John Lackland

by Kate Norgate

That Richard presently awoke to some consciousness of the danger which he had created for himself and his realm maybe inferred from the fact that in February 1190 he summoned John to Normandy, and there made him swear not to set foot in England for the next three years. The queen-mother, however, afterwards persuaded her elder son to release the younger one from this oath;[134] or, according to another account, to leave the decision of the matter to the justiciar and chancellor, William of Longchamp, bishop of Ely. John was to visit the chancellor in England, and either remain there or go into exile, as William might choose.[135] It is clear, however, that William had no real choice. He was legate in England, and therefore absolution from him was necessary to protect John against the ecclesiastical consequences of a violated oath; but as the violation was sanctioned by the king to whom the oath had been sworn, no ground was left to William for refusing the absolution.

1191

In the course of the year 1190, therefore, or very early in 1191, John returned to England.[136] In February 1191 the sole remaining check upon both John and William of Longchamp was removed: Queen Eleanor went to join her elder son at Messina.[137] As soon as she was gone, the results of the concession which he had made to her wishes in John’s behalf began to show themselves. On Mid-Lent Sunday, March 24, the count of Mortain and the chancellor had an interview at Winchester “concerning the keepers of certain castles, and the money granted to the count by his brother out of the exchequer.”[138] What passed between them we are not told; but it is clear that they disagreed. Three months elapsed without any overt act of aggression on either side. Then, all at once, about midsummer, it became apparent that a party which for more than a year had been seeking an opportunity to undermine the chancellor’s power had found a rallying-point and a leader in the king’s brother. The sheriff of Lincolnshire and constable of Lincoln Castle, Gerard de Camville, being summoned to answer before the justiciars for having made his great fortress into a hold of robbers and bandits, defied their authority on the plea that he had become John’s liegeman, and was therefore answerable to no one except John.[139] The chancellor deprived Gerard of his sheriffdom and gave it to another man, and laid siege to Lincoln Castle.[140] While he was thus occupied, the castles of Nottingham and Tickhill were given up by their custodians to John.[141] Thereupon John sent to the chancellor a message of insolent defiance. If William did not at once withdraw from Lincoln and leave Gerard in unmolested possession, the count of Mortain threatened to “come and visit him with a rod of iron, and with such a host as he would not be able to withstand.”[142] With a cutting allusion at once to the chancellor’s humble origin and to the readiness with which the commandants of Nottingham and Tickhill had betrayed the fortresses committed to their charge, he added that “no good came of depriving lawful freeborn Englishmen of the offices of trust to which they were entitled, and giving them to unknown strangers; the folly of such a proceeding had just been proved in the case of the royal castles which William had entrusted to men who left them exposed to every passer-by; any chance comer would have found their gates open to him as easily as they had opened to John himself. Such a state of affairs in his brother’s realm he was resolved to tolerate no longer.” The chancellor’s retort was a peremptory summons to John to give up the two castles, and “answer before the king’s court for the breach of his oath.”[143] William probably hoped to get John expelled from England, on the plea that Richard had never really consented to his return and that his absolution was therefore invalid, as having been extorted on a false pretence. The summons appears to have been carried by Archbishop Walter of Rouen, who had come from Messina charged with a special commission from Richard to deal with the crisis in England.[144] John, on receiving the chancellor’s message, burst into one of the paroxysms of fury characteristic of his race. “He was more than angry,” says a contemporary; “his whole body was so contorted with rage as to be scarcely recognizable; a scowl of wrath furrowed his brow; his eyes flashed fire, his colour changed to a livid white, and I know what would have become of the chancellor if in that hour of fury he had come within reach of John’s hands!” In the end, however, the archbishop persuaded both John and William to hold another conference at Winchester on July 28.[145]

John secured the services of four thousand armed Welshmen, whom he apparently brought up secretly, in small parties, from the border, and hid in various places round about the city. No disturbance, however, took place; some of the bishops, under the direction of Walter of Rouen, drew up a scheme of agreement which, for the moment, both John and William found it advisable to accept. The castles of Nottingham and Tickhill were surrendered by John to the king {1191 July 28} in the person of his special representative the archbishop of Rouen, who was to give them in charge, one to William of Venneval—a liegeman of the king, but a friend and follower of John—the other to William the Marshal; these two custodians were to hold them for the king till his return, and then “act according to his will concerning them”; but if he should die, or if meanwhile the chancellor should break the peace with John, they were to restore them to John. New custodians were appointed, on the like terms, to six royal castles which stood within John’s territories,[146] and also to two castles which Richard had expressly granted to him,—Bolsover and the Peak. Any new castles built since the king’s departure were to be razed, and no more were to be built till his return, save, if necessary, on the royal demesnes, or elsewhere in pursuance of special orders, written or verbal, from himself. No man was to be disseised either by the king’s ministers or by the count of Mortain, save in execution of a legal sentence delivered after trial before the king’s court; and each party was pledged to amend, on complaint from the other, its own infringements of this rule, which was at once applied to the case of Gerard de Camville. Gerard, having been disseised without trial, was reinstated in his sheriffdom; but his reinstatement was ordered to be immediately followed by a trial before the Curia Regis on the charges brought against him, and the decision of the Curia was to be final; if it went against him, John was not to support him in resistance to it; and John was further bound not to harbour any known outlaws or enemies of the king, nor any person accused of treason, except on condition of such person pledging himself to stand his trial in the king’s court. The archbishop of Rouen received a promise from John and from the chancellor, each supported by seven sureties, that they would keep this agreement. After it was drawn up, a postscript appears to have been added: “If any thing should be taken or intercepted by either party during the truce, it shall be lawfully restored and amends made for it. And these things are done, saving always the authority and commands of our lord the king; yet so that if the king before his return should not will this agreement to be kept, the aforesaid castles of Nottingham and Tickhill shall be given up to Lord John, whatever the king may order concerning them.” The last clause is obscure; but its meaning seems to be that if the arrangement just made should prove to be, in the judgment of the king’s ministers, untenable, it was to be treated as void, and matters were to be restored to the position in which they had been before it was made.[147]

The contingency which seems to have been contemplated in this postscript very soon occurred. Some mercenaries whom the chancellor had summoned from over sea landed in England, and he at once repudiated the agreement, declaring there should be no peace till either he or John was driven out of the realm.[148] Hereupon it seems that Venneval and the Marshal, in accordance with the clause above quoted, restored the castles of Tickhill and Nottingham to John. On the other hand, an outrage on John’s part, which is recorded only as having occurred some time in this year (1191), certainly took place before October, and most likely before the middle of September. Roger de Lacy, the constable of Chester, who was responsible to Longchamp for the safe keeping of these two castles, made a vigorous effort to bring to justice the subordinate castellans to whom he had entrusted them, and who had betrayed them to John. Of these there had been two in each castle. Two managed to keep out of Lacy’s reach; the other two he caught and hanged, although one of them offered to swear with compurgators that he had never consented to the treason of his colleague, and even brought a letter from John requesting that the compurgation might be allowed—the chancellor, to whom the question had been referred, having remitted it to the decision of Lacy. While this man’s body was hanging in chains, his squire drove the birds away from it; whereupon Roger de Lacy hanged the squire. Then John took upon himself to avenge them both, not only by disseising Roger of all the lands which he held of him, but also by ravaging the lands which Roger possessed elsewhere.[149]

Some time in August or September another assembly was called to endeavour after a pacification between John and the chancellor. Three bishops and twenty-two laymen were appointed arbitrators—the laymen chosen by the bishops, eleven from the party which had hitherto adhered to William, eleven from the followers of John. The terms which these twenty-five laid down amounted to a decision wholly in John’s favour. They did, indeed, again require him to restore the two royal castles of Nottingham and Tickhill; but they made the restoration an empty form. They decreed that the chancellor should put these castles under the control of two men whom they named, William of Venneval and another friend of John’s, Reginald de Vasseville. These two were to hold the castles for the king and give William hostages for their fidelity; but if Richard should die before reaching home, they were at once to surrender the castles to John, and William was to restore their hostages. The arbitrators further confirmed Gerard de Camville in the constableship of Lincoln castle; they ordered the chancellor to remove the constables of royal castles situated within the lands of the count of Mortain, and appoint others in their stead, “if the count showed reason for changing them”; and they added that “if the king should die, the chancellor was not to disinherit the count, but to do his utmost to promote him to the kingdom.”[150] This last clause was pointed at a negotiation which William had been carrying on with the Scot king, for the purpose of obtaining his recognition of Arthur of Britanny as heir-presumptive to the English Crown. The negotiation was secret; but John had discovered it,[151] and the discovery was a useful weapon in his hands. William’s dealings with Scotland were most probably sanctioned by Richard; their object was certainly in accord with Richard’s own plans for the succession at this time; but Richard’s choice of Arthur as his heir was probably unknown as yet to the majority of his subjects, and if it was known to them, it could not commend itself to their ideas either of policy or of constitutional practice. In their eyes the king’s next-of-kin and natural successor was not his boy-nephew, but his brother. It was therefore easy for John to win their sympathies by representing the scheme as part of a plot contrived against himself by the chancellor.

The new agreement lasted no longer than its predecessor. Scarcely was it drawn up when there occurred an excellent opportunity for John to secure for himself a new and valuable ally in the person of his half-brother Geoffrey, the eldest son of Henry II. and the predecessor of Longchamp in the office of chancellor of England. Geoffrey, like John, had in the spring of 1190 been sworn to keep out of England for three years; but, like John too, he had obtained from Richard a release from his oath.[152] His election to the see of York had been confirmed by the Pope on May 11, 1191,[153] and it was known that he intended to return to England immediately after his consecration.[154] Richard had given him a written release from his vow of absence,[155] but had neglected to apprise the chancellor of the fact; William therefore no sooner heard of Geoffrey’s purpose to return than he issued, on July 30, a writ ordering that the archbishop should be arrested on landing.[156] Geoffrey had written to John, begging for his help; John in reply promised to stand by him.[157] On August 18 Geoffrey was consecrated at Tours,[158] and John then urged him to come over at once.[159] On September 14 Geoffrey reached Dover; he escaped from an attempt to arrest him as he landed, but four days later he was forcibly dragged from sanctuary in S. Martin’s priory and flung into prison in the castle.[160]

John immediately wrote to the chancellor, demanding whether these things had been done by his authority. According to one account, William answered that they had.[161] A letter from William himself to the chapter of Canterbury, however, declares that he had merely ordered his officers to administer to Geoffrey the oath of fealty to the king (which it was usual for a bishop to take before entering upon his see), and if he refused it, to send him back to the Continent.[162] However this might be, it is clear that, outwardly at least, the chancellor had put himself in the wrong. He was already the most unpopular man in England; now, all parties in Church and State joined hands against him at once; and it was inevitable that they should rally under the command of John. John sent another letter or message to William, bidding him release the archbishop, and swearing that if this were not done immediately, he, the count of Mortain, would go in person “with a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm” to set his brother at liberty.[163] On September 21 or 26 Geoffrey was released.[164] Meanwhile John, with his confidant Hugh of Nonant, the bishop of Coventry, hurried down from Lancaster to Marlborough and invited all whom he thought likely to take his side to join him there. Three of the co-justiciars—William the Marshal among them—answered his call; three bishops, one of whom was the venerated Hugh of Lincoln, did likewise; and so did Archbishop Walter of Rouen. From Marlborough the party moved on to Reading; thence John despatched a personal invitation, or summons, to Geoffrey,[165] and at the same time issued, in conjunction with the three justiciars, letters calling the rest of the bishops and barons to a council to be holden on October 5 at the bridge over the Lodden between Reading and Windsor, and a summons to the chancellor to appear there and answer for his conduct.[166] William retorted by issuing counter writs, summoning all those who had joined the count of Mortain to withdraw from him, “forasmuch as he was endeavouring to usurp the kingdom to himself.”[167]

John and all his party came to the Lodden bridge on the day which they had appointed; the chancellor, who was at Windsor, sent the bishop of London and three earls to excuse his absence on the plea of illness. The outcome of the day’s discussion was that the assembly, by the voice of Walter of Rouen, pledged itself to depose William from the office of chief justiciar. Their warrant was a letter from the king which Walter had brought from Messina, and in which the subordinate justiciars were bidden to obey Walter’s guidance in all things. The party then returned to Reading; there, next day (Sunday, October 6), the bishops among them excommunicated Longchamp and his adherents; at night a message was sent to him, bidding him appear at the bridge next morning without fail; and this he promised to do.[168] John and his friends were resolved to make sure of their game this time. On the Monday morning they took care to be first at the bridge; but instead of waiting for the chancellor, the heads of the party rode forward along the Windsor road as if to meet him, and sent their men-at-arms and servants towards London by way of Staines. Tidings of these movements reached William just after he had set out from Windsor. He at once turned back and rode towards London with all speed, and reached the junction of the two roads at the same time as the men-at-arms of John’s party. A skirmish took place in which John’s justiciar, Roger de Planes, was mortally wounded.[169] While the chancellor made his way into the Tower, John and the barons were following him to London. Next morning (Tuesday, October 8) they assembled at S. Paul’s, renewed their resolution to depose the chancellor, and, in the king’s name, granted to the Londoners their coveted “commune”;[170] whereupon the citizens joined unreservedly with them in voting the deposition of Longchamp and the appointment of Walter of Rouen as chief justiciar in his stead.[171] According to one account, the assembly went still further, and proposed to make John “chief governor of the whole kingdom,” with control of all the royal castles except three which were to be left to the chancellor.[172] As a token that all this was done “for the safety of the realm,” every man present, John first of all, renewed his oath of fealty to the king; and this ceremony was followed by a second oath of fidelity taken by all the rest to John himself, “saving their fealty” [to the king], together with a promise that they would acknowledge him as king if Richard should die without issue.[173]

The barons, the bishops, the justiciars, all London, all England, save a handful of Longchamp’s own relatives, personal friends and followers, was on John’s side; Longchamp himself, besieged in the Tower by overwhelming forces, could not possibly hold it for more than a day or two, and there was no hope of relief. There was, however, still one chance of escape from all his difficulties,—John might be bribed. The project seemed a desperate one, for William had already tried it without success, two days before;[174] yet he tried it again on the Wednesday, and this time he all but succeeded. “By promising him much and giving him not a little, the chancellor so nearly turned the count of Mortain from his purpose that he was ready to withdraw from the city, leaving the business unfinished, had not the bishops of Coventry and York recalled him by their entreaties and arguments.”[175] Next day the chancellor submitted. On the Friday {Oct. 11} he gave up the keys of the Tower and of Windsor; within another fortnight he was reduced to surrender all the other royal castles except the three which had been nominally reserved to him, Dover, Cambridge, and Hereford.[176] Hereupon John ordered him to be released, and allowed him to sail on October 29 for France.[177]