Europe in the Middle Ages

by Ierne L. Plunket

Philip Augustus does not cut the same heroic figure on the battle-field as his rival: indeed there was no match in Europe for the ‘Devil of Aquitaine’, who knew not the word fear, and the glamour of whose feats of arms has outlasted seven centuries. It is in kingship that Philip stands pre-eminent in his own age, ready to do battle at the right moment, but still more ready to serve France by patient statecraft. While Richard remained in Palestine, Philip plotted with the ever-treacherous John for their mutual advantage at the absent king’s expense; but their enmity remained secret until the joyful news arrived that the royal crusader had been captured in disguise on his way home by the very Leopold of Austria whose banner he had once contemptuously cast into a ditch.

Now the Duke of Austria’s overlord was the Emperor Henry VI, whose claims to Sicily Richard had often derided; and the Lion-Heart, passing from the dungeon of the vassal to that of the overlord, did not escape until his subjects had paid a huge ransom and he himself had promised to hold England as a fief of the Empire. ‘Beware, the Devil is loose’, wrote Philip to John, when he heard that their united efforts to bribe Henry VI into keeping his prisoner permanently had failed.

The next few years saw a prolonged struggle between the French armies that had invaded Normandy and the forces of Richard, who, burning for revenge, proved as terrible a rival to Philip in the north of France as he had been in the East; and the duel continued until a poisoned arrow pierced the Lion-Heart’s shoulder, causing his death. ‘God visited the land of France,’ wrote a chronicler, ‘for King Richard was no more.’

From this moment Philip Augustus began to realize his most cherished ambitions, slowly at first, but, thanks to the ‘worst of the English kings’, with ever-increasing rapidity. John, who had succeeded Richard, was neither statesman nor soldier. To meaningless outbursts of Angevin rage he added the treachery and cruelty of the House of Aquitaine and a sluggish disregard of dignity and ordinary decency peculiarly his own. Soon all his subjects were banded together against him in fear, hatred, and scorn: the Church, on whose privileges he trampled; the barons, whose wives and daughters were unsafe at his court, and whose lands he ravaged and confiscated; the people, whom his mercenaries tortured and oppressed. How he quarrelled with the Chapter of Canterbury over its choice of an archbishop, defied Pope Innocent III, and then, brought to his knees by an interdict, did homage to the Holy See for his possessions; these things, and the signing of Magna Charta, the English Charter of Popular Liberties, at Runymede, are tales well known in English history.

What is important to emphasize here in a European history is the contrast of the unpopularity that John had gained for himself amongst all classes of his own subjects at the very moment that Philip Augustus seemed, in French eyes, to be indeed their ‘God-given’ king.

French Conquest of Normandy

While John feasted at Rouen messengers brought word that Philip was conquering Normandy. ‘Let him alone! Some day I will win back all he has taken.’ So answered the sluggard, but when he at last raised his standard it was already too late. The English barons would have followed ‘Cœur-de-Lion’ on the road to Paris: they were reluctant to take sword out of scabbard for John: the very Angevins and Normans were beginning to realize that they had more in common with their French conquerors than with any king across the Channel. Aquitaine, it is true, looked sourly on Philip’s progress, but the reason was not that she loved England, but that she feared the domination of Paris, and made it a systematic part of her policy for years to support the ruler who lived farthest away, and would therefore be likely to interfere the least in her internal affairs.

In 1214 John made his most formidable effort, dispatching an army to Flanders to unite with that of the powerful Flemish Count Ferrand, one of Philip’s tenants-in-chief, and with the Emperor Otto IV, in a combined attack on the northern French frontier. At Bouvines the armies met, Philip Augustus, in command of his forces, riding with a joyful face ‘no less than if he had been bidden to a wedding’.

The battle, when it opened, found him wherever the fight was hottest, wielding his sword, encouraging, rallying, until by nightfall he remained victor of the field, with the Count of Flanders and many another of his chief enemies, including the English commander, prisoners at his mercy.