Chapter III: John “softsword” (2)

Thenceforth Arthur disappears from history. What was his end no one knows. The chronicle of the abbey of Margan in South Wales, a chronicle of which the only known manuscript ends with the year 1232, and of which the portion dealing with the early years of John’s reign was not compiled in its present form till after 1221 at earliest, asserts that on Maunday Thursday (April 3) 1203, John, “after dinner, being drunk and possessed by the devil,” slew his nephew with his own hand and tied a great stone to the body, which he flung into the Seine; that a fisherman’s net brought it up again, and that, being recognized, it was buried secretly, “for fear of the tyrant,” in the church of Notre-Dame-des-Prés, near Rouen.[400] William the Breton, in his poem on Philip Augustus, completed about 1216, relates in detail, but without date, how John took Arthur out alone with him by night in a boat on the Seine, plunged a sword into his body, rowed along for three miles with the corpse, and then threw it overboard.[401] Neither of these writers gives any authority for his story. The earliest authority of precisely ascertained date to which we can trace the assertion that Arthur was murdered is a document put forth by a personage whose word, on any subject whatever, is as worthless as the word of John himself--King Philip Augustus of France. In 1216--about the time when his Breton historiographer’s poem was completed--Philip affected to regard it as a notorious fact that John had, either in person or by another’s hand, murdered his nephew. But Philip at the same time went on to assert that John had been summoned to trial before the supreme court of France, and by it condemned to forfeiture of all his dominions, on that same charge of murder; and this latter assertion is almost certainly false.[402] Seven months after the date assigned by the Margan annalist to Arthur’s death--in October 1203--Philip owned himself ignorant whether the duke of Britanny were alive or not.[403] Clearly, therefore, it was not as the avenger of Arthur’s murder that Philip took the field at the end of April. On the other hand, Philip had never made the slightest attempt to obtain Arthur’s release; early in 1203, if not before, he was almost openly laying his plans in anticipation of Arthur’s permanent effacement from politics.[404] The interests of the French king were in fact no less concerned in Arthur’s imprisonment, and more concerned in his death, than were the interests of John himself. John’s one remaining chance of holding Philip and the Bretons in check was to keep them in uncertainty whether Arthur were alive or dead, in order to prevent the Bretons from adopting any decided policy, and hamper the French king in his dealings with them and with the Angevin and Poitevin rebels by compelling him to base his alliance with them on conditions avowedly liable to be annulled at any moment by Arthur’s reappearance on the political scene. If, therefore, Arthur--as is most probable--was now really dead, whether he had indeed perished a victim of one of those fits of ungovernable fury in which (and in which alone) the Angevin counts sometimes added blunder to crime, or whether he had died a natural death from sickness in prison, or by a fall in attempting to escape,[405] it would be equally politic on John’s part to let rumour do its worst rather than suffer any gleam of light to penetrate the mystery which shrouded the captive’s fate.

John’s chance, however, was a desperate one. A fortnight after Easter {April 20} the French king attacked and took Saumur.[406] Moving southward, he was joined by some Poitevins and Bretons, with whose help he captured sundry castles in Aquitaine. Thence he went back to the Norman border, to be welcomed at Alençon by its count, and to lay siege to Conches.[407] John, who was then at Falaise, sent William the Marshal to Conches, to beg that Philip would “have pity on him and make peace.” Philip refused; John hurried back to Rouen, to find both city and castle in flames[408]--whether kindled by accident or by treachery there is nothing to show. Conches was taken; Vaudreuil was betrayed; the few other castles in the county of Evreux which had not already passed, either by cession, conquest, or treason, into Philip’s hands shared the like fate,[409] while John flitted restlessly up and down between Rouen and various places in the neighbourhood,[410] but made no direct effort to check the progress of the invader. Messenger after messenger came to him with the same story: “The king of France is in your land as an enemy; he is taking your castles; he is binding your seneschals to their horses’ tails and dragging them shamefully to prison; he is dealing with your goods at his own pleasure.” John heard them all with an unmoved countenance, and dismissed them all with one unvarying reply: “Let him alone! Some day I shall win back all that he is winning from me now.”[411]

It was by diplomacy that John hoped to parry the attack which he knew he could not repel by force. Early in the year he had complained to the Pope of the long course of insult and aggression pursued towards him by Philip, and begged Innocent to interfere in his behalf.[412] Thereupon Philip, in his turn, sent messengers and letters to the Pope, giving his own version of his relations with John, and endeavouring to justify his own conduct.[413] On May 26 Innocent announced to both kings that he was about to despatch the abbots of Casamario, Trois-Fontaines and Dun as commissioners to arbitrate upon the matters in dispute between them.[414] These envoys seem to have been delayed on their journey; and when they reached France they, for some time, found it impossible to ascertain whether Philip would or would not accept their arbitration. When at last he met them in council at Mantes on August 26, he told them bluntly that he “was not bound to take his orders from the Apostolic See as to his rights over a fief and a vassal of his own, and that the matter in dispute between the two kings was no business of the Pope’s.”[415] John meanwhile had, on August 11, suddenly quitted his passive attitude and laid siege to Alençon; but he retired on Philip’s approach four days later. An attempt which he made to regain Brezolles was equally ineffectual.[416] Philip, on the other hand, was now resolved to bring the war to a crisis. It was probably straight from the council at Mantes that he marched to the siege of Château-Gaillard.[417]

Château-Gaillard was a fortress of far other importance than any of the castles which both parties had been so lightly winning, losing and winning again, during the last ten years. It was the key of the Seine above Rouen, the bulwark raised by Richard Cœur de Lion to protect his favourite city against attack from France. Not till the fortifications which commanded the river at Les Andelys were either destroyed or in his own hands could Philip hope to win the Norman capital. And those fortifications were of no common order. Their builder was the greatest, as he was the last, of the “great builders” of Anjou; and his “fair castle on the Rock of Andelys” was at once the supreme outcome of their architectural genius, and the earliest and most perfect example in Europe of the new developement which the Crusaders’ study of the mighty works of Byzantine or even earlier conquerors, quickened and illuminated as it was by the exigencies of their own struggle with the Infidels, had given to the science of military architecture in the East. During the past year John had added to his brother’s castle a chapel with an undercroft, placed at the south-eastern corner of the second ward.[418] The fortress which nature and art had combined to make impregnable was well stocked with supplies of every kind; moreover, it was one of the few places in Normandy which Philip had no hope of winning, and John no fear of losing, through treason on the part of its commandant. Roger de Lacy, to whom John had given it in charge, was an English baron who had no stake in Normandy, and whose personal interest was therefore bound up with that of the English king; he was also a man of high character and dauntless courage.[419] Nothing short of a siege of the most determined kind would avail against the “Saucy Castle”; and on that siege Philip now concentrated all his forces and all his skill. As the right bank of the Seine at that point was entirely commanded by the castle and its neighbour fortification, the walled town--also built by Richard--known as the New or Lesser Andely, while the river itself was doubly barred by a stockade across its bed, close under the foot of the Rock, and by a strong tower on an island in mid-stream just below the town, he was obliged to encamp in the meadows on the opposite shore. The stockade, however, was soon broken down by the daring of a few young Frenchmen; and the waterway being thus cleared for the transport of materials, he was enabled to construct below the island a pontoon, by means of which he could throw a portion of his troops across the river to form the siege of the New Andely, place the island garrison between two fires, and at once keep open his own communications and cut off those of the besieged with both sides of the river alike.[420]

These things seem to have been done towards the end of August. On the 27th and 28th of that month John was at Montfort, a castle some five and twenty miles from Rouen, held by one of his few faithful barons, Hugh of Gournay. On the 30th, if not the 29th, he and all his available forces were back at Rouen, ready to attempt on that very night the relief of Les Andelys.[421] The king’s plan was a masterpiece of ingenuity; and the fact that the elaborate preparations needed for its execution were made so rapidly and so secretly as to escape detection by an enemy so close at hand goes far to show how mistaken are the charges of sloth and incapacity which, even in his own day, men brought against “John Softsword.”[422] He had arranged that a force of three hundred knights, three thousand mounted men-at-arms, and four thousand foot, under the command of William the Marshal, with a band of mercenaries under Lou Pescaire, should march by night from Rouen along the left bank of the Seine and fall, under cover of darkness, upon the portion of the French army which still lay on that side of the river. Meanwhile, seventy transport vessels which had been built by Richard to serve either for sea or river traffic, and as many more boats as could be collected, were to be laden with provisions for the distressed garrison of the island fort, and convoyed up the stream by a flotilla of small warships manned by “pirates” under a chief named Alan and carrying, besides their own daring and reckless crews, a force of three thousand Flemings. Two hundred strokes of the oar, John reckoned, would bring these ships to the French pontoon; they must break it if they could; if not, they could at least co-operate with the Marshal and Lou Pescaire in cutting off the northern division of the French host from its comrades and supplies on the left bank, and throw into the island fort provisions which would enable it to hold out till John himself should come to its rescue.

One error brought the scheme to ruin--an error neither of strategy nor of conduct, but of scientific knowledge. John had miscalculated the time at which, on that night, the Seine would be navigable up-stream; and his counsellors evidently shared his mistake till it was brought home to them by experience. The land forces achieved their march without hindrance, and at the appointed hour, shortly before daybreak, fell upon the French camp with such a sudden and furious onslaught that the whole of its occupants fled across the pontoon, which broke under their weight. But the fleet, which had been intended to arrive at the same time, was unable to make way against the tide, and before it could reach its destination the French had rallied on the northern bank, repaired the pontoon, recrossed it in full force, and routed John’s troops. The ships, when they at last came up, thus found themselves unsupported in their turn, and though they made a gallant fight they were beaten back with heavy loss. In the flush of victory one young Frenchman contrived to set fire to the island fort; it surrendered, and the whole population of the New Andely fled in a panic to Château-Gaillard, leaving their town to be occupied by Philip.[423] The Saucy Castle itself still remained to be won. Knowing, however, that for this nothing was likely to avail but a blockade, which was now practically formed on two sides by his occupation of the island fort and the Lesser Andely, Philip on the very next day[424] set off to make another attempt on Radepont, whence he had been driven away by John a year before. This time John made no effort to dislodge him. It was not worth while; the one thing that mattered now was Château-Gaillard. Thither Philip, after receiving the surrender of Radepont, returned towards the end of September to complete the blockade.[425]

No second attempt to relieve it was possible. It may have been for the purpose of endeavouring to collect fresh troops from the western districts, which were as yet untouched by the war, that John about this time visited his old county of Mortain, and even went as far as Dol,[426] which his soldiers had taken in the previous year. But his military resources in Normandy were exhausted. The Marshal bluntly advised him to give up the struggle. “Sire,” said William, “you have not enough friends; if you provoke your enemies to fight, you will diminish your own force; and when a man provokes his enemies, it is but just if they make him rue it.” “Whoso is afraid, let him flee!” answered John. “I myself will not flee for a year; and if indeed it came to fleeing, I should not think of saving myself otherwise than you would, wheresoever you might be.” “I know that well, sire,” replied William; “but you, who are wise and mighty and of high lineage, and whose work it is to govern us all, have not been careful to avoid irritating people. If you had, it would have been better for us all. Methinks I speak not without reason.”[427] The king, “as if a sword had struck him to the heart,” spoke not a word, but rushed to his chamber; next morning he was nowhere to be found; he had gone away in a boat, almost alone, and it was only at Bonneville that his followers rejoined him. This was apparently at the beginning of October.[428] For two months more he lingered in the duchy, where his position was growing more hopeless day by day. At the end of October, or early in November, he took the decisive step of dismantling Pont-de-l’Arche, Moulineaux, and Montfort,[429] three castles which, next to Château-Gaillard, would be of the greatest value to the French for an advance upon Rouen. To Rouen itself he returned once more on November 9, and stayed there four days.[430] On the 12th he set out for Bonneville, accompanied by the queen, and telling his friends that he intended to go to England to seek counsel and aid from his barons and people there, and would soon return. In reality his departure from the capital was caused by a rumour which had reached him of a conspiracy among the Norman barons to deliver him up to Philip Augustus. At Bonneville, therefore, he lodged not in the town but in the castle, and only for a few hours; the Marshal and one or two others alone were warned of his intention to set forth again before daybreak, and the little party had got a start of seven leagues on the road to Caen before their absence was discovered by the rest of the suite, of whom “some went after them, and the more part went back.”[431] Still John was reluctant to leave Normandy; he went south to Domfront and west to Vire before he again returned to the coast at Barfleur on November 28; and even then he spent five days at Gonneville and one at Cherbourg before he finally took ship at Barfleur on December 5, to land at Portsmouth next day.[432]

It was probably before he left Rouen that he addressed a letter to the commandant of Château-Gaillard in these terms: “We thank you for your good and faithful service, and desire that, as much as in you lies, you will persevere in the fidelity and homage which you owe to us; that you may receive a worthy meed of praise from God and from ourself, and from all who know your faithfulness. If however--which God forbid!--you should find yourself in such straits that you can hold out no longer, then do whatsoever our trusty and well-beloved Peter of Préaux, William of Mortimer, and Hugh of Howels our clerk, shall bid you in our name.”[433] An English chronicler says that John “being unwilling”--or “unable”--“to succour the besieged, through fear of the treason of his men, went to England, leaving all the Normans in a great perturbation of fear.”[434] It is hard to see what they feared, unless it were John’s possible vengeance, at some future time, for their universal readiness to welcome his rival. Not one town manned its walls, not one baron mustered his tenants and garrisoned his castles, to withstand the invader. Some, as soon as John was out of the country, openly made a truce with Philip for a year, on the understanding that if not succoured by John within that time, they would receive the French king as their lord;[435] the rest stood passively looking on at the one real struggle of the war, the struggle for Château-Gaillard.

[Sidenote: 1204]

At length, on March 6, 1204, the Saucy Castle fell.[436] Its fall opened the way for a French advance upon Rouen; but before taking this further step Philip deemed it politic to let the Pope’s envoy, the abbot of Casamario, complete his mission by going to speak with John. The abbot was received at a great council in London at the end of March;[437] the result was his return to France early in April, in company with the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops of Norwich and Ely, and the earls of Pembroke and Leicester, all charged with a commission “to sound the French king, and treat with him about terms of peace.” On the French king’s side the negotiation was a mere form; to whatever conditions the envoys proposed, he always found some objection; and his own demands were such as John’s representatives dared not attempt to lay before their sovereign--Arthur’s restoration, or, if he were dead, the surrender of his sister Eleanor, and the cession to Philip, as her suzerain and guardian, of the whole continental dominions of the Angevin house.[438] Finally, Philip dropped the mask altogether, and made a direct offer, not to John, but to John’s Norman subjects, including the two lay ambassadors. All those, he said, who within a year and a day would come to him and do him homage for their lands should receive confirmation of their tenure from him. Hereupon the two English earls, after consulting together, gave him five hundred marks each, on the express understanding that he was to leave them unmolested in the enjoyment of their Norman lands for a twelvemonth and a day, and that at the expiration of that time they would come and do homage for those lands to him, if John had not meanwhile regained possession of the duchy.[439] Neither William the Marshal nor his colleague had any thought of betraying or deserting John; as the Marshal’s biographer says, they “did not wish to be false”; and when they reached England they seem to have frankly told John what they had done, and to have received no blame for it.[440]

The return of the English embassy was followed by a letter from the commandant of Rouen--John’s “trusty and well-beloved” Peter of Préaux--informing the English king that “all the castles and towns from Bayeux to Anet” had promised Philip that they would surrender to him as soon as he was master of Rouen, an event which, Peter plainly hinted, was not likely to be long delayed.[441] This information about the western towns was probably incorrect, for it was on western Normandy that Philip made his next attack. John meanwhile had in January imposed a scutage of two marks and a half per shield throughout England, and, in addition, a tax of a seventh of moveables, which, though it fell upon all classes alike, the clergy included, he is said to have demanded expressly on the ground of the barons’ desertion of him in Normandy.[442] The hire of a mercenary force was of course the object to which the proceeds of both these taxes were destined; but they took time to collect, and John soon fell back upon a readier, though less trustworthy, resource, and summoned the feudal host of England to meet him at Portsmouth, seemingly in the first week of May. It gathered, however, so slowly that he was obliged to give up the expedition.[443] Philip was about this time besieging Falaise;[444] he won it, and went on in triumph to receive the surrender of Domfront, Séez, Lisieux, Caen, Bayeux, Coutances, Barfleur, and Cherbourg.[445] He was then joined by John’s late ally, the count of Boulogne, as well as by Guy of Thouars, the widower of Constance of Britanny; and these two, their forces swelled by a troop of mercenaries who had transferred their services from John to Philip after the surrender of Falaise, completed the conquest of south-western Normandy,[446] while the French king at last set his face towards Rouen. He was not called upon to besiege it, nor even to threaten it with a siege. On June 1 Peter de Préaux made in his own name, and in the names of the commandants of Arques and Verneuil, a truce with Philip, promising that these two fortresses and Rouen should surrender if not succoured within thirty days.[447] The three castellans sent notice of this arrangement to John, who, powerless and penniless as he was, scornfully bade them “look for no help from him, but do whatsoever seemed to them best.”[448] It seemed to them best not even to wait for the expiration of the truce; Rouen surrendered on June 24,[449] and in a few days Arques and Verneuil followed its example.[450]

Thus did Normandy forsake--as Anjou and Maine had already forsaken--the heir of its ancient rulers for the king of the French. Philip’s next undertaking, the conquest of Aquitaine, was likely to be considerably facilitated by the fact that there was no longer a third person who could claim to stand between him and his rival as lawful lady of the land; for Eleanor had died on April 1.[451] In the middle of August Philip marched upon Poitou. Robert of Turnham, John’s seneschal there, did what he could for its defence; but he was powerless against the indifference of the people and the active hostility of the Lusignans and William des Roches;[452] and in a few weeks the whole county, except La Rochelle, Niort, and Thouars, had submitted to the French king.[453] There, however, Philip’s progress ended. He could not touch the county of Angoulême, for it belonged not to John, but to John’s wife; while his very successes turned Gascony against him, for the Gascons were quick to perceive how much greater would be their chances of practical independence under a king who would henceforth be parted from them by the whole width of the Bay of Biscay, than under one whose territories now stretched without a break from the Channel to their own border. Nor had John failed to recognize that in this quarter lay his best hope--at the moment indeed his only hope--of checking Philip’s advance. He at once devoted twenty-eight thousand marks of the treasure which he was gathering in England to the hire of thirty thousand soldiers, who were to be enrolled for his service in Gascony by one Moreve, a brother of the archbishop of Bordeaux, in readiness to join the forces of the king himself whenever he should land on their coast.[454] From Poitiers, therefore, Philip returned to his own dominions, and no further military movement on either side was made throughout the winter.

[Sidenote: 1205]

In the middle of January 1205 John called the bishops and barons of England to a council in London.[455] His nominal reason for so doing was that he feared Philip might attempt an invasion of England, and desired to concert measures for its defence; but it is clear that what he really dreaded and sought to guard against was not invasion, but treason. The precautions which he induced the council to support him in taking against the imaginary danger were, if insufficient to save him from the real one, at least as good a safeguard as could be contrived against it at the moment. The oath of fealty to the king was taken anew by all present, and afterwards re-administered throughout the country. “It was also decreed that, for the general defence of the realm and for the preservation of peace, a _commune_ should be made throughout the kingdom, and that all men, from the greatest to the least, who were over twelve years of age, should swear to keep it firmly.” The ordinance to which they swore established constables in every shire; and in every hundred, city, and group of lesser townships, subordinate constables who were to lead the men of their respective “communes” to the muster whenever they were summoned by the chief constables, whose orders these local levies were to obey “for the defence of the realm and the preservation of peace against foreigners or against any other disturbers of the same”; and whosoever should neglect the summons was to be held guilty of high treason.[456] At the beginning of February John issued letters patent to the bailiffs of the east and south coast, giving orders that no ship or boat should be allowed to issue from or pass by the harbours under their jurisdiction, unless by special licence from him.[457] Besides the obvious purpose of hindering treasonable communications with his enemies on the continent, this order had probably another object; the vessels thus detained were most likely appropriated to the king’s service and made to form part of a fleet which he was gathering from various quarters[458] throughout the next two months. The want of confidence between king and barons was openly revealed in a council at Oxford, March 27 to 29; the barons made oath to John “that they would render him due obedience,” but John was first “compelled to swear that he would by their counsel maintain the rights of the kingdom inviolate, to the utmost of his power.”[459] On Palm Sunday, April 3, John issued letters patent from Winchester, ordering that in all the shires of England every nine knights should “find” a tenth, and that the knights thus provided should come to meet him in London three weeks after Easter (that is, on May 1), “ready to go in his service where he should bid them, and to be in his service in defence of the realm as much as might be needful.”[460] The muster seems, however, to have been postponed, possibly to await the result of an attempt which the king had been making in the field of diplomacy, under somewhat peculiar circumstances.

Of all John’s ministers, the one whom he most disliked and mistrusted was the one whose constitutional position made him absolutely irremoveable from the royal counsels--the archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter. That John’s suspicions of Hubert’s loyalty were unjust there can be no doubt; but there are not wanting indications that Hubert, whose temper was extremely masterful, and who for the six years preceding John’s accession to the throne had governed England for Richard practically at his own sole discretion, was inclined to press his views of policy upon Richard’s younger brother in a fashion more dictatorial than deferential, and to magnify his own office as chief adviser of the Crown, and his personal capabilities as a statesman and a diplomatist, with more emphasis than tact. Hubert had on several occasions tried to act as mediator between John and Philip, and his mediation had failed. In Lent 1205 John, while pushing on his military preparations in England, resolved to set on foot a new diplomatic negotiation with France which seems to have had a twofold object--first, to keep Philip occupied so as to hinder him, at least for a short time, from proceeding against the few fortresses north of the Dordogne which still held out for their Angevin lord;[461] and secondly, to make game of the archbishop of Canterbury. This latter object was to be attained by keeping the project a secret from Hubert, and carrying on the negotiations not only without his assistance or advice, but even without his knowledge. The envoys whom John selected for this mission were his vice-chancellor, Hugh of Wells, and Earl William the Marshal. Apparently it was given out that their journey to France was on business of their own; an assertion which in the Marshal’s case was true, though not the whole truth. When John had communicated to them his private instructions, William spoke: “Now, sire, listen to me. I am not sure of obtaining peace; and you see that my term of truce for my Norman land is nearly expired. Unless I do homage for it to the French king, I shall lose it; for I see no hope of recovering it otherwise. What am I to do?” “Save it for my service by doing the homage,” answered John. “I know you are too loyal to withdraw your heart’s homage from me, come what may, and that the more you possess to serve me with, the better will be your service.”[462] He seems to have given--though scarcely with equal willingness--a like permission to some of his other vassals who were in the same plight as the Marshal,[463] and who may perhaps have been allowed to accompany the latter partly for the sake of still further obscuring the main object of his mission.

The Marshal and the vice-chancellor found the French king at Compiègne, and communicated to him their errand from John. Philip seemed disposed to entertain John’s proposals--we are not told what they were--and promised to give them an answer a week later at Anet.[464] Meanwhile he reminded the Marshal that the time of their “covenant” was nearly up, adding, “You may find it the worse for you if you do not at once do me homage.” The Marshal assented and performed the homage then and there, apparently regarding it as a mere form necessary for the redemption of his plighted word, but destined to be rendered void by the peace which he trusted to conclude between the two sovereigns in a few days. By this time, however, Archbishop Hubert had discovered the fact of the secret negotiations, and was extremely wroth that the king should have “plotted such a plot” without consulting him. He therefore sent a certain Ralf of Ardenne to tell the count of Boulogne that the two English envoys had no power to conclude a treaty. Boulogne at once communicated this information to Philip, and when the meeting at Anet took place, the taunt was flung in the Marshal’s face, and the negotiations were broken off. Ralf of Ardenne had already hurried back to England and told John that the Marshal had done homage and fealty to the French king and made alliance with the latter against his own sovereign. When the unlucky envoys came home, they met with a sorry greeting. John at once charged the Marshal with having, “against him and for his damage,” sworn allegiance to his enemy of France. The Marshal denied the charge, and asserted that he had done only what John had given him leave to do. On this John, in his rage, practically denied his own words, and declared that “his barons and his men” should judge between him and the Marshal--a judgement which William retorted that he was quite ready to face.[465]

The fleet and the host were finally summoned to assemble at Portsmouth at Whitsuntide.[466] The land forces had probably received some increase by means of an order issued by the king on April 15 that, “for the good of his mother’s soul,” all prisoners, except those charged with treason, should be set at liberty.[467] No doubt every prisoner capable of bearing arms was, as he issued from confinement, made to take the oath of allegiance and enrolled for military service under the constable of his district. On the Tuesday in Whitsun week (May 31) John arrived at Porchester; there he stayed ten days, on the last five of which he made daily excursions to Portsmouth,[468] probably to watch the gathering of the fleet in its harbour.

It is doubtful how far the troops were aware of the king’s real purpose in calling them together. The whole country was in a state of excitement, hourly expecting an invasion. It was reported that the duke of Louvain, in return for the French king’s good offices in recovering for him from the count of Boulogne the share of the revenues of the latter county to which he was entitled in right of his wife, had done homage to Philip, and that the duke and the count had sworn in Philip’s presence to be ready, each at the other’s call, to proceed to England with all their forces and reclaim from John at the sword’s point the English lands of which their wives--the grand-daughters of King Stephen and Maud of Boulogne--had been disinherited by Henry II.; whereupon Philip had sworn that he himself would follow them with his host within a month after their landing in England.[469] John, in calling his people to arms, seems to have purposely expressed the object of the armament in general terms--“for the defence of the realm”--“for the king’s service”[470]; terms which did not necessarily imply that he wanted his men to do anything more than stand on the defensive, ready to meet the expected invasion. He probably suspected that had he at the outset demanded more than this, he would have met with a flat refusal in certain quarters; and the issue proved the suspicion to be correct. The rank and file of the host, indeed, were ready and willing not only for defence but for defiance, eager to carry the war into the enemy’s country before the enemy could set foot in their own. To them John, at this stage of his career, was still the “king of the English,” who had lost his continental possessions through the wiles of his foreign enemies and the disloyalty of his “French” subjects, and whom they, his faithful Englishmen, would gladly help to win those possessions back again. The heads of the baronage, however, and some at least of the innermost circle of the royal councillors, were of another mind. Those of the greater barons who had deserted or betrayed him in Normandy probably saw, or thought they saw, the possibility of serving two masters, one for their continental lands and the other for their English lands, and of profiting by this division of service to make themselves practically independent of both masters alike. This, indeed, was not a motive which could sway such a noble soul as William the Marshal; nor could it influence Hubert Walter, to whom the continuance or the severance of the connexion between England and the rest of the Angevin dominions made, either as an individual or as archbishop, no difference at all. Yet when the critical moment came, these two men, who a few weeks before had been in political as well as personal opposition to each other, forgot their rivalry and united all their influence to defeat the king’s project of an expedition over sea.

On one of those days of waiting at Porchester, while the host was gradually assembling, John, seated on the shore, with his court around him, called the Marshal to his presence and renewed his demand for “judgement” on the question of William’s alleged treason. William quietly repeated his former answer, that he had only acted upon the king’s own orders. “I deny it,” again said John. “You will gain nothing in the end; but I will bide my time; and meanwhile I will have you come with me to Poitou and fight for the recovery of my heritage against the king of France, to whom you have done homage.” The Marshal remonstrated; he could not fight against a man to whom he had done homage. On this John declared his treason to be manifest, and appealed to the judgement of the barons present. William faced them boldly, pointed to his own forehead, and said: “Sirs, look at me, for, by my faith! I am this day an example for you all. You hear what the king says; and what he proposes to do to me, that, and more also, will he do to every one of you, if he can get the upper hand.” The enraged king at these words called for instant judgement upon the speaker; but the barons “looked at each other and drew back.” “By God’s teeth!” swore John, “I see plainly that not one of my barons is with me in this; I must take counsel with my bachelors about this matter which is beginning to look so ugly”; and he withdrew to another place. The barons seemingly followed him, as did the “bachelors,” and the Marshal was left alone, save for two personal followers of his own. The bachelors as a body, when John appealed to them, gave it as their opinion that there could be no essoign for failing to serve the king on such an occasion as the present; but one of them, named Baldwin, added that there was in the whole assembly no man worthy to judge such a good knight as the Marshal, nor bold enough to undertake the proof (by ordeal of battle) of the charge brought against him by the king; and Baldwin’s remark “was pleasing to many.” Finding that neither baron nor knight would challenge the Marshal for him, John ended the scene by going to dinner; and after some further ineffectual endeavours to obtain a champion he let the matter drop, and began once more to treat the Marshal with civility, if not cordiality.[471]

By June 9 the tale of men and ships was complete. It was a splendid array; never before, folk said, had there come together a greater host of brave fighting men, “all ready and willing to go with the king over sea,” nor had there ever been assembled in any English harbour so large a number of ships equipped for the crossing.[472] To each of the leaders of the host was assigned, by the king’s orders, a vessel or a number of vessels sufficient for the transport of his following. Each vessel had received her lading of arms and provisions, and only the troops remained to be embarked, when the archbishop of Canterbury and the Earl Marshal went to the king and “used every possible argument to dissuade him from crossing. They represented what great mischief might arise from his going over sea;--how perilous it would be for him to thrust himself among so many battalions of enemies, when he had no safe place of refuge in the transmarine lands;--how the French king, being now master of nearly all his territories, could bring against him a force far outnumbering the English host;--how great was the danger of putting himself into the hands of the false and fickle Poitevins, whose wont was to be always plotting some treachery against their lords;--how the count of Boulogne and his confederates would speedily invade England if they heard that its chief men and its brave army were away;--and how it was much to be feared that, while endeavouring to regain his lost dominions, he might lose those which remained to him, especially as he had no heir whom he could leave behind him to take up the reins of government in case any misfortune should befall his own person in the lands beyond the sea. And when he could not be moved by these and other like arguments, they (the archbishop and the Marshal) fell down before him and clasped his knees to restrain him from leaving them, declaring that of a surety, if he would not yield to their prayers, they would detain him by force, lest by his departure the whole kingdom should be brought to confusion.” Such opposition as this, from two such men, implied a great deal more than is expressed in their words as reported by Ralph of Coggeshall. John saw at once that his six months of elaborate preparation had been wasted, and that his hopes were ruined. “Weeping and crying” with shame and grief, he passionately demanded what, then, did the archbishop advise as best to be done for the realm and for the king’s honour, as well as for the supporters who were looking for him to join them beyond the sea? After some consultation, his counsellors agreed that a force of picked knights should be sent, under the command of some English noble, to the help of John’s continental friends. All the rest of the host were bidden to return to their homes.

Bitter was the disappointment and vehement the indignation of the troops, especially the sailors, and loud and deep were the curses which they hurled at the ministers whose “detestable counsel” had thwarted the aspirations and shattered the hopes of king and people alike.[473] The ministers hurried the unwilling king away to Winchester (June 11); but next day he made his way back to Portsmouth, went on board a ship with a few comrades, and crossed into the Isle of Wight, probably hoping that when he was found to have actually set forth, the sailors and the troops would compel the barons to follow, or intending to throw himself alone, if need were, upon the honour of his Aquitanian adherents. At the end of two days, however, his companions persuaded him to abandon this desperate venture, and on June 15 he landed at Studland near Wareham.[474] His first act on landing was to claim “an infinite sum of money” from the earls, barons, prelates and knights, on the ground that they “had refused to follow him over sea for the recovery of his lost heritage.”[475] In so far as this exaction fell upon the shire-levies and the country knights, it was unjust, for the majority of these were clearly in sympathy with the king, and as eager for the expedition as he was himself. But it was impossible for him, in the actual circumstances, to distinguish between the willing and the unwilling; and there can be little doubt that so far as the barons were concerned, his assertion was practically correct. The gathering of the mightiest armament that had ever been seen in England had ended, not in a vigorous effort to regain the lost dominions of England’s sovereign, but in the despatch of a handful of knights under the earl of Salisbury to reinforce the garrison of La Rochelle.[476] That it had so ended was directly owing to the action of the primate and the Marshal. But it would obviously have been impossible for two men, however influential, to prevail against the king, if his policy had been supported by the whole body of the baronage on the spot and in arms. The most probable explanation of the matter is that Hubert and William knew the majority of the barons to be, at best, half-hearted in the cause. Whether, in a military and political point of view, the moment was really favourable or unfavourable for the undertaking which John contemplated and from which they shrank, is a question on which speculation is useless. All we can say is that if an opportunity was thrown away, the responsibility for its rejection does not lie upon John.

[Sidenote: 1205–1206]

John’s own feeling about the scene at Portsmouth came out, brutally indeed, but very naturally, in the exclamation with which he received the tidings of Archbishop Hubert’s death on July 13: “Now for the first time I am King of England!”[477] He took up afresh the plan which Hubert had foiled. Ten months, indeed, had to pass before he could bring his forces together again; but when at last “a great host” gathered at Portsmouth once more, ready to sail on Whitsun Eve {May 27}, 1206,[478] not a voice was raised to oppose its embarkation. The year had passed without disturbance in England; nothing had been seen, nothing further had even been heard, of the dreaded Flemish and French invasion. But on the other side of the sea the delay had told. The fall of Loches, shortly after Easter 1205,[479] had been followed on June 23--scarcely a fortnight after the break-up of the English muster--by that of Chinon,[480] and this again by the submission of the viscount of Thouars to the French conqueror.[481] Thus the last foothold of the Angevins in Touraine and on the northern frontier of Poitou were lost. There remained to John only two fortresses on the northern border of Poitou--Niort[482] and La Rochelle, the “fair city of the waters,” whose natural position made it almost impregnable even in those days, whither John had twice sent reinforcements,[483] and whose harbour offered a safe and commodious landing-place for him and his troops.

[Sidenote: 1206]

On June 7 John arrived at La Rochelle,[484] and met with an eager welcome; the vassals of the duchy of Aquitaine flocked to the standard of Eleanor’s heir. Six days after his landing he could venture as far into Poitou as the abbey of St. Maixent, half-way between Niort and Poitiers. The Poitevin counts had for centuries been benefactors to the abbey, and their descendant was no doubt sure of a welcome within its walls. He made, however, no further advance northward; it was needful, before doing so, to be quite sure of his footing in the south. From St. Maixent he went back to Niort, and thence southward through Saintonge[485] into Gascony. Here there was known to be a hostile party whose leaders had congregated in the castle of Montauban, a mighty fortress which Charles the Great was said to have besieged for seven years in vain.[486] In the middle of July, John formed the siege of Montauban, and then himself withdrew to Bourg-sur-Mer, a little seaport at the mouth of the Garonne, while his engines hurled their missiles against the fortress, till on the fifteenth day a sufficient breach was made, when “the English soldiery, who are specially admirable in this work, rushed to scale the walls, and to give and receive intolerable blows. At last the Englishmen prevailed, the besieged gave way, and the castle was taken.” John had probably come back to direct in person the assault thus successfully made by his brave “Englishmen,” for he was at Montauban on the day of its capture, August 1.[487] With it there fell into his hands, besides horses and arms and countless other spoil, a number of prisoners of such importance that we are told he sent a list of their names to his justiciars in England.[488] They evidently included all the Gascon barons whose hostility he had had reason to fear; and with them in his power, he could turn his back upon the south without further anxiety.

By August 21 John was back at Niort; after spending a week there, he proceeded to Montmorillon, on the borders of Poitou and Berry.[489] At this critical moment Almeric of Thouars reverted to his old allegiance.[490] John at once struck right across Poitou to Clisson,[491] on the borders of Anjou and Britanny; Almeric joined him either there or on the way thither, and they marched together into Anjou. A chronicler writing in the abbey of S. Aubin at Angers, which had always been under the special patronage and protection of John’s ancestors, tells how “when the king came to the river Loire, he found no boats for crossing. Therefore, on the Wednesday before the Nativity of the Blessed Mary {Sept. 6}, coming to the Port Alaschert, and making the sign of the cross over the water with his hand, he, relying on Divine aid, forded the river with all his host; which is a marvellous thing to tell, and such as was never heard of in our time.” With fire and sword the host fought its way into Angers, and for a whole week the heir of Fulk the Red held his court in the home of his forefathers.[492] He then marched up to Le Lude, on the border of Maine. On September 20 he was at Angers again, but left it next day.[493] On the two following days he was at Coudray, a few miles south of Saumur; there, probably, he and Almeric divided their forces, Almeric moving westward through his own land to attack Britanny,[494] while John seems to have gone southward again.[495] On October 3 he was at Thouars, where he stayed a week,[496] perhaps to await Almeric’s return.

Meanwhile, however, Philip Augustus had assembled the host of France, and led it as far as the Poitevin border.[497] With Philip’s personal appearance on the scene of action, John knew that his own successes were at an end. Neither Almeric of Thouars, nor the many barons in the English host who had taken the oath of allegiance to Philip, would fight against that monarch in person. While John went on to secure his retreat over sea by another visit to Niort and La Rochelle,[498] therefore, negotiations were set on foot; and when he came back to Thouars once more, on October 26, it was to proclaim a truce which had been made between himself and Philip, to last from October 13 for two years. By its terms each sovereign was to retain during that period the homage and services of all those who had attached themselves to him during the recent war; and any disputes which might arise about the allegiance of such persons were to be decided by the judgement of four barons named, two to represent each of the kings.[499] Trade, and intercourse of every kind, between the dominions of John and Philip was to be free, save that no man, unless he were either a priest or a “known merchant,” might go to the court of either without special licence, if he were a subject of the other. Thirteen sureties swore to the truce on behalf of John, and thirteen on behalf of Philip, who further undertook that it should be kept by four other barons whose oaths John had wished to have on his side, but had apparently been unable to obtain.[500] Philip’s sureties were headed by “the count of Britanny,” a title which can only represent Constance’s widower, Guy of Thouars, and thus shows that Arthur’s death was now, at any rate, regarded as certain. The first of John’s sureties was Guy’s brother, Almeric, the viscount of Thouars, whose action had for several years past generally turned the scale between the rival sovereigns in Poitou, and who by the terms of the truce was pledged to his present allegiance for the next two years at least. The other sureties on both sides were nearly all of them barons of Aquitaine;[501] those of the Angevin counties seem for the most part to have stood aloof. It is clear, however, that John had secured a firm hold on the southern provinces, and to a considerable extent regained a hold upon Poitou. On the whole, therefore, his expedition had been successful. The best proof of its success lies in Philip’s readiness to accept such a truce, without making any attempt to regain the ground which he had lost in Poitou, though he was actually in the land with an army at his back. As for John, he was going home to his island realm to prepare for a fight of another kind, and with an adversary of a character very different from that of Philip Augustus.

FOOTNOTES:

[262] Cf. R. Coggeshall, p. 98, and R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 88.

[263] “Quod praedictus dux redderet unicuique illorum jus suum,” R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 88.

[264] Stubbs, pref. to W. Coventry, vol. ii. pp. xxvi., xxvii.

[265] R. Howden, vol. iv. p. 90.

[266] R. Coggeshall, pp. 99, 100.

[267] R. Howden, vol. iv. pp. 89, 90.

[268] R. Wendover (ed. Coxe), vol. iii. pp. 139, 140. Cf. _Gesta Ric._ pp. 81, 82.