Finding his interdict of no avail, Innocent resorted to his most powerful weapon. He excommunicated John, pronounced utter destruction upon his body and soul, forbade all true Catholics to associate with him, absolved his subjects from their oath of allegiance to him, commanded all orders of religion to curse him, and exhorted all christian princes to assist in dethroning him.
Philip Augustus found this crusade far more to his taste than the one he had before undertaken in the Holy Land, and Simon de Montfort having enjoyed a short repose from his work of blood in Languedoc, stood ready to enforce the authority of the church. To protect his transmarine dominions from these powerful foes, John found it necessary to solicit an alliance with his former rival Count Hugh de Lusignan, but the perverse bachelor was conciliated only on condition that the queen should be liberated from her irksome imprisonment, and that her eldest daughter, the Princess Joanna, should be affianced to him as a compensation for the loss of the mother. The necessity of the case did not admit of debate or delay, and the little princess was forthwith betrothed to her mature lover, and consigned to the castle of Valence; where she occupied the apartments and sported in the pleasance, that had formerly delighted the childhood of Isabella. With his heart thus reassured, Count Hugh repulsed the army of the French king, and kept the Poictevin border in peace.
Philip Augustus disappointed in this attempt, prepared for the invasion of England; but while his fleet waited in the ports of Normandy, the legate Pandulph sought an interview with John, and terrifying him with the prospect of certain ruin brought him to submit unconditionally to the pope. The pusillanimous monarch was thus induced to pass a charter in which he declared he had for his own sins and those of his family, resigned England and Ireland to God, to St. Peter, and St. Paul, and to Pope Innocent and his successors in the apostolic chair; agreeing to hold those dominions as feudatories of the church of Rome by the annual payment of a thousand marks. He consented to receive Langton for the primate, laid his crown and sceptre at the feet of Pandulph, and kneeling down placed his hand in those of that prelate, and swore fealty in the same manner as a vassal did homage to his lord. The legate then revoked the sentence of excommunication, placed the crown upon the head of John, pocketed the first instalment of the tribute money, and returning to France informed Philip that England was a part of the patrimony of St. Peter, and it would be impious in any Christian prince to attack it.
Isabella was residing with her children at Gloucester, when her inconstant husband, smitten with the charms of Matilda the fair daughter of Lord Fitz Walter, stormed the castle of her father, banished him from the kingdom, and bore away the trembling girl to the fortress of London. There confining her in one of the lofty turrets of the White tower he set himself to win her affections; but the noble maiden spurned all his overtures with virtuous indignation. When the hoary libertine found that flattery and coercion were alike vain, his adoration changed to hate, and the hapless lady fell a victim to poison. This crowning act of villainy completed the exasperation of the English nobles, and a confederacy was formed to resist farther aggressions upon their liberties. Cardinal Langton, in searching the records of the monasteries, had found a copy of the charter executed by Henry Beauclerk upon his marriage with Matilda the Good.
From this charter the primate drew up the bill of rights, which has become world-renowned as the Magna Charta. At Runnymede between Windsor and Staines the mail-clad barons met their guilty sovereign, and
“There in happy hour
Made the fell tyrant feel his people’s power.”
The signing of the great charter of English liberty was soon followed by the death of King John, and the diplomatic talents of Isabella were called into exercise to secure the vacant throne for her son Henry, then a boy of only nine years of age. The diadem of his father having been lost in Lincoln washes, and that of Edward the Confessor being in London, the little prince was crowned with a gold throat collar that she had worn in those happy days while the affianced bride of Count Hugh la Marche. Only a small part of England at first owned the sway of Prince Henry, but the nobles at length rallied around the young Plantagenet, and the valor and wisdom of the protector Pembroke soon drove the invading French from the island. No share in the government was committed into the hands of the dowager queen, and before the first year of her widowhood had expired she set out for her native city of Angoulême.
As she passed through the provinces of France her attention was attracted by groups of children, habited as pilgrims with scrip and staff, gathered about the doors of churches, repeating pious ascriptions of praise or tuning their infant voices to sacred hymns. Her curiosity was strongly excited, and she questioned them concerning the motives that influenced to so strange a proceeding. “Fair Solyma lies in ruins,” replied the little fanatics, “and it may please God who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hath ordained strength, to redeem it by our feeble hands.” These scenes occurred daily upon her route. In vain the queen employed argument and entreaty, threats and promises to induce them to return to their homes. They followed in the train of a company of monks who, with the diabolical design of profiting by a crime then too common, were working upon their superstitious hopes and fears to decoy them to the sea-coast, where they might be shipped to Egypt and sold as slaves. Thirty thousand misguided innocents were thus collected from Italy and Germany, and most of them fell a sacrifice to the mercenary motives of those who traded in the bodies and souls of men.
When Isabella arrived at Angoulême, the valiant Lusignan was absent from his territories, fighting under the banners of the cross, and her maternal heart was allowed the solace of frequent intercourse with Joanna, the little bride of her former lover.