Over sea the king’s partisans were ready to welcome him. At La Rochelle the barons of Aquitaine came crowding to offer him their allegiance.[872] Leaving La Rochelle on February 20, he moved northward to Mervant, in the middle of Lower Poitou. Mervant belonged to Geoffrey de Lusignan; and the king’s visit to this place may have been connected with some negotiations between him and the Lusignan family which were certainly begun soon after his landing in Aquitaine. He next proceeded southward, to the abbey of La Grâce-Dieu on the border of Saintonge; on February 25 he was at Niort.[873] Meanwhile he had opened communications with the men of Périgord and the viscounts of Limoges and Turenne.[874] On March 6 he was back at La Rochelle, whence he sent on the 8th, in letters patent addressed to the “good men” of all the chief cities of England, the following account of his expedition: “Know ye that we and our faithful followers whom we brought with us to Poitou are safe and well, and by God’s grace we have already begun to expedite our affairs to the joy and gladness of our friends and the confusion of our foes. For on the Sunday before Mid-Lent {March 2} we laid siege to the castle of Milécu, which Porteclin de Mausé had fortified against us, and on the following Tuesday {March 4} we took it.”[875] Moving across Saintonge and up the Charente, he reached Angoulême on the 13th, stayed there two days, then advanced eastward to Saint-Junien and Aixe in the Limousin;[876] at Aixe, on March 22, he granted the seneschalship of Limoges to Emeric de Roche, and that of Périgord to Geoffrey Teyson.[877] On Palm Sunday, March 23, he left Aixe, and thence he struck right across the county of La Marche to Saint-Vaury and La Souterraine, on the southern border of Berry; he spent Good Friday and Easter at La Souterraine,[878] and there, on Easter Day (March 30), he received the homage of the count of Périgord.[879] He then re-crossed La Marche and the Limousin—stopping this time for two days at Grandmont, where the monks evidently still had a ready welcome for the son of their old friend King Henry—back to Limoges and Angoulême, Cognac and Saintes; thence, turning southward, he proceeded through Périgord as far as La Réole in the county of Agen. On April 20 he was back at Mausé in Saintonge, and for the next fortnight he was never far from either La Rochelle or Niort; but on May 6 he was at Saint-Léger in Anjou, and it was there that he spent Ascension Day, May 8. Two days later he was again at Niort.[880]
The panegyrist of Philip Augustus asserts that John’s sudden dash into the lands south of Périgord was prompted by dread of Philip, who, “being desirous to meet him” in the field, had hurried to the Poitevin border, and was preparing to cut him off from his fleet. The same writer, however, owns almost in the same breath that “no one knows, ever has known, or ever will know, the way of a serpent, of a ship on the deep, of a feather in the wind, or of a deceiver” such as John; and that Philip dared neither attempt to follow him nor await his return, but hurried back—after burning the rural districts of Poitou—to protect his own interests in Flanders.[881] John’s erratic movements had probably a double purpose: to baffle Philip, and to ascertain the extent of his own resources in the south. Of more real importance than these tentative excursions was a negotiation which he had set on foot with the house of Lusignan, whose alliance and allegiance he proposed to regain by giving the infant Joan, his eldest daughter by Isabel of Angoulême, in marriage to young Hugh of La Marche, as compensation for the loss of Isabel herself. The first preliminary was a truce with the counts of La Marche and Eu; and it was probably this truce which enabled John to pass unmolested through La Marche on his way to and from La Souterraine. The third Lusignan brother, Geoffrey, seems not to have been included in the truce; and when it expired no terms of peace had been agreed upon. “We therefore”—so wrote John to his representatives in England—“on the Friday next before Pentecost {May 16} transported ourself and our army to Geoffrey’s castle of Mervant; and although many believed it impregnable by assault, yet on Whitsun Eve {May 17}, by one assault lasting from daybreak to the hour of prime, we took it by force. On Whitsunday {May 18} we laid siege to another of Geoffrey’s castles, Vouvant, in which was he himself with his two sons; and when we had plied our slings against it continually for three days {May 20}, so that its fall was imminent, the count of La Marche came to us and caused the said Geoffrey to surrender himself to our mercy, with his two sons, his castle, and all that was in it.” Another of Geoffrey’s castles, Montcontour, which lay farther east, close to the Angevin border, was at the same time besieged by Louis of France. The French king seems to have discovered the negotiations of the Lusignans with his rival, and to have been so much alarmed at the prospect of a reconciliation which would deprive him of his best helpers in Aquitaine that he tried to prevent it by offering a son of his own as bridegroom for little Joan; but Joan’s father was too wary to take the French bait. On learning that Louis was at Montcontour, “we,” says John, “at once turned thitherward to meet him; so that on Trinity Sunday {May 25} we were at Parthenay, where the count of La Marche and the count of Eu came to us with the said Geoffrey of Lusignan and did us homage and fealty. And as it had been under discussion between ourself and the count of La Marche that we should give our daughter Joan in marriage to his son, we did so grant it to him, although the king of France asked for her for his own son; but that demand was a trick; for we remembered how our niece was given to the French king’s son Louis, and what was the consequence of that; but may God grant us more profit from this marriage than we have had from that one! And now,” ends the king with a burst of eager anticipation, “by God’s grace there is given us an opportunity to carry our attack upon our chief enemy, the king of France, beyond the limits of Poitou.”[882]
He made good use of his opportunity. Louis had apparently retired from Montcontour at his approach, for we hear nothing of any encounter between them, and within twenty-four hours of his departure from Parthenay John was at Cissé, only a few miles from Poitiers. On Poitiers he made no attempt, but passed on into Berry, into which he penetrated as far north as Chezelles (June 7). Four days later he was at Ancenis, on the border of Anjou and Britanny. The next week was spent in feeling his way towards Angers. From Ancenis, on June 12, he moved up the Loire to St. Florent and Rochefort,[883] thus securing the approach to the city from the west and south. Then, by a master stroke of audacity, he seems to have suddenly made a rapid march westward again, to draw up his forces on June 13[884] within sight of Nantes. The citizens and the French garrison came forth to meet him at the bridge outside the city; in the fight which ensued John’s troops were completely victorious, and twenty French knights were taken prisoners, among them a cousin of the French king, the eldest son of Count Robert of Dreux whose second son, Peter, was now recognized by the French as “count of Britanny” in right of his wife Alice, the half-sister of Arthur and Eleanor.[885] Whether this victory struck terror into the men of Angers, and whether they opened their gates to the victor in consequence, we cannot tell; we only know that on June 17 and 18 John was once more in the original capital of his forefathers.[886] But once more he was compelled by the untrustworthiness of his followers to turn his back upon it, and this time for ever.
The castles in the immediate neighbourhood of Angers were mostly in the hands of John or his friends; there was, however, one important exception—La Roche-au-Moine,[887] where William des Roches, now seneschal of Anjou for Philip Augustus, had lately built a fortress to protect the road between Angers and Nantes against the garrison of Rochefort, whose commandant was a partisan of John.[888] To La Roche-au-Moine John laid siege with all his forces on June 19. The siege had lasted a fortnight[889] when Louis advanced from Chinon to relieve the place, then on the verge of surrender. At the tidings of his approach John sent out scouts to ascertain the strength of the enemy; they returned with the assurance that the English king had an overwhelming advantage in numbers, and was certain to be victorious if he engaged the French in a pitched battle. John was eager for the fight;[890] so, according to the French historiographer-royal, was Louis, who sent to his rival a public challenge, which John as publicly accepted.[891] But the “wonted treachery”—as an exasperated English writer calls it—of the Poitevins overthrew his hopes. According to one account, “the barons of Poitou, disdaining to follow the king, said that they were not ready for a fight in the open field.”[892] According to the French version of the story, the immediate author of John’s discomfiture was the veteran turncoat Almeric of Thouars, who, it seems, addressed John in a most insulting manner, mocking at his eagerness for battle, insinuating that it was mere boastfulness which the king would never carry out in act, and then made it impossible for him to do so, by withdrawing himself and all his followers from the host.[893] Whichever version be the correct one, the consequences were inevitable; John could not risk an encounter with Louis after such a revelation of treason in his own ranks. In rage and grief he broke up the siege {July 2}, and hurried away to the south side of the Loire.[894]
His retreat, however, implied no abandonment of the design which had brought him across the sea. His expedition was only a part of the great combination whereby he hoped to bring Philip Augustus to ruin. Through long years of diplomacy he had knit together a league which included all the powers on the northern and eastern borders of France, and, now that it was at last ready for united action, threatened the very existence of the French monarchy. While John was scouring the country between the Loire and the Dordogne, a formidable host was gathering in Flanders. Earl William of Salisbury was there with a picked band of Englishmen; the Flemish troops under Hugh de Boves who had been serving John as mercenaries in England had been recalled to swell the muster in their native land; Count Reginald of Boulogne and Count William of Holland had joined their forces to those of Ferrand; all alike were soldiers of the king of England, receiving his pay through William of Salisbury, who as John’s representative was Marshal of the whole host. While that host ravaged Ponthieu, the dukes of Brabant and Louvain “with all their might” attacked the north-eastern extremity of the French border, in concert with a certain German count “whom the French called Pelu.” The Emperor Otto was in full sympathy with the allies, helping them indirectly by his “counsel and favour”; at last, when the eastern and western divisions of the composite host had effected a junction, he himself came with a small body of knights to join their ranks.[895]
So skilfully and secretly had the combination been planned that Philip was quite unprepared to meet it. He had sent the greater part of his available forces southward under Louis to check the progress of John. For the moment this had been achieved, not so much by Louis as by the Poitevin traitors. But the check was only momentary; Louis made no attempt to follow John across the Loire; and John was already taking steps to fill the places of the Poitevin deserters with more trustworthy troops. On July 9 he wrote from La Rochelle to “all his faithful men” in England, telling them that he was safe and prosperous, thanking them for the support which they had given him hitherto, and desiring that all those who had not accompanied him over sea would come to his aid now, unless their presence at home was specially required by his representatives in the government. “And if,” he added, “any one of you should think that we have been displeased with him, his surest way to set that matter right is by coming at our call.”[896] France was caught between two fires. The most imminent danger was from the allies who were ready to pour into the realm from the north and east; but Philip, though conscious that the troops which he had at hand were insufficient to cope with this danger, dared not recall Louis while John was still threatening attack from the south. Gathering courage from the extremity of the peril, the French king hastily collected what forces he could—counts, barons, knights, men-at-arms, horse and foot, with the communes of the towns and villages—bade the bishops and clergy, monks and nuns, offer up masses, prayers and alms for the safety of the realm, and marched boldly against the invaders. He met them at the bridge of Bouvines on Sunday, July 27, and routed them completely. Hugh de Boves fled; Otto fled likewise, or was driven from the field; the earl of Salisbury, the counts of Flanders and Boulogne and the German count were made prisoners, together with Otto’s seneschal and a crowd of other knights. The great coalition which had cost John so many years of diplomacy and such vast sums of money to build up was shivered into fragments at a single blow.[897]
Philip re-entered Paris in triumph with his captives,[898] and then marched southward to unite his victorious army with that of his son.[899] Against the whole military forces of France, thus concentrated and in their present mood of exalted patriotism and enthusiastic loyalty, John was still eager to continue the war; in the middle of August Peter des Roches was trying to secure the fulfilment of an order from the king for three hundred Welshmen to join him over sea before the end of the month.[900] But another power stepped in to check the hostilities between the kings. Innocent III. was planning a new crusade, and the first necessity for his purpose was the restoration of peace in Europe. As early as April 22 he had urged both the kings, on pain of ecclesiastical censures, to cease from the strife which was hindering the work to be done in the Holy Land and imperilling the safety of Christendom, and to make at least a truce till after the meeting of a general council,[901] the date of which he had already fixed for All Saints’ Day 1215.[902] The English-born cardinal who was now legate in France, Robert Curson, seems to have urged the barons who were with John to persuade him to agree to a truce for nine days, with a view to arranging a personal interview between John and Philip.[903] The French king had advanced as far as Loudun, where he received the submission of Almeric of Thouars and several other Poitevin barons. John was some seventeen miles off, at Parthenay, “having,” says Philip’s biographer, “no place to flee unto, and not daring either to stay where he was, or to offer battle.”[904] To offer battle at that moment, with the legate and the barons all urgent for peace, would indeed have been madness; so on August 30 John signified his assent to a cessation of hostilities for a fortnight from the next day, if the legate would ensure its observance on the French side.[905] On September 3 John withdrew to Saint-Maixent; thence he went on the 9th to Niort; on the 12th he returned to Parthenay,[906] and there, on the 13th, he, by letters patent, pledged himself to ratify whatever terms nine envoys, whom he named, should agree upon with Philip.[907]
These envoys were supported by the legate in person; “and,” says William the Breton, “although the high-souled King Philip, having in his army two thousand knights and more, besides a multitude of other troops, could easily have seized the whole land and the person of the king of England, yet with his wonted benignity he granted a truce.”[908] In England Philip was reported to have yielded either to the authority of the Pope, or to the attraction of sixty thousand marks offered to him by John.[909] We may doubt whether either of these motives, or all of them united, would have proved effectual, if the complete overthrow and capture of his rival had really been as easy as the Breton court-historian imagined. The truce was dated from September 18, and was to last for five years from the next Easter, 1215. The conditions were that each party should retain its prisoners; that the oath sworn to Philip by the towns of Flanders and Hainaut should be recognized as valid; that Philip, his men, and his adherents should hold throughout the time of the truce whatever they held on the day of its commencement; and that any disputes which might arise should be settled at certain appointed places by the sworn arbitrators of the truce, who were eight in number, each of the kings being represented by two laymen, an abbot and a secular priest. The maltôte or tax levied by each king on the adherents of his rival was to be given up if John, its originator, consented to renounce it; if not, Philip claimed the right to continue it likewise. Frederic of Sicily was to be included in the truce as an ally of Philip, and Otto as a friend of John, if they chose to be so included; if otherwise, then Philip was to be at liberty to assist Frederic and John to assist Otto, within the boundaries of the empire, without violating the peace between themselves.