DISPUTES WITH HENRY'S SONS (1173).
Source.—Roger de Hoveden, Part 2, Vol. I., pp. 367 seqq. Bohn's Libraries. G. Bell & Sons.
There also came to Limoges the Earl of Maurienne, and desired to know how much of his own territory the King of England intended to grant to his son John; and on the King expressing an intention to give him the Castle of Chinon, the Castle of Lodun, and the Castle of Mirabel, the King, his son, would in nowise agree thereto, nor allow it to be done. For he was already greatly offended that his father was unwilling to assign to him some portion of his territories, where he, with his wife, might take up their residence. Indeed, he had requested his father to give him either Normandy, or Anjou, or England, which request he had made at the suggestion of the King of France, and of those of the Earls and Barons of England and Normandy, who disliked his father: and from this time it was that the King, the son, had been seeking pretexts and an opportunity for withdrawing from his father. And he had now so entirely revolted in feeling from obeying his wishes, that he could not even converse with him on any subject in a peaceable manner.
Having now gained his opportunity, both as to place and occasion, the King, the son, left his father, and proceeded to the King of France. However, Richard Barre, his chancellor, Walter, his chaplain, Ailward, his chamberlain, and William Blund, his apparitor, left him, and returned to the King, his father. Thus did the king's son lose both his feelings and his senses: he repulsed the innocent, persecuted a father, usurped authority, seized upon a kingdom; he alone was the guilty one, and yet a whole army conspired against his father. "So does the madness of one make many mad." For he it was who thirsted for the blood of a father, the gore of a parent!
In the meantime, Louis, King of the Franks, held a great council at Paris, at which he and all the principal men of France made oath to the son of the King of England that they would assist him in every way in expelling his father from the kingdom if he should not accede to his wishes: on which he swore to them that he would not make peace with his father, except with their sanction and consent. After this, he swore that he would give to Philip, Earl of Flanders, for his homage, a thousand pounds of yearly revenues in England, and the whole of Kent, together with Dover Castle, and Rochester Castle; to Matthew, Earl of Boulogne, for his homage, the Soke of Kirketon in Lindsey, and the earldom of Mortaigue, with the honour of Hay; and to Theobald, Earl of Blois, for his homage, two hundred pounds of yearly revenues in Anjou, and the Castle of Amboise, with all the jurisdiction which he had claimed to hold in Touraine; and he also quitted claim to him of all right that the King his father and himself had claimed in Chateau Regnaud. All these gifts, and many besides, that he had made to other persons, he confirmed under his new seal, which the King of France had ordered to be made for him.
Besides these, he made other gifts, which, under the same seal, he confirmed: namely, to William, King of Scotland, for his assistance, the whole of Northumberland as far as the river Tyne. To the brother of the same king, he gave, for his services, the Earldom of Huntingdon and of Cambridgeshire, and to Earl Hugh Bigot, for his services, the Castle of Norwich.