“In the year 1199,” says a contemporary French writer, “God visited the realm of France; for King Richard was slain.”[1941] Richard’s death was in truth the signal for the break-up of the Angevin dominions to the profit of the French Crown. John, who was at the moment in Britanny, hurried southward as soon as he heard the news. Three days after the funeral—on April 14, the Wednesday before Easter—he arrived at Chinon, the seat of the Angevin treasury; the wardens of the castle[1942] welcomed him as their lord in his brother’s stead; the household of the late king came to meet him and acknowledged him in like manner, after receiving from him a solemn oath that he would carry out Richard’s testamentary directions and maintain the customs of the lands over which he was called to rule.[1943] On this understanding the treasury was given up to him by the Angevin seneschal, Robert of Turnham.[1944] After keeping Easter at Beaufort,[1945] he proceeded into Normandy; here he was received without opposition, and on the Sunday after Easter was invested with the sword, lance and coronet of the duchy by Archbishop Walter at Rouen.[1946] As the lance was put into his hands he turned with characteristic levity to join in the laughing comments of the young courtiers behind him, and in so doing let the symbol of his ducal authority fall to the ground. His irreverent behaviour and refusal to communicate on Easter-day had already drawn upon him a solemn warning from S. Hugh; and this fresh example of his profane recklessness, and its consequence, were noted as omens which later events made but too easy of interpretation.[1947] For the moment, however, the Normans were willing to transfer to Richard’s chosen successor the loyalty which they had shewn towards Richard himself; and so, too, were the representatives of the English Church and baronage who happened to be on the spot, Archbishop Hubert and William the Marshal.[1948] But in the Angevin lands Philip’s alliance with the Bretons, fruitless so long as Richard lived, bore fruit as soon as the lion-heart had ceased to beat. While Philip himself invaded the county of Evreux and took its capital,[1949] Arthur was at once sent into Anjou with a body of troops;[1950] his mother, released or escaped from her prison, joined him at the head of the Breton forces;[1951] they marched upon Le Mans, whence John himself only escaped the night before it fell into their hands;[1952] Angers was given up to them by its governor, a nephew of the seneschal Robert of Turnham;[1953] and on Easter-day,[1954] while John was actually holding court within fifteen miles of them at Beaufort, the barons of Anjou, Touraine and Maine held a council at which Arthur was unanimously acknowledged as lawful heir to his uncle Richard according to the customs of the three counties, and their capital cities were surrendered to him at once.[1955] At Le Mans he met the French king and did homage to him for his new dominions, Constance swearing fealty with him.[1956] Shortly afterwards, at Tours, Constance formally placed her boy, who was now twelve years old, under the guardianship of Philip; and Philip at once took upon himself the custody and the administration of all the territories of his ward.[1957]

Neither in personal influence nor in political skill, however, was Constance a match for her mother-in-law. Eleanor was, as has been seen, at Fontevraud when Richard died. Feeling and policy alike inclined her to favour the cause of his chosen successor, her own only surviving son, rather than that of a grandson whom most likely she had never even seen. She therefore effected a junction with Mercadier and his Brabantines as soon as they had had time to march up from Châlus, and the whole band of mercenaries, headed by the aged queen and the ruthless but faithful Provençal captain, overran Anjou with fire and sword to punish its inhabitants for their abandonment of John.[1958] Having given this proof of her undiminished energy, Eleanor, to take away all pretext for French intermeddling in the south, went to meet Philip at Tours and herself did homage to him for Poitou.[1959] By this means Aquitaine was secured for John. John himself had made a dash into Maine and burned Le Mans in vengeance for the defection of its citizens.[1960] He could, however, venture upon no serious attempt at the reconquest of the Angevin lands till he had secured his hold upon Normandy and England; and for this his presence was now urgently needed on the English side of the Channel.

Archbishop Hubert and William the Marshal had already returned to England charged with a commission from John to assist the justiciar Geoffrey Fitz-Peter in maintaining order there until the new king should arrive.[1961] The precaution was far from being a needless one. The news of Richard’s death reached England on Easter Eve; and its consequences appeared the very next morning, when some of the nobles and knights went straight from their Easter feast to begin a course of rapine and depredation which recalls the disorders after the death of Henry I., and which was only checked by the return of the primate. Hubert at once excommunicated the evil-doers,[1962] and, in concert with the Marshal, summoned all the men of the realm to swear fealty and peaceable submission to John, as heir of Henry Fitz-Empress. The peace, however, was not so easy to keep now as it had been during the interval between Henry’s death and Richard’s coronation. Since then John himself had set an example which those whom he now claimed as his subjects were not slow to follow. All who had castles, whether bishops, earls or barons, furnished them with men, victuals and arms, and assumed an attitude of defence, if not of defiance; and this attitude they quitted only when the archbishop, the marshal and the justiciar had called all the malcontents to a conference at Northampton, and there solemnly promised that John should render to all men their rights, if they would keep faith and peace towards him. On this the barons took the oath of fealty and liege homage to John. The king of Scots refused to do the like unless his lost counties of Northumberland and Cumberland were restored to him, and despatched messengers charged with these demands to John himself; the envoys were, however, intercepted by the archbishop and his colleagues, and the Scot king was for a while appeased by a promise of satisfaction when the new sovereign should arrive in his island-realm.[1963]

On May 25 John landed at Shoreham; next day he reached London;[1964] on the 27th—Ascension-day—the bishops and barons assembled for the crowning in Westminster abbey.[1965] John’s coronation is one of the most memorable in English history. It was the last occasion on which the old English doctrine of succession to the crown was formally asserted and publicly vindicated, and that more distinctly than it had ever been since the Norman conquest. In the midst of the crowded church the archbishop stood forth and spoke: “Hearken, all ye that are here present! Be it known unto you that no man hath any antecedent right to succeed another in the kingdom, except he be unanimously chosen by the whole realm, after invocation of the Holy Spirit’s grace, and unless he be also manifestly thereunto called by the pre-eminence of his character and conversation, after the pattern of Saul the first anointed king, whom God set over his people, although he was not of royal race, and likewise after him David, the one being chosen for his energy and fitness for the regal dignity, the other for his humility and holiness; that so he who surpassed all other men of the realm in vigour should also be preferred before them in authority and power. But indeed if there be one of the dead king’s race who excelleth, that one should be the more promptly and willingly chosen. And these things have I spoken in behalf of the noble Count John here present, the brother of our late illustrious King Richard, now deceased without direct heir; and forasmuch as we see him to be prudent and vigorous, we all, after invoking the Holy Spirit’s grace, for his merits no less than his royal blood, have with one consent chosen him for our king.” The archbishop’s hearers wondered at his speech, because they could not see any occasion for it; but none of them disputed his doctrine; still less did they dispute its immediate practical application. “Long live King John!” was the unanimous response;[1966] and, disregarding a protest from Bishop Philip of Durham against the accomplishment of such an important rite in the absence of his metropolitan Geoffrey of York,[1967] Archbishop Hubert proceeded to anoint and crown the king. A foreboding which he could not put aside, however, moved him to make yet another significant interpolation in the ritual. When he tendered to the king-elect the usual oath for the defence of the Church, the redressing of wrongs and the maintenance of justice, he added a solemn personal adjuration to John, in Heaven’s name, warning him not to venture upon accepting the regal office unless he truly purposed in his own mind to perform his oath. John answered that by God’s help he intended to do so.[1968] But he contrived to omit the act which should have sealed his vow. For the first and last time probably in the history of Latin Christendom, the king did not communicate upon his coronation-day.[1969]

On that very day he made his arrangements for the government of the realm which he was already anxious to leave as soon as he could do so with safety. Geoffrey Fitz-Peter was confirmed in his office of justiciar, William in that of marshal, and both were formally invested with the earldoms whose lands and revenues they had already enjoyed for some years—Geoffrey with the earldom of Essex, William with that of Striguil. At the same time, in defiance alike of precedent, of ecclesiastical propriety, and of the warnings of an old colleague in the administration, Hugh Bardulf, Archbishop Hubert undertook the office of chancellor.[1970] Next day John received the homage of the barons, and went on pilgrimage to S. Alban’s abbey;[1971] he afterwards visited Canterbury and S. Edmund’s,[1972] and thence proceeded to keep the Whitsun feast at Northampton.[1973] An interchange of embassies with the king of Scots failed to win either the restitution of the two shires on the one hand, or the required homage on the other; William threatened to invade the disputed territories if they were not made over to him within forty days; John retorted by giving them in charge to a new sheriff, the brave and loyal William de Stuteville, and by appointing new guardians to the temporalities of York, as security for the defence of the north against the Scots,[1974] while he himself hurried back to the sea, and on June 20 sailed again for Normandy.[1975]