CHAPTER VII.

RICHARD AND ENGLAND.

1189–1194.

All doubts as to the destination of Henry’s realms after his death were settled at once by the discovery of John’s treason. Throughout the Angevin dominions not a voice was raised to challenge the succession of Richard. The English marshal and the Angevin barons gathered at Fontevraud received him unquestioningly as their lord, and were at once accepted as loyal subjects. One of them indeed, the seneschal of Anjou, Stephen of Turnham or of Marçay, was flung into prison for failing to surrender the royal treasure;[1334] but the reason of his failure seems to have been simply that the treasury was empty.[1335] According to one contemporary historian, Richard sealed his forgiveness of William the Marshal by at once despatching him to England with a commission to hold the country for him--in effect, to act as justiciar--till he could proceed thither himself.[1336] In all probability, however, William was authorized to do nothing more than set Eleanor at liberty; it was she who, by her son’s desire, undertook the office of regent in England,[1337] which she fulfilled without difficulty for the next six weeks. Geoffrey the chancellor resigned his seal into his half-brother’s hands as soon as the funeral was over.[1338] The promise of the Norman castellans to Henry that they would surrender to no one but John was of course annulled by later events. John himself hastened to join his brother; Richard gave him a gracious welcome, and they returned to Normandy together.[1339] At Séez the archbishops of Canterbury and Rouen came to meet them, and absolved Richard from the excommunication[1340] laid on him by the legate John of Anagni. Thence they all proceeded to Rouen. On July 20 Richard went in state to the metropolitan church, where Archbishop Walter girded him with the ducal sword and invested him with the standard of the duchy.[1341] On the same day he received the fealty of the Norman barons,[1342] and held his first court as duke of Normandy, and also, it seems, as king-elect of England, although there had been no formal election. He at once made it clear that the abettors of his revolt had nothing to hope from him--three of the most conspicuous had been deprived of their lands already[1343]--and that his father’s loyal servants had nothing to fear, if they would transfer their loyalty to him. He shewed indeed every disposition to carry out his father’s last wishes; he at once nominated Geoffrey for the see of York, and confirmed Henry’s last grant to John, consisting of the Norman county of Mortain and four thousand pounds’ worth of land in England;[1344] at the same time he bestowed upon William the Marshal the hand of Isabel de Clare, daughter and heiress of Earl Richard of Striguil, and upon the son of the count of Perche a bride who had already been sought by two kings--his niece, Matilda of Saxony.[1345]

[1334] _Gesta Ric._ (“Benedict of Peterborough,” Stubbs, vol. ii.), p. 71. Cf. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 6.

[1335] See _Hist. de Guill. le Mar._, vv. 9198, 9199 (_Romania_, vol. xi. p. 67).

[1336] _Ib._ vv. 9347–9354 (p. 69).

[1337] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 67.

[1338] Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. i. c. 5 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 372).

[1339] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 72.

[1340] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 67. How had the archbishops power to cancel a legatine sentence?

[1341] _Ibid._ _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 73. (The date is from this last).

[1342] _Gesta Ric._ as above.

[1343] _Ib._ p. 72.

[1344] _Ib._ p. 73. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 3 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 301). On John and Mortain see Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 6 and note 2, and preface to vol. iii. p. xxiv, note 1.

[1345] _Gesta Ric._ as above.

This last match was evidently intended to secure the attachment of the important little border-county of Perche in case of a rupture with France, which seemed by no means unlikely. The alliance of Philip and Richard had expired with King Henry; now that Richard stood in his father’s place, Philip saw in him nothing but his father’s successor--the head of the Angevin house, whose policy was to be thwarted and his power undermined on every possible occasion and by every possible means. This was made evident at a colloquy held on S. Mary Magdalene’s day to settle the new relations between the two princes; Philip greeted his former ally with a peremptory demand for the restitution of the Vexin.[1346] Richard put him off with a bribe of four thousand marks, over and above the twenty thousand promised by Henry at Colombières; and on this condition, accompanied, it seems, by a vague understanding that Richard and Adela were to marry after all,[1347] Philip agreed to leave Richard in undisturbed possession of all his father’s dominions, including the castles and towns which had been taken from Henry in the last war,[1348] except those of Berry and Auvergne.[1349] Thus secured, for the moment at least, in Normandy, Richard prepared to take possession of his island realm. He had paved the way for his coming there by empowering Eleanor to make a progress throughout England, taking from all the freemen of the land oaths of fealty in his name, releasing captives, pardoning criminals, mitigating, so far as was possible without upsetting the ordinary course of justice, the severe administration of the late king. Richard himself now restored the earl of Leicester and the other barons whom Henry had disseized six years before.[1350] The next step was to send home the archbishop of Canterbury and three other English prelates who were with him in Normandy.[1351] On August 12 they were followed by Richard himself.[1352]

[1346] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 73, 74. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 3, 4.

[1347] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 74.

[1348] Rog. Howden as above, p. 4.

[1349] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 29. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ib._), p. 75. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 450.

[1350] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 74, 75.

[1351] _Ib._ p. 75.

[1352] Gerv. Cant. as above, p. 457. The _Gesta Ric._, as above, give a confused date--“Idus Augusti, die dominicâ post Assumptionem B. Mariæ.”

His politic measures of conciliation, executed by his mother with characteristic intelligence and tact, had secured him a ready welcome. It was only by slow degrees, and with the growing experience of years, that the English people learned how much they owed to the stern old king who was gone. At the moment they thought of him chiefly as the author of grievances which his son seemed bent upon removing.[1353] Richard’s mother, with a great train of bishops and barons, was waiting to receive him at Winchester;[1354] there, on the vigil of the Assumption, he was welcomed in solemn procession;[1355] and there, too, he came into possession of the royal treasury, whose contents might make up for the deficiencies in that of Anjou.[1356] So complete was his security that instead of hastening, as his predecessors had done, to be crowned as soon as possible, he left Eleanor nearly three weeks in which to make the arrangements for that ceremony,[1357] while he went on a progress throughout southern England,[1358] coming back at last to be crowned by Archbishop Baldwin at Westminster on September 3.[1359] No charter was issued on the occasion. The circumstances of the new king’s accession were not such as to make any special call for one; they were sufficiently met by a threefold oath embodied in the coronation-service, pledging the sovereign to maintain the peace of the Church, to put down all injustice, and to enforce the observance of righteousness and mercy.[1360] In the formal election by clergy and people which preceded the religious rite,[1361] and in the essentials of the rite itself, ancient prescription was strictly followed. The order of the procession and the details of the ceremonial were, however, arranged with unusual care and minuteness; it was the most splendid and elaborate coronation-ceremony that had ever been seen in England, and it served as a precedent for all after-time.[1362] Richard had none of his father’s shrinking from the pageantries and pomps of kingship; he delighted in its outward splendours almost as much as in its substantial powers.[1363] He himself, with his tall figure, massive yet finely-chiselled features, and soldierly bearing, must have been by far the most regal-looking sovereign who had been crowned since the Norman Conqueror; and when Archbishop Baldwin set the crown upon his golden hair, Englishmen might for a moment dream that, stranger though he had been for nearly thirty years to the land of his birth, Richard was yet to be in reality what he was in outward aspect, a true English king.

[1353] Cf. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 75, 76; and Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 1 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 293).

[1354] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 453, 454.

[1355] _Ib._ p. 457. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 67. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 74.

[1356] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 76, 77.

[1357] “Mater comitis Alienor regina de vocatione comitum, baronum, vicecomitum, uit sollicita.” R. Diceto as above, p. 68.

[1358] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 77. Gerv. Cant. as above, p. 457, says he went to check the depredations of the Welsh.

[1359] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 78, 79. Gerv. Cant. and R. Diceto as above. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 5. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 26, 27. Will. Newb. as above (p. 294).

[1360] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 81, 82. R. Diceto as above. This last was an eye-witness, for, the see of London being vacant, the dean had to fulfil in his bishop’s stead the duty of handing the unction and chrism to the officiating primate. _Ib._ p. 69.

[1361] R. Diceto as above, p. 68.

[1362] See details in _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 80–83; and Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 9–12.

[1363] We see this in the descriptions of his magnificent dress, brilliant armour, etc. in the _Itinerarium Regis Ricardi_.

Such dreams however were soon to be dispelled. On the second day after his crowning Richard received the homage of the bishops and barons of his realm;[1364] he then proceeded into Northamptonshire, and on September 15 held a great council at Pipewell.[1365] His first act was to fill up the vacant sees, of which there were now four besides that of York. The appointments were made with considerable judgement. London, whose aged bishop Gilbert Foliot had died in 1187,[1366] was bestowed upon Richard Fitz-Nigel,[1367] son of Bishop Nigel of Ely, and for the last twenty years his successor in the office of treasurer; while Ely, again vacated scarcely three weeks ago by the death of Geoffrey Ridel,[1368] rewarded the past services and helped to secure the future loyalty of Richard’s chancellor, William of Longchamp.[1369] Winchester, vacated nearly a year ago by the death of Richard of Ilchester,[1370] was given to Godfrey de Lucy, a son of Henry’s early friend and servant Richard de Lucy “the loyal”;[1371] Salisbury, which had been without a bishop ever since November 1184,[1372] was given to Hubert Walter,[1373] a near connexion of the no less faithful minister of Henry’s later years, Ralf de Glanville. This last appointment had also another motive. Hubert Walter was dean of York; he stood at the head of a party in the York chapter which had strongly disputed the validity of Geoffrey’s election in the preceding August, and some of whom had even proposed the dean himself as an opposition candidate for the primacy.[1374] Hubert’s nomination to Salisbury cleared this obstacle out of Geoffrey’s way, and no further protest was raised when Richard confirmed his half-brother’s election in the same council of Pipewell.[1375]

[1364] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 84.

[1365] _Ib._ p. 85. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 69. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 458.

[1366] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 5. R. Diceto as above, p. 47.

[1367] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 85. R. Diceto as above, p. 69. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 9.

[1368] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 78. R. Diceto as above, p. 68.

[1369] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 85. R. Diceto as above, p. 69. Ric. Devizes as above.

[1370] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 58. R. Diceto as above, p. 58.

[1371] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 84. R. Diceto as above, p. 69. Ric. Devizes as above.

[1372] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 32. _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 320.

[1373] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 84. R. Diceto as above, p. 69. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 9.

[1374] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 77, 78. Cf. Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. i. c. 6 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 373). Hubert had indeed been proposed for the see as far back as 1186; _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 352. See also Bishop Stubbs’s preface to Rog. Howden, vol. iv. pp. xxxix–xlvi.

[1375] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 374).

When, however, the king turned from the settlement of the Church to that of the state, it became gradually apparent that his policy in England had only two objects:--to raise money for the crusade, and to secure the obedience of his realm during his own absence in the East. These objects he endeavoured to effect both at once by a wholesale change of ministers, sheriffs and royal officers in general, at the council of Pipewell or during the ten days which elapsed between its dissolution and the Michaelmas Exchequer-meeting. The practice of making a man pay for the privilege either of entering upon a public office or of being released from its burthen was, as we have seen, counted in no way disgraceful in the days of Henry I., and by no means generally reprobated under Henry II. Richard however carried it to a length which clearly shocked the feelings of some statesmen of the old school,[1376] if not those of the people in general. The first to whom he applied it was no less a person than the late justiciar, Ralf de Glanville. Ralf was, like Richard himself, under a vow of crusade, which would in any case have rendered it impossible for him to retain the justiciarship after the departure of the English host for Palestine.[1377] The king, however, insisted that his resignation should take effect at once,[1378] and also that it should be paid for by a heavy fine--a condition which was also required of the Angevin seneschal, Stephen of Turnham, as the price of his release from prison.[1379] Worn out though he was with years and labours,[1380] Ralf faithfully kept his vow.[1381] If all the intending crusaders had done the same, it would have been no easy matter to fill his place or to make adequate provision for the government and administration of the realm. Both king and Pope, however, had learned that for eastern as well as western warfare money was even more necessary than men; Richard had therefore sought and obtained leave from Clement III. to commute crusading vows among his subjects for pecuniary contributions towards the expenses of the war.[1382] By this means he at once raised a large sum of money, and avoided the risk of leaving England deprived of all her best warriors and statesmen during his own absence. Instead of Ralf de Glanville he appointed two chief justiciars, Earl William de Mandeville and Bishop Hugh of Durham;[1383] under these he placed five subordinate justiciars, one of whom was William the Marshal.[1384] The bishop-elect of London, Richard Fitz-Nigel, was left undisturbed in his post of treasurer, where his services were too valuable for the king to venture upon the risk of forfeiting them; but the bishop-elect of Ely, although a favourite servant and almost a personal friend of Richard, had to pay three thousand pounds for his chancellorship. On the other hand, Richard proved that in this instance he was not actuated solely by mercenary motives, by refusing a still higher bid from another candidate.[1385] All the sheriffs were removed from office; some seven or eight were restored to their old places, five more were appointed to shires other than those which they had formerly administered;[1386] the sheriffdom of Hampshire was sold to the bishop-elect of Winchester,[1387] that of Lincolnshire to Gerard de Camville, those of Leicestershire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire to Bishop Hugh of Chester;[1388] and the earldom of Northumberland was granted on similar terms to the justiciar-bishop of Durham.[1389]

[1376] This appears from the tone in which his sales of office, etc., are described by Richard Fitz-Nigel in the _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 90, 91, and by Roger of Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 13.

[1377] He had taken the cross in 1185; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 302. The _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 87, and Will. Newb. l. iv. c. 4 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 302) say distinctly that Ralf himself wished to resign in order to fulfil his vow.

[1378] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 90. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 7, says he even put him in ward.

[1379] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 6, 7.

[1380] _Ib._ p. 9.

[1381] He died at the siege of Acre before October 21, 1190. _Epp. Cant._ ccclvi. (Stubbs, p. 329).

[1382] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 17.

[1383] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 87. Hugh paid a thousand marks for the remission of his crusading vow, to enable him to undertake the office. _Ib._ p. 90.

[1384] Rog. Howden as above, p. 16.

[1385] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 9.

[1386] Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. xxix.

[1387] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 10.

[1388] Stubbs as above, pp. xxviii, xxix, and Madox, _Hist. Exch._, vol. i. p. 458, from Pipe Roll 2 Ric. I.

[1389] Pipe Roll 2 Ric. I. (Stubbs, as above, p. xxviii, note 3). _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 90. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 8. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 304). Geoff. Coldingham, c. 9 (_Script. Dunelm. III._, Raine, p. 14). The grant itself, dated November 25, is in _Scriptt. Dunelm. III._, App. p. lxii.

Two other matters had to be dealt with before Richard’s preparations for departure were completed. To guard his realm from external disturbance, he must secure the fealty of the vassal-rulers of Scotland and Wales. To guard it against internal treason, he must, if such a thing were possible, secure the loyalty of the brother whom he was leaving behind him. The first was at once the less important and the easier matter of the two. Rees of South Wales had indeed profited by the change of rulers in England to break the peace which he had been compelled to maintain with King Henry, and after the council of Pipewell Richard sent John against him at the head of an armed force. The other Welsh princes came to meet John at Worcester and made submission to him as his brother’s representative;[1390] Rees apparently refused to treat with any one but the king in person, and accordingly he came back with John as far as Oxford, but Richard would not take the trouble to arrange a meeting, and was so unconcerned about the matter that he let him go home again without an audience, and, of course, in a state of extreme indignation.[1391] His threatening attitude served as an excuse for raising a scutage, nominally for a Welsh war;[1392] but the expedition was never made. The king of Scots was otherwise dealt with. Early in December, while Richard was at Canterbury on his way to the sea, William the Lion came to visit him, and a bargain was struck to the satisfaction of both parties. Richard received from William a sum of ten thousand marks, and his homage for his English estates, as they had been held by his brother Malcolm; in return, he restored to him the castles of Roxburgh and Berwick, and released him and his heirs for ever from the homage for Scotland itself, enforced by Henry in 1175.[1393]

[1390] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 87, 88.

[1391] _Ib._ p. 97.

[1392] Madox, _Hist. Exch._, vol. i. p. 664, from Pipe Roll 2 Ric. I.

[1393] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 98. Richard’s charter of release to William is in Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 30; _Gesta Ric._ as above, pp. 102, 103; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 25, 26. It is dated (in Rymer’s copy) December 5. On this transaction see also R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 72, and Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 304).

Richard’s worst difficulty however was still unsolved: how to prevent John from trying to supplant him in his absence. Richard knew that this lad, ten years younger than himself, had been his rival ever since he was of an age to be a rival to any one; and he knew his brother’s character as, perhaps, no one else did know it as yet--for their mother had scarcely seen her youngest child since he was six years old. In the light of later history, it is impossible not to feel that Richard’s wisest course, alike for his own sake and for England’s, would have been to follow the instinct which had once prompted him to insist that John should go with him to the crusade. In this case however he was now led astray by the noblest feature in his character, his unsuspecting confidence and generosity. From the hour of their reconciliation after their father’s death, Richard’s sole endeavour respecting John was to gain his affection and gratitude by showering upon him every honour, dignity and benefit of which it was possible to dispose in his favour. The grant of the county of Mortain made him the first baron of Normandy, and it was accompanied by a liberal provision in English lands. To these were added, as soon as the brothers reached England, a string of “honours”--Marlborough, Luggershall, Lancaster, each with its castle; the Peak, Bolsover, and the whole honour of Peverel; those of Wallingford and Tickhill, and that of Nottingham, including the town; and the whole shire of Derby;[1394] besides the honour of Gloucester, which belonged to John’s betrothed bride Avice, and which Richard secured to him by causing him to be married to her at Marlborough on August 29,[1395] in spite of Archbishop Baldwin’s protests against a marriage between third cousins without dispensation from the Pope. Baldwin at once laid all the lands of the young couple under interdict; but John appealed against him, and a papal legate who came over in November to settle Baldwin’s quarrel with his own monks confirmed the appeal and annulled the sentence of the primate.[1396] At the same time Richard bestowed upon his brother four whole shires in south-western England--Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset--with the ferms and the entire profits of jurisdiction and administration.[1397] More than this even Richard could not give; if more was needed to hold John’s ambition in check, he could only trust to the skilful management of Eleanor. She was left, seemingly without any formal commission, but with the practical authority of queen-regent, and with the dowries of two former queens in addition to her own.[1398]

[1394] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 78. See also Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii., pref. p. xx.

[1395] _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 78.

[1396] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 72, 73.

[1397] _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 99. Stubbs as above, p. xxv. Cf. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 3 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 301), and his comments on the subject (_ib._ p. 302).

[1398] _Gesta Ric._ as above.

One important part of Richard’s administrative arrangements was however already upset: William de Mandeville, having gone to Normandy on business for the king, died there on November 14.[1399] Earl of Essex by grant of Henry II., count of Aumale by marriage with its heiress, William had been through life one of Henry’s most faithful friends; he was honoured and esteemed by all parties on both sides of the sea; there was no one left among the barons who could command anything like the same degree of general respect; and Richard for the moment saw no means of filling his place. He therefore left Bishop Hugh of Durham as sole chief justiciar; but he made a change in the body of subordinate justiciars appointed at Pipewell. Two of them were superseded; one was replaced by Hugh Bardulf, and the other, it seems, by the chancellor William of Longchamp, who, in addition to the office which he already held, was put in charge of the Tower of London, and intrusted with powers which virtually made him equal in authority to the chief justiciar.[1400]

[1399] R. Diceto as above, p. 73. _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 92. The day comes from Ralf. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 26, makes it December 12.

[1400] On these appointments cf. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 101; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 28; Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 8, 11; Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 306); and Bishop Stubbs’s note, pref. to Rog. Howden as above, p. xxx.

None of these appointments was in itself unwise; but two worse-matched yokefellows than the justiciar and the chancellor it would have been difficult to find. Hugh of Puiset--or “Pudsey,” as his English flock called him--had stood high in both Church and state ever since the days of the civil war. Through his mother he was a great-grandson of the Conqueror, and thus cousin in no remote degree to Henry Fitz-Empress and Richard Cœur-de-Lion, as well as to Philip of France. We saw him more than forty years ago, as archdeacon and treasurer of York, meeting the ecclesiastical censures of his metropolitan with a retort on equal terms, and wielding not unsuccessfully the weapons both of spiritual and temporal warfare in the cause of his cousin William of York and his uncle Henry of Winchester. Since 1153 he had been bishop of Durham; certainly not an ideal successor of S. Cuthbert; yet his appointment had been sanctioned by the saintly archbishop Theobald; and throughout his long episcopate he shewed himself by no means ill-fitted, on the whole, for his peculiar position. That position, it must be remembered, had more than that of any other English bishop an important political side. The bishop of Durham was earl palatine of his shire; its whole administration, secular as well as ecclesiastical, was in his hands. His diocesan jurisdiction, again, extended over the whole of Northumberland, and thus brought him into immediate contact with the Scots across the border. His diocese was in fact a great marchland between England and Scotland; he was the natural medium of communication or negotiation between the two realms; and on him depended in no small degree the security of their relations with each other. For such a post it was well to have a strong man, in every sense of the words; and such a man was Hugh of Puiset. His strength was not based solely upon an unscrupulous use of great material and political resources. He was a popular man with all classes; notwithstanding his unclerical ways, he never fell into any ecclesiastical disgrace except with his own metropolitan, for whom he was generally more than a match; and he was one of the very few prelates who managed to steer their way through the Becket quarrel without either damaging their reputation as sound churchmen or forfeiting the confidence of Henry II. His intrigues with the Scot king and the rebel barons in 1174 failed so completely and so speedily that Henry found it scarcely worth while to punish them in any way; and on the other hand, Hugh’s position was already so independent and secure that he himself never found it worth while to renew them. In his own diocese, whatever he might be as a pastor of souls, he was a vigorous and on the whole a beneficent as well as magnificent ruler; the men of the county palatine grumbled indeed at his extravagance and at the occasional hardships brought upon them by his inordinate love of the chase, but they were none the less proud of his splendid buildings, his regal state, and his equally regal personality. His appearance and manners corresponded with his character and his rank; he was tall in stature, dignified in bearing, remarkably attractive in look, eloquent and winning in address.[1401] Moreover, he had lived so long in England, and all his interests had so long been centred there, that for all practical purposes, social as well as political, he was a thorough Englishman--certainly far more of an Englishman than his young English-born cousin, King Richard. For the last eight years, indeed, he had held in the north much the same position as had belonged in earlier times to the archbishops of York; for the northern province had been without a metropolitan ever since the death of Roger of Pont-l’Evêque in November 1181,[1402] and the supreme authority, ecclesiastical as well as secular, had thus devolved upon the bishop of Durham. He was now threatened with the loss of this pre-eminence; but he had no intention of giving it up without a struggle, in which his chances of success were at least as good as those of his rival the archbishop-elect; and whatever the result might be with respect to his ecclesiastical independence, he had secured a formidable counterpoise to the primate’s territorial influence by his purchase of Northumberland, which made him sole head, under the Crown, of the civil administration of the whole country between the Tweed and the Tees.

[1401] On Hugh of Durham see Will. Newb., l. v. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. ii. pp. 436–438), Geoff. Coldingham, cc. 1, 4, 11, 14 (_Script. Dunelm. III._, Raine, pp. 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14), and Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. pp. xxxiii.–xxxvii.

[1402] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 283. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 10. Will. Newb., l. iii. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 225).

Alike in himself and in his antecedents Hugh of Puiset was the very antithesis to William of Longchamp. William had nothing of the stately presence and winning aspect which distinguished the bishop of Durham; on the contrary, he laboured under personal disadvantages which should have entitled him to sympathy, but which one of his political opponents was heartless enough to caricature, after his fall, in order to make him an object of vulgar contempt and disgust. His stature was diminutive, his countenance swarthy and ill-favoured, his figure mis-shapen, and he was moreover very lame.[1403] His origin was as lowly as his person. His father was a certain Hugh of Longchamp who in 1156 received from the king a grant of lands in Herefordshire,[1404] and about the time of the barons’ revolt was fermor of the honour of Conches in Normandy.[1405] His grandfather was said to have been a French serf who had fled from the justice of his lord and found a refuge in the Norman village whence his descendants took their name.[1406] In Henry’s latter years Hugh of Longchamp was deep in debt and disgrace,[1407] and his six sons had to make their way in the world as best they could under the shadow of the king’s displeasure.[1408] William, whose physical infirmities must have shut him out from every career save that of a clerk, first appears under the patronage of Geoffrey the chancellor, as his official in one of his many pieces of Church preferment, the archdeaconry of Rouen.[1409] The king, however, remonstrated strongly with his son on the danger of associating with a man whom he declared to be “a traitor, like his father and mother before him.”[1410] The end of his remonstrances was that, shortly before the last outbreak, William fled from Geoffrey to Richard, and, according to one account, became the chief instigator of Richard’s rebellion.[1411] However this may be, it is certain that Richard, while still merely duke of Aquitaine, employed William as his chancellor,[1412] and that he was not only so well satisfied with his services as to retain him in the same capacity after his accession to the crown, but had formed such a high opinion of his statesmanship and his fidelity as to make him his chief political adviser and confidant. Richard, like his father, was constant in his friendships, and very unwilling to discard those to whom he had once become really attached; his trust in William remained unshaken to the end of his life, and in some respects it was not misplaced. William seems to have been thoroughly loyal to his master, and his energy and industry were as unquestionable as his loyalty. As Richard’s most intimate companion, confidential secretary, and political adviser in foreign affairs, William was in his right place; but he was by no means equally well fitted to be Richard’s representative in the supreme government and administration of England. He had the primary disqualification of being a total stranger to the land, its people and its ways. Most likely he had never set foot in England till he came thither with Richard in 1189; he was ignorant of the English tongue;[1413] his new surroundings were thoroughly distasteful to him; and as he was by no means of a cautious or conciliatory temper, he expressed his contempt and dislike of them in a way which was resented not only by the people, but even by men whose origin and natural speech were scarcely more English than his own.[1414] He had in short every qualification for becoming an extremely unpopular man, and he behaved as if he desired no other destiny. The nation at large soon learned to return his aversion and to detest him as a disagreeable stranger; his colleagues in the administration despised him as an upstart interloper; the justiciar, in particular, keenly resented his own virtual subordination to one whom he naturally regarded as his inferior in every way.[1415] It was sound policy on Richard’s part to place a check upon Hugh of Durham; and it was not unnatural that he should select his chancellor for that purpose. The seven happiest years of Henry Fitz-Empress had been the years during which another chancellor had wielded a power almost as great as that which Richard intrusted to William of Longchamp. But, on the other hand, any one except Richard might have seen at a glance that of all statesmen living, William of Longchamp was well-nigh the least fitted to reproduce the career of Thomas of London.

[1403] Cf. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 11, with the horrible caricature in Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 19 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 420).

[1404] Pipe Roll 2 Hen. II. (Hunter), p. 51.

[1405] _Mag. Rot. Scacc. Norm._ (Stapleton), vol. i. p. 74. Cf. Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. xxxviii.

[1406] Letter of Hugh of Nonant, in _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 216 (also in Rog. Howden, Stubbs, vol. iii. p. 142). Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 18 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 418).

[1407] _Mag. Rot. Scacc. Norm._ (Stapleton), vol. i. p. 74. Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. pp. xxxviii, xxxix and notes.

[1408] Stubbs, as above, pp. xxxix, xl.

[1409] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 1 (p. 388).

[1410] _Ibid._ Cf. c. 19 (pp. 420, 421). It does not seem to be known exactly who William’s mother was; but she brought to her husband in dower a knight’s fee in Herefordshire under Hugh de Lacy. See _Lib. Nig. Scacc._ (Hearne), p. 155, and Stubbs, as above, p. xxxviii, note 4.

[1411] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 19 (p. 421).

[1412] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 6.

[1413] Letter of Hugh of Nonant in _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 219.

[1414] See Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 19 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 424).

[1415] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 101. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 29.

The king left England on December 11.[1416] William was consecrated, together with Richard Fitz-Nigel, on December 31,[1417] and on the feast of the Epiphany he was enthroned at Ely.[1418] Immediately afterwards he began to assert his temporal authority. At a meeting of the Court of Exchequer the bishop of Durham was turned out by the chancellor’s orders; presently after he was deprived of his jurisdiction over Northumberland. Soon after this, Bishop Godfrey of Winchester was dispossessed not merely of his sheriffdom and castles, but even of his own patrimony.[1419] For this last spoliation there is no apparent excuse; that a man should hold a sheriffdom together with a bishopric was, however, contrary alike to Church discipline and to sound temporal policy; and the non-recognition of Hugh’s purchase of Northumberland might be yet further justified by the fact that the purchase-money was not yet paid.[1420] In February 1190 Richard summoned his mother, his brothers and his chief ministers to a final meeting in Normandy;[1421] the chancellor, knowing that complaints against him would be brought before the king, hurried over in advance of his colleagues, to justify himself before he was accused,[1422] and he succeeded so well that Richard not only sent him back to England after the council with full authority to act as chief justiciar as well as chancellor,[1423] but at the same time opened negotiations with Rome to obtain for him a commission as legate[1424]--an arrangement which, the archbishop of Canterbury being bound on crusade like the king, would leave William supreme both in Church and state.

[1416] _Gesta Ric._ as above. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 73, makes it December 14.

[1417] R. Diceto as above, p. 75. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 11.

[1418] R. Diceto as above.

[1419] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 11.

[1420] See Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. xxxi. and note 3.

[1421] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 105, 106.

[1422] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 12.

[1423] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 106. Cf. Ric. Devizes as above, and Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 14 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 331).

[1424] _Gesta Ric._ as above.

The new justiciar’s first act on his return was to fortify the Tower of London;[1425] his next was to punish a disturbance which had lately occurred at York. During the last six months the long-suppressed hatred which the Jews inspired had broken forth into open violence. The first pretext had been furnished by a misunderstanding on the coronation-day. Richard, who had some very strict ideas about the ceremonials of religion, had given orders that no Jew should approach him on that solemn occasion; in defiance or ignorance of the prohibition, some rich Jews came to offer gifts to the new sovereign; the courtiers and the people seized the excuse to satisfy at once their greed and their hatred; the unwelcome visitors were driven away, robbed, beaten, some even slain;[1426] and the rage of their enemies, once let loose, spent itself throughout the night in a general sack of the Jewish quarter. Richard, engaged at the coronation-banquet, knew nothing of what had happened till the next day,[1427] when he did his best to secure the ringleaders, and punished them severely.[1428] When he was gone, however, the spark thus kindled burst forth into a blaze in all the chief English cities in succession, Winchester being almost the sole exception.[1429] Massacres of Jews took place at Norwich on February 6, at Stamford on March 7, at S. Edmund’s on March 18, Palm Sunday.[1430] A day before this last, a yet worse tragedy had occurred at York. The principal Jews of that city, in dread of a popular attack, had sought and obtained shelter in one of the towers of the castle, under the protection of its constable and the sheriff of Yorkshire.[1431] Once there, they refused to give it up again; whereupon the constable and the sheriff called out all the forces of city and shire to dislodge them. After twenty-four hours’ siege the Jews offered to ransom themselves by a heavy fine; but the blood of the citizens was up, and they rejected the offer. The Jews, in desperation, resolved to die by their own hands rather than by those of their Gentile enemies; the women and children were slaughtered by their husbands and fathers, who flung the corpses over the battlements or piled them up in the tower, which they fired.[1432] Nearly five hundred Jews perished in the massacre or the flames;[1433] and the citizens and soldiers, baulked of their expected prey, satiated their greed by sacking and burning all the Jewish houses and destroying the bonds of all the Jewish usurers in the city.[1434] At the end of April or the beginning of May[1435] the new justiciar came with an armed force to York to investigate this affair. The citizens threw the whole blame upon the castellan and the sheriff; William accordingly deposed them both.[1436] As the castle was destroyed, he probably thought it needless to appoint a new constable until it should be rebuilt; for the sheriff--John, elder brother of William the Marshal--he at once substituted his own brother Osbert.[1437] Most of the knights who had been concerned in the tumult had taken care to put themselves out of his reach; their estates were, however, mulcted and their chattels seized;[1438] and the citizens only escaped by paying a fine[1439] and giving hostages who were not redeemed till three years later, when all thought of further proceedings in the matter had been given up.[1440] Even the clergy of the minster had their share of punishment, although for a different offence: William, though his legatine commission had not yet arrived, claimed already to be received as legate, and put the church under interdict until his claim was admitted.[1441]

[1425] _Ibid._

[1426] The _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 83, lay the blame on “curiales”; with Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 12, the source of the mischief is “plebs superbo oculo et insatiabili corde”; R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 69, is so ashamed of the whole business that he tries to shift the responsibility off all English shoulders alike--“Pax Judæorum, quam ab antiquis temporibus semper obtinuerant, ab alienigenis interrumpitur.” Cf. the very opposite tone of R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 28, and the judicial middle course characteristically steered by Will. Newb., l. iv. cc. 1 and 9 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 297, 298, 316, 317).

[1427] R. Diceto as above.

[1428] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 84. Rog. Howden as above. Both take care to assure us that Richard’s severity was owing not to any sympathy for the Jews, but to the fact that in the confusion a few Christians had suffered with them. Cf. a slightly different version in Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 1 (as above, pp. 297–299).

[1429] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 5.

[1430] R. Diceto as above, p. 75. Cf. Will. Newb., l. iv. cc. 7, 8 (as above, pp. 308–312), who adds Lynn to the series.

[1431] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 107, and a more detailed account in Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 9 (as above, pp. 312–314). From him we learn that the Jews of Lincoln did the same, and with a more satisfactory result.

[1432] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 107. For date--March 16--see R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 75.

[1433] R. Diceto as above.

[1434] _Gesta Ric._ as above. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 34. Cf. the somewhat different version of Will. Newb., l. iv. cc. 9, 10 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 314–322), and also R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 27, 28.

[1435] The _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 108, say merely “post Pascha”; Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 11 (as above, p. 323), says “circa Dominicæ Ascensionis solemnia,” which fell on May 4.

[1436] _Gesta Ric._ as above.

[1437] Rog. Howden as above.

[1438] Will. Newb. as above (p. 323). Cf. Pipe Roll 2 Ric. I., quoted in Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. pp. xliv., notes 4, 5, xlv., note 1.

[1439] Will. Newb. as above.

[1440] Pipe Roll 5 Ric. I. in Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. xliv., note 7. Will. Newb., as above (p. 324), says that nothing further was ever done in the matter.

[1441] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 108, 109.

For the moment William’s power was undisputed even in the north; for Hugh of Durham was still in Gaul. Now, however, there came a notice from the king that he was about to send Hugh back to England as justiciar over the whole country north of the Humber.[1442] Hugh himself soon afterwards arrived, and hurried northward, in the hope, it seems, of catching the chancellor on the further side of the Humber and thus compelling him to acknowledge his inferiority.[1443] In this hope he was disappointed; they met at Blyth in Nottinghamshire.[1444] Hugh, impetuous in old age as in youth, talked somewhat too much as the chancellor had acted--“as if all the affairs of the realm were dependent on his nod.”[1445] At last, however, he produced the commission from Richard upon which his pretensions were founded;[1446] and William, who could read between the lines of his royal friend’s letters, saw at once that he had little to fear.[1447] He replied simply by expressing his readiness to obey the king’s orders,[1448] and proposing that all further discussion should be adjourned to a second meeting a week later at Tickhill. There Hugh found the tables turned. The chancellor had reached the place before him; the bishop’s followers were shut out from the castle; he was admitted alone into the presence of his rival, who, without giving him time to speak, put into his hands another letter from Richard, bidding all his English subjects render service and obedience to “our trusty and well-beloved chancellor, the bishop of Ely,” as they would to the king himself. The letter was dated June 6--some days, if not weeks, later than Hugh’s credentials;[1449] and it seems to have just reached William together with his legatine commission, which was issued on the previous day.[1450] He gave his rival no time even to think. “You had your say at our last meeting; now I will have mine. As my lord the king liveth, you shall not quit this place till you have given me hostages for the surrender of all your castles. No protests! I am not a bishop arresting another bishop; I am the chancellor, arresting his supplanter.”[1451] Hugh was powerless; yet he let himself be dragged all the way to London before he would yield. Then he gave up the required hostages,[1452] and submitted to the loss of all his lately-purchased honours--Windsor, Newcastle, Northumberland, even the manor of Sadberge which he had bought of the king for his see[1453]--everything, in short, except his bishopric. For that he set out as soon as he was liberated; but at his manor of Howden he was stopped by the chancellor’s orders, forbidden to proceed further, and again threatened with forcible detention. He promised to remain where he was, gave security for the fulfilment of his promise, and then wrote to the king his complaints of the treatment which he had received.[1454] All the redress that he could get, however, was a writ commanding that Sadberge should be restored to him at once and that he should suffer no further molestation.[1455]

[1442] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 109. This appointment is mentioned (_ib._ p. 106) among those made at the council of Rouen, where William himself was appointed; but it seems plain that it was not ratified till some time later.

[1443] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 12.

[1444] _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 109.

[1445] Ric. Devizes as above.

[1446] _Ib._ p. 13. _Gesta Ric._ as above.

[1447] Ric. Devizes as above.

[1448] _Gesta Ric._ as above.

[1449] Cf. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 83, with Ric. Devizes as above.

[1450] R. Diceto as above.

[1451] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 13.

[1452] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 109. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 35, places the submission at Southwell.

[1453] _Gesta Ric._ as above. On Sadberge see Rog. Howden as above, p. 13.

[1454] _Gesta Ric._, pp. 109, 110.

[1455] The _Gesta Ric._, p. 110, say Richard ordered the restitution of Newcastle and Sadberge; for Newcastle Rog. Howden, as above, p. 38, substitutes “comitatum Northumbriæ”; but the king’s letter, given by Roger himself (_ib._ pp. 38, 39), mentions nothing except Sadberge. For its date see _ib._ pp. 37 note 1, 39 note 3, and _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 112, note 1.

The chancellor’s first rival was thus suppressed; but already he could see other stumbling-blocks arising in his path, not a few of them placed there by the shortsighted policy of his royal master. Richard’s reckless bestowal of lands and jurisdictions would, if left undisturbed, have put the administration of at least ten whole shires practically beyond the control of the central government. The bishops of Durham, Winchester and Coventry or Chester would have had everything their own way, in temporal matters no less than in spiritual, throughout their respective dioceses. To this state of things William had summarily put an end in the cases of Northumberland and Hampshire; in those of Leicestershire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire the primate had been induced to remonstrate with Hugh of Coventry upon the impropriety of a bishop holding three sheriffdoms, and Hugh had accordingly given up two of them, though he managed to get them back after Baldwin’s death at the close of 1190.[1456] There were however still four shires in the south-west and one in Mid-England over which the king’s justiciar was not only without practical, but even without legal jurisdiction. In these, and in a number of “honours” scattered over the midland shires from Gloucester to Nottingham, the whole rights and profits of government, administration and finance belonged solely to John; for his exercise of them he was responsible to no one but the king; and thus, as soon as Richard was out of reach, John was to all intents and purposes himself king of his own territories. For the present indeed he was unable to set foot in his little realm: Richard in the spring had made both his brothers take an oath to keep away from England for three years.[1457] It was however easy enough for John to govern his part of England, as the whole of it had often been governed for years together, from the other side of the Channel. He had his staff of ministers just like his brother--his justiciar Roger de Planes,[1458] his chancellor Stephen Ridel,[1459] his seneschal William de Kahaines, and his butler Theobald Walter;[1460] the sheriffs of his five counties and the stewards or bailiffs of his honours were appointed by him alone, and exercised their functions solely for his advantage, without reference to the king’s court or the king’s exchequer.[1461] It is evident that, even though as yet the sea lay between them, John had already the power to make himself, if he were so minded, a serious obstacle to the chancellor’s plans of governing England for Richard. Moreover, before Richard finally quitted Gaul, his mother persuaded him to release John from his oath of absence;[1462] and William of Longchamp himself, in his new character of legate, was obliged to confirm the release with his absolution.[1463] In view of the struggle which he now saw could not be far distant, William began to marshal his political forces and concert his measures of defence. On August 1 he held a Church council at Gloucester, in the heart of John’s territories;[1464] on October 13 he held another at Westminster;[1465] and he seems to have spent the winter in a sort of half legatine, half vice-regal progress throughout the country, for purposes of justice and finance and for the assertion of his own authority. This proceeding stirred up a good deal of discontent. Cripple though he was, William of Longchamp seems to have been almost as rapid and restless a traveller as Henry II.; one contemporary says he “went up and down the country like a flash of lightning.”[1466] It may be however that these words allude to the disastrous effects of the chancellor’s passage rather than to its swiftness and suddenness; for he went about in such state as no minister except Henry’s first chancellor had ever ventured to assume. His train of a thousand armed knights, besides a crowd of clerks and other attendants, was a ruinous burthen to the religious houses where he claimed entertainment; and the burthen was made almost unbearable by the heavy exactions, from clerk and layman alike, which he made in his master’s name.[1467]

[1456] See R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 77, 78, and Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. xxxi. and note 5.

[1457] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 106. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 15.

[1458] R. Diceto as above, p. 99.

[1459] _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 224.

[1460] Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 55.

[1461] See Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. pp. xxxiii and lii.

[1462] _Gesta Ric._ and Ric. Devizes as above.

[1463] Gir. Cambr. _De rebus a se gestis_, l. ii. c. 23 (Brewer, vol. i. p. 86). Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 15, says the arrangement was that John “in Angliam per cancellarium transiens staret ejus judicio, et ad placitum illius vel moraretur in regno vel exularet.” But with Eleanor in England to back her son, William could really have no choice in the matter.

[1464] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 83. On the version of this in Ric. Devizes (as above, pp. 13, 14), see Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. xlix.

[1465] R. Diceto as above, p. 85. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 488, makes it October 16.

[1466] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 14.

[1467] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 214. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 72. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 14 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 333, 334).

That master was now with Philip of France at Messina,[1468] preparing for his departure from Europe. When he would come back--whether he ever would come back at all--was felt by all parties to be doubtful in the extreme. With his ardent zeal, rash valour and peculiar health, he was little likely to escape both the chances of war and the effects of the eastern climate;[1469] and the question of the succession was therefore again becoming urgent. There was indeed not much latitude of choice; the male line of Anjou, already extinct in Palestine, had in Europe only three representatives--Richard himself, John, and their infant nephew Arthur of Britanny. By the strict feudal rule of primogeniture, Arthur, being Geoffrey’s son, would have after Richard the next claim as head of the Angevin house. By old English constitutional practice, John, being a grown man and the reigning sovereign’s own brother, would have a much better chance of recognition as his successor than his nephew, a child not yet four years old. Neither alternative was without drawbacks. Richard himself had made up his mind to the first; early in November 1190 he arranged a marriage for Arthur with a daughter of King Tancred of Sicily, on a distinct understanding that in case of his own death without children Arthur was to succeed to all his dominions;[1470] while at the same time William of Longchamp was endeavouring to secure the Scot king’s recognition of Arthur as heir-presumptive to the English crown.[1471] The queen-mother was unwilling to contemplate the succession of either Arthur or John; she was anxious to get Richard married. Knowing that he never would marry the woman to whom he had been so long betrothed, she took upon herself to find him another bride. Her choice fell upon Berengaria, daughter of King Sancho VI. of Navarre;[1472] it was accepted by Richard; early in February 1191[1473] she went over to Gaul; there she met her intended daughter-in-law, whom she carried on with her into Italy, and by the end of March they were both with Richard at Messina.[1474] On the very day of their arrival Philip had sailed.[1475] After long wrangling with him, Richard had at last succeeded in freeing himself from his miserable engagement to Adela;[1476] he at once plighted his troth to Berengaria; and when his mother, after a four days’ visit, set out again upon her homeward journey,[1477] his bride remained with him under the care of his sister the widowed queen Jane of Sicily[1478] till the expiration of Lent and the circumstances of their eastward voyage enabled them to marry. The wedding was celebrated and the queen crowned at Limasol in Cyprus on the fourth Sunday after Easter.[1479]

[1468] Richard was there from September 23, 1190, to April 10, 1191. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 125, 162; R. Diceto as above, pp. 84, 91.

[1469] See Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 306).

[1470] Treaty in _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 133–136, and Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 61–64. It is dateless, but on November 11 Richard wrote to the Pope telling him of its provisions and asking for his sanction. _Gesta Ric._ as above, pp. 136–138; Rog. Howden as above, pp. 65, 66.

[1471] Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 14 (as above, pp. 335, 336). William represents this as an unauthorized proceeding of the chancellor’s, contrived in his own interest as against John. He seems to place it at a later date.

[1472] “Puella prudentior quam pulchra” says Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 25; but he seems to be contrasting her with Eleanor. On the other hand, Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 19 (as above, p. 346), calls her “famosæ pulchritudinis et prudentiæ virginem.” According to the _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 175, this had been Richard’s own choice for many years past.

[1473] Richard sent ships to meet her at Naples before the end of that month. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 157.

[1474] They arrived on March 30. _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 161.

[1475] _Ibid._

[1476] _Gesta Ric._ as above, pp. 160, 161. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 99. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 86. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 26. The actual treaty between Richard and Philip, of which more later, is in Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 54.

[1477] She sailed on April 2. _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 161. Cf. R. Diceto as above.

[1478] _Ibid._ Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 28.

[1479] _Gesta Ric._ as above, pp. 166, 167. Ric. Devizes, p. 39. _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 195, 196.

On her way home Eleanor stopped to transact some diplomatic business at Rome, and she seems to have remained in Gaul until the beginning of the next year. Long before she returned to England there were evident tokens that when Richard had proposed to keep John out of it, he had for once been wiser than his mother. Early in the year John, profiting by the liberty which her intercession had procured him, came over to England and there set up his court in such semi-regal state as to make it a source of extreme irritation, if not of grave anxiety, to the chancellor.[1480] Eleanor’s departure thus left William of Longchamp face to face with a new and most formidable rival; while about the same time he saw his power threatened on another side. In March 1191 tidings came that Archbishop Baldwin had died at Acre in the foregoing November.[1481] If a new primate should be appointed, it was to be expected as a matter of course that the bishop of Ely would lose the legation; he could hope to retain it only by persuading Richard either to nominate him to the primacy, or to keep it vacant altogether. Richard’s notions of ecclesiastical propriety were however too strict to admit the latter alternative; from the former he would most likely be deterred by his father’s experiences with another chancellor; so, to the astonishment of everybody, he nominated for the see of Canterbury a Sicilian prelate, one of his fellow-crusaders, William archbishop of Monreale.[1482] Meanwhile John and the chancellor were quarrelling openly; popular sympathy, which William had alienated by his arrogance and his oppressions, was on the side of John; even the subordinate justiciars, who had stood by William in his struggle with Hugh of Durham,[1483] were turning against him now; from one and all complaints against him were showering in upon the king;[1484] till at the end of February Richard grew so bewildered and so uneasy that he decided upon sending the archbishop of Rouen to investigate the state of affairs in England and see what could be done to remedy it.[1485]

[1480] See Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. pp. li., lii.

[1481] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 488, 490.

[1482] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 493, 494; date, January 25 [1191].

[1483] See Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 11, 12.

[1484] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 158. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 95, 96.

[1485] _Gesta Ric_. as above. Rog. Howden as above, p. 96. We get the date approximately from Richard’s letter in R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 90.

The archbishop of Rouen--Walter of Coutances--was a man of noble birth and stainless character who had been successively archdeacon of Oxford, treasurer of Rouen cathedral and vice-chancellor to Henry II.;[1486] in this last capacity he had for eight years done the whole work of head of the chancery for his nominal chief Ralf of Varneville,[1487] till Ralf was succeeded in 1182 by the king’s son Geoffrey, and next year the vice-chancellor was promoted to the see of Lincoln, which Geoffrey had resigned. A year later Walter was advanced to the primacy of Normandy.[1488] He was now with Richard, on his way to Holy Land, but commuted his vow to serve the king.[1489] He was a very quiet, unassuming person, and certainly not a vigorous statesman; but his integrity and disinterestedness were above question;[1490] and the position in which he was now placed was one in which even a Thomas Becket might well have been puzzled how to act. The only commission given him by Richard of which we know the date was issued on February 23;[1491] but it was not till April 2 that he was allowed to leave Messina;[1492] and during the interval Richard, in his reluctance to supersede the chancellor, seems to have been perpetually changing his mind and varying his instructions, some of which were sent direct to England and some intrusted to Walter, till by the time the archbishop started he was laden with a bundle of contradictory commissions, addressed to himself, to William and to the co-justiciars, and apparently accompanied by a verbal order to use one, all or none of them, wholly at his own discretion.[1493]

[1486] Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 10 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 408).

[1487] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 367.

[1488] _Ib._ vol. ii. pp. 10, 14, 21.

[1489] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 27--very unfairly coloured.

[1490] Cf. Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 10 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 408), and Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 15 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 336). In this place William calls Walter “virum prudentem et modestum”; but in l. iii. c. 8 (_ib._ p. 236) he displays a curiously bitter resentment against him for his abandonment of the see of Lincoln for the loftier see of Rouen.

[1491] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 90. Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 6 (p. 401), gives the date as February 20.

[1492] He and Eleanor left Messina together. _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 176.

[1493] This seems the only possible explanation at once of Walter’s conduct and of the conflicting accounts in R. Diceto as above, pp. 90, 91; Gir. Cambr. as above (pp. 400, 401); _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 158; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 96, 97; Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 27–29; and Will. Newb. as above. See Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. pp. lx., lxi., note 1.

Before he reached England John and the chancellor were at open war. On Mid-Lent Sunday they met at Winchester to discuss the payment of John’s pensions from the Exchequer and the possession of certain castles within his territories.[1494] The discussion clearly ended in a quarrel; and this served as a signal for revolt against the unpopular minister. Gerard de Camville, sheriff of Lincolnshire by purchase from the king, was also constable of Lincoln castle in right of his wife Nicolaa de Haye. He was accused of harbouring robbers in the castle, and when summoned before the king’s justices he refused to appear, declaring that he had become John’s liegeman and was answerable only to him.[1495] At the opposite end of England Roger de Mortemer, the lord of Wigmore--successor to that Hugh de Mortemer who had defied Henry II. in 1156--was at the same moment found to be plotting treason with the Welsh. Against him the chancellor proceeded first, and his mere approach so alarmed Roger that he gave up his castle and submitted to banishment from the realm for three years.[1496] William then hurried to Lincoln; but before he could reach it Gerard and Nicolaa had had time to make their almost impregnable stronghold ready for a siege, and John had had time to gain possession of Nottingham and Tickhill[1497]--two castles which the king had retained in his own hands, while bestowing upon his brother the honours in which they stood. Nicolaa was in command at Lincoln, and was fully equal to the occasion; her husband was now with John, and John at once sent the chancellor a most insulting message, taunting him with the facility with which the two castles had been betrayed,[1498] and threatening that if the attempt upon Lincoln was not at once given up, he would come in person to avenge the wrongs of his liegeman.[1499] William saw that John was now too strong for him; he knew by this time that Pope Clement was dead,[1500] and his own legation consequently at an end; he must have known, too, of the mission of Walter of Rouen; he therefore, through some of his fellow-bishops,[1501] demanded a personal meeting with John, and proposed that all their differences should be submitted to arbitration. John burst into a fury at what he chose to call the impudence of this proposal,[1502] but he ended by accepting it, and on April 25 the meeting took place at Winchester. The case was decided by the bishops of London, Winchester and Bath, with eleven lay arbitrators chosen by them from each party. Their decision went wholly against the chancellor. He was permitted to claim the restitution of Nottingham and Tickhill, but only to put them in charge of two partizans of John; his right to appoint wardens to the other castles in dispute was nominally confirmed, but made practically dependent upon John’s dictation; he was compelled to reinstate Gerard de Camville, and moreover to promise that in case of Richard’s death he would do his utmost to secure the crown for John.[1503]

[1494] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 26.

[1495] Cf. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 30, with Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 242, 243, and Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 16 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 337, 338), and see Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. pp. lvi., lvii.

[1496] Ric. Devizes as above.

[1497] _Ibid._ _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 207. Will. Newb. as above (p. 338).

[1498] Ric. Devizes as above.

[1499] _Ibid._ _Gesta Ric._ as above.

[1500] He died on the Wednesday before Easter--April 10--and his successor Celestine III. was elected on Easter-day. _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 161.

[1501] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 31, makes Walter of Rouen the mediator, but we shall see that this is chronologically impossible.

[1502] _Ibid._

[1503] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 32, 33. On the date see Bishop Stubbs’s notes to _Gesta Ric._, p. 208, and Rog. Howden, vol. iii. p. 134, and pref. to latter, pp. lviii., lix.

Two days later Walter of Rouen landed at Shoreham.[1504] He was evidently not wanted now to act as a check upon William of Longchamp; he might almost expect to be soon wanted as a check upon John; but meanwhile, he could only stand aside and watch the effect of the new arrangements. His passive attitude gave, however, an indirect support to the chancellor; after midsummer, therefore, the latter ventured to repudiate the concessions wrung from him at Winchester; he again advanced upon Lincoln, and formally deprived Gerard of the sheriffdom, which he conferred upon William de Stuteville.[1505] Once more the other bishops interposed, backed now by the Norman primate. Another assembly met at Winchester on July 28,[1506] and here a fresh settlement was made. Gerard was reinstated in the sheriffdom of Lincolnshire, pending his trial in the king’s court; William and John were both bound over to commit no more forcible disseizures; the disputed castles were to be again put in charge for the king, but through the medium of the archbishop of Rouen instead of the chancellor, and John was allowed no voice in the selection of the castellans, who were chosen by the assembly then and there. If the chancellor should infringe the agreement, or if the king should die, these castles were to be given up to John; but all reference to his claims upon the succession to the throne was carefully omitted.[1507] The contest almost seemed to have ended in a drawn battle. It was strictly a contest between individuals, involving no national or constitutional interests. The barons, as a body, clearly sided with John; but, just as clearly, they sided with him from loyal motives. The authority of the Crown was never called in question; the question was, who was fittest to represent and uphold it--the king’s chancellor, or his brother. Of treason, either to England or to Richard, there was not a thought, unless--as indeed is only too probable--it lurked in the mind of John himself.

[1504] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 497, says he landed about midsummer, and the printed text of R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 90, makes the date June 27; but see note in latter place. Bishop Stubbs (_Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. lix.) adopts the earlier date.

[1505] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 207.

[1506] The date comes from Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 32, who however misapplies it. See Bishop Stubbs’s notes to _Gesta Ric._, p. 208, and Rog. Howden, vol. iii. p. 134.

[1507] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 135–137.

A drawn battle, however, could not possibly be the end of a struggle between two such men as John of Mortain and William of Longchamp. In the autumn a new element was added to the strife by the return of Archbishop Geoffrey of York. For thirty-five years Geoffrey had been the eldest living child, if indeed he was not actually the first-born, of Henry Fitz-Empress;[1508] but of the vast Angevin heritage there fell to his share nothing, except the strong feelings and fiery temper which caused half the troubles of his life. As a child he had been brought up at court almost on equal terms with his half-brothers;[1509] he seems indeed to have been his father’s favourite, till he was supplanted by the little John. When he grew to manhood, however, Henry could see no way of providing for him except by forcing him into a career for which he had no vocation. At an early age he was put into deacon’s orders and made archdeacon of Lincoln;[1510] in 1173, when about twenty years of age, he was appointed to the bishopric of the same place.[1511] The Pope, however, demurred to the choice of a candidate disqualified alike by his youth and his birth; and when the former obstacle had been outlived and the latter might have been condoned, Geoffrey voluntarily renounced an office in which he would have been secure for life, but which he had never desired and for which he felt himself unfit,[1512] in order to become his father’s chancellor and constant companion during the last eight years of his life. It was Henry’s last regret that this son, the only one of his sons whose whole life had been an unbroken course of perfect filial obedience, had to be left with his future entirely at the mercy of his undutiful younger half-brother. Richard received him with a brotherly welcome;[1513] when, however, he nominated him to the see of York, he was indeed carrying out their father’s last wishes, but certainly not those of Geoffrey himself. Richard seems to have thought that he was held back by other motives than those of conscience or of preference for a secular life; he suspected him of cherishing designs upon the crown.[1514] It can only be said that Geoffrey, so far as appears, never did anything to justify the suspicion, but shewed on the contrary every disposition to act loyally towards both his brothers, if they would but have acted with equal loyalty towards him. As soon however as the tonsure had marked him irrevocably for a priestly life,[1515] Richard’s zeal for his promotion cooled. The bishop of Durham, who was striving to make his see independent of the metropolitan,[1516] and a strong party in the York chapter with whom Geoffrey had quarrelled on a point of ecclesiastical etiquette, easily won the king’s ear;[1517] it was not till the very eve of Richard’s departure from England that Geoffrey was able to buy his final confirmation both in the see of York and in the estates which his father had bequeathed to him in Anjou;[1518] and in March he was summoned over to Normandy and there, like John, made to take an oath of absence from England for three years.[1519]

[1508] In the first chapter of his _Life_ by Gerald (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 363), we are told that Geoffrey was scarcely twenty when elected to Lincoln, _i.e._ in 1173. But in l. i. c. 13 (_ib._ p. 384), Gerald says that he was consecrated to York “anno ætatis quasi quadragesimo,” in 1191. These two dates, as is usual with Gerald in such cases, do not agree, and neither of them pretends to be more than approximate. Still it seems plain that Geoffrey’s birth must fall somewhere between 1151 and 1153. Even if we adopt the latest date, he must have been born in the same year as Eleanor’s first son--the baby William who died in 1156--and must have been at least two years older than the young king, four years older than Richard, and fourteen years older than John.

[1509] Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. i. c. 1 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 363).

[1510] Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. i. c. 1 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 363).

[1511] _Ib._ p. 364. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 22 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 154).

[1512] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 271, 272. Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 4 (p. 368). The resignation was formally completed at Epiphany 1182. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 10.

[1513] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 5 (p. 372).

[1514] _Ib._ c. 8 (p. 379). In c. 7 (p. 374) Gerald actually represents Geoffrey as entertaining some hope of surviving and succeeding both his younger brothers; but this is a very different thing from plotting against them during their lives. See Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. lxvi. As it turned out, the first part, at any rate, of this dream of Geoffrey’s was not so mad as it seemed, for he died only four years before John.

[1515] He was ordained priest September 23, 1189. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 88.

[1516] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 146. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 74.

[1517] _Gesta Ric._ as above, pp. 88, 91, 99. Rog. Howden as above, pp. 17, 18, 27. Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. i. c. 8 (Brewer, vol. iv. pp. 377, 378).

[1518] _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 100. Cf. Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 379).

[1519] Gir. Cambr. as above. _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 106. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 15.

According to Geoffrey’s own account, he followed his brother as far as Vézelay, and there won from him a remission of this vow.[1520] It is certain that by April 1191 Richard had so far changed his mind again as to be desirous of Geoffrey’s speedy consecration. The Pope’s consent was still lacking; and the negotiations for obtaining this were undertaken by the person who, from Geoffrey’s very birth, had been his most determined enemy--Queen Eleanor. When she went from Messina to Rome to plead his cause with Clement III. or his successor Celestine,[1521] it is plain that natural feeling gave way to motives of policy. She could now see that an archbishop of York might become very useful in England, in holding the balance between Hugh of Durham and William of Ely. His canonical authority and personal influence might furnish, not indeed a counterpoise, but at least a check to the now unlimited powers of the legate. On the other hand, it was the long vacancy of York which more than anything else had tended to Hugh’s exaltation. For ten years the bishop of Durham, with no metropolitan over him, had virtually been himself metropolitan of northern England. He strongly resented the filling of the vacant see, and had actually obtained from Clement III. a privilege of exemption from its jurisdiction.[1522] If the archbishop of York could be reinstated in his proper constitutional position, his own interests would lead him to use it for those of the kingdom and the king.

[1520] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 11 (p. 382).

[1521] Rog. Howden as above, p. 100. The change in the Papacy must have occurred while she was there.

[1522] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 146.

Geoffrey’s qualifications and disqualifications for such a task may be very easily summed up. He had the Angevin fearlessness, energy, persistence and thoroughness, with a fair share of the versatile capabilities of the family; he had all their impetuosity, but very little of their wariness and tact. Mingled with the Angevin fire, there seems to have run in his veins the blood, and with it the spirit, of a totally different race. If we may credit on such a point the gossip of his father’s court, Geoffrey was through his mother a child of the people--seemingly the English people--and of its very lowest class.[1523] This consideration has more interest at a later stage of Geoffrey’s career, when he stands forth as a champion of constitutional liberty. Until then, there is, so far as we can see, no evidence of any special sympathy between him and the English people. Yet the plebeian and probably English element in him existed, or was believed to exist; and if it did not become, as it easily might have done, an important element in his political career, it was at any rate not unlikely to have exercised some influence upon his character.

[1523] W. Map, _De Nugis Cur._, dist. v. c. 6 (Wright, pp. 228–235). Walter is the only writer who tells us anything about Geoffrey’s mother; as he does not say she was a foreigner, it seems most probable that he looked upon her as an Englishwoman. The name which he gives to her--“Ykenai” or “Hikenai”--tells nothing either way, in itself. But Mr. Dimock (in his preface to the seventh volume of Gerald’s works, p. xxxvii) throws doubt upon Walter’s whole account of her except her name, and suggests that she may have belonged to a knightly family of _Akeny_ (i.e. Acquigny) in Normandy. This, however, is a question to be investigated by a biographer of Geoffrey or a student of his later political career rather than by an historian of the Angevin kings. The doubts which W. Map tries to throw upon his connexion with them are probably affected, and clearly unfounded. Few specimens of the Angevin race are more unmistakeable than Geoffrey; one might perhaps add, few more creditable.

Eleanor’s mission to Rome succeeded. Geoffrey’s election and his claim to the obedience of the bishop of Durham were both confirmed by Pope Celestine;[1524] he was consecrated at Tours by Archbishop Bartholomew on August 18, and received his pall on the same day.[1525] He at once put himself in communication with John, to secure a protector on his return to his see;[1526] for William of Longchamp, having had no notice from Richard of the remission of Geoffrey’s vow of absence, refused to believe in it,[1527] and had not only issued orders for the archbishop’s arrest as soon as he should land in England,[1528] but had agreed with the countess of Flanders that no Flemish ship should be allowed to give him a passage. The countess, however, evaded her agreement by letting him sail from Wissant in an English boat.[1529] He landed at Dover on Holy Cross day,[1530] having changed his clothes to avoid recognition.[1531] The constable of Dover, Matthew de Clères, was absent; his wife Richenda was a sister of William of Longchamp; her men-at-arms surrounded the archbishop the moment he touched the shore, recognized him in spite of his disguise, and strove to arrest him, but he managed to free himself from their hands and make his way to the priory of S. Martin, just outside the town. Here for five days Richenda’s followers vainly endeavoured to blockade and starve him into surrender.[1532] On the fifth day a band of armed men rushed into the priory-church, and in the chancellor’s name ordered Geoffrey to quit the country at once. Geoffrey, seated by the altar, clad in his pontifical robes and with his archiepiscopal cross in his hand, set them and their chancellor at defiance.[1533] They dragged him out of the church by the hands and feet; and as nothing would induce him to mount a horse which they brought for him, they dragged him on, still in the same array, still clinging to his cross and excommunicating them as they went, all through the town to the castle, where they flung him into prison.[1534]

[1524] _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 209. See Celestine’s letter (date, May 11) in _Monasticon Angl._, vol. vi. pt. iii. col. 1188, and Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. lxvii, note 2.

[1525] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 96. Cf. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 209; Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. i. c. 13 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 384). Will. Newb., always hostile to Geoffrey, declares that “ordine præpostero” he got his pallium before he was consecrated; l. iv. c. 17 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 339, 340).

[1526] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 34.

[1527] His disbelief was evidently shared by Roger of Howden (Stubbs, vol. iii. p. 138); but Roger’s authority, the treasurer, does not commit himself to any opinion on the subject. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 210.

[1528] See the chancellor’s writ--dated Preston, July 30--in R. Diceto as above, and Gir. Cambr. as above, l. ii. c. 1 (p. 389); and cf. Ric. Devizes and _Gesta Ric._ as above.

[1529] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 388). Cf. _Gesta Ric._ as above. The countess--Isabel of Portugal, second wife of Count Philip--was governing her husband’s territories during his absence on crusade, where he died.

[1530] R. Diceto as above, p. 97. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 504.

[1531] _Gesta Ric._ as above.

[1532] Gir. Cambr. as above (pp. 388–390). Cf. R. Diceto and _Gesta Ric._ as above, and Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 17 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 340).

[1533] Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 1 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 391).

[1534] _Ibid._ (pp. 391, 392). Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 35, 36. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 97. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 111. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 505. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 17 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 340).

This outrage roused up all parties alike in Church and state. England had had quite enough of persecuted and martyred archbishops. Protests and remonstrances came pouring in upon the chancellor from the most opposite quarters:--from the treasurer and bishop of London, Richard Fitz-Nigel[1535]--from the aged bishop of Norwich, John of Oxford,[1536] and from the Canterbury chapter,[1537] both of whom had had only too much experience, in different ways, of the disasters which might result from such violence to an archbishop. The most venerated of living English prelates, S. Hugh of Lincoln, at once excommunicated Richenda, her husband and all her abettors, with lighted candles at Oxford.[1538] John remonstrated most vehemently of all,[1539] and his remonstrances procured Geoffrey’s release,[1540] but only on condition that he would go straight to London and there remain till the case between him and the chancellor could be tried by an assembly of bishops and barons.[1541] This of course satisfied nobody. John had no mind to lose his opportunity of crushing his enemy once for all. From Lancaster, where he was laying his plans with the help of Bishop Hugh of Coventry--a nephew of the old arch-plotter Arnulf of Lisieux--he hurried to Marlborough, and thence sent out summons to all the great men whom he thought likely to help him against the chancellor. He was not disappointed. The co-justiciars hastened up from the various shires where they were apparently busy with their judicial or financial visitations--William the Marshal from Gloucestershire, William Bruère from Oxfordshire, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter from Northamptonshire; the bishops were represented by Godfrey of Winchester and Reginald of Bath, and the sovereign himself by Walter of Rouen; S. Hugh of Lincoln joined the train as it passed through Oxford to Reading. From Reading John sent to call his half-brother to his side. Geoffrey, who was beginning to be looked upon and to look upon himself as something like another S. Thomas, had made a sort of triumphal progress from Dover to London; tied by his parole, he was obliged to ask the chancellor’s consent to his acceptance of John’s invitation, and only gained it on condition of returning within a given time.[1542]

[1535] R. Diceto as above. Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 2 (pp. 393, 394).

[1536] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 394).

[1537] Gerv. Cant. as above, pp. 505, 506.

[1538] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 393).

[1539] _Ibid._ (p. 394). _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 211. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 139.

[1540] On September 26; R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 97. Cf. Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 4 (p. 395), Gerv. Cant. as above, p. 507, and Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 36.

[1541] Gir. Cambr. as above.

[1542] Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. cc. 4, 5 (Brewer, vol. iv. pp. 395–397).

The chancellor meanwhile was at Norwich;[1543] and thither John and the justiciars had already sent him a summons to appear before them and answer for his conduct towards both Geoffrey of York and Hugh of Durham, at an assembly to be held at the bridge over the Lodden, between Reading and Windsor, on Saturday October 5.[1544] William retorted by a counter-summons to all who had joined the count of Mortain to forsake him as an usurper and return to their obedience to the king’s chosen representative.[1545] He hurried, however, to Windsor in time for the proposed meeting; but when the Saturday morning came, the earls of Arundel, Warren and Norfolk appeared at the trysting-place in his stead, pleading ill-health as an excuse for his absence.[1546] As Saturday was accounted an unlucky day for contracts or settlements of any kind,[1547] no one regretted the delay; John and the barons, sitting amid a ring of spectators in the meadows by the Lodden, spent the day in discussing all the complaints against the chancellor, and also, apparently, in looking through such of the Norman primate’s bundle of royal letters as he chose to shew them, and deliberating which would be most appropriate to the present state of affairs. On one point all were agreed; the chancellor must be put down at once.[1548] Early next morning he tried to bribe John into reconciliation, but in vain.[1549] At the high mass in Reading parish church the whole body of bishops lighted their candles and publicly excommunicated all who had been, whether by actual participation, command or consent, concerned in Archbishop Geoffrey’s arrest;[1550] and at nightfall the chancellor was compelled to swear that, come what might, he would be ready to stand his trial at the bridge of Lodden on the morrow.[1551]

[1543] _Ib._ cc. 2, 5 (pp. 393, 394, 397).

[1544] _Ib._ c. 5 (p. 397). Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 37, giving the date, which is confirmed by one of the summons--that addressed to the bishop of London--given by R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 98. Cf. also _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 212.

[1545] Gir. Cambr. as above.

[1546] _Ib._ c. 6 (p. 398). Cf. R. Diceto, Ric. Devizes and _Gesta Ric._ as above.

[1547] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 98.

[1548] Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 6 (Brewer, vol. iv. pp. 398–401).

[1549] _Ib._ c. 7 (p. 402).

[1550] _Ibid._ R. Diceto as above.

[1551] Gir. Cambr. as above.

Scarcely had he set out on the Monday morning when he was met by a report that his enemies were marching upon London.[1552] The report was true in substance; John and the barons, instead of waiting for him at the Lodden bridge, crossed it, and then divided their forces into two bodies; the smaller, consisting of the bishops and barons with John himself, proceeded towards Windsor to meet the chancellor; the larger, comprising the men-at-arms and the servants in charge of the baggage, was sent on by the southern road to Staines.[1553] Such a movement was quite enough to justify William in hurrying back to Windsor and thence on to London as fast as horses could carry him.[1554] Before he could reach it he met John’s men-at-arms coming up by the other road from Staines; a skirmish took place, in which John’s justiciar Roger de Planes was mortally wounded, but his followers seem to have had the best of the fight,[1555] although they could not prevent the chancellor from making his way safe into London. Here he at once called a meeting of the citizens in the Guildhall, and endeavoured to secure their support against John.[1556] He found, however, a strong party opposed to himself. On the last day of July[1557]--three days after the second award between John and William at Winchester--the citizens of London had profited by the king’s absence and his representative’s humiliation to set up a _commune_. They knew very well that, as a contemporary writer says, neither King Henry nor King Richard would have sanctioned such a thing at any price;[1558] and they knew even better still that Richard’s chancellor would never countenance it for a moment. With John they might have a chance, and they were not disposed to lose it by shutting their gates in his face at the bidding of William of Longchamp. William, seeing that his cause was lost in the city, shut himself up in the Tower.[1559]

[1552] _Ibid._ c. 8 (pp. 402, 403). Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 37. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 212.

[1553] Cf. Gir. Cambr. as above (pp. 403, 404), and R. Diceto as above, p. 99. Ric. Devizes, as above, says plainly what the other writers leave us to guess, that these followers were meant to go on to London.

[1554] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 403). Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 38. R. Diceto and _Gesta Ric._ as above. Cf. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 17 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 341, 342).

[1555] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 99. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 212. Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 8 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 404).

[1556] Gir. Cambr. as above. Cf. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 38.

[1557] “Ipsâ die”--the day on which Philip of France set out homeward from Acre. Ric. Devizes, p. 53.

[1558] _Ib._ pp. 53, 54. Yet Richard had once said that he would sell London altogether, if he could find anybody who would give him his price for it. _Ib._ p. 10, and Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 306).

[1559] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 38. R. Diceto as above. _Gesta Ric._ as above, pp. 212, 218. Will. Newb. as above, c. 17 (p. 342).

By this time John and his companions were at the gates; a short parley ended in their admittance.[1560] Next morning barons and citizens came together in S. Paul’s.[1561]. One after another the chancellor’s victims, with the archbishop of York at their head, set forth their grievances.[1562] Archbishop Walter of Rouen and William the Marshal then produced the king’s letter of February 20, addressed to the Marshal, and accrediting Walter to him and his fellow-justiciars, and bidding them, in case of any failure of duty on the chancellor’s part, follow Walter’s direction in all things.[1563] John and the barons agreed to act in accordance with these instructions; they won the assent of the citizens by swearing to maintain the commune;[1564] the whole assembly then swore fealty to Richard, and to John as his destined successor.[1565] According to one account they went a step further: they appointed John regent of the kingdom, and granted him the disposal of all the royal castles except three, which were to be left to the chancellor.[1566] Upon the latter they now set out to enforce their decision at the sword’s point. His forces were more than sufficient to defend the Tower; they were in fact too numerous; they had had no time to revictual the place, they were painfully overcrowded, and before twenty-four hours were over they found their position untenable.[1567] On the Wednesday William tried to bribe John into abandoning the whole enterprise, and he very nearly succeeded; Geoffrey of York and Hugh of Coventry, however, discovered what was going on, and remonstrated so loudly that John was obliged to drop the negotiation and continue the siege.[1568] In the afternoon, at the chancellor’s own request, four bishops and four earls went to speak with him in the Tower.[1569] Five days of intense excitement had so exhausted his feeble frame that when they told him what had passed at the meeting on the previous day, he dropped senseless at their feet, and when brought to himself could at first do nothing but implore their sympathy and mediation.[1570] The brutal insolence of Hugh of Coventry,[1571] however, seems to have stung him into his wonted boldness again. With flashing eyes he told them that the day of reckoning was yet to come, when they and their new lord would have to account for their treason with Richard himself; and he sent them away with a positive refusal to surrender either his castles or his seal.[1572] Late at night, however, as he lay vainly endeavouring to gain a little rest, his friends came and implored him to abandon the useless struggle with fate; and at last his brother Osbert and some others wrung from him an unwilling permission to go and offer themselves as hostages for his submission on the morrow.[1573]

[1560] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 404).

[1561] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 38, says “in ecclesiâ S. Pauli”; R. Diceto as above, “in capitulo”; the _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 213, and Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 140, say “in atrio.”

[1562] Ric. Devizes as above. _Gesta Ric._ as above, pp. 213, 218.

[1563] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 213, 218.

[1564] _Ib._ p. 213. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 99.

[1565] _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 214.

[1566] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 37, 38.

[1567] Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 17 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 342).

[1568] Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 9 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 406).

[1569] Gerald (_ib._ p. 405), says “quartâ vero feriâ.” Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 39, says “Dies ille nefastus declinabat ad vesperam,” which, taken in connexion with what precedes, ought to mean Tuesday evening; but he seems to have lost count of the days just here. It is he alone who mentions the earls; while it is Gerald alone who gives the names of the bishops--London, Lincoln, Winchester and Coventry.

[1570] Cf. Ric. Devizes as above, and Gir. Cambr. as above, who tries to colour this scene differently.

[1571] Gir. Cambr. as above (pp. 405, 406).

[1572] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 39.

[1573] _Ib._ p. 40. Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 9 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 406).

On the Thursday morning the barons assembled in the fields east of the Tower,[1574] and there William of Longchamp went forth to meet them. The instant he appeared Hugh of Coventry stepped forward, recited the whole indictment against him, and pronounced with brutal bluntness the sentence of the assembly.[1575] William was to be deposed from all secular authority, to keep nothing but his bishopric and the castles of Dover, Cambridge and Hereford; he must give hostages for his future good behaviour; then let him begone wherever he would. The assembly broke into a chorus of approval which seemed intended to give William no chance of reply; but his dauntless spirit had by this time regained its mastery over his physical weakness; he stood quietly till they had all talked themselves out, and then they had to listen in their turn. He denied every one of the charges against him; he refused to recognize either the moral justice or the legal validity of his deposition; he agreed to surrender the castles, because he no longer had power to hold them, but he still lifted up his protest, as King Richard’s lawful chancellor and justiciar, against all the proceedings and the very existence of the new ministry.[1576] Walter of Rouen was at once proclaimed justiciar in his stead.[1577] The keys of the Tower and of Windsor castle, and the hostages, were delivered up next morning, and William was then allowed to withdraw to Bermondsey, whence on the following day he proceeded to Dover.[1578] Thence, apparently in a desperate hope that his men might yet be able to hold the castles till he could gather means to relieve them, he twice attempted to escape over sea, first in the disguise of a monk, then in that of a pedlar-woman. His lameness, however, and his ignorance of English were fatal to his chances of flight; he was detected, dragged back into the town, and shut up in prison till all the castles were surrendered. Then he was set at liberty, and sailed for Gaul on October 29.[1579]

[1574] Ric. Devizes (as above). Gir. Cambr. as above. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 100.

[1575] Ric. Devizes as above.

[1576] _Ib._ pp. 40–42. Cf. Gir. Cambr. and R. Diceto as above; _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 214; and Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 17 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 341).

[1577] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 213. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 18 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 344).

[1578] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 100. Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 9 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 407). Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 42.

[1579] Ric. Devizes as above. R. Diceto as above, pp. 100, 101. Gir. Cambr. as above, cc. 12, 13 (pp. 410–413). _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 219, 220. Will. Newb. as above, c. 17 (p. 343). The date comes from R. Diceto.

His opponents, however, were not rid of him yet. The king was now practically out of reach of his remonstrances and appeals for succour;[1580] but the Pope was not. William was a bishop; and the harshness with which he had been treated enabled him now to pose in his turn as a consecrated victim of profane violence. Celestine III. warmly took up his cause; he distinctly acknowledged him as legate, whether with or without a formal renewal of his commission;[1581] and on December 2 he issued a brief addressed to the English bishops, bidding them excommunicate all who had taken part in William’s deposition, and put their lands under interdict till he should be reinstated.[1582] William, as legate, followed this up by excommunicating twenty-six of his chief enemies by name, with the archbishop of Rouen at their head, and, with the Pope’s sanction, threatening to treat John in like manner, if he did not amend before Quinquagesima.[1583] The bishops, however, took no notice of his letters, and the justiciars retorted by sequestrating his see;[1584] they all held him bound by the sentences pronounced against him at Reading and at London for his persecution of Geoffrey of York, and their view was upheld by the suffragans of Rouen, who all treated him as excommunicate.[1585] Geoffrey was now the highest ecclesiastical authority in England; but he was not the man to rule the English Church. He had more than enough to do in ruling his own chief suffragan. As soon as he was enthroned at York,[1586] he summoned Hugh of Durham to come and make his profession of obedience; Hugh, who having been reinstated in his earldom of Northumberland[1587] felt himself again more than a match for his metropolitan, ignored the summons, whereupon Geoffrey excommunicated him.[1588] This did not deter John from keeping Christmas at Howden with the bishop; in consequence of which John himself was for a while treated as excommunicate by his half-brother.[1589] The momentary coalition, formed solely to crush the chancellor, had in fact already split into fragments. The general administration, however, went on satisfactorily under the new justiciar’s direction, and his influence alone--for Eleanor was still on the continent[1590]--sufficed to keep John out of mischief throughout the winter.

[1580] He had written to complain of John’s insubordination, but Richard did not get the letter till six months after the writer’s fall. _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 333.

[1581] See _Epp. Cant._ (Stubbs), introd. p. lxxxiii, note 1.

[1582] Letter of Celestine III. in _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 221, 222.

[1583] Letter of William “bishop of Ely, legate and chancellor,” _ib._ pp. 222–224; and Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 152–154.

[1584] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 225.

[1585] _Ib._ p. 221. Cf. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 43.

[1586] On All Saints’ day [1191]. Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 11 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 410).

[1587] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 39.

[1588] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 225. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 168, 169. See the excellent summary of this affair in Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 27 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 371, 372).

[1589] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 235, 236.

[1590] She kept Christmas at Bonneville. _Ib._ p. 235. Rog. Howden as above, p. 179.

Richard’s continental dominions had thus far been at peace--a peace doubly secured by the presence of Eleanor and the absence of Philip of France. Shortly before Christmas 1191, however, Philip returned to his kingdom.[1591] In January 1192 he called the seneschal and barons of Normandy to a conference, and demanded from them, on the strength of a document which he shewed to them as the treaty made between himself and Richard at Messina, the restitution of his sister Adela and her dower-castles in the Vexin, as well as the counties of Eu and Aumale. The seneschal, rightly suspecting the paper to be a forgery, answered that he had no instructions from Richard on the subject, and would give up neither the lands nor the lady.[1592] Philip threatened war, and all Richard’s constables prepared for defence.[1593] Meanwhile, Philip offered to John the investiture of all Richard’s continental dominions, if he would accept Adela’s hand with them.[1594] That John had a wife already was an obstacle which troubled neither the French king nor John himself. He was quite ready to accept the offer; but meanwhile it reached his mother’s ears, and she hurried to England to stop him.[1595] Landing at Portsmouth on Quinquagesima Sunday,[1596] she found him on the point of embarking; the archbishop of Rouen and the other justiciars gladly welcomed her back to her former post of regent, and joined with her in forbidding John to leave the country, under penalty of having all his estates seized in the king’s name.[1597] They then held a series of councils, at Windsor, Oxford, London and Winchester;[1598] in that of London the barons renewed their oath of fealty to the king, but to pacify John they were obliged to do the like to him as heir,[1599] and the immediate consequence was that he persuaded the constables of Windsor and Wallingford to surrender their castles into his hands.[1600] William of Longchamp thought his opportunity had come. He managed to gain Eleanor’s ear and to bribe John;[1601] both connived at his return to Dover, and thence he sent up his demand for restoration to a council gathered in London towards the close of Lent.[1602] It seems plain that he had won the favour of the queen; for the justiciars, whose original purpose in meeting had been to discuss the misdoings of John, now saw themselves obliged to fetch John himself from Wallingford to support them, as they expected, in their resistance to the chancellor’s demands. To their dismay John told them plainly that he was on the point of making alliance with his old enemy for a consideration of seven hundred pounds.[1603] They saw that their only chance was to outbid William. They gave John two thousand marks out of the royal treasury;[1604] Walter of Rouen helped to persuade the queen-mother,[1605] and the chancellor was bidden to depart out of the land.[1606]

[1591] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 76.

[1592] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 236. Cf. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 56. It is certain that Philip told and acted a downright lie; for the treaty of Messina is extant, and its main provisions are these: Richard shall be bound to surrender Adela only within one month after his own return to Gaul, and the whole Norman Vexin, including its castles, shall remain to him and his heirs male for ever. Only in case of his death without male heir is it to revert to the French Crown; and as for Aumale and Eu, there is not a word about them. Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 54.

[1593] _Gesta Ric._ as above. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 55.

[1594] _Gesta Ric._ as above.

[1595] _Ibid._ Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 57.

[1596] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 55. This was February 11 [1192].

[1597] _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 237.

[1598] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 57.

[1599] _Gesta Ric._ as above. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 187.

[1600] Ric. Devizes as above. In Rog. Howden (as above), p. 204, the betrayal of these castles is placed a year later. Roger’s account of the first few months of 1193 has, however, somewhat the look of a repetition of the history of 1192, and his story is much less consistent and circumstantial than Richard’s, which I have therefore ventured to follow.

[1601] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 239. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 188. Cf. Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 14 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 413); Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 56; and Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 512.

[1602] Gir. Cambr., as above, says he landed about April 1, _i.e._ the Wednesday before Easter. But the other writers seem to place this council soon after Mid-Lent. Gerv. Cant., as above, says the chancellor came “mediante mense Martio.”

[1603] Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 58, 59.

[1604] “2000 marks, £500 of which were to be raised from the chancellor’s estates” is Bishop Stubbs’s interpretation (_Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. p. xc.) of _Gesta Ric._, p. 239, and Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 59.

[1605] _Gesta Ric._ as above.

[1606] _Ibid._ Ric. Devizes as above. Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 415). Cf. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 18 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 345, 346). According to the first authority, William sailed again on Maunday Thursday, April 2.

Shortly afterwards, two cardinal-legates arrived in France to settle his dispute with the archbishop of Rouen. When they attempted to enter Normandy, the seneschal refused them admittance and shut the gates of Gisors in their faces, pleading that the subjects of an English king were forbidden by ancient custom to admit legates into any part of his dominions without his consent. The legates on this excommunicated the seneschal and laid all Normandy under interdict.[1607] William had done the same to his own diocese before leaving England.[1608] Archbishop Walter, the English justiciars, even the queen-mother, were all at their wits’ end: Philip was openly threatening to invade the Norman duchy; the obstacle which had prevented him until now--the unwillingness of the French barons to attack the territories of a crusader[1609]--would be considerably lessened by the interdict; the only person who could be found in England capable of undertaking a negotiation with the legates was Hugh of Durham; but Hugh declined to go till his own quarrel with his metropolitan was settled,[1610] and this was not accomplished till the middle of October.[1611] Then indeed he went to France, and succeeded in obtaining the removal of the interdict.[1612] But in other quarters the prospect grew no brighter. Aquitaine, held in check for a while by the presence of its duchess, had risen as soon as she was out of reach. Count Ademar of Angoulême marched into Poitou with a large body of horse and foot; taken prisoner by the Poitevins, he appealed to the French king for deliverance.[1613] A revolt of the Gascon barons was with difficulty suppressed by the seneschal, assisted by young Sancho of Navarre,[1614] brother of Richard’s queen; and the victors rashly followed up their success by a raid upon Toulouse, which, though it went unpunished for the moment, could only lead to further mischief.[1615] In England John was still defying the justiciars; and they dared not proceed to extremities with him, for they now saw before them an imminent prospect of having to acknowledge him as their king.

[1607] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 246, 247. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 43, 44.

[1608] Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 15 (Brewer, vol. iv. p. 414). Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 42, 43, puts this in the previous October.

[1609] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 236. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 187.

[1610] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 247.

[1611] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 513. Rog. Howden as above, pp. 170 note, 172.

[1612] _Gesta Ric._ as above, p. 250.

[1613] Chron. S. Albin. a. 1192 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 50). The sequel of this story, however, clearly belongs to the following year; so it may be that the whole of it is antedated.

[1614] Rog. Howden as above, p. 194.

[1615] _Ibid._ Cf. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 55.

Richard’s adventures in the East lie outside the sphere of English history. The crusade of which he was the chief hero and leader had indirectly an important effect upon English social life; but it was in no sense a national undertaking; every man in the host was, like the king himself, simply a volunteer, not sent out by his country or representing it in any way. Richard’s glory is all his own; to us, the practical interest of the crusade in which he won it consists in the light which it throws upon his character, and on his political relations with the other princes who took part in the enterprise. The story, as it comes out bit by bit, oddly intermingled with the dry details of home affairs, in the English historians of the time, and as it is told at full length in the “Itinerary” composed by one of his fellow-crusaders, reads more like an old wiking-saga than a piece of sober history, and its hero looks more like a comrade of S. Olaf or Harald Hardrada than a contemporary of Philip Augustus. Nothing indeed except Richard’s northman-blood can account for the intense love of the sea, and the consummate seamanship, as sound and practical as it was brilliant and daring, which he displayed on his outward voyage. No sea-king of old ever guided his little squadron of “long keels” more boldly, more skilfully and more successfully through a more overwhelming succession of difficulties and perils than those through which Richard guided his large and splendid fleet on its way from Messina to Acre.[1616] Not one had ever made a conquest at once as rapid, as valuable and as complete as the conquest of Cyprus, which Richard made in a few days, as a mere episode in his voyage, in vengeance for the ill-treatment which some of his ship-wrecked sailors had met with at the hands of the Cypriots and their king.[1617] But it was a mere wiking-conquest; Richard never dreamed of permanently adding this remote island to the list of his dominions; within a few months he sold it to the Templars,[1618] and afterwards, as they failed to take possession, he made it over to the dethroned king of Jerusalem who had helped him to conquer it, Guy of Lusignan.[1619] The same love of adventure for its own sake colours many of his exploits in the Holy Land itself. But there we learn, too, that his character had yet another and a higher aspect. We find in him, side by side with the reckless northern valour, the northern endurance, patience and self-restraint, coupled with a real disinterestedness and a self-sacrificing generosity for which it would be somewhat hard to find a parallel among his forefathers on either side.[1620] Alike in a military, a political and a moral point of view, Richard is the only one among the leaders of the crusading host, except Guy, who comes out of the ordeal with a character not merely unstained, but shining with redoubled lustre. And this alone would almost account for the fact that, before they separated, nearly every one of them, save Guy, had become Richard’s open or secret foe.

[1616] See the details of the voyage in _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 177–209; _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 162–169; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 105–112.

[1617] _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 188–204. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 163–168. Rog. Howden as above, pp. 105–112. Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 47–49. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 20 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 350, 351).

[1618] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 35.

[1619] _Ibid._ _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 351. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 36.

[1620] It is impossible to give illustrations here; the whole _Itinerarium_, from his arrival at Acre (p. 211) onwards, is in fact one long illustration.

Envy of a better man than themselves was however not the sole cause of their hostility. The office of commander-in-chief of the host fell to Richard’s share in consequence of a catastrophe which altered the whole balance of political parties in Europe. That office had been destined for the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, who for more than thirty years had stood as high above all other Christian princes in political capacity, military prowess, and personal nobility of character, as in titular dignity and territorial power. Frederic set out for Palestine as early as May 1189;[1621] he fought his way through the treacheries of the Greek Emperor and the ambushes of the Turkish sultan of Iconium, only to be drowned in crossing a little river in Asia Minor on June 10, 1190.[1622] These tidings probably met Richard on his arrival at Messina in September. There he had to deal with the consequences of another death which had occurred in the previous November, that of his brother-in-law King William of Sicily.[1623] William was childless; after a vain attempt to induce his father-in-law Henry II. to accept the reversion of his crown,[1624] he had bequeathed it to his own young aunt Constance, who was married to Henry of Germany, the Emperor’s eldest son.[1625] It was, however, seized by Tancred, a cousin of the late king.[1626] Richard’s alliance with Tancred, though on the one hand absolutely necessary to secure the co-operation of Sicily for the crusade, was thus on the other a mortal offence to the new king of Germany, who moreover had already a grudge against England upon another ground:--Henry the Lion had in this very summer extorted from him almost at the sword’s point his restoration to his forfeited estates.[1627] Thus when Richard at last reached Acre in June 1191,[1628] he was already in ill odour with the leaders of the German contingent, the Emperor’s brother Duke Frederic of Suabia and his cousin Duke Leopold of Austria.

[1621] Ansbert (Dobrowsky), p. 21. Most of the English writers give a wrong date.

[1622] See the story of Frederic’s expedition and death in Ansbert (Dobrowsky), p. 21 _et seq._; _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 43–55; _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 56, 61, 62, 88, 89; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 358; Monach. Florent., vv. 245–330 (_ib._ vol. iii. app. to pref. pp. cxiv.–cxvii.).

[1623] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 101, 102.

[1624] “Vidimus, et præsentes fuimus, ubi regnum Palæstinæ, regnum etiam Italiæ patri vestro aut uni filiorum suorum, quem ad hoc eligeret, ab utriusque regni magnatibus et populis est oblatum.” Pet. Blois, Ep. cxiii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 350--to Geoffrey of York). Bishop Stubbs (_Rog. Howden_, vol. ii. pref. p. xciii.) interprets “regnum Italiæ” as representing Sicily.

[1625] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 102, 202. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 29, 164 and note.

[1626] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 102.

[1627] See _ibid._ p. 145 and note.

[1628] _Ib._ p. 169.

This, however, was not all. Isaac, the tyrant of Cyprus, whom Richard had brought with him as a captive, was also connected with the Suabian and Austrian houses;[1629] his capture was another ground of offence. Next, when the siege of Acre, which the united forces of eastern and western Christendom had been pressing in vain for nearly two years, came to an end a month after Richard joined it,[1630] Richard and Leopold quarrelled over their shares in the honour of the victory; Leopold--so the story goes--set up his banner on the wall of the conquered town side by side with that of the English king, and Richard tore it down again.[1631] Besides all this, as Richard’s superior military capacity made him an object of perpetual jealousy to the other princes, so his policy in Holy Land was in direct opposition to theirs. Since the death of Queen Sibyl in October 1189,[1632] they had one and all aimed at transferring the crown from her childless widower Guy of Lusignan to the lord of Tyre, Conrad, marquis of Montferrat. Montferrat was an important fief of the kingdom of Italy; Conrad’s mother was aunt both to Leopold of Austria and to Frederic Barbarossa;[1633] he thus had the whole Austrian and imperial influence at his back; and that of Philip of France was thrown into the same scale, simply because Richard had espoused the opposite cause. Guy of Lusignan, with a fearlessness which speaks volumes in his favour as well as in Richard’s, had thrown himself unreservedly on the generosity and justice of the prince against whom all his race had for so many years been struggling in Aquitaine; his confidence was met as it deserved, and from the hour of their meeting in Cyprus to the break-up of the crusade, Richard and Guy stood firmly side by side. But they stood alone amid the ring of selfish politicians who supported Conrad, and whose intrigues brought ruin upon the expedition. Philip, indeed, went home as soon as Acre was won, to sow the seeds of mischief in a field where they were likely to bring forth a more profitable harvest for his interests than on the barren soil of Palestine. But the whole body of French crusaders whom he left behind him, except Count Henry of Champagne, made common cause with the Germans and the partizans of Conrad in thwarting every scheme that Richard proposed, either for the settlement of the Frank kingdom in Palestine or for the reconquest of its capital. Twice he led the host within eight miles of Jerusalem, and twice, when thus close to the goal, he was compelled to turn away.[1634] Conrad fell by the hand of an assassin in April 1192;[1635] but Guy’s cause, like that of Jerusalem itself, was lost beyond recovery; all that Richard could do for either was to compensate Guy with the gift of Cyprus,[1636] and sanction the transfer of the shadowy crown of Jerusalem to his own nephew, Henry of Champagne.[1637] Harassed by evil tidings from England and forebodings of mischief in Gaul, disappointed in his most cherished hopes and worn out with fruitless labour, sick in body and more sick at heart, he saw that his only chance of ever again striking a successful blow either for east or west was to go home at once. After one last brilliant exploit, the rescue of Joppa from the Turks who had seized it in his absence,[1638] on September 2 he made a truce with Saladin for three years;[1639] on October 9 he sailed from Acre.[1640]

[1629] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 59. Ansbert (Dobrowsky), p. 114.

[1630] On July 12, 1191. _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 232, 233. _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 178, etc.

[1631] See the different versions of this story in Otto of S. Blaise, c. 36 (Wurstisen, _Germ. Hist. Illustr._, vol. i. p. 216); Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 514; R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 59; Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), p. 52; Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 35; and Mat. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ (Luard), vol. ii. p. 384.

[1632] _Epp. Cant._ cccxlvi. (Stubbs, p. 329).

[1633] Frederic’s father and Leopold’s father were half-brothers, sons of the two marriages of Agnes of Franconia, daughter of the Emperor Henry IV. Conrad’s mother, Judith, was a child of Agnes’s second marriage with Leopold, marquis of Austria. Conrad’s father was the Marquis William of Montferrat who had been one of Henry II.’s allies in his struggle with the Pope (see above, p. 60); and his elder brother had been the first husband of Queen Sibyl. On his own iniquitous marriage, if marriage it is to be called, with her half-sister and heiress, Isabel--an affair which seems to have actually broken the heart of Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury--see _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 119–124; _Expugn. Terræ Sanctæ_ (Stevenson, _R. Coggeshall_), p. 256; _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 141; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 70, 71. Conrad’s antecedents are told by Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 320, 321. Considering, however, the case of Guy of Lusignan, it is perhaps hardly safe to admit a charge of homicide against any claimant to the throne of Palestine on Roger’s sole authority.

[1634] _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 285–312, 365–396; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 174, 175, 179; R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 37–40. See also the characteristic and pathetic account of Richard’s distress at the last turning-back, in Ric. Devizes (Stevenson), pp. 75–77.

[1635] _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 339, 340. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 104. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 35. Rog. Howden (as above), p. 181. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 24 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 363).

[1636] Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 35, makes it a sale; but it is hard to conceive where poor Guy could have found money for the purchase.

[1637] _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 342, 346, 347. R. Diceto and Rog. Howden as above. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 35, 36. Will. Newb. as above, c. 28 (p. 374). Henry of Champagne was son of Count Henry “the Liberal” and Mary, daughter of Louis VII. and Eleanor.

[1638] _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 403–424. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 41–51. This is really the most splendid of all Richard’s wiking exploits.

[1639] _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 249. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 52. Rog. Howden (as above), p. 184.

[1640] _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), pp. 441, 442. R. Diceto (as above), p. 106. Rog. Howden (as above), p. 185, makes it a day earlier.

Stormy winds had again parted the king’s ship from the rest of his fleet when, within three days’ sail of Marseille, he learned that Count Raymond of Toulouse was preparing to seize him on his landing,[1641] no doubt in vengeance for the attack made upon Toulouse a few months before by the seneschal of Gascony. Capture by Raymond meant betrayal to Philip of France, and Richard knew Philip far too well to run any needless risk of falling into his hands. Under more favourable conditions, he might have escaped by sailing on through the strait of Gibraltar direct to his island realm; but contrary winds made this impossible, and drove him back upon Corfu, where he landed about Martinmas.[1642] Thence, in his impatience, he set off in disguise with only twenty followers[1643] on board a little pirate-vessel[1644] in which, at imminent risk of discovery, he coasted up the Adriatic till another storm wrecked him at the head of the Gulf of Aquileia.[1645] By this time his German enemies were all on the look-out for him, and whatever his plans on leaving Corfu may have been, he had now no resource but to hurry through the imperial dominions as rapidly and secretly as possible. His geographical knowledge, however, seems to have been at fault, for he presently found himself at Vienna, whither Leopold of Austria had long since returned. In spite of his efforts to disguise himself, Richard was recognized, captured and brought before the duke;[1646] and three days after Christmas the Emperor sent to Philip of France the welcome tidings that their common enemy was a prisoner in Leopold’s hands.[1647]

[1641] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 53.

[1642] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 106. _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 442. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 185. R. Coggeshall as above. The two first supply the dates.

[1643] Rog. Howden as above. The _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (as above) says four, but there were at least nine with him after his landing. See Rog. Howden (as above), p. 195.

[1644] _Itin. Reg. Ric._ as above. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 53–54, gives some details highly characteristic of Richard. The pirates began by attacking the king’s ship, whereupon he, “for their praiseworthy fortitude and boldness,” made friends with them, and took his passage in their company. This is authentic, for the writer had it from one of Richard’s companions, the chaplain Anselm. _Ib._ p. 54.

[1645] This is the Emperor’s account, given in a letter to Philip of France; Rog. Howden (as above), p. 195. Cf. Ansbert (Dobrowsky), p. 114; Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 31 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 383); _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 42; R. Diceto as above; R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 54; and Rog. Howden (as above), p. 185 and note 7.

[1646] He was captured December 20, 1192; _Itin. Reg. Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 443; R. Diceto (as above), p. 107. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 56, makes it a day later. Otto of S. Blaise, c. 38 (Wurstisen, _Germ. Hist. Illustr._, vol. i. p. 217), gives the most detailed account of the capture--an account which looks too characteristic not to be true. According to him, Richard stopped to dine at a little inn just outside Vienna, and to avoid recognition, set to work to broil some meat for himself. He was holding the spit with his own hands, utterly forgetful that one of them was adorned with a magnificent ring, when a servant of the duke chanced to look in, noticed the incongruity, then recognized the king whom he had seen in Palestine, and hurried off to report his discovery; whereupon the duke came in person and seized his enemy on the spot, in the middle of his cooking. The story of R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 55, 56, is somewhat more dignified. Cf. also Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 31 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 383); Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 186, 195; and Ansbert (Dobrowsky), p. 114.

[1647] The letter is in Rog. Howden (as above), pp. 195, 196. “Gratissimum illi super aurum et topazion ... nuntium destinavit,” says Will. Newb. as above, c. 32 (p. 384).

Philip at once forwarded the news to John, with a renewal of the proposal which he had made to him a year before. John hurried over sea and formally did homage to the French king for all his brother’s continental dominions; but the seneschal and barons of Normandy refused to acknowledge the transaction, and he hastened back again to try his luck in England.[1648] There he met with no better success. He called the justiciars to a council in London, assured them that the king was dead, and demanded their homage; they refused it; he withdrew in a rage to fortify his castles, and the justiciars prepared to attack them.[1649] Before Easter a French fleet sailed to his assistance, but was repulsed by the English militia assembled at the summons of Archbishop Walter.[1650] While the justiciars laid siege to Windsor, Geoffrey of York fortified Doncaster for the king, and thence went to help his gallant old suffragan and rival, Hugh of Durham, who was busy with the siege of Tickhill.[1651] The castles had all but fallen, and John was on the eve of submission, when the victorious justiciars suddenly grew alarmed at their own success. Richard’s fate was still so uncertain that they dared not humiliate his heir; and at Eleanor’s instigation they made a truce with John, to last until All-Saints’ day.[1652]

[1648] Rog. Howden (as above), p. 204. Cf. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 106. John’s treaty with Philip is in Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 57; date, February 1193.

[1649] Rog. Howden (as above), pp. 204, 205. Cf. Will. Newb. as above, c. 34 (p. 390).

[1650] Rog. Howden (as above), p. 205. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 514, 515.

[1651] Rog. Howden (as above), pp. 206, 208.

[1652] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 207. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 516, says Michaelmas.

The six months of tranquillity thus gained were spent in negotiations for the king’s release. As soon as the justiciars heard of his capture they had despatched Bishop Savaric of Bath to treat with the Emperor, and the abbots of Boxley and Robertsbridge to open communications, if possible, with Richard himself;[1653] this however was a difficult matter, for of the place of his confinement nothing was known except that it was somewhere in the Austrian dominions, and these were to most Englishmen of that day a wholly undiscovered country. How the captive was first found history does not say. Tradition filled the blank with the beautiful story of the minstrel Blondel, wandering through Europe till he reached a castle where there was said to be a prisoner whose name no one could tell--winning the favour of its lord and thus gaining admittance within its walls--peering about it on every side in a vain effort to catch a glimpse of the mysterious captive, till at last a well-known voice, singing “a song which they two had made between them, and which no one knew save they alone,” fell upon his delighted ear through the narrow prison-window whence Richard had seen and recognized the face of his friend.[1654] It may after all have been Blondel who guided the two abbots to the spot; we only know that they met Richard at Ochsenfurt on his way to be delivered up on Palm Sunday to the Emperor Henry at Speyer.[1655] Thenceforth the negotiations proceeded without intermission; but it took nearly a year to complete them. Personal jealousy, family interest, and pride at finding himself actually arbiter of the fate of the most illustrious living hero in Christendom, all tempted Henry VI. to throw as many obstacles as possible in the way of his captive’s release. Taking advantage of his own position as titular head of western Christendom, he demanded satisfaction for all the wrongs which the various princes of the Empire had received, or considered themselves to have received, at Richard’s hands, and for all his alleged misdoings on the Crusade, from his alliance with Tancred to the death of Conrad of Montferrat, in which it was suggested that he had had a share.[1656] Not one of the charges would bear examination; but they served Henry as an excuse for playing fast and loose with Richard on the one side and Philip of France on the other, and for making endless changes in the conditions required for Richard’s liberation. These were ultimately fixed at a ransom of a hundred and fifty thousand marks, the liberation of Isaac of Cyprus, and the betrothal of Eleanor of Britanny to a son of the Austrian duke.[1657]

[1653] Rog. Howden (as above), pp. 197, 198.

[1654] _Récits d’un ménestrel de Reims_ (ed. N. de Wailly, Soc. de l’Hist. de France), cc. 77–81 (pp. 41–43).

[1655] Rog. Howden (as above), p. 198.

[1656] The charges are summed up in R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 58, 59. On the death of Conrad see Stubbs, _Itin. Reg. Ric._, pref. pp. xxii, xxiii.

[1657] Treaty in Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 215, 216. Roger dates it S. Peter’s day; _ib._ p. 215. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 110, makes it July 5. Cf. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 37 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 398).

The duty of superintending the collection of the ransom and the transmission of the hostages required by the Emperor for its payment had been at first intrusted by Richard to his old friend and confidant, the chancellor William of Longchamp. William, however, found it impossible to fulfil his instructions; before the justiciars would allow him to set foot in England at all, they made him swear to meddle with nothing outside his immediate commission; when compelled to meet him in council at S. Albans, Walter of Rouen refused him the kiss of peace, and the queen-mother and the barons all alike refused to trust him with the hostages.[1658] Prompt and vigorous measures were however taken for raising the money. An “aid for the king’s ransom” was one of the three regular feudal obligations, which in strict law fell only upon the tenants-in-chivalry; but all the knights’ fees in Richard’s whole dominions would have been unable to furnish so large a sum as was required in his case. In addition therefore to an aid of twenty shillings on the knight’s fee, the justiciars imposed a wholly new tax: they demanded a fourth part of the revenue and of the moveable goods of every man, whether layman or clerk, throughout the realm. Severe and unprecedented as was this demand, it provoked no opposition, even from the clergy;[1659] it had indeed the active co-operation of the bishops, under the direction of a new primate--Hubert Walter, the bishop of Salisbury, who had been one of Richard’s fellow-crusaders, and was now at Richard’s desire elected to the see of Canterbury.[1660] The nation seems to have responded willingly to the demands made upon it; yet the response proved inadequate, and the deficiency had to be supplied partly by a contribution from the Cistercians and Gilbertines of a fourth part of the wool of the flocks which were their chief source of revenue, and partly by confiscating the gold and silver vessels and ornaments of the wealthier churches.[1661] Similar measures were taken in Richard’s continental dominions, and they were so far successful that when the appointed time arrived for his release, in January 1194, the greater part of the ransom was paid.[1662] For the remainder hostages were given, of whom one was Archbishop Walter of Rouen.[1663] This selection left the chief justiciarship of England practically vacant, and accordingly Richard, before summoning the Norman primate to Germany, superseded him in that office by bestowing it upon the new archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter.[1664]

[1658] Gir. Cambr. _Vita Galfr._, l. ii. c. 17 (Brewer, vol. iv. pp. 415, 416). Cf. Rog. Howden as above, pp. 211, 212.

[1659] Except at York, where the resistance was prompted by spite against the archbishop. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 222.

[1660] Elected May 29, 1193; R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 108, 109. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 518.

[1661] On the ransom, and how it was raised, see Rog. Howden as above, pp. 210, 211, 222, 225; R. Diceto as above, p. 110; Will. Newb. l. iv. c. 38 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 399, 400); and Bishop Stubbs’s explanations of the matter, in his preface to Rog. Howden, vol. iv. pp. lxxxii–lxxxvi, and _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 501.

[1662] Rog. Howden as above, p. 225.

[1663] _Ib._ p. 233. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 41 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 404), and R. Diceto as above, p. 113. According to this last, another of the hostages was William the chancellor; but his name does not appear in Rog. Howden’s list. One MS. of Ralf has in its place that of Baldwin Wake. As Baldwin certainly was a hostage on this occasion, perhaps William was selected first, and Baldwin afterwards substituted for him. One at least of the hostages was released before the whole ransom was paid: Archbishop Walter came back to England on May 19. R. Diceto as above, p. 115.

[1664] Rog. Howden as above, p. 226. R. Diceto as above, p. 112. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 523.

The new justiciar immediately had his hands full of trouble. At the prospect of Richard’s return John grew half frantic with rage and dismay. As early as July 1193, when it became known that Richard and the Emperor had come to terms, Philip had sent warning to John--“Beware, the devil is loose again!” and John, without stopping to reflect that the “devil” could not be really loose till his ransom was paid, had hurried over sea to seek shelter from his brother’s wrath under the protection of the French king. Richard, however, at once made overtures of reconciliation to both;[1665] the terms which he offered to John were indeed so favourable that the Norman constables refused to execute them, and thereby put an end to the negotiation.[1666] In January Philip and John made a last effort to bribe the Emperor either to keep Richard in custody for another year, or actually to sell him into their hands.[1667] When this failed, John in the frenzy of desperation sent a confidential clerk over to England with letters to his adherents there, bidding them make all his castles ready for defence against the king. The messenger’s foolish boasting, however, betrayed him as he passed through London; he was arrested by order of the mayor, his letters were seized, and a council was hurriedly called to hear their contents. Its prompt and vigorous measures were clearly due to the initiative of the new justiciar-archbishop. John was excommunicated and declared disseized of all his English tenements, and the assembly broke up to execute its own decree by force of arms. The old bishop of Durham returned to his siege of Tickhill; the earls of Huntingdon, Chester and Ferrers led their forces against Nottingham; Archbishop Hubert himself besieged Marlborough, and took it in a few days; Lancaster was given up to him by its constable, who happened to be his own brother; and S. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall--a monastery whose site, not unlike that of its great Norman namesake, had tempted one of John’s partizans to drive out the monks and fortify it in his interest--surrendered on the death of its commander, who is said to have died of terror at the news of the king’s approach.[1668] Richard had been set free on February 4.[1669] After a slow progress through Germany and the Low Countries, he embarked at Swine, near Antwerp, and landed at Sandwich on March 13.[1670] Following the invariable practice of his father, he hastened first to the martyr’s shrine at Canterbury;[1671] next day he was met by the victorious archbishop hastening to welcome him home,[1672] and three days later he was solemnly received in London.[1673] As soon as the defenders of Tickhill were certified of his arrival they surrendered to the bishop of Durham.[1674] As Windsor, Wallingford and the Peak had been in the queen-mother’s custody since the truce of May 1193,[1675] only Nottingham now remained to be won. Richard at once marched against it with all his forces; the archbishop followed, Hugh of Durham brought up his men from Tickhill; in three days the castle surrendered, and Richard was once again undisputed master in his realm.[1676]

[1665] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 216–220.

[1666] _Ib._ pp. 227, 228.

[1667] _Ib._ p. 229. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 40 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 402).

[1668] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 236–238.

[1669] _Ib._ p. 233. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 112, 113. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 62, dates it February 2.

[1670] Rog. Howden as above, p. 235; R. Coggeshall as above. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 524, dates it March 12, and R. Diceto as above, p. 114, March 20.

[1671] Gerv. Cant. as above. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 63.

[1672] Gerv. Cant. as above, p. 524.

[1673] R. Diceto and R. Coggeshall as above.

[1674] Rog. Howden as above, p. 238.

[1675] _Ib._ p. 207.

[1676] _Ib._ pp. 238–240. R. Diceto and R. Coggeshall as above. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 42 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 407, 408).

It must have seemed, to say the least, an ungracious return for the sacrifices which England had made in his behalf, when the king at once demanded from the English knighthood the services of a third of their number to accompany him into Normandy, from the freeholders a contribution of two shillings on every carucate of land, and from the Cistercians the whole of their wool for the current year.[1677] In view of a war with France, of which it was impossible to calculate either the exigencies or the duration, Richard undoubtedly needed money; but his needs pressed heavily upon a country which had already been almost drained to provide his ransom. In justice to him, it must however be added that the “carucage,” as the new land-tax came to be called, seems to have been levied not for his personal profit, but as a supplement to the measures taken by the justiciars in the previous year, to complete the sum still due to Henry VI. It was in reality an old impost revived under a new name, for the carucate or ploughland was in practice reckoned as equivalent to the ancient hide,[1678] and the sum levied upon it was precisely that which the hide had furnished for the Danegeld of earlier times.[1679] Its re-imposition in these circumstances, under a new appellation and for the payment of what the whole nation regarded as a debt of honour, met with no resistance. The Cistercians, however, remonstrated so strongly against the demand for their wool that they were allowed to escape with a money-compensation.[1680] The taxes were imposed in a great council held at Nottingham at the end of March and beginning of April,[1681] where measures were also taken for the punishment of the traitors and the reconstruction of the administrative body. These two objects were accomplished both at once, and both were turned to account for the replenishment of the royal coffers. Except John, Bishop Hugh of Chester, and Gerard de Camville, who were cited before the king’s court on a charge of high treason,[1682] none of the delinquents were even threatened with any worse punishment than dismissal from office. This was inflicted upon most of those who had taken part in the proceedings against the chancellor. Several of the sheriffs indeed were only transferred from one shire to another;[1683] but Gerard de Camville was ejected without compensation from the sheriffdom of Lincolnshire, and Hugh Bardulf, one of the subordinate justiciars who had joined the party of John, from those of Yorkshire and Westmoreland. These three offices Richard at once put up for sale, and, with a strange inconsistency, William of Longchamp, whose well-grounded resistance to the accumulation of sheriffdoms in episcopal hands had been the beginning of his troubles, now sought to buy the two former, and also that of Northamptonshire, for himself. He was however outbid by Archbishop Geoffrey of York, who bought the sheriffdom of Yorkshire for three thousand marks and a promise of a hundred marks annually as increment.[1684] This purchase made Geoffrey the most influential man in the north, for Hugh of Durham, apparently finding himself powerless to hold Northumberland, had resigned it into the king’s hands.[1685] William of Scotland immediately opened negotiations with Richard for its re-purchase, as well as for that of Cumberland, Westmoreland, Lancaster, and the other English lands held by his grandfather David. The barons, however, before whom Richard laid the proposal in a council at Northampton, resented it strongly; Richard’s own military instinct led him to refuse the cession of the castles, and as William would not be satisfied without them, the scheme came to nothing.[1686]

[1677] Rog. Howden as above, p. 242. Cf. Will. Newb., l. v. c. 1 (vol. ii. pp. 416, 417).

[1678] That it was so in the reign of Henry I. seems plain from Orderic’s story about Ralf Flambard re-measuring for William Rufus “omnes carrucatas, quas Angli hidas vocant” (Ord. Vit., Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 678)--a statement which, whether the story itself be correct or not, shews that Orderic himself was accustomed to hear carucates and hides identified. The settlement of the carucates at a hundred acres in 1198 points to the same identification.

[1679] And seemingly, to the “dona” which took the place of the Danegeld after its abolition _eo nomine_ in 1163. On the carucage of 1194 see Stubbs, pref. to Rog. Howden, vol. iv. pp. lxxxii–lxxxiv and notes, lxxxvi. See also the account of it given by Will. Newb., l. v. c. i (Howlett, vol. ii. p. 416).

[1680] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 242.

[1681] March 30–April 2. _Ib._ pp. 240–243.

[1682] _Ib._ pp. 241, 242. Cf. the account of John’s condemnation in Ann. Margam, a. 1199 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. i. p. 24).

[1683] Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 503.

[1684] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p, 241.

[1685] _Ib._ p. 249. Will. Newb., l. v. c. 1 (Howlett, vol. ii. p. 416).

[1686] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 243–245, 249, 250.

Richard meanwhile had been making a progress through Mid-England,[1687] similar to that which he had made before his crowning in 1189, and ending at Winchester, where he solemnly “wore his crown” in the cathedral church on the first Sunday after Easter.[1688] This ceremonial was in itself merely a revival of the old regal practice which Henry II. had formally abandoned in 1158; but its revival on this occasion was prompted by other motives than Richard’s love of pomp and shew. As a concession to the Emperor’s vanity--for we can scarcely conceive any other motive--Richard had accepted from Henry VI. the investiture of the kingdom of Burgundy; “over which,” says a contemporary English writer, “be it known that the Emperor had really no power at all,” but for which, nevertheless, he had received Richard’s homage.[1689] The homage was, of course, as empty as the gift for which it was due; but insular pride, which had always boasted that an English king, alone among European sovereigns, had no superior upon earth, was offended by it none the less; and although the story that Richard had formally surrendered England itself into Henry’s hands and received it back from him as a fief of the Empire[1690] may perhaps be set down as an exaggeration, still it seems to have been felt that the majesty of the island-crown had been so far dimmed by the transactions of his captivity as to require a distinct re-assertion.[1691] As he stood in his royal robes, sceptre in hand and crown on head,[1692] amid the throng of bishops and barons in the “Old Minster” where so many of his English forefathers lay sleeping, past shame was forgotten, and England was ready once again to welcome him as a new king.[1693] But the welcome met with no response. On May 12--just two months after his landing at Sandwich--Richard again sailed for Normandy;[1694] and this time he went to return no more.

[1687] _Ib._ pp. 243–246.

[1688] _Ib._ p. 247. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 114. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 64. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 524, 525. Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 42 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 408).

[1689] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 226.

[1690] _Ib._ pp. 202, 203. He seems to be the only writer who mentions it.

[1691] See R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 113; and on the whole question of this coronation, Bishop Stubbs’s note to Rog. Howden, vol. iii. p. 247, and his remarks in _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. pp. 504, 561, 562. Richard himself seems to have resented the popular view, for R. Coggeshall (Stevenson, p. 64) says he went through the ceremony “aliquantulum renitens.”

[1692] Rog. Howden (as above), p. 247. See the details of the ceremony in Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 524–526.

[1693] “Detersâ captivitatis ignominiâ quasi rex novus apparuit.” Will. Newb., l. iv. c. 42 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 408).

[1694] Rog. Howden as above, p. 251. R. Diceto as above, p. 114. Gerv. Cant. as above, p. 527.