On S. Barnabas’s day—Sunday, June 11—Philip and Richard appeared with their host before Le Mans. They made a feint of passing on in the direction of Tours; but next morning Philip suddenly drew up his forces under the walls and prepared for an assault. The defenders, conscious of the overwhelming odds against them, adopted the desperate remedy of setting fire to the suburbs. Unhappily, the wind carried the flames not into the enemy’s lines but into the city itself.[1258] The French saw their opportunity and rushed at the bridge; a gallant, though unsuccessful, attempt to break it down was made by some of Henry’s troops, headed by a Cenomannian knight, Geoffrey of Brulon, who thus honourably wiped out the memory of his rebellion of sixteen years before; after a desperate fight, Geoffrey was wounded and made prisoner with a number of his comrades, and the rest were driven back into the city, the French rushing in after them.[1259] Then at last Henry felt that he could not keep his promise to the citizens of Le Mans, and with some seven hundred knights he took to flight.[1260] The French hurried in pursuit, but they did not carry it far. It may be that Geoffrey of Brulon’s effort to break down the bridge saved the king although it could not save the city; for the French are said to have been checked in their pursuit by the impossibility of fording the river,[1261] and one can scarcely help conjecturing that the fugitives had crossed by the half-undermined bridge, and that it fell as soon as they had passed over it.[1262]

Geoffrey however was not the only baron who after siding with Henry’s enemies in his prosperous days had learned to stand by him in his last hour of need. Besides his one faithful son, Geoffrey the chancellor, his old friend Earl William de Mandeville, and William Fitz-Ralf the seneschal of Normandy, Henry was accompanied in his flight by an English baron, William the Marshal. William’s father, John, who seems to have been marshal successively to Henry I. and to Stephen, had married a sister of Patrick of Salisbury and, like his brother-in-law, espoused the cause of the Empress in the civil war.[1263] William himself first appears in history at the age of about six years, in 1152, when he was placed as a hostage in the hands of Stephen. Twice his life was forfeited by his father’s defiance of the king, and twice it was saved by the unconscious fearlessness of the child, which so won Stephen’s heart that he ended by making himself the little fellow’s playmate instead of his slayer.[1264] John’s services to the Empress were rewarded on Henry’s accession by his reinstatement in the office of marshal; he afterwards became notorious through his quarrel with Thomas of Canterbury, which formed one of the pretexts for the archbishop’s condemnation at Northampton.[1265] After John’s death his title and office seem to have been shared by his two sons.[1266] The second, William, we find in 1173 among the partizans of the young king’s rebellion; ten years later he appears as the young king’s best-beloved knight, and as charged by him with the last office of friendship, the accomplishment in his stead of the crusading vow which he had not lived to fulfil.[1267] Six years afterwards, however, William was still in Europe, ready to stand to the last by another perishing king, and to take the post of honour as well as of danger among the little band of faithful servants who watched over the last days of Henry Fitz-Empress. It was William who brought up the rear of the little force which covered Henry’s retreat from Le Mans. Turning round as he heard the pursuers close behind him, he suddenly found himself face to face with Richard, and levelled his spear at him without hesitation. “God’s feet, marshal!” cried Richard with his wonted oath, “slay me not! I have no hauberk.” “Slay you! no; I leave that to the devil,” retorted William, plunging his spear into the horse’s body instead of the rider’s.[1268] Richard was of course compelled to abandon the chase, and at a distance of some two miles from Le Mans the king felt himself sufficiently out of danger to pause on the brow of a hill whence he could look back for the last time upon his native city. As he saw its blazing ruins words of madness burst from his lips: “O God, Thou hast shamefully taken from me this day the city which I loved most on earth, in which I was born and bred, where lies the body of my father and that of his patron saint—I will requite Thee as I can; I will withdraw from Thee that thing in me for which Thou carest the most.”[1269] Another eighteen miles’[1270] ride brought the fugitives at nightfall to La Frênaye,[1271] whose lord, the viscount of Beaumont, was a kinsman of Henry, and the father of Hermengard whose marriage with the king of Scots had been arranged three years ago by Henry’s influence. The king found shelter in the castle; his followers, already sadly diminished in number in consequence of the overpowering heat and fatigue of the day’s ride, quartered themselves in the little town as best they could; the chancellor would have remained with them to keep guard himself, but his father would not be parted from him, and made him come in to sup and spend the night. Geoffrey, whose baggage had been all left in Le Mans, was glad to exchange his travel-stained clothes for some which his father was able to lend him; Henry, with characteristic disregard of such details, persisted in lying down to rest just as he was, with his son’s cloak thrown over him for a coverlet.[1272]

From La Frênaye another day’s ride would have brought the king to the Norman border. His first intention on leaving Le Mans had evidently been to fall back upon Normandy and there rally his forces—doubtless also to summon help from England—to renew the struggle with Philip; and this was the course to which his followers still urged him on the Tuesday morning. He, however, had changed his plans in the night. He seems to have made up his mind that his end was near; and in consequence, he had also made up his mind to go back to the Angevin lands. Since he had been compelled to leave his own birthplace in the enemy’s power, he would at any rate stand to the last by the old home of his father’s house, and die at his hereditary post as count of Anjou. He made William Fitz-Ralf and William de Mandeville swear that they would surrender the castles of Normandy to no one save John; he bade Geoffrey take the command of the troops, escort the barons with them as far as Alençon, and then come back to rejoin him in Anjou. Geoffrey, whose dominant feeling clearly was anxiety for his father’s personal safety, only stayed in Alençon long enough to secure the place and collect a fresh force of a hundred picked knights, and with these set off southward again to overtake his father. Henry meanwhile had started for Anjou almost alone. His son rejoined him at Savigny[1273]—whether it was the village of that name near Chinon, or one of several others further north, there is no means of deciding; but it is certain that by the end of the month Henry and his son were both safe at Chinon.[1274] Whether the king had made his way alone, or whether he had been at once the leader and the guide of the little Norman force, through the Angevin woodlands which as a hunter he had learned to know so well, and where he was now in danger of being hunted down in his turn—in either case this sick and weary man had achieved an adventure equal in skill and daring to those of Fulk Nerra’s most romantic days, or of his own youth. Once safe out of the enemy’s reach, he made no further movement until Philip, having possessed himself of the citadel of Le Mans[1275] and the remnant of the Cenomannian strongholds, and made his way southward by Chaumont and Amboise as far as Roche-Corbon,[1276] sent him a proposal for a meeting to be held at Azay on the last day of June.[1277] Henry apparently advanced from Chinon to Azay; but on that very day an attack of fever was added to the malady from which he was already suffering, and he was unable to attend the conference.[1278] It seems probable that he sent representatives to whom Philip and Richard made their propositions, and who may possibly have accepted them in his name.[1279] Certainly, however, no truce was made; for that same day Philip marched up to the southern bank of the Loire and drew up his host opposite the gates of Tours.[1280] Next day he forded the river—an easy exploit when it was half dried up by the summer’s heat[1281]—established his headquarters in the “borough of S. Martin” or Châteauneuf,[1282] and began to invest the city.[1283] Henry, it seems, had now gone to Saumur;[1284] there on the Sunday—July 2—he was visited, according to one account at his own request, by the archbishop of Reims, the count of Flanders and the duke of Burgundy, endeavouring to arrange terms of peace.[1285] The visit was a failure; it could not be otherwise, for the peacemakers were acting without Philip’s sanction, and in spite of a distinct warning from him that, whatever tidings they might bring back, he would assault Tours next morning.[1286] The morning came; the assault was made; the walls which had kept out Fulk Nerra and Geoffrey Martel could not avail to keep out Philip Augustus, enabled as he was by his possession of Châteauneuf and by the lack of water in the Loire to bring up his machines against their weakest side; and in a few hours he was master of Tours.[1287]

The tidings were carried at once to Henry, with a final summons to meet the conqueror at Colombières, half-way between Tours and Azay.[1288] Henry, at his wits’ end, consulted William the Marshal as to whether or not he should respond to the summons; William recommended him to follow the counsel of his barons; they advised that he should go, and he went. Most of his followers went with him; Geoffrey, however, feeling that he could not endure to see his father’s humiliation, besought and obtained permission to remain where he was.[1289] Henry found a lodging in a small commandery of Knights Templars at Ballan,[1290] close to Colombières; but he had no sooner reached it than he was seized with racking pains in every limb and every nerve. He again called for William the Marshal, who did his best to soothe him, and persuaded him to go to bed. Philip and Richard had always refused to believe that his sickness was anything but a feint, and despite the pleadings of his friends they still insisted that the conference should take place[1291] on the following day.[1292] When they saw him, however, they were compelled to admit the truth of his excuse; his sternly-set and colourless face shewed but too plainly how acutely he was suffering. So evident was his weakness that they offered him a seat—on a cloak spread upon the ground—but he refused it; he had not come there, he said, to sit down with them; he had come simply to hear and see what the French king demanded of him, and why he had taken away his lands.[1293] Philip formulated his demands with brutal bluntness; he required that Henry should put himself, as a conquered enemy, entirely at his mercy before he would discuss any terms at all.[1294] Henry could not at once bring himself to submit. Suddenly, amid the breathless stillness of the sultry July morning, a clap of thunder was heard, and the excited bystanders thought they actually saw a stroke of lightning fall out of the cloudless blue sky, directly between the two kings. Both started back in terror; after a while they rode forward again, and immediately there was a second peal of thunder. Henry’s shattered nerves gave way completely; he nearly fell from his horse, and at once placed himself wholly at Philip’s mercy.[1295] Then the terms were dictated to him. He was made to do homage to Philip, and to promise that Adela should be placed under guardians chosen by Richard, who was to marry her on his return from Palestine;—that Richard should receive the fealty of all the barons of the Angevin dominions, on both sides of the sea, and that all who had attached themselves to Richard’s party in the late war should be suffered to remain in his service and released from their obligations to his father, at any rate until the latter should be ready to set forth on the crusade;—that he would be thus ready, and would meet Philip and Richard at Vézelay, thence to start with them at Mid-Lent;[1296]—that he would renounce all claims upon Auvergne,[1297] and pay Philip an indemnity of twenty thousand marks.[1298] As security for the fulfilment of the treaty, Philip and Richard were to hold in pledge either three castles on the Norman border or two in Anjou, with the cities of Tours and Le Mans; and all Henry’s barons were to swear that they would hold their allegiance to him contingent only upon his fulfilment of these conditions.[1299] Finally, he was compelled to acknowledge himself reconciled with Richard, and to give him the kiss of peace. The kiss was indeed given; but it was accompanied by a whisper which Richard did not scruple to repeat for the amusement of the French court when the conference was over—“May I only be suffered to live long enough to take vengeance upon thee as thou deservest!”[1300]

One thing alone Henry asked and obtained in return for all this humiliation; a written list of those among his subjects whose services were transferred to Richard.[1301] The list was promised,[1302] and Henry was carried back, worn out with fatigue, suffering and shame, to the favourite home of his brighter days at Chinon.[1303] By the time he reached it he was too ill to do anything but lie down never to rise again. He sent back his vice-chancellor, Roger Malchat,[1304] to fetch the promised list of traitors; and on Roger’s return he bade him sit down beside his bed and read him out the names. With a sigh Roger answered: “Our Lord Jesus Christ help me, sire! the first written down here is Count John, your son.”[1305] The words gave Henry his death-blow. “Say no more,”[1306] he faltered, turning away his face.[1307] Yet the tale seemed too horrible to be true, and he started up again: “Can it be? John, my darling child, my very heart, for love of whom I have incurred all this misery—has he indeed forsaken me?” It could not be denied; he sank back again and turned his face to the wall, moaning: “Let things go now as they will; I care no more for myself or for the world.”[1308]