In Aquitaine even more than elsewhere, the beginning of strife was like the letting-out of water. This time the strife of Richard and Raymond led to the outbursting of a flood which ended by overspreading the whole Angevin dominions and sweeping away Henry Fitz-Empress himself. If Richard’s story was true, neither he nor Raymond was the real originator of the mischief; it was Philip of France who had secretly urged him to the attack;[1208] while another rumour, which Richard was only too ready to believe, accused Henry himself of stirring up the count of Toulouse and the Aquitanian rebels against his son, in order to prevent him from starting on the Crusade.[1209] Little as we can credit such a tale, it is easy to imagine how dexterously Philip would use it to sow dissensions between father and son and entangle the impetuous Richard in a coil such as only the sword could cut. Openly, meanwhile, Philip was taking the part of Toulouse, and peremptorily insisting that Henry should put a stop to his son’s aggressions in that quarter.[1210] Without waiting for Henry’s reply, he marched upon Berry and laid siege to Châteauroux, which surrendered to him on June 16.[1211] It was now Henry’s turn to remonstrate against this breach of truce, all the more flagrant because committed against a brother-crusader. He knew however that nothing but his own presence could make his remonstrances of any avail; sending John over before him, on the night of July 10 he hurried across the sea to Barfleur, and thence went to muster his forces at Alençon.[1212] They consisted of the feudal levies of England and Normandy, and a multitude of Welsh under the command of Ralf de Glanville,[1213] together with some Bretons and Flemish mercenaries,[1214] and apparently some Angevins and Cenomannians.[1215] Henry was however very unwilling to resort to force; his old scruple about making war upon his overlord seems not to have been yet quite extinguished, and moreover he shrank alike from the bloodshed and the expense of war. During some weeks his forces were still kept idle, save for an occasional plundering-raid across the French border.[1216] Philip meanwhile was carrying all before him in Berry, and having conquered nearly the whole district, made a dash upon Auvergne.[1217] Richard seized the opportunity for an attempt to regain Châteauroux, in which however he failed, and was only saved from capture or death by the help of a friendly butcher.[1218] His advance however had been enough to make Philip retire into his own domains.[1219] Soon afterwards the approach of the vintage-season compelled the French king to disband a part of his forces; the remainder, under command of the bishop of Beauvais, went to ravage the Norman frontier-lands. Henry demanded reparation, and threatened to cast off his allegiance in default of it; Philip retorted that he would not cease from the warfare which he had begun till all Berry and the Vexin were in his hands.[1220] At last, in the middle of August, the two kings met in person once more between Gisors and Trie; but the meeting broke up in anger; and when they parted, Philip in his rage cut down the great elm tree under which the conferences between the rulers of France and Normandy had so long been held, vowing that no conference should ever be held there again.[1221]

Richard had now rejoined his father,[1222] and at his instigation an attack was made by their united forces upon Mantes, which was occupied by a small French force under William des Barres, lately the commandant of Châteauroux. Richard succeeded in avenging his recent mishap at Châteauroux by taking William prisoner, but he made his escape immediately, and nothing was gained by the expedition.[1223] Richard again went into Berry; Henry lingered on the Norman border, where soon afterwards he received from Philip a demand for another conference. It took place at Châtillon on October 7, but again without result. Philip now followed Richard, who thereupon opened negotiations on his own account, offering to submit his quarrel with Toulouse to the judgement of the French king’s court;[1224] but this also came to nothing. Still the negotiations went on, and Henry’s difficulties were increasing. Chief among them was the want of money to pay his soldiers. His realms had been almost drained for the Saladin tithe; his own treasury was exhausted; his troops, seeing no prospect of either wages or plunder, began to slip away; and at last he was obliged to disband his mercenaries and send his Welsh auxiliaries back to their own country.[1225] Philip meanwhile was secretly in communication with Richard;[1226] and Richard was growing eager to bring matters to a crisis. The insidious whispers of France and Flanders had done their work in his too credulous mind. To the end of his life Richard was but little of a statesman and less of a diplomatist; it is therefore no wonder that he failed on the one hand to fathom the subtle policy of his father, and on the other to see through the wiles of Philip. His fault lay in this—that while Henry’s servants were content to trust him where they could not understand him, his own son was ready to find a ground of suspicion in every word and action of his father’s for which his own intelligence was incapable of accounting, and to credit every calumny reported to him by his father’s enemies. More than a year ago they had contrived, as has been seen, to awaken in his mind an idea that he was in danger of being disinherited in favour of his youngest brother; and it was with a determination to ascertain once for all the extent of this danger that he brought the two kings to a meeting with each other and with himself near Bonmoulins on November 18.[1227]

The conference lasted three days; and each day the prospect of peace grew fainter.[1228] Philip proposed that all parties should return to the position which they had occupied before taking the cross; Henry was ready to close with this proposition, but Richard rejected it, as it would have compelled him to give up his conquests won from Toulouse and worth a thousand marks or more as demesne lands, in exchange for Châteauroux and a few other castles over which he would have had only a precarious overlordship.[1229] As far as the two kings were concerned, the meeting ended in a simple truce between them, to last till S. Hilary’s day. No sooner however was this settled than Philip offered to restore all his conquests on condition that Henry should cause his subjects to do homage to Richard as his heir, and should allow his marriage with Adela to take place immediately. Henry refused.[1230] The two kings were standing, with Richard and the archbishop of Reims, in the midst of a crowded ring of spectators. Richard himself now suddenly turned to his father, and demanded to be distinctly acknowledged as heir to all his dominions. Henry tried to put him off; he repeated his demand with the same result. “Now,” he exclaimed, “I believe what hitherto seemed to me incredible.” Ungirding his sword, he stretched out his hands to the king of France and offered him his homage and fealty for the whole continental heritage of the Angevin house; an offer which Philip readily accepted, promising in return to give back to Richard his recent conquests in Berry.[1231] Henry drew back, speechless with amazement and consternation; the crowd, seeing the two kings thus separated, rushed in between them, and the duke of Aquitaine rode away in company with the French king, leaving Henry alone with his recollections of all the evils which had come of his eldest son’s alliance with Louis VII., and his forebodings of worse mischief to come from this new alliance with Philip, who, as he well knew, was far more dangerous than Louis had ever been; for he had more brains and even fewer scruples.[1232]

What little could be done to ward off the impending danger Henry did without delay. He sent the only one of his sons on whom he could really depend, Geoffrey the chancellor, to secure the fortresses of Anjou; he himself went to do the like in Aquitaine,[1233] whence he returned to keep Christmas at Saumur. The feast must have been a dreary one, even if both Geoffrey and John were with him; yet, deserted as he was, he managed to collect, for the last time, some semblance of the old regal state.[1234] When the truce expired, however, he postponed his intended meeting with Philip, on the plea of illness, first to Candlemas-day, and then till after Easter. He hoped to make use of the delay for winning Richard back; but Richard turned a deaf ear to every message of conciliation.[1235] He had in fact joined Philip in an attack upon Henry’s territories as soon as the truce was expired; and the ever-discontented Bretons had been induced to lend their aid.[1236] After Easter Richard was at length brought to a meeting with his father, on the borders of Anjou and Maine; but nothing came of the interview.[1237] In vain did the Pope, fearing that these quarrels in Gaul would put a stop to the crusade, send two legates in succession to make peace. The first, Henry of Albano, who was sent early in 1188 to mediate between Henry and Louis, unintentionally became the indirect cause of a further addition to Henry’s troubles. Thinking it safer to postpone his mediation till the meeting of the two kings should take place, he in the meantime went to preach the crusade in Germany and there persuaded the Emperor himself to take the cross.[1238] By May 1189 Frederic was ready to start;[1239] but before doing so he took a stern and summary measure to secure the peace of the Empire during his absence. He ordered all those princes and nobles whose loyalty he suspected either to accompany him or to quit the country and take an oath not to set foot in it again till his return. Among those who thus incurred banishment was Henry the Lion. For the second time he and his wife sought shelter in England; not finding the king there, they crossed over to Normandy in search of him,[1240] but it does not appear that they ever reached him where he lay, sick and weary, at Le Mans.[1241] Meanwhile Henry of Albano, after anathematizing Richard for his disturbance of the peace, had withdrawn to Flanders and there died.[1242] His mission was taken up with a somewhat firmer hand by another legate, John of Anagni. Reaching Le Mans at Ascension-tide 1189,[1243] John at once excommunicated all troublers of the peace except the two kings themselves, who were made to promise that they would submit their quarrels to his arbitration and that of the archbishops of Reims, Bourges, Canterbury and Rouen, and were threatened with excommunication if they should fail to redeem their promise.[1244]

On the basis of this agreement a conference was held on Trinity Sunday, June 4, at La Ferté-Bernard. There were present, besides the two kings, Richard, and the legate, the four archbishops who were to assist him as arbitrators, most of the Norman bishops, those of Angers and Le Mans, four English and several French prelates, and a crowd of French, English and Norman barons.[1245] Philip began by again demanding that Adela and Richard should be married at once; that Richard should have security given him for his succession to his father’s dominions; and that John should be made to take the cross and accompany his brother to Palestine.[1246] Richard repeated these demands for himself.[1247] Henry refused, and made a counter-proposition to Philip—the same which he was said to have made at Châteauroux two years ago, for Adela’s marriage with John; but this Philip rejected in his turn.[1248] The legate now interposed with a threat to Philip that unless he would come to terms, his domains should be laid under interdict; Philip defied the threat, and charged the legate with having been bribed by English gold.[1249] This explosion of course broke up the meeting.[1250] Henry went back to Le Mans, whence neither bishop nor archbishop, servant nor friend, could persuade him to move,[1251] although Philip and Richard with their united forces were overrunning Maine at their will. In five days the principal castles of its eastern portion were in their hands; one of the most important, Ballon, only fifteen miles from Le Mans, fell on June 9. There the conquerors paused for three days;[1252] and there, probably, they received the submission of the chief nobles of the western border—Geoffrey of Mayenne, Guy of Laval, Ralf of Fougères.[1253] But while the barons were false, the citizens were true. Le Mans still clung with unswerving loyalty to the count whom she looked upon as her own child; and Henry clung with equal attachment to the city which held his father’s grave and had held his own cradle.[1254] He had little else to cling to now. Where John was it is impossible to say; he was clearly not at Le Mans; and it is certain that, wherever he may have been, his proceedings were wholly unknown to Henry.[1255] Geoffrey the chancellor was still at his father’s side, and so were some half-dozen faithful barons, as well as Archbishop Bartholomew of Tours.[1256] Beyond these the king had nothing but a small force of mercenaries wherewith to defend either himself or Le Mans. The citizens were however willing to stand a siege for his sake, and he in return had promised never to desert them.[1257]