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CHAPTER VII
JOHN LACKLAND
1215–1216

Dicitur ... “Sine Terra,” quia moriturus nil terrae in pace possedit.

M. Paris, Hist. Angl. vol. ii. p. 191.

1215

The Pope’s letters evidently did not reach England till after the primate and the bishops had set out for Rome, so that there was no one left to publish the new sentence; and it seems, in fact, never to have been published in England at all. But its existence soon became known there; and when once the barons knew of it, they knew, too, that they must make their choice between unconditional surrender and war to the uttermost with both king and Pope; for there was no one left to act as their mediator with either. They chose war; but they were not ready for war, and the king was. Poitevins, Gascons, Brabantines, Flemings, were flocking to him from over sea.[1097] On October 2 he ordered his brother, Earl William of Salisbury, to visit ten royal castles and select from their garrisons troops for service in the field. On the 4th he committed the superintendence of military affairs in mid-England and the west to Falkes de Bréauté, and issued a general safe-conduct to “all who may wish to return to our fealty and service” through the medium of Falkes or the earl.[1098] He himself had, towards the end of September, advanced as far inland as Malling;[1099] but this seems to have been merely a sort of reconnoitring expedition; his plan evidently was to wait till all his expected reinforcements had arrived from over sea, and then march with them upon London, while William and Falkes did the same with the troops which they could bring up from the west, so as to place the capital between two fires. While his forces were concentrating, those of the barons were scattering; they had no scheme of united action; one party had renewed the siege of Northampton castle, another was engaged in that of Oxford.[1100] At last the leaders in London decided that something must be done to bar John’s way to the capital; and they advanced into Kent as far as Ospring. When they reached it John was at Canterbury; having only a small escort he, on hearing of his enemies’ approach, hurriedly fell back to Dover; they, however, were so scared by a report that he had set out from Canterbury to offer them battle that they beat an equally hasty retreat towards Rochester.[1101] Their great fear was lest he should gain possession of Rochester castle, which he had vainly tried to induce the archbishop to give up to him two months before.[1102] On October 11 Reginald of Cornhill, in whose charge Stephen had left it, suffered it to be occupied by a band of picked knights under William of Aubigny. But the triumph of the intruders was shortlived; two days later the king was at the gates of Rochester.[1103]

“Certes, sire,” said one of John’s Flemish allies as the royal host set out for Rochester, “you make little account of your enemies if you go to fight them with so small a force!” “I know them too well,” answered John; “they are to be nothing accounted of or feared. With fewer men than we have we might safely fight them. Certes, one thing I may tell you truly, I grieve not so much for the evil which the men of my land are doing to me, as that their wickedness should be seen by strangers.”[1104] The king knew what the stranger did not know, that so long as he could keep the Medway between himself and the main body of the barons he was safe. He therefore began his operations by an attempt to destroy the bridge, and thus to cut off the communications between Rochester and London. It seems that he sent a party up the river in boats to fire the bridge from beneath, and that they succeeded in so doing, but that Robert Fitz-Walter, with a picked body of knights and men-at-arms, was guarding the bridge at the time and managed to extinguish the flames and drive off the assailants.[1105] Fitz-Walter, however, appears to have immediately returned to London;[1106] and in a second attack on the bridge John was completely successful; the bridge was destroyed, and the king proceeded to invest the castle[1107] and assault the town.