In the ten days of the siege Louis had gained something besides Winchester. Before the castles surrendered “there came thither to his will” four of “the greatest and most powerful men in England of those who stood by the king”—the earls of Warren, Arundel, Albemarle and Salisbury.[1239] Albemarle was a turncoat whose adhesion was too uncertain to be of much value to either party;[1240] but the other three had hitherto been steadfast in their loyalty, and Salisbury, moreover, was half-brother to the king.[1241] Still the invader did not seem much nearer to the attainment of the crown which he coveted. From Winchester he went to Porchester,[1242] and thence to Odiham; both places surrendered to him, but the latter cost him a week’s siege, though its garrison consisted only of three knights and ten men-at-arms {July 9}, who of course marched out with the honours of war, “amid the great admiration of the French.”[1243] The conflicting claims and mutual jealousies of his French and English followers were already a source of trouble. The office of marshal of the host, held by Adam de Beaumont, who was marshal to Louis in France, was claimed as an hereditary right by Earl William of Pembroke’s eldest son; Louis transferred it to him “as one who durst not do otherwise, for if he gave it him not, he deemed he should lose the hearts of the English.” Young William the Marshal further claimed the castle of Marlborough, which had been voluntarily surrendered to Louis by Hugh de Neville. Louis, however, bestowed it on his own cousin, Robert of Dreux; whereat the young Marshal “was very angry.” The French followers and continental allies of Louis were already weary of an expedition which they doubtless saw would bring them little honour and less gain. The count of Holland had taken the cross and hurried home to prepare for his crusade. Soon afterwards a number of the men of Artois departed to London and thence took ship for their own land; and before they could reach it they had to beat off “the English in their boats” who attacked them at the mouth of the Thames. Louis himself, after an unsuccessful attempt to make terms with the legate, returned to London,[1244] seemingly about the middle of July.
While Louis was in Hampshire, the barons whom he had left in London, with some of his French troops, overran the eastern counties; they sacked some of the towns, ravaged the country, exacted “tenseries” everywhere, and returned “laden with countless booty and spoils.”[1245] Another party, under Gilbert de Gant and Robert de Ropesley, had been charged by Louis to check the excursions whereby the baronial castles in the neighbourhood of Nottingham and Newark were being reduced to ashes, and the baronial lands around them to subjection, by the garrisons of those two royal fortresses. Gilbert and Robert took the city of Lincoln and laid a tax on the whole of Lindsey; but Lincoln castle was too strong for them, so they went on to invade Holland, which they ravaged and likewise placed under tribute. A third body of troops under Robert de Ros, Peter de Brus and Richard de Percy was meanwhile conquering Yorkshire for Louis;[1246] and Alexander of Scotland had again set out “with all his host, except the Scots from whom he took money,” to renew the siege of Carlisle.[1247] This, like all other sieges of that famous fortress, proved a long and wearisome business; Alexander, however, relieved its tediousness by expeditions into the counties of Northumberland and Durham. He had no purpose now of conquering them for himself; his aim was simply to join hands with the other invader. The Scot king was the natural ally of the English king’s adversary.
Thus by the end of July the power of Louis extended from the Channel to the Scottish border, but not without some important breaks. The castles of the bishopric of Durham were still held for John by Hugh de Balliol and Philip de Ulecotes.[1248] The stranger’s hold upon the south coast was precarious in the extreme so long as Dover, the “key of England,” defied him under Hubert de Burgh; and Windsor at once threatened his hold upon London, and barred his way to the Midlands and the West. These were the districts in which John counted upon making good his defence. Throughout June, while Louis was in Hampshire, John was perambulating Wiltshire and Dorset, personally seeing to the fortification and replenishing of the fortresses in those two shires, planning schemes and giving orders for the security of the royal castles in all parts of his realm, and issuing instructions to their custodians how to act in every possible contingency.[1249] Diplomacy went hand in hand with military precautions. Overtures were made to Reginald de Braose, the deadliest of John’s personal foes, and one of those who had most influence on the western border, for his return to allegiance at the price of the restoration of his heritage.[1250] Safe-conducts were offered to “all who might choose to return to the king’s service” through the intervention of certain appointed persons.[1251] A temporary submission to the invader’s demand of “tenserie” was formally sanctioned in special cases where it was clear that resistance would be ineffectual at the moment.[1252] Help was again sought from over sea; on June 2 the town of Bayonne was desired to send its galleys “for the annoyance and confusion of our enemies.”[1253] John’s own movements indicate that he, very naturally, expected Louis to follow up his conquest of Hampshire by an attack on the western shires. It was obviously with this expectation, and with the double purpose of putting the border in a state of defence and securing for himself a refuge at need, that soon after the middle of July he began to advance northward from Sherborne to Bristol, Berkeley, Gloucester, Tewkesbury and Hereford, reaching Leominster on the last day of the month.[1254] He was at the same time negotiating with some of the Welsh chieftains for their aid and support;[1255] and on August 2 he was actually on Welsh soil, at Radnor. That night, however, he was again in England, at Kingsmead; thence he moved on to Clun, Shrewsbury and Whitchurch. On the 11th he turned southward again; he reached Bridgenorth on the 14th, and stayed there till the 16th, when he went back to Worcester for one night; next day he was at Gloucester.[1256] A letter written on the 19th from Berkeley shows that these movements were dictated by the belief that Louis was preparing an attack upon Worcester and Hereford.[1257] This fact illustrates one of the greatest difficulties of medieval warfare, the difficulty of obtaining correct information as to the whereabouts and movements of the adversary. Louis, at the moment when John was thus anxiously looking out for him in the west, had been for nearly four weeks absorbed in the siege of Dover.
According to Matthew Paris, Philip Augustus had taunted his son with not understanding his business as a commander-in-chief, because he was attempting to conquer England without first securing its key.[1258] At any rate Louis, soon after his return to London, perceived that his hold on the country would never be assured till Dover and Windsor were both in his hands. On July 25 he set out for Dover,[1259] and a day or two later the counts of Dreux and Nevers, with some English barons, laid siege to Windsor.[1260] Of this latter party the Flemish soldier-chronicler of the war says, “Long were they there, and little did they gain.”[1261] They in fact sat before the place for nearly two months in vain.[1262] The siege of Dover proved longer still, and for many weeks bade fair to be equally unprofitable. Many of Louis’s followers went back over sea to their homes, “so that the host dwindled marvellously.”[1263] On August 8, however, the town—not the castle—of Carlisle surrendered to Alexander;[1264] and he at once began to move southward for the purpose of joining Louis. Still a whole month elapsed before the junction was effected. On his way the Scot king stopped to besiege Barnard castle, held by Hugh de Balliol for John. The siege appears to have been unsuccessful, and it cost the life of one of the foremost leaders of the baronial party in the north, Eustace de Vesci.[1265] Some of the other northerners were now helping Gilbert de Gant at the siege of Lincoln castle. This time its constable, Dame Nicola de Haye,[1266] bought off her assailants, who thereupon united their forces to those of Alexander.[1267] The combined host seems to have reached Kent about the second week in September.[1268] Louis went to meet Alexander at Canterbury, brought him back to Dover,[1269] and there received his homage for the lands which he held of the English crown.[1270]
Meanwhile John had at last learned the truth as to his adversary’s movements, and was acting on the information. Gathering a numerous host from the garrisons of the western castles, which he now saw to be out of danger, and from his old allies the Welsh,[1271] he marched up on September 2 from Cirencester to Burford, spent the three following days at Oxford, then struck across the Thames to Wallingford, and on the 6th appeared at Reading. From the 8th to the 13th he fixed his quarters at Sonning.[1272] His advance looked as if intended for the relief of Windsor; he did in fact approach so near that castle that its besiegers “thought they were going to have a battle.” His Welshmen “came by night to shoot into the host, and gave them a great fright. They were a long time armed to await the battle, but they did not get it, for the king retired, I know not by what counsel,” says the Flemish chronicler.[1273] John had in truth never intended to attack them; his real “counsel” is given us by the English writers—his aim was the eastern counties, where he purposed to intercept the Scot king on his homeward journey, and to punish the local landholders and owners of castles for their submission to the invader.[1274] The relief of Windsor he probably hoped to effect by other means, if there is any truth in the assertion of some English chroniclers that the count of Nevers was secretly in his pay.[1275] It may have been for the purpose of communicating with Nevers, as well as for that of frightening Nevers’s companions and reconnoitring the district, that the king lingered in Berkshire. On September 15 he suddenly struck northward from Walton-on-Thames to Aylesbury and Bedford; next day he went on to Cambridge.[1276] The immediate consequence was the relief of Windsor; its besiegers were no sooner assured of his departure from their neighbourhood than they struck their tents, set fire to their military engines, and hurried in pursuit of him. They hoped to overtake him at Cambridge; but, warned by his scouts, he escaped in time, on the night of September 17. A dexterous movement southward to Clare and Hedingham threw his pursuers off the track, and another rapid march brought him to Stamford before they reached Cambridge.[1277] They avenged their disappointment by harrying Cambridgeshire—this was the second, if not the third, harrying which that unhappy county had suffered within four months—carried their spoils back to London, and then proceeded to join Louis at the siege of Dover.[1278]
The count of Nevers was immediately sent off again to escort the Scot king safely homeward as far as Cambridge.[1279] Thence Alexander made his way towards Lincoln, which Gilbert de Gant, with a few followers, had continued to occupy after the other barons had abandoned the siege of the castle.[1280] John meanwhile had gone from Stamford to Rockingham; thence, on September 21,[1281] he set out to begin the work for which he had come from the west. The story of that day and the next, as told by Matthew Paris—how the king went first to Oundle and thence to the other manors of the abbey of Peterborough, burning the houses and barns; how he passed on to Crowland and bade Savaric de Mauléon fire the abbey church and the village while he himself stood at a distance to watch the blaze; how Savaric yielded to the monks’ prayer for mercy, and accepted from them, as the price of their escape, a sum of money which he brought back to John, and how the furious king, after overwhelming his too placable lieutenant with abuse, helped with his own hands to fire the harvest-fields, running up and down amid the smoke and the flames till the whole territory of S. Guthlac was a blackened desert[1282]—whether its details be literally exact or not, pictures vividly the mood of the tyrant. It is little wonder that when the tidings of his advance reached Lincoln {Sept. 22}, Gilbert and his men “fled before his face, dreading his presence like lightning.”[1283] They probably fled into the Isle of Axholme, for from Lincoln John went by way of Barton[1284] and Scotter to Stowe, where he stayed three days {Sept. 26–28}, and whence he appears to have sent his mercenaries across the Trent to ravage the Isle with fire and sword. He returned to Lincoln on the 28th, to find that Alexander had spent two or three days there in his absence,[1285] and had slipped past him into Yorkshire. John, however, was less eager for the capture of “the little sandy fox” than for vengeance upon the English rebels. From Lincoln northward to Grimsby, and thence south again to Spalding, the Lincolnshire fields—now, at the beginning of October, all white to harvest[1286]—were given to the flames, and the houses and farm-buildings sacked and destroyed by the terrible host with the king at its head.[1287] On October 9 he appeared before Lynn;[1288] here the townsfolk, like most of their class throughout England, were on his side, and they gave him not only a joyous welcome, but a substantial contribution in money.[1289] He committed the custody of the town and the duty of fortifying it to Savaric de Mauléon,[1290] whom on September 30 he had sent back to Crowland to “seek out and capture the knights and men-at-arms, enemies of the king, who were hiding in secret places” among the fens around the monastery. Savaric had “failed to find those whom he sought”; but he had dragged some fugitives out of sanctuary in the abbey, and brought back a valuable spoil of flocks and herds to his master at Lynn.[1291]
Louis had now been besieging Dover for more than two months, and had made no progress at all. The strength of the castle, the skill and valour of Hubert de Burgh and the hundred and forty knights who, with the usual complement of men-at-arms, constituted its garrison, were more than a match for all his forces. He swore that he would not quit the place till he had hanged every man within its walls;[1292] but even the fall of one of its towers seemed to have brought him no nearer to effecting an entrance.[1293] He could only turn the siege into a blockade, and wait till starvation should accomplish the work in which battery and assault had failed. In the country at large he was distinctly losing ground. Throughout the summer he had been set at nought in Sussex by a young Flemish adventurer called William of Casinghem, who, “scorning to do him homage, gathered together a thousand bowmen, lodged in the wilderness and woods with which that country abounded, and gave the French great trouble all through the time of war, slaying many thousands of them.”[1294] On September 2 John wrote a letter of encouragement to an association extending through Sussex, Kent, Surrey and Hampshire, composed of persons whom he describes as “sworn and confederate together for fealty and service to ourself,” although they had been compelled against their will to swear allegiance to his rival. The “barons”—that is, the citizens—of Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Romney, Winchelsea, Rye, Pevensey, Shoreham and Portsmouth, who had also, under compulsion, taken the oath to Louis, had likewise assured John of their devotion to himself, and were in return assured of his favour; while the men of Seaford had resisted all the pressure put upon them by their lord, Gilbert de Laigle, to forsake their allegiance, and were on September 3 warmly thanked by John for their loyalty.[1295] Soon after the beginning of the siege of Dover Louis was joined from over sea by the count of Perche, and in September or October by Peter of Britanny; the arrival of this last, however, brought no real gain, for as soon as Peter reached England, his brother, Robert of Dreux, returned to France. Louis’s English partizans, too, were falling away. Earl William of Albemarle offered his repentance and his services to John, who of course “forgave him most kindly.”[1296] Of yet greater importance was the return to allegiance of William of Salisbury; it was he who, in conjunction with Falkes de Bréauté, captured or put to flight a body of Louis’s adherents who were besieging Exeter.[1297] At last, however, a gleam of light fell across the gloomy prospects of the French party. Towards the middle of October Hubert de Burgh and his lieutenant, Gerard de Sotinghem, felt that they could not hold out much longer, and asked for a truce, that they might send to John either for succour, or for leave to surrender the castle. The truce was granted, and on the 14th the siege of Dover was suspended.[1298]
The crisis had come; it had, however, really come not on the cliffs of Kent, but on the shores of the Wash. Sumptuously entertained by the burghers of Lynn, John, who—unlike most of his race—was a notorious glutton, feasted till his excesses brought on a violent attack of dysentery[1299] which he himself seems to have recognized as the beginning of the end. One of the latest entries on the Patent Rolls of his reign is probably significant of the remorse awakened in him, for one at least of his many crimes, by the terror of approaching death; on October 10 he granted to Margaret, wife of Walter de Lacy, some land in the royal forest of Acornbury, that she might build thereon a religious house for the souls of her father, mother and brother[1300]—William, Maud and the younger William de Braose. He could not rest; ill as he was, he moved next day {Oct. 11} from Lynn to Wisbeach; and early on the following morning {Oct. 12} he set out again. “Like a swiftly advancing storm,” before which all men fled, he swept northward to the mouth of the Welland, and thence in his impatience set out to cross the Wash without waiting either for the ebb of the tide or for any one who knew the way to guide him across the treacherous soil, covered as it was with brackish water. Suddenly the whole host, while struggling with the waves, felt the ground opening beneath its feet. The king himself and a part of his troops with difficulty reached the further shore; the rest of his followers and the whole of his baggage train, with all his treasure and his lately gathered spoils, men, horses, arms, tents, provisions, “everything in the world that he held most dear, short of his own life,” went down into the quicksand.[1301] When at night he reached Swineshead abbey, rage and grief threw him into a fever, which he aggravated by supping greedily on peaches and new cider.[1302] With great difficulty he made his way on the 14th to Sleaford.[1303] There he was found, probably on the 15th, by the messengers whom Hubert de Burgh had sent from Dover to seek him. Their tidings brought on a fresh access of fever, which bleeding failed to relieve.[1304] Nothing could check his restlessness; that night or next morning {Oct. 15–16} he set out for Newark, and in spite of grievous bodily suffering, he set out on horseback. He had, however, ridden only three or four miles, “panting and groaning,” when increasing sickness compelled him to dismount, and he bade his followers make him a litter in which he might travel more easily. There was no workman to make it, and nothing to make it of; all that his men could do was to cut down with their swords and knives the willows by the roadside, weave them together as best they might, and throw a horse-cloth over them. This litter, without cushions or even straw to relieve its hardness, had for want of carriage-horses to be either slung between some of the high-mettled destriers of the knights, or carried on the shoulders of the men. Its shaking and jolting soon proved intolerable: “This accursed litter has broken all my bones, and well-nigh killed me,” cried the king in an agony of pain and rage. Matthew Paris quotes a French rime concerning the sons of Henry II. which thus foretold their fate: “Henry, the fairest, shall die at Martel; Richard, the Poitevin, shall die in the Limousin; John shall die, a landless king, in a litter.” The prediction was all but fulfilled; John, however, gathered up strength and spirit enough to avoid a literal fulfilment of its closing words, and to ride “on an ambling nag” into Newark.[1305]
For three days {Oct. 16–18}, in the bishop of Lincoln’s castle whose ruins still look down upon the Trent, the king lay dying. The abbot of Croxton, who was skilled in medicine, attended him as his physician,[1306] and also ministered to his soul, for he persuaded him to confess his sins and receive the Holy Communion.[1307] Then the one natural affection traceable in John’s character broke out in anxiety for his two little sons, especially for the elder of them, to whom the crown must devolve. He solemnly declared Henry his heir, made those around him take an oath of fealty to the boy, and sent letters to the sheriffs and the constables of the royal castles, bidding them look to him as their lord.[1308] He had already, on October 15, before leaving Sleaford, dictated a letter entreating for Henry the special protection of the Pope.[1309] He now appointed Peter de Mauley guardian of his younger son Richard, whom he had apparently left under Peter’s charge in Corfe castle. There was but one man in England to whom he could confidently entrust the guardianship of the heir to the throne. “Before he died, he sent word to William the Marshal, the earl of Pembroke, that he placed his eldest son, Henry, in God’s keeping and his, and besought him for God’s sake that he would take thought for Henry’s interest.”[1310]