Chapter XXII: The End

The English army invaded France again, only to meet with defeat. England lost both fame and possessions: Philip wrested the latter from her. The entire population of Brittany rushed to arms after Arthur’s murder, and drove the enemy out of their country. Alan, their leader, continually roused them to resistance and incited them to avenge their murdered Duke. He would not tolerate any foreign ruler, and encouraged all classes to maintain their independence both against England and France. He demonstrated his patriotism and achieved victory, but at the cost of his life in defence of his fatherland.

Arthur was avenged. The contempt of all England, worse even than death to bear, was visited upon John when he returned from France. Detested by his subjects, mistrusted by the nobles, shamefully begging help from the Pope to keep his throne, his life came to an end in an era of turbulence. His lords, joining hands with the commons, extorted from him that important concession of rights, Magna Charta,[22] and compelled this execrable despot to lay the foundations of the greatness of the English people. Old and worn out with sickness, believing himself poisoned, racked with remorse, harassed by rebellious leaders, John died in the midst of an insurrection.

The derisive epithet, “John Lackland,” has branded him in history as a spurious and cruel sovereign. The figure of Arthur of Brittany, glorified in poetry, beautified with the immortal lustre of youth, stands out brightly against the dark background of those bloody days.[23]

Appendix

The following is a chronological statement of the principal events treated of in this volume:

1133 Birth of Henry the Second.
1152 Henry marries Eleanor.
1157 Birth of Richard the First.
1158 Birth of Geoffrey.
1165 Birth of Philip Augustus of France.
1167 Birth of John, surnamed Lackland.
1180 Philip Augustus succeeds to the throne.
1186 Death of Geoffrey.
1187 Birth of Arthur, Duke of Brittany.
1189 Death of Henry the Second.
1189 Rebellion of Richard and John.
1189 Richard succeeds to the throne.
1189 Period of the Third Crusade.
1195 War between Philip Augustus and Richard.
1199 Death of Richard.
1203 Assassination of Arthur.
1216 Death of John.
1223 Death of Philip Augustus.

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Footnotes

[1]Geoffrey was born September 23, 1158, and died August 19, 1186. He
married Constance of Brittany.

[2]Henry II was the first king of England of the house of Plantagenet.
Outside of England he possessed Normandy and the suzerainty of
Brittany, which he inherited from the Norman kings; Anjou and Maine
from his father, and by marriage with Eleanor, Poitou, Guienne, and
Gascony.

[3]This is one version of the manner in which Geoffrey came to his
death. The generally accepted historical version is that he was
killed at a tournament in Paris.

[4]Duke Arthur of Brittany was born at Nantes, France, March 29, 1187,
and was killed at Rouen, April 3, 1203. According to the author of
this story, he was murdered on shipboard by King John, his uncle,
because he refused to waive his lawful claim to the throne of
England. History fails to make an authoritative statement of the
manner of the young hero’s death, but it is unanimously conceded that
John procured his assassination, if he did not commit the deed
himself.

[5]Rennes, capital of Ille-et-Vilaine, France, was the capital of
ancient Brittany.

[6]Philip Augustus, King of France, was born in 1165, and died in 1223.
He was the son of Louis VII, and was noted for his banishment of the
Jews, his participation in the Third Crusade with Richard the
Lion-hearted, and the crusade against the Albigenses.

[7]“The King left only two legitimate sons,—Richard, who succeeded him,
and John, who inherited no territory, though his father had often
intended to leave him a part of his extensive dominion. He was thence
commonly denominated ‘Lackland.’”—Hume.

[8]Henry the Second, King of England, died July 6, 1189. In the last
year of his reign he was confronted with the rebellion of his sons
Richard and John, in which they were assisted by Philip Augustus of
France.

[9]Geoffrey, the father of Arthur, had been concerned in a previous
rebellion against his father, instigated, like that of Richard and
John, by Queen Eleanor.

[10]This was the Third Crusade (1189-92), which was led by Frederick
Barbarossa of Germany (see the volume “Barbarossa” in this series),
Richard the Lion-hearted of England, and Philip Augustus of France.
They failed to recover Jerusalem, which had been recaptured by the
Mussulmans in 1187.

[11]Richard the First, surnamed the Lion-hearted, was born September 8,
1157, and was the third son of Henry the Second. He was killed in a
war with Philip Augustus of France, John’s ally.

[12]The author’s chronology is at fault in this connection. Godfrey of
Bouillon was a leader in the First Crusade, and died at Jerusalem in
1100, before the period of this story.

[13]Acre, in Palestine, was captured by the Crusaders in 1191, and
Ascalon in 1153. The latter city was the birthplace of Herod the
First.

[14]Henry the Sixth, born in 1165, was the son of Barbarossa, whom he
succeeded as King of Germany in 1190.

[15]Trifels was an imperial fortress in the Rhine Palatinate, near
Annweiler, which was the resort of mediæval emperors. Only its ruins
remain.

[16]The Louvre, now one of the world’s famous art museums, was a castle
of the kings of France from the thirteenth century, and the chief
royal palace until Versailles was built by Louis the Fourteenth. Most
of the interior has been occupied as a museum since 1793.

[17]Marie of France was the daughter of Philip Augustus.

[18]Montjoie is the name of a hill near Paris where Saint Denis was
murdered. In tournaments “Montjoie” was the cry of the French
heralds; and “Montjoie St. Denis” was the French battle-cry.

[19]Compiègne is a town in the Department of Oise, France, and is famous
for the royal palace rebuilt by Louis the Fifteenth. Napoleon the
First greatly enriched its interior.

[20]Blondel was a _trouvère_, or minstrel, who accompanied Richard the
Lion-hearted, and is said to have discovered him when he was
imprisoned by singing a song under the King’s tower, to which Richard
responded.

[21]Hume accepts the following account of the murder as the most
reliable: “John first removed him to the castle of Rouen; and coming
in a boat, during the night time, to that place, commanded Arthur to
be brought forth to him. The young prince, aware of his danger, and
now more subdued by the continuance of his misfortunes and by the
approach of death, threw himself on his knees before his uncle and
begged for mercy; but the barbarous tyrant, making no reply, stabbed
him with his own hands, and, fastening a stone to the dead body,
threw it into the Seine.”

[22]Magna Charta, the charter of English liberties, signed by John and
his barons at Runnymede, June 15, 1215.

[23]Hume says of John: “Cowardice, inactivity, folly, levity,
licentiousness, ingratitude, treachery, tyranny, and cruelty,—all
these qualities appear too evidently in the several incidents of his
life to give us room to suspect that the disagreeable picture has
been anywise overcharged by the prejudices of the ancient
historians.”

Transcriber’s Notes

--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public
domain in the country of publication.

--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the
HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)

--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
dialect unchanged.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Duke of Brittany, by Henriette Jeanrenaud