Now, Falkes certainly did not witness the scenes which he here describes. They may have been reported to him by a member of the Council; but we have no guarantee for the reporter’s truthfulness or accuracy, or even for the report having originated elsewhere than in Falkes’s own brain—a brain which, keen as it was in other respects, really seems to have been, from some cause which we cannot fathom, hardly sane on matters in which Stephen de Langton was concerned. The narrative clearly conveys, and is clearly meant to convey, that it was Stephen who instigated the hanging of the garrison; that he did so in veiled language which the young King’s “innocence” at first failed to understand; that Stephen cast the responsibility of explaining it on the Justiciar (whom, it will be remembered, Falkes has all along represented as being hand and glove with the Archbishop); that before even the justiciar could speak, its meaning was made plain by one of three bishops whom the Primate had brought with him into the King’s presence for that very purpose; that the laymen of the Council, less bloodthirsty than the Primate, hesitated to adopt his suggestion and put off the decision till after dinner; and that while all the barons were occupied with that meal, the deed was done behind their backs (of course under orders issued by the Justiciar in the King’s name), Stephen and his three episcopal friends feasting their eyes on the sight. We should certainly require some other authority than Falkes to make us accept this story as he would have his readers accept it. But the main incidents of the story may be true, and only their meaning perverted by the narrator; the outlines of the picture may be correct, and only the colouring false. The Bedford garrison had submitted to the King; they were therefore entitled to be, after doing penance in the usual form, absolved from the excommunication which had been pronounced against them for resisting him. But they had submitted only on compulsion; therefore they were, by the law of the land, still liable to the extreme penalty due to men who were taken fighting against the person of their sovereign. The duty of the prelates towards these prisoners was to enforce their penance and then give them absolution; this the prelates had done; and therewith their part in the Council’s action was at an end. The temporal fate of the prisoners was a question of life or death, and in such questions, it is well known, ecclesiastics had no voice. In a case such as the present one, it was for the King’s lay counsellors to advise him, and for the King to decide; and if, owing to a divergence of opinions among those counsellors or from any other cause, the young sovereign thus called upon to exercise for the first time such a weighty prerogative felt doubtful of its extent or of the right direction in which to exercise it, the Justiciar was the person to whom he should look for guidance. This, and nothing more, is the plain and natural meaning of the words which Falkes places in the mouth of the Primate. In themselves they afford no ground for the interpretation which he evidently wished his readers to put upon them. Some of the barons were still, it seems, leniently disposed towards Falkes; many of them may have been reluctant to send brave soldiers to the gallows; if so, the execution may have been carried out somewhat as Falkes states. His account of the rescue of “some who are still”—i.e., some nine months later—“detained in custody” is easily reconciled with the story told by Matthew Paris and the Dunstable annalist of the three who were given to the Templars. The touch about the four prelates gloating over the ghastly scene may be set down to a fevered imagination.

[INDEX]

RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LTD., BRUNSWICK ST., S.E., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

Transcriber’s Note

An errata slip was included with this book. It reads (footnote numbers have been added in brackets):

ERRATA

P. 39, note 3 [(Footnote 517)], line 6, for “li” read “le”; and line 7, for “walls” read “wall.”

[Pp. 99–102 passim], for “Gaugy” read “Gouy”; and make a corresponding correction in index.

[P. 139], last line, for “Doé” read “Douai.”

P. 148, last line of note 5 [(Footnote 686)], for “13th” read “12th.”

P. 154, note 1 [(Footnote 703)], line 2, for “two” read “three.”

P. 160, line 6 of note [(Footnote 726)], for “later in the summer” read “early next year.”

[P. 212], line 1 of second paragraph, for “twenty-eight” read “twenty-five.”

[P. 225], line 11, for “falx, faulx” read “faus or fauc”.

[P. 291], line 20 of second paragraph, dele “and”; and after “Devizes” insert “and Ralf Gernon that of Corfe.”

These changes have been applied to this text.