Philip Augustus; or, The Brothers in Arms

by G. P. R. James

"'Twill be in heaven, then," replied Agnes, fixing her eyes on the thin fair hand which lay on the table before her. "'Twill be in heaven, then! Do you too deceive yourself, lady?--Isadore, Isadore! the canker-worm of grief has not only eaten the leaves of the blossom, it has blasted it to the heart. I would not die if I could avoid my fate, for it will give Philip pain; but for me, lady,--for me, the grave is the only place of peace. Care must have made some progress ere that ring, round which the flesh once rose up, as if to secure it for ever as its own, would slip with its own weight to the ground."

Isadore bent her head, and was silent; for she saw, that to speak of hope at that moment would be worse than vain.

"I had been trying," said the queen, clinging to the subject with a sort of painful fondness,--"I had been trying to write something to Constance of Brittany, that might console her for the loss of her poor boy Arthur. But I blotted many a page in vain, and found how hard it is to speak one word of comfort to real grief. I know not whether it was that my mind still selfishly turned to my own sorrows, and took from me the power of consoling those of others, or whether there is really no such thing as consolation upon earth; but, still as I wrote, I found each line more calculated to sadden than to cheer. At last I abandoned the task, and letting my hand which had held the paper drop beside me, this faithless pledge of as true a love as ever bound two hearts, dropped from my finger and rolled away from me. Oh! Isadore, 'twas surely an evil omen! But it was not that which made me weep. As I put it on again, I thought of the day that it had first shone upon my hand, and all the images of lost happiness rose up around me like the spectres of dead friends, calling me too to join the past; and oh! how the bright and golden forms of those sunny days contrasted with the cold, hard sorrow of each hour at present. Oh! Isadore, 'tis not the present, I believe, that ever makes our misery; 'tis its contrast with the past--'tis the loss of some hope, or the crushing of some joy--the disappointment of expectation, or the regrets of memory. The present is nothing--nothing--nothing, but in its relation to the future or the past."

"How painful, then, must be that contrast to the poor duchess of Brittany," said Isadore in reply, taking advantage of the mention that the queen had made of Constance, to lead her mind away from the contemplation of her own griefs. "How bitter must be her tears for that gallant young Prince Arthur, when all France is weeping for him! Not a castle throughout the land but rings, they say, with the tale of his murder. Not a bosom but beats with indignation against his assassin. I have just heard, that Sir Guy de Coucy, who was his fellow-prisoner, defied John Lackland in the midst of his barons, and cast down his gauntlet at the foot of the very throne. The messenger," she added, casting down her eyes as the queen raised hers, for there came a certain tell-tale glow into her cheek as she spoke of De Coucy, that she did not care to be remarked,--"the messenger you sent to the canon of St. Berthe's has but now returned, bringing news from Paris concerning the court of peers held upon the murderer, and affirming that he has refused to appear before the barons of France--at least, so says my girl Eleanor."

The news of Arthur's death, and various particulars concerning it, had spread in vague rumours to every castle in France. Many and various were the shapes which the tale had assumed, but of course it had reached Agnes de Meranie and her suite in somewhat of a more authentic form. All that concerned Philip in any way was of course a matter of deep interest to her, Isadore's plan for withdrawing her mind for the moment from herself had therefore its full effect, and she instantly directed the messenger to be brought to her, for the purpose of learning from him all that had occurred at the court of peers, to which assembly, however, we shall conduct our reader in his own person.

CHAPTER X.

To those who have not studied the spirit of the feudal system, it would seem an extraordinary and almost inconceivable anomaly, that one sovereign prince should have the power of summoning to his court, and trying as a felon, another, of dominions scarcely less extensive than his own. But the positions of vassal and lord were not so incoherent or ill-defined as may be imagined. Each possessor of a feof, at the period of his investiture, took upon himself certain obligations towards the sovereign under whom he held, from which nothing could enfranchise him, as far as that feof was concerned; and upon his refusing, or neglecting to comply with those obligations, the territory enfeofed or granted returned in right to what was called the capital lord, or him, in short, who granted it.

To secure, however, that even justice should be done between the vassal and the lord--each equally an interested party--it became necessary that some third person, or body of persons, should possess the power of deciding on all questions between the other two. Thus it became a fundamental principle of the feudal system, that no vassal could be judged but by his peers,--that is to say, by persons holding in the same relative position as himself, from the same superior. For the purpose of rendering these judgments, each great baron held, from time to time, his court, composed of vassals holding directly from himself; and, in like manner, the king's court of peers was competent to try all causes affecting the feudatories who held immediately from the crown.

John therefore was summoned to appear before the court of Philip Augustus, not as King of England, which was an independent sovereignty, but as Duke of Normandy, and Lord of Anjou, Poitou, and Guyenne, all feofs of the crown of France. No one, therefore, doubted the competence of the court, and John himself dared not deny its authority.

It was a splendid sight, the palace of the Louvre on the morning appointed for the trial. Each of the great barons of France, anxious that none of his peers should outvie him in the splendour of his train, had called together all his most wealthy retainers, and presented himself at the court of the king, followed by a host of knights and nobles, clothed in the graceful flowing robes worn in that day, shining with gold and jewels, and flaunting with all the gay colours that the art of dyeing could then produce. Silks and velvets, and cloths of gold and silver, contended in gorgeous rivalry, in the courts and antechambers of the palace. Flags and pennons, banners and banderols, fluttered on the breeze; while all the most beautiful horses that could be procured, were led in the various trains, by the pages and squire, unmounted; as if their graceful forms were too noble to bear even the burden of a prince.