Henry had signified before his death the division that he intended to make, and his sons began to fight and intrigue for their portions while he was still alive. Philip, King of France, seems to have been ready to support any claimant against the King of England. While Richard was king Philip supported John against him. As soon as John became king he turned against John, and John crossed the Channel to fight Philip in order to try to maintain the English sovereignty over Henry II.'s continental possessions.
The Plantagenet kings
But the dukes of the duchies and the counts of the provinces favoured Philip rather than John. Their quick change from the English to the French allegiance shows how little real unity there was under a feudal king. John was a feeble leader, and the result of some months of fighting was that he surrendered nearly all the territory on the Continent held by his grandfather. The kings of England ceased to be Angevins, that is to say ceased to hold the lordship of Anjou. The name of Plantagenet, from the branch of the planta genista, or broom, which they took for their badge and wore in their caps, superseded the name of Angevin for their dynasty.
You might think that now, when the French king was thus establishing himself as lord of nearly all that we call France, the kingdom was beginning to settle down into much the same condition, and with much the same boundaries, as we see it. As a matter of fact it had to be rent apart again, and again re-united, before that settlement could begin. You will do well to note that one of the most powerful of the lords who helped Philip in his fight with John was the Duke of Burgundy. This name of Burgundy was brought into the great story at a very early date, by a Gothic tribe called the Burgundi coming westward with the others. It is a name that remains to this day. But no other name of a territory has stood for such different areas, or has had such different significance. It was, of course, part of Charlemagne's Empire, and now it was held as a fief of the King of France. We shall see Burgundy coming to great power before the story's end, but for the moment the French king is pre-eminent over his lords.
The position between king and barons in England is very different, for the barons are there forcing the king to the acceptance of Magna Carta. By the provisions of that charter or agreement no Englishman shall henceforth be imprisoned without trial; and already travelling justices have been instituted to go through the land and conduct trials.
In England the foundations are being laid for liberty. On the Continent the foundations are being laid for that despotic power of the Crown which is only to be broken by the catastrophe of the French Revolution.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE STRENGTH AND THE WEAKNESS OF ROME
One chief effect of the growing power of the French king over his nobility was the gradual breaking up of the feudal system throughout the greater part of France. Philip sent bailiffs to collect his taxes, instead of receiving them through the hands of the lords, and we may look on this as a striking sign of the changing tunes. He formed, moreover, the beginnings of a standing army. In the extreme south of France, in Aquitaine and Provence, the feudal conditions lasted longer, but there, too, feudalism was crushed out after the so-called Crusade against the Albigenses, the people of Albi in the south of France, who held certain religious views at variance with those of the Church. Moreover, they professed themselves offended by the life and manners of the monastic orders and other clerics. It was the very offence which caused the Reformation later; but these would-be reformers of Albi were too few to win success, and their so-called "heresy" was stamped out with cruel severity.