Chapter V: John and the Pope (2)

Pandulf meanwhile had returned to France, and commanded Philip, on pain of the Pope’s displeasure, to lay aside all thoughts of invading England and go home in peace. Philip at first indignantly refused to abandon a scheme which, he said, he had planned at the Pope’s instigation, and for which he had already spent more than sixty thousand pounds.[813] But he dared not go on in the teeth of the papal prohibition; so he turned his wrath upon the one great feudatary of his realm who had refused to take part in the projected invasion, Count Ferrand of Flanders. Ordering his fleet to sail round as quickly as possible to Swine, the king dashed into Flanders at the head of all his forces. Ferrand besought help of John, with whom he was already in alliance; and John at once despatched five hundred ships, carrying a large body of horse and foot under the command of his half-brother Earl William of Salisbury and the counts of Holland and Boulogne.[814] They sailed on Tuesday, May 28, intending to land at Swine and march across the country to join Ferrand; but a contrary wind delayed them so that they did not reach Swine till Thursday, the 30th; and then, to their amazement, they found the harbour occupied by the French fleet, which, however, they soon discovered to be unguarded save by a few seamen, all the troops having gone ashore to ravage the neighbourhood. Salisbury at once ordered an attack; the French sailors were speedily overcome; three hundred ships laden with provisions were set drifting towards England, a hundred more were rifled of their contents and then set on fire. “Never came so much wealth into England since King Arthur went to conquer it,” says a contemporary poet.[815] Next day Count Ferrand came to meet his allies, and renewed his league with John.[816] On the Saturday--Whitsun Eve--the earls disembarked their troops and advanced to attack the French at Dam. The overwhelming numbers of the enemy, who were headed by King Philip himself, compelled them to retreat. Salisbury, however, not only escaped to his ships, but brought all his prizes safe to England;[817] while Philip was so mad with rage at the disaster to his fleet that he ordered the remnant of it to be burnt.[818] So far as England was concerned, his expedition was at an end.

John at once resolved that the fleet and the host which had been gathered for the defence of England should be used for an attack upon France. His plan was, while strengthening Ferrand’s hands so as to keep Philip busy in Flanders, himself to land with an army in Poitou, and thus place the French kingdom between two fires. At the end of June he reassembled his forces at Porchester, and again despatched William of Salisbury to Flanders with further reinforcements and large sums of money. The magnates, however, refused to accompany the king over sea till he was absolved from excommunication.[819] Their excuse was transparently false; his public absolution was indeed committed to Archbishop Stephen, and therefore deferred till Stephen’s arrival in England; but Pandulf had, in the Pope’s name, declared him reconciled to the Church. It could only be from political motives that men who had without protest marched with the excommunicate king against Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and gathered year after year at his festival banquets, now suddenly became more punctilious about a matter of ecclesiastical discipline than Innocent III. himself. It was, however, no moment for quarrelling with them openly; and their excuse, such as it was, soon ceased to exist.

King and legate had been rapidly pushing on the arrangements for the return of the exiles;[820] and in June or July Archbishop Stephen and four of the bishops landed at Dover.[821] On S. Margaret’s Day, Saturday, July 20, they were received by the king at Winchester.[822] He seems to have gone forth to meet them on the crest of the hill which lies to the east of the city.[823] He threw himself at the primate’s feet, bidding him welcome, and with tears imploring his mercy; “and the prelates and all the rest, when they saw this, could not refrain from weeping.” The procession made its way to the Old Minster and entered the chapter-house; the king swore on the Gospels “that he would cherish, defend and maintain the holy Church and her ordained ministers; that he would restore the good laws of his forefathers, especially S. Edward’s, rendering to all men their rights; and that before the next Easter he would make full restitution of all property which had been taken away in connexion with the Interdict.” This oath he seems to have repeated publicly at the door of the church; Stephen then formally absolved him, led him into the church, and celebrated mass in his presence, accepting his offering and giving him the kiss of peace; “and there was great joy among the people.”[824]

Having at last made up his mind to a formal reconciliation with both Pope and primate, John showed no signs of a wish to evade any part of its terms. During the past three months order after order had been issued in his name for carrying into effect the provisions of his agreement with Pandulf. The outlawry of the clergy had been revoked at once, on May 15, and this revocation was repeated on June 13.[825] Two laymen--Eustace de Vesci and Robert Fitz-Walter--who had gone into exile, not in company with any of the bishops nor for their sake, but on independent grounds, in the autumn of 1212, had been specially mentioned by name in John’s agreement with the Pope, and promised reinstatement in their lands and in the king’s favour. Safe-conducts were issued to these two barons on May 27, and orders for the restitution of their property on July 17, 19, and 21.[826] For the bishops something more than mere restitution was required; they, or the Pope and Pandulf for them, claimed indemnification as well; and the terms of the indemnity were difficult to decide. John seems to have proposed that they should be decided by a kind of general inquest; on the day {July 21} after his absolution he bade all the sheriffs in England cause a deputation of four men and the reeve from each township to be at S. Albans on August 4, “that through them and his other ministers he might ascertain the truth concerning the damages suffered by the several bishops, and what had been taken from them, and how much was due to each.” Whether such an inquisition was actually held does not appear; but early in August the justiciar and the bishop of Winchester met the primate, the other bishops and the magnates in a great council at S. Albans; there, in the king’s name, peace was proclaimed to all; the observance of King Henry’s laws and the disuse of evil customs were strictly enjoined; and the sheriffs, foresters, and other officers of the Crown were warned, “as they valued their limbs and their lives,” to commit no more extortions and wrongs, “as they had been wont to do.”[827]

John meanwhile had returned to the coast of Dorset, where the host had apparently been ordered to reassemble, with the intention of sailing for Poitou. In view of his own expected absence from England, he is said to have committed the government to the justiciar and the bishop of Winchester, bidding them “order all its affairs with the advice of the archbishop of Canterbury.”[828] The king’s departure, however, now met with a new series of checks. First the knights came to him in a body and protested that the months which had elapsed since they assembled for defence against the French had consumed all their money, so that they could not possibly follow him any farther unless he would pay their expenses. This he refused to do.[829] The barons of the north were the next recalcitrants; when called upon to accompany him over sea, they “with one mind and determination refused, asserting that according to the tenure of their lands they were not bound to him in this; besides that they were already too much worn out and impoverished by expeditions within the realm.”[830] The angry king embarked with his household on August 5 or 6, and sailed to Jersey; but finding that no one followed him thither he soon came back,[831] in a mighty rage, “cursing the day and hour when he had consented to the peace, and declaring that he had been deceived, and made a gazing-stock for nothing.”[832] His mercenaries and foreign auxiliaries were still a formidable host; and with these he set out for the north, “to bring back the rebels to their obedience.”[833] He seems to have landed at Corfe on August 9; he began his northward march from Winchester on the 16th, reached Wallingford on the 25th, and Northampton on the 28th.[834] On the 25th Archbishop Stephen was in London, presiding over a great council in S. Paul’s Cathedral.[835] Thence he hurried away in pursuit of the king; he overtook him at Northampton, and remonstrated vigorously against John’s plans of vengeance upon the northern barons, telling him he would bring contempt upon the oath which he had sworn before his absolution if he made war upon any man without a legal sentence. John “with a great clamour” declared that he would not put off the business of his realm for the archbishop, who had no concern with matters of lay jurisdiction; and early next morning he set out, “in a furious temper,” for Nottingham. The archbishop followed him, and threatened that unless the project were at once given up he would excommunicate every man, save the king himself, who should take part in any military expedition so long as the interdict continued in force; nor could John shake him off till he had appointed a day for the accused barons to come and stand their trial in his court.[836]

Characteristically, John behaved as if unconscious of defeat. He carried out his progress through the north in peaceable instead of warlike guise, and did not return to London till the end of September.[837] His arrival there was timed to coincide with that of the papal legate who came as the specially appointed minister of England’s restoration to the communion of the Church, and whose authority would for the time supersede that of the primate. On September 27 Cardinal Nicolas of Tusculum landed in England.[838] On the 30th he met the king, bishops and barons at a council in London, to discuss plans for a pecuniary settlement between the Crown and the clergy. John offered the bishops one hundred thousand marks down, with security for the payment before next Easter of any damages in excess of that sum which might be discovered on further investigation. The legate urged the bishops to accept this offer; but they preferred to accept nothing till they had prepared their own estimate and could demand the sum total at once; and the king readily consented to the delay. Three days had been spent in the discussion. On the fourth day, October 3, the council reassembled in S. Paul’s. At the foot of the high altar, in the sight of clergy and people, the ceremony which John and Pandulf had gone through at Ewell was repeated by John and Nicolas. John resigned his crown into the legate’s hands, received it back from him, and swore fealty to him as the Pope’s representative; and the charter of homage and tribute, which had been temporarily sealed with wax and delivered to Pandulf, was sealed with gold and finally made over to Nicolas, “for the benefit of the Pope and the Roman Church.”[839]

Still the interdict could not be raised till the settlement between the Crown and the bishops was completed; and another meeting for this purpose was appointed to take place at Reading on November 3. To this meeting all the interested parties came, except the king,[840] who was at Wallingford, where it seems he had appointed the northern barons to appear before his court on All Saints’ Day. The legate was there too, and through his mediation the barons were reconciled to the king and admitted to the kiss of peace.[841] As John did not show himself at Reading, the bishops went to Wallingford in their turn. By that time John had moved on to Woodstock; but he seems to have returned to Wallingford to meet them for a few hours on November 5,[842] and repeated his former proposals. These, however, “seemed little to those who had had their castles razed, their houses levelled with the ground, and their woods cut down”; so that it was decided to refer the matter to the arbitration of four barons. But this arbitration never took place. “All the parties concerned in the matter of the interdict” came together again at Reading on December 6,[843] and each of the injured persons brought forth a schedule of the amount of his losses and damages; the legate, however, supported the king in his refusal to pay the whole sum at once; and after three days’ deliberation no one received anything at all, except the archbishop and the five bishops who had been in exile beyond the sea, to whom John on December 12 ordered the payment of fifteen thousand marks.[844] At last it seems to have been agreed that the damages should be investigated by two sets of commissioners acting together, one set appointed by the king, the other by the primate, and that the sum to be paid by the Crown should be fixed--doubtless on the report of these commissioners--by the Pope; and this scheme was carried out in the following year.[845]

[Sidenote: 1213–14]

Other questions had arisen in connexion with the settlement between Church and king. There were no less than six vacant sees and thirteen vacant abbeys,[846] all, of course, in the king’s hands. In July 1213 John issued orders for filling these vacancies in the manner which had been customary under Henry II.; the several chapters were bidden to send delegates, by whom an election was to be made in the king’s presence, wherever he might chance to be.[847] This arrangement implied a tacit understanding that the delegates were to elect a candidate designated by the king. The bishops seized their opportunity to protest against this practice and claim for the churches their canonical right of free election, subject only to the royal assent, signified by the grant of the regalia. The legate seems to have been, passively at least, on the side of the Crown; but John was anxious to avoid any fresh quarrel with the primate, and he therefore allowed the elections to be left in abeyance till Nicolas should receive instructions about the matter from the Pope. These came at last in a somewhat ambiguous form. Innocent bade Nicolas cause the vacant sees and abbeys to be filled with men “not only distinguished for their good life and learning, but also faithful to the king and useful as helpers and advisers for the welfare of the realm, and appointed by means of canonical election or postulation, the king’s assent being sought thereunto.”[848] It was obviously possible to interpret this letter as sanctioning, by implication at least, the claims of the Crown; and Nicolas was quite willing thus to interpret it in John’s favour. John, however, knew that no such interpretation would ever be accepted by Langton; and with Langton he had no mind to quarrel at that moment, even though he might have the legate on his own side. He did indeed issue on January 2, 1214, orders for the election of a bishop to Worcester and an abbot to Eynsham, “according to the customs of the realm”;[849] but he seems to have immediately afterwards made an arrangement with the archbishop which satisfied the latter for the time being. On the 12th John signified to Stephen his acceptance of “the form known to us concerning the making of elections, saving our right in all things”; he abandoned his claim to have the elections held only in his own presence, and delegated the power of giving them the royal assent to the ministers who were to have the charge of the realm during his absence beyond the sea; and he closed his letter to the archbishop with the words: “Be assured that there is no controversy between us.”[850] On the 26th he wrote again to Stephen, requesting him to confirm the election of the vice-chancellor, Walter de Gray, to the see of Worcester, and issued orders for elections to five bishoprics and three great abbeys.[851]

[Sidenote: 1213]

What made both John and Stephen anxious for an agreement on this point was the king’s approaching departure for the Continent. Soon after Stephen’s arrival in England John had made up his mind that his expedition to Poitou must be postponed till the spring,[852] and in August (1213) he fixed February 2, 1214, as its approximate date.[853] Throughout the autumn and winter the fleet was preparing at Portsmouth under the superintendence of William de Wrotham, archdeacon of Taunton.[854] Arrangements were also in progress for securing the tranquillity of the realm during the king’s absence. On June 3 John--according to his own account at Pandulf’s desire--had made a truce with the Welsh to last till August 1.[855] By August 25 he had enlisted the aid of the newly arrived primate as a peacemaker between the English realm and these troublesome neighbours; the wardens of the Marches were authorized to agree to a prolongation of the truce till November 1, on the understanding that at its expiration the archbishop of Canterbury would negotiate with the Welsh on the king’s behalf.[856] Of these negotiations there is no further record; but they seem to have resulted in keeping the Welsh in check for some months at least.

In Ireland and in England John had to provide himself with new vicegerents. In July Bishop John of Norwich resigned the justiciarship of the Irish March to go to Rome on a mission for the king; the archbishop of Dublin was appointed justiciar in his stead.[857] On October 14 the office of chief justiciar of England was vacated by the death of Geoffrey Fitz-Peter,[858] who had held it ever since 1198, when he was appointed to it by Richard on the resignation of Hubert Walter. It is impossible to regard Geoffrey as a patriot; had he been one, he could scarcely have held the reins of government under John for fourteen years without coming into open conflict with his master. He was, however, a man of much weight in the land by reason of his noble birth, his great wealth, and his knowledge of law, and also because he was connected by kindred, affinity or friendship with all the great baronial houses. Such a man was necessarily somewhat of a check upon the self-will of John. The king’s personal feeling towards his minister found a characteristic expression when he heard of Geoffrey’s death: “When he gets to hell,” laughed John, “he may greet Archbishop Hubert, whom he is sure to meet there!”[859] So long as the king was himself in England he could do without any justiciar at all; and accordingly no successor was appointed to Geoffrey for more than three months. John was, however, too cautious to venture upon any glaring abuse of his newly acquired freedom of action[860] at a moment when it was of the utmost importance for him to conciliate all parties and all classes by every means in his power. The one recorded incident of this period of John’s personal government, indeed, looks almost like a dim foreshadowing of one of the most weighty innovations which were to be made by the constitutional reformers of the latter part of the century.

It seems that at the end of October or early in November the tenants by knight-service were ordered to meet the king at Oxford on November 15. On November 7 John sent letters to the sheriffs bidding each one of them cause the knights within his shire to appear as previously directed, with their arms, the barons also in person but without arms, “and”--so ran the writ--“that thou cause to come thither at the same time four discreet men of the shire, to speak with us concerning the affairs of our realm.”[861] This writ is the earliest known instance of an attempt to call into council on “the affairs of the realm” representatives of the freemen of the shire, as distinguished from the tenants-in-chivalry. Representatives in the strict sense of the word, indeed, they were not; the writ says nothing of how they were to be chosen, and there can be little doubt that they would be selected by the sheriff. Still, the fact remains that--so far as extant evidence goes--John Lackland seems to have been the first English statesman who proposed to give some place, however subordinate, in the great council of the realm to laymen who were neither barons nor knights, but simple freemen. His motive is plain; he was seeking to win the support of the yeomen as a counterpoise to the hostility of the barons. Unluckily we know nothing of the results of his experiment, and cannot even be sure that it was actually tried; for though the king was certainly at Oxford in that year on November 15 and the two following days,[862] no mention occurs, in either chronicle or record, of any council holden there at that date.

[Sidenote: 1213–14]

At Christmas John held his court at Windsor, “where he distributed robes of state to a multitude of his nobles.”[863] Immediately afterwards Count Ferrand of Flanders came over to cement his alliance with the English king by performing his homage to him in person, at Canterbury, in the second week of January 1214.[864] Raymond of Toulouse had been over shortly before; the fortunes of war had gone utterly against him, and nothing but prompt succour from John, in some shape or other, could enable him to hold out any longer in his capital city, the sole refuge now left to him. He is said to have gone back, after doing homage to John, with a subsidy of ten thousand marks.[865] Early in January the king announced to the primate and the bishops that he himself was about to depart over sea, and begged that they would lend their support to Bishop Peter of Winchester and the other persons in whose charge he intended to leave the kingdom during his absence.[866] At the end of the month he put in train a scheme for conciliating the eldest son of the late justiciar by marrying him to the greatest heiress in England--that same Countess Isabel of Gloucester who had once been married to John himself.[867] On February 1 John by letters patent appointed Peter des Roches, the bishop of Winchester, to the office of justiciar of England, and committed his realm to the custody and protection of the Holy Roman Church, the Pope and the Legate, leaving Peter as keeper of the peace in his stead.[868] Next day he embarked at Portsmouth with his queen, his son Richard,[869] his niece Eleanor of Britanny, and a quantity of treasure; he spent a few days at Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight, and thence sailed to Poitou.[870]

[Sidenote: 1214]

It was evidently of set purpose that the appointment of a new chief justiciar had been delayed till the very eve of the king’s departure. When it came to the knowledge of the barons, they all grumbled at having a foreigner set over them;[871] but they did not know it till the expedition had sailed, and their discontent could vent itself only in useless words.

Over sea the king’s partisans were ready to welcome him. At La Rochelle the barons of Aquitaine came crowding to offer him their allegiance.[872] Leaving La Rochelle on February 20, he moved northward to Mervant, in the middle of Lower Poitou. Mervant belonged to Geoffrey de Lusignan; and the king’s visit to this place may have been connected with some negotiations between him and the Lusignan family which were certainly begun soon after his landing in Aquitaine. He next proceeded southward, to the abbey of La Grâce-Dieu on the border of Saintonge; on February 25 he was at Niort.[873] Meanwhile he had opened communications with the men of Périgord and the viscounts of Limoges and Turenne.[874] On March 6 he was back at La Rochelle, whence he sent on the 8th, in letters patent addressed to the “good men” of all the chief cities of England, the following account of his expedition: “Know ye that we and our faithful followers whom we brought with us to Poitou are safe and well, and by God’s grace we have already begun to expedite our affairs to the joy and gladness of our friends and the confusion of our foes. For on the Sunday before Mid-Lent {March 2} we laid siege to the castle of Milécu, which Porteclin de Mausé had fortified against us, and on the following Tuesday {March 4} we took it.”[875] Moving across Saintonge and up the Charente, he reached Angoulême on the 13th, stayed there two days, then advanced eastward to Saint-Junien and Aixe in the Limousin;[876] at Aixe, on March 22, he granted the seneschalship of Limoges to Emeric de Roche, and that of Périgord to Geoffrey Teyson.[877] On Palm Sunday, March 23, he left Aixe, and thence he struck right across the county of La Marche to Saint-Vaury and La Souterraine, on the southern border of Berry; he spent Good Friday and Easter at La Souterraine,[878] and there, on Easter Day (March 30), he received the homage of the count of Périgord.[879] He then re-crossed La Marche and the Limousin--stopping this time for two days at Grandmont, where the monks evidently still had a ready welcome for the son of their old friend King Henry--back to Limoges and Angoulême, Cognac and Saintes; thence, turning southward, he proceeded through Périgord as far as La Réole in the county of Agen. On April 20 he was back at Mausé in Saintonge, and for the next fortnight he was never far from either La Rochelle or Niort; but on May 6 he was at Saint-Léger in Anjou, and it was there that he spent Ascension Day, May 8. Two days later he was again at Niort.[880]

The panegyrist of Philip Augustus asserts that John’s sudden dash into the lands south of Périgord was prompted by dread of Philip, who, “being desirous to meet him” in the field, had hurried to the Poitevin border, and was preparing to cut him off from his fleet. The same writer, however, owns almost in the same breath that “no one knows, ever has known, or ever will know, the way of a serpent, of a ship on the deep, of a feather in the wind, or of a deceiver” such as John; and that Philip dared neither attempt to follow him nor await his return, but hurried back--after burning the rural districts of Poitou--to protect his own interests in Flanders.[881] John’s erratic movements had probably a double purpose: to baffle Philip, and to ascertain the extent of his own resources in the south. Of more real importance than these tentative excursions was a negotiation which he had set on foot with the house of Lusignan, whose alliance and allegiance he proposed to regain by giving the infant Joan, his eldest daughter by Isabel of Angoulême, in marriage to young Hugh of La Marche, as compensation for the loss of Isabel herself. The first preliminary was a truce with the counts of La Marche and Eu; and it was probably this truce which enabled John to pass unmolested through La Marche on his way to and from La Souterraine. The third Lusignan brother, Geoffrey, seems not to have been included in the truce; and when it expired no terms of peace had been agreed upon. “We therefore”--so wrote John to his representatives in England--“on the Friday next before Pentecost {May 16} transported ourself and our army to Geoffrey’s castle of Mervant; and although many believed it impregnable by assault, yet on Whitsun Eve {May 17}, by one assault lasting from daybreak to the hour of prime, we took it by force. On Whitsunday {May 18} we laid siege to another of Geoffrey’s castles, Vouvant, in which was he himself with his two sons; and when we had plied our slings against it continually for three days {May 20}, so that its fall was imminent, the count of La Marche came to us and caused the said Geoffrey to surrender himself to our mercy, with his two sons, his castle, and all that was in it.” Another of Geoffrey’s castles, Montcontour, which lay farther east, close to the Angevin border, was at the same time besieged by Louis of France. The French king seems to have discovered the negotiations of the Lusignans with his rival, and to have been so much alarmed at the prospect of a reconciliation which would deprive him of his best helpers in Aquitaine that he tried to prevent it by offering a son of his own as bridegroom for little Joan; but Joan’s father was too wary to take the French bait. On learning that Louis was at Montcontour, “we,” says John, “at once turned thitherward to meet him; so that on Trinity Sunday {May 25} we were at Parthenay, where the count of La Marche and the count of Eu came to us with the said Geoffrey of Lusignan and did us homage and fealty. And as it had been under discussion between ourself and the count of La Marche that we should give our daughter Joan in marriage to his son, we did so grant it to him, although the king of France asked for her for his own son; but that demand was a trick; for we remembered how our niece was given to the French king’s son Louis, and what was the consequence of that; but may God grant us more profit from this marriage than we have had from that one! And now,” ends the king with a burst of eager anticipation, “by God’s grace there is given us an opportunity to carry our attack upon our chief enemy, the king of France, beyond the limits of Poitou.”[882]

He made good use of his opportunity. Louis had apparently retired from Montcontour at his approach, for we hear nothing of any encounter between them, and within twenty-four hours of his departure from Parthenay John was at Cissé, only a few miles from Poitiers. On Poitiers he made no attempt, but passed on into Berry, into which he penetrated as far north as Chezelles (June 7). Four days later he was at Ancenis, on the border of Anjou and Britanny. The next week was spent in feeling his way towards Angers. From Ancenis, on June 12, he moved up the Loire to St. Florent and Rochefort,[883] thus securing the approach to the city from the west and south. Then, by a master stroke of audacity, he seems to have suddenly made a rapid march westward again, to draw up his forces on June 13[884] within sight of Nantes. The citizens and the French garrison came forth to meet him at the bridge outside the city; in the fight which ensued John’s troops were completely victorious, and twenty French knights were taken prisoners, among them a cousin of the French king, the eldest son of Count Robert of Dreux whose second son, Peter, was now recognized by the French as “count of Britanny” in right of his wife Alice, the half-sister of Arthur and Eleanor.[885] Whether this victory struck terror into the men of Angers, and whether they opened their gates to the victor in consequence, we cannot tell; we only know that on June 17 and 18 John was once more in the original capital of his forefathers.[886] But once more he was compelled by the untrustworthiness of his followers to turn his back upon it, and this time for ever.

The castles in the immediate neighbourhood of Angers were mostly in the hands of John or his friends; there was, however, one important exception--La Roche-au-Moine,[887] where William des Roches, now seneschal of Anjou for Philip Augustus, had lately built a fortress to protect the road between Angers and Nantes against the garrison of Rochefort, whose commandant was a partisan of John.[888] To La Roche-au-Moine John laid siege with all his forces on June 19. The siege had lasted a fortnight[889] when Louis advanced from Chinon to relieve the place, then on the verge of surrender. At the tidings of his approach John sent out scouts to ascertain the strength of the enemy; they returned with the assurance that the English king had an overwhelming advantage in numbers, and was certain to be victorious if he engaged the French in a pitched battle. John was eager for the fight;[890] so, according to the French historiographer-royal, was Louis, who sent to his rival a public challenge, which John as publicly accepted.[891] But the “wonted treachery”--as an exasperated English writer calls it--of the Poitevins overthrew his hopes. According to one account, “the barons of Poitou, disdaining to follow the king, said that they were not ready for a fight in the open field.”[892] According to the French version of the story, the immediate author of John’s discomfiture was the veteran turncoat Almeric of Thouars, who, it seems, addressed John in a most insulting manner, mocking at his eagerness for battle, insinuating that it was mere boastfulness which the king would never carry out in act, and then made it impossible for him to do so, by withdrawing himself and all his followers from the host.[893] Whichever version be the correct one, the consequences were inevitable; John could not risk an encounter with Louis after such a revelation of treason in his own ranks. In rage and grief he broke up the siege {July 2}, and hurried away to the south side of the Loire.[894]

His retreat, however, implied no abandonment of the design which had brought him across the sea. His expedition was only a part of the great combination whereby he hoped to bring Philip Augustus to ruin. Through long years of diplomacy he had knit together a league which included all the powers on the northern and eastern borders of France, and, now that it was at last ready for united action, threatened the very existence of the French monarchy. While John was scouring the country between the Loire and the Dordogne, a formidable host was gathering in Flanders. Earl William of Salisbury was there with a picked band of Englishmen; the Flemish troops under Hugh de Boves who had been serving John as mercenaries in England had been recalled to swell the muster in their native land; Count Reginald of Boulogne and Count William of Holland had joined their forces to those of Ferrand; all alike were soldiers of the king of England, receiving his pay through William of Salisbury, who as John’s representative was Marshal of the whole host. While that host ravaged Ponthieu, the dukes of Brabant and Louvain “with all their might” attacked the north-eastern extremity of the French border, in concert with a certain German count “whom the French called _Pelu_.” The Emperor Otto was in full sympathy with the allies, helping them indirectly by his “counsel and favour”; at last, when the eastern and western divisions of the composite host had effected a junction, he himself came with a small body of knights to join their ranks.[895]

So skilfully and secretly had the combination been planned that Philip was quite unprepared to meet it. He had sent the greater part of his available forces southward under Louis to check the progress of John. For the moment this had been achieved, not so much by Louis as by the Poitevin traitors. But the check was only momentary; Louis made no attempt to follow John across the Loire; and John was already taking steps to fill the places of the Poitevin deserters with more trustworthy troops. On July 9 he wrote from La Rochelle to “all his faithful men” in England, telling them that he was safe and prosperous, thanking them for the support which they had given him hitherto, and desiring that all those who had not accompanied him over sea would come to his aid now, unless their presence at home was specially required by his representatives in the government. “And if,” he added, “any one of you should think that we have been displeased with him, his surest way to set that matter right is by coming at our call.”[896] France was caught between two fires. The most imminent danger was from the allies who were ready to pour into the realm from the north and east; but Philip, though conscious that the troops which he had at hand were insufficient to cope with this danger, dared not recall Louis while John was still threatening attack from the south. Gathering courage from the extremity of the peril, the French king hastily collected what forces he could--counts, barons, knights, men-at-arms, horse and foot, with the communes of the towns and villages--bade the bishops and clergy, monks and nuns, offer up masses, prayers and alms for the safety of the realm, and marched boldly against the invaders. He met them at the bridge of Bouvines on Sunday, July 27, and routed them completely. Hugh de Boves fled; Otto fled likewise, or was driven from the field; the earl of Salisbury, the counts of Flanders and Boulogne and the German count were made prisoners, together with Otto’s seneschal and a crowd of other knights. The great coalition which had cost John so many years of diplomacy and such vast sums of money to build up was shivered into fragments at a single blow.[897]

Philip re-entered Paris in triumph with his captives,[898] and then marched southward to unite his victorious army with that of his son.[899] Against the whole military forces of France, thus concentrated and in their present mood of exalted patriotism and enthusiastic loyalty, John was still eager to continue the war; in the middle of August Peter des Roches was trying to secure the fulfilment of an order from the king for three hundred Welshmen to join him over sea before the end of the month.[900] But another power stepped in to check the hostilities between the kings. Innocent III. was planning a new crusade, and the first necessity for his purpose was the restoration of peace in Europe. As early as April 22 he had urged both the kings, on pain of ecclesiastical censures, to cease from the strife which was hindering the work to be done in the Holy Land and imperilling the safety of Christendom, and to make at least a truce till after the meeting of a general council,[901] the date of which he had already fixed for All Saints’ Day 1215.[902] The English-born cardinal who was now legate in France, Robert Curson, seems to have urged the barons who were with John to persuade him to agree to a truce for nine days, with a view to arranging a personal interview between John and Philip.[903] The French king had advanced as far as Loudun, where he received the submission of Almeric of Thouars and several other Poitevin barons. John was some seventeen miles off, at Parthenay, “having,” says Philip’s biographer, “no place to flee unto, and not daring either to stay where he was, or to offer battle.”[904] To offer battle at that moment, with the legate and the barons all urgent for peace, would indeed have been madness; so on August 30 John signified his assent to a cessation of hostilities for a fortnight from the next day, if the legate would ensure its observance on the French side.[905] On September 3 John withdrew to Saint-Maixent; thence he went on the 9th to Niort; on the 12th he returned to Parthenay,[906] and there, on the 13th, he, by letters patent, pledged himself to ratify whatever terms nine envoys, whom he named, should agree upon with Philip.[907]

These envoys were supported by the legate in person; “and,” says William the Breton, “although the high-souled King Philip, having in his army two thousand knights and more, besides a multitude of other troops, could easily have seized the whole land and the person of the king of England, yet with his wonted benignity he granted a truce.”[908] In England Philip was reported to have yielded either to the authority of the Pope, or to the attraction of sixty thousand marks offered to him by John.[909] We may doubt whether either of these motives, or all of them united, would have proved effectual, if the complete overthrow and capture of his rival had really been as easy as the Breton court-historian imagined. The truce was dated from September 18, and was to last for five years from the next Easter, 1215. The conditions were that each party should retain its prisoners; that the oath sworn to Philip by the towns of Flanders and Hainaut should be recognized as valid; that Philip, his men, and his adherents should hold throughout the time of the truce whatever they held on the day of its commencement; and that any disputes which might arise should be settled at certain appointed places by the sworn arbitrators of the truce, who were eight in number, each of the kings being represented by two laymen, an abbot and a secular priest. The _maltôte_ or tax levied by each king on the adherents of his rival was to be given up if John, its originator, consented to renounce it; if not, Philip claimed the right to continue it likewise. Frederic of Sicily was to be included in the truce as an ally of Philip, and Otto as a friend of John, if they chose to be so included; if otherwise, then Philip was to be at liberty to assist Frederic and John to assist Otto, within the boundaries of the empire, without violating the peace between themselves.

[Sidenote: 1214]

Philip’s proclamation of the truce was issued on September 18 from Chinon.[910] John seems to have been then still at Parthenay. The terms secured to him the very utmost that he could possibly hope to attain, now that he was deprived of the co-operation of his allies in the north. He had in fact, as an English writer says, “completed what he had to do over sea,”[911] as well as his share of the work could be completed when that work as a whole was ruined by the disaster of Bouvines. On September 21 he was again at Niort, on the 30th at Saintes, and at some date between October 2 and 13 he sailed from La Rochelle to England.[912]

To all outward seeming England was at peace. The Pope’s letter containing his decision as to the conditions on which the interdict was to be withdrawn had reached John on March 4, at the siege of Milécu, and he had at once sent it on to Peter des Roches for delivery to the legate Nicolas,[913] whom he had, before leaving England, empowered to settle the matter in conjunction with William the Marshal. A council was summoned at S. Paul’s; the Pope’s decision was communicated to the assembled prelates and barons, and the legate asked for an account of the sums already paid by the Crown in connexion with the interdict, that he might know how much was still wanting to complete the forty thousand marks which the Pope had fixed as the total of the indemnity. When this was ascertained, it was agreed that the remainder--thirteen thousand marks--should stand over on the security of the bishops of Winchester and Norwich and of the king himself.[914] This last John gave by letters patent issued from Angers on June 17[915]; and as soon as these letters reached England, Nicolas solemnly withdrew the interdict {June–July}.[916]

Serious grievances connected with it, however, still remained. A special tax seems to have been levied throughout the realm, under the title of “aid for the relaxation of the interdict”[917]--either to pay the remainder of the indemnity to the bishops or to furnish the tribute due to Rome. No indemnification was provided for the losses of any one except the bishops; the multitude of lower clergy, the monks, nuns and lay people of both sexes whose property had been seized or damaged “on occasion of the interdict” were ignored in the settlement. When they applied to the legate for redress, he told them that he had no instructions to deal with their case, but that they might appeal to the Pope.[918] For the great majority of individual victims, ruined as they were, such an appeal was impracticable. The greater religious houses might have been able to attempt it; but regulars and seculars alike were apparently in too much dread of the king to attempt anything at all. Within two months after his return to England John put forth a demand to the clergy of at least one diocese, and to several religious houses, in the shape of a courteous request that they would waive all claim to the return of “those things which you gave to us in the time of the interdict, and which are now described as having been taken from you.” A form of renunciation or quit-claim was issued, evidently intended for distribution throughout the country, to be signed by the parties concerned.[919] John in fact seems to have again asked all the English clergy, as he had asked them two years before, for a quit-claim on the plea that their contributions had been voluntary; and though we have no statement of the result, there seems no reason to doubt that in 1214, as in 1212, the audacious demand was complied with.

The weakness of the clergy was partly owing to the fact that they were disappointed in their hopes of finding a champion in the legate. At his coming he had been hailed as a reformer both in Church and State[920]; but the year 1214 had scarcely begun when Archbishop Stephen, after consultation with his suffragans,[921] addressed to him a solemn protest, threatening to appeal against him to the Pope unless he desisted from instituting prelates to vacant churches, contrary to the rights of the metropolitan. Nicolas disregarded the protest, and commissioned Pandulf--who had just gone back to Rome--to defend him against the appeal.[922] For nine months Nicolas continued to exercise his influence as he chose, without remonstrance from the Pope. He was an instrument which could not be dispensed with until its special work--the removal of the interdict--was done; moreover, the king was on the Continent, and in the doubtful state of political affairs it would scarcely have been prudent, during his absence, for Innocent to withdraw his own representative from England. No sooner, however, had John returned than Nicolas was summoned back to Rome.[923] It is clear that Stephen’s protest and appeal had been really directed not merely against legatine intrusion into his own metropolitical rights, but also, and chiefly, against the legate’s interpretation of the papal letter concerning elections to churches, and his action in making himself the medium of royal interference in this matter.[924] Stephen indeed seems to have looked upon Nicolas as the chief obstacle to a settlement, between himself and the king, of this question of elections; and a formal settlement, wholly in the Church’s favour, was in fact made as soon as king and archbishop were once more face to face. On November 21 John published a grant of free and canonical election to all the churches in his realm.[925] This grant, like every other acknowledgement made by the Crown, before or since, of the Church’s right on this point, was of course destined never to be anything but a dead letter. But it served John’s purpose. It saved him from a fresh quarrel with the Church at a moment when the struggle with the barons in which he had been engaged almost ever since his accession to the Crown had entered upon a new phase and assumed a new character which made it, alike for them and for him, a matter of life and death.

FOOTNOTES:

[700] _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1210.

[701] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 202.

[702] _Brut y Tywysogion_, a. 1210.

[703] The _Brut_ (a. 1210) says that the host assembled at “Caerleon,” and returned to England “about Whitsuntide.” It places the campaign in 1210, but this is obviously a year too early. Cf. _Ann. Cambr._ a. 1211, and W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 203. John was at Chester (_i.e._ “Caerleon”) on May 16 and 17, 1211, the Tuesday and Wednesday before Whitsunday; _Itin._ a. 13. The Itinerary shows that the expedition had not taken place earlier than this; and from May 17 to August 29 there is a blank.

[704] _Ann. Cambr._ a. 1211. Cf. _Brut_, a. 1210.

[705] _Brut_, a. 1210.

[706] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 203.

[707] July 8, R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 235. The _Brut_, _l.c._, says he “returned to Wales about the calends of August.”

[708] Fourteen “or more,” according to _Ann. Cambr._ a. 1211.

[709] _Brut_, a. 1210. Cf. _Ann. Cambr._, _Margan._, _Tewkesb._, _Winton._, _Waverl._ a. 1211; W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 203, and R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 235. Roger says John was back at Whitchurch on August 15.

[710] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 203.

[711] Cf. _Canterbury Chronicle_, in Stubbs’s Gerv. Cant. vol. ii. pp. cvi., cvii., cxi., cxii.; Gerv. Cant. vol. ii. p. 106; R. Coggeshall, p. 164; _Ann. Winton._, _Waverl._, and _Dunst._ a. 1210. The date comes from _Itin._ a. 11.

[712] _Ann. Waverl._ a. 1211.

[713] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 234, 235. He gives no date; but John was in London, seemingly for the only time in 1210, at the end of October; he dates from the Tower on October 27. _Itin._ a. 12.

[714] _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1210. Cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 164, and _Ann. Waverl._ a. 1210.

[715] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 235.

[716] M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. p. 12. Cf. W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 201, and R. Coggeshall, p. 163.

[717] Cf. _Ann. Winton._ and _Waverl._ a. 1211.

[718] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 235, 236.

[719] The second appendix to Innoc. III. _Epp._ l. xv. No. 234--“Forma quidem est talis” (printed also, under the heading “Instructiones legato traditae,” in _Foedera_, vol. i. pt. i. p. 109)--is obviously a copy, enclosed in a letter of 1213, of the original commission issued to Pandulf and Durand in 1211. See below, p. 179.

[720] The day comes from _Ann. Burton._ a. 1211, and we know from the _Itinerary_, a. 13, that John was at Northampton on August 29. The _Ann. Waverl._ date this conference a year too late, viz. 1212. Cf. W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 204; R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 235, and _Ann. Margan._, _Tewkesb._, _Winton._, _Oseney_, and _Worcester_, a. 1211.

[721] _Ann. Burton_, a. 1211. Cf. _Ann. Waverl._ a. 1212.

[722] _Ann. Burton_, a. 1211.

[723] _Ann. Waverl._ a. 1211. Cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 164.

[724] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 238.

[725] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 206.

[726] _Foedera_, vol. i. pt. i. p. 104.

[727] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 238. Cf. _Chronn. Mailros_ and _Lanercost_, a. 1212.

[728] _Itin._ a. 14.

[729] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 206.

[730] _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1210.

[731] This inquest was taken _a. r._ 12 and 13 (_i.e._ May 1210–May 1212); _Red Book_, vol. ii. pp. 469–574.

[732] _A._ 13 John (May 1211–May 1212); _Red Book_, vol. ii. pp. 575–621.

[733] _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1211.

[734] R. Howden, vol. iv. pp. 31, 37–9; R. Diceto, vol. ii. p. 163.

[735] _Foedera_, vol. i. pt. i. p. 70.

[736] Cf. R. Howden, vol. iv. pp. 83 and 116. The account of Richard’s testamentary dispositions in the former place is open to two interpretations. Richard, says Roger, “divisit Johanni fratri suo regnum Angliae ... et praecepit ut traderentur ei castella sua, et tres partes” [in p. 116 Otto claims only “duas partes”] “thesauri sui, et omnia baubella sua divisit Othoni nepoti suo regi Alamannorum; et quartam partem thesauri sui praecepit servientibus suis et pauperibus distribui.” Grammatically, there is nothing to show whether “tres partes thesauri sui” is meant to be connected with “praecepit ut traderentur ei [Johanni]” or with “divisit Othoni,” but common sense strongly supports the former interpretation; however anxious Richard may have been to help his nephew, he could not possibly mean deliberately to leave his own chosen successor literally without a penny. The actual wording of Richard’s will may, indeed, have been as ambiguous as Roger’s summary of it, and Otto may have tried to take advantage of its ambiguity. His claim to the earldoms seems somewhat unreasonable; he had never really held the earldom of York, and it was for that very reason that Richard had granted him Poitou; but it was clearly preposterous to expect John to renew this latter grant after Otto had accepted the German Crown.

[737] R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 116; _Foedera_, vol. i. pt. i. p. 80.

[738] Leibnitz and Scheidt, _Origines Guelficae_, vol. iii. pp. 281, 282.

[739] _Rot. Chart._ p. 133 (1204); _Rot. Pat._ vol. i. pp. 11 b(1202), 40, 44 (1204), 48 (1205).