[349] The Assize of Clarendon describes itself as passed "de consilio omnium baronum suorum."
[350] Notice the "justicia ... quæ videat," as answering to the "aliquis ... qui audiat" in Geoffrey's charter.
[351] These are the words of the Assize itself, which deals throughout with "robatores," "murdratores," and "latrones."
[352] This charter is limited, by the names of the witnesses, to 1163-1166. It can only, therefore, refer to the Assize of Clarendon, which conclusion is confirmed by its language. It must consequently have been granted immediately after it, before the king left England in March. Observe that the two last witnesses are the very justices who were entrusted with the execution of the Assize, and that "Earl Geoffrey," by the irony of fate, was no other than the son and successor of Geoffrey de Mandeville himself.
CHAPTER V.
THE LOST CHARTER OF THE QUEEN.
It was at the very hour when the Empress seemed to have attained the height of her triumph that her hopes were dashed to the ground.[353] The disaster, as is well known, was due to her own behaviour. As Dr. Stubbs has well observed, "She, too, was on the crest of the wave and had her little day ... she had not learned wisdom or conciliation, and threw away opportunities as recklessly as her rival."[354] Indeed, even William of Malmesbury hints that the fault was hers.[355]
The Queen, having pleaded in vain for her husband, resolved to appeal to arms. Advancing on Southwark at the head of the forces which she had raised from Kent, and probably from Boulogne, she ravaged the lands of the citizens with fire and sword before their eyes.[356] The citizens, who had received the Empress but grudgingly, and were already alarmed by her haughty conduct, were now reduced to desperation. They decided on rising against their new mistress, and joining the Queen in her struggle for the restoration of the king.[357] There is a stirring picture in the Gesta of the sudden sounding of the tocsin, and of the citizens pouring forth from the gates amidst the clanging of the bells. The Empress was taken so completely by surprise that she seems to have been at table at the time, and she and her followers, mounting in haste, had scarcely galloped clear of the suburbs when the mob streamed into her quarters and rifled them of all that they contained. So great, we are told, was the panic of the fugitives that they scattered in all directions, regardless of the Empress and her fate. Although the Gesta is a hostile source, the evidence of its author is here confirmed by that of the Continuator of Florence.[358] William of Malmesbury, however, writing as a partisan, will not allow that the Empress and her brother were thus ignominiously expelled, but asserts that they withdrew in military array.[359]
The Empress herself fled to Oxford, and, afraid to remain even there, pushed on to Gloucester. The king, it is true, was still her prisoner, but her followers were almost all dispersed; and the legate, who had secured her triumph, was alienated already from her cause. Expelled from the capital, and resisted in arms by no small portion of the kingdom, her prestige had received a fatal blow, and the moment for her coronation had passed away, never to return.[360]
Here we may pause to glance for a moment at a charter of singular interest for its mention of the citizens of London and their faithful devotion to the king.