Chapter VII: John Lackland (2)

Thus by the end of July the power of Louis extended from the Channel to the Scottish border, but not without some important breaks. The castles of the bishopric of Durham were still held for John by Hugh de Balliol and Philip de Ulecotes.[1248] The stranger’s hold upon the south coast was precarious in the extreme so long as Dover, the “key of England,” defied him under Hubert de Burgh; and Windsor at once threatened his hold upon London, and barred his way to the Midlands and the West. These were the districts in which John counted upon making good his defence. Throughout June, while Louis was in Hampshire, John was perambulating Wiltshire and Dorset, personally seeing to the fortification and replenishing of the fortresses in those two shires, planning schemes and giving orders for the security of the royal castles in all parts of his realm, and issuing instructions to their custodians how to act in every possible contingency.[1249] Diplomacy went hand in hand with military precautions. Overtures were made to Reginald de Braose, the deadliest of John’s personal foes, and one of those who had most influence on the western border, for his return to allegiance at the price of the restoration of his heritage.[1250] Safe-conducts were offered to “all who might choose to return to the king’s service” through the intervention of certain appointed persons.[1251] A temporary submission to the invader’s demand of “tenserie” was formally sanctioned in special cases where it was clear that resistance would be ineffectual at the moment.[1252] Help was again sought from over sea; on June 2 the town of Bayonne was desired to send its galleys “for the annoyance and confusion of our enemies.”[1253] John’s own movements indicate that he, very naturally, expected Louis to follow up his conquest of Hampshire by an attack on the western shires. It was obviously with this expectation, and with the double purpose of putting the border in a state of defence and securing for himself a refuge at need, that soon after the middle of July he began to advance northward from Sherborne to Bristol, Berkeley, Gloucester, Tewkesbury and Hereford, reaching Leominster on the last day of the month.[1254] He was at the same time negotiating with some of the Welsh chieftains for their aid and support;[1255] and on August 2 he was actually on Welsh soil, at Radnor. That night, however, he was again in England, at Kingsmead; thence he moved on to Clun, Shrewsbury and Whitchurch. On the 11th he turned southward again; he reached Bridgenorth on the 14th, and stayed there till the 16th, when he went back to Worcester for one night; next day he was at Gloucester.[1256] A letter written on the 19th from Berkeley shows that these movements were dictated by the belief that Louis was preparing an attack upon Worcester and Hereford.[1257] This fact illustrates one of the greatest difficulties of medieval warfare, the difficulty of obtaining correct information as to the whereabouts and movements of the adversary. Louis, at the moment when John was thus anxiously looking out for him in the west, had been for nearly four weeks absorbed in the siege of Dover.

According to Matthew Paris, Philip Augustus had taunted his son with not understanding his business as a commander-in-chief, because he was attempting to conquer England without first securing its key.[1258] At any rate Louis, soon after his return to London, perceived that his hold on the country would never be assured till Dover and Windsor were both in his hands. On July 25 he set out for Dover,[1259] and a day or two later the counts of Dreux and Nevers, with some English barons, laid siege to Windsor.[1260] Of this latter party the Flemish soldier-chronicler of the war says, “Long were they there, and little did they gain.”[1261] They in fact sat before the place for nearly two months in vain.[1262] The siege of Dover proved longer still, and for many weeks bade fair to be equally unprofitable. Many of Louis’s followers went back over sea to their homes, “so that the host dwindled marvellously.”[1263] On August 8, however, the town--not the castle--of Carlisle surrendered to Alexander;[1264] and he at once began to move southward for the purpose of joining Louis. Still a whole month elapsed before the junction was effected. On his way the Scot king stopped to besiege Barnard castle, held by Hugh de Balliol for John. The siege appears to have been unsuccessful, and it cost the life of one of the foremost leaders of the baronial party in the north, Eustace de Vesci.[1265] Some of the other northerners were now helping Gilbert de Gant at the siege of Lincoln castle. This time its constable, Dame Nicola de Haye,[1266] bought off her assailants, who thereupon united their forces to those of Alexander.[1267] The combined host seems to have reached Kent about the second week in September.[1268] Louis went to meet Alexander at Canterbury, brought him back to Dover,[1269] and there received his homage for the lands which he held of the English crown.[1270]

Meanwhile John had at last learned the truth as to his adversary’s movements, and was acting on the information. Gathering a numerous host from the garrisons of the western castles, which he now saw to be out of danger, and from his old allies the Welsh,[1271] he marched up on September 2 from Cirencester to Burford, spent the three following days at Oxford, then struck across the Thames to Wallingford, and on the 6th appeared at Reading. From the 8th to the 13th he fixed his quarters at Sonning.[1272] His advance looked as if intended for the relief of Windsor; he did in fact approach so near that castle that its besiegers “thought they were going to have a battle.” His Welshmen “came by night to shoot into the host, and gave them a great fright. They were a long time armed to await the battle, but they did not get it, for the king retired, I know not by what counsel,” says the Flemish chronicler.[1273] John had in truth never intended to attack them; his real “counsel” is given us by the English writers--his aim was the eastern counties, where he purposed to intercept the Scot king on his homeward journey, and to punish the local landholders and owners of castles for their submission to the invader.[1274] The relief of Windsor he probably hoped to effect by other means, if there is any truth in the assertion of some English chroniclers that the count of Nevers was secretly in his pay.[1275] It may have been for the purpose of communicating with Nevers, as well as for that of frightening Nevers’s companions and reconnoitring the district, that the king lingered in Berkshire. On September 15 he suddenly struck northward from Walton-on-Thames to Aylesbury and Bedford; next day he went on to Cambridge.[1276] The immediate consequence was the relief of Windsor; its besiegers were no sooner assured of his departure from their neighbourhood than they struck their tents, set fire to their military engines, and hurried in pursuit of him. They hoped to overtake him at Cambridge; but, warned by his scouts, he escaped in time, on the night of September 17. A dexterous movement southward to Clare and Hedingham threw his pursuers off the track, and another rapid march brought him to Stamford before they reached Cambridge.[1277] They avenged their disappointment by harrying Cambridgeshire--this was the second, if not the third, harrying which that unhappy county had suffered within four months--carried their spoils back to London, and then proceeded to join Louis at the siege of Dover.[1278]

The count of Nevers was immediately sent off again to escort the Scot king safely homeward as far as Cambridge.[1279] Thence Alexander made his way towards Lincoln, which Gilbert de Gant, with a few followers, had continued to occupy after the other barons had abandoned the siege of the castle.[1280] John meanwhile had gone from Stamford to Rockingham; thence, on September 21,[1281] he set out to begin the work for which he had come from the west. The story of that day and the next, as told by Matthew Paris--how the king went first to Oundle and thence to the other manors of the abbey of Peterborough, burning the houses and barns; how he passed on to Crowland and bade Savaric de Mauléon fire the abbey church and the village while he himself stood at a distance to watch the blaze; how Savaric yielded to the monks’ prayer for mercy, and accepted from them, as the price of their escape, a sum of money which he brought back to John, and how the furious king, after overwhelming his too placable lieutenant with abuse, helped with his own hands to fire the harvest-fields, running up and down amid the smoke and the flames till the whole territory of S. Guthlac was a blackened desert[1282]--whether its details be literally exact or not, pictures vividly the mood of the tyrant. It is little wonder that when the tidings of his advance reached Lincoln {Sept. 22}, Gilbert and his men “fled before his face, dreading his presence like lightning.”[1283] They probably fled into the Isle of Axholme, for from Lincoln John went by way of Barton[1284] and Scotter to Stowe, where he stayed three days {Sept. 26–28}, and whence he appears to have sent his mercenaries across the Trent to ravage the Isle with fire and sword. He returned to Lincoln on the 28th, to find that Alexander had spent two or three days there in his absence,[1285] and had slipped past him into Yorkshire. John, however, was less eager for the capture of “the little sandy fox” than for vengeance upon the English rebels. From Lincoln northward to Grimsby, and thence south again to Spalding, the Lincolnshire fields--now, at the beginning of October, all white to harvest[1286]--were given to the flames, and the houses and farm-buildings sacked and destroyed by the terrible host with the king at its head.[1287] On October 9 he appeared before Lynn;[1288] here the townsfolk, like most of their class throughout England, were on his side, and they gave him not only a joyous welcome, but a substantial contribution in money.[1289] He committed the custody of the town and the duty of fortifying it to Savaric de Mauléon,[1290] whom on September 30 he had sent back to Crowland to “seek out and capture the knights and men-at-arms, enemies of the king, who were hiding in secret places” among the fens around the monastery. Savaric had “failed to find those whom he sought”; but he had dragged some fugitives out of sanctuary in the abbey, and brought back a valuable spoil of flocks and herds to his master at Lynn.[1291]

Louis had now been besieging Dover for more than two months, and had made no progress at all. The strength of the castle, the skill and valour of Hubert de Burgh and the hundred and forty knights who, with the usual complement of men-at-arms, constituted its garrison, were more than a match for all his forces. He swore that he would not quit the place till he had hanged every man within its walls;[1292] but even the fall of one of its towers seemed to have brought him no nearer to effecting an entrance.[1293] He could only turn the siege into a blockade, and wait till starvation should accomplish the work in which battery and assault had failed. In the country at large he was distinctly losing ground. Throughout the summer he had been set at nought in Sussex by a young Flemish adventurer called William of Casinghem, who, “scorning to do him homage, gathered together a thousand bowmen, lodged in the wilderness and woods with which that country abounded, and gave the French great trouble all through the time of war, slaying many thousands of them.”[1294] On September 2 John wrote a letter of encouragement to an association extending through Sussex, Kent, Surrey and Hampshire, composed of persons whom he describes as “sworn and confederate together for fealty and service to ourself,” although they had been compelled against their will to swear allegiance to his rival. The “barons”--that is, the citizens--of Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Romney, Winchelsea, Rye, Pevensey, Shoreham and Portsmouth, who had also, under compulsion, taken the oath to Louis, had likewise assured John of their devotion to himself, and were in return assured of his favour; while the men of Seaford had resisted all the pressure put upon them by their lord, Gilbert de Laigle, to forsake their allegiance, and were on September 3 warmly thanked by John for their loyalty.[1295] Soon after the beginning of the siege of Dover Louis was joined from over sea by the count of Perche, and in September or October by Peter of Britanny; the arrival of this last, however, brought no real gain, for as soon as Peter reached England, his brother, Robert of Dreux, returned to France. Louis’s English partizans, too, were falling away. Earl William of Albemarle offered his repentance and his services to John, who of course “forgave him most kindly.”[1296] Of yet greater importance was the return to allegiance of William of Salisbury; it was he who, in conjunction with Falkes de Bréauté, captured or put to flight a body of Louis’s adherents who were besieging Exeter.[1297] At last, however, a gleam of light fell across the gloomy prospects of the French party. Towards the middle of October Hubert de Burgh and his lieutenant, Gerard de Sotinghem, felt that they could not hold out much longer, and asked for a truce, that they might send to John either for succour, or for leave to surrender the castle. The truce was granted, and on the 14th the siege of Dover was suspended.[1298]

The crisis had come; it had, however, really come not on the cliffs of Kent, but on the shores of the Wash. Sumptuously entertained by the burghers of Lynn, John, who--unlike most of his race--was a notorious glutton, feasted till his excesses brought on a violent attack of dysentery[1299] which he himself seems to have recognized as the beginning of the end. One of the latest entries on the Patent Rolls of his reign is probably significant of the remorse awakened in him, for one at least of his many crimes, by the terror of approaching death; on October 10 he granted to Margaret, wife of Walter de Lacy, some land in the royal forest of Acornbury, that she might build thereon a religious house for the souls of her father, mother and brother[1300]--William, Maud and the younger William de Braose. He could not rest; ill as he was, he moved next day {Oct. 11} from Lynn to Wisbeach; and early on the following morning {Oct. 12} he set out again. “Like a swiftly advancing storm,” before which all men fled, he swept northward to the mouth of the Welland, and thence in his impatience set out to cross the Wash without waiting either for the ebb of the tide or for any one who knew the way to guide him across the treacherous soil, covered as it was with brackish water. Suddenly the whole host, while struggling with the waves, felt the ground opening beneath its feet. The king himself and a part of his troops with difficulty reached the further shore; the rest of his followers and the whole of his baggage train, with all his treasure and his lately gathered spoils, men, horses, arms, tents, provisions, “everything in the world that he held most dear, short of his own life,” went down into the quicksand.[1301] When at night he reached Swineshead abbey, rage and grief threw him into a fever, which he aggravated by supping greedily on peaches and new cider.[1302] With great difficulty he made his way on the 14th to Sleaford.[1303] There he was found, probably on the 15th, by the messengers whom Hubert de Burgh had sent from Dover to seek him. Their tidings brought on a fresh access of fever, which bleeding failed to relieve.[1304] Nothing could check his restlessness; that night or next morning {Oct. 15–16} he set out for Newark, and in spite of grievous bodily suffering, he set out on horseback. He had, however, ridden only three or four miles, “panting and groaning,” when increasing sickness compelled him to dismount, and he bade his followers make him a litter in which he might travel more easily. There was no workman to make it, and nothing to make it of; all that his men could do was to cut down with their swords and knives the willows by the roadside, weave them together as best they might, and throw a horse-cloth over them. This litter, without cushions or even straw to relieve its hardness, had for want of carriage-horses to be either slung between some of the high-mettled destriers of the knights, or carried on the shoulders of the men. Its shaking and jolting soon proved intolerable: “This accursed litter has broken all my bones, and well-nigh killed me,” cried the king in an agony of pain and rage. Matthew Paris quotes a French rime concerning the sons of Henry II. which thus foretold their fate: “Henry, the fairest, shall die at Martel; Richard, the Poitevin, shall die in the Limousin; John shall die, a landless king, in a litter.” The prediction was all but fulfilled; John, however, gathered up strength and spirit enough to avoid a literal fulfilment of its closing words, and to ride “on an ambling nag” into Newark.[1305]

For three days {Oct. 16–18}, in the bishop of Lincoln’s castle whose ruins still look down upon the Trent, the king lay dying. The abbot of Croxton, who was skilled in medicine, attended him as his physician,[1306] and also ministered to his soul, for he persuaded him to confess his sins and receive the Holy Communion.[1307] Then the one natural affection traceable in John’s character broke out in anxiety for his two little sons, especially for the elder of them, to whom the crown must devolve. He solemnly declared Henry his heir, made those around him take an oath of fealty to the boy, and sent letters to the sheriffs and the constables of the royal castles, bidding them look to him as their lord.[1308] He had already, on October 15, before leaving Sleaford, dictated a letter entreating for Henry the special protection of the Pope.[1309] He now appointed Peter de Mauley guardian of his younger son Richard, whom he had apparently left under Peter’s charge in Corfe castle. There was but one man in England to whom he could confidently entrust the guardianship of the heir to the throne. “Before he died, he sent word to William the Marshal, the earl of Pembroke, that he placed his eldest son, Henry, in God’s keeping and his, and besought him for God’s sake that he would take thought for Henry’s interest.”[1310]

The abbot of Croxton then asked the king where he wished to be buried. “I commend my body and my soul to God and to S. Wulfstan” was John’s reply.[1311] His last act seems to have been the dictation of the fragmentary document which has come down to us as his will. “Being overtaken,” he says, “by grievous sickness, and thus incapable of making a detailed disposition of all my goods, I commit the ordering and disposing of my will to the fidelity and discretion of my faithful men whose names are written below, without whose counsel, were they at hand, I would not, even if in health, ordain anything; and I ratify and confirm whatsoever they shall faithfully ordain and determine concerning my goods, for the purposes of making satisfaction to God and Holy Church for the wrongs I have done them, sending help to the realm of Jerusalem, furnishing support to my sons for the recovery and defence of their heritage, rewarding those who have served us faithfully, and distributing alms to the poor and to religious houses for the salvation of my soul. And I pray that whosoever shall give them counsel and assistance herein may receive God’s grace and favour; and may he who shall violate the settlement made by them incur the curse and wrath of God Almighty and the Blessed Mary and all the saints. First, then, I desire that my body be buried in the church of the Blessed Mary and S. Wulfstan of Worcester. Now I appoint as ordainers and disposers of my will the following persons:--the lord Gualo, by God’s grace cardinal priest of the title of S. Martin, legate of the Apostolic See; Peter, lord bishop of Winchester; Richard, lord bishop of Chichester; Silvester, lord bishop of Worcester; Brother Aimeric of Ste. Maure; William the Marshal, earl of Pembroke; Ranulf, earl of Chester; William, earl of Ferrars; William Brewer; Walter de Lacy; John of Monmouth; Savaric de Mauléon; Falkes de Bréauté.”[1312] Here, without date, signature or seal, the so-called will breaks off abruptly; evidently the testator had not time to complete it. At midnight {Oct. 18–19} a whirlwind swept over Newark with such violence that the townsfolk thought their houses would fall, and in that hour of elemental disturbance and human terror the king passed away.[1313] A monk named John of Savigny, entering the town at daybreak {Oct. 19}, met the servants of the royal household hurrying out laden with everything of their master’s that they could carry. The corpse--for which they had not left even a decent covering[1314]--had meanwhile been hastily embalmed by the abbot of Croxton; John having, it is said, made a grant of his heart, with ten pounds’ worth of land, to Croxton abbey.[1315] The abbot, too, fled as soon as his work was done and his strange relic secured; it was John of Savigny who, at the request of the constable of Newark, kept the last watch beside the body and offered his mass that morning for the soul of the dead king.[1316] The body was then dressed in such semblance of royal attire as could be procured, and the remnant of John’s soldiers--nearly all foreign mercenaries--formed themselves into a guard for its protection on the journey from Newark to Worcester. The grim funeral train, every man in full armour, passed unhindered across England, and John was buried by Bishop Silvester in Worcester cathedral according to his desire.[1317]

Within this tomb lies buried a monarch’s outward form,
Whose inner man’s departure hath stilled war’s raging storm.

Thus may be roughly rendered the opening lines of an epitaph on King John preserved by Roger of Wendover.[1318] The poet’s words are true; John’s death virtually ended the war. From his burial the Marshal, the Legate, and the bishops passed to the crowning of his heir and the publication, in the boy-king’s name, of the Great Charter in a revised form to which Gualo had no hesitation in giving the papal sanction, and which, thus safeguarded, left the revolutionary party no excuse for continuing the struggle. Thenceforth it was idle for Louis and his adherents to pretend that they were fighting for England’s deliverance from bondage; all men could see that they were fighting for her enslavement to a foreign conqueror. The majority of the barons had already become conscious of the blunder, or worse than blunder, which they had committed in calling the stranger to their aid, and were ready now to join in a national movement for his expulsion. His enterprise was doomed to fail when the kingdom ceased to be divided against itself; and the one insuperable obstacle to the healing of its divisions was removed in the person of John. It was John whose very existence had made peace impossible. “Forasmuch as when he came to die he possessed none of his land in peace,” says Matthew Paris, “he is called Lackland.”[1319] John had indeed earned for himself in a new sense the name which his father had given him at his birth; and he had earned it not by blunders in statecraft or errors in strategy, not by weakness or cowardice or sloth, but by the almost superhuman wickedness of a life which, twenty years before its end, a historian of deeper insight than Matthew had characterized in one memorable phrase--“Nature’s enemy, John.”

FOOTNOTES:

[1097] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 331; W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 226.

[1098] _Rot. Pat._ vol. i. p. 156 b.

[1099] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1100] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 226.

[1101] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 157. The date seems to be either September 20 to 22 or October 5 to 6; see _Itin._ a. 17.

[1102] _Rot. Pat._ vol. i. p. 181 b.

[1103] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 330, 331. The dates are not quite clear. Roger gives none, but says John laid siege to the castle “on the third day” after the barons entered it; Ralph of Coggeshall, p. 175, says John entered the city on Sunday October 11. But the _Itinerary_ shows that John was on the 11th at Ospring and on the 12th at Gillingham, and he does not date from Rochester till the 13th. I have therefore ventured to suppose that Ralph has given the date of the barons’ arrival by mistake for that of the king’s.

[1104] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 158, 159.

[1105] R. Coggeshall, p. 175.

[1106] See below, p. 250.

[1107] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 226.

[1108] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 159.

[1109] Cf. _ib._ p. 157; W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 226; R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 330; and R. Coggeshall, p. 176.

[1110] R. Wendover, _l.c._

[1111] _Rot. Claus._ vol. i. p. 231 b.

[1112] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 331. Cf. _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 160. One party under Hugh de Boves was wrecked in a storm on the Norfolk coast, September 26; their leader was drowned, so were many others, and a large quantity of money also went down; but the survivors made their way to the king in time to join him at Rochester and help in the siege, _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 155, 156; _Chron. Mailros_, a. 1215; R. Coggeshall, pp. 174, 175; R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 332.

[1113] R. Coggeshall, p. 176.

[1114] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 226; R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 333.

[1115] W. Coventry, _l.c._

[1116] R. Wendover, _l.c._

[1117] W. Coventry, _l.c._

[1118] M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. p. 165. It is Matthew alone who gives the name of the leader of the party. His version of the expedition is important, as he--notwithstanding his strong anti-royalist feeling--shows up the cowardice of the barons, and especially of Fitz-Walter, on this occasion, quite as strongly, and is quite as sarcastic upon it, as the royalist Roger of Wendover.

[1119] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 333.

[1120] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 226. R. Coggeshall, p. 177, says that John had contrived to prevent some of the northern barons from joining them by means of forged letters purporting to come from Fitz-Walter and his comrades, telling the Northerners that their help was no longer needed.

[1121] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 227.

[1122] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 334, 335.

[1123] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 163; R. Wend. vol. iii. p. 335.

[1124] R. Wend. vol. iii. p. 336.

[1125] In W. Coventry, _l.c._, John is said to have hanged only one cross-bowman, whom he had had in his service from boyhood. See the names of the knights made prisoners, in R. Wend. vol. iii. pp. 335, 336, _Rot. Claus._ vol. i. p. 241 b, and _Rot. Pat._ p. 161.

[1126] _Rot. Pat._ p. 157.

[1127] _Ib._ p. 157 b.

[1128] _Ib._ p. 158.

[1129] _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1210.

[1130] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 225.

[1131] Louis had inherited the county of Artois from his mother.

[1132] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 359.

[1133] W. Coventry, vol. ii. pp. 225, 226.

[1134] “S’il voloit venir en Engletierre sa cape toursée, il li donroient le règne en boine pais et le feroient seigneur d’eus,” _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 160. Cf. W. Coventry, _l.c._

[1135] R. Coggeshall, pp. 176, 177.

[1136] Cf. _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 160, and R. Coggeshall, p. 176.

[1137] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 160, 161.

[1138] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 349, 350; _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 161, 162. John had granted the earldom of Clare to Robert de Béthune; _Hist._, _l.c._

[1139] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1140] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 347.

[1141] _Ib._ pp. 344–6.

[1142] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 347. Cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 177. Ralf substitutes Gerard of Sotteghem for William Brewer; but in R. Wendover, p. 348, Gerard is named among those who accompanied the king.

[1143] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 348, 350; confirmed by _Itin._ a. 17.

[1144] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 348.

[1145] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 228.

[1146] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 350.

[1147] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 359, 360.

[1148] R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 189, note 4. Cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 178, and _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 162. R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 360, has confused this second French contingent with the first, which had come in November 1215, and seemingly also with a third. See below, pp. 261, 262.

[1149] Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 349, 358; W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 229, and R. Coggeshall, pp. 177, 178.

[1150] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 349, 352.

[1151] R. Coggeshall, p. 178.

[1152] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 349.

[1153] _Ib._ p. 352.

[1154] _Chron. Mailros_, a. 1216.

[1155] See footnote 1157 below.

[1156] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 163; date from _Itin._ a. 17.

[1157] “Puis s’en ala-il à Wrewic [_var._ Euerwic] sa cité, qui encontre lui s’iert revelée; si en fist toute sa volenté.” _Hist. des Ducs_, _l.c._ John was at York on January 4, _Itin._ a. 17.

[1158] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1159] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 351, 352.

[1160] R. Coggeshall, pp. 178, 179.

[1161] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 163, 164. Cf. M. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ vol. ii. pp. 641, 642, and _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. p. 172.

[1162] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 164; for dates see _Itin._ a. 17.

[1163] _Chron. Mailros_, a. 1216.

[1164] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1165] Cf. _ll.cc._ and _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 164.

[1166] _Chron. Mailros_ and _Hist. des Ducs_, _ll.cc._

[1167] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1168] _Rot. Chart._ p. 219.

[1169] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1170] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 352, 353.

[1171] February, _Chron. Mailros_, a. 1216.

[1172] _Rot. Pat._ pp. 162, 162 b, 168, 169.

[1173] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 352.

[1174] February 29–March 8, _Itin._ a. 17.

[1175] Cf. _Itin._ a. 17, and _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 165.

[1176] Cf. _ib._ and R. Coggeshall, p. 179.

[1177] R. Coggeshall, pp. 179, 180; for dates see _Itin._ a. 17. The king’s safe-conduct to the French soldiers (names given) from Colchester to London is dated March 24, _Rot. Pat._ pp. 171 b, 172.

[1178] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 165.

[1179] _Rot. Pat._ vol. i. p. 172 b.

[1180] R. Coggeshall, p. 180.

[1181] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 360, who, however, has confused this contingent with the former ones.

[1182] _Ib._ p. 363.

[1183] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 354–6.

[1184] R. Coggeshall, p. 179, mentions its arrival just after the death of Geoffrey de Mandeville, which occurred on February 22.

[1185] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 357.

[1186] R. Coggeshall, p. 180.

[1187] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1188] Cf. _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 165, and _Itin._ a. 17.

[1189] R. Coggeshall, p. 180.

[1190] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1191] _Rot. Pat._ p. 176.

[1192] _Rot. Claus._ vol. i. p. 260.

[1193] _Rot. Pat._ pp. 170, 170 b, 171.

[1194] _Ib._ p. 172 b.

[1195] R. Coggeshall, pp. 180, 181.

[1196] _Rot. Pat._ vol. i. p. 175 b.

[1197] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 229.

[1198] _Rot. Pat._ p. 176.

[1199] _Ib._ p. 179.

[1200] See _Revue historique_, vol. xxxii. p. 49, note 2.

[1201] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 364–7. The version of M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. pp. 176, 177, is as M. Petit-Dutaillis says (_Louis VIII._ p. 95, note), obviously nothing but an oratorical amplification.

[1202] _Rot. Claus._ vol. i. p. 270.

[1203] _Ib._ p. 270 b.

[1204] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1205] _Rot. Pat._ p. 178 b.

[1206] _Itin._ a. 17.

[1207] R. Coggeshall, p. 181.

[1208] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 167, 168. Cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 181.

[1209] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 168, 169. Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 368, and _Ann. Winton._ a. 1216, both of which give the same date for Louis’s arrival. R. Coggeshall, p. 181, gives a date which, though self-contradictory, is, I think, meant for the same--“die sabbati post Ascensionem Domini, scilicet xiiii kalendas Junii.” W. Coventry, p. 229, is quite wrong. John had gone on May 19 (Ascension Day) to Folkestone; on the 20th and 21st he was at Canterbury. _Itin._ a. 17, 18.

[1210] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 169.

[1211] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 368; W. Coventry, vol. ii. pp. 229, 230.

[1212] _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1215.

[1213] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 170. The assertion of William the Breton, _Gesta P. A._ c. 221, that John actually did await the attack of the French, and was driven away by their vigorous onset, certainly is, as M. Petit-Dutaillis says (_Louis VIII._ p. 100), an error. That error is grounded, like the sneering comments of Ralf of Coggeshall (p. 181), the _Ann. Winton._ (a. 1216), and some later writers, on the mistaken idea that John was on the spot when Louis first landed on the 21st.

[1214] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 170.

[1215] _Rot. Pat._ p. 184.

[1216] _Itin._ a. 18.

[1217] Thorne, _Gesta Abb. S. Aug. Cant._ in Twysden, _X Scriptt._ cols. 1868–70. The letter as there given is addressed to the abbot and convent of S. Augustine’s, but it was evidently a manifesto of which copies were sent, or intended to be sent, to all the religious houses of note, probably also to the secular clergy, and perhaps to be distributed among the laity as well. The character of Louis’s “case” as set forth in this letter, and in the arguments of his envoys at Rome (R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 371–8), has been sufficiently exposed by M. Petit-Dutaillis, _Louis VIII._ pp. 75–87.

[1218] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 170, 171; cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 181, and _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1216.

[1219] Thorne, _l.c._ cols. 1864, 1870.

[1220] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 171.

[1221] _Chron. Merton._ in Petit-Dutaillis, _Louis VIII._ p. 514.

[1222] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 230; R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 370.

[1223] _Ann. Winton._ a. 1216.

[1224] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 230. Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 369, 370.

[1225] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 171; W. Coventry, _l.c._; _Liber de Antiq. Legibus_, Appendix, p. 202.

[1226] _Hist. des Ducs_, _l.c._; _Liber de Antiq. Legibus_, _l.c._

[1227] _Chron. Merton._ in Petit-Dutaillis, _Louis VIII._ p. 514. Cf. _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 171, 172; R. Coggeshall, pp. 181, 182, and R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 368, 369.

[1228] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 369.

[1229] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 171, 172.

[1230] R. Coggeshall, p. 182.

[1231] _Itin._ a. 18. This disposes of R. Coggeshall’s story (_l.c._) that John “cognito ejus adventu, draconem suum deposuit et aufugit.”

[1232] _Ann. Winton._ a. 1216.

[1233] _Ann. Waverl._ a. 1216.

[1234] _Ib._ a. 1216. The _Ann. Winton._ a. 1216 give a wrong date.

[1235] Cf. _Ann. Winton._ a. 1216, and _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 173. Whichever version be the correct one, both alike show that Ralf of Coggeshall (_l.c._) is wrong in attributing the fire to John himself.

[1236] “Li grans castiaus le roi,” “le maistre castiel,” _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 173.

[1237] _L.c._

[1238] Cf. _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 174; _Rot. Pat._ p. 188 b, and _Ann. Waverl._ a. 1216.

[1239] _Hist. des Ducs_, _l.c._ Cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 182, and W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 231.

[1240] “Qui tamen cito rediit,” W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 231.

[1241] William of Armorica, _Gesta Phil. Aug._ c. 222, says that Salisbury changed sides because “ei certo innotuit relatore” that during his own captivity in France his royal brother had made an attempt on the honour of his wife (the well-known Countess Ela). As, however, we shall see that Salisbury “went back” almost as promptly as Albemarle, and the story seems quite unknown to the English chroniclers, its truth may be doubted, though the mere fact that such a story could be told of John with reference to his own sister-in-law illustrates the character for reckless wickedness which he had earned for himself.

[1242] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 174.

[1243] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 371. Odiham surrendered July 9, _Ann. Waverl._ a. 1216.

[1244] _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 175–7.

[1245] Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 371, 378–81, _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 172, and M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. p. 182.

[1246] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 379.

[1247] _Chron. Mailros_, a. 1216.

[1248] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 379.

[1249] _Rot. Pat._ pp. 184 b, 185 b, 186, 186 b, 187 b, 188, 193–5.

[1250] _Ib._ p. 184. Cf. _ib._ p. 192.

[1251] _Ib._ pp. 185, 187, 187 b, 188 b, 189, 189 b, etc.

[1252] _Ib._ pp. 187, 188.

[1253] _Ib._ p. 185 b.

[1254] _Itin._ a. 18.

[1255] _Rot. Pat._ p. 191 b; _Brut y Tywysogion_, p. 293.

[1256] _Itin._ a. 18.

[1257] _Rot. Pat._ p. 194. Worcester had been surrendered to the younger William Marshal, for Louis, early in July, but was retaken on the 17th by the earl of Chester and Falkes de Bréauté; _Ann. Wigorn._ a. 1215. The castle, according to _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1215, was taken by “the old Marshal” at some unspecified date. (In both the Worcester and the Dunstable Annals the history of 1216 is placed under the year 1215.)

[1258] M. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ vol. ii. p. 664.

[1259] _Liber de Antiq. Legibus_, appendix, p. 202; _Ann. Waverl._ a. 1216. R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 380, gives a wrong date.

[1260] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 177. Cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 182; R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 381, and W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 230.

[1261] _Hist. des Ducs_, _l.c._

[1262] R. Coggeshall, _l.c._

[1263] _Hist. des Ducs_, _l.c._

[1264] _Chron. Mailros_, a. 1216.

[1265] _Ib._; R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 382, 383.

[1266] Widow of John’s old friend Gerard de Camville; see above, p. 31.

[1267] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 230.

[1268] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 179, relates John’s advance to Reading, which took place on September 6 (_Itin._ a. 18), and then goes on “_Puis_ vint li rois d’Escoce,” etc.

[1269] _Ib._

[1270] “Fecit [Alexander] ei [_i.e._ Ludovico] homagium de jure suo, quod de rege Anglorum tenere debuit,” R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 382. “Lendemain fist li rois son houmage à Looys de la tierre de Loonnois,” _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 179. (M. Francisque-Michel and M. Petit-Dutaillis render the last word “Lennox”; does it not rather represent “Lothian”?) The Chronicle of Melrose, a. 1216, says cautiously, “Alexander rex ... humagium fecit dicto Laodowico, ut dicitur.”

[1271] Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 381, and _Hist. des Ducs_, pp. 178, 179.

[1272] _Itin._ a. 18.

[1273] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 179.

[1274] Cf. W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 231, and R. Coggeshall, p. 182.

[1275] Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 382; M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. p. 185; and _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1215.

[1276] _Itin._ a. 18.

[1277] Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 382; R. Coggeshall, p. 183; W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 231; _Itin._ a. 18; and _Rot. Pat._ p. 197 b.

[1278] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 382.

[1279] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 179.

[1280] R. Wendover, _l.c._

[1281] _Itin._ a. 18.

[1282] M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. pp. 189–190. Cf. _Chron. Maj._ vol. ii. p. 667. Matthew gives no precise date; but he implies that it was before Michaelmas; and the _Itinerary_ shows that the only possible date is September 21–22, on the way from Rockingham to Lincoln.

[1283] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 382; for date see _Itin._ a. 18.

[1284] _Rot. Claus._ vol. i. p. 289; probably one of several small places so called, on the eastern side of the Trent.

[1285] Cf. W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 231, and _Itin._ a. 18.

[1286] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 381.

[1287] Cf. _ib._, W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 231, and _Itin._ a. 18.

[1288] _Itin._ a. 18.

[1289] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 384.

[1290] R. Coggeshall, p. 183.

[1291] W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 232.

[1292] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 380.

[1293] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 179.

[1294] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 370. The leader’s name comes from _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 181; M. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ vol. ii. p. 655, has corrupted it into “Collingham.” See also _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1215. On William de Casinghem’s relations with John see _Rot. Pat._ pp. 185, 186. He figures frequently in the Rolls of the next reign.

[1295] _Rot. Pat._ p. 196.

[1296] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 179.

[1297] _Ann. Dunst._ a. 1215.

[1298] R. Coggeshall, p. 182. Cf. _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 180, and W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 232.

[1299] R. Coggeshall, p. 183. Cf. W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 231.

[1300] _Rot. Pat._ p. 199.

[1301] Cf. R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 384; M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. p. 190; and R. Coggeshall, pp. 183, 184.

[1302] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 385; M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. p. 191. The later legends about the cause of John’s death are not worth notice.

[1303] R. Wendover, _l.c._, says John left Swineshead “summo diluculo.” The _Itinerary_ shows him there on October 12 and 13, and at Sleaford on the 14th and 15th.

[1304] R. Coggeshall, p. 183. Louis had raised the siege of Dover only on the 14th, but the truce must have been arranged and the messengers despatched at least a day or two earlier, or the latter could not possibly have overtaken John at Sleaford. They must in any case have travelled with marvellous rapidity.

[1305] M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. pp. 191, 192. He relates all this as having occurred on the road from Swineshead to Sleaford, where he makes John die; a characteristic piece of confusion, illustrative of Matthew’s careless way of reading the author on whose work his own is based. The itinerary given by Roger of Wendover, vol. iii. p. 385, is perfectly accurate and perfectly clear.

[1306] M. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ vol. ii. p. 668.

[1307] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 385. The long account inserted by Matthew Paris in his _Hist. Angl._ (vol. ii. p. 193)--_not_, it is to be observed, in his _Chron. Maj._--of John’s forgiveness of the barons and good advice to his heir is evidently intended for the edification of Henry III. and of posterity, and if it has any foundation at all, it is inserted in a wrong place; for it is put after John’s last Communion, whereas the abbot obviously must have insisted upon John’s declaring himself to be in charity with all men (the barons, by implication at least, included) _before_ he gave him the Sacrament.

[1308] R. Wendover, _l.c._

[1309] Baronius, _Annales_ (ed. Mansi), vol. xx. p. 397.

[1310] _Hist. des Ducs_, p. 180. Cf. _Hist. de G. le Mar._ vv. 15167–88.

[1311] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 385.

[1312] _Foedera_, vol. i. pt. i. p. 144.

[1313] R. Coggeshall, p. 184. Cf. W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 231, and R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 385.

[1314] R. Coggeshall, _l.c._

[1315] Cf. W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 232; M. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ vol. ii. p. 668; and _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. p. 194.

[1316] R. Coggeshall, _l.c._

[1317] R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 385, 386.

[1318]

“Hoc in sarcophago sepelitur regis imago,
Qui moriens multum sedavit in orbe tumultum.”

R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 386.

[1319] M. Paris, _Hist. Angl._ vol. ii. p. 191.

NOTE I

JOHN AND THE DE BRAOSES

The fullest account of the quarrel of King John and William de Braose is contained in a document printed in _Foedera_, vol. i. pt. i. pp. 107, 108. This is a letter or manifesto addressed by John, after the fall of De Braose, “to all who may read it,” witnessed by the justiciar (Geoffrey Fitz-Peter), the earls of Salisbury, Winchester, Clare, Hertford, and Ferrars, Robert Fitz-Walter, William Brewer, Hugh de Neville, William d’Aubigny, Adam de Port, Hugh de Gournay, William de Mowbray “and others,” and evidently intended as a public defence of the king’s conduct towards William. Coming from John, and under such circumstances, its truthfulness is necessarily open to suspicion; but it is hardly conceivable that so many witnesses of such rank and character as those enumerated should have set their hands to it if it contained any gross misrepresentations of matters which must have been well known to most of them; one of these witnesses, indeed, the earl of Ferrars, is stated in the letter itself to have been De Braose’s own nephew, and another, Adam de Port, his brother-in-law. The only point on which the letter seems to be at variance with any other contemporary authority is the amount of the debt owed by De Braose to the king at the end of 1207 or beginning of 1208. John says (_l.c._ p. 107), that William then owed him the whole of the 5000 marks due for the honour of Limerick, and had only paid him one sum of 100 marks for the ferm of the city “which he had held for five years” (strictly speaking, it was, at the utmost, four years and a half). The Pipe Rolls of 1206, 1207, 1208, 1209, and 1210 (8–12 John), however, all state the sum still owed by William for the honour of Limerick as £2865: 6: 8 (= 4298 marks), thus implying that £468, or 702 marks, had been paid before Michaelmas 1206. In the Roll of that year the city of Limerick is not mentioned; but in each of the later Rolls William is said to owe £80 for its tallage, and 100 marks for its ferm for one year (Sweetman, _Calendar_, vol. i. pp. 46, 55, 58, 68). This does not necessarily imply that the ferm for the other years had not been paid; for the original grant of the custody of the city of Limerick to De Braose in July 1203 and the writ ordering its restoration to him in August 1205 both specify that he is to pay its ferm “to our exchequer _in Dublin_” (_Rot. Chart._ p. 107 b; _Rot. Claus._ vol. i. p. 47). As there are no remaining records of the Dublin Exchequer of so early a date, we cannot certainly know what was or was not paid in there. The strange thing is not that the English Exchequer should claim only one year’s ferm for Limerick, but that it should have any claim at all in the matter. The restoration of the city to De Braose in August 1205 was ordered to be conditional on his finding security, within forty days, for the payment of the arrears of the ferm. That the restoration was actually made, and therefore that he gave the security, is plain; but there is nothing to show that he ever redeemed his pledge, or that he paid the ferm for the succeeding years.

The story of John’s vengeance on the family of De Braose appears, in slightly varied forms, in almost every chronicle of the period. Ralph of Coggeshall (p. 164), Roger of Wendover (vol. iii. p. 235) and the _Brut y Tywysogion_ (a. 1209) say the victims were “slain in Windsor castle”; the Annals of Dunstable and of Oseney (a. 1210), that they “died in prison,” without specifying where or how. The Barnwell Annalist (W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 202) and the Annals of Margan, Tewkesbury, Waverley, Winchester, and Worcester (a. 1210) say they were starved to death. The _Hist. des Ducs de Normandie_ (pp. 114–115) says they were imprisoned “el castiel del Corf,” with no food save “une garbe d’avoine e i bacon cru,” and describes with gruesome minuteness the attitudes in which, on the eleventh day, they were found dead. Ralph of Coggeshall makes the victims William de Braose’s wife and “sons” (_filii_); Roger of Wendover, his wife, eldest son, and that son’s wife; the _Ann. Winton._, wife and “younger” son; the _Ann. Tewkesb._, wife and “children” (_liberi_); while the _Ann. Dunst._ say: “Cepit [rex] Willelmum de Lacy, et Willelmum de Brause juniorem, et sororem ejus, et Matildem matrem ejus; qui in carcere post modum perierunt.” All the other writers speak only of the wife and one son, whom the _Ann. Osen._ call “Willelmus primogenitus ejus,” and the _Ann. Wigorn._ “haeres.” This latter version is undoubtedly the correct one as to the last point; of De Braose’s three sons, the eldest, William, alone was in John’s power; Giles, the second, was bishop of Hereford and safe beyond the sea, while the third, Reginald, had escaped capture, and lived to recover the greater part of the family heritage. One of the daughters--the wife of Hugh Mortimer--had been taken prisoner with her mother and eldest brother (_Foedera_, vol. i. pt. i. p. 107); but she did not share their fate, for she was set free in 1214 (_Rot. Pat._ vol. i. p. 122); and Roger of Wendover is certainly wrong about the younger William’s wife, who was still living in July 1220 (_Royal Letters_, ed. Shirley, vol. i. p. 136). The elder William died, an exile in France, about a year after this tragedy (R. Wend. vol. iii. p. 237).

NOTE II

EUSTACE DE VESCI AND ROBERT FITZ-WALTER

Eustace de Vesci and Robert Fitz-Walter have long figured in history as typical examples of the way in which individual barons were goaded into hatred and vengeance against John by his invasions of their domestic peace, and also as foremost among the “patriots” to whom England is supposed to be indebted for her Great Charter. On both aspects of the lives of these two men--especially of the life of Fitz-Walter, whom Professor Tout has glorified as “the first champion of English liberty”--a few considerations may be offered here.

1. The earliest mention of John’s unsuccessful attempt to entrap the wife of Eustace de Vesci is in an addition made by a chronicler at Furness Abbey, writing c. 1270–1298, to the Stanley chronicler’s continuation of the history of William of Newburgh. This Furness writer (Howlett, _Chron. of Stephen_, etc., vol. ii. p. 521) merely states the bare fact, without any details, in the briefest and simplest way, and without any clue to the date. Walter of Hemingburgh, who was living in 1313, tells the story in an elaborate form which is certainly not impossible, perhaps not even very improbable, although it somewhat resembles a story in Procopius (see _Dic. Nat. Biogr._ “Vesci, Eustace de”). Walter gives it as an illustration of John’s character, of which he inserts a picture--painted in the most frightful colours--between the coming of the Franciscans in 1212 and the rising of the barons in 1215; but he connects the incident directly with the latter event, representing Eustace as inducing those of his fellow-barons whom the king had injured in a similar way to join him in a common effort for vengeance, which widens into the struggle for the Charter (Hemingburgh, vol. i. pp. 247–9). The affair would thus seem to have occurred some years after Eustace’s desertion from the king’s host and flight from England in 1212; a desertion for which, therefore, it cannot serve as an excuse.

2. The legend of Robert Fitz-Walter’s daughter which became famous in prose and verse in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is based upon a passage in the Chronicle of Dunmow, printed in _Monasticon_, vol. vi. pt. i. p. 147. This chronicle, written in a monastery of which the Fitz-Walters were patrons, begins with the year 1054, but the MS. (Cott. Cleopatra C. iii.) is of the end of the fifteenth century; it ends at the year 1501. The story is placed in 1216, and is briefly this: John demands Robert’s daughter, the fair maiden Matilda; her father refuses to give her up to him; the civil war breaks out, and the city of London joins the barons; afterwards they are worsted, whereupon the king destroys Robert’s fortress in London--Castle Baynard--and causes Matilda to be poisoned at Robert’s manor of Dunmow. Meanwhile Robert has fled to France. War continues on both sides of the Channel. Presently John goes to France, and has a conference with Philip Augustus; Robert Fitz-Walter displays his prowess in a single combat in presence of both the kings; John admires his valour, they are reconciled, and remain friends from that time forth.