Cassell's Illustrated History of England/Volume 1/Chapter 50
CHAPTER L.
When the news of the death of Richard I. was conveyed to his brother John, he immediately took measures for obtaining possession of the throne. This degenerate son of the house of Plantagenet recovered his courage when he had only a child to oppose his ambitious schemes—for the young Arthur, whom Richard had appointed his heir, was not yet twelve years old. John, who knew well how little popularity he possessed in England, sent to secure the services of the foreign mercenaries who had been in the army of Richard, offering them a greatly increased rate of pay, and promising to their leaders profitable appointments. Being then in Normandy; he dispatched William Mareschall and Hubert Walter, the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose adherence he had obtained, into England, to further his claims, and prepare the way for his coming. Meanwhile, he presented himself before the castle of Chinon, and demanded possession of his brother's treasure, which was there deposited. No opposition was made to him in that neighbourhood, and the Governor of Chinon, as well as those of other strongholds, opened their gates at his bidding. Not so the Lords of Touraine, Anjou, and Maine, who joined the Bretons in supporting the claims of their young prince Arthur, and raised the standard of revolt. John caused himself to be inaugurated at Rouen as Duke of Normandy, and having wreaked his vengeance on the citizens of Mans, for having refused him their allegiance, he crossed the Channel, and landed at Shorehain on the 25th of May, A.D. 1199, six weeks after his brother's death.
When Hubert of Canterbury and William Mareschall arrived in England, they caused proclamation to be made throughout the kingdom, calling upon all the earls, barons, and owners of land to render fealty to John, Duke of Normandy, son of King Henry, son of the Empress Matilda. But the character of John was well known to the English barons, and few of them were disposed to yield to the authority of a tyrant whose cruelty had hitherto been measured only by his power. They retired to their castles and fortified towns, preparing them for defence and laying up stores of provisions. The more turbulent and reckless characters among the people took advantage of the moment when the arm of power was relaxed, and made predatory excursions through the country. Those who had the moans armed themselves in defence of their property, and thus continual conflicts were taking place among different classes of the population, and the land appeared to be rapidly approaching a condition of civil war. Whatever may have been the motives which first induced Hubert to espouse the cause of John, it will scarcely be denied that the archbishop was justified in putting an end to this state of things, by any means in his power. It has been already stated that Hubert Walter was a man of very high abilities, and these he now exerted to the utmost, and with a remarkable success. Having summoned a council of the barons and prelates at Nottingham, he used all his eloquence to overcome the disaffection of the assembly, while to arguments were added secret gifts and lavish promises in the name of John. These inducements prevailed, and the barons there present took the oath of allegiance.
Immediately after the landing of John, he proceeded to the church of St. Peter, at Westminster, there to prefer formally his claim to the crown. He carried with him a document, which purported to be a will signed by Richard on his death-bed, in which no allusion was made to the claims of Arthur, but John was appointed unreservedly as the successor to the throne. There seems as little reason to suppose that Richard would have made such a will, as to doubt that John was capable of forging it; but whether the instrument was true or not, it had no influence upon the events which followed. The Archbishop Hubert was well aware that, according to the laws of primogeniture, Arthur, as the only son of an elder brother, had an undoubted right to the succession; the prelate, therefore, in addressing the people assembled in the church, assumed that the monarchy was entirely elective, and that no man could be entitled to the crown unless he wore chosen by the nation. He asserted that John had already been so chosen at the council held at Nottingham, and that there was no one of the family of the dead king better fitted to assume the regal dignity. He declared that John possessed those meritorious qualities which had belonged to King Richard—a statement which it would have been difficult to prove—and that for these reasons, as well as for having the same lineage, he was elected king. Whatever may have been the real temper of the assembly, no opposition was made to these statements, and the English crown was conferred upon the most vicious and worthless prince who ever wore it.
Great Seal of King John, affixed to Magna Charta.
The new king began his reign amidst the disaffection, if not the hatred, of the people, while he was menaced on every side by the attacks of enemies from without. In the north, William the Lion, King of Scotland, was preparing to invade his territories; while on the Continent, all his vassals, except those of Normandy, were in insurrection, and the French king, his former ally, had declared war against him. The aspect of affairs was highly favourable to the designs of Philip, who, to further his own ends, declared himself in favour of the cause of the young Arthur. John, having sent an army under the command of William de Stateville to oppose the Scottish king, passed over into Normandy. Negotiations were then entered into by Philip, who demanded that all the Continental provinces subject to England, with the exception of Normandy, should be given up to Arthur, and that a large portion of Normandy should be resigned to the French crown. Such terms could not be accepted, and the war continued.
The young prince, whose claims to the English throne gave rise to so much of bloodshed and revolution, appeared to have been marked for misfortune from his birth. He was a posthumous child, his father, Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, second son of Henry II., having been killed in a tournament several months before Arthur came into the world. The Bretons, who were perpetually struggling for independence against the overwhelming force of France on the one hand and of England on the other, hailed the birth of their native prince with enthusiastic joy, and when his grandfather desired to give him the name of Henry, they one and all insisted that he should be called Arthur—a name which was held in as much honour by them as among their kindred, the Britons of Wales. The latter people, who held tenaciously by their ancient traditions, handed down by the bards from generation to generation, believed firmly that they were destined once more to possess the whole island of Britain. The confidence they expressed in this wild hope, opposed as it was to all probability, caused them to be regarded both in England and France as having the gift of prophecy. The songs of their ancient poets, imaginative and obscure, were supposed to possess a hidden meaning which was traced in the political events occurring many years afterwards. Hence arose the strange stories related of Myrdhin, a Cambrian bard of the seventh century, who. after a lapse of five hundred years, had become celebrated under the name of the enchanter Merlin. To this source, also, is to be attributed the extraordinary fame of King Arthur, of whose existence no authentic records remain, but to whom the glowing imaginations of the Welsh poets attributed superhuman valour and virtues. The writings of that people, when translated into the languages of the Continent, were read with avidity. The troubadours of Provence completed the picture drawn by the Welsh, and from the shadowy outline furnished by tradition, produced that vigorous portraiture of a perfect knight which became celebrated throughout Europe. The Welsh placed the most entire confidence in the prediction of Merlin, that King Arthur would return to them and restore their ancient glory; and this belief was shared by the Bretons of the Continent. These were the reasons which induced the latter people to call their young chief by the name of Arthur; and as the child grew in strength and beauty, they hoped to see the day when their independence should be restored through him, and he should rule them without the control of French or English.
Richard Cœur-de-Lion receiving his death wound before the Castle of Chaluz.
While the Bretons were fighting against Richard I., Constance, the mother of Arthur, relinquished their support, and carried her son first to the court of Richard and then to that of the King of France. When John ascended the throne, Arthur was placed under the protection of Philip, to whom the boy-prince was made to surrender the independence of Brittany, Maine, and Anjou, by acknowledging him as feudal suzerain of those provinces. Constance was a woman of little virtue, and seems to have cared more about the prosecution of her own intrigues than the welfare and safety of her child. The Bretons, headed by William of Dearoches, firmly maintained the attitude they had assumed; while John, with his army of mercenaries, advanced upon their lands, spreading ruin and devastation around him—burning the villages, and selling the inhabitants as slaves. Philip marched a body of troops to the assistance of Desroehes, took possession of several towns of Brittany, and seized some castles on the frontiers belonging to the English. No sooner had he done so, however, than he dismantled or razed to the ground these fortifications, with the view of depriving the country of its defences, and thus leaving it open to the attacks which he himself proposed to make upon it.
The Death of Prince Aurthur. (See page 219.)
When young Arthur, who had declared himself his vassal, ventured a remonstrance against these proceedings, the king replied, "Am I not free to do what I please in my own territories?" Arthur then perceived the mistake he had made in placing his cause in the hands of this rapacious monarch. Assisted by Desroches, the young prince and his mother quitted the French court, and not knowing where to seek a refuge, gave themselves up to John, who, with his customary hypocrisy, received his nephew with smiles and caresses, and at the same time gave orders for his imprisonment. Arthur was apprised of the intended treachery, and having succeeded in effecting his escape, he returned once more to Philip.
The King of France—who well knew the strength which his arms derived from his apparent support of the boy's claims—welcomed him back without anger, and, by way of securing him for the future, conferred upon him the honour of knighthood, and even promised him the hand of his daughter Mary in marriage. This friendly attitude, however, did not exist long. Philip soon perceived that it was impossible to retain possession of his new territories, so long as he was opposed by the inhabitants themselves on the one hand, and the arms of the King of England on the other. He therefore determined to arrange a peace with John, and for that purpose he completely sacrificed the interests of the young prince, to whom ho had so lately promised an alliance with himself. By a treaty concluded in the following year (A.D. 1200) between the two kings, it was agreed that John should retain possession of all the provinces held by his father, and Arthur was compelled to do homage to his uncle for Anjou, Brittany, and Maine. In return for these concessions Philip obtained the peace he desired, together with the possession of several towns, and a sum of 30,000 marks. There was also a secret clause, or promise, attached to the treaty, by which, in case the King of England died without issue, the French king should succeed to the whole of his Continental dominions.
In spite of the act which thus deprived young Arthur of his inheritance, he remained at the French court, where Philip retained him, to be brought forward in case of any new cause of offence on the part of John. It was not long before such an occurrence took place. With the exception of Normandy, the only province under the Anglo-Norman rule which refrained from open rebellion against John was that of Aquitaine, or Guienne. Peace had been maintained there chiefly by the influence of the Queen Eleanor, who was the representative of the ancient lords of the province, and to whose person the people had always shown great attachment. In the summer of the year 1200 John made a progress through this part of his dominions, and, by the pomp and parade with which he appeared, made a favourable impression upon the lively and impressible children of the south. On this occasion John, who was a tolerably good actor, exerted all his powers to obtain popularity, and strove to hide his naturally tyrannical and vindictive temper under a smiling face and affable manner. It appears that he was only partially successful. He had not sufficient patience or self-control to continue long this kind of deceit, and on some trifling provocation his real character would display itself. He was already married, and had been so for ten years, to Avisa, daughter of the Earl of Gloucester, a gentle and amiable woman; but John was as remarkable for licentiousness as for cruelty, and his passions were under no restraint, except from his fears. At the time of his visit to Aquataine, he saw a lady whose beauty was celebrated throughout the French provinces, and who immediately attracted his lawless admiration. This was Isabella, the daughter of the Count of Angoulême, and lately married to Hugh de Brun, Count of La Marche. Regardless of the ties by which both she and himself were bound, John seized possession of her person and took her to Angoulême, where the ceremony of marriage was performed between them by the Archbishop of Bordeaux. A few months later he returned to England, carring with him his new wife, who was crowned at Westminster by the Archbishop of Canterbury. John himself was re-crowned on that occasion. He then gave himself up to indolence and luxury, not knowing or caring how the kingdom was governed; heeding little the disaffection of his people at home, or the indignation which his tyranny had excited throughout France.
The Count of La Marche was a young and powerful chief, who was not likely to endure without resistance the grievous wrong he had suffered. The barons, his neighbours, made his cause their own; and when he raised the standard of rebellion they armed their retainers in his service. John, apprised of the storm which was gathering in the south, summoned his lords to attend him with their troops. Many of them at once refused, and said openly that they would not unsheathe their swords in such a paltry and dishonourable war. There were some high-minded men among the Anglo-Norman barons; but the majority of them were not apt to be so scrupulous, and their refusal was dictated by no other reason than their hatred to the king. They afterwards proposed to accompany him on condition of all their rights and liberties being restored. John's rage on this occasion gave him energy; and for a time he asserted his authority by compelling the barons to pay the tax of scutage, and to give hostages in place of their personal service. He then crossed over into Normandy, accompanied by Isabella, and proceeded to Paris, where he was received by Philip—a much abler hypocrite—with great show of courtesy. The French king had already entered into an alliance with the Count of La Marche, and was at that moment engaged in organising a formidable insurrection in Brittany. A part of Aquitaine still remained quiet under the influence of Eleanor; and through this district John passed in state after he had quitted Paris. He, however, did not go for the purpose of fighting, and soon marched back again, having produced no other effect than to inspire the insurgents with contempt for so aimless a demonstration.
In the year 1202 the struggle at length commenced which was destined to give a fatal blow to the Plantagenet power in France. It has been considered probable that had the successors of Henry II. possessed the abilities which distinguished that monarch, they would ultimately have extended their authority over the whole of France; but if we regard the relative geographical positions of the two countries, and the turbulent and warlike character of the Gallic tribes, it will appear unlikely that such a condition of affairs could have been long maintained, and that, on the contrary, it was almost a matter of certainty that the French provinces would, sooner or later, become separated from the English crown; but that separation took place at a much earlier period than it otherwise would have done, in consequence of the indolence and pusillanimity of John. Philip, who had waited only to arrange certain differences in which he had been engaged with the Pope, now openly declared himself in favour of the claims of Arthur, and of the cause of the men of Aquitaine. He proclaimed the young prince Count of Brittany, Anjou, and Poitou, and gave him 200 knights, with whom he directed him to march and take possession of those provinces, and to conquer the towns of Poitou, which were in the hands of the English king. Arthur entered into a treaty, by which he resigned to Philip all the Norman territory of which the king had become possessed, or might obtain during the expedition which he was preparing to take into that province. Arthur then raised his standard, and appealed for aid to the Bretons, who promptly responded to the call by joining in alliance with the Poitovins, and sending their prince 500 knights and 400 foot. These, with 100 men-at-arms from Touraine and Poitou, and the small body of French troops, was all the force at his command. It did not suit the purpose of Philip to place too much power in the hands of the boy, to whom he never meant to resign any portion of those territories for which Arthur believed himself to be fighting.
Arthur was now an orphan, his mother Constance having died during his stay at the French court; he was in his fifteenth year, and therefore, though possessing all the valour of his race, he was necessarily deficient in knowledge of the art of war, and of experience in the field. Nevertheless, the boy-leader rode gallantly at the head of his little army, and led them against the town of Mirebean, in which his grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, was then shut up. His advisers may probably have reminded him that Eleanor had always been the enemy of his mother, and that could he take her prisoner, it would be an important step towards bringing the king, his uncle, to terms. Whether Arthur was or was not aware that his grand-mother was within the town, the circumstance proved fatal to the success of the expedition. The town surrendered without much resistance, but not before Eleanor had thrown herself into the castle, which was very strong, and there this Amazon of eighty maintained a vigorous defence against the attacks of the prince, whose troops had occupied the town. The Breton army remained in apparent security, when John, who on this occasion displayed an extraordinary degree of activity, suddenly appeared before the gates of Mirebeau. The troops of Arthur, though taken by surprise, made a gallant resistance, and it was only by means of treachery that, on the night of the 31st of July, John obtained possession of the town. The prince was taken while asleep, and the other leaders of the insurrection were made prisoners without the opportunity of resistance. Among these were the unhappy Count of La Marche, Isabella's husband; the Viscounts of Thenars, Limoges, and Lusignan, and nearly 200 other nobles and knights of fame. King John now showed to its full extent the hideous malignity of his nature. He caused his gallant prisoners to be loaded with chains, tied together in open carts drawn by bullocks, and thus to be convoyed to dungeons in Normandy and England. But the deprivation of light, liberty, and hope, was not punishment sufficient to satisfy his cruelty, and he caused them to be subjected to the lingering horrors of starvation. It is related that twenty-two noblemen were starved to death in Corfe Castle, where they had been confined.
Of the fate of the young Prince Arthur, no authentic details have been recorded. That his youth and innocence did not save him from the bloody hands of John, is certain, but of the manner in which he came by his death we can only form an idea by comparing the different stories which are current on the subject among the old chroniclers. Arthur was conveyed by his uncle to the castle of Falaise, whence he was removed to that of Rouen. There he disappeared, and there ends the narrative of sober fact, the rest bringing us into the region of conjecture and probability. The Normans, who remained loyal to the English king, spread a report that Arthur died of sickness in the castle of Rouen, or was killed in attempting to make his escape; this statement may be at once rejected as a mere invention, and not a very ingenious one. The account given by some of the French chroniclers is to the following effect:—John having visited his nephew at Falaise, desired him to put confidence in his uncle. Arthur rejected his advances, and said indignantly, "Give me my inheritance, the kingdom of England." The king then sent him to Rouen, strongly guarded, and not long afterwards ho suddenly disappeared. It was suspected by all men that John had murdered his nephew with his own hands, and he became the object of the deepest hatred. The monks of Margan relate that John killed the prince in a fit of drunkenness, and caused his body to be thrown into the Seine, with stones tied at bis feet, but that notwithstanding these, it was cast on the bank, and was buried at the abbey of Bee secretly, for fear of the tyrant.[1]
The story current among the Bretons was nearly similar, with the difference of a change of scene. They related that John having feigned to be reconciled to his nephew, took him from the castle of Rouen, and caused him to ride in his company in the direction of Cherbourg, keeping near to the sea coast. Towards nightfall one evening, when the prince had ridden with his perfidious uncle in advance of their escort, they arrived at the top of a high cliff over-looking the sea, and John suddenly seized the boy round the waist and threw him over the cliff. Another account, more circumstantial, and which has been generally received as likely to be the correct one, is given by Ralph, Abbot of Coggleshall. The story is as follows:—The king's councillors having represented to him that the Bretons would continue their rebellion so long as the Prince Arthur was in a condition to assume the sovereignty, suggested that the eyes of the boy should be put out, and so render him unfit for government. Some ruffians in the king's service were sent to the dungeon at Falaise to execute this cruel deed, but the tears and prayers of the youth, and his helpless condition, moved even their hearts to pity, and Hubert de Burgh, the warden of the castle, took advantage of their hesitation to forward an earnest appeal for mercy to the king. The only result of the petition was the removal of the prince from Falaise to Rouen. On the 3rd of April, A.D. 1203, he was roused from his sleep, and desired to descend to the foot of the tower, beside which flowed the placid waters of the Seine. At the bottom of the steps he saw a boat, in which was seated the king, his uncle, attended by an esquire named Peter de Maniac. The boy shrank back in terror, anticipating the fate which awaited him, and fell on his knees before his uncle, making a last appeal for mercy. But John, whose heart was harder than those of the vilest wretches in his pay, gave the sign, and the murder was committed. Some relate that the esquire hesitated to obey the sign, and that John himself seized his nephew by the hair, ran him through the body, and threw him into the water. Other writers, however, assert that Do Maulac was the actual murderer, and this statement is confirmed by the fact that soon afterwards John gave him the hand of a rich heiress in marriage, as the reward of his services.
However near the truth these different statements may have been, it is certain that the rumour of the murder was spread throughout Brittany during the same month of April. The indignation of the people was universal; they had believed their future destiny to be connected with that of their prince, and they professed the greatest attachment to the French king, as the enemy of his murderer. The elder sister of Arthur, the maid of Brittany—whose lot was scarcely more fortunate than that of her brother—was confined in a monastery at Bristol, where she remained for forty years; but the people declared Alice, daughter of Constance by her last husband, and half-sister of Arthur, to be their duchess, and appointed her father, Guy of Thouars, as their regent or governor. The barons of the province then appeared before Philip, to whom, as their feudal suzerain, they complained of the murder of their prince. Philip eagerly availed himself of the appeal, and cited John, as his vassal for the duchy of Normandy, to appear before the court of the barons of France, to whom the name of peers was now first given. The accused monarch did not appear, and was condemned by the court to the forfeiture of all the lands which he held of the kingdom of France, possession of which was to be taken by arms.
No sooner did Philip appear with his forces on the frontier of Poitou, than the inhabitants rose to join his standard, and when he returned to attack Normandy, he found he was anticipated by the Bretons, who had occupied the whole of that portion of the duchy which bordered on their territories. They took by assault the strong castle of Mount St. Michael, seized upon Avranches, and burned the villages which lay between that city and Caen. These successes gave new strength to the expedition of the French king, who, joined by the people of Anjou and Maine, took Andelys, Evreux, Domfrent, and Lisieux, and then joined the Breton army at Caen. While this formidable confederacy menaced him on every side, John was passing his days in voluptuous indolence, or in the sports of the field. When his courtiers brought him intelligence of new successes on the part of his enemies, he expressed his contempt of the rabble of Bretons and of anything they could do; but when, in the month of December, the insurgents appeared in the neighbourhood of Rouen, he suddenly became aware of his danger, and fled over into England.
On his arrival, he demanded the aid of the barons to raise an army for his service, but the call was responded to with the utmost apathy. It would appear that the Anglo-Norman lords no longer possessed the great estates they had formerly held in Normandy; for had such been the case, it is not probable that their hatred to the king would have duped them to disregard their own interests. After in fain attempting to raise a sufficient force to oppose the French king, John appealed to Rome (A.D. 1204), and Pope Innocent sent two legates into France for the purpose of negotiating a peace. Philip, however, who had everything to gain by prolonging the war, refused to listen to the entreaties of the legates, and their mission ended without success.
When John fled from Normandy, there remained in his possession throughout the duchy only the town of Rouen and the fortresses of Chàteau-Gaillard and Verneuil. The people of Rouen held out until they were reduced to the last extremity by famine, when, having concluded a truce of thirty days with the French king, they sent to John praying for succour. The messengers found the king playing at chess, and while they told their deplorable talc, he remained seated at his game and gave them no answer. When the game was over, he told them that he had no means of succouring them, and that they must do the best they could. This was the only recognition he made of the heroic struggle of the citizens on his behalf. Rouen surrendered, the two castles soon afterwards followed its example, and the conquest of Normandy was complete. This duchy was then finally restored to the French crown, after having been separated from it for 292 years. Within the same year, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, Poitou, and Brittany also fell under the authority of Philip, and John retained only a few castles in these provinces and the territory of Aquitaine, which remained nominally under his rule.
The Bretons soon discovered that, so far from having recovered their independence, they had changed the tyranny of a weak arm for that of a strong one. Disgusted with the supremacy of the King of France, they made efforts which proved fruitless to renew their alliance with John, and then, with a sort of suicidal ferocity, they aided their new sovereign to destroy the independence bf their neighbours. In the year 1206, John landed au army at La Rochello, whence he proceeded to the Loire, taking the castle of Montaubau, and burning the town of Angers. His energy, however, did not last long, and for several months he gave himself up to feasting and debauchery. Aroused once more, he passed on to the town of Nantes, to which he laid siege; but on the approach of Philip with an army, he raised the siege, and proposed to negotiate with the French king. During the negotiations John ran away to England, covered with disgrace. By the intervention of the Pope, a truce for two years was then arranged between the two kings.
Degraded as he was in the eyes of all honourable men, John retained his arrogance, and governed his kingdom with greater tyranny than ever. In the following year (A.D. 1207) he defied the authority of that power concentrated in the Holy See, which was now so formidable throughout Europe, and which he, of all men, was least fitted to resist. The ground of the quarrel was the right of the town to the appointment of bishops. The Pope had canonically appointed Stephen Langton to the see of Canterbury, and the monks of Canterbury refused to submit to any other archbishop. John, however, was determined that his favourite, John de Gray, Bishop of Norwich, should receive the appointment, and he sent two knights with a body of soldiers to Canterbury, to drive the rebellious monks out of the country. Once more those walls which had witnessed the murder of Becket were profaned by a deed of violence; the monks were compelled to quit their monastery and take refuge in Flanders, where they were received into the religious houses. Innocent, who was a man of great ability, sent a temperate letter to the king, demanding redress for this outrage, but John returned an insolent reply, and set the Pontiff at defiance. Soon afterwards the Bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester received directions from Rome to wait upon the king, and in case they were still unable to obtain redress for the injury, to threaten him with an interdict upon the whole kingdom. John heard the threat with transports of rage, and swore that if the bishops dared to lay his states under an interdict, he would seize upon their property, and drive them and their clergy penniless to Rome; that if any Roman priests dared to appear in the country, he would cut off their noses and tear out their eyes, and so make them a witness of his vengeance before the nations. Undeterred by these savage menaces, the bishops proclaimed the interdict on the 23rd of March, A.D. 1208, and then fled across the Channel. The effect of an interdict has already been described; and in the present instance it was carried out to the fullest extent by the unanimous concurrence of the clergy. During this time the country lay as it were in mourning, the churches were closed, the pictures of the saints covered with black cloth, and their relics laid on ashes in the aisles; the priests refused their offices with the exception of administering the rite of baptism to infants and the sacrament to the dying; and the command of Rome suspended all public prayers to Heaven. At the end of the year Innocent proceeded to further measures, and issued against John the sentence of excommunication.
The king now became alarmed at his position. He saw the spirit of disaffection increasing among his barons; he had made enemies of the clergy, and he was hated by the people. Abroad, the aspect of affairs was no less menacing. He knew that the Pope would follow up the sentence of excommunication by proclaiming his dethronement, and declaring him unworthy to rule in a Christian land; and he perceived that Philip was making ready to invade England, armed with the authority of the Holy See. Wherever he looked he saw none but enemies, and it was evident that his downfall would be attended with a general rejoicing throughout Europe. It is related by Matthew Paris that at this moment of danger John applied for succour to the Emir al Nassir, the powerful chief of the Moslems of Spain. It was even reported that he had offered to embrace the religion of Mahomet, and to become a vassal of the Emir, in return for the assistance he demanded. Improbable and disgraceful as such an offer would have been, there is no doubt that John was capable of making it; but if he did so, it was not accepted, and the king was compelled to give up the attempt to obtain assistance from abroad.
For the purpose of raising an army, John determined to obtain money by any and every means in his power, and in the spring of the year 1210, he commenced a series of exactions compared to which those of his predecessors had been moderate. He employed the most lawless means of forcing their hoards from his subjects, and especially from the Jews, who, as the richest, were invariably the first to suffer on such occasions. He declared that his object was to drive the French king from Normandy; but as soon as he had raised an army, he crossed over into Ireland, where the English nobles had thrown off his authority. He landed on the 6th of June, and on his arrival at Dublin many of the native chiefs came to offer him their homage. With their assistance he marched through the country, destroying the castles of the insurgent barons, who were totally unprepared for resistance, and within a few weeks he had reduced them to submission. He then established English laws in the island, appointing officers to see them duly executed; he also directed that the same coins of money should be used in the two countries—a measure by which the interests of commerce were greatly promoted. Having appointed John de Gray, Bishop of Norwich, to the government of the island, he returned to England. This conquest, in which he encountered no opposition, encouraged him to make a descent upon Wales in the following year (1211). For this purpose more money was required, and he obtained it by measures more flagitious, if possible, than before. He summoned before him all the heads of religious establishments, abbots and abbesses, and compelled them to deliver up the property of the Church into his hands. Having exhausted this source of supply, he again attacked the Jews visiting them with imprisonment and the torture to force a compliance with his demands. As an instance of the manner in which the unhappy people were dealt with, the following story is related by the chroniclers. There lived at Bristol a very wealthy Jew, who, by the king's command, was thrown into a dungeon until he should consent to pay 10,000 marks for his liberty. As the Jew preferred rather to be incarcerated than to pay such a sum, the king's patience was soon exhausted, and he gave orders that each day one of the prisoner's teeth should be pulled out of his head until he was reduced to submission.[2] For seven days the victim endured this torture, but when on the next day the executioner came to pluck out the eighth tooth, the pain which he had suffered overcame the Jew's fortitude, and he consented to pay the money. This command of John, which was mild and merciful compared with his treatment of other of his captives, displays, however, an ingenuity in torture which could only have occurred to a mind thoroughly cruel and malignant.
Having now raised a great army, the king entered Wales and penetrated as far as Snowdon. The people could make no resistance against the force brought against them, and they were compelled to pay to him a tribute of cattle, and to give twenty-eight hostages, the sons of their chiefs, as security for their fidelity. But the efforts made by John to destroy their independence proved altogether fruitless. Their strength now, as in former years, lay in their mountain fastnesses; the spirit of freedom has her seat among mountains in every age and country. Within a year after the king's return to England, the Welsh were again up in arms. As soon as the news was brought to John he hanged the unhappy youths who were in his hands as hostages, and he was preparing for another descent upon Wales, when he learnt that a conspiracy was forming against him among the English barons. He then immediately relinquished his intention, and shut himself up for fifteen days in Nottingham Castle, where he seems to have stayed in something like an extremity of fear. His acts at this time were dictated entirely by impulses, now of cruelty, now of cowardice, and cannot be accounted for by any rational rule of conduct. Suddenly he recovered his courage, quitted Nottingham, and marched to Chester, once more declaring that he would exterminate the Welsh; then as suddenly he retraced his steps and returned to London. It would appear that he lived in continual dread of his life, suffering no one to approach him but his immediate attendants and favourites, whose fidelity he secured by his gold, and keeping himself surrounded by large bodies of foreign mercenaries. Hated as he knew himself to be, he made no attempt to change his tyrannical conduct or to conciliate the regard of the people, but, on the contrary, each day witnessed some new act of cruelty, which rendered him still more obnoxious to his subjects.
At length Pope Innocent listened to the prayers of the English exiles, and solemnly proclaimed the deposition of the English king, as an enemy to the Church of Christ, and called upon all Christian princes to take up arms against him and to join in hurling him from the throne. Stephen Langton, the banished Archbishop of Canterbury, with other prelates, appeared with the Pope's letters at the French court and there called together a solemn council, and informed the king and lords of France that the Pope gave his sanction to the invasion of England. Innocent promised to Philip the remission of his sins provided he accepted and fulfilled the solemn commission with which he was charged. Philip had other inducements to do so, which were sufficiently strong, and he at once collected an array on the coast of Normandy, and caused a fleet of 1,700 vessels to be made ready at Boulogne and other ports to convey them across the Channel.
King John.
Aroused by the imminence of the danger, John appealed to his subjects to resist the foreign invader, and collected all the vessels in the kingdom which were capable of being used as transports. Then, under the influence of one of his fits of energy, he acted with boldness and determination; and before the French fleet had quitted Normandy, the English vessel crossed the Channel and swept along the coast. The superiority already attained by the English sailors was clearly shown on this occasion, and was soon to be still more decisively manifested. A French squadron at the mouth of the Seine was destroyed by the English, who also burned the town of Dieppe, and returned triumphantly, the fleet at Boulogne not having ventured to leave the harbour.
While success thus crowned the arms of John on the sea, he possessed on shore a numerous army of stout English yeomen who had joined his standard, and who, whatever might be their feelings towards him personally, would doubtless have fought well to save their country from a foreign yoke. But John's courage seldom endured beyond the first moments of excitement, and when he found time to calculate risks and chances, he consulted his own safety by any means in his power. He took no measures for following up his successes, and it was evident that in spite of his haughty defiance of the power of Rome, he would now be glad to escape from his dangerous position by humbling himself before it. Pandulph, the legate of the Pope, who fully understood the character of John, obtained permission to land in England, and presented himself in the royal presence. He laid before the king the impolicy of his course of action, the danger he incurred from the French king, whose formidable preparations he described, and the probability of a general rebellion among the English barons The facts were undeniable, and urged as they were with all the skill and eloquence of an able diplomatist, they produced the greatest alarm in the breast of the tyrant. This feeling was increased by the' prediction of a hermit named Peter, who asserted that before Ascension Day, which was three days distant, the king would have ceased to reign. Irreligious as he was, John was by no means free from superstition, and he seems to have attached more weight to the words of the friar, which he believed foretold his death, than to the arguments of the legate.
John kneeling before the Pope's Legate.
After some hesitation, his fears prevailed, and he agreed to sign an agreement or treaty with the Pope, by which he bound himself to fulfil The facts were undeniable, and urged as they were with all those demands of the Church whose refusals had caused his excommunication; to restore the monks of Canterbury to their lands; to receive into favour all the exiled clergy, especially Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury; and that be should make satisfaction to both clergy and laity for any injuries they had sustained in consequence of the interdict, paying down a sum of £8000 as a first instalment of such indemnity.
Pandulph agreed, in the Pope's name, that, on the performance of these conditions, the interdict should be removed from the country, and that the servants of the Church, including the exiled bishops, should swear fidelity to the king. Four of the chief barons of the kingdom bore witness to this compact, which was solemnly concluded. By this agreement John suffered no peculiar indignity, but it was immediately followed by a proceeding in the highest degree disgraceful, and which can only be accounted for by the subtle art with which the legate worked upon the fears of the pusillanimous monarch. On the 15th of May, A.D. 1213, John proceeded at an early hour in the morning to the church of the Templars at Dover, and there, in the presence of the bishops and nobles of the realm, he knelt down before Pandulph, placed his crown in his hands, and took the oath of fealty to the Pope, At the same time he gave into the hands of the legate a document which set forth that be, the King of England, Lord of Ireland, in atonement for his sins against God and the Church, did of his own free will, and with the consent of the barons, surrender into the hands of Pope Innocent and his successors for ever, the kingdom of England and lordship of Ireland, to hold them henceforth as fiefs of the Holy See, John and his successors paying for them a yearly tribute of 700 marks for England, and 300 marks for Ireland.
On the following day, which was the Feast of the Ascension, John awoke with something of the feeling of a criminal whose hour of execution has arrived. The words of the hermit Peter caused him to tremble even more than the thunders of Home; and he watched the long hours till sunset, anticipating the stroke which was to end his hateful existence. When the time of the prediction had passed away, and he found himself still alive, he caused Peter and his son to be dragged at the tails of horses to the gibbet, where they were executed as a punishment for the terror they had caused him. But it was commonly said among the people that the monk had told no lie; and that John had ceased to be a king when he laid his crown at the feet of a foreign priest.