John, however, was now at last threatening an attack from over sea. Three weeks after his return to England, in January 1204, he had held a council at Oxford and compelled all the tenants-in-chief, including the bishops and abbots, to promise a scutage of two marks and a half on the knight’s fee,[2144] and a contribution, from which even the parish churches were not exempt, of a seventh of all moveable goods;[2145] all under the plea of gathering a great host for the recovery of his lost dominions.[2146] In May he held a council at Northampton,[2147] which resulted in a summons to the fleet and the host to meet him at Porchester at Whitsuntide, prepared to accompany him over sea. When all was ready, however, the expedition was countermanded, at the urgent entreaty, it was said, of Archbishop Hubert and William the Marshal, the latter of whom had lately returned from Gaul, and might therefore be supposed to know the condition of affairs there better than the king could know it himself. John, after a great shew of resistance, yielded to their entreaties; the soldiers and sailors were made to pay a fine in commutation of their services, and dismissed, grumbling bitterly, to their homes.[2148] The king gained a considerable sum of money by the transaction; and the primate and the marshal, in their boundless loyalty, were content to take upon themselves the burthen of its shame, which John felt, or affected to feel, so keenly that he actually put to sea with a small escort several days after the dispersion of the fleet. He landed again, however, at Wareham on the third day,[2149] and contented himself with sending his half-brother Earl William of Salisbury and his own son Geoffrey with a body of knights to reinforce the garrison of La Rochelle.[2150] A year later he again assembled his fleet at Portsmouth;[2151] and this time he led it in person direct to La Rochelle. He landed there on June 7,[2152] and marched to Montauban, which he besieged and captured;[2153] the fickle viscount of Thouars, being now in revolt against Philip, speedily joined him;[2154] they advanced to Angers together, won it on September 6,[2155] ravaged Anjou with fire and sword, and were doing the like in south-eastern Britanny[2156] when Philip again crossed the Loire and harried the viscounty of Thouars under their very eyes.[2157] John at once proposed a truce; the terms were formally drawn up at Thouars on October 26;[2158] but when the English king’s signature was required, he was no longer to be found. He had slipped away the night before, and was out of reach at La Rochelle;[2159] and thence, on December 12, he sailed for England once more.[2160]

Of the two devoted English ministers who had stood by him through so much obloquy, only the Marshal was now left. A month after the humiliating scene at Porchester in 1205, Archbishop Hubert died.[2161] “Now for the first time am I truly king of England!” was the comment of his ungrateful master upon the tidings of his death.[2162] The words were words of ill omen for John himself, even more than for his people. He was indeed king of England, and of England alone. The prophecy of Merlin, which had been working itself out for a hundred years in the history of the Norman and Angevin houses, was fulfilled in yet one more detail: “the sword was parted from the sceptre.”[2163] The sword of Hrolf the Ganger and William the Conqueror, of Fulk the Red and Fulk the Black, had fallen from the hand of their unworthy descendant. The sceptre of his English forefathers was left to him. But the England over which he had to wield it was no longer the exhausted and divided country which had been swallowed up almost without an effort in the vast dominions of the young Count Henry of Anjou. It was an England which was once more able to stand alone—a new England which had been growing up under the hands of Henry himself, of his ministers, and of the ministers of his successor, silently and imperceptibly, they themselves knew not when or how; and between this new England and its stranger-king the day of reckoning was now to come.

Note.
THE DEATH OF ARTHUR.

Only two contemporary writers even pretend to give a circumstantial account of Arthur’s death: the Annalist of Margam and William of Armorica. The former tells us that John, “post prandium, ebrius et dæmonio plenus” [did John, as well as Richard, make the demon-blood answerable for his sins?], slew Arthur with his own hand, and having tied a great stone to the body, flung it into the Seine; thence it was drawn up in a fisherman’s net, recognized, and buried secretly, “propter metum tyranni,” in Notre-Dame-des-Prés (Ann. Margam, a. 1204; Luard, Ann. Monast., vol. i. p. 27). William allows the murderer no such excuse, if excuse it be, but works up the story into a long and horrible romance, in which John deliberately and of set purpose takes Arthur out alone with him by night in a boat on the Seine, plunges a sword into his body, and then rows along for three miles before he flings the corpse overboard (Will. Armor. Philipp., l. vi.; Duchesne, Hist. Franc. Scriptt., vol. v. pp. 166, 167). Both these writers place the scene at Rouen. The Chron. Brioc. (Morice, Hist. Bret., preuves, vol. i. col. 39) transfers it to Cherbourg: “Apud Cæsaris-burgum duxit, et ibi proditorie et tyrannice eum in mare submersit.” Rigord says not a word of the matter. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson, p. 145) only speaks of it incidentally, saying that Philip “sæviebat ... permaxime pro nece Arthuri, quem in Sequanâ submersum fuisse audierat.” Rog. Wend. (Coxe, vol. iii. p. 170) says merely “subito evanuit.” Mat. Paris in Chron. Maj. (Luard, vol. ii. p. 480) copies this, and adds: “modo fere omnibus ignorato; utinam non ut fama refert.” In Hist. Angl. (Madden, vol. ii. p. 95) he gives three stories as currently reported: accidental drowning, death from grief, and the third, “ipsum manibus vel præcepto regis Johannis fuisse peremptum”—this last being the assertion of the French, “quibus propter hostilitatem plena fides non est adhibenda.” But his own words in the Chron. Maj. shew that he could not wholly reject the unavoidable conclusion of John’s guilt.

The date of Arthur’s disappearance or death is given only by the Margam annalist. He places it on Maunday Thursday; but unluckily he has damaged his own authority on chronological matters by putting the whole affair a year too late, viz. in 1204 instead of 1203. Will. Armor., on the other hand, tells us that for three days before the murder John was at Moulineaux, near Rouen. These two chronological indications do not exactly agree, for in 1203 Maunday Thursday was April 3, and the Itin. K. John, a. 4 (Hardy, Intr. Pat. Rolls), shews that the king was at Moulineaux on Wednesday, April 2, but on the two preceding days he was at Rouen. It is however plain from the after-history that the deed must have been done shortly before Easter.