. All who had castles, whether bishops, earls

or barons, furnished them with men, victuals and arms, and assumed

an attitude of defence, if not of defiance; and this attitude they

quitted only when the archbishop, the marshal and the justiciar had

called all the malcontents to a conference at Northampton, and there

solemnly promised that John should render to all men their rights,

if they would keep faith and peace towards him. On this the barons

took the oath of fealty and liege homage to John. The king of Scots

refused to do the like unless his lost counties of Northumberland and

Cumberland were restored to him, and despatched messengers charged with

these demands to John himself; the envoys were, however, intercepted by

the archbishop and his colleagues, and the Scot king was for a while

appeased by a promise of satisfaction when the new sovereign should

arrive in his island-realm.[1963]

[1961] Rog. Howden as above, p. 86.

[1962] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 98.

[1963] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 88, 89.

On May 25 John landed at Shoreham; next day he reached London;[1964]

on the 27th--Ascension-day--the bishops and barons assembled for the

crowning in Westminster abbey.[1965] John’s coronation is one of the

most memorable in English history. It was the last occasion on which

the old English doctrine of succession to the crown was formally

asserted and publicly vindicated, and that more distinctly than it had

ever been since the Norman conquest. In the midst of the crowded church

the archbishop stood forth and spoke: “Hearken, all ye that are here

present! Be it known unto you that no man hath any antecedent right

to succeed another in the kingdom, except he be unanimously chosen

by the whole realm, after invocation of the Holy Spirit’s grace, and

unless he be also manifestly thereunto called by the pre-eminence of

his character and conversation, after the pattern of Saul the first

anointed king, whom God set over his people, although he was not of

royal race, and likewise after him David, the one being chosen for his

energy and fitness for the regal dignity, the other for his humility

and holiness; that so he who surpassed all other men of the realm in

vigour should also be preferred before them in authority and power. But

indeed if there be one of the dead king’s race who excelleth, that one

should be the more promptly and willingly chosen. And these things have

I spoken in behalf of the noble Count John here present, the brother of

our late illustrious King Richard, now deceased without direct heir;

and forasmuch as we see him to be prudent and vigorous, we all, after

invoking the Holy Spirit’s grace, for his merits no less than his royal

blood, have with one consent chosen him for our king.” The archbishop’s

hearers wondered at his speech, because they could not see any occasion

for it; but none of them disputed his doctrine; still less did they

dispute its immediate practical application. “Long live King John!” was

the unanimous response;[1966] and, disregarding a protest from Bishop

Philip of Durham against the accomplishment of such an important rite

in the absence of his metropolitan Geoffrey of York,[1967] Archbishop

Hubert proceeded to anoint and crown the king. A foreboding which he

could not put aside, however, moved him to make yet another significant

interpolation in the ritual. When he tendered to the king-elect the

usual oath for the defence of the Church, the redressing of wrongs and

the maintenance of justice, he added a solemn personal adjuration to

John, in Heaven’s name, warning him not to venture upon accepting the

regal office unless he truly purposed in his own mind to perform his

oath. John answered that by God’s help he intended to do so.[1968] But

he contrived to omit the act which should have sealed his vow. For the

first and last time probably in the history of Latin Christendom, the

king did not communicate upon his coronation-day.[1969]

[1964] _Ib._ p. 89.

[1965] _Ib._ pp. 89, 90. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 166.

R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 99, 100.

[1966] Mat. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ (Luard), vol. ii. pp. 454, 455.

[1967] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 90.

[1968] Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 140.

[1969] _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), p. 293.

On that very day he made his arrangements for the government of the

realm which he was already anxious to leave as soon as he could do

so with safety. Geoffrey Fitz-Peter was confirmed in his office of

justiciar, William in that of marshal, and both were formally invested

with the earldoms whose lands and revenues they had already enjoyed

for some years--Geoffrey with the earldom of Essex, William with

that of Striguil. At the same time, in defiance alike of precedent,

of ecclesiastical propriety, and of the warnings of an old colleague

in the administration, Hugh Bardulf, Archbishop Hubert undertook the

office of chancellor.[1970] Next day John received the homage of the

barons, and went on pilgrimage to S. Alban’s abbey;[1971] he afterwards

visited Canterbury and S. Edmund’s,[1972] and thence proceeded to keep

the Whitsun feast at Northampton.[1973] An interchange of embassies

with the king of Scots failed to win either the restitution of the two

shires on the one hand, or the required homage on the other; William

threatened to invade the disputed territories if they were not made

over to him within forty days; John retorted by giving them in charge

to a new sheriff, the brave and loyal William de Stuteville, and by

appointing new guardians to the temporalities of York, as security for

the defence of the north against the Scots,[1974] while he himself

hurried back to the sea, and on June 20 sailed again for Normandy.[1975]

[1970] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 90, 91.

[1971] Rog. Wend. as above.

[1972] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 166.

[1973] _Ibid._ Rog. Howden as above, p. 91, says _Nottingham_;

but John was at Northampton on Whit-Monday according to Sir T.

D. Hardy’s _Itin. K. John_, a. 1 (_Introd. Pat. Rolls_).

[1974] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 91, 92.

[1975] _Ib._ p. 92. R. Diceto (as above) says June 19, but

Sir T. D. Hardy’s _Itinerary_, a. 1 (as above), shews John at

Shoreham on the 20th.

On Midsummer-day he made a truce with Philip for three weeks.[1976] At

its expiration the two kings held a personal meeting; John’s occupation

of his brother’s territories without previous investiture from and

homage to Philip was complained of by the latter as an unpardonable

wrong; and John was required to expiate it by the cession of the whole

Vexin to Philip in absolute ownership, and of Poitou and the three

Angevin counties for the benefit of Arthur. This John refused.[1977]

His fortunes were not yet so desperate as to compel him to such

humiliation. He had already secured the alliance of Flanders;[1978]

his nephew Otto, now fully acknowledged by the Pope as Emperor-elect,

was urging him to war with France and promising him the aid of the

imperial forces;[1979] and his refusal of submission to Philip was at

once followed by offers of homage and mutual alliance from all those

French feudataries who had been in league with Richard against their

own sovereign.[1980] The war began in September, with the taking of

Conches by the French king; this was followed by the capture of Ballon.

Philip, however, chose to celebrate these first successes by levelling

Ballon to the ground. As the castle stood upon Cenomannian soil, it

ought, according to the theory proclaimed by Philip himself, to have

been handed over by him to Arthur; Arthur’s seneschal William des

Roches therefore remonstrated against its demolition as an injury done

to his young lord. Philip retorted that “he would not for Arthur’s

sake stay from dealing as he pleased with his own acquisitions.” The

consequence was a momentary desertion of all his Breton allies. William

des Roches not only surrendered to John the city of Le Mans, which

Philip and Arthur had intrusted to him as governor, but contrived to

get the boy-duke of Britanny out of Philip’s custody and bring him to

his uncle, who received him into seeming favour and peace.[1981] That

very day, however, a warning reached Arthur of the fate to which he

was already doomed by John; and on the following night he fled away

to Angers with his mother and a number of their friends. Among the

latter was the viscount Almeric of Thouars, who had just been compelled

to resign into John’s hands the office of seneschal of Anjou and the

custody of the fortress of Chinon, which he held in Arthur’s name; and

it seems to have been shortly afterwards that Constance, apparently

casting off Ralf of Chester without even an attempt at divorce, went

through a ceremony of marriage with Almeric’s brother Guy.[1982]

[1976] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 93.

[1977] _Ib._ pp. 94, 95.

[1978] The count of Flanders did homage to John at Rouen on

August 13 [1199]. _Ib._ p. 93.

[1979] _Ib._ pp. 95, 96.

[1980] _Ib._ p. 95.

[1981] _Ib._ p. 96. This must have been on September 22; see

Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 1 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).

[1982] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 96, 97. The marriage

of Guy and Constance must however have been legalized somehow,

for their child was ultimately acknowledged as heiress of

Britanny.

The year’s warfare again ended in a truce, made in October to last

till S. Hilary’s day.[1983] Its author was that Cardinal Peter of

Capua[1984] who had negotiated the last truce between Philip and

Richard, and who now found another occupation in punishing the

matrimonial sins of the French king:--Philip having sent away his queen

Ingebiorg of Denmark immediately after his marriage with her in 1193,

and three years later taken as his wife another princess, Agnes of

Merania.[1985] At a Church council at Dijon on December 6, 1199, the

legate passed a sentence of interdict upon the whole royal domain, to

be publicly proclaimed on the twentieth day after Christmas[1986]--the

very day on which Philip’s truce with John would expire. It was no

doubt the prospect of this new trouble which moved Philip, when he met

John in conference between Gaillon and Les Andelys,[1987] to accept

terms far more favourable to the English king than those which he

had offered six months before. As a pledge of future peace and amity

between the two kings, Philip’s son Louis was to marry John’s niece

Blanche, a daughter of his sister Eleanor and her husband King Alfonso

of Castille; John was to bestow upon the bride, by way of dowry, the

city and county of Evreux and all those Norman castles which had been

in Philip’s possession on the day of Richard’s death; he was also to

give Philip thirty thousand marks of silver, and to swear that he would

give no help to Otto for the vindication of his claim to the Empire.

The formal execution of the treaty was deferred till the octave of

midsummer; and while the aged queen-mother Eleanor went to fetch her

granddaughter from Spain, John at the end of February took advantage of

the respite to make a hurried visit to England,[1988] for the purpose

of raising the thirty thousand marks which he had promised to Philip.

This was done by means of a carucage or aid of three shillings on every

ploughland.[1989] As a scutage of a most unusual amount--two marks

on the knight’s fee--had already been levied since John’s accession,

this new impost was a sore burthen upon the country. The abbots of

some of the great Cistercian houses in Yorkshire withstood it as an

unheard-of infringement of their rights, to which they could not assent

without the permission of a general chapter of their order. John in a

fury bade the sheriffs put all the White Monks outside the protection

of the law. The remonstrances of the primate compelled him to revoke

this command; but he rejected all offers of compromise on the part of

the monks, and “breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the

disciples of the Lord” went over sea again at the end of April.[1990]

As France had been suffering the miseries of an interdict ever since

January,[1991] Philip was now growing eager for peace. He therefore

met John at Gouleton, between Vernon and Les Andelys, on May 22, and

there a treaty was signed. Its solid advantages were wholly on the

side of John. In addition to the concessions made in January, he did

indeed resign in favour of Blanche and her bridegroom his claims upon

the fiefs of Berry; but the thirty thousand marks due to Philip were

reduced to twenty thousand; Arthur was acknowledged as owing homage

to his uncle for Britanny; and John was formally recognized by the

French king as rightful heir to all the dominions of his father and

his elder brother.[1992] On the morrow Louis and Blanche were married,

by the archbishop of Bordeaux, and on Norman soil, in consequence of

the interdict in France;[1993] and on the same day, at Vernon, John

received in Philip’s presence Arthur’s homage for Britanny,[1994]

Philip having already accepted that of John for the whole continental

dominions of the house of Anjou.[1995]

[1983] _Ib._ p. 97. Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._,

vol. v.) p. 43, says S. John’s day.

[1984] Rog. Howden as above.

[1985] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 224, 306, 307. R.

Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 111. Rigord (as above), pp. 36,

37, 40, 42. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), pp. 77,

78. “Merania” is Moravia. Rigord and William both call the lady

Mary, but all scholars seem agreed that Agnes was her real name.

[1986] Rigord (as above), p. 43. Will. Armor. (as above), p.

80. Cf. R. Diceto (as above), pp. 167, 168.

[1987] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 106.

[1988] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 106, 107. John

crossed on February 24; Ann. Winton, a. 1200 (Luard, _Ann.

Monast._, vol. ii. p. 73).

[1989] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 101. Rog. Howden as above,

p. 107.

[1990] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 102, 103. The date of

John’s crossing lies between April 28 and May 2. Hardy, _Itin.

K. John_, a. 1 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).

[1991] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.

43; Rog. Howden as above, p. 112. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii.

p. 168, says only since Mid-Lent.

[1992] Treaty in Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 79, and Rog.

Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 148–151. Its date is not quite

clear; the document itself bears only “mense Maii”; Rigord

(Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. p. 43) says it

was made on Ascension-day (May 18); Rog. Howden (as above,

p. 114) begins by placing it at the date for which it had

been originally fixed--the octave of S. John Baptist--but in

the next page corrects this into “xi kalendas Junii, feria

secunda,” _i.e._ Monday, May 22. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p.

103, believed the thirty thousand marks to have been paid in

full. The remission of ten thousand of them clearly made no

difference to England; they were pocketed by John.

[1993] Rog. Howden as above, p. 115. He says it was at

Portmort, on the morrow of the treaty--_i.e._ according to

his reckoning, on Tuesday, May 23. Rigord however (as above),

p. 44, dates it “at the same place, on the Monday after

[Ascension],” _i.e._ Gouleton, May 22. Hardy’s _Itinerary_, a.

2, shews John at La Roche-Andelys (Château-Gaillard) daily from

May 17 to May 25. The places however are all close together.

[1994] Rog. Howden as above.

[1995] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 101.

The next six weeks were spent by John in a triumphant progress

southward, through Le Mans, Angers, Chinon, Tours and Loches, into

Aquitaine, where he remained until the end of August.[1996] While

there, he received the homage of his brother-in-law Count Raymond

of Toulouse for the dower-lands of Jane,[1997] who had died in the

preceding autumn.[1998] Of all these successes, however, John went far

to cast away the fruit by a desecration of the marriage-bond almost as

shameless and quite as impolitic as that which had brought upon Philip

the wrath of Rome. He persuaded the Aquitanian and Norman bishops to

annul his marriage with his cousin Avice of Gloucester, apparently by

making them believe that the dispensation granted by Clement III. had

been revoked by Innocent.[1999] Instead however of restoring to Avice

the vast heritage which had been settled upon her at her betrothal, he

gave her county of Gloucester to her sister’s husband Count Almeric of

Evreux as compensation for the loss of his Norman honour,[2000] and

apparently kept the remainder of her estates in his own hands. These

proceedings were enough to excite the ill-will of a powerful section

of the English baronage. John’s next step was a direct challenge to

the most active, turbulent and troublesome house in all Aquitaine. He

gave out that he desired to wed a daughter of the king of Portugal,

and despatched an honourable company of ambassadors, headed by the

bishop of Lisieux, to sue for her hand; after these envoys had started,

however, and without a word of notice to them, he suddenly married the

daughter of Count Ademar of Angoulême.[2001] Twenty-nine years before,

Richard, as duke of Aquitaine, had vainly striven to wrest Angoulême

from Ademar in behalf of Matilda, the only child of Ademar’s brother

Count Vulgrin III. Matilda was now the wife of Hugh “the Brown” of

Lusignan, who in 1179 or 1180 had in spite of King Henry made himself

master of La Marche,[2002] and whose personal importance in southern

Gaul was increased by the rank and fame which his brothers Geoffrey,

Guy and Almeric had won in the kingdoms of Palestine and Cyprus. His

son by Matilda--another Hugh the Brown--had through Richard’s good

offices been betrothed in boyhood to his infant cousin Isabel, Ademar’s

only child; the little girl was educated with her future husband, and

it was hoped that in due time their marriage would heal the family feud

and unite the lands of Angoulême and La Marche without possibility

of further dissension. No sooner however did Count Ademar discover

that a king wished to marry his daughter than he took her away from

her bridegroom; and at the end of August she was married to John at

Angoulême by the archbishop of Bordeaux.[2003]

[1996] See Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 2 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).

[1997] Rog. Howden as above, p. 124.

[1998] _Ib._ p. 96.

[1999] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 103, says the divorce was

made “per mandatum domini Papæ ... propter consanguinitatis

lineam.” But R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 167, says it

was made because John was “sublimioris thori spe raptatus,”

and adds: “unde magnam summi pontificis, scilicet Innocentii

tertii, et totius curiæ Romanæ indignationem incurrit.” He

dates it 1199, and attributes it to the Norman bishops; Rog.

Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 119, places it in 1200, and names

only the archbishop of Bordeaux and the bishops of Poitiers and

Saintes.

[2000] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 101.

[2001] R. Diceto as above, p. 170.

[2002] See above, p. 220.

[2003] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 119, 120. Cf. R.

Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 103. No one gives a date; but John

was at Angoulême on August 26 (Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 2,

_Intr. Pat. Rolls_); and “his settlement on Isabella is dated

Aug. 30. _Rot. Chart._, p. 75” (Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iv.

p. 168, note 1). Rog. Howden and R. Coggeshall both say this

marriage was advised by Philip.

Heedless of the storm which this marriage was sure to raise in

Aquitaine, John in the first days of October carried his child-queen

with him to England, and on the 8th was crowned with her at

Westminster.[2004] His first business in England was to renew his

persecution of the Cistercians;[2005] the next was to arrange a meeting

with the king of Scots. This took place in November at Lincoln, where

John, defying the tradition which his father had carefully observed,

ventured to present himself in regal state within the cathedral

church.[2006] The two kings held their colloquy on a hill outside the

city; William performed his long-deferred homage,[2007] although his

renewed demand for the restitution of the northern shires was again

put off till Whitsuntide.[2008] Next day the king of England helped

with his own hands to carry the body of the holy bishop Hugh to its

last resting-place in the minster which he had himself rebuilt.[2009]

Some haunting remembrance of Hugh’s saintlike face, as he had seen it

in London only a few weeks before the good bishop’s death,[2010]

may have combined with a sense that the White Monks were still too

great a power in the land to be defied with impunity, and moved

John on the following Sunday to make full amends to the Cistercian

abbots, promising to seal his repentance by founding a house of

their order[2011]--a promise which he redeemed by the foundation of

Beaulieu abbey, in the New Forest.[2012] After keeping Christmas at

Guildford[2013] he came back again to Lincoln, and quarrelled with

the canons about the election of a new bishop.[2014] He thence went

northward, accompanied by his queen, through Lincolnshire, Yorkshire,

Northumberland and Cumberland, taking fines everywhere for offences

against the forest-law. At Mid-Lent he was at York,[2015] and on

Easter-day he and Isabel wore their crowns at Canterbury.[2016] A few

days later, rumours of disturbances in Normandy and in Poitou paused

him to issue orders for the earls and barons of England to meet him at

Portsmouth at Whitsuntide, ready with horses and ships to accompany him

over sea. The earls however held a meeting at Leicester, and thence by

common consent made answer to the king that they would not go with him

“unless he gave them back their rights.” It is clear that they already

looked upon personal service beyond sea as no longer binding upon them

without their own consent, specially given for a special occasion.

John retorted by demanding the surrender of their castles, beginning

with William of Aubigny’s castle of Beauvoir, which William was only

suffered to retain on giving his son as a hostage.[2017] This threat

brought the barons to Portsmouth on the appointed day; but the quarrel

ended in a compromise. After despatching his chamberlain Hubert de

Burgh, with a hundred knights, to act as keeper of the Welsh marches,

and sending William the Marshal and Roger de Lacy, each with a hundred

mercenaries, to resist the enemies in Normandy, John took from the

remainder of the host a scutage in commutation of their services, and

bade them return to their own homes.[2018] On Whit-Monday the queen

crossed to Normandy, and shortly afterwards her husband followed.[2019]

[2004] Rog. Howden as above, p. 139. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol.

ii. p. 170. R. Coggeshall as above, with a wrong date.

[2005] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 103, 104.

[2006] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 140, 141.

[2007] _Ib._ p. 141.

[2008] _Ib._ p. 142.

[2009] _Ibid._ R. Diceto as above, p. 171. _Mag. Vita S. Hug._

(Dimock), pp. 370, 371.

[2010] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 140, 141.

[2011] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 107–110. _Mag. Vita S.

Hug._ (Dimock), pp. 377, 378.

[2012] On Beaulieu see R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 147; Ann.

Waverl. a. 1204 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p. 256); and

Dugdale, _Monast. Angl._, vol. v. pp. 682, 683.

[2013] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 172. Rog. Howden

(Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 156.

[2014] Rog. Howden as above.

[2015] _Ib._ p. 157. See details of his movements in Hardy,

_Itin. K. John_, a. 2 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).

[2016] Rog. Howden as above, p. 160. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol.

ii. p. 172.

[2017] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 160, 161.

[2018] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 163.

[2019] _Ib._ p. 164.

After a friendly meeting near the Isle of Andelys,[2020] Philip

invited John to Paris, where he entertained him with the highest

honours, vacating his own palace for the reception of his guest, and

loading him with costly gifts.[2021] From Paris John went to meet his

sister-in-law, Richard’s queen Berengaria, at Chinon,[2022] where he

seems to have chiefly spent the rest of the summer. He came back to

Normandy in the autumn,[2023] and the Christmas feast at Argentan[2024]

passed over in peace; but trouble was fast gathering on all sides.

Philip was at last free of his ecclesiastical difficulties, for Agnes

of Merania was dead, and he had taken back his wife.[2025] John was

now in his turn to pay the penalty for his unwarrantable divorce and

his lawless second marriage. As if he had not already done enough to

alienate the powerful house of Lusignan by stealing the plighted bride

of its head,[2026] he had now seized the castle of Driencourt, which

belonged to a brother of Hugh the Brown, while its owner was absent

in England on business for the king himself;[2027] and he had further

insulted the barons of Poitou by summoning them to clear themselves in

his court from a general charge of treason against his late brother

and himself, by ordeal of battle with picked champions from England

and Normandy. They scorned the summons,[2028] and appealed to the king

of France, John’s overlord as well as theirs, to bring John to justice

for their wrongs.[2029] On March 25 Philip met John at Gouleton,[2030]

and peremptorily bade him give up to Arthur all his French fiefs,

besides sundry other things, all of which John refused.[2031] Hereupon

Philip sent, through some of the great French nobles,[2032] a citation

to John, as duke of Aquitaine, to appear in Paris fifteen days after

Easter at the court of his lord the king of France, to stand to its

judgement, to answer to his lord for his misdoings, and to undergo the

sentence of his peers.[2033] John made no attempt to deny Philip’s

jurisdiction; but he declared that, as duke of Normandy, he was not

bound to obey the French king’s citation to any spot other than the

traditional trysting-place on the border. Philip replied that his

summons was addressed to the duke of Aquitaine, not to the duke of

Normandy, and that his rights over the former were not to be annulled

by the accidental union of the two dignities in one person.[2034] John

at length yielded so far as to promise that on the appointed day he

would present himself before the court in Paris, and would give up to

Philip the two castles of Tillières and Boutavant as security for his

abiding by the settlement then to be made. The day however came and

went without either the surrender of the forts or the appearance of

John.[2035] The court of the French peers condemned him by default,

and sentenced him to be deprived of all his lands.[2036]

[2020] _Ibid._ John was at the Isle June 9–11, and again June

25–27 [1201]. Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 3 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).

[2021] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.

44. Rog. Howden as above; on the date see Bishop Stubbs’s note

1, _ibid._

[2022] Rog. Howden as above. The purpose was to settle with her

about her dowry; _ibid._, and p. 172 and note 2.

[2023] See Hardy as above.

[2024] Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 167.

[2025] Rigord as above. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._

(_ibid._), p. 81. Rog. Howden as above, pp. 146–148.

[2026] Strictly speaking, its future head. The elder Hugh,

father of Isabel’s bridegroom, lived till 1206.

[2027] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vi. (Duchesne, as above), p.

159. This was Ralf of Issoudun, a brother of the elder Hugh,

and count of Eu in right of his wife.

[2028] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 176.

[2029] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 135. Will. Armor. _Gesta

Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.

81; _Philipp._, l. vi. (_ibid._) p. 159.

[2030] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 174.

[2031] Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 167.

[2032] “Per proceres regni Francorum.” R. Coggeshall as above.

[2033] _Ib._ pp. 135, 136. The date fixed for the trial--April

29 [1202]--is from Rigord (Duchesne as above), p. 44. This

writer and Will. Armor. (_Gesta Phil. Aug._ as above) give a

version somewhat different from Ralf’s, saying that Philip

summoned John to do right to Philip himself for the counties of

Anjou, Touraine and Poitou. William however in the _Philipp._

(as above) substantially agrees with the English writer as to

the ground of Philip’s complaint.

[2034] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 136.

[2035] Will. Armor. as above, pp. 81, 161.

[2036] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 136.

Philip at once marched upon Normandy to execute the sentence by force

of arms. He began by taking Boutavant[2037] and Tillières;[2038]

thence he marched straight up northward by Lions,[2039] Longchamp, La

Ferté-en-Bray,[2040] Orgueil and Mortemer,[2041] to Eu;[2042] all these

places fell into his hands. Thus master of almost the whole Norman

border from the Seine to the sea, he turned back to lay siege on July

8 to Radepont on the Andelle, scarcely more than ten miles from Rouen.

Dislodged at the end of a week by John,[2043] he again withdrew to the

border. The castle of Aumale and the rest of its county were soon in

his hands.[2044] Hugh of Gournay alone, the worthy bearer of a name

which for generations had been almost a synonym for loyalty to the

Norman ducal house, still held out in his impregnable castle; Philip

however, by breaking down the embankment which kept in the waters of

a reservoir communicating with the river and the moat, let loose upon

the castle a flood which undermined its walls and almost swept it away,

thus compelling its defenders to make their escape and take shelter as

best they could in the neighbouring forest.[2045] At Gournay Philip

bestowed upon Arthur the hand of his infant daughter Mary,[2046] the

honour of knighthood,[2047] and the investiture of all the Angevin

dominions except the duchy of Normandy,[2048] which he evidently

intended to conquer for himself and keep by right of conquest.

[2037] _Ibid._ Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 168. Rigord

(Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 45. Will.

Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 81; _Philipp._,

l. vi. (_ibid._), p. 161. Boutavant was a small fortress

built by Richard in 1198, on the Seine, four miles above

Château-Gaillard, on the border-line between Normandy and

France (Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ as above. Rog. Howden,

Stubbs, vol. iv. p. 78). Philip had retorted by building hard

by it a rival fortress which he called Gouleton (Rog. Howden

as above)--the scene of his treaty with John in May 1202; see

above, p. 396.

[2038] Will. Armor. as above.

[2039] Rog. Wend. and Will. Armor. _Philipp._ as above.

[2040] Will. Armor. as above.

[2041] _Ibid._ _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 81. Rigord

(_ibid._), p. 45.

[2042] Rog. Wend. as above.

[2043] _Ibid._ p. 167; he says Philip besieged Radepont for

eight days. John got there on July 15; Hardy, _Itin. K. John_,

a. 4 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).

[2044] R. Coggeshall as above.

[2045] Rog. Wend. as above, pp. 167, 168. Will. Armor. _Gesta

Phil. Aug._ as above; _Philipp._ (_ibid._), pp. 161, 162.

[2046] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ as above, p. 82;

_Philipp._ (_ibid._), p. 162. Cf. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson),

p. 137. Mary (or Jane, as Rigord calls her) was one of the two

children of Agnes of Merania, legitimatized by Innocent III.;

cf. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.

Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 81, and Rigord (_ibid._), p. 44.

[2047] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 137. Rigord as above,

p. 45; Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 82;

_Philipp._ (_ibid._), p. 162. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p.

94, says that Arthur was knighted by Philip when he first did

him homage in 1199.

[2048] Rigord as above. The order of the campaign above

described is not easy to make out, for no two contemporary

writers name the castles in the same order. Taking geography

for a guide, it would at first glance seem more natural that

Philip should have gone to Radepont from Tillières, and that

the whole northward expedition should come afterwards. But

it is certain that the siege of Radepont happened July 8–15

(see above, p. 403, note 8{2043}); and on the one hand, the

northern campaign, or at any rate part of it, seems needed to

fill up the interval between the breaking-out of the war at the

beginning of May and July 8; while on the other, it seems

impossible to crowd in the whole campaign between July 15 and

the knighting of Arthur, which clearly took place before that

month had expired. Lions, however, was not taken till after May

29, for on that day John was there; Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a.

4 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).

What John had been doing all this time it is difficult to understand.

Between the middle of May and the end of June he had shifted his

quarters incessantly, moving through the whole length of eastern

Normandy, from Arques to Le Mans; throughout July he was chiefly in

the neighbourhood of Rouen;[2049] but, except in the one expedition to

Radepont, he seems to have made no attempt to check the progress of his

enemies. After the knighting of Arthur at Gournay, however, he tried to

make a diversion by sending a body of troops into Britanny. With their

duchess dead[2050] and their young duke absent, the Bretons were in no

condition for defence; Dol and Fougères were taken by John’s soldiers,

and the whole country ravaged as far as Rennes.[2051] This attack stung

Arthur into an attempt at independent action which led to his ruin. He

and Philip divided their forces; while the French king led the bulk

of his army northward to the siege of Arques,[2052] Arthur with two

hundred knights[2053] moved southward to Tours,[2054] sending forward

a summons to the men of his own duchy and those of Berry to meet him

there for an expedition into Poitou.[2055] At Tours he was met by the

disaffected Aquitanian chiefs:--the injured bridegroom young Hugh of La

Marche, and two of his uncles, Ralf of Issoudun the dispossessed count

of Eu, and Geoffrey of Lusignan, the inveterate fighter who had taken a

leading part in every Aquitanian rising throughout the last twenty-two

years of Henry’s reign, who after being Richard’s bitterest foe at home

had been one of his best supporters in Palestine, and who had come

back, it seems, to join in one more fight against his successor. The

three kinsmen, however, brought together a force of only seventy-five

knights; to which a Gascon baron, Savaric of Mauléon, added thirty

more, and seventy men-at-arms.[2056] Arthur, mere boy of fifteen though

he was, had enough of the hereditary Angevin wariness to shrink from

attempting to act with such a small force, and in accordance with

Philip’s instructions proposed to wait for his expected allies.[2057]

But the Poitevins would brook no delay; and a temptation now offered

itself which was irresistible alike to them and to their young leader.

On her return from Castille with her granddaughter Blanche in the

spring of 1200, Queen Eleanor, worn out with age and fatigue, had

withdrawn to the abbey of Fontevraud,[2058] where she apparently

remained throughout the next two years. The rising troubles of her

duchy, however, seem to have brought her forth from her retirement

once more, and she was now in the castle of Mirebeau, on the border

of Anjou and Poitou. All John’s enemies knew that his mother was, in

every sense, his best friend. She was at once his most devoted ally and

his most sagacious counsellor, at least in all continental affairs;

moreover, in strict feudal law, she was still duchess of Aquitaine in

her own right, a right untouched by the forfeiture of John; and she

therefore had it in her power to make that forfeiture null and void

south of the Loire, so long as she lived to assert her claims for

John’s benefit.[2059] To capture Eleanor would be to bring John to his

knees; and with this hope Arthur and his little band laid siege to

Mirebeau.[2060]

[2049] See Hardy, as above, a. 3, 4 (_ibid._)

[2050] Constance died September 3 or 4, 1201. Chronn. Britt.

_ad ann._ (Morice, _Hist. Bret., preuves_, vol. i. cols. 6,

106).

[2051] Will. Armor. _Philipp._ as above, p. 163. In the _Gesta

Phil. Aug._ (as above) he places this after Arthur’s capture.

In both works he says that _John_ did all this in Britanny;

but Hardy’s _Itinerary_ (as above) shews that John did it

vicariously.

[2052] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.

45. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 138. Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol.

iii. p. 169.

[2053] Rog. Wend., as above, p. 168.

[2054] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vi. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.

Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 162. Rigord as above.

[2055] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne as above), p.

82. To the Bretons and the men of Berry he adds “Allobroges.”

What can they have had to do in the case, or what can he mean

by the name?

[2056] Will. Armor. _Philipp._ as above. He says Geoffrey

brought twenty picked knights, Ralf forty, and Hugh fifteen. R.

Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 137, makes the total force of Arthur

and the Poitevins together two hundred and fifty knights.

[2057] Will. Armor, as above, p. 163.

[2058] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 114.

[2059] On the relations of Eleanor, John, and Aquitaine see

Bishop Stubbs’s note to W. Coventry, vol. ii., pref. p.

xxxiv, note 1. His conclusion is that “certainly the legal

difficulties were much greater than Philip’s hasty sentences of

forfeiture could solve.”

[2060] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vi. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.

Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 164; _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p.

82. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 137. Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol.

iii. p. 168.

John, however, when once roused, could act with all the vigour and

promptitude of his race. On July 30, as he was approaching Le Mans,

he received tidings of his mother’s danger; on August 1 he suddenly

appeared before Mirebeau.[2061] The town was already lost, all the

gates of the castle save one were broken down, and Eleanor had been

driven to take refuge in the keep; the besiegers, thinking their

triumph assured, were surprised and overpowered by John’s troops,

and were slain or captured to a man, the Lusignans and Arthur

himself being among the prisoners.[2062] Philip, who was busy with

the siege of Arques, left it and hurried southward on hearing of

this disaster;[2063] John however at once put an end to his hopes of

rescuing Arthur by sending the boy to prison at Falaise;[2064] and

Philip, after taking and burning Tours,[2065] withdrew into his own

domains.[2066] John in his turn then marched upon Tours, and vented

his wrath at its capture by completing its destruction.[2067] Shortly

afterwards he had the good luck to make prisoner another disaffected

Aquitanian noble, the viscount of Limoges.[2068] It was however

growing evident that he would soon have nothing but his own resources

to depend upon. His allies were falling away; the counts of Flanders,

Blois and Perche and several of the other malcontent French barons

had taken the cross and abandoned the field of western politics to

seek their fortunes in the East;[2069] he had quarrelled with Otto of

Germany;[2070] William des Roches, after pleading in vain for Arthur’s

release, was organizing a league of the Breton nobles which some of

the Norman border-chiefs were quite ready to join, and by the end of

October the party thus formed was strong enough to seize Angers and

establish its head-quarters there.[2071] It was probably the knowledge

of all this which in the beginning of 1203 made John transfer his

captive nephew from the castle of Falaise to that of Rouen.[2072]

Sinister rumours of Arthur’s fate were already in circulation, telling

how John had sent a ruffian to blind him at Falaise, how the soldiers

who kept him had frustrated the design, and how their commandant,

John’s chamberlain Hubert de Burgh, had endeavoured to satisfy the king

by giving out that Arthur had died of wounds and grief and ordering

funeral services in his memory, till the threats of the infuriated

Bretons drove him to confess the fraud for the sake of John’s own

safety.[2073] How or when Arthur really died has never yet been clearly

proved. We only know that at Easter 1203 all France was ringing with

the tidings of his death, and that after that date he was never

seen alive. In his uncle’s interest an attempt was made to suggest

that he had either pined to death in his prison, or been drowned in

endeavouring to escape across the Seine;[2074] but the general belief,

which John’s after-conduct tends strongly to confirm, was that he

had been stabbed and then flung into the river by the orders, if not

actually by the hands, of John himself.[2075]

[2061] These dates are given by John himself in a letter to the

barons of England, inserted by R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp.

137, 138. Hardy’s _Itin. K. John_, a. 4 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_),

shews John at Bonport on July 30, and then gives no further

indication of his whereabouts till August 4, when he appears at

Chinon.

[2062] R. Coggeshall as above. Rog. Wend., as above, p. 169.

Cf. Rigord (Duchesne as above), p. 45; Will. Armor. _Gesta

Phil. Aug._ as above; and _Philipp_, (_ibid._), pp. 164, 165.

According to this last, John got into Mirebeau by night, by a

fraudulent negotiation with William des Roches.

[2063] Rog. Wend., Rigord, and Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._,

as above.

[2064] Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. pp. 169, 170. Will. Armor.

_Philipp._, l. vi. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol.

v.), p. 165.

[2065] Rigord (Duchesne, as above), p. 45. Will. Armor. _Gesta

Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 82.

[2066] Rog. Wend. (as above), p. 170. He adds “residuum anni

illius imbellis peregit.”

[2067] Rigord as above. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ as

above. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 138.

[2068] Rigord as above. This was Guy, son and successor to

Ademar, who had been slain in 1199 by Richard’s son Philip in

vengeance for the quarrel which had led to Richard’s death.

Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 97.

[2069] Rigord and Will. Armor, as above.

[2070] In 1200 Otto had demanded the lands and the jewels

bequeathed to him by Richard; John had refused to give them up.

Rog. Howden as above, p. 116.

[2071] Chron. S. Albin. a. 1202 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 51).

R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 139. The former gives the date,

Wednesday before All Saints’ day.

[2072] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 143. Rog. Wend., as above.

Will. Armor. _Philipp._ as above, p. 166.

[2073] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 139–141.

[2074] Mat. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ (Madden), vol. ii. p. 95.

[2075] On Arthur’s death see note at end of chapter.

The fire which had been smouldering throughout the winter in Britanny

now burst into a blaze. The barons and prelates of the duchy, it

is said, held a meeting at Vannes, and thence sent to the king of

France, as overlord alike of Arthur and of John, their demand for a

judicial inquisition before the peers of the realm--that is, before

the supreme feudal court of France--into John’s dealings with their

captive duke.[2076] A citation was accordingly sent to John, as duke

of Normandy, either to present Arthur alive,[2077] or to come and

stand his trial before the French king’s court on a charge of murder.

John neither appeared nor sent any defence; the court pronounced him

worthy of death, and sentenced him and his heirs to forfeiture of all

the lands and honours which he held of the Crown of France.[2078] The

trial seems to have been held shortly after Easter. The legal force

of the sentence need not be discussed here.[2079] Its moral justice

can hardly be disputed, so far as John himself is concerned; and

Philip’s action did little more than precipitate the consequences

which must sooner or later have naturally resulted from John’s own

deed. John in committing a great crime had committed an almost greater

blunder. Arthur’s death left him indeed without a rival in his own

house. It left him sole survivor, in the male line, alike of the

Angevin and Cenomannian counts and of the ducal house of Normandy.

Even in the female line there was no one who could be set up against

him as representative of either race. Eleanor of Britanny, the only

remaining child of his brother Geoffrey, was a prisoner in her uncle’s

keeping. The sons of his sister Matilda had cast in their lot with

their father’s country and severed all ties with their mother’s people;

the children of his sister Eleanor were still more complete strangers

to the political interests of northern Gaul, and the only one of them

who was known there at all was known only as the wife of the heir to

the French crown. But these very facts set John face to face with a

more dangerous rival than any of the ambitious kinsmen with whom the

two Williams or the two Henrys had had to contend. They drove his

disaffected subjects to choose between submission to him and submission

to Philip Augustus. The barons of Anjou, of Maine, of Britanny or of

Normandy had no longer any chance of freeing themselves from the yoke

of the king from over-sea who had become a stranger to them all alike,

save by accepting in its stead the yoke of the king with whom they had

grown familiar through years of political and personal intercourse, and

whom, in theory at least, even their own rulers had always acknowledged

as their superior. Anjou, Maine and Britanny had all resolved upon

Richard’s death that they would not have John to rule over them;

Normandy was now fast coming to the same determination. Under the

existing circumstances it would cost them little or no sacrifice to

accept their titular overlord as their real and immediate sovereign. So

long as Arthur lived, Philip had been compelled to veil his ambition

under a shew of zeal for Arthur’s rights; now he could fling aside

the veil, and present himself almost in the character of a deliverer.

If the barons did not actually hail him as such, they were at any rate

for the most part not unwilling to leave to him the responsibility of

accomplishing their deliverance, and to accept it quietly from his

hands.

[2076] Le Baud, _Hist. de Bretagne_, pp. 209, 210, with a

reference to Robert Blondel, a writer of the fifteenth century.

On the value of this account see Bishop Stubbs, pref. to W.

Coventry, vol. ii. p. xxxii, note 3.

[2077] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 143–145.

[2078] Proclamation of Louis of France, a. 1216, in Rymer,

_Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 140. Ann. Margam, a. 1204 (Luard, _Ann.

Monast._, vol. i. p. 27). Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 373.

Le Baud as above, p. 210. Stubbs, _W. Coventry_, vol. ii. pref.

p. xxxii.

[2079] Bishop Stubbs’s remark (_W. Coventry_, vol. ii. pref. p.

xxxiv, note 1), quoted above, p. 406, note 1{2058}, applies to

this case also. On the vexed question as to the composition of

the court I do not feel bound to enter here at all.

Philip took the field as soon as the forfeiture was proclaimed.

Within a fortnight after Easter he had taken Saumur[2080] and entered

Aquitaine; there he seems to have spent some weeks in taking sundry

castles, with the help of the Bretons and the malcontent Poitevin

nobles.[2081] One great Norman baron, the viscount of Beaumont, had

already openly joined the league against John;[2082] and as Philip

turned northward again, the count of Alençon formally placed himself

and all his lands at the disposal of the French king.[2083] Thus

secure of a strong foothold on the southern frontier of Normandy,

and already by his last year’s conquests master of its north-eastern

border from Eu to Gisors, Philip set himself to win the intervening

territory--the remnant of the viscounty of Evreux. One by one its

castles--Conches,[2084] Vaudreuil[2085] and many others--fell into

his hands. Messenger after messenger came to John as he sat idle in

his palace at Rouen,[2086] all charged with the same story: “The king

of France is in your land as an enemy, he is taking your castles, he

is binding your seneschals to their horses’ tails and leading them

shamefully to prison, and he is dealing with your goods according to

his own will and pleasure.” “Let him alone,” John answered them all

alike; “I shall win back some day all that he is taking from me now.”

The barons who still clave to him grew exasperated as they watched

his unmoved face and heard his unvarying reply; some of them began to

attribute his indifference to the effects of magic; all, finding it

impossible to break the spell, turned away from him in despair. One by

one they took their leave and withdrew to their homes, either passively

to await the end, or actively to join Philip. Even Hugh of Gournay, who

had held out so bravely and so faithfully a year ago, now voluntarily

gave up his castle of Montfort.[2087] Not till near the middle of

August did John make any warlike movement; then he suddenly laid siege

to Alençon; but at Philip’s approach he fled in a panic;[2088] an

attempt to regain Brezolles ended in like manner,[2089] and John

relapsed into his former inactivity. That the conqueror did not march

straight to the capture of Rouen, that he in fact made no further

progress towards it for six whole months, was owing not to John but to

his predecessor. Richard’s favourite capital was safe, so long as it

was sheltered behind the group of fortifications crowned by his “saucy

castle” on the Rock of Andely.

[2080] Chron. S. Albin. a. 1203 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 52).

[2081] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.),

p. 46. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 82; both

under a wrong year, viz. 1202 instead of 1203.

[2082] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 139.

[2083] Rigord and Will. Armor. as above.

[2084] Rigord as above.

[2085] _Ibid._ R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 143.

[2086] John was not literally there all the while; but he only

quitted it for short excursions, never going further than

Moulineaux, Pont-de-l’Arche, Orival or Montfort, from the

middle of May till the beginning of August, when he suddenly

went as far west as Caen, and thence as suddenly south again to

Falaise and Alençon. Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 5 (_Intr. Pat.

Rolls_).

[2087] Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. pp. 171, 172.

[2088] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.

Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 82. John was at Alençon August 11–15;

Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 5 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).

[2089] Will. Armor. as above.

Upon the winning of Château-Gaillard, therefore, Philip now

concentrated all his energies and all his skill. There was no hope

of voluntary surrender here; John had given the fortress in charge

to Roger de Lacy the constable of Chester, an English baron who had

no stake in Normandy, whose private interests were therefore bound

up with those of the English king, and who was moreover a man of

dauntless courage and high military capacity.[2090] The place was only

to be won by a regular siege. Crossing the Seine higher up, perhaps

at Vernon, Philip led his troops along its left bank, and encamped

in the peninsula formed by the bend of the river just opposite Les

Andelys. The garrison of the fort in the Isle of Andely no sooner

beheld his approach than they destroyed the bridge between the island

and the left bank. Philip was thus deprived of the means not only of

reaching them, but also of opening communications with the opposite

shore; for this could only be done with safety at some point below

Château-Gaillard, and the transport of the materials needful for the

construction of a bridge or pontoon was barred by the stockade which

crossed the river-bed directly under the foot of the castle-rock. The

daring of a few young Frenchmen, however, soon cleared this obstacle

away. While the king brought up his engines close to the water’s edge

and kept the garrison of the island-fort occupied with the exchange

of a constant fire of missiles, a youth named Gaubert of Mantes with

a few bold comrades plunged into the water, each with an axe in his

hand, and, regardless of the stones and arrows which kept falling upon

them from both sides, hewed at the stockade till they had made a breach

wide enough for boats to pass through in safety. A number of the broad

flat-bottomed barges used for transport were then hastily collected

from the neighbouring riverside towns, and moored side by side across

the stream; these served as the foundation of a wooden bridge, which

was further supported with stakes and strengthened with towers, and

by means of which Philip himself, with the larger part of his host,

crossed the river to form a new encampment under the walls of the

Lesser Andely. The garrison of the Isle were thus placed between two

fires;[2091] and the whole Vexin was laid open as a foraging-ground for

the besieging army, while the occupants of the Lesser Andely and of

Château-Gaillard itself found their communications and their supplies

cut off on all sides.[2092]

[2090] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 144. Rog. Wend. as above,

p. 180.

[2091] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.

Scriptt._, vol. v.), pp. 82, 83; _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 86–131

(_ib._ p. 170; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, pp. 127–129).

[2092] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 132–139 (Duchesne,

p. 170; Deville, p. 129).

John was now again hovering about at a safe distance in the

neighbourhood.[2093] To the peril of Château-Gaillard his fatuous

indifference was at last beginning to yield. A year ago he had shewn

some appreciation of his brother’s work, by making an addition to

the buildings in the second ward;[2094] and he had shewn his sense

of the military importance of the place yet more significantly, by

appointing Roger de Lacy as its commander. He now gathered up all his

remaining forces--still, it seems, a formidable array[2095]--with

the apparent intention of dislodging the French from Les Andelys. As

Philip’s biographer remarks, however, John feared and hated the light;

he resolved, according to his wont, upon a night attack; and even that

attack he did not lead in person.[2096] He intrusted its command indeed

to a far braver man than himself, but a man who was better fitted for

action in the light of day than for such deeds of darkness as John

delighted in. William the Marshal, the favourite comrade-in-arms of

the younger King Henry, the faithful friend and servant of the elder

one even unto death, the honoured minister of Richard, still clave

to the last survivor of the house which he had loved so long and so

well. To him John confided his plan for the relief of Les Andelys.

The marshal was to lead a force of three hundred knights, three

thousand mounted serving-men and four thousand foot, with a band of

mercenaries under a chief called Lupicar,[2097] along the left bank of

the Seine, and to fall under cover of darkness upon the French camp

in the peninsula. Meanwhile seventy transport-vessels, constructed by

Richard to serve either for sea or river-traffic, and as many more as

could be collected, were to be laden with provisions for the besieged

garrison of the Isle, and convoyed up the river by a flotilla of

small war-ships, manned by pirates[2098] under a chief named Alan,

and carrying, besides their own daring and reckless crews, a force of

three thousand Flemings. Two hundred strokes of the oar, John reckoned,

would bring these ships to the French pontoon; they must break it if

they could; if not, they could at least co-operate with the land-forces

under the Marshal in cutting off the northern division of the French

army from its comrades and supplies on the left bank, and throw into

the island-fort provisions enough to save it from the necessity of

surrender till John himself should come to its relief.

[2093] “Non multum distabat a loco illo” says Will. Armor.

_Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, as above), p. 83. The date must

fall between August 16, when John was at Alençon, and September

5, when he was at Bonneville. His whereabouts during the

interval vary between Chambrai, Trianon, Montfort and Rouen.

Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 5 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).

[2094] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.

Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 84; _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 737–746

(_ib._ p. 181; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, p. 145).

[2095] “Maximum congregaverat exercitum.” Will. Armor. _Gesta

Phil. Aug._, as above, p. 83.

[2096] _Ibid._; _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 140–143, 188–194 (_ib._

pp. 170, 171; Deville as above, pp. 129, 130).

[2097] On this man see Géraud, _Les Routiers_ (_Bibl. de

l’Ecole des Chartes_, ser. i. vol. iii. p. 132). In his

native tongue he was called “Lobar”; in Latin he appears

as “Lupicarius,” “Lupescarus,” “Lupatius.” M. Géraud calls

him in French “Louvart”; the name was doubtless an assumed

one, meaning “wolf.” He was a fellow-countryman and old

comrade-in-arms of Mercadier; Mat. Paris introduces them both

at once, in 1196, as “natione Provinciales”--“qui duces fuerunt

catervæ quam ruttam vocamus, militantes sub comite Johanne

regis fratre.” _Chron. Maj._ (Luard), vol. ii. p. 421. Lupicar

however had made his first historical appearance some years

earlier than Mercadier, as a leader of the Brabantines in the

Limousin, about 1177. See Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 70 (Labbe,

_Nova Biblioth._, vol. ii. p. 324).

[2098] It seems a strange return to long-past times to hear

of “_pirates_” sailing up the Seine to attack a king of the

French. Of what nationality are these men likely to have been?

The flower of the French host, as John knew, had crossed the river

with its king. Those who remained in the peninsula were hampered

by the presence of a crowd of unwarlike serving-men, sutlers and

camp-followers, many of whom, after spending the day in drunken

revelry, were lying asleep in the fields outside the camp. The night

was drawing to its close--for the cock had crowed thrice--when the

Marshal’s troops fell upon these sleepers and slew more than two

hundred of them as they lay. The soldiers within the camp quickly

caught the alarm; in their terror they rushed to the pontoon in such

numbers that it broke under their weight, and they sought safety in

swimming across the river to join their comrades on the opposite

shore. These however had now been aroused by the tumult; the bravest

of the French knights, headed by William des Barres, confronted the

fugitives with indignant reproaches for their cowardice, and drove

them back across the stream. By the light of torches and fires,

hastily kindled, the whole host was soon got under arms, the bridge

repaired, and the Marshal’s troops, surprised in their turn while

groping about in the darkness of the deserted camp, were routed with

heavy loss. The victors, thinking the fight was over, went back to

their sleeping-quarters, but had scarcely reached them when they

were roused up again, to see, in the dim light of the August sunrise,

the hostile fleet bearing down upon them. In a few minutes the two

river-banks and the pontoon were lined with armed Frenchmen. Still

the boats held on their course till the foremost of them touched the

bridge; and despite a ceaseless shower of arrows from either shore, and

of stones, iron missiles, and boiling oil and pitch from the engines

mounted on the wooden turrets of the bridge, the crews began to hew

at the cables and stakes in a desperate effort to break it down, and

kept its defenders at bay till the Seine ran red with blood. At last an

enormously heavy oaken beam fell directly upon the two foremost ships

and sank them. The rest, stricken with sudden terror, rowed away in

disorder as fast as oars could move them. Gaubert of Mantes and three

other gallant French sailors sprang each into a little boat, set off in

pursuit, and succeeded in capturing two of the fugitive ships, which

they brought back in tow, with their stores and all of their crews who

survived.[2099] The delay in the arrival of the fleet, caused by the

difficulties of navigation in the Seine,[2100] had ruined John’s plan

for the relief of the Isle of Andely. The fate of its garrison was soon

decided; and again the hero of the day was Gaubert of Mantes. The fort

was encircled by a double palisade or rampart of wood, outside the

walls. Gaubert tied a rope round his waist, took in his hand two iron

vessels coated with pitch and filled with burning charcoal,[2101] swam

to the easternmost point of the island, which the garrison, trusting

to the proximity of Château-Gaillard on this side, had ventured to

leave unguarded, and threw these missiles against the palisade. The

wood instantly caught fire; the wind carried the flames all round the

ramparts and into the fort itself. Some of the garrison made their

escape by swimming or on rafts; some were stifled in the cellars

and galleries in which they sought a refuge from the fire; the rest

surrendered to the French king. Philip lost no time in repairing and

garrisoning the fort and rebuilding the bridge on its western side. At

the sight of his success the whole population of the Lesser Andely fled

in a body to Château-Gaillard; Philip entered the town in triumph, sent

for new inhabitants to fill the places of the fugitives, and intrusted

its defence to two companies of mercenaries, whose strength may be

estimated from the statement that the leader of one of them, Cadoc by

name, received from the royal treasury a thousand pounds daily for

himself and his men.[2102]

[2099] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 144–335 (Duchesne,

_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. pp. 171–174; Deville,

_Château-Gaillard_, pp. 129–134). Cf. _Gesta Phil. Aug._

(Duchesne as above), p. 83.

[2100] Will. Armor. as above, vv. 206, 207 (Duchesne as above,

p. 172; Deville as above, p. 131).

[2101] See Deville’s note, _Château-Gaillard_, p. 66.

[2102] Will. Armor., _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 336–398 (Duchesne,

_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. pp. 174, 175; Deville,

_Château-Gaillard_, pp. 134–136). Cf. _Gesta Phil. Aug._

(Duchesne as above), p. 83.

Philip’s mastery of the river was still precarious and incomplete

without the reduction of Château-Gaillard. For an attack upon the Saucy

Castle itself, however, his courage seems as yet to have failed; and

striking north-westward by the road which leads from Les Andelys into

the valley of the Andelle, on the last day of August he again sat down

before Radepont. In two or three weeks it surrendered.[2103] This time

John made no attempt to save it, but fled away to the depths of his own

old county of Mortain,[2104] leaving Rouen to its fate. Philip however

dared not advance upon Rouen with Château-Gaillard still unconquered

in his rear; and at the opening of the vintage-season he moved back

to Les Andelys and girded himself up for his task. A brief survey of

the Rock convinced him that assault was well-nigh hopeless; his best

chance was in a blockade. On the north the Lesser Andely occupied by

his mercenaries, on the west the river commanded by his troops in

the island-fort, sufficed to imprison the garrison. The next step

was to dig out a double trench two hundred feet deep, starting from

the brow of the hill over against the south-eastern extremity of the

castle-rock, extending northward to the margin of the lake of Andely

and westward to the bank of the Seine, and completely enclosing the two

ravines which furrowed the sides of the rock. Each line of entrenchment

was garnished with seven _bretasches_ or wooden forts, placed at

regular intervals, each surrounded by a ditch of its own, furnished

with a wooden draw-bridge, and filled with as many soldiers as it could

hold. The rest of the army took up their quarters in the trenches,

where they built themselves little huts of wood and thatch for a

shelter against the wet and cold of the coming winter--shelter against

other foes they needed none, for they were out of bowshot from the

castle[2105]--and whiled away their time in jesting and making songs in

mockery of the straits to which the Saucy Castle was reduced--“So many

thousands girt about with a single girdle,”--“The eyrie overcrowded

with nestlings, who will have to turn out when the spring comes.”[2106]

The greater part of the “nestlings” were turned out before the

spring came. The blockade once formed, Roger de Lacy soon perceived

the terrible blunder he had made in admitting within his walls the

townsfolk of the Lesser Andely. According to one computation, the

number of these non-combatants now huddled within the castle-enclosure

was no less than two thousand two hundred souls; at the lowest

reckoning, they seem to have amounted to fourteen hundred--all, in a

military point of view, simply useless mouths, devouring in a few weeks

the stores of food that should have furnished rations for a year and

more to the little garrison which was amply sufficient to hold the

castle for John. One day, therefore, Roger opened the castle-gate and

turned out five hundred of the oldest and weakest. They were suffered

to pass unmolested through the blockading lines, and were followed a

few days later by five hundred more. Philip however, who meanwhile had

returned to his own dominions, no sooner heard what was going on than

he issued strict orders that every man, woman or child, of whatever age

or condition, who might issue from the castle should be driven back

again without mercy. A large number still remained of whom Roger was

as eager to be rid as Philip was anxious that he should be obliged to

keep them. He took account of his stores, and found that he had enough

to feed the regular garrison for a whole year. Hereupon he called

together all the remaining non-combatants, and sent them forth, as they

thought, to rejoin their families and friends. To their horror, as

soon as they approached the French lines, they were overwhelmed with a

volley of arrows. They rushed back to the castle-gate, only to find it

closed against them. For three months this multitude of people dragged

out a wretched existence in the ravines around the fortress, with no

shelter against the wet and the cold but what they might find in the

clefts of the rock, and no food but the dry leaves and scant herbage

which they could pick up at its foot, and the flesh of the dogs which

the garrison soon let loose for the purpose of yet further economizing

their rations. This last resource was exhausted, and the horrors of

cannibalism were already reached, when Philip came back to see how the

siege was progressing. As he was crossing the bridge to the island-fort

these unhappy beings caught sight of him and lifted up their voices in

agonizing appeal; the king, moved with a tardy compassion, and perhaps

also by fear of the not improbable outbreak of a pestilence which might

easily have spread into his own entrenchments, ordered that immediate

relief should be given to all who survived. These however amounted to

no more than half of the original number, which seems to have been

something over four hundred; and most of them had been so long without

food that their first meal proved fatal.[2107]

[2103] Rigord (Duchesne as above), p. 47, says the siege of

Radepont began on the last day of August and lasted fifteen

days. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 82, makes

it last three weeks; in _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 399, 400 (_ib._

p. 175; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, p. 136), he extends its

duration to a month.

[2104] He went to Falaise on September 13--the day after the

fall of Radepont, according to Rigord’s reckoning. Thence he

went on the 17th to Mortain, on the 19th to Dol, and back to

Mortain again on the 22d. Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 5 (_Intr.

Pat. Rolls_).

[2105] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.

Scriptt._, vol. v.), pp. 83, 84; _Philipp._, l. vii. vv.

414–450 (_ib._ pp. 175, 176; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, pp.

136, 137).

[2106] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 451–456 (Duchesne,

p. 176; Deville, p. 137).

[2107] Cf. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist.

Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 84, and _Philipp._, l. vii. vv.

467–606 (_ib._ pp. 176–179; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, pp.

138–142).

The last act of this tragedy must have taken place soon after

Christmas. For three months the whole military power of the French

Crown had been concentrated on the investment of Château-Gaillard; and

in all this time John had done absolutely nothing. From his expedition

to the Breton border he had indeed returned to Rouen for a few days in

the beginning of October. Not a hand did he lift, however, to check

the progress of the blockade which was being formed almost before his

eyes. Soon he was again far away in the Bessin; thence he suddenly

moved across the duchy to Verneuil, and in the second week of November

he was once more at Rouen.[2108] It was probably during one of these

visits to the capital that he wrote to Roger de Lacy: “We thank you

for your good and faithful service, and desire that, as much as in

you lies, you will persevere in the fealty and homage which you owe

us, that you may receive a worthy meed of praise from God and from

ourselves, and from all who know your fidelity to us. If, however,

which God forbid, you should find yourselves in such straits that you

can hold out no longer, then do whatsoever our trusty and well-beloved

Peter of Préaux, William of Mortemer and Hugh of Howels our clerk

shall bid you in our name.”[2109] Whether this letter ever found its

way through the blockading lines into the castle it is scarcely worth

while to inquire. If it did, it failed to shake the courage or the

loyalty of the garrison, although it must have proved to them what they

doubtless guessed already, that their sovereign had forsaken them, and

that they were serving him for nought. Of the crowning proof of his

desertion they probably remained unconscious until all was over for

them. After dismantling Pont-de-l’Arche, Moulineaux and Montfort,[2110]

John, on November 12, again left Rouen; for three weeks he flitted

aimlessly up and down the country, from Bonneville and Caen to Domfront

and Vire, and back again to Barfleur and Cherbourg;[2111] on December

6 he quitted Normandy altogether;[2112] and while the burghers of

the Lesser Andely were starving and freezing to death in the valleys

round Château-Gaillard, and the garrison of the castle were anxiously

reckoning how much longer their provisions would enable them to hold

out for his sake, he was keeping his Christmas feast at Canterbury at

the expense of Archbishop Hubert.[2113]

[2108] Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 5 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).

[2109] Letter in Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 1059.

[2110] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 826–828 (Deville,

_Château-Gaillard_, pp. 147, 148; Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.

Scriptt._, vol. v. p. 182).

[2111] Hardy as above.

[2112] Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 173, says he landed at

Portsmouth on S. Nicolas’s day. The _Itinerary_ (as above)

shews him at Barfleur on December 5 and at Portsmouth on the

7th.

[2113] “H. archiepiscopo omnia necessaria festivitati regiæ

ministrante.” Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 174.

By the end of February 1204[2114] Philip grew impatient of the blockade

of Château-Gaillard, and probably also uneasy lest John should

return from England with an overwhelming force for its relief. He

therefore resolved to try whether it could not, after all, be taken

by assault. He himself took up his station at the central point of

the entrenchment, on the crest of the hill, facing the narrow neck

of land by which it was joined to the castle-rock. This isthmus, the

only direct approach to the castle itself, he caused to be levelled

and widened till he could erect upon it a wooden gallery or covered

way leading from his own lines up to the edge of the outermost ditch

of the fortress. When, with considerable difficulty and loss of life,

this was accomplished, he caused a _beffroy_ or wooden tower on wheels

to be carried through the gallery, set up when it reached the further

end, and moved along the edge of the fosse, the cross-bowmen with whom

it was filled doing deadly execution upon the soldiers on the ramparts,

who however made a gallant defence. Meanwhile, the French were bringing

through their covered way earth, wood, stones, turf, everything they

could find to fill up the ditch. Before it was half full they lost

patience and adopted a quicker method of approach. They dropped down

the perpendicular counterscarp by means of their scaling-ladders, and

set these up again on the sloping inner side of the ditch, under the

foot of the great round tower which formed the head of the first ward.

The ladders were too short for the ascent; but despite a heavy fire

of stones and arrows from the tower, the storming-party scrambled up,

crawling on hands and knees, or using their swords and daggers by way

of Alpine-staves, till the base of the wall was reached. Then, while

a shower of missiles rattled down upon the shields held over them by

their comrades, the sappers dug and hewed at the foundations till the

tower was undermined; the fuse was inserted and fired, and the miners

had just had time to withdraw when a large portion of the wall fell

crashing into the ditch. The French rushed to the breach; Roger de

Lacy, seeing that the first ward was lost, ordered the wooden buildings

within it to be fired; he and his men withdrew across the drawbridge

into the second ward, and when the fire died down, they saw the ruined

fragment of the tower crowned by the banner of Cadoc.[2115]

[2114] “Superveniente cathedrâ S. Petri” (February 22). Rigord

(Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 47.

[2115] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.

Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 84; _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 612–726

(_ib._ pp. 179–181; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, pp. 142–145).

The French were one step nearer to the goal; but the next step looked

as impracticable as ever. Between them and the besieged there yawned

another ditch as wide and deep, there rose another rampart as mighty

and as inaccessible as the first. In vain they prowled about the edge

of the fosse seeking for a point at which they could venture upon an

attack, till a young squire or man-at-arms, by name Peter, but more

commonly known in the camp as “Bogis” or “Snub-nose,” caught sight of

a little window just above the wall at the south-eastern corner of the

rampart.[2116] This window was the sole external opening in John’s new

building, which was otherwise accessible only on the inner side, by two

doors, one leading into the storehouse which formed the lower story,

one into the chapel above it, and both opening towards the courtyard.

Bogis at once communicated his discovery to a few trusty comrades; they

reconnoitred the ditch till they found a somewhat shallower place on

its southern side, where it was possible to scramble down; thence they

crawled along the bottom till they were directly under the window, and

then clambered up the sloping side to the foot of the wall. By standing

on the shoulders of a comrade Bogis managed to reach the window; he

found it unbarred, unguarded, and wide enough for his body to pass

through; he sprang in, let down to his companions a rope which he had

brought for the purpose, and drew them up one by one till they were

all safe inside the building, which proved to be the storehouse under

the chapel.[2117] Finding the door locked, they began to hammer at it

with the hilts of their daggers. This noise and the shouts with which

they accompanied it soon alarmed the garrison. They, thinking that the

French had entered the new building and occupied it in force, hastily

set it on fire; unhappily, the wind caught the flames and spread them

in a few minutes over the whole enclosure. The garrison fled to their

sole remaining refuge, the citadel; Bogis and his companions escaped

out of the blazing ruins into the casemates; the bulk of the French

host, anxiously watching the scene from the opposite side of the ditch,

thought they had all perished; but when the flames died down and the

smoke began to clear away, Bogis himself appeared at the gate and let

down the drawbridge for the army to pass over in triumph.[2118]

[2116] I cannot understand M. Deville’s idea of this window.

In his plan of the castle he marks it about the middle of the

south-western side of John’s building--the side looking towards

the river. But Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (as above), p.

85, says it was “in latere orientali.” And if it had not been

there, how could Bogis, from the foot of the rampart of the

first ward, ever have seen it at all?

[2117] So says M. Deville (_Château-Gaillard_, p. 82),

following the _Philippis_; but in the _Gesta Phil. Aug._

William makes it the chapel, _i.e._ the upper instead of the

lower story. One would naturally expect the solitary window to

be in the chapel rather than in the storehouse under it.

[2118] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug_. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.

Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 85; _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 727–791

(_ib._ pp. 181, 182; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, pp. 145–147).

Philip’s engines and their own too hastily-kindled fires had made

havoc among the besieged garrison; they were now reduced to a hundred

and eighty fighting-men.[2119] Even this small number, however,

might have sufficed to hold for an indefinite time the remains of

Richard’s matchless fortress, but for one strange error on the part

of the royal architect. Richard had indeed taken the precaution of

making the sole gate of his citadel open not directly towards the

courtyard of the second ward, but at a much less accessible point to

the north-eastward, where only a narrow strip of ground intervened

between the counterscarp of the ditch and the outer rampart. Most

unaccountably, however, instead of furnishing this gate with a

drawbridge, he left a portion of the rock itself to serve as a natural

passage over the ditch hollowed out beneath it. Across this immovable

bridge a machine known by the name of “cat”--a sort of tent upon

wheels, moved by the men inside it--was, as the epic bard of the

siege expresses it, “made to crawl” close up to the gate, which the

sappers, hidden under this shelter, at once began to undermine. Roger

de Lacy, alarmed no doubt by the fate of the first tower which had been

thus dealt with, tried the effect of a countermine, which was so far

successful that the French were for a moment compelled to retire; but

the “cat” was speedily replaced by a mighty engine discharging heavy

stones with immense force. At the third discharge, the wall, undermined

as it was from both sides, suddenly fell in. The French troops poured

through the breach; Roger and his little band were quickly surrounded,

and it was no fault of theirs that they were not slaughtered to a

man, for every one of them refused to yield, and was only disarmed

by main force. The hundred and twenty men-at-arms and thirty-six

knights who still remained were, however, made prisoners without

further bloodshed; and thus, on March 6, 1204, Philip became master of

Château-Gaillard.[2120]

[2119] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. v. 775 (Duchesne as

above, p. 181; Deville, p. 146).

[2120] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 792–811

(Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. p. 182; Deville,

_Château-Gaillard_, p. 147). Cf. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne

as above), p. 85. The date is from Rigord (_ibid._), p. 47

(who, however, puts it under a wrong year, 1202), and Rog.

Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 180. This last writer has a wholly

different version of the capture, but it is not worthy of

consideration. The number of prisoners is stated by Will.

Armor. in the _Gesta Phil. Aug._ as forty knights, a hundred

and twenty men-at-arms, “and many others.” (By his own account

in _Philipp._, l. vii. v. 775, these “many” cannot have been

more than twenty. See above, p. 422). Rigord speaks only of the

knights, whom he reduces to thirty-six, saying that four had

been slain during the siege.

On that March day the king of England really lost not only his Saucy

Castle, but his whole continental dominions north of Loire. Thenceforth

all resistance in Normandy was at an end; and in three months the

whole duchy laid itself without a struggle at the victor’s feet. Soon

after John’s departure over sea Philip had opened negotiations with

the citizens of the chief Norman towns, representing to them that the

king of England had deserted them, that he himself was their rightful

overlord and sovereign, and bidding them either receive him as such, or

prepare to be all hanged or flayed alive when he should have overcome

their resistance by force. After some discussion they made a truce

with him for a year, promising that if no succour came from England

within that time, they would submit to him without reserve.[2121] On

the fall of Château-Gaillard they all, together with the constables

of the remaining fortresses throughout John’s trans-marine dominions,

sent messages to John setting forth the difficulties of their position

and remonstrating earnestly with him on his tardiness in coming to

their aid. He bade them look for nothing from him, but do each of them

whatsoever they might think good.[2122] A few weeks later he despatched

the bishops of Norwich and Ely with the earls of Pembroke and Leicester

to see if there was any possibility of coming to terms with the king of

France.[2123] But it was too late. Philip sarcastically retorted that

the first preliminary to peace must be the restoration of Arthur;[2124]

and on the Sunday after Easter he marched again into Normandy. Falaise

surrendered after a week’s siege;[2125] Domfront, Séez, Lisieux, Caen,

Bayeux, Barfleur, Cherbourg, Coutances,[2126] opened their gates at

his mere approach. Meanwhile Guy of Thouars, who had been governing

Britanny since Arthur’s death,[2127] with four hundred knights and

an immense host of Bretons attacked and burned the Mont-St.-Michel,

sacked Avranches, and marched ravaging and burning through the Bessin

to join the king at Caen. Philip sent them back again, together with

the count of Boulogne, William des Barres, a large body of French

knights, and a troop of John’s mercenaries who had changed sides

after the surrender of Falaise, to finish the subjugation of Mortain

and the Avranchin,[2128] while he himself returned to complete his

conquest of eastern Normandy. Only three important places were still

unsubdued there: Arques on the northern coast, Verneuil on the southern

border, and Rouen itself. The three bodies of soldiers and townsfolk

came to a mutual understanding whereby those of the capital, on the

Tuesday in Rogation-week--June 1--made a truce with Philip for thirty

days, stipulating that their brethren at Arques and Verneuil should

receive the same benefit if they applied for it within a certain

time, and promising in the name of all alike that if no succour came

from John within the specified interval, they would give themselves

up unreservedly to the king of France.[2129] None of them, however,

waited for the expiration of the truce. On midsummer-day Rouen opened

its gates;[2130] Arques and Verneuil followed its example,[2131] and

Normandy was won.

[2121] Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. pp. 173, 174.

[2122] _Ib._ pp. 180, 181.

[2123] “Post mediam Quadragesimam,” _i.e._ in the beginning of

April. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 144. The earl of Pembroke

(or Striguil), it will be remembered, was William the Marshal.

[2124] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 145.

[2125] _Ibid._ Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. viii. (Duchesne,

_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. p. 183); _Gesta Phil. Aug._

(_ibid._), p. 85. Rigord (_ibid._), p. 47. The dates come from

the two last, both of whom however make the year 1203 instead

of 1204.

[2126] Cf. Rigord as above; Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._

as above; _Philipp._ l. viii. (_ibid._), pp. 183, 184; and R.

Coggeshall as above.

[2127] As guardian of his own daughter by Constance, the infant

Alice, whom the Bretons and the French recognized as heiress of

Britanny, in place of her half-sister Eleanor, who was in the

custody of John.

[2128] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.

Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 85. _Philipp._, l. viii. (_ibid._), pp.

184, 185.

[2129] Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, pp. 1057–1059.

[2130] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 146. Rigord (Duchesne,

_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 47, giving the date.

Cf. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 85, and

_Philipp._, l. viii. (_ibid._), p. 186.

[2131] R. Coggeshall as above.

Cadoc and his mercenaries had established their head-quarters at

Angers;[2132] the whole of Anjou and Touraine, except the strongholds

of Chinon and Loches, was already secured; Aquitaine alone still

remained to be conquered. This, indeed, was likely to prove a more

difficult task; for however bitterly the men of the south might

hate their Norman or Angevin rulers, their chances of regaining or

preserving their independence under a sovereign who must henceforth

be parted from them by the whole width of the Bay of Biscay would be

obviously so much better than under one whose direct sway now stretched

all along the northern bank of the Loire from its mouth almost to its

source, that they were certain to veer round at once to the side of

John, simply for the purpose of keeping Philip out. Such was in fact

the result throughout the whole country south of the Dordogne; Savaric

of Mauléon, lately John’s enemy and prisoner, at once became his most

energetic and devoted champion;[2133] while Angoulême was secured

for John as the heritage of his queen Isabel. But the link which had

bound Guyenne to the Angevin house was broken at last; Queen Eleanor

had died on April 1.[2134] There was no longer any legal obstacle to

the execution of the sentence of forfeiture passed two years ago; and

on S. Laurence’s day Philip assembled his host for the conquest of

Poitou.[2135] Robert of Turnham, John’s seneschal,[2136] did what he

could in its defence, but he was powerless against the indifference

of the people and the active hostility of William des Roches and the

Lusignans.[2137] Poitiers was soon taken; and in a few weeks all

Poitou, except La Rochelle, Niort and Thouars, submitted to Philip as

its liege lord.[2138] At the approach of winter Philip returned to his

own dominions, leaving a body of troops to blockade Chinon, which was

held for John by Hubert de Burgh, and another to form the siege of

Loches, no less bravely defended by Gerald of Atie.[2139] At Easter

1205 the king marched with a fresh host upon Loches and took it by

assault.[2140] On midsummer-eve Chinon fell in like manner.[2141]

Robert of Turnham had already been made prisoner by the French;[2142]

the viscount of Thouars now made his submission to Philip, and received

from him the seneschalship of Poitou in Robert’s stead;[2143] Niort and

La Rochelle were left alone in their resistance to the French king.

[2132] Will. Armor. as above, pp. 86 and 188.

[2133] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 146.

[2134] Ann. Waverl. a. 1204 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p.

256). R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 144, and Mat. Paris, _Hist.

Angl._ (Madden), vol. ii. pp. 102, 103, give the same year;

the latter takes occasion to describe Eleanor as “admiribalis

domina pulchritudinis et astutiæ,” and says she died at

John’s newly-founded abbey of Beaulieu. The Chron. S. Albin.

(Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 53) places her death a year earlier,

and at Poitiers.

[2135] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.

47.

[2136] Brother of Stephen of Turnham, and apparently seneschal

of Anjou at the close of Richard’s reign; transferred to Poitou

in 1201. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 86, 142, 176.

[2137] R. Coggeshall as above.

[2138] _Ibid._ Rigord as above. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._

(_ibid_.), p. 86. Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 181.

[2139] R. Coggeshall and Rigord as above. Will. Armor. as

above; _Philipp._, l. viii. (_ibid._), pp. 189, 190.

[2140] Rigord (as above), pp. 47, 48, and Will. Armor. _Gesta

Phil. Aug._ as above; both under a wrong year. R. Coggeshall

(Stevenson), p. 152.

[2141] Rog. Wend. (Coxe, vol. iii.), pp. 182, 183; R.

Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 154, 155; cf. Rigord (Duchesne,

_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 48; Will. Armor. _Gesta

Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 86; and Chron. S. Albin. a. 1203

(Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 54).

[2142] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 152.

[2143] Will. Armor. as above.

John, however, was now at last threatening an attack from over sea.

Three weeks after his return to England, in January 1204, he had held

a council at Oxford and compelled all the tenants-in-chief, including

the bishops and abbots, to promise a scutage of two marks and a half on

the knight’s fee,[2144] and a contribution, from which even the parish

churches were not exempt, of a seventh of all moveable goods;[2145]

all under the plea of gathering a great host for the recovery of his

lost dominions.[2146] In May he held a council at Northampton,[2147]

which resulted in a summons to the fleet and the host to meet him at

Porchester at Whitsuntide, prepared to accompany him over sea. When all

was ready, however, the expedition was countermanded, at the urgent

entreaty, it was said, of Archbishop Hubert and William the Marshal,

the latter of whom had lately returned from Gaul, and might therefore

be supposed to know the condition of affairs there better than the king

could know it himself. John, after a great shew of resistance, yielded

to their entreaties; the soldiers and sailors were made to pay a fine

in commutation of their services, and dismissed, grumbling bitterly,

to their homes.[2148] The king gained a considerable sum of money by

the transaction; and the primate and the marshal, in their boundless

loyalty, were content to take upon themselves the burthen of its shame,

which John felt, or affected to feel, so keenly that he actually put

to sea with a small escort several days after the dispersion of the

fleet. He landed again, however, at Wareham on the third day,[2149]

and contented himself with sending his half-brother Earl William of

Salisbury and his own son Geoffrey with a body of knights to reinforce

the garrison of La Rochelle.[2150] A year later he again assembled his

fleet at Portsmouth;[2151] and this time he led it in person direct to

La Rochelle. He landed there on June 7,[2152] and marched to Montauban,

which he besieged and captured;[2153] the fickle viscount of Thouars,

being now in revolt against Philip, speedily joined him;[2154] they

advanced to Angers together, won it on September 6,[2155] ravaged

Anjou with fire and sword, and were doing the like in south-eastern

Britanny[2156] when Philip again crossed the Loire and harried the

viscounty of Thouars under their very eyes.[2157] John at once proposed

a truce; the terms were formally drawn up at Thouars on October

26;[2158] but when the English king’s signature was required, he was no

longer to be found. He had slipped away the night before, and was out

of reach at La Rochelle;[2159] and thence, on December 12, he sailed

for England once more.[2160]

[2144] Rog. Wend. as above, p. 175.

[2145] Mat. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ (Luard), vol. ii. p. 483.

[2146] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 144.

[2147] _Ibid._ Date, May 21–25; Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 7

(_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).

[2148] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 152, 153. Cf. Rog. Wend.

as above, p. 183.

[2149] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 154. Rog. Wend. (Coxe),

vol. iii., p. 183. This happened June 13–15; see note 1 to R.

Coggeshall as above, and Hardy, _Itin. K. John_, a. 7 (_Intr.

Pat. Rolls_).

[2150] R. Coggeshall as above.

[2151] Rog. Wend. (as above), p. 186. John was at Porchester

from Whit-Monday, May 22, to Friday, May 26. Hardy, _Itin. K.

John_, a. 8 (_Intr. Pat. Rolls_).

[2152] He crossed from Stoke to Yarmouth on Trinity Sunday, May

28, and thence to La Rochelle on Wednesday, June 7; cf. Hardy,

as above, with Rog. Wend. as above, who has twice written

“Julii” for “Junii.”

[2153] On August 1, after fifteen days’ siege, says Rog. Wend.

(as above), p. 187; but see Hardy as above.

[2154] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p.

48. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 86.

[2155] _Ibid._ Date from Chron. S. Albin. a. 1206 (Marchegay,

_Eglises_, pp. 54, 57).

[2156] Will. Armor. as above.

[2157] Rigord (_ibid._), p. 48. Chron. S. Albin. a. 1206 (as

above, pp. 56, 57).

[2158] Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 95.

[2159] Will. Armor. as above. He was at La Rochelle on October

25; Hardy as above.

[2160] Rog. Wend. as above, p. 188.

Of the two devoted English ministers who had stood by him through

so much obloquy, only the Marshal was now left. A month after the

humiliating scene at Porchester in 1205, Archbishop Hubert died.[2161]

“Now for the first time am I truly king of England!” was the comment

of his ungrateful master upon the tidings of his death.[2162] The words

were words of ill omen for John himself, even more than for his people.

He was indeed king of England, and of England alone. The prophecy of

Merlin, which had been working itself out for a hundred years in the

history of the Norman and Angevin houses, was fulfilled in yet one more

detail: “the sword was parted from the sceptre.”[2163] The sword of

Hrolf the Ganger and William the Conqueror, of Fulk the Red and Fulk

the Black, had fallen from the hand of their unworthy descendant. The

sceptre of his English forefathers was left to him. But the England

over which he had to wield it was no longer the exhausted and divided

country which had been swallowed up almost without an effort in the

vast dominions of the young Count Henry of Anjou. It was an England

which was once more able to stand alone--a new England which had been

growing up under the hands of Henry himself, of his ministers, and

of the ministers of his successor, silently and imperceptibly, they

themselves knew not when or how; and between this new England and its

stranger-king the day of reckoning was now to come.

[2161] _Ib._ p. 183. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 156.

[2162] Mat. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ (Madden), vol. ii. p. 104.

[2163] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 146.

NOTE.

THE DEATH OF ARTHUR.

Only two contemporary writers even pretend to give a circumstantial

account of Arthur’s death: the Annalist of Margam and William of

Armorica. The former tells us that John, “post prandium, ebrius et

dæmonio plenus” [did John, as well as Richard, make the demon-blood

answerable for his sins?], slew Arthur with his own hand, and having

tied a great stone to the body, flung it into the Seine; thence it

was drawn up in a fisherman’s net, recognized, and buried secretly,

“propter metum tyranni,” in Notre-Dame-des-Prés (Ann. Margam, a. 1204;

Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. i. p. 27). William allows the murderer

no such excuse, if excuse it be, but works up the story into a long

and horrible romance, in which John deliberately and of set purpose

takes Arthur out alone with him by night in a boat on the Seine,

plunges a sword into his body, and then rows along for three miles

before he flings the corpse overboard (Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l.

vi.; Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. pp. 166, 167). Both

these writers place the scene at Rouen. The Chron. Brioc. (Morice,

_Hist. Bret., preuves_, vol. i. col. 39) transfers it to Cherbourg:

“Apud Cæsaris-burgum duxit, et ibi proditorie et tyrannice eum in

mare submersit.” Rigord says not a word of the matter. R. Coggeshall

(Stevenson, p. 145) only speaks of it incidentally, saying that Philip

“sæviebat ... permaxime pro nece Arthuri, quem in Sequanâ submersum

fuisse audierat.” Rog. Wend. (Coxe, vol. iii. p. 170) says merely

“subito evanuit.” Mat. Paris in _Chron. Maj._ (Luard, vol. ii. p.

480) copies this, and adds: “modo fere omnibus ignorato; utinam non

ut fama refert.” In _Hist. Angl._ (Madden, vol. ii. p. 95) he gives

three stories as currently reported: accidental drowning, death from

grief, and the third, “ipsum manibus vel præcepto regis Johannis fuisse

peremptum”--this last being the assertion of the French, “quibus

propter hostilitatem plena fides non est adhibenda.” But his own

words in the _Chron. Maj._ shew that he could not wholly reject the

unavoidable conclusion of John’s guilt.

The date of Arthur’s disappearance or death is given only by the Margam

annalist. He places it on Maunday Thursday; but unluckily he has

damaged his own authority on chronological matters by putting the whole

affair a year too late, viz. in 1204 instead of 1203. Will. Armor., on

the other hand, tells us that for three days before the murder John was

at Moulineaux, near Rouen. These two chronological indications do not

exactly agree, for in 1203 Maunday Thursday was April 3, and the _Itin.

K. John_, a. 4 (Hardy, _Intr. Pat. Rolls_), shews that the king was at

Moulineaux on Wednesday, April 2, but on the two preceding days he was

at Rouen. It is however plain from the after-history that the deed must

have been done shortly before Easter.