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However near the truth these different statements may have been, it is certain that the rumour of the murder was spread throughout Brittany during the same month of April. The indignation of the people was universal; they had believed their future destiny to be connected with that of their prince, and they professed the greatest attachment to the French king, as the enemy of his murderer. The elder sister of Arthur, the Maid of Brittany—whose lot was scarcely more fortunate than that of her brother—was confined in a monastery at Bristol, where she remained for forty years; but the people declared Alice, daughter of Constance by her last husband, and half-sister to Arthur, to be their duchess, and appointed her father, Guy of Thouars, as their regent or governor. The barons of the province then appeared before Philip, to whom, as their feudal suzerain, they complained of the murder of their prince. Philip eagerly availed himself of the appeal, and cited John, as his vassal for the duchy of Normandy, before the court of the barons of France, to whom, it may be noted, the name of peers was now first given. The accused monarch did not put in an appearance, and was condemned by the court to the forfeiture of all the lands which he held of the kingdom of France, possession of which was to be taken by arms.

No sooner did Philip appear with his forces on the frontier of Poitou, than the inhabitants rose to join his standard, and when he returned to attack Normandy, he found he was anticipated by the Bretons, who had occupied the whole of that portion of the duchy which bordered on their territories. They took by assault the strong castle of Mount St. Michael, seized upon Avranches, and burned the villages which lay between that city and Caen. These successes gave new strength to the expedition of the French king, who, joined by the people of Anjou and Maine, took Bayeux, Evreux, Domfront, and Lisieux, and then joined the Breton army at Caen. While this formidable confederacy menaced him on every side, John was passing his days in voluptuous indolence, or in the sports of the field; he again refused to answer complaints at Paris. When his courtiers brought him intelligence of new successes on the part of his enemies, he expressed his contempt of the rabble of Bretons and of anything they could do; but when, in the month of December, the insurgents appeared in the neighbourhood of Rouen, he suddenly became aware of the danger in which he was placed, and fled over into England.

On his arrival he demanded the aid of the barons to raise an army for his service, but the call was responded to with the utmost apathy. It would appear that the Anglo-Norman lords no longer possessed the great estates they had formerly held in Normandy; for had such been the case it is not probable that their hatred to the king would have induced them to disregard their own interests. After in vain attempting to raise a sufficient force to oppose the French king, John appealed to Rome (1205), and Pope Innocent sent two legates into France for the purpose of negotiating a peace. Philip, however, who had everything to gain by prolonging the war, not unnaturally refused to listen to the entreaties of the legates, and their mission ended without success.

When John fled from Normandy, there remained in his possession throughout the duchy only the town of Rouen, and the fortresses of Château-Gaillard and Verneuil. The people of Rouen held out until they were reduced to the last extremity by famine, when, having concluded a truce of thirty days with the French king, they sent to John praying for succour. The messengers found the king playing at chess, and while they told their deplorable tale, he remained seated at his game, and gave them no answer. When the game was over, he told them that he had no means of helping them, and that they must do the best they could. This was the only recognition he made of the heroic struggle of the citizens on his behalf. Rouen surrendered, the two castles soon afterwards followed its example, and the conquest of Normandy was complete. This duchy was then finally restored to the French crown, after having been separated from it for 292 years. Within the same year, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, Poitou, and Brittany also fell under the authority of Philip, and John retained only a few castles in those provinces besides the territory of Aquitaine, which remained nominally under his rule.

The Bretons soon discovered that, so far from having recovered their independence, they had changed the tyranny of a weak arm for that of a strong one. Disgusted with the supremacy of the King of France, they made efforts which proved fruitless to renew their alliance with John, and then, with a sort of suicidal ferocity, they aided their new sovereign to destroy the independence of their neighbours. In the year 1206, John landed an army at La Rochelle, whence he proceeded to the Loire, taking the castle of Montauban, and burning the town of Angers. His energy, however, did not last long, and for several months he gave himself up to feasting and debauchery. Aroused once more, he passed on to the town of Nantes, to which he laid siege; but on the approach of Philip with an army, he raised the siege, and proposed to negotiate with the French king. During the negotiations John ran away to England covered with disgrace. By the intervention of the Pope, however, a truce for two years was then arranged between the two kings.

Degraded as he was in the eyes of all honourable men, John retained his arrogance, and governed his kingdom with greater tyranny than ever. In the following year (1207) he defied the authority of the power which was concentred in the Holy See, now so formidable throughout Europe, and which he, of all men, was least fitted to resist. The ground of the quarrel was the right of the crown to the appointment of bishops.

Archbishop Hubert, of Canterbury, died in 1205, and a dispute arose between the monks of the cathedral and the suffragan bishops of the diocese, both parties claiming the right to elect the new archbishop. Some of the younger monks proceeded to settle the question off-hand, and without consulting the bishops or the king, secretly elected their sub-prior, Reginald. He was sent to Rome; but before reaching the Pope he bragged of his good fortune, and the news reached England. The elder monks took alarm, went to the king and agreed to elect John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, who was one of John's ministers. He also was sent to Rome, and shortly afterwards appeared representatives from the bishops, who were angry at being altogether disregarded. Innocent settled the knotty question in a masterly manner. He decided that the right of election lay neither with the king nor the bishops, but with the monks; the election of Reginald, however, had been irregular, and, therefore, he ordered such of the monks as were at Rome to elect an entirely new candidate, Stephen Langton, cardinal priest of St. Chrysogonus. John, however, was determined that his favourite, John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, should receive the appointment, and he sent two knights with a body of soldiers to Canterbury to drive the rebellious monks out of the country. Once more those walls which had witnessed the murder of Becket were profaned by a deed of violence; the monks were compelled to quit their monastery and take refuge in Flanders, where they were received into the religious houses.

Innocent, who was a man of great ability, sent a temperate letter to the king, demanding redress for this outrage; but John returned an insolent reply, and set the Pontiff at defiance. Soon afterwards the Bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester received directions from Rome to wait upon the king, and in case they were still unable to obtain redress for the injury, to threaten him with an interdict upon the whole kingdom. John heard the threat with transports of rage, and swore that if the bishops dared to lay his states under an interdict, he would seize upon their property, and drive them and their clergy penniless to Rome; that if any Roman priests dared to appear in the country, he would cut off their noses and tear out their eyes, and so make them a witness of his vengeance before the nations. Undeterred by these savage menaces, the bishops proclaimed the interdict on the 23rd of March, 1208, and then fled across the Channel. The interdict was carried out to the fullest extent by the unanimous concurrence of the clergy. During this time the country lay as it were in mourning, the churches were closed, the pictures of the saints covered with black cloth, and their relics laid on ashes in the aisles; the priests refused their offices, with the exception of administering the rite of baptism to infants and the sacrament to the dying; and the command of Rome suspended all public prayers to Heaven. At the end of the year Innocent proceeded to further measures, and issued against John the sentence of excommunication.

The king now became alarmed at his position. He saw the spirit of disaffection increasing among his barons; he had made enemies of the clergy, and he was hated by the people. Abroad, the aspect of affairs was no less menacing. He knew that the Pope would follow up the sentence of excommunication by proclaiming his dethronement, and declaring him unworthy to rule in a Christian land; and he perceived that Philip was making ready to invade England, armed with the authority of the Holy See. Wherever he looked he saw none but enemies, and it was evident that his downfall would be attended with a general rejoicing throughout Europe. It is related by Matthew Paris that at this moment of danger John applied for succour to the Emir al Nassir, the powerful chief of the Moslems of Spain. It was even reported that he had offered to embrace the religion of Mahomet, and to become a vassal of the Emir, in return for the assistance he demanded. Improbable and disgraceful as such an offer would have been, there is no doubt that John was capable of making it; but if he did so, it was not accepted, and the king was compelled to give up the attempt to obtain assistance from abroad.