(1189-1216.)
Richard Cœur-de-lion.
John Lackland.
Magna Charta.
The first act of the new king was to deliver from her prison his
mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, to whom he had always been tenderly
attached. While she was presiding over the preparations for the
crowning of her son, dispensing amnesties, and calling all free
men to swear allegiance to him, Richard arrested Stephen of
Tours, seneschal of Anjou and treasurer to Henry IL, threw him
into prison, and did not restore him to liberty until he had been
put in possession by him, not only of the treasures of the dead
king, but of all the personal property of the treasurer as well.
On arriving in England, Richard also went in great haste to
Winchester, in order to secure the riches which had been amassed
there by his father. The Jews were uneasy at seeing the new
sovereign display so much avidity; they had been accustomed to
suffer for any want of money on the part of kings, and Philip
Augustus had just set the example of confiscation, by driving
them away from his kingdom on his accession (1180), in order to
seize their property.
{183}
Richard contented himself with forbidding them to enter
Westminster Abbey; but some wealthy Jews, hoping to secure the
favor of the new king by rich presents, ventured to present
themselves among the vassals who brought their offerings to
Richard. The gifts were accepted, but, after the coronation
ceremony, when Richard, having taken the crown from the altar, in
token that he held it from God alone, had deposited it in the
hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who placed it upon
Richard's head, a noise was heard proceeding from the gates of
the churchyard. A Jew who attempted to enter was pushed back; on
this disturbance being made, the other Jews were driven away, and
then the popular vengeance was wreaked upon their houses, which
were set a-fire. A great number of Jews were killed. The fury
spread throughout the whole of the country. At York, the unhappy
Jews retired into the citadel, where the governor allowed them to
take refuge. But he went out one day, and the Jews, fearful of
treason, refused to let him re-enter. The fortress was besieged,
and when the Jews found themselves about to be taken, they set
light to an immense wood pile, and threw themselves upon it with
all their riches, after having themselves slain their wives and
children. Richard forbade this persecution of the Jews, but did
not cause anybody to be punished; "and this shedding of the Jews'
blood," says the old chronicler, "although against the wish of
the king, seemed to foretell that Cœur-de-Lion would be a plague
to the Saviour's enemies."
{184}
Richard appeared for the time being to have become imbued with
the commercial spirit of these much despised Israelites. He
turned everything into money, selling the royal domains which his
father had been at such pains to reconstitute: bartering away
towns, castles, and even, sometimes, property which did not
belong to him. "I would sell London, if I could find a buyer," he
said. The most important offices in the kingdom were disposed of
by auction like the domains. Hugh Pudsey, bishop of Durham,
bought the county of Northumberland and the title of Chief
Justicier; the bishoprics and the abbeys were offered to the
highest bidder; the King of Scotland was released of the tribute
imposed upon him and his people during his captivity, for the sum
of 20,000 marks of silver. The crusade which Richard was
projecting, and which occupied his whole attention, required
considerable sums of money, and the king was not very scrupulous
as to the means he adopted for obtaining the money which he
wanted.
Prince John, his brother, had just received some very large gifts
in Normandy and in England, but he was not nominated regent of
the kingdom during Richard's absence; the power was divided
between Bishop Pudsey and William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely and
Chancellor of England. Many duties were entrusted to Queen
Eleanor, and, towards the end of the year 1189, Richard proceeded
to Normandy. He had promised to start on the crusade at Easter in
1190. The emissaries of King Philip-Augustus met him at Rouen,
and took oath upon the soul of the king their master to a treaty
of alliance, both offensive and defensive, between the two
sovereigns,--the King of France undertaking to respect and defend
the rights of the King of England as he would his good city of
Paris; while the English delegates swore, on the soul of the King
of England, to perform the same services for King Philip as he
would for his good city of Rouen. The kings of England wore
still, before all, Dukes of Normandy.
{185}
The Queen of France, Isabella of Hainault, had just died, and the
departure for the crusade was postponed until midsummer. The two
kings at length met on the plains of Vezelay, accompanied, it is
said, by a hundred thousand crusaders. They marched across the
country together as far as Lyons, and then separated, after
having made an appointment to meet at Messina. Philip marched
towards Genoa, where he expected to find those of his vessels
which were destined for foreign service. Richard was going to
Marseilles; his fleet was to come and meet him there. England was
no longer at the mercy of Genoese or Venetian merchants, being in
possession of a considerable number of vessels. But the English
ships were delayed; they experienced some mishaps in the Bay of
Biscay; some had sought shelter in Portugal. Richard became
impatient, and hiring some mercantile barks, he set out with a
portion of his forces, in order to arrive sooner at Messina to
meet the King of France. But the English ships sailed faster than
the Marseilles barks; when the king arrived in Sicily, his fleet
had preceded him.
The kingdom of Sicily had previously lost its sovereign, William
the Good, brother-in-law to King Richard, and his cousin Tancred,
Count of Lecce, had been elected king in his stead. The dowager
queen, Joanna, Richard's sister, claimed her jointure, which
Tancred held unjustly, as she said. Scarcely had Richard set foot
in Sicily when, without waiting for the negotiations to be made,
he took possession of the castle and of the town of Bagnara, and
established his sister there, who had arrived before him; then
returning to Messina, he drove the monks from a convent which
suited his purposes, and converted it into a barracks.
{186}
So many outrages roused the people, who shut the gates against
Richard's troops. A conference was being held in the camp of
Philip-Augustus for adjusting this difference, when a fresh
quarrel broke out between the Sicilians and the English troops.
Richard left the royal tent in great haste, assembled his men,
and running helter-skelter among the citizens, he entered Messina
and planted his banner upon the ramparts. Philip-Augustus at once
demanded that his own banner should also be planted there; but
Richard consented to give up the town into the hands of the
knights templars, pending the decision respecting his sister's
pretensions, and King Tancred hastened the negotiations, being
anxious to rid himself of so turbulent and formidable a guest.
Queen Joanna obtained a large sum of money, and King Richard
received his share of it, which he scattered broadcast amongst
the crusaders, thus finding favor with the French as well as the
English, the Normans, and the Aquitanians.
Philip-Augustus, courageous and bold as he was when necessary,
did not possess in as great a degree as the King of England, the
brilliant qualities which then constituted a true knight; he was
more prudent and cunning than Richard; perhaps he was even given
to dissimulation, for Tancred accused him before the King of
England of having endeavored to dissuade him from negotiating
with Richard; and when the latter came and complained angrily to
Philip, a quarrel was about to break out between the two brothers
in arms, who had sworn to help each other in the holy enterprise.
Richard thereby gained permission, accorded to him by the King of
France, to marry whoever he chose instead of the Princess Alice,
the sister of Philip-Augustus. It was high time for Richard to
disengage himself from previous contracts, for Queen Eleanor was
to bring back to her son the Princess Berengaria, for whom she
had been to Navarre.
{187}
They were only waiting until the departure of Philip to celebrate
the marriage. Bad weather had prolonged the stay of the King of
France at Messina until Lent, and Richard's marriage with
Berengaria had not yet been solemnized when Philip left Sicily,
on the 30th of March, 1191, upon his ship "Franc-la-Mer," at the
head of more than two hundred vessels. The Queen of Sicily took
the young princess away with her.
The weather was unfavorable, and the fleet was dispersed. When
King Richard, suffering from sea-sickness, landed at Rhodes, he
was almost alone, and he learnt that the vessel, the "Lion," with
the princesses on board, had been driven ashore on the coast of
Cyprus; the governor of the island, or, as he called himself, the
Emperor Isaac Comnenus, had not allowed them to disembark; the
sailors who had ventured to land had even been ill-treated.
Much less provocation would have sufficed to arouse the anger and
vengeance of Cœur-de-Lion. He immediately left Rhodes, sailed to
Cyprus, took possession of the island, and made prisoners of the
emperor and his daughter, gave the latter to Berengaria for an
attendant, and placed Isaac Comnenus in silver chains, which the
latter wore until his death. Richard was married in the church of
Limasol on the day after Easter, in order to set out immediately
for Acre, the siege of which town had already commenced, in spite
of the plague, which was decimating the army.
The prowess of King Richard soon attracted towards him the eyes
of the crusaders and of the Mussulmans themselves. Stricken with
the fever, he would cause himself to be carried upon a litter to
the ramparts, and would there direct the movements of the troops.
He distributed among the knights the money taken at Cyprus. The
jealousy of King Philip gained ground day by day.
{188}
Accustomed to consider himself superior to the King of England,
who was his vassal, Philip was annoyed at seeing his own
authority lessened in consequence of the prodigious valor of
Richard, the "king," as he was called everywhere in the East, in
defiance of the rights of the King of France.
The French knights and their adherents on the one hand, the
English knights and their allies on the other, had vainly
endeavored to take the town by storm. Saladin, the sultan of the
Arabs, kept aloof, watching for an opportunity to relieve Acre.
But the Christian army completely surrounded it--"as the eyeball
the eye," say the oriental historians--so completely, in fact,
that at the moment when the chiefs of the Christian army,
temporarily reconciled, were preparing to attack the town in
unison, the Mussulman garrison surrendered, their lives being
spared, on the 12th of July, 1191, and Saladin retired into the
interior of the country. Philip and Richard immediately entered
Acre at the head of their armies, and planted their banners upon
the ramparts. The King of England had taken possession of the
sultan's palace, without troubling himself to find a residence
for Philip, and when he learnt that the Arch-duke of Austria,
Leopold, had set up his banner at the side of the standard of
England, he went and tore it down with his own hands, and threw
it into the trenches, indignantly asking how a duke could have
any pretensions to the honors exclusively reserved for kings.
Richard was destined to pay dearly for these haughty proceedings.
Scarcely had the crusaders entered Acre when King Philip
announced his intention of returning to Europe. In vain was he
urged to persevere in the holy enterprise; in vain his emissaries
who were entrusted to announce this news to King Richard were so
ashamed of it that they wept and said nothing.
[Image]
Richard Removing The Archduke's Banner.
{189}
Philip insisted on returning to France, which country he would
have been wise not to have left in the preceding year. Ten
thousand French crusaders remained in the East, under the command
of the Duke of Burgundy. The King of France solemnly swore not to
make any attempt upon Richard's dominions, and set sail on the
31st of July, leaving the Christian army a prey to the
dissensions to which the succession to the throne of the still
unconquered city of Jerusalem gave rise. Sybil, granddaughter of
Godfrey of Bouillon, had just died, and her husband, Hugh of
Lusignan, was one of the two pretenders to the title of King of
Jerusalem, the other being Conrad of Montferrat, husband of
Isabella, sister of Sybil. The King of France espoused the cause
of Conrad, and Richard supported Lusignan. It was in the midst of
these differences that the crusaders, under the command of the
King of England, commenced a march across the desert of Mount
Carmel. Exhausted by the heat, they were also harassed by the
Arab horsemen, who were more embittered than ever against the
Christians, for the term fixed for the exchange of prisoners
having gone by without Saladin's having sent back those in his
possession, the King of England had caused all the Mussulman
prisoners to be led out of the camp and to be slaughtered before
the sultan's eyes. The soldiers even went as far as searching the
entrails of their victims for any gold or precious stones which
they might have swallowed.
A great battle was fought at Arsouf on the 7th of September; King
Richard performed prodigies of valor and opened up a road to
Jaffa. Saladin was at Ascalon, when the crusaders, who had
arrived at Bethany, were compelled to give up their intention of
laying siege to Jerusalem on account of the bad weather. The
sultan at once abandoned Ascalon, dismantling the ramparts, and
thus making the way clear for Richard.
{190}
The latter hastened to repair the fortifications. In order to
encourage the soldiers, he himself carried stones to the workers,
and urged the Archduke Leopold to do likewise. "I am not the son
of a mason," replied the Austrian, whereupon Richard, in a fit of
passion, struck him in the face. Leopold at once left the army
and set out to return to his states, followed by his soldiers.
In vain was Ascalon fortified; in vain did Richard agree to
confer the crown of Jerusalem upon Conrad of Montferrat, in the
hope of re-establishing a mutual understanding in order to be
able to march against Jerusalem. That prince was almost
immediately murdered by two emissaries of the "Old Man of the
Mountain," a mysterious sovereign, whose devotees, intoxicated by
the fumes of haschich, blindly obeyed his orders. This crime was
attributed to the King of England, who afterwards quarrelled with
the Duke of Burgundy, depriving himself of the support of the
French as he had previously deprived himself of that of the
Austrians. They had again advanced as far as Bethany, and a band
of crusaders had ascended a mountain overlooking Jerusalem. King
Richard was asked to come and see the holy city in the distance.
"No," said he, covering his face with his cloak; "those who are
not worthy of conquering Jerusalem should not look at it." The
crusaders retraced their steps as far as Acre.
On arriving at that town, Richard suddenly learnt that Saladin
was besieging Jaffa. He embarked at once and sailed to the
rescue. The crescent already shone upon the walls, but a priest
who had cast himself into the water in front of the royal vessel
told Richard that he could yet save the garrison, although the
town was already in the hands of the enemy.
{191}
The ship had not yet reached the landing-stage, and already the
king was in the water, which reached his shoulders, and was
uttering the war cry, "St. George!" The infidels, who were busy
plundering the city, took fright, and three thousand men fled,
pursued by four or five knights of the cross. The little corps of
Christians intrenched themselves behind planks of wood and tubs;
ten tents held the whole of the army. Day had scarcely dawned,
when a soldier flew to Richard's bedside. "O king! we are dead
men!" he cried; "the enemy is upon us." The king sprang up from
his bed, scarcely allowing himself time to buckle on his armor,
and omitting his helmet and shield. "Silence!" he said to the
bearer of the bad news, "or I will kill you." Seventeen knights
had gathered round Cœur-de-Lion, kneeling on the ground, and
holding their lances; in their midst were some archers,
accompanied by attendants who were recharging their arquebuses.
The king was standing in the midst. The Saracens endeavored in
vain to overawe this heroic little band; not one of them stirred.
At length, under a shower of arrows, the knights sprang on their
horses, and swept the plain before them. They entered Jaffa
towards evening, and drove the Mussulmans from it. From the time
of daybreak, Richard had not ceased for a moment to deal out his
blows, and the skin of his hand adhered to the handle of his
battle-axe. The remembrance of this day had not faded when, more
than fifty years later, St. Louis led the French troops to the
crusade. Joinville heard the Saracen mothers scolding their
children and threatening them with Malek-Rik, a name which the
Mussulmans gave to King Richard. Such severe fatigue under the
burning sun had affected the health of Cœur-de-Lion. Disquieting
news came from his dominions. He concluded a truce with Saladin,
giving up Ascalon to him, but keeping Jaffa, Tyre, and the
fortresses along the coast, and promising to refrain from any
hostilities during a period of three years, three months, three
weeks, three days, and three hours.
{192}
"Then I will come back," said Richard, "with double the number of
men that I now possess, and will reconquer Jerusalem." Saladin
smiled, acknowledging, however, that if the Holy City was to fall
into the hands of the Christians, no one was more worthy of
conquering it than Malek-Rik. The two adversaries had conceived
for each other a feeling of chivalrous admiration and esteem
which is the theme of Sir Walter Scott's novel "The Talisman."
Numerous presents had been exchanged by them during the war; and
when Richard was suffering from fever, and was perishing with
thirst, he received each day fruits and cooling drinks which were
sent to him by the sultan.
It was on the 9th of October, 1192, that Richard Cœur-de-Lion
left Palestine. Standing upon the poop of his ship, he was
surveying the shore, then fading from sight. "Oh! Holy Land,"
cried he, "I leave you to God, as well as your people. May He
help me to come back to your assistance!" The English ships were
sailing together, when a storm arose and dispersed them. The one
which carried the two queens arrived in Sicily, but King Richard
was not with them, and no one knew what had become of him. Driven
at first towards the island of Corfu, he had hired three small
vessels, which had taken him to Zara, whence he hoped to reach
his nephew Otho of Saxony, son of his sister Matilda. He found
himself surrounded by enemies and threatened on all sides. He
knew that King Philip had entered into a league with John
Lackland, in order to deprive him of his kingdom: the Emperor
Henry had laid claim to the throne of Sicily, and had not
forgiven Richard for his alliance with Tancred; Leopold of
Austria had not abandoned all hope of revenge, and everywhere the
relations of Conrad of Montferrat were accusing the King of
England of having been the cause of the death of their ally.
[Image]
Richard's Farewell To The Holy Land.
{193}
Richard assumed the garb of a merchant and started on his journey
through the mountains of the Tyrol. He arrived at Goritz in
Carinthia, where he sent and asked for a passport for Baldwin of
Béthune, one of his knights, and for Hugh the merchant. The
messenger was instructed at the same time to present the governor
with a ring which the merchant sent him. The governor scrutinized
the messenger. "You are not speaking the truth," cried he. "It is
not a merchant who sends me this ring, but King Richard. But as
he honors me with his gifts without knowing me, although I am the
cousin of Conrad of Montferrat, I will do him no injury. Tell
him, however, to leave this place as soon as possible."
The governor of Goritz did not wish to arrest King Richard, but
he had not promised to keep the secret. He informed Frederick of
Montferrat, Conrad's brother, that Cœur-de-Lion was about to
travel across his dominions. Recognized by a Norman knight, the
king was saved by a faithful vassal, and had arrived in the
states of the Duke of Austria, when he fell ill in the village of
Erperg, a short distance from Vienna. A page was despatched to
the capital to exchange some gold bezants for current coin of the
country. He was noticed and interrogated, and being put under
torture he divulged his master's name. Richard was stretched upon
his bed, sleeping, when the mayor of Vienna entered his little
apartment "Good morrow, King of England," he said. "You hide in
vain, for your face betrays you."
The king had already seized his sword, protesting that he would
only surrender to the duke himself. Leopold was unwilling to let
any one else have the honor of making the capture; he soon
arrived, and received the King of England's sword.
{194}
"You should esteem yourself fortunate, Sire," said the duke, with
a smile of revengeful satisfaction; "if you had fallen into the
hands of the relations of Conrad of Montferrat you would have
been a dead man, even if you had had a thousand lives." And
triumphantly leading forth his prisoner, whom he reminded on the
road of the insult which had been formerly offered to the
Austrian flag, he shut Richard up in the castle of Diernstein.
But the emperor at once claimed the illustrious captive. "A duke
cannot possibly keep a king!" he urged; "it is the right of an
emperor." And Richard was conducted to the castle of Treefels,
where he languished for two years.
While King Richard had been acquiring glory in Palestine, without
any signal advantage gained to the Christian cause, disorder
reigned supreme over his kingdom; the Chancellor Longchamp had
seized upon the power, casting his fellow-bishop of Durham into
prison, and only setting him free at the price of all the
dignities which the latter had bought of Richard. The chancellor
was able and devoted to the king, but haughty, arrogant,
despotic, and, above all, rapacious, as all powerful men were at
that time. "If he had remained master," say the chronicles, "he
would not have left a belt to the men, a bracelet to the women, a
ring to the knights, or a jewel to the Jews." But scarcely had
King Richard arrived in Palestine when Prince John unmasked
himself. Having raised an army against the chancellor, he claimed
the supreme authority on the ground of his being heir presumptive
to the crown, resolutely refusing to recognize the rights of
Arthur of Brittany, son of Geoffrey, whom Richard had repeatedly
nominated as his successor. Badly supported by the barons,
Longchamp was beaten, and compelled to agree to a truce.
{195}
By means of intrigue and concessions, John first of all caused
himself to be recognized by the regent and the council as heir to
the throne, then obtained the deposition of the chancellor, and
saw himself raised to the dignity of Governor-General of the
kingdom. It was on the 9th of October, 1191, while King Richard
was fortifying the town of Jaffa, after the victory of Ascalon.
The new regent offered to allow Longchamp to keep his diocese of
Ely, and have the governorship of three royal castles. "No," said
the deposed chancellor, "I will not willingly give up any of my
master's rights; but you are stronger than I, and chancellor and
chief justicier as I am, I yield to superior power." He consigned
the keys of the Tower to Prince John, and made preparation for
leaving England. No doubt he knew the prince too well not to fear
some treachery, for he disguised himself as a travelling
trades-woman, and, accompanied by a large number of boxes, he
waited near Dover for the ship which was to carry him to France.
The vessel was delayed; some fishermen's wives, passing along the
beach, asked if they might look at his goods; but the Chancellor
of England did not understand English, but only spoke Norman, and
therefore could not answer; the women, being impatient, declared
that the owner of the boxes must be a mad woman, and raised her
veil. They started back at seeing a man's face underneath it. The
fishermen rushed to the spot; and, suspecting some sinister
purpose in the disguise, they subjected Longchamp to
ill-treatment until the officers of the guard came, tore him from
their grasp, and took him to prison. The Chancellor had much
difficulty in getting free again, and in obtaining permission to
proceed to France. The Archbishop of Rouen was created chancellor
and chief justicier in his stead.
{196}
It was in the month of October, 1192, when King Richard was just
setting sail from Acre, that rumors of his approaching return
were spread throughout Europe; but in vain did days, weeks,
months elapse. The champion of the Cross, Cœur-de-Lion, had
disappeared, and his fate remained shrouded in mystery, when, at
the beginning of the year 1193, a letter from the Emperor Henry
VI. to the King of France, discovered by accident, revealed the
fact of Richard's incarceration in Austria. "The enemy of the
Empire and the disturber of France," said the Emperor, "is
imprisoned in a castle in the Tyrol, and watched day and night by
faithful guards with naked swords." The exact whereabouts of the
castle remained a secret.
The effect of this news in Europe was wonderful; Richard's
reputation had caused people to forget his pride and avarice.
Prince John was as proud and as avaricious as his brother,
without the fitful generosity and brilliant valor which in
Richard compensated for so many faults: the clergy remembered the
great deeds performed for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre;
all the noblemen and knights were disgusted at the treachery
which kept a king and a crusader in an unknown prison; the Pope
excommunicated the Archduke Leopold, and threatened the Emperor
with the same penalty; Prince John and the King of France alone
rejoiced at the powerless state in which their enemy found
himself. The prince hastened to Paris to do homage to Philip for
all the dominions which the King of England held upon the
Continent; and then, recrossing the Channel, he commenced
preparations for raising an army, to enable him to dispute his
brother's claim to the crown; but already the barons and prelates
who remained faithful to Richard had unfurled the royal standard;
the hired soldiers gathered together by John were repulsed, and
the feeble usurper was compelled to consent to an armistice. His
ally of France had been unsuccessful at Rouen, which was defended
by the Earl of Essex, who had recently arrived from Palestine.
Philip had been compelled to quit that town.
{197}
The ex-Chancellor Longchamp had at length discovered the king's
prison, and had gone to see him. He managed to induce the emperor
to convoke the Diet of the Empire at Hagenau, in order to hear
the charges against Richard. The King of England appeared before
the princes there assembled, and cleared himself easily of the
accusations brought against him. The emperor consented to deliver
him up for a ransom; the sum fixed was a hundred and fifty
thousand marks of silver. The king's fetters were removed, and he
was led back to his prison, there to remain until the united
efforts of his people should raise the required sum of money. "My
brother John will never gain a kingdom by his valor!"
Cœur-de-Lion had disdainfully declared on hearing of that
prince's treachery. But John could plot, and, supported by Philip
Augustus, he contributed greatly towards postponing the
deliverance of his brother. Richard was still languishing in
prison at the beginning of the year 1194, lamenting his fate in
Provençal ballads, which may be translated thus:--
Now know ye well, my barons, people, all,
English and Norman, Gascon and Poitevin,
That for no money would I leave in thrall
The poorest of my comrades thus to pine.
Reproach I made not nor desire withal,
Though now two winters here.
The period of his captivity was at length, however, drawing to an
end; in vain did Philip-Augustus and Prince John propose to the
Emperor Henry a much larger sum than Richard's ransom if he would
still keep the latter in prison. The princes of the Empire
opposed the offer indignantly, and when the first half of the
ransom arrived, in the month of February, 1194, the king was at
length restored to liberty.
{198}
He landed at Sandwich on the 13th of March, to the great delight
of his subjects. Prince John had taken refuge in Normandy, and
the other traitors had disappeared. Richard seized upon several
castles, deprived several rebels of their offices, and sold them
to the highest bidder; then, levying another tax upon a country
exhausted by war and by the payment of the royal ransom, he
hastened to France, to punish her king for the injuries inflicted
upon him by that monarch. On disembarking Richard was met by his
brother, who reckoned upon the intercession of his mother to
obtain the forgiveness of the sovereign whom he had so cruelly
wronged. "I forgive him," said Richard; "and I hope that I shall
forget his misdeeds as completely as he will forget my
forgiveness." He refused, however, to reinstate John in his land
and castles.
War was still raging between the two monarchs, with variable
success. Richard was enabled to wreak his vengeance upon the
Bishop of Beauvais, who had formerly been entrusted with missions
from Philip to the Emperor of Germany. That prelate, having been
made a prisoner during a battle, by Merchadec, chief of the
Brabantines in Richard's service, was imprisoned in the castle of
Rouen. In vain did he implore the intervention of Pope Celestine
III. in his favor; the King of England sent the armor, stained
with the bishop's blood, to the Pontiff, with this quotation from
Scripture: "See whether it is your son's garment." The Pope
laughed. "It is the coat of a son of Mars," said he, "let Mars
undertake to deliver him;" and the bishop remained in prison
until the death of King Richard.
{199}
So many struggles were necessarily burdensome; "from sea to sea
England was ruined," say the chroniclers. A citizen of London,
William Fitz-Osbert, better known by his title of "Longbeard,"
constituted himself the champion of the poor, endeavoring, first
of all, by interceding with the king to obtain a lessening of the
burdens which were crushing them. The king wanted money.
Longbeard achieved no result; and came back to England, where he
organized a secret association. He began a series of public
orations, causing dangerous riots in London, where he was looked
upon by the people as their king and saviour. The authorities
endeavored to arrest him, but he took refuge in the church of St.
Mary of the Arches, with a few supporters, where he defended
himself until the building being set afire he was obliged to
leave it; he was wounded, captured and dragged to Smithfield,
where he was hanged. The people had done nothing to rescue him;
but it was found necessary to punish the fanatics who came by
night to scrape up the earth at the foot of his gibbet, to be
preserved as relics.
King Richard had defeated Philip-Augustus at the gates of Gisors.
Whilst making his escape, the King of France had almost been
drowned in the river. "I made him drink the water of the Epte,"
Richard wrote triumphantly. But the day was approaching which was
to see the end of so many heroic, but fruitless struggles; it was
rumored in Normandy that an arrow was being fashioned in
Limousin, which was destined to kill a tyrant. The King of
England learnt that his vassal, the Viscount of Limoges, had
discovered a treasure. He at once sent to claim it of the
Viscount, who sent him one-half of his treasure trove upon a
mule. "Gold treasure belongs to the liege-lord; silver is
divided," said the Viscount. But Richard wanted the whole; he
marched against the castle of Chalus, where he expected to find
the treasure, and laid siege to the place. It was well defended,
but provisions had run short; the garrison wished to capitulate.
{200}
"No," said Richard, "I will take your place by storm, and cause
you all to be hanged on the walls." The defenders of the town
were in despair; the king and Merchadec were examining the point
of attack, when a young archer, Bertrand de Gourdon, pulled his
bow, and, praying to God to direct the arrow, aimed it at the
king; the latter was struck on the left shoulder. The town,
however, was taken by assault, and all the garrison were hanged.
The king sent for Gourdon. He was dying, for an unskilful surgeon
had broken the arrow, and left the steel portion in the wound.
"Wretch!" said he to the archer, "what had I done to you that you
should have attempted my life?" "You have put my father and two
brothers to death," said Bertrand, "and you wanted to hang me."
"I forgive you," cried Richard; "let his chains be removed, and
let him receive one hundred shillings." Merchadec took no heed of
the royal pardon, but caused Bertrand de Gourdon to be flayed
alive. Gourdon's children fled to Scotland, and became, it is
said, the founders of the illustrious family of the Gordons.
Richard died on the 6th of April, 1199. Scarcely had he breathed
his last, when his sister Joanna, whom he had married to the
Count of Toulouse, arrived at the camp before Chalus, to solicit
help for her husband in his dispute with the court of Rome, in
the matter of the Albigenses. She was informed of the death of
her brother, and the shock caused her to give birth to a child
prematurely. The child was stillborn, and the mother died in
delivering it. She was buried with her brother at Fontevraud, at
the foot of the grave of Henry II.
The period of chivalric enterprises in England had gone by, and
that of humiliation and decay was commencing. The reign, however,
of John Lackland, the most cowardly and treacherous of the
sovereigns who have sat on the throne of England, is one of the
most important epochs in history, for from that time dates the
active part played by the nation in its own affairs--the time of
Magna Charta, the germ and foundation of all English liberty.
{201}
Magna Charta
John was well known by the people whom he aspired to govern, and
was universally detested. Scarcely had the rumor of the death of
King Richard spread through France, when all the nobility of
Brittany, Touraine, Anjou, and Maine declared themselves in favor
of Prince Arthur, son of Geoffrey Plantagenet and of Constance of
Brittany, born seven months after his father's death, whom
Richard had repeatedly nominated as his successor. Under the
influence of Eleanor, Aquitaine and Poitou recognized John as
their liege-lord: he was in Normandy, and caused himself to be
proclaimed at Rouen on the 25th of April. He had already sent the
Archbishop of Canterbury back to England, to bring together all
the barons, and to make them swear allegiance to John, Duke of
Normandy, son of King Henry, son of the Empress Matilda. The
repugnance felt towards him was very general, but the fear of
anarchy decided several noblemen in favor of John; promises and
presents influenced others, and, on the 25th of May, 1199, when
John arrived in England, the greater number of the barons had
become reconciled to his cause. The new king was crowned on the
27th of May at Westminster, the primate proclaiming aloud that
the crown of England was not an inheritance descending by right
of primogeniture, but that it belonged to the worthiest claimant.
The worthiest claimant on this occasion was Prince John.
There had been no question raised about the rights of Arthur; but
Philip-Augustus was too shrewd not to seize this pretext for
renewing the war against John, whom he knew to be a coward, a
sluggard, and a sovereign unpopular in his kingdom; he claimed,
therefore, in the name of the young prince, whose mother had
placed him under the royal protection, nearly all King John's
continental domains.
{202}
Hostilities recommenced, and Brittany was ravaged both by its
enemies and friends; but the King of France was engaged in a
serious dispute with the Pope; his kingdom had just been placed
under an interdict; he concluded peace with John, sacrificing,
without remorse, the interests of Arthur, who found himself
completely disinherited through the mutual understanding between
his uncle and the King of France.
Meanwhile John had started out for Aquitaine, there to receive
the homage of his subjects. He met, at one of the _fêtes_
which were celebrated, Isabel, daughter of the Count of Angoulême
and wife of the Count of Marche; she was remarkably beautiful,
and as ambitious as she was beautiful. Her beauty attracted the
king, and the ambition of the countess prompting her, she
abandoned her husband to marry John Lackland, who himself had
been married for ten years to the daughter of the Earl of
Gloucester. An insurrection soon broke out in Aquitaine; it was
insignificant at first, but at the beginning of the year 1202
Philip-Augustus, delivered from his quarrels with Pope Innocent
III., stirred the flame of the rebellion in the southern
provinces, organized an insurrection in Brittany, and suddenly
took up Arthur's cause again, who had recently lost his mother.
"You are aware of your rights," he said to the young prince, "do
you wish to become king?" "Decidedly I do," said Arthur. "Very
well then," said Philip, "there are two hundred knights, take
them and march against your own provinces whilst I enter into
Normandy." The Bretons rallied round their young duke, who
advanced with his little army against the town of Mirebeau in
Poitou, where his grandmother Eleanor was staying, whom his
mother had taught him to hate.
{203}
He hoped, by capturing her, to obtain better conditions from his
uncle; but the old queen defended herself valiantly, and held the
castle sufficiently long to allow her son to come to her
assistance. A nobleman of the country delivered up the town to
him on the night of the 31st of July, 1202, on King John's
promising not to do any harm to his nephew. All the noblemen who
supported the young duke, amongst whom was the Count of Marche,
were made prisoners, and Prince Arthur himself was imprisoned in
the Castle of Falaise, whence he was transported a short time
afterwards to Rouen. There all trace of him is lost in history,
and no information concerning him exists except vague and
contradictory tradition. The most probable story relates that the
king arrived by night with his esquire, Peter of Maulac, to see
the unfortunate young prince in his dungeon, and that he took the
latter with him in a little boat upon the Seine. The young man
was in fear, and begged his uncle to spare his life; but John
made a sign and De Maulac, after plunging his dagger into the
prisoner's heart, threw his body overboard; but it is also said
that De Maulac conceived a horror of the crime beforehand and
refused to commit it, and that the king himself struck the fatal
blow. It was on the 3rd of April, 1203. Rumors of the murder
spread throughout France and England, adding fresh indignation to
the hatred which John already inspired. The Bretons proclaimed
Alice of Thouars, daughter of the Duchess Constance by her third
husband, instead of Prince Arthur's sister, Eleanor, the Pearl of
Brittany, who was in the power of her uncle, and was shut up by
him in a convent at Bristol. The appeal of the Bretons to the
liege-lord was listened to by Philip-Augustus; he summoned John,
Duke of Normandy, to appear in Paris to be judged by his peers.
Queen Eleanor had retired to Fontevraud, where she had taken the
veil, overcome, it is said, with despair in consequence of her
son's crime.
{204}
John had not answered Philip's summons: he was at Rouen, occupied
with the festivities, while the King of France had entered
Poitou, supported by the nobility, who had generally revolted in
his favor, and was marching from there into Normandy. The Bretons
had commenced the attack, and were advancing, pillaging the
country. Many Normans joined them, so great was the horror
inspired by the murder of Prince Arthur. The people had also
organized an insurrection in Anjou and Maine, and Philip had
taken possession of all the towns on his way when he effected a
junction with the Bretons at Caen. "Let them go where they
please," John would say in the midst of his revels, "I will take
back in one day all that they have acquired with so much
trouble." But the French army having appeared at Rodepont, in the
neighborhood of Rouen, the King of England fled in great haste
and recrossed the Channel in the month of December, 1203, in
order to seek for succor.
The English reinforcements did not arrive; Rouen had defended
itself valiantly; but the citizens had at length yielded in
consequence of a famine; Verneuil had just been taken; Castle
Gaillard, fortified by Richard Cœur-de-Lion, capitulated after a
siege of seven months. The garrison had defended tower after
tower; there no longer remained a single French knight, when the
French soldiers at length destroyed the last portion of the
ramparts. John had not lifted a finger to defend his dominions,
and the King of France was regaining possession of his duchy of
Normandy, which had been separated from his dominions for two
hundred and ninety-two years. Brittany, Touraine, Anjou, Maine,
and Poitou slipped from the grasp of the King of England;
Aquitaine alone remained to him. King Philip, who was now
satisfied, allowed himself to be persuaded by a legate sent by
the Pope and concluded a truce of two years' duration with King
John, which was to commence in the month of December, 1206.
{205}
The arms of his temporal enemies had triumphed. John Lackland was
about to bring down upon himself the spiritual thunders; a
conflict had arisen between the king and the chapter of
Canterbury about the election of an archbishop. The Pope settled
the question by nominating Cardinal Stephen Langton, who was then
at Rome, and whose merit was known to the pontiff. The monks of
Canterbury recognized him, and John caused them to be driven from
their cloisters by two knights, sword in hand. The Pope
instructed the three bishops to pronounce an interdict in
England, authorizing at the same time the English barons, who
were, he knew, secretly discontented, to aid him in snatching
their country from ruin. The bishops pronounced the terrible
sentence, and at once left King John's dominions. The barons did
not dare to rebel; the king had taken possession of a large
number of children of the noblest families as hostages. He had
sent Peter of Maulac to demand the sons of William of Braose,
Lord of Bramber in Sussex. "By my faith," said the lady of the
castle, "he did not take such care of his nephew that I should
trust my children to him." Peter of Maulac made prisoners of the
lady and her children, who died of hunger in their prison; Lord
Bramber died of grief in consequence.
The interdict had lasted one year; the churches were closed. No
more bell-ringing, no religious services, no marriages, no
prayers over the graves; the baptism of newly born children and
the administration of extreme unction were the only concessions
made by the Church.
{206}
In 1209, the Pope sent a bull of excommunication against the
king; the blow was foreseen, and the approaches were so zealously
guarded that the papal missive could not gain admission; but John
knew that a sentence of deposition would follow that of
excommunication; and this proceeding, although unproductive of
practical results in itself, assumed a terrible degree of
importance when it was known that King Philip-Augustus was ready
to carry it into execution. It is related that at this time John,
in despair at his struggle against the Church, conceived the idea
of begging the assistance of the Mussulmans, and that he sent an
embassy to the Emir El-Hassiz in Spain, proposing to embrace the
religion of Islamism and to become the vassal of the Emir, if the
latter would cross the Pyrenees, enter into France, and thus draw
off the forces of King Philip. The Emir listened gravely, only
giving vague answers. When the emissaries had retired, the
Mussulman called back one of them, a priest "Tell me," he asked
him, "in the name of the Lord, from whom you expect your
salvation, what kind of man your king really is." "He is a tyrant
who will soon feel the effects of his subjects' anger," replied
the monk; and the Emir refused all King John's offers.
In spite of the Pope's discontent and John's terror thereat, the
latter had carried on successfully some expeditions against the
insurgents in Ireland and Wales, when, in 1213, Innocent III. at
length proclaimed his deposition, absolving all his vassals from
their oath of allegiance, and making an appeal to all Christian
princes to dethrone an impious tyrant. Stephen Langton was sent
to King Philip to promise forgiveness of all the latter's sins if
he would carry out the sentence of the Holy See. The French army
was already being formed; King John had obtained a signal success
over his adversary's fleet, and he was at Dover surrounded by an
army of sixty thousand men, ready to encounter the invaders if
their sovereign would lead them; but John was afraid of his
subjects, mistrusting their fidelity; and he shrank as usual from
giving battle to the enemy.
{207}
The Pope's legate, Pandulph, came and met him at Dover. He
represented to the king in the most terrible colors the strength
of the French army, the discontent of the barons, and the anger
of the exiles; the little courage that remained to the degenerate
Plantagenet faded away from his heart. He was, besides, pursued
by the recollection of a prediction of Peter the Hermit of
Wakefield, which ran: "Before the day of the Ascension the king
will have lost his crown." John resolved rather to drag it
through the mire than to relax his hold of it.
The legate was a skilful diplomatist; before making public the
result of his negotiations with the king, he demanded that all
the exiled priests should be allowed to return with Langton at
their head; and he also exacted an assurance that the clergy and
laity would be indemnified for the losses which they had
sustained through the interdict. The king signed this agreement
on the 13th of May, 1213, and four barons affixed their seals to
it. On the 14th John was engaged all day in private conference
with the legate.
On the morning of the 15th of May the king rose early and went to
the church of the Templars at Dover; a great crowd had already
assembled there, and John, kneeling and clasping the hand of the
legate in his own, swore in a loud clear voice an oath of
allegiance to the Holy See. At the same time he placed in the
hands of the pontiff's ambassador a document declaring that he,
John, king of England and Ireland, in expiation of his sins
against God and the Holy Church, without being constrained
thereto by force or by the fear of the interdict, but of his own
free will and with the consent of his barons, ceded to the Holy
Pope Innocent and to his heirs and successors forever, the
kingdom of England and dependency of Ireland, to be held by
himself John and by his successors as a fief of the Holy Church,
by paying an annual sum of a thousand marks of silver.
{208}
At the same time the king offered a purse as an earnest of his
submission. Pandulph threw it on the ground, trampling the money
disdainfully under foot, but he accepted the crown which John had
relinquished, and for five days it remained in his keeping. The
feast of the Ascension had passed,--the king caused the Hermit of
Wakefield to be tied to the tail of an untamed horse as a
punishment for his predictions; but the people maintained that
Peter had not been mistaken, because King John himself gave up
his crown.
Scarcely had the legate accomplished his mission in England when
he recrossed the sea to Philip's camp at Boulogne, announcing to
the latter that the states of his enemy would for the future form
part of the dominions of St. Peter, and that the King of France
no longer had permission to invade them. "But," said Philip, "I
have spent enormous sums of money in the preparations for war at
the Pope's bidding, and on his having granted remission of my
sins." He resolved to carry on the expedition, and was preparing
to set sail, when a quarrel with the Count of Flanders caused him
to turn his arms in that direction. The English fleet came to the
assistance of the Count, and gained a brilliant victory over the
vessels of Philip, who, finding himself deprived of the means of
transport and revictualling, was obliged to renounce, for the
time being, his expedition against England.
{209}
John had called all his subjects to arms; but when the barons met
him at Portsmouth they refused to embark in the ships until the
king had allowed the exiles whom he had called back to re-enter
the country. Langton was hateful in the eyes of John, who looked
upon him as the cause of the first dispute with Rome; but he was
obliged to yield, and the archbishop and the monks of Canterbury
once more set foot on English soil; the kiss of peace was
exchanged, and John embarked, reckoning on the support of the
barons. He arrived at Jersey, but the noblemen had not followed
him, pleading that the period of their service was at an end, and
they met at St. Alban's under the presidency of Chief-Justicier
Fitz-Piers, a man of low origin, whose marriage with the Countess
of Essex had placed him in a position which he maintained by
reason of his ability. They had already published a series of
royal declarations demanding the observance of the old laws, when
John, furious at the desertion of his vassals, returned,
pillaging and burning down everything on his way. The Archbishop
of Canterbury came to him. "You are not fulfilling your oath,
Sire," said he; "your vassals should be judged by their peers,
and not coerced by arms." "Pay attention to your Church," cried
the king angrily, "and leave me to govern the kingdom." Langton
threatened to excommunicate all the agents of the royal
vengeance, and John ended by summoning the barons to appear
before him.
Langton, on the other hand, had convoked them at London. When the
king entered the audience chamber, the cardinal held in his hand
a parchment document. It was the charter of King Henry I.; this
was neither the first nor the last charter which England received
since the Conquest. William the Conqueror, in 1071, had
guaranteed to his barons, by a charter, the performance of a
contract entered into between them, promising to reform the
abuses which had been pointed out to him, and securing to the
Saxons the maintenance of the laws of Edward the Confessor.
{210}
In 1101, King Henry I. had lately been proclaimed King of
England; the Duke Robert was claiming the throne by virtue of his
seniority. In order to secure the support of the Norman, as well
as the Saxon barons, Henry had convoked in London a general
assembly and signed a fresh charter, almost similar to his
brother's. It was this document which Archbishop Langton had
found, and which he was bringing to the barons assembled in
London, like their ancestors, not, as of old, to receive a
charter, but to force one upon the king.
King Stephen had also made the same promises, endowing the Church
likewise with a charter setting forth its rights. Finally, Henry
II., in 1154, had renewed the charters of King Stephen, and had
caused a copy of the document to be deposited in all the
churches; there is one of them remaining now. Cœur-de-Lion did
not sign any charter, but that of John Lackland was destined to
be glorious and powerful for ever afterwards under the title of
Magna Charta. The barons swore to observe the injunctions of
Henry I.'s charter, which had been presented to them by Langton,
to remain faithful to one another, and to secure their liberties
or to die defending them. This was on the 25th of August, 1213.
The Pope had abandoned the cause of English liberty on receiving
homage from King John; the interdict had been raised, and the
hostile forces of King Philip were gathering in all directions.
The Emperor of Germany, the Count of Flanders, and the Count of
Boulogne called the King of England to their aid. John sent
William Longsword, earl of Salisbury, his half-brother, to the
camp of the allies, and marched in person against Brittany, but
he did not come to blows with the heir to the throne of France,
Prince Louis, who had been sent forward by his father, on the
27th of July, while the latter was waging war against the
confederates at Bouvines.
{211}
On the 19th of October, John signed a five years' truce, and
returned to England furious, humiliated, and resolved to revenge
himself upon his English subjects for all the reverses of fortune
which he had suffered on the Continent. Fitz-Piers, whom John
feared and detested, was dead. The king burst into laughter on
learning this news. "God's teeth!" he cried; "this is the first
time that I have felt myself king and sovereign of England." But
Langton was the real chief of the conspiracy; the support which
the Pope lent to King John had not for a single moment shaken the
fidelity of the archbishop to the cause of the barons: they again
met, on the 20th of November, at Bury St. Edmund's, and, placing
their hands upon the altar, they swore one after another, that if
the king refused to grant the just rights which they claimed,
they would withhold their allegiance, and wage war against him
until he should have granted their demands by a charter sealed
with the royal seal.
Christmas-day arrived; the king found himself alone at Worcester,
his barons not having presented themselves to do homage to him.
John retired in great haste to London, and took refuge in the
fortress of the Templars. The barons followed him there this time
in larger numbers than he cared for, and on the day of the
Epiphany they haughtily presented their requests to him. John
eyed the faces which surrounded him, and which bore an inflexible
and resolute expression, both in the case of the priests and the
warriors. He turned pale. "Give me until Easter to reflect upon
all this," he said. Before consenting, the barons stipulated that
Cardinal Langton, the Bishop of Ely, and the Earl of Pembroke
should become sureties that the king would satisfy their claims
upon the day mentioned by him. They knew the value of John
Lackland's promises.
{212}
Scarcely had they left, when he threw himself under the
protection of the Church, renouncing all the prerogatives of the
throne in the choice of ecclesiastical dignitaries, and begging
the assistance of the Pope, who wrote to Langton, but with no
result. At length, John formally assumed the cross, on the 2nd of
February, hoping thus to avoid fulfilling his promises to the
English barons. He did not yet fully understand his subjects.
On Easter-day, the confederates had met together in large numbers
at Stamford; they sent a deputation to the king, who was at
Oxford. When Langton read aloud the claims of the barons, John
angrily exclaimed, "And why do they not also ask for my crown? By
God's teeth! I will not grant liberties which would make a slave
of me." The Pope's legate, who was there, maintained that Langton
ought to excommunicate the confederates. "The intentions of the
Holy Father have been misunderstood," said the archbishop calmly;
"if the mercenary followers of the king do not soon leave the
kingdom, whose ruin they are accomplishing, it is they whom I
will excommunicate." The barons then styled themselves the army
of God and of the Holy Church, and, placing Robert Fitz-Walter at
their head, they marched against Northampton Castle. The
resistance there was so actively carried on that the siege had to
be raised, and the barons advanced towards Bedford. The position
of affairs at this time was critical, and it was imperatively
necessary to know whether the citizens of the towns would support
the noble insurrectionists. Bedford opened its gates, and the
confederates took the road to London; they arrived there on the
morning of the 24th of May. The people received them joyfully,
and good order was maintained in the Army of the Holy Church. The
barons issued a proclamation, calling under their banners all the
knights who had hitherto remained aloof from the contest.
{213}
The king found himself unsupported, all the nobility of the
kingdom having risen against him. He yielded therefore, at least
for a time, to urgent necessity; he sent the Earl of Pembroke to
the barons assembled in London to assure them that he was quite
ready to grant the privileges and liberties which they claimed,
and asking on what day and at what place they would arrange
matters with him. "On the 15th of June, at Runnymede," replied
the barons.
On the 15th of June all the noblemen of England were there. "It
is not necessary to name them," says the chronicle, "for they
consisted of all the nobility of the country." Fitz-Walter was at
their head; the king was accompanied by the legate, by the
Grand-Master of the Templars, by eight bishops brought by
Langton, and by twelve barons, of whom the Earl of Pembroke was
the chief. The king's followers, with the exception of the legate
and the Templar, were as devoted to the liberties of England as
the confederate noblemen.
John did not put in any claim or make any objection; with an
amount of alacrity, which must have appeared suspicious to
far-seeing observers, he signed the charter which was presented
to him, and the great seal was affixed to it. The first real
token of English liberty had been acquired; the first stone of
the noble edifice of the Constitution was laid; the conditions
were well defined; and the rights and interests of the clergy as
well as those of the feudal nobility and of the merchants and
citizens who had supported the barons in their enterprise were
carefully provided for. Effectual guarantees were secured; the
necessity for causing persons who were arrested or punished to be
tried first of all in a court of justice, the establishment of
regular assizes, the maintenance of the integrity of justice, all
formed part of the fundamental rights claimed by the barons, who
also required the disbanding of the mercenary troops, and the
formation of a committee of twenty-five members entrusted with
the task of seeing to the fulfilment of all the clauses of the
compacts, the non-fulfilment of which gave the barons the right
of waging war with the king until their grievances should be
completely redressed. During two months the barons were to retain
possession of the city of London.
{214}
All these precautions were powerless, however, against treachery;
scarcely had the triumphant confederates left Runnymede when King
John flew into a terrible passion, rolling on the ground and
cursing the traitors who had dared to reduce him to slavery. The
mercenary troops, whom he was obliged, according to Magna Charta,
to disband, encouraged him in his anger and his plans for
revenge. John called fresh reinforcements to his aid. After the
treaties had been violated war broke out; the barons prepared for
it; a tournament, which had been announced, was decided to be
held nearer to London, and several gatherings had already taken
place when the thunderbolt which John had invoked fell upon the
heads of the English nobility. The Pope declared Magna Charta to
be void, holding that it was illegitimate, having been obtained
by force, and he commanded Langton to dissolve any confederation
under pain of being excommunicated. The archbishop set out for
Rome, in order to obtain a revocation of this sentence, and the
war commenced in England with the siege of Rochester. The place
was defended by D'Albiney, a member of the council of the
twenty-five. After a resistance, which lasted during two months,
the garrison, having come to the end of their resources, at
length opened the gates. John desired to hang the brave defenders
of the town; the chief of his free bands, Sauvery of Mauléon,
surnamed the Bloody, opposed his determination. "The war is only
beginning, Sire," said he, "if you commence by hanging your
barons, your barons will end by hanging us." The knights' lives
were spared, and the men-at-arms only were executed.
[Image]
King John's Anger After Signing Magna Charta.
{215}
Langton had failed in his mission at Rome, and had been deposed
from his see; the barons were excommunicated, and the city of
London placed under an interdict, but the confederates took no
notice of the two sentences. "The Pope had been misguided," they
said, "and had meddled in the temporal affairs of England, which
do not concern him, as the spiritual domain alone belongs to St.
Peter and his successors."
John however had become possessed of two large armies of
mercenary troops of Brabantines and of freelances, who willingly
executed the sanguinary orders of their chief; one corps was sent
to pursue their work of ravaging the counties of the East and the
Centre, the other marched towards the North under the command of
the king, repulsed into Scotland the young King Alexander, who
had crossed the frontier to lend his aid to the barons, and burnt
down and desolated the buildings in York, Northumberland, and
Cumberland. Everywhere the barons, in retiring, would lay waste
their houses and fields; everywhere the king burnt down whatever
he found standing; but he was still advancing, while the
confederates were retreating. They at length found themselves
shut up in the city of London; all their castles had fallen into
the hands of the tyrant, who had made a present of them to his
followers, to Satan's guards, as the people called them. The
families of the confederates were at the mercy of King John. The
barons resolved upon their course of action, a bitter one, that
of seeking aid abroad, and accordingly sent a deputation to
Philip-Augustus, proposing to give the crown of England to his
son Prince Louis, if he would come to their help with an army.
His arrival, it was thought, would immediately thin the ranks of
King John's supporters, for they were mostly Frenchmen, and would
be unwilling to fight against their own countrymen.
{216}
Philip-Augustus only wanted a pretext to meddle in the affairs of
England. He agreed to the proposals of the barons, not, however,
without requiring hostages as a guarantee of good faith; and in
spite of threats from the Pope, who forbade either the father or
the son to invade a fief of the Holy Church, Prince Louis set
sail in the month of July with a large army, raised chiefly
through the personal efforts of his wife, Blanche of Castile, a
niece of King John, in whose name Louis put forth his claim to
the crown of England. John's fears did not wait for the landing
of the French troops; he had left Dover, and had repaired to
Bristol, where the legate awaited him. Prince Louis landed at
Sandwich, and, almost without striking a blow, he marched to
London, which city he entered on the 2nd of June, 1216. The
entire population came to meet him, and, after having offered up
a prayer to St. Paul, he received homage from the barons and
citizens, promising to govern them according to their laws, to
protect their rights, and to restore their property to them. The
satisfaction was universal: the counties surrounding London
submitted willingly to Prince Louis; the oppressed inhabitants of
the North revolted. A large number of John's mercenary troops
deserted him, to return to their homes or to rally round the
standard of France; the nobility who had become reconciled to the
king, in the presence of the reverses sustained by the national
cause, abandoned him to join their old friends; and, lastly, Pope
Innocent III. was just dead (16th July), and hence the powerful
support of Rome was taken from him. John had only the fortresses
defended by his partisans remaining to him.
{217}
Meanwhile, Prince Louis was stopped at Dover Castle, and the
English barons at Windsor Castle. In vain did they attack the
massive walls with a machine which came from France, and which
was called the "Malvoisine." Hubert de Burgh held his ground
firmly at Dover, and the siege of Windsor had been raised; the
confederates had hoped to surprise the king at Cambridge; but
John had eluded them, and had proceeded to Lincoln, of which city
he took possession. The prospects of the confederation were not
flourishing; the reinforcements, which had been sent from France,
were checked by the English sailors who remained faithful to King
John. Prince Louis displayed little activity, and treated his
English allies in a haughty manner. He had already presented
several estates to the noblemen who had accompanied him from
France; one of them, the Viscount of Melun, was dead; and he had,
it was said, confessed, when dying, that the intention of the
French people, when their prince should be on the throne, was to
treat the English like men who had shown themselves untrustworthy
by reason of their treachery to their sovereign. Distrust and
discord had entered into the allied camps; several barons opened
negotiations with King John. The latter's position was
ameliorating; he had just left Wisbeach, and desired to proceed
to Cross-Keys, on the south of the Wash, when, on arriving at the
ford, he beheld the rising tide suddenly engulf the long line of
wagons which were carrying his luggage, his treasures, and his
provisions. The troops had already crossed the river, and were in
safety, but the king became furious at witnessing such an
irreparable loss; he arrived, exhausted with rage, at the convent
of the Cistercian monks at Swineshead.
{218}
No event, however dreadful, troubled King John while at table; he
ate some peaches and drank some new ale--so immoderately in fact,
that he fell ill on the morrow, and, thinking that he was
poisoned by the monks, he caused himself to be taken to Newark.
Death, the only enemy that John could not escape from, awaited
him there. He sent for a priest, nominated his son Henry as his
successor, and dictated a letter to the new Pope, Honorius, to
recommend his children to the care of the Holy Church. The
remembrance of his crimes did not seem to trouble him on his
death-bed; perhaps he held himself absolved from all his sins by
his allegiance to the Holy See. "I commit my soul to God and my
body to St. Wulstan," he said. He then expired on the 18th of
October, 1216. He was buried at Worcester, in the church of Saint
Wulstan. Death had at length delivered England of the cowardly
and faithless tyrant whom she had for a long while submitted to,
then vanquished, and against whom the country was still
struggling in defence of Magna Charta, which, after the lapse of
more than six centuries, remains the basis of English liberties.