The main facts which can be gathered from other sources as to Robert Fitz-Walter’s relations with the king are these. In 1203 he and Saher de Quincy were jointly charged by John with the defence of the castle of Vaudreuil. They surrendered the place to Philip Augustus under circumstances so exceptionally disgraceful that Philip himself felt constrained to make an example of them as cowards and traitors of too deep a dye to be left unpunished, and flung them into prison at Compiègne, whence they were only released on payment of a heavy ransom (R. Wend. iii. 172; R. Coggeshall, pp. 143, 144). “Ex qua re,” adds Ralf of Coggeshall, “facti sunt in derisum et in opprobrium omni populo utriusque regni, canticum eorum tota die, ac generositatis suae maculaverunt gloriam” (cf. Hist. des Ducs, p. 97). Alone, the sovereign whom they had betrayed sought to shield their reputation at the risk of his own. Of course he acted from a motive of self-interest. As neither Robert nor Saher held any lands in Normandy, their money was to Philip more useful than their personal adhesion could have been. But for John the friendship of two barons of such importance in England was worth buying back, and he endeavoured to secure it by treating them with an exaggerated generosity which was evidently designed to impress them by its contrast with Philip’s severity; he issued (July 5, 1203) letters patent declaring that they had surrendered Vaudreuil under a warrant from himself, and ordering that neither they nor its garrison should be made to suffer for their act (Rot. Pat. vol. i. p. 31). Fitz-Walter therefore came back in peace to his English possessions. Like Eustace de Vesci, he joined the host which John gathered for a Welsh war in 1212; like Eustace, too, he withdrew from it secretly on learning that John had received a warning of treason in its ranks (Ann. Waverl. a. 1212); and like Eustace, again, he did not come when summoned to make his “purgation” with the other barons, but, as has been already seen, fled the country instead (W. Coventry, ii. 207; R. Coggeshall, p. 165; R. Wendover, iii. 240). The Barnwell annalist (W. Coventry, [l.c.]) dates the demolition of Castle Baynard, and of Robert’s other castles, after his flight; the Annals of Dunstable place the destruction of Castle Baynard a year earlier, viz. in 1211.

There remains the question: What was the reason for the special mention of Eustace de Vesci and Robert Fitz-Walter in the terms of reconciliation between the Pope and John? At first glance it seems natural to infer that there must have been some peculiar injustice in John’s outlawry of these two men, to make their restoration a matter for intervention on the part of the Pope. But, as has been seen, all the ascertained facts of the case point the opposite way. If indeed Fitz-Walter’s alleged assertion to Pandulf, that he had fled on account of the king’s excommunication, were true, he would naturally be among the “laicis ad hoc negotium contingentibus” (R. Wendover, iii. 248), while the fact that the rest of these lay sufferers seem to have been all of lower rank might possibly account for his being specially mentioned by name. But it was not true; and with regard to De Vesci no such assertion is mentioned. Nevertheless, it is extremely probable that both Fitz-Walter and De Vesci may have contrived to represent to the Pope or his commissioner the cause of their exile in the way in which Fitz-Walter is described as representing his own case to Pandulf; and neither Pandulf nor Innocent could have at his command the means of knowing what all the evidence now available goes to show—that these two men had fled their country and left their property to fall into the king’s hand, not for conscience’s sake, but because their consciences accused them of treason.

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THE END

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Transcriber’s Note