Chapter VIII.

(1189-1216.) Richard Cœur-de-lion. John Lackland. Magna Charta.

The first act of the new king was to deliver from her prison his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, to whom he had always been tenderly attached. While she was presiding over the preparations for the crowning of her son, dispensing amnesties, and calling all free men to swear allegiance to him, Richard arrested Stephen of Tours, seneschal of Anjou and treasurer to Henry IL, threw him into prison, and did not restore him to liberty until he had been put in possession by him, not only of the treasures of the dead king, but of all the personal property of the treasurer as well. On arriving in England, Richard also went in great haste to Winchester, in order to secure the riches which had been amassed there by his father. The Jews were uneasy at seeing the new sovereign display so much avidity; they had been accustomed to suffer for any want of money on the part of kings, and Philip Augustus had just set the example of confiscation, by driving them away from his kingdom on his accession (1180), in order to seize their property. {183} Richard contented himself with forbidding them to enter Westminster Abbey; but some wealthy Jews, hoping to secure the favor of the new king by rich presents, ventured to present themselves among the vassals who brought their offerings to Richard. The gifts were accepted, but, after the coronation ceremony, when Richard, having taken the crown from the altar, in token that he held it from God alone, had deposited it in the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who placed it upon Richard's head, a noise was heard proceeding from the gates of the churchyard. A Jew who attempted to enter was pushed back; on this disturbance being made, the other Jews were driven away, and then the popular vengeance was wreaked upon their houses, which were set a-fire. A great number of Jews were killed. The fury spread throughout the whole of the country. At York, the unhappy Jews retired into the citadel, where the governor allowed them to take refuge. But he went out one day, and the Jews, fearful of treason, refused to let him re-enter. The fortress was besieged, and when the Jews found themselves about to be taken, they set light to an immense wood pile, and threw themselves upon it with all their riches, after having themselves slain their wives and children. Richard forbade this persecution of the Jews, but did not cause anybody to be punished; "and this shedding of the Jews' blood," says the old chronicler, "although against the wish of the king, seemed to foretell that Cœur-de-Lion would be a plague to the Saviour's enemies."

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Richard appeared for the time being to have become imbued with the commercial spirit of these much despised Israelites. He turned everything into money, selling the royal domains which his father had been at such pains to reconstitute: bartering away towns, castles, and even, sometimes, property which did not belong to him. "I would sell London, if I could find a buyer," he said. The most important offices in the kingdom were disposed of by auction like the domains. Hugh Pudsey, bishop of Durham, bought the county of Northumberland and the title of Chief Justicier; the bishoprics and the abbeys were offered to the highest bidder; the King of Scotland was released of the tribute imposed upon him and his people during his captivity, for the sum of 20,000 marks of silver. The crusade which Richard was projecting, and which occupied his whole attention, required considerable sums of money, and the king was not very scrupulous as to the means he adopted for obtaining the money which he wanted.

Prince John, his brother, had just received some very large gifts in Normandy and in England, but he was not nominated regent of the kingdom during Richard's absence; the power was divided between Bishop Pudsey and William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely and Chancellor of England. Many duties were entrusted to Queen Eleanor, and, towards the end of the year 1189, Richard proceeded to Normandy. He had promised to start on the crusade at Easter in 1190. The emissaries of King Philip-Augustus met him at Rouen, and took oath upon the soul of the king their master to a treaty of alliance, both offensive and defensive, between the two sovereigns,--the King of France undertaking to respect and defend the rights of the King of England as he would his good city of Paris; while the English delegates swore, on the soul of the King of England, to perform the same services for King Philip as he would for his good city of Rouen. The kings of England wore still, before all, Dukes of Normandy.

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The Queen of France, Isabella of Hainault, had just died, and the departure for the crusade was postponed until midsummer. The two kings at length met on the plains of Vezelay, accompanied, it is said, by a hundred thousand crusaders. They marched across the country together as far as Lyons, and then separated, after having made an appointment to meet at Messina. Philip marched towards Genoa, where he expected to find those of his vessels which were destined for foreign service. Richard was going to Marseilles; his fleet was to come and meet him there. England was no longer at the mercy of Genoese or Venetian merchants, being in possession of a considerable number of vessels. But the English ships were delayed; they experienced some mishaps in the Bay of Biscay; some had sought shelter in Portugal. Richard became impatient, and hiring some mercantile barks, he set out with a portion of his forces, in order to arrive sooner at Messina to meet the King of France. But the English ships sailed faster than the Marseilles barks; when the king arrived in Sicily, his fleet had preceded him.

The kingdom of Sicily had previously lost its sovereign, William the Good, brother-in-law to King Richard, and his cousin Tancred, Count of Lecce, had been elected king in his stead. The dowager queen, Joanna, Richard's sister, claimed her jointure, which Tancred held unjustly, as she said. Scarcely had Richard set foot in Sicily when, without waiting for the negotiations to be made, he took possession of the castle and of the town of Bagnara, and established his sister there, who had arrived before him; then returning to Messina, he drove the monks from a convent which suited his purposes, and converted it into a barracks. {186} So many outrages roused the people, who shut the gates against Richard's troops. A conference was being held in the camp of Philip-Augustus for adjusting this difference, when a fresh quarrel broke out between the Sicilians and the English troops. Richard left the royal tent in great haste, assembled his men, and running helter-skelter among the citizens, he entered Messina and planted his banner upon the ramparts. Philip-Augustus at once demanded that his own banner should also be planted there; but Richard consented to give up the town into the hands of the knights templars, pending the decision respecting his sister's pretensions, and King Tancred hastened the negotiations, being anxious to rid himself of so turbulent and formidable a guest. Queen Joanna obtained a large sum of money, and King Richard received his share of it, which he scattered broadcast amongst the crusaders, thus finding favor with the French as well as the English, the Normans, and the Aquitanians.

Philip-Augustus, courageous and bold as he was when necessary, did not possess in as great a degree as the King of England, the brilliant qualities which then constituted a true knight; he was more prudent and cunning than Richard; perhaps he was even given to dissimulation, for Tancred accused him before the King of England of having endeavored to dissuade him from negotiating with Richard; and when the latter came and complained angrily to Philip, a quarrel was about to break out between the two brothers in arms, who had sworn to help each other in the holy enterprise. Richard thereby gained permission, accorded to him by the King of France, to marry whoever he chose instead of the Princess Alice, the sister of Philip-Augustus. It was high time for Richard to disengage himself from previous contracts, for Queen Eleanor was to bring back to her son the Princess Berengaria, for whom she had been to Navarre. {187} They were only waiting until the departure of Philip to celebrate the marriage. Bad weather had prolonged the stay of the King of France at Messina until Lent, and Richard's marriage with Berengaria had not yet been solemnized when Philip left Sicily, on the 30th of March, 1191, upon his ship "Franc-la-Mer," at the head of more than two hundred vessels. The Queen of Sicily took the young princess away with her.

The weather was unfavorable, and the fleet was dispersed. When King Richard, suffering from sea-sickness, landed at Rhodes, he was almost alone, and he learnt that the vessel, the "Lion," with the princesses on board, had been driven ashore on the coast of Cyprus; the governor of the island, or, as he called himself, the Emperor Isaac Comnenus, had not allowed them to disembark; the sailors who had ventured to land had even been ill-treated.

Much less provocation would have sufficed to arouse the anger and vengeance of Cœur-de-Lion. He immediately left Rhodes, sailed to Cyprus, took possession of the island, and made prisoners of the emperor and his daughter, gave the latter to Berengaria for an attendant, and placed Isaac Comnenus in silver chains, which the latter wore until his death. Richard was married in the church of Limasol on the day after Easter, in order to set out immediately for Acre, the siege of which town had already commenced, in spite of the plague, which was decimating the army.

The prowess of King Richard soon attracted towards him the eyes of the crusaders and of the Mussulmans themselves. Stricken with the fever, he would cause himself to be carried upon a litter to the ramparts, and would there direct the movements of the troops. He distributed among the knights the money taken at Cyprus. The jealousy of King Philip gained ground day by day. {188} Accustomed to consider himself superior to the King of England, who was his vassal, Philip was annoyed at seeing his own authority lessened in consequence of the prodigious valor of Richard, the "king," as he was called everywhere in the East, in defiance of the rights of the King of France.

The French knights and their adherents on the one hand, the English knights and their allies on the other, had vainly endeavored to take the town by storm. Saladin, the sultan of the Arabs, kept aloof, watching for an opportunity to relieve Acre. But the Christian army completely surrounded it--"as the eyeball the eye," say the oriental historians--so completely, in fact, that at the moment when the chiefs of the Christian army, temporarily reconciled, were preparing to attack the town in unison, the Mussulman garrison surrendered, their lives being spared, on the 12th of July, 1191, and Saladin retired into the interior of the country. Philip and Richard immediately entered Acre at the head of their armies, and planted their banners upon the ramparts. The King of England had taken possession of the sultan's palace, without troubling himself to find a residence for Philip, and when he learnt that the Arch-duke of Austria, Leopold, had set up his banner at the side of the standard of England, he went and tore it down with his own hands, and threw it into the trenches, indignantly asking how a duke could have any pretensions to the honors exclusively reserved for kings. Richard was destined to pay dearly for these haughty proceedings.

Scarcely had the crusaders entered Acre when King Philip announced his intention of returning to Europe. In vain was he urged to persevere in the holy enterprise; in vain his emissaries who were entrusted to announce this news to King Richard were so ashamed of it that they wept and said nothing.

[Image] Richard Removing The Archduke's Banner.

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Philip insisted on returning to France, which country he would have been wise not to have left in the preceding year. Ten thousand French crusaders remained in the East, under the command of the Duke of Burgundy. The King of France solemnly swore not to make any attempt upon Richard's dominions, and set sail on the 31st of July, leaving the Christian army a prey to the dissensions to which the succession to the throne of the still unconquered city of Jerusalem gave rise. Sybil, granddaughter of Godfrey of Bouillon, had just died, and her husband, Hugh of Lusignan, was one of the two pretenders to the title of King of Jerusalem, the other being Conrad of Montferrat, husband of Isabella, sister of Sybil. The King of France espoused the cause of Conrad, and Richard supported Lusignan. It was in the midst of these differences that the crusaders, under the command of the King of England, commenced a march across the desert of Mount Carmel. Exhausted by the heat, they were also harassed by the Arab horsemen, who were more embittered than ever against the Christians, for the term fixed for the exchange of prisoners having gone by without Saladin's having sent back those in his possession, the King of England had caused all the Mussulman prisoners to be led out of the camp and to be slaughtered before the sultan's eyes. The soldiers even went as far as searching the entrails of their victims for any gold or precious stones which they might have swallowed.

A great battle was fought at Arsouf on the 7th of September; King Richard performed prodigies of valor and opened up a road to Jaffa. Saladin was at Ascalon, when the crusaders, who had arrived at Bethany, were compelled to give up their intention of laying siege to Jerusalem on account of the bad weather. The sultan at once abandoned Ascalon, dismantling the ramparts, and thus making the way clear for Richard. {190} The latter hastened to repair the fortifications. In order to encourage the soldiers, he himself carried stones to the workers, and urged the Archduke Leopold to do likewise. "I am not the son of a mason," replied the Austrian, whereupon Richard, in a fit of passion, struck him in the face. Leopold at once left the army and set out to return to his states, followed by his soldiers.

In vain was Ascalon fortified; in vain did Richard agree to confer the crown of Jerusalem upon Conrad of Montferrat, in the hope of re-establishing a mutual understanding in order to be able to march against Jerusalem. That prince was almost immediately murdered by two emissaries of the "Old Man of the Mountain," a mysterious sovereign, whose devotees, intoxicated by the fumes of haschich, blindly obeyed his orders. This crime was attributed to the King of England, who afterwards quarrelled with the Duke of Burgundy, depriving himself of the support of the French as he had previously deprived himself of that of the Austrians. They had again advanced as far as Bethany, and a band of crusaders had ascended a mountain overlooking Jerusalem. King Richard was asked to come and see the holy city in the distance. "No," said he, covering his face with his cloak; "those who are not worthy of conquering Jerusalem should not look at it." The crusaders retraced their steps as far as Acre.

On arriving at that town, Richard suddenly learnt that Saladin was besieging Jaffa. He embarked at once and sailed to the rescue. The crescent already shone upon the walls, but a priest who had cast himself into the water in front of the royal vessel told Richard that he could yet save the garrison, although the town was already in the hands of the enemy. {191} The ship had not yet reached the landing-stage, and already the king was in the water, which reached his shoulders, and was uttering the war cry, "St. George!" The infidels, who were busy plundering the city, took fright, and three thousand men fled, pursued by four or five knights of the cross. The little corps of Christians intrenched themselves behind planks of wood and tubs; ten tents held the whole of the army. Day had scarcely dawned, when a soldier flew to Richard's bedside. "O king! we are dead men!" he cried; "the enemy is upon us." The king sprang up from his bed, scarcely allowing himself time to buckle on his armor, and omitting his helmet and shield. "Silence!" he said to the bearer of the bad news, "or I will kill you." Seventeen knights had gathered round Cœur-de-Lion, kneeling on the ground, and holding their lances; in their midst were some archers, accompanied by attendants who were recharging their arquebuses. The king was standing in the midst. The Saracens endeavored in vain to overawe this heroic little band; not one of them stirred. At length, under a shower of arrows, the knights sprang on their horses, and swept the plain before them. They entered Jaffa towards evening, and drove the Mussulmans from it. From the time of daybreak, Richard had not ceased for a moment to deal out his blows, and the skin of his hand adhered to the handle of his battle-axe. The remembrance of this day had not faded when, more than fifty years later, St. Louis led the French troops to the crusade. Joinville heard the Saracen mothers scolding their children and threatening them with Malek-Rik, a name which the Mussulmans gave to King Richard. Such severe fatigue under the burning sun had affected the health of Cœur-de-Lion. Disquieting news came from his dominions. He concluded a truce with Saladin, giving up Ascalon to him, but keeping Jaffa, Tyre, and the fortresses along the coast, and promising to refrain from any hostilities during a period of three years, three months, three weeks, three days, and three hours. {192} "Then I will come back," said Richard, "with double the number of men that I now possess, and will reconquer Jerusalem." Saladin smiled, acknowledging, however, that if the Holy City was to fall into the hands of the Christians, no one was more worthy of conquering it than Malek-Rik. The two adversaries had conceived for each other a feeling of chivalrous admiration and esteem which is the theme of Sir Walter Scott's novel "The Talisman." Numerous presents had been exchanged by them during the war; and when Richard was suffering from fever, and was perishing with thirst, he received each day fruits and cooling drinks which were sent to him by the sultan.

It was on the 9th of October, 1192, that Richard Cœur-de-Lion left Palestine. Standing upon the poop of his ship, he was surveying the shore, then fading from sight. "Oh! Holy Land," cried he, "I leave you to God, as well as your people. May He help me to come back to your assistance!" The English ships were sailing together, when a storm arose and dispersed them. The one which carried the two queens arrived in Sicily, but King Richard was not with them, and no one knew what had become of him. Driven at first towards the island of Corfu, he had hired three small vessels, which had taken him to Zara, whence he hoped to reach his nephew Otho of Saxony, son of his sister Matilda. He found himself surrounded by enemies and threatened on all sides. He knew that King Philip had entered into a league with John Lackland, in order to deprive him of his kingdom: the Emperor Henry had laid claim to the throne of Sicily, and had not forgiven Richard for his alliance with Tancred; Leopold of Austria had not abandoned all hope of revenge, and everywhere the relations of Conrad of Montferrat were accusing the King of England of having been the cause of the death of their ally.

[Image] Richard's Farewell To The Holy Land.

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Richard assumed the garb of a merchant and started on his journey through the mountains of the Tyrol. He arrived at Goritz in Carinthia, where he sent and asked for a passport for Baldwin of Béthune, one of his knights, and for Hugh the merchant. The messenger was instructed at the same time to present the governor with a ring which the merchant sent him. The governor scrutinized the messenger. "You are not speaking the truth," cried he. "It is not a merchant who sends me this ring, but King Richard. But as he honors me with his gifts without knowing me, although I am the cousin of Conrad of Montferrat, I will do him no injury. Tell him, however, to leave this place as soon as possible."

The governor of Goritz did not wish to arrest King Richard, but he had not promised to keep the secret. He informed Frederick of Montferrat, Conrad's brother, that Cœur-de-Lion was about to travel across his dominions. Recognized by a Norman knight, the king was saved by a faithful vassal, and had arrived in the states of the Duke of Austria, when he fell ill in the village of Erperg, a short distance from Vienna. A page was despatched to the capital to exchange some gold bezants for current coin of the country. He was noticed and interrogated, and being put under torture he divulged his master's name. Richard was stretched upon his bed, sleeping, when the mayor of Vienna entered his little apartment "Good morrow, King of England," he said. "You hide in vain, for your face betrays you."

The king had already seized his sword, protesting that he would only surrender to the duke himself. Leopold was unwilling to let any one else have the honor of making the capture; he soon arrived, and received the King of England's sword. {194} "You should esteem yourself fortunate, Sire," said the duke, with a smile of revengeful satisfaction; "if you had fallen into the hands of the relations of Conrad of Montferrat you would have been a dead man, even if you had had a thousand lives." And triumphantly leading forth his prisoner, whom he reminded on the road of the insult which had been formerly offered to the Austrian flag, he shut Richard up in the castle of Diernstein. But the emperor at once claimed the illustrious captive. "A duke cannot possibly keep a king!" he urged; "it is the right of an emperor." And Richard was conducted to the castle of Treefels, where he languished for two years.

While King Richard had been acquiring glory in Palestine, without any signal advantage gained to the Christian cause, disorder reigned supreme over his kingdom; the Chancellor Longchamp had seized upon the power, casting his fellow-bishop of Durham into prison, and only setting him free at the price of all the dignities which the latter had bought of Richard. The chancellor was able and devoted to the king, but haughty, arrogant, despotic, and, above all, rapacious, as all powerful men were at that time. "If he had remained master," say the chronicles, "he would not have left a belt to the men, a bracelet to the women, a ring to the knights, or a jewel to the Jews." But scarcely had King Richard arrived in Palestine when Prince John unmasked himself. Having raised an army against the chancellor, he claimed the supreme authority on the ground of his being heir presumptive to the crown, resolutely refusing to recognize the rights of Arthur of Brittany, son of Geoffrey, whom Richard had repeatedly nominated as his successor. Badly supported by the barons, Longchamp was beaten, and compelled to agree to a truce. {195} By means of intrigue and concessions, John first of all caused himself to be recognized by the regent and the council as heir to the throne, then obtained the deposition of the chancellor, and saw himself raised to the dignity of Governor-General of the kingdom. It was on the 9th of October, 1191, while King Richard was fortifying the town of Jaffa, after the victory of Ascalon. The new regent offered to allow Longchamp to keep his diocese of Ely, and have the governorship of three royal castles. "No," said the deposed chancellor, "I will not willingly give up any of my master's rights; but you are stronger than I, and chancellor and chief justicier as I am, I yield to superior power." He consigned the keys of the Tower to Prince John, and made preparation for leaving England. No doubt he knew the prince too well not to fear some treachery, for he disguised himself as a travelling trades-woman, and, accompanied by a large number of boxes, he waited near Dover for the ship which was to carry him to France. The vessel was delayed; some fishermen's wives, passing along the beach, asked if they might look at his goods; but the Chancellor of England did not understand English, but only spoke Norman, and therefore could not answer; the women, being impatient, declared that the owner of the boxes must be a mad woman, and raised her veil. They started back at seeing a man's face underneath it. The fishermen rushed to the spot; and, suspecting some sinister purpose in the disguise, they subjected Longchamp to ill-treatment until the officers of the guard came, tore him from their grasp, and took him to prison. The Chancellor had much difficulty in getting free again, and in obtaining permission to proceed to France. The Archbishop of Rouen was created chancellor and chief justicier in his stead.

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It was in the month of October, 1192, when King Richard was just setting sail from Acre, that rumors of his approaching return were spread throughout Europe; but in vain did days, weeks, months elapse. The champion of the Cross, Cœur-de-Lion, had disappeared, and his fate remained shrouded in mystery, when, at the beginning of the year 1193, a letter from the Emperor Henry VI. to the King of France, discovered by accident, revealed the fact of Richard's incarceration in Austria. "The enemy of the Empire and the disturber of France," said the Emperor, "is imprisoned in a castle in the Tyrol, and watched day and night by faithful guards with naked swords." The exact whereabouts of the castle remained a secret.

The effect of this news in Europe was wonderful; Richard's reputation had caused people to forget his pride and avarice. Prince John was as proud and as avaricious as his brother, without the fitful generosity and brilliant valor which in Richard compensated for so many faults: the clergy remembered the great deeds performed for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre; all the noblemen and knights were disgusted at the treachery which kept a king and a crusader in an unknown prison; the Pope excommunicated the Archduke Leopold, and threatened the Emperor with the same penalty; Prince John and the King of France alone rejoiced at the powerless state in which their enemy found himself. The prince hastened to Paris to do homage to Philip for all the dominions which the King of England held upon the Continent; and then, recrossing the Channel, he commenced preparations for raising an army, to enable him to dispute his brother's claim to the crown; but already the barons and prelates who remained faithful to Richard had unfurled the royal standard; the hired soldiers gathered together by John were repulsed, and the feeble usurper was compelled to consent to an armistice. His ally of France had been unsuccessful at Rouen, which was defended by the Earl of Essex, who had recently arrived from Palestine. Philip had been compelled to quit that town.

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The ex-Chancellor Longchamp had at length discovered the king's prison, and had gone to see him. He managed to induce the emperor to convoke the Diet of the Empire at Hagenau, in order to hear the charges against Richard. The King of England appeared before the princes there assembled, and cleared himself easily of the accusations brought against him. The emperor consented to deliver him up for a ransom; the sum fixed was a hundred and fifty thousand marks of silver. The king's fetters were removed, and he was led back to his prison, there to remain until the united efforts of his people should raise the required sum of money. "My brother John will never gain a kingdom by his valor!" Cœur-de-Lion had disdainfully declared on hearing of that prince's treachery. But John could plot, and, supported by Philip Augustus, he contributed greatly towards postponing the deliverance of his brother. Richard was still languishing in prison at the beginning of the year 1194, lamenting his fate in Provençal ballads, which may be translated thus:--

Now know ye well, my barons, people, all, English and Norman, Gascon and Poitevin, That for no money would I leave in thrall The poorest of my comrades thus to pine. Reproach I made not nor desire withal, Though now two winters here.

The period of his captivity was at length, however, drawing to an end; in vain did Philip-Augustus and Prince John propose to the Emperor Henry a much larger sum than Richard's ransom if he would still keep the latter in prison. The princes of the Empire opposed the offer indignantly, and when the first half of the ransom arrived, in the month of February, 1194, the king was at length restored to liberty. {198} He landed at Sandwich on the 13th of March, to the great delight of his subjects. Prince John had taken refuge in Normandy, and the other traitors had disappeared. Richard seized upon several castles, deprived several rebels of their offices, and sold them to the highest bidder; then, levying another tax upon a country exhausted by war and by the payment of the royal ransom, he hastened to France, to punish her king for the injuries inflicted upon him by that monarch. On disembarking Richard was met by his brother, who reckoned upon the intercession of his mother to obtain the forgiveness of the sovereign whom he had so cruelly wronged. "I forgive him," said Richard; "and I hope that I shall forget his misdeeds as completely as he will forget my forgiveness." He refused, however, to reinstate John in his land and castles.

War was still raging between the two monarchs, with variable success. Richard was enabled to wreak his vengeance upon the Bishop of Beauvais, who had formerly been entrusted with missions from Philip to the Emperor of Germany. That prelate, having been made a prisoner during a battle, by Merchadec, chief of the Brabantines in Richard's service, was imprisoned in the castle of Rouen. In vain did he implore the intervention of Pope Celestine III. in his favor; the King of England sent the armor, stained with the bishop's blood, to the Pontiff, with this quotation from Scripture: "See whether it is your son's garment." The Pope laughed. "It is the coat of a son of Mars," said he, "let Mars undertake to deliver him;" and the bishop remained in prison until the death of King Richard.

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So many struggles were necessarily burdensome; "from sea to sea England was ruined," say the chroniclers. A citizen of London, William Fitz-Osbert, better known by his title of "Longbeard," constituted himself the champion of the poor, endeavoring, first of all, by interceding with the king to obtain a lessening of the burdens which were crushing them. The king wanted money. Longbeard achieved no result; and came back to England, where he organized a secret association. He began a series of public orations, causing dangerous riots in London, where he was looked upon by the people as their king and saviour. The authorities endeavored to arrest him, but he took refuge in the church of St. Mary of the Arches, with a few supporters, where he defended himself until the building being set afire he was obliged to leave it; he was wounded, captured and dragged to Smithfield, where he was hanged. The people had done nothing to rescue him; but it was found necessary to punish the fanatics who came by night to scrape up the earth at the foot of his gibbet, to be preserved as relics.

King Richard had defeated Philip-Augustus at the gates of Gisors. Whilst making his escape, the King of France had almost been drowned in the river. "I made him drink the water of the Epte," Richard wrote triumphantly. But the day was approaching which was to see the end of so many heroic, but fruitless struggles; it was rumored in Normandy that an arrow was being fashioned in Limousin, which was destined to kill a tyrant. The King of England learnt that his vassal, the Viscount of Limoges, had discovered a treasure. He at once sent to claim it of the Viscount, who sent him one-half of his treasure trove upon a mule. "Gold treasure belongs to the liege-lord; silver is divided," said the Viscount. But Richard wanted the whole; he marched against the castle of Chalus, where he expected to find the treasure, and laid siege to the place. It was well defended, but provisions had run short; the garrison wished to capitulate. {200} "No," said Richard, "I will take your place by storm, and cause you all to be hanged on the walls." The defenders of the town were in despair; the king and Merchadec were examining the point of attack, when a young archer, Bertrand de Gourdon, pulled his bow, and, praying to God to direct the arrow, aimed it at the king; the latter was struck on the left shoulder. The town, however, was taken by assault, and all the garrison were hanged. The king sent for Gourdon. He was dying, for an unskilful surgeon had broken the arrow, and left the steel portion in the wound. "Wretch!" said he to the archer, "what had I done to you that you should have attempted my life?" "You have put my father and two brothers to death," said Bertrand, "and you wanted to hang me." "I forgive you," cried Richard; "let his chains be removed, and let him receive one hundred shillings." Merchadec took no heed of the royal pardon, but caused Bertrand de Gourdon to be flayed alive. Gourdon's children fled to Scotland, and became, it is said, the founders of the illustrious family of the Gordons. Richard died on the 6th of April, 1199. Scarcely had he breathed his last, when his sister Joanna, whom he had married to the Count of Toulouse, arrived at the camp before Chalus, to solicit help for her husband in his dispute with the court of Rome, in the matter of the Albigenses. She was informed of the death of her brother, and the shock caused her to give birth to a child prematurely. The child was stillborn, and the mother died in delivering it. She was buried with her brother at Fontevraud, at the foot of the grave of Henry II.

The period of chivalric enterprises in England had gone by, and that of humiliation and decay was commencing. The reign, however, of John Lackland, the most cowardly and treacherous of the sovereigns who have sat on the throne of England, is one of the most important epochs in history, for from that time dates the active part played by the nation in its own affairs--the time of Magna Charta, the germ and foundation of all English liberty.

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Magna Charta

John was well known by the people whom he aspired to govern, and was universally detested. Scarcely had the rumor of the death of King Richard spread through France, when all the nobility of Brittany, Touraine, Anjou, and Maine declared themselves in favor of Prince Arthur, son of Geoffrey Plantagenet and of Constance of Brittany, born seven months after his father's death, whom Richard had repeatedly nominated as his successor. Under the influence of Eleanor, Aquitaine and Poitou recognized John as their liege-lord: he was in Normandy, and caused himself to be proclaimed at Rouen on the 25th of April. He had already sent the Archbishop of Canterbury back to England, to bring together all the barons, and to make them swear allegiance to John, Duke of Normandy, son of King Henry, son of the Empress Matilda. The repugnance felt towards him was very general, but the fear of anarchy decided several noblemen in favor of John; promises and presents influenced others, and, on the 25th of May, 1199, when John arrived in England, the greater number of the barons had become reconciled to his cause. The new king was crowned on the 27th of May at Westminster, the primate proclaiming aloud that the crown of England was not an inheritance descending by right of primogeniture, but that it belonged to the worthiest claimant. The worthiest claimant on this occasion was Prince John.

There had been no question raised about the rights of Arthur; but Philip-Augustus was too shrewd not to seize this pretext for renewing the war against John, whom he knew to be a coward, a sluggard, and a sovereign unpopular in his kingdom; he claimed, therefore, in the name of the young prince, whose mother had placed him under the royal protection, nearly all King John's continental domains. {202} Hostilities recommenced, and Brittany was ravaged both by its enemies and friends; but the King of France was engaged in a serious dispute with the Pope; his kingdom had just been placed under an interdict; he concluded peace with John, sacrificing, without remorse, the interests of Arthur, who found himself completely disinherited through the mutual understanding between his uncle and the King of France.

Meanwhile John had started out for Aquitaine, there to receive the homage of his subjects. He met, at one of the _fêtes_ which were celebrated, Isabel, daughter of the Count of Angoulême and wife of the Count of Marche; she was remarkably beautiful, and as ambitious as she was beautiful. Her beauty attracted the king, and the ambition of the countess prompting her, she abandoned her husband to marry John Lackland, who himself had been married for ten years to the daughter of the Earl of Gloucester. An insurrection soon broke out in Aquitaine; it was insignificant at first, but at the beginning of the year 1202 Philip-Augustus, delivered from his quarrels with Pope Innocent III., stirred the flame of the rebellion in the southern provinces, organized an insurrection in Brittany, and suddenly took up Arthur's cause again, who had recently lost his mother. "You are aware of your rights," he said to the young prince, "do you wish to become king?" "Decidedly I do," said Arthur. "Very well then," said Philip, "there are two hundred knights, take them and march against your own provinces whilst I enter into Normandy." The Bretons rallied round their young duke, who advanced with his little army against the town of Mirebeau in Poitou, where his grandmother Eleanor was staying, whom his mother had taught him to hate. {203} He hoped, by capturing her, to obtain better conditions from his uncle; but the old queen defended herself valiantly, and held the castle sufficiently long to allow her son to come to her assistance. A nobleman of the country delivered up the town to him on the night of the 31st of July, 1202, on King John's promising not to do any harm to his nephew. All the noblemen who supported the young duke, amongst whom was the Count of Marche, were made prisoners, and Prince Arthur himself was imprisoned in the Castle of Falaise, whence he was transported a short time afterwards to Rouen. There all trace of him is lost in history, and no information concerning him exists except vague and contradictory tradition. The most probable story relates that the king arrived by night with his esquire, Peter of Maulac, to see the unfortunate young prince in his dungeon, and that he took the latter with him in a little boat upon the Seine. The young man was in fear, and begged his uncle to spare his life; but John made a sign and De Maulac, after plunging his dagger into the prisoner's heart, threw his body overboard; but it is also said that De Maulac conceived a horror of the crime beforehand and refused to commit it, and that the king himself struck the fatal blow. It was on the 3rd of April, 1203. Rumors of the murder spread throughout France and England, adding fresh indignation to the hatred which John already inspired. The Bretons proclaimed Alice of Thouars, daughter of the Duchess Constance by her third husband, instead of Prince Arthur's sister, Eleanor, the Pearl of Brittany, who was in the power of her uncle, and was shut up by him in a convent at Bristol. The appeal of the Bretons to the liege-lord was listened to by Philip-Augustus; he summoned John, Duke of Normandy, to appear in Paris to be judged by his peers. Queen Eleanor had retired to Fontevraud, where she had taken the veil, overcome, it is said, with despair in consequence of her son's crime.

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John had not answered Philip's summons: he was at Rouen, occupied with the festivities, while the King of France had entered Poitou, supported by the nobility, who had generally revolted in his favor, and was marching from there into Normandy. The Bretons had commenced the attack, and were advancing, pillaging the country. Many Normans joined them, so great was the horror inspired by the murder of Prince Arthur. The people had also organized an insurrection in Anjou and Maine, and Philip had taken possession of all the towns on his way when he effected a junction with the Bretons at Caen. "Let them go where they please," John would say in the midst of his revels, "I will take back in one day all that they have acquired with so much trouble." But the French army having appeared at Rodepont, in the neighborhood of Rouen, the King of England fled in great haste and recrossed the Channel in the month of December, 1203, in order to seek for succor.

The English reinforcements did not arrive; Rouen had defended itself valiantly; but the citizens had at length yielded in consequence of a famine; Verneuil had just been taken; Castle Gaillard, fortified by Richard Cœur-de-Lion, capitulated after a siege of seven months. The garrison had defended tower after tower; there no longer remained a single French knight, when the French soldiers at length destroyed the last portion of the ramparts. John had not lifted a finger to defend his dominions, and the King of France was regaining possession of his duchy of Normandy, which had been separated from his dominions for two hundred and ninety-two years. Brittany, Touraine, Anjou, Maine, and Poitou slipped from the grasp of the King of England; Aquitaine alone remained to him. King Philip, who was now satisfied, allowed himself to be persuaded by a legate sent by the Pope and concluded a truce of two years' duration with King John, which was to commence in the month of December, 1206.

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The arms of his temporal enemies had triumphed. John Lackland was about to bring down upon himself the spiritual thunders; a conflict had arisen between the king and the chapter of Canterbury about the election of an archbishop. The Pope settled the question by nominating Cardinal Stephen Langton, who was then at Rome, and whose merit was known to the pontiff. The monks of Canterbury recognized him, and John caused them to be driven from their cloisters by two knights, sword in hand. The Pope instructed the three bishops to pronounce an interdict in England, authorizing at the same time the English barons, who were, he knew, secretly discontented, to aid him in snatching their country from ruin. The bishops pronounced the terrible sentence, and at once left King John's dominions. The barons did not dare to rebel; the king had taken possession of a large number of children of the noblest families as hostages. He had sent Peter of Maulac to demand the sons of William of Braose, Lord of Bramber in Sussex. "By my faith," said the lady of the castle, "he did not take such care of his nephew that I should trust my children to him." Peter of Maulac made prisoners of the lady and her children, who died of hunger in their prison; Lord Bramber died of grief in consequence.

The interdict had lasted one year; the churches were closed. No more bell-ringing, no religious services, no marriages, no prayers over the graves; the baptism of newly born children and the administration of extreme unction were the only concessions made by the Church. {206} In 1209, the Pope sent a bull of excommunication against the king; the blow was foreseen, and the approaches were so zealously guarded that the papal missive could not gain admission; but John knew that a sentence of deposition would follow that of excommunication; and this proceeding, although unproductive of practical results in itself, assumed a terrible degree of importance when it was known that King Philip-Augustus was ready to carry it into execution. It is related that at this time John, in despair at his struggle against the Church, conceived the idea of begging the assistance of the Mussulmans, and that he sent an embassy to the Emir El-Hassiz in Spain, proposing to embrace the religion of Islamism and to become the vassal of the Emir, if the latter would cross the Pyrenees, enter into France, and thus draw off the forces of King Philip. The Emir listened gravely, only giving vague answers. When the emissaries had retired, the Mussulman called back one of them, a priest "Tell me," he asked him, "in the name of the Lord, from whom you expect your salvation, what kind of man your king really is." "He is a tyrant who will soon feel the effects of his subjects' anger," replied the monk; and the Emir refused all King John's offers.

In spite of the Pope's discontent and John's terror thereat, the latter had carried on successfully some expeditions against the insurgents in Ireland and Wales, when, in 1213, Innocent III. at length proclaimed his deposition, absolving all his vassals from their oath of allegiance, and making an appeal to all Christian princes to dethrone an impious tyrant. Stephen Langton was sent to King Philip to promise forgiveness of all the latter's sins if he would carry out the sentence of the Holy See. The French army was already being formed; King John had obtained a signal success over his adversary's fleet, and he was at Dover surrounded by an army of sixty thousand men, ready to encounter the invaders if their sovereign would lead them; but John was afraid of his subjects, mistrusting their fidelity; and he shrank as usual from giving battle to the enemy. {207} The Pope's legate, Pandulph, came and met him at Dover. He represented to the king in the most terrible colors the strength of the French army, the discontent of the barons, and the anger of the exiles; the little courage that remained to the degenerate Plantagenet faded away from his heart. He was, besides, pursued by the recollection of a prediction of Peter the Hermit of Wakefield, which ran: "Before the day of the Ascension the king will have lost his crown." John resolved rather to drag it through the mire than to relax his hold of it.

The legate was a skilful diplomatist; before making public the result of his negotiations with the king, he demanded that all the exiled priests should be allowed to return with Langton at their head; and he also exacted an assurance that the clergy and laity would be indemnified for the losses which they had sustained through the interdict. The king signed this agreement on the 13th of May, 1213, and four barons affixed their seals to it. On the 14th John was engaged all day in private conference with the legate.

On the morning of the 15th of May the king rose early and went to the church of the Templars at Dover; a great crowd had already assembled there, and John, kneeling and clasping the hand of the legate in his own, swore in a loud clear voice an oath of allegiance to the Holy See. At the same time he placed in the hands of the pontiff's ambassador a document declaring that he, John, king of England and Ireland, in expiation of his sins against God and the Holy Church, without being constrained thereto by force or by the fear of the interdict, but of his own free will and with the consent of his barons, ceded to the Holy Pope Innocent and to his heirs and successors forever, the kingdom of England and dependency of Ireland, to be held by himself John and by his successors as a fief of the Holy Church, by paying an annual sum of a thousand marks of silver. {208} At the same time the king offered a purse as an earnest of his submission. Pandulph threw it on the ground, trampling the money disdainfully under foot, but he accepted the crown which John had relinquished, and for five days it remained in his keeping. The feast of the Ascension had passed,--the king caused the Hermit of Wakefield to be tied to the tail of an untamed horse as a punishment for his predictions; but the people maintained that Peter had not been mistaken, because King John himself gave up his crown.

Scarcely had the legate accomplished his mission in England when he recrossed the sea to Philip's camp at Boulogne, announcing to the latter that the states of his enemy would for the future form part of the dominions of St. Peter, and that the King of France no longer had permission to invade them. "But," said Philip, "I have spent enormous sums of money in the preparations for war at the Pope's bidding, and on his having granted remission of my sins." He resolved to carry on the expedition, and was preparing to set sail, when a quarrel with the Count of Flanders caused him to turn his arms in that direction. The English fleet came to the assistance of the Count, and gained a brilliant victory over the vessels of Philip, who, finding himself deprived of the means of transport and revictualling, was obliged to renounce, for the time being, his expedition against England.

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John had called all his subjects to arms; but when the barons met him at Portsmouth they refused to embark in the ships until the king had allowed the exiles whom he had called back to re-enter the country. Langton was hateful in the eyes of John, who looked upon him as the cause of the first dispute with Rome; but he was obliged to yield, and the archbishop and the monks of Canterbury once more set foot on English soil; the kiss of peace was exchanged, and John embarked, reckoning on the support of the barons. He arrived at Jersey, but the noblemen had not followed him, pleading that the period of their service was at an end, and they met at St. Alban's under the presidency of Chief-Justicier Fitz-Piers, a man of low origin, whose marriage with the Countess of Essex had placed him in a position which he maintained by reason of his ability. They had already published a series of royal declarations demanding the observance of the old laws, when John, furious at the desertion of his vassals, returned, pillaging and burning down everything on his way. The Archbishop of Canterbury came to him. "You are not fulfilling your oath, Sire," said he; "your vassals should be judged by their peers, and not coerced by arms." "Pay attention to your Church," cried the king angrily, "and leave me to govern the kingdom." Langton threatened to excommunicate all the agents of the royal vengeance, and John ended by summoning the barons to appear before him.

Langton, on the other hand, had convoked them at London. When the king entered the audience chamber, the cardinal held in his hand a parchment document. It was the charter of King Henry I.; this was neither the first nor the last charter which England received since the Conquest. William the Conqueror, in 1071, had guaranteed to his barons, by a charter, the performance of a contract entered into between them, promising to reform the abuses which had been pointed out to him, and securing to the Saxons the maintenance of the laws of Edward the Confessor. {210} In 1101, King Henry I. had lately been proclaimed King of England; the Duke Robert was claiming the throne by virtue of his seniority. In order to secure the support of the Norman, as well as the Saxon barons, Henry had convoked in London a general assembly and signed a fresh charter, almost similar to his brother's. It was this document which Archbishop Langton had found, and which he was bringing to the barons assembled in London, like their ancestors, not, as of old, to receive a charter, but to force one upon the king.

King Stephen had also made the same promises, endowing the Church likewise with a charter setting forth its rights. Finally, Henry II., in 1154, had renewed the charters of King Stephen, and had caused a copy of the document to be deposited in all the churches; there is one of them remaining now. Cœur-de-Lion did not sign any charter, but that of John Lackland was destined to be glorious and powerful for ever afterwards under the title of Magna Charta. The barons swore to observe the injunctions of Henry I.'s charter, which had been presented to them by Langton, to remain faithful to one another, and to secure their liberties or to die defending them. This was on the 25th of August, 1213.

The Pope had abandoned the cause of English liberty on receiving homage from King John; the interdict had been raised, and the hostile forces of King Philip were gathering in all directions. The Emperor of Germany, the Count of Flanders, and the Count of Boulogne called the King of England to their aid. John sent William Longsword, earl of Salisbury, his half-brother, to the camp of the allies, and marched in person against Brittany, but he did not come to blows with the heir to the throne of France, Prince Louis, who had been sent forward by his father, on the 27th of July, while the latter was waging war against the confederates at Bouvines. {211} On the 19th of October, John signed a five years' truce, and returned to England furious, humiliated, and resolved to revenge himself upon his English subjects for all the reverses of fortune which he had suffered on the Continent. Fitz-Piers, whom John feared and detested, was dead. The king burst into laughter on learning this news. "God's teeth!" he cried; "this is the first time that I have felt myself king and sovereign of England." But Langton was the real chief of the conspiracy; the support which the Pope lent to King John had not for a single moment shaken the fidelity of the archbishop to the cause of the barons: they again met, on the 20th of November, at Bury St. Edmund's, and, placing their hands upon the altar, they swore one after another, that if the king refused to grant the just rights which they claimed, they would withhold their allegiance, and wage war against him until he should have granted their demands by a charter sealed with the royal seal.

Christmas-day arrived; the king found himself alone at Worcester, his barons not having presented themselves to do homage to him. John retired in great haste to London, and took refuge in the fortress of the Templars. The barons followed him there this time in larger numbers than he cared for, and on the day of the Epiphany they haughtily presented their requests to him. John eyed the faces which surrounded him, and which bore an inflexible and resolute expression, both in the case of the priests and the warriors. He turned pale. "Give me until Easter to reflect upon all this," he said. Before consenting, the barons stipulated that Cardinal Langton, the Bishop of Ely, and the Earl of Pembroke should become sureties that the king would satisfy their claims upon the day mentioned by him. They knew the value of John Lackland's promises. {212} Scarcely had they left, when he threw himself under the protection of the Church, renouncing all the prerogatives of the throne in the choice of ecclesiastical dignitaries, and begging the assistance of the Pope, who wrote to Langton, but with no result. At length, John formally assumed the cross, on the 2nd of February, hoping thus to avoid fulfilling his promises to the English barons. He did not yet fully understand his subjects.

On Easter-day, the confederates had met together in large numbers at Stamford; they sent a deputation to the king, who was at Oxford. When Langton read aloud the claims of the barons, John angrily exclaimed, "And why do they not also ask for my crown? By God's teeth! I will not grant liberties which would make a slave of me." The Pope's legate, who was there, maintained that Langton ought to excommunicate the confederates. "The intentions of the Holy Father have been misunderstood," said the archbishop calmly; "if the mercenary followers of the king do not soon leave the kingdom, whose ruin they are accomplishing, it is they whom I will excommunicate." The barons then styled themselves the army of God and of the Holy Church, and, placing Robert Fitz-Walter at their head, they marched against Northampton Castle. The resistance there was so actively carried on that the siege had to be raised, and the barons advanced towards Bedford. The position of affairs at this time was critical, and it was imperatively necessary to know whether the citizens of the towns would support the noble insurrectionists. Bedford opened its gates, and the confederates took the road to London; they arrived there on the morning of the 24th of May. The people received them joyfully, and good order was maintained in the Army of the Holy Church. The barons issued a proclamation, calling under their banners all the knights who had hitherto remained aloof from the contest. {213} The king found himself unsupported, all the nobility of the kingdom having risen against him. He yielded therefore, at least for a time, to urgent necessity; he sent the Earl of Pembroke to the barons assembled in London to assure them that he was quite ready to grant the privileges and liberties which they claimed, and asking on what day and at what place they would arrange matters with him. "On the 15th of June, at Runnymede," replied the barons.

On the 15th of June all the noblemen of England were there. "It is not necessary to name them," says the chronicle, "for they consisted of all the nobility of the country." Fitz-Walter was at their head; the king was accompanied by the legate, by the Grand-Master of the Templars, by eight bishops brought by Langton, and by twelve barons, of whom the Earl of Pembroke was the chief. The king's followers, with the exception of the legate and the Templar, were as devoted to the liberties of England as the confederate noblemen.

John did not put in any claim or make any objection; with an amount of alacrity, which must have appeared suspicious to far-seeing observers, he signed the charter which was presented to him, and the great seal was affixed to it. The first real token of English liberty had been acquired; the first stone of the noble edifice of the Constitution was laid; the conditions were well defined; and the rights and interests of the clergy as well as those of the feudal nobility and of the merchants and citizens who had supported the barons in their enterprise were carefully provided for. Effectual guarantees were secured; the necessity for causing persons who were arrested or punished to be tried first of all in a court of justice, the establishment of regular assizes, the maintenance of the integrity of justice, all formed part of the fundamental rights claimed by the barons, who also required the disbanding of the mercenary troops, and the formation of a committee of twenty-five members entrusted with the task of seeing to the fulfilment of all the clauses of the compacts, the non-fulfilment of which gave the barons the right of waging war with the king until their grievances should be completely redressed. During two months the barons were to retain possession of the city of London.

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All these precautions were powerless, however, against treachery; scarcely had the triumphant confederates left Runnymede when King John flew into a terrible passion, rolling on the ground and cursing the traitors who had dared to reduce him to slavery. The mercenary troops, whom he was obliged, according to Magna Charta, to disband, encouraged him in his anger and his plans for revenge. John called fresh reinforcements to his aid. After the treaties had been violated war broke out; the barons prepared for it; a tournament, which had been announced, was decided to be held nearer to London, and several gatherings had already taken place when the thunderbolt which John had invoked fell upon the heads of the English nobility. The Pope declared Magna Charta to be void, holding that it was illegitimate, having been obtained by force, and he commanded Langton to dissolve any confederation under pain of being excommunicated. The archbishop set out for Rome, in order to obtain a revocation of this sentence, and the war commenced in England with the siege of Rochester. The place was defended by D'Albiney, a member of the council of the twenty-five. After a resistance, which lasted during two months, the garrison, having come to the end of their resources, at length opened the gates. John desired to hang the brave defenders of the town; the chief of his free bands, Sauvery of Mauléon, surnamed the Bloody, opposed his determination. "The war is only beginning, Sire," said he, "if you commence by hanging your barons, your barons will end by hanging us." The knights' lives were spared, and the men-at-arms only were executed.

[Image] King John's Anger After Signing Magna Charta.

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Langton had failed in his mission at Rome, and had been deposed from his see; the barons were excommunicated, and the city of London placed under an interdict, but the confederates took no notice of the two sentences. "The Pope had been misguided," they said, "and had meddled in the temporal affairs of England, which do not concern him, as the spiritual domain alone belongs to St. Peter and his successors."

John however had become possessed of two large armies of mercenary troops of Brabantines and of freelances, who willingly executed the sanguinary orders of their chief; one corps was sent to pursue their work of ravaging the counties of the East and the Centre, the other marched towards the North under the command of the king, repulsed into Scotland the young King Alexander, who had crossed the frontier to lend his aid to the barons, and burnt down and desolated the buildings in York, Northumberland, and Cumberland. Everywhere the barons, in retiring, would lay waste their houses and fields; everywhere the king burnt down whatever he found standing; but he was still advancing, while the confederates were retreating. They at length found themselves shut up in the city of London; all their castles had fallen into the hands of the tyrant, who had made a present of them to his followers, to Satan's guards, as the people called them. The families of the confederates were at the mercy of King John. The barons resolved upon their course of action, a bitter one, that of seeking aid abroad, and accordingly sent a deputation to Philip-Augustus, proposing to give the crown of England to his son Prince Louis, if he would come to their help with an army. His arrival, it was thought, would immediately thin the ranks of King John's supporters, for they were mostly Frenchmen, and would be unwilling to fight against their own countrymen.

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Philip-Augustus only wanted a pretext to meddle in the affairs of England. He agreed to the proposals of the barons, not, however, without requiring hostages as a guarantee of good faith; and in spite of threats from the Pope, who forbade either the father or the son to invade a fief of the Holy Church, Prince Louis set sail in the month of July with a large army, raised chiefly through the personal efforts of his wife, Blanche of Castile, a niece of King John, in whose name Louis put forth his claim to the crown of England. John's fears did not wait for the landing of the French troops; he had left Dover, and had repaired to Bristol, where the legate awaited him. Prince Louis landed at Sandwich, and, almost without striking a blow, he marched to London, which city he entered on the 2nd of June, 1216. The entire population came to meet him, and, after having offered up a prayer to St. Paul, he received homage from the barons and citizens, promising to govern them according to their laws, to protect their rights, and to restore their property to them. The satisfaction was universal: the counties surrounding London submitted willingly to Prince Louis; the oppressed inhabitants of the North revolted. A large number of John's mercenary troops deserted him, to return to their homes or to rally round the standard of France; the nobility who had become reconciled to the king, in the presence of the reverses sustained by the national cause, abandoned him to join their old friends; and, lastly, Pope Innocent III. was just dead (16th July), and hence the powerful support of Rome was taken from him. John had only the fortresses defended by his partisans remaining to him.

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Meanwhile, Prince Louis was stopped at Dover Castle, and the English barons at Windsor Castle. In vain did they attack the massive walls with a machine which came from France, and which was called the "Malvoisine." Hubert de Burgh held his ground firmly at Dover, and the siege of Windsor had been raised; the confederates had hoped to surprise the king at Cambridge; but John had eluded them, and had proceeded to Lincoln, of which city he took possession. The prospects of the confederation were not flourishing; the reinforcements, which had been sent from France, were checked by the English sailors who remained faithful to King John. Prince Louis displayed little activity, and treated his English allies in a haughty manner. He had already presented several estates to the noblemen who had accompanied him from France; one of them, the Viscount of Melun, was dead; and he had, it was said, confessed, when dying, that the intention of the French people, when their prince should be on the throne, was to treat the English like men who had shown themselves untrustworthy by reason of their treachery to their sovereign. Distrust and discord had entered into the allied camps; several barons opened negotiations with King John. The latter's position was ameliorating; he had just left Wisbeach, and desired to proceed to Cross-Keys, on the south of the Wash, when, on arriving at the ford, he beheld the rising tide suddenly engulf the long line of wagons which were carrying his luggage, his treasures, and his provisions. The troops had already crossed the river, and were in safety, but the king became furious at witnessing such an irreparable loss; he arrived, exhausted with rage, at the convent of the Cistercian monks at Swineshead. {218} No event, however dreadful, troubled King John while at table; he ate some peaches and drank some new ale--so immoderately in fact, that he fell ill on the morrow, and, thinking that he was poisoned by the monks, he caused himself to be taken to Newark. Death, the only enemy that John could not escape from, awaited him there. He sent for a priest, nominated his son Henry as his successor, and dictated a letter to the new Pope, Honorius, to recommend his children to the care of the Holy Church. The remembrance of his crimes did not seem to trouble him on his death-bed; perhaps he held himself absolved from all his sins by his allegiance to the Holy See. "I commit my soul to God and my body to St. Wulstan," he said. He then expired on the 18th of October, 1216. He was buried at Worcester, in the church of Saint Wulstan. Death had at length delivered England of the cowardly and faithless tyrant whom she had for a long while submitted to, then vanquished, and against whom the country was still struggling in defence of Magna Charta, which, after the lapse of more than six centuries, remains the basis of English liberties.