1215–16
A third body of troops sent by Louis had arrived in London at the end of February,[1181] and a letter had been received from Louis himself, announcing that “by God’s grace” he would “most certainly” be at Calais ready to cross on Easter Day, April 10.[1182] Encouraged on the one hand by this assurance, on the other the Londoners had been stirred into a mood of dangerous defiance by tidings from Rome. On December 16, 1215, the Pope renewed his condemnation of the barons in such a manner that it could no longer remain what circumstances had made it hitherto, a dead letter. He excommunicated the rebels, this time not merely in general terms, but mentioning thirty-one of them by name; he also placed the city of London under interdict, and he appointed the abbot of Abingdon and two other commissioners to execute this mandate.[1183] It seems to have reached England about the end of February 1216.[1184] The commissioners sent it to all the cathedral and conventual churches for immediate publication, and it was soon published everywhere except in London. There the clergy of S. Paul’s, the barons and the citizens all alike rejected it and appealed against it, declaring that it had been obtained by “false suggestions, and was therefore of no account, more especially as the ordering of lay affairs pertained not to the Pope.”[1185] This last assertion seems ridiculous in the mouths of the barons, who scarce twelve months before had professed pride in having compelled the king to surrender to the Pope the temporal overlordship of England. It was in a spirit of mingled rage at the downfall of the expectations which they had once founded upon that surrender, and revived hope of speedy help from France, that the revolutionists who held the capital met the king’s threat of attack. The citizens opened their gates and arrayed themselves “ready to go forth and fight with him if he should approach within ten leagues of the city.”[1186] Advancing slowly and cautiously, he reached Enfield on the last day of March;[1187] on the following night he seems to have slept at Waltham Abbey, “seven little English leagues from London.”[1188] But he came no nearer. Savaric de Mauléon, venturing on a closer approach, was caught at unawares and barely escaped with heavy loss of men and with a wound of which he all but died; a band of “pirates” who attempted to block the Thames were all either slain, drowned or captured by the Londoners; and evil tidings came from the north how the rebels there had risen anew, laid siege to York, and pressed it so hard that the citizens had been compelled to purchase for a thousand marks a truce till Trinity Sunday.[1189] From Enfield the king passed round by Berkhamsted to Windsor and Reading, and thence went south into Hampshire.[1190]
Of the northern rising we hear no more, but it seems to have proved a failure, for before April 12 three of the chief northern barons, Eustace de Vesci, Robert de Ros and Peter de Brus, offered to return to the king’s service on one condition—that he would allow them to do so without a fine. John’s answer was as politic as it was dignified. “What we desire to have from our barons,” he wrote, “is not so much money as their good and faithful service”; and he sent the three petitioners a safe-conduct to come and speak with him on their own terms.[1191] On the previous day he had given orders that the mayor of York should be “competently provided” out of the lands of the king’s enemies “for his good and faithful service which he did to the king,”[1192] no doubt in the defence of the city during the recent siege. The mayor’s loyalty and the king’s promptitude in rewarding it illustrate a feature of John’s home policy which is traceable through all the vicissitudes of his career: his interest in the towns and the trading classes, and his constant endeavours to cultivate their friendship. All the while that he was harrying the open country, burning villages and plundering castles, he was making careful provision for the furtherance of trade, the security of travelling merchants[1193] and the preservation of foreign commerce from disturbance or interruption. With a French invasion close at hand, he was still issuing safe-conducts to French merchants in London and elsewhere.[1194] For this, indeed, there may have been a political reason; John was anxious to keep on good terms with France in order to counterwork the schemes of the barons in that quarter. He had lately sent an embassy to try whether Philip Augustus could by any means be induced to forbid his son’s proposed expedition.[1195] One of the envoys at least, William the Marshal, was back by Easter,[1196] the day which Louis had fixed for his own departure. That day passed and Louis came not—hindered, it seems, by contrary winds.[1197] About this time John sent a letter to Louis himself, signifying his willingness to amend any injury which Louis might have received at his hands;[1198] and on April 28 he wrote to the guardians of the truce in France proposing that they should hold a meeting with his proctors for the settlement of all disputes which had arisen from infractions of the truce.[1199]
1216
By that time the projected expedition of Louis had assumed an aspect very different from that which it had worn when first suggested by the English barons in the previous autumn. Philip as well as Louis was naturally tempted by what looked like a golden opportunity for annexing England to France; but he was held back by the dread of offending the Pope, who had no sooner heard of the scheme than he despatched a legate, Gualo, with instructions to proceed to France and England for the express purpose of forbidding it. Philip saw that to make his son’s project tolerable in the Pope’s eyes, and therefore safe in those of his own feudataries, he must invent for it some more plausible excuse than the flimsy pretence of election by the excommunicate English barons. He had made out an elaborate case in behalf of Louis and planned his own course of action with characteristic wariness and skill, by the time that Gualo arrived in the spring of 1216. On April 25 the legate was publicly received at Melun[1200] by the French king, to whom he presented the Pope’s letters desiring that Philip would not permit his son to invade England or to molest the English king in any way, but rather that he would protect and assist John as a vassal of the Roman Church. Philip answered at once: “The realm of England never was S. Peter’s patrimony; it is not so now, and never shall be. John was convicted long ago of treason against his brother Richard, and condemned by the judgement of Richard’s court; therefore John was never rightfully king, and had no power to surrender the kingdom. Moreover, if he ever was rightfully king, he afterwards forfeited his right to the crown by the murder of Arthur, for which he was condemned in our court. And in any case no king or prince can give away his realm without the consent of his barons, who are bound to defend it.” This last proposition was loudly applauded by the French magnates. Next day a second meeting took place. Louis, according to a previous arrangement with his father, came in after the rest of the assembly and seated himself by his father’s side, scowling at the legate. Gualo, without appearing to notice his discourtesy, besought him “not to go to England to invade or seize the patrimony of the Roman Church,” and again begged Philip to forbid his doing so. “I have always been devoted and faithful,” answered Philip, “to the Pope and the Roman Church, and by my counsel and help my son will not now attempt aught against them; yet if Louis claims to have any rights in the realm of England, let him be heard, and let justice be done.” On this a knight whom Louis had appointed as his proctor rose and set forth the case thus: “My Lord King, it is well known that John, who is called king of England, was in your court by sentence of his peers condemned to death for treason against his nephew Arthur, whom he had slain with his own hands, and that he was afterwards rejected by the barons of England from reigning over them by reason of the many murders and other enormities which he had committed there; wherefore they began war against him, that they might drive him from the throne without hope of restoration. Moreover, the said king, without the consent of his magnates, made over the realm of England to the Pope and the Roman Church, to receive it back from them for an annual tribute of a thousand marks. Although he could not give the crown of England to any one without consent of the barons, yet he could resign it; and when he resigned it he ceased to be king, and the throne was vacant. Now a vacant throne ought not to be filled save by consent of the barons; wherefore the barons elected the Lord Louis on account of his wife, whose mother, the queen of Castille, was the sole survivor of all the brothers and sisters of the English king.”
With this ingeniously-woven tissue of perverted truths and dressed-up lies it was obviously impossible for Gualo to deal on the spur of the moment. He evaded the point at issue by pointing out that John had taken the cross, and was therefore entitled to be left unmolested till his vow of crusade was fulfilled. Louis’s proctor retorted that John had made war upon Louis both before and after taking the cross, and that Louis was therefore justified in retaliating. Gualo, without further argument, again forbade Louis to invade England, and his father to suffer him to do so, under pain of excommunication. Louis turned to his father: “Sire, although I am your liegeman for the fief which you have given me on this side of the sea, yet concerning the realm of England it appertaineth not to you to decree anything; wherefore I submit me to the judgement of my peers whether you ought to forbid me to prosecute my right, and especially a right concerning which you cannot yourself do me justice. I beseech you therefore not to hinder me, since for my wife’s heritage I will fight, if need be, even unto death.” With these words he left the assembly. Gualo made no remark, but simply asked the king for a safe-conduct to the sea, that he might proceed on his mission to England. “I will gladly give you a safe-conduct through my own domains,” answered Philip; “but should you chance to fall into the hands of any of my son’s men who are guarding the coast, blame me not if evil befall you.” The legate departed in a rage. As soon as he was gone, Louis returned, asked and received his father’s blessing on his enterprize, despatched messengers to Rome to lay his case before the Pope, and himself went to collect his forces at Calais.[1201]
On April 14 John had ordered twenty-one coast towns to send all their ships to the mouth of the Thames.[1202] On the 17th he bade the sheriffs throughout England make a proclamation calling upon all persons who had been in arms against the king to join him within a month after the close of Easter (April 24), on pain of forfeiture for ever.[1203] On the 20th he returned to Windsor; thence he went through Surrey back to Rochester;[1204] on the 25th—the day of the council at Melun—he issued from Canterbury orders to the soldiers then at Rochester to follow him immediately “wheresoever he might be.”[1205] He reached Canterbury that night, Dover on the morrow, and spent the next three weeks flitting up and down along the coast of Kent,[1206] watching for the arrival of both Gualo and Louis, and superintending the gathering of the fleet and the preparation of the coast towns for defence. The Cinque Ports were again pledged, by oaths and hostages, to his service. Yarmouth, Lynn, Dunwich and other sea-ports sent their ships to the muster[1207] at Dover. As soon as it was complete, the king intended to sail with his whole fleet to Calais and block up Louis in the harbour, “for he well knew,” says a contemporary, “that the little vessels which Louis had could not defend themselves against his ships, which were so large; one of his ships was well worth four of those of Louis.” But towards evening on May 18 a storm arose and swept over the fleet as it lay off Dover, and by the morning the ships were so broken and scattered that all hope of bringing them together again was lost.[1208] On the night of the 20th Louis set sail from Calais. Next morning the watchmen on the shore of Thanet saw some of his ships in the distance; they sent word to the king, who was at Canterbury, on the point of setting out to meet the legate, of whose arrival at Romney he had just been apprised. He told the messengers from Thanet that what had been seen were not the enemy’s ships, but some of his own which the storm had driven out to sea. But his words were only spoken to encourage his followers; in his heart he knew that the watchmen were not mistaken. He seems to have ridden only a few miles towards Romney when he met Gualo, clad in his scarlet robes as cardinal, and mounted on a white palfrey, as beseemed the representative of the Pope. King and legate dismounted and embraced. John at once told Gualo that Louis had arrived; Gualo pronounced the invader excommunicate, and rode with John into Canterbury.[1209]
Louis meanwhile had landed at Stonor almost alone; the greater part of his fleet did not even come in sight till the next day, Sunday, May 22. John had now hurried to Sandwich; thence he saw with his own eyes the approach of the hostile fleet as it sailed past the mouth of Pegwell Bay. To prevent its reaching the shore was impossible; the only question was whether he should encounter the French host as soon as it had disembarked and stake everything upon a pitched battle. The trumpets were sounded, the troops arrayed; but as he rode up and down along the shore surveying their ranks his heart sank within him.[1210] They were, almost to a man, mercenaries and foreigners, most of them born subjects of the French king; what if, when the fight was at the hottest, they should go over in a body to their fellow-countrymen and their own king’s son? The risk was too grave to be faced; it was better to withdraw than to court an encounter so likely to prove fatal.[1211] Such was the counsel given to John by one of the few Englishmen still at his side, the wisest and truest of them all, William the Marshal.[1212] For a while John hesitated; then, as was his wont in moments of disappointment and distress, he stole away in silence, and had galloped a league on the road to Dover before the greater part of his men knew that he was gone.[1213] Leaving Dover under the charge of Hubert de Burgh, with a strong garrison and ample provisions,[1214] and appointing the earl of Warren warden of the Cinque Ports,[1215] he made his way through Sussex to Winchester, where he remained watching the course of events during the next ten days.[1216]
The first act of Louis after landing his troops was to issue a manifesto to the English clergy, setting forth, in somewhat more blunt terms than he had ventured to use in presence of the legate at Melun, his pretensions to the English Crown, and exhorting those whom he addressed not to be persuaded into thwarting his endeavours “for the good of the English Church and realm” by anything that they might hear from Gualo, whom he represented as having no just grounds for opposition to him, and as having been brought to England “by the suggestions and bribes” of John.[1217] He then, after seizing a few English ships which had put in at Sandwich after the storm, and plundering the town, marched upon Canterbury. The citizens admitted him without resistance;[1218] Gualo fled from his lodgings in S. Augustine’s abbey; the abbot, who was John’s foster-brother, alone refused all submission to the invader.[1219] From Canterbury Louis proceeded to Rochester, where he was joined by his men from London.[1220] The mighty fortress which had cost John a siege of nearly two months surrendered to Louis in less than a week, on Whit Monday, May 30.[1221] Already the forebodings of the king and the Marshal were more than justified; John’s mercenaries were deserting, and not only those barons who had been recently preparing, or pretending to prepare, to return to their allegiance, but even many of those who had hitherto seemed loyal to him, now joined the leaders of the revolution in doing homage to the invader.[1222] On Whitsun Eve (May 28) Gualo had rejoined the king at Winchester,[1223] after issuing a citation to the English bishops and clergy to meet him there “in aid of the king and the kingdom.” On Whit Sunday, in their presence, he excommunicated Louis by name, together with all his followers and adherents, whose lands, as well as the city of London, he laid under interdict.[1224] The sentence was disregarded; on June 2 Louis entered London;[1225] the citizens welcomed him joyously, and the canons of S. Paul’s received him with a procession in their cathedral church.[1226] Next day he received the homage of the barons and citizens, headed respectively by Robert Fitz-Walter and the mayor, William Hardel.[1227] He then swore on the Gospels “that he would restore to all of them their good laws and their lost heritages,” and wrote to the king of Scots and all the English magnates who had not yet joined him “bidding them either come and do him homage, or quit the realm of England without delay.”[1228]
On June 6 Louis started from London[1229] to seek out his rival at Winchester,[1230] but he was already too late; John had quitted Winchester the day before,[1231] leaving it, with its two castles, under the command of Savaric de Mauléon.[1232] Louis’s first day’s march from London brought him to Reigate, which he entered without opposition, the earl of Warren having withdrawn his garrison from the castle. The royal castle of Guildford surrendered on the 8th, Farnham, which belonged to the see of Canterbury, on the 10th.[1233] On the 14th Louis reached Winchester.[1234] Savaric de Mauléon was, it seems, under orders to rejoin the king when he saw the enemy approaching the city and had completed his preparations for its defence. With the idea, doubtless, of checking the entrance of the foe, he, or some of his followers, set fire to the suburb before he left it. Unluckily the flames spread into the city and laid half of it in ashes. Defence became impossible, and the French marched in to take undisputed possession.[1235] John and Savaric had, however, left a strong garrison in the “chief castle”[1236] at the west end of the city; the bishop’s stronghold of Wolvesey too, at the eastern end, was well provided with defenders, among whom was one of the king’s sons, a young squire named Oliver.[1237] For ten days Louis plied his engines against the “chief castle”; then on June 24 Savaric returned with a licence from the king to negotiate for its surrender and that of Wolvesey. The garrisons were suffered to withdraw, and Louis gave the city into the custody of the count of Nevers.[1238]