CHAPTER III. John Lackland, 1199-1215. 1. Earl John now sent Archbishop Hubert and William the Marshal to England to help the Justiciar to take charge of the realm. They held a council, and promising on John's behalf to right all wrongs and rule righteously, got the barons and people to swear fealty to him. But the people of Brittany, Maine, Anjou, and Touraine wished Arthur to be king, and his mother Constance, a foolish headstrong woman, gave the boy into Philip's charge, who took up his cause. However, the earl and Queen Eleano wrested Angers and Maine from the rebels, and on Easter Day John was crowned with the gilt coronet of Normandy by Hugh of Avalon. He then crossed to England, where on Ascension Day, 27th May, before a great gathering, he took the coronation oaths, Hubert adjuring him in the name of God not to dare take the crown unless he had it in his heart to fulfil the promises he had made. John then went back to Normandy, made peace with the French king, and, in 1200, gave his niece, John loses Blanche of Castile (whom Eleanor, now eighty Normandy, years old, had herself fetched from Spain to her 1199-1206. bridegroom), to the French prince Louis to wife. But in an evil hour John fell in love with Isabel, daughter of the Earl of Angoulesme, who was already espoused to Hugh the Brown of Lusignan, Earl of Marche, and (putting away his own wife, Hawis of Gloster) married her. "This match led to a breach with Philip, who took up the earl's quarrel, and, in 1202, sent Arthur (whose mother was now dead) with 200 French knights to help the rebellious Poitevins against the English king. But the old queen, Eleanor, held out in the keep of Mirabel, though Hugh and her grandson had taken the bailey, till the 31st of July, when John hurried up to her relief, and driving the besiegers like sheep into the castleyard took Arthur captive, together with his sister Eleanor the Fair Maid of Brittany, Earl Hugh, and nearly all their knights. Arthur was sent to Falaise and the rest thrown into prison. In 1203 John offered his nephew fair terms if he would promise to be faithful to him, but the angry lad swore that he would never give his uncle a year's peace till he had won England and the rest of Richard's inheritance from him; whereon John, seeing that he could never trust him, sent him to the New Tower at Rouen under close guard. There he died, no man knows how, April 1203, and Philip straightway summoned the English king to be tried for murder before the Peers of France on the accusation of the Bishop of Rennes. But as he would not promise him a safe-conduct there and back, John refusing to risk himself in his enemy's power, was tried in his absence, found guilty of treason and felony, and sentenced to lose all his French fiefs. Philip further made ready to carry out the judgment, and invaded Normandy. Trusting in his riches and skill as a general, John now fell into a strange kind of recklessness, sitting still in Rouen with his wife, feasting and making merry, and laughing at the news of Philip's successes, which he boasted he could revenge with interest whenever he had a mind to. In vain the poets tried to rouse the "Shameless King" by their satires. Sore must Guienne, in this her evil plight, Bewail King Richard, who ne'er grudged to spend The land that this man seems to hold so light. Feasting and hunting all his thoughts engage, And hawks and hounds he loves and ease; whereby And lets men thrust him from his heritage." His barons set his behaviour down to cowardice, some in disgust surrendering their castles at Philip's first summons, while most of the English knights went home without leave, for which John, who crossed to England to hold his Yule as Hubert's guest at Canterbury, fined them heavily. But though he raised money and gathered men, his faithful lieges over sea got no help. For nearly a year Roger of Lacy, the Constable of Chester, held the key of Normandy, The Saucy Castle, against all the French assaults, but in the spring of 1204 his stores gave out, when, despairing of relief, he tried to cut his way through the besiegers and was taken. Now this great stronghold had fallen, Rouen and the other towns sent a last message to John, telling him that they must surrender in default of instant succour, but he bade them shift for themselves. The old queen, Eleanor, who had saved them before, fell ill and died, 21st March, and so all hope being gone, one by one they were obliged to make terms. By July all Normandy (save the Channel Isles), as well as Anjou, Touraine, and Maine, were in Philip's hands. No real attempt at a rescue was made till 1206, for the English barons and John distrusted each other, when the king sailed to Rochelle with a large army and took Montauban with his war-engines. But after four months' campaign he agreed to a truce and went back to England. So the heritage of Henry II. was lost for ever, and the Angevin princes forced to rule henceforward as English kings, not merely as kings of England. 1207-1213. 2. In 1205 died Hubert, the wise archbishop, whose talents as a soldier and architect had won John's quarrel the favour of Richard, and whose clear state- with the Church, craft had made him a useful servant to John; while his truthfulness and wisdom gained him the respect of the clergy, who had at first looked on him with distrust; and his generosity and even temper compelled the regard of the people, who had dreaded his stern justice. By his advice the king had hitherto, like his father and brother, treated the Church with a fair tongue and a firm hand, and avoided all cause of trouble. But ere Hubert was buried, the younger party of the monks of Canterbury, who claimed the right of choosing the archbishops, met secretly, named their sub-prior Reginald to the office, and sent him to Rome for the pall. The elder monks, fearing lest their rashness might bring evil on the minister, went to John and agreed to name the man he should wish. John chose one of his ministers, John of Gray, Bishop of Norwich, a man ill-spoken of as "a servant of Mammon and an evil shepherd that devoured his own sheep." Several of the monks were then sent to Rome to beg the Pope to confirm the election. But the bishops, who held that the choice of an archbishop lay with them, not with the monks, appealed to Rome against both claimants. However, Innocent, the most proud and powerful of all the popes, quashed their plea, set aside both Reginald and John as unduly chosen, and made the monks elect his friend, Dr. Stephen Langton, a pious and wise man, whom he consecrated himself at Viterbo, June 1207. The king angrily refused to acknowledge Stephen, drove the monks abroad, and defied the Pope, who, after writing in vain to persuade him to an agreement, on March 23, 1208, laid an Interdict on the whole realm. No public service could be held, the churches were closed, and the dead were refused burial in the churchyards while it lasted, so that the people were in sore distress. But the king was the more angry, and sent his officers to seize the goods and land of the Church for his own use, merely leaving the clergy enough for their daily bread. In 1209 Innocent threatened to excommunicate John and cast him out of the pale of the Church; when most of the bishops, "fearing the king, but daring not obey him for dread of the Pope," fled abroad till these troubles were past. Still John would not yield. He made good his position in England by ordering his barons to swear fealty to him afresh and give hostages for their loyalty. With the money he wrung from the Church and the Jews (whom he treated cruelly, imprisoning them and torturing them till they ransomed themselves with their treasure) he raised great numbers of hired troops. Marching north in 1209 he compelled William the Lion to do homage and pay a heavy tribute. Next year with a fleet of 500 ships he went to Ireland, which was troubled by the quarrels between the Lacies and Courcy in Ulster, and the lawless behaviour of the outlaws who had fled from England to the Pale, beside the usual Irish wars. By seizing the outlaws, beating the King of Connaught, receiving the oaths of the Irish princes, restoring good laws, and setting good officers in the Pale, he quickly pacified the country, and leaving John of Gray, who, whatever his faults as a churchman, was no mean statesman, as Justiciar, sailed home with his captives in triumph. In 1211 he forced his son-in-law Llewellyn, the Welsh prince, to do homage at Snowdon, and sternly punished all outrages done along the Welsh border. But now the Pope sent Pandulf, his counsellor, and Durand, a knight of S. John, to make peace between the king and the archbishop, and they gave the king the Pope's message at a great council at Northampton. And when he refused to listen to their words, Pandulf, in the Pope's name, declared all John's subjects free from their oaths of fealty to him. Whereon the enemies of John were glad, the Welsh rose again, and the king was afraid to summon his barons together against them, for he knew that Robert Fitz-Walter the Banner-bearer of London and Eustace of Vesci, with many of the northern barons whom he had set against him by his insulting behaviour, were plotting against him. Still the greater part of the nobles, under the leadership of his brother William Longsword Earl of Salisbury, Geoffrey FitzPeter the Justiciar, and Hugh Neville the Grand Forester, a brave old crusader who had slain a lion single-handed in the Holy Land, as well as many of the more worldly clergy, such as "Squire Peter" des Roches Bishop of Winchester; and the Bishops of Bath and Durham, held by him; though his chief trust was in his hired troops and their captains--in Fawkes of Breaute with his engineers and Flemish men-at arms, and in Gerard of Athyes, Ingelard of Cigognes, Philip Mark, and many more with their Gascon arblast-men and knights. Those conspirators who were unable to get away were speedily thrown into prison, and John set about pleasing the people by laying down good rules for the seaports' trade, and forgiving offenders against the forest law. John becomes 3. But the Pope, grieved at the wretched state of England, now gave final sentence that "John should be thrust from his throne, and that another the Pope's vassal, worthier than he should reign in his stead," May 15, 1213. granting the crown to Philip of France, whom he bade carry out this decree. John had already formed a league with his nephew Otho the Emperor (who had also quarrelled with Innocent), Earl Ferdinand of Flanders, and Reginald Earl of Boulogne against Philip, and both sides gathered their forces. And now John resolved to come to terms with Innocent, believing that if he could only make peace speedily with the Church, he might crush his rival and win back all he had lost. He was also afraid of dying excommunicate, and frightened at the prophecy of Peter the Wise the Wakefield Hermit who had foretold that he should lose his crown ere next Ascension Day. Accordingly on May 15th, at Ewell, near Dover, where he was lying with a huge host, he received Pandulf, and by advice of his barons agreed to all Innocent's demands, promising to receive Stephen and make good to the clergy all the damage they had undergone. Moreover, he gave up his kingdom to the Pope, taking it back as a fief, for which he was to pay homage and a yearly rent of 1000 marks. Before the Pope's absolution could arrive William Longsword and the Earl of Boulogne attacked the French fleet lying at Damme, ready to invade England, took 300 ships and all the stores, and burned the rest, so putting an end to Philip's carefully-laid plans. However, the English nobles, ill-pleased at the behaviour of John's ministers and hired soldiers, and worn down by the heavy taxes which he laid upon them, refused under different excuses to go with him to France to follow up this splendid success. In July Stephen landed and absolved the king at Winchester, giving him the coronation oaths again. He also persuaded him not to punish the disobedient northern barons, while at S. Albans (4th August) Geoffrey the Justiciar promised that the laws of King Henry I. should be kept henceforward and all injustices swept away. On the 25th August the archbishop read the charter of Henry I. |