Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II Part 27

Philippe Auguste's voice was the only one uplifted in favor of Arthur, but it was merely as a means of obtaining a bribe, which John administered in the shape of the county of Evreux, as a marriage-portion for his niece, Blanche, the eldest daughter of Eleanor Plantagenet, Queen of Castile. John, though half-married to various ladies, had no recognized wife, and to give her to Louis, the eldest son of the King of France, would therefore, as John hoped, separate France from the interests of the Breton prince. He little thought what effect that claim would have on himself! Queen Eleanor, though in her seventieth year, travelled to Castile to fetch her granddaughter, a beautiful and n.o.ble lady, innocent of all the intrigues that hinged on her espousal, and in whom France received a blessing.

Philippe Auguste brought young Arthur to this betrothal, and caused him to swear fealty to his uncle for Brittany as a fief of Normandy. Arthur was now thirteen, and had newly received the order of knighthood, adopting as his device the lion, unicorn, and griffin, which tradition declared to have been borne by his namesake, and this homage must have been sorely against his will. He was betrothed to Marie, one of the French King's daughters, and continued to reside at his court, never venturing into the power of his uncle.

His mother, Constance, had taken advantage of this tranquillity to obtain a divorce from the hated Earl of Chester, and to give her hand to the Vicomte Guy de Thouars; but the Bretons appear to have disapproved of the step, as they never allowed him to bear the t.i.tle of Duke. She survived her marriage little more than two years, in the course of which she gave birth to three daughters, Alix, Catherine, and Marguerite, and died in the end of 1201.

Arthur set off to take possession of his dukedom, and was soon delighted to hear of a fresh disturbance between his uncle and the King of France, hoping that he might thus come to his rights.

John had long ago fallen in love with Avice, granddaughter of Earl Robert of Gloucester, and had been espoused to her at his brother's coronation; but the Church had interposed, and refused to permit their union, as they were second cousins. He was now in the south of France, where he beheld the beautiful Isabelle, daughter of the Count of Angouleme, only waiting till her age was sufficient for her to fulfill the engagement made in her infancy, and become the wife of Hugh de Lusignan, called _le brun_, Count de la Marche, namely, the borders of English and French Poitou. Regardless of their former ties, John at once obtained the damsel from her faithless parents, and made her his queen; while her lover, who was ardently attached to her, called upon the King of France, as suzerain, to do him justice.

Philippe was glad to establish the supremacy of his court, and summoned John to appear. John promised compensation, and offered as a pledge two of his castles; then broke his word, and refused; whereupon Philippe took up arms, besieged the castles, and had just destroyed them both, when Arthur arrived, with all the Breton knights he could collect, and burning with the eagerness of his sixteen years.

At once Philippe offered to receive his homage for the county of Anjou, and to send him to conquer it with any knights who would volunteer to follow him. Hugh de Lusignan was the first to bring him fifteen, and other Poitevin barons joined him; but, in all, he could muster but one hundred knights and four or five hundred other troops, and the wiser heads advised him to wait for reinforcements from Brittany. The fiery young men, however, asked, "When was it our fas.h.i.+on to count our foes?"

and their rashness prevailed. Arthur marched to besiege the town of Mirabeau, where there resided one whom he should never have attacked--his aged grandmother; but Constance had taught him no sentiment toward her but hatred, and with this ill-omened beginning to his chivalry he commenced his expedition.

The town was soon taken: but Eleanor's high spirit had not deserted her; she shut herself up in the castle, and contrived to send intelligence to her son. John was for once roused, and marched to Mirabeau with such speed, that Arthur soon found himself surrounded in his turn. The Queen was in the citadel, the prince in the town, besieging her, and himself besieged by the King on the outside; but the town wall was strong, and John could not easily injure his nephew, nor send succor to his mother.

He recollected a knight named Guillaume dos Roches, who had once been attached to Arthur's service, but was now in his camp; and sending for him, the wily King thus addressed him: "It is hard that persons who should be friendly kindred should so disturb each other for want of meeting and coming to an understanding. Here is Eleanor, my honored mother, discourteously shut up in a tower in danger of being broken down by engines of war, and sending forth nothing but cries and tears. Here is Arthur, my fair nephew, who some day will be an honor to chivalry, going straight forward, fancying nothing can hurt him, looking on battles as feasts and sports. And here am I, John, his lord and King, who could easily take from him at a blow all the rest of his life; I am waiting, and endeavoring to spare him, though his men-at-arms may come and catch me like a fox in the toils. Cannot you find some expedient?

Can you remember no friend of my fair nephew who could help you to restore peace, and obtain a guerdon from me?"

"The only guerdon I desire," replied Des Roches, "is the honor of serving my lord; but one gift I entreat."

"I grant it, by the soul of my father," said John.

"To-morrow, then," said Des Roches, "the young Duke and all his young lords shall be at your disposal; but I claim the gift you granted me. It is, that none of the besieged shall be imprisoned or put to death, and that Duke Arthur be treated by you as your good and honorable nephew, and that you leave him such of his lands as rightfully pertain to him."

John promised, and even swore that, if he violated his word, he released his subjects from their oaths. Arthur's stepfather, Guy de Thouars, witnessed the agreement, and, thus satisfied, Des Roches introduced his troops into the town at midnight, and Arthur and his followers were seized in their sleep. But for John's promise, he regarded it no more than the wind; he sent twenty-two knights at once to Corfe Castle, chained two and two together in carts drawn by oxen, where all but Hugh de Lusignan were starved to death by his orders. He threw the rest into different prisons, and closely confined his nephew at Falaise. Des Roches remonstrated, upon which John attempted to arrest both him and De Thouars, but they escaped from his dominions; and Des Roches was so grieved at the fatal consequence of his treachery, that he became a hermit, and ended his life in penance.

The old Queen, whose disposition had softened with her years, charged John, on pain of her curses, not to hurt his nephew, and exerted herself to save the victims from barbarity. She prevailed so far as to obtain the life of Lusignan; but he was shut up at Bristol Castle, where John likewise imprisoned the elder sister of Arthur, Eleanor, a girl of eighteen, of such peerless beauty that she was called the Pearl of Brittany. John held a parley with his nephew at Falaise, when the following dialogue took place; [Footnote: These particulars are from old chronicles of slight authority.]

"Give up your false pretentions," said John, "to crowns you will never wear. Am I not your uncle? I will give you a share of my inheritance as your lord, and grant you my friends.h.i.+p."

"Better the hatred of the King of France!" exclaimed the high-spirited boy; "he has not broken his faith, and with a n.o.ble knight there is always a resource in generosity."

"Folly to trust him!" sneered John. "French kings are the born enemies of Plantagenets."

"Philippe has placed the crown on my brow--he was my G.o.dfather in chivalry--he has granted me his daughter," said Arthur.

"And you will never marry her, fair nephew! My towers are strong; none here resist my will."

The boy burst out proudly: "Neither towers nor swords shall make me cowardly enough to deny the right I hold from my father and from G.o.d.

He was your elder brother, now before the Saviour of men. England, Touraine, Anjou, Guienne, are mine in his right, and Brittany through my mother. Never will I renounce them, but by death."

"So be it, fair nephew," were John's words, and with them he left his captive alone, to dwell on the horrors thus implied.

Soon after, John secretly sent a party of men into Arthur's dungeon, with orders to put out his eyes. The youth caught up a wooden bench, and defended himself with it, calling so loudly for help as to bring to the spot the excellent governor of the castle, Hubert de Burgh, who had been in ignorance of their horrible design. He sent away the a.s.sa.s.sins, and, as the only means of saving the poor prince, he caused the chapel bell to be tolled, and let it be supposed that he had perished under their hands. All the world believed it, and Brittany and Normandy began to rise, to call the murderer to account. Hubert thought he was doing a service in divulging the safety of the prisoner, but the effect was, that John transferred the poor boy to Rouen, and to the keeping of William Bruce.

He was an old man, and dreaded the iniquity that he saw would soon be practised; and, coming to the King, gave up his charge in these words: "I know not what Fate intends for your nephew, whom I have hitherto faithfully kept. I give him up to you, in full health, and sound in limb; but I will guard him no longer; I must return to my own affairs."

John's eyes flashed fury; but the baron retired to his own fiefs, which he put in a state of defence. A few days after, John and his wicked squire, Pierre de Maulac, left the court, giving notice that he was going to Cherbourg, and, after wandering for three days in the woods of Moulineau, came late at night in a little boat to the foot of the tower where Arthur was confined. Horses were ready there, and he sent Maulac to bring him his nephew.

"Fair nephew," said he, "come and see the day you have so long desired.

I will make you free as air: you shall even have a kingdom to govern."

Arthur began to ask explanations, but John cut him short, telling him there would be time for questions and thanks; and Maulac helped him to his horse, for he was so much weakened by his imprisonment that he could hardly mount. They rode on, Arthur in front, till they came to a spot where the river flowed beneath a precipitous bank. It was John's chosen spot; and he spurred his horse against his nephew's, striking him down with his sword. The poor boy cried aloud for mercy, promising to yield all he required.

"All is mine henceforth," said John, "and here is the kingdom I promised you."

Then striking him again, by the help of Maulac he dragged him to the edge of the rock, and threw him headlong into the Seine, whose waters closed over the brave young Plantagenet, in his eighteenth year, ending all the hopes of the Bretons. The deed of darkness was guessed at, though it was long before its manner became known; and John himself marked out its consummation by causing himself to be publicly crowned over again, and by rewarding his partner in the crime with the hand of the heiress of Mulgrave. His mother, Queen Eleanor, is said to have died of grief at the horror he had perpetrated. She had retired, after the siege of Mirabeau, to the convent of Fontevraud, where she a.s.sumed the veil, and now shared the same fate as her husband, King Henry--like him, dying broken-hearted for the crimes of their son. She was buried beside him and her beloved Coeur de Lion.

The Bretons mourned and raged at the loss of their young duke. His sister Eleanor was wasting her youth and loveliness in a prison, which she only left, after her oppressor's death, to become a nun at Ambresbury; and they therefore proclaimed as their d.u.c.h.ess her little half-sister, Alix de Thouars, who was, at four years old, presented to the States in her father's arms, and shortly after married to an efficient protector, Pierre de Dreux, called, from his quarrels with the clergy, Mauclerc.

Never had the enemy of the Plantagenets been so well served as by King John. Such was the indignation and grief of the whole French n.o.blesse, that, when Pope Innocent III sent out a legate to mediate between the two kings, the barons bound themselves by a charter, "to second their lord, King Philippe, in his war against King John, notwithstanding the will of the Pope, exhorting him to contrive it without being dismayed by vain words, and agreeing to give him all a.s.sistance, and enter into no treaty with the Pope save with his consent."

Finding his n.o.bles in this disposition, Philippe ventured on an unprecedented step, namely, that of summoning the King of England, as his va.s.sal for Normandy and Anjou, to answer for the crime done on the person of his nephew, before his peers, namely, the other great crown va.s.sals and barons holding fiefs directly from the King.

John did not deny the competence of the court of peers, and sent Hubert de Burgh, and Eustace, Bishop of Ely, to declare that he would willingly appear, provided a safe-conduct was sent to him. Philippe declared that he certainly might come in safety; but when they asked if he guaranteed his security, supposing he was condemned, he replied, "By all the saints of France, no! That must be decided by the peers." The bishop declared that a crowned head could not be tried for murder; the English barons would not permit it. "What is that to me?" said Philippe. "The Dukes of Normandy have certainly conquered England; but because a va.s.sal augments his domain, is the suzerain to lose his rights?"

Two months were allowed for John's appearance in person; and on the appointed day the a.s.sembly was held in the Louvre: the n.o.bles in ermine robes, and the heralds paraded the public places, calling on King John to appear and answer for his felony; then, as no reply was made, judgment was p.r.o.nounced that his fiefs of Normandy, Anjou, and Poitou, were forfeited to the Crown, Guienne alone being excepted, as its heiress, his mother, was not at that time dead.

The execution followed upon the sentence: Philippe instantly marched into Normandy, and seized upon towns, his flatterers said, as if he caught them in a net. Chateau Gaillard, however, held out for more than a year, and Philippe was forced to blockade it. It had been fortified to perfection by Richard, who termed it his beautiful Castle on the Rock, and pertinaciously defended by Roger de Lacy. All the non-combatants were driven out; but the French would not allow them to pa.s.s through their lines, and they lived miserably among the rocks, trying to satisfy their hunger with the refuse of the camp. One wretched man was found gnawing a piece of the leg of a dog, and when some compa.s.sionate French tried to take it from him, he resisted, declaring he would not part with it till he was satisfied with bread. They fed him, but he could hardly masticate, though swallowing his food ravenously.

One tower was at last overthrown, and another was gained by a bold "varlet," named Bogis, who was lifted on the shoulders of his comrades, till he could climb in at an undefended window, where he drew up sixty more with ropes. They burnt down the doors, and entered the castle, where only one hundred and fifty knights remained alive. Keeping them at bay, Bogis lowered the drawbridge, and admitted the rest of the army; the remains of the garrison retreated into the keep, still resolved not to surrender, though battering-rams, catapults, and every engine of war was brought to bear on them. A huge piece of wall fell down, still there was no surrender; but with night, all resistance ceased, and the French, entering in the morning, found every one of the garrison lying dead in the dust and ruins, all their wounds in the face and breast--not one behind, "to the great honor and praise of chivalry," said their a.s.sailants, who rejoiced in their valor.

Only one feeble attempt had been made by John to succor these n.o.ble and constant men, though no further distant than Rouen, where he was feasting with his new queen. All his reply to messages of Philippe's advance was, "Let him alone; I will regain more in a day than he can take in a year."

Chinon was taken after a gallant defence, and in it Hubert de Burgh, for whom John seems to have had an unusual regard. For a moment it grieved him, and he awoke from his festivities to say to his queen:

"There, dame, do you hear what I have lost for your sake?"

"Sire," said Isabella, who had learnt by this time at how dear a price she had purchased her crown, "on my part, I lost the best knight in the world for your sake!"

"By the faith I owe you, in ten years' time we shall have no corner safe from the King of France and his power!"

"Certes! sir," she answered, "I believe you are very desirous of being a king checkmated in a corner."

She seems to have taken every occasion of showing her contempt for the mean-spirited wretch to whom she had given her hand: but at present her treatment only incited the King's ardor of affection: he formed more schemes of pleasure for her, and turned a deaf ear to all complaints from his deserted subjects, until Falaise had surrendered, Mont St.

Michael was burnt, and Rouen itself was threatened. Then he took flight, and returned to England, where he made his Norman war a pretext for taxes; but when the Rouennais citizens, who still had a love for the line of Rollo, came to tell him that they must surrender in thirty days unless they were succored, he would not interrupt his game at chess to listen to them; and, when it was finished, only said, "Do as you can: I have no aid to give you."

They were therefore forced to surrender, Philippe swearing to respect their rights and liberties; and thus, after three hundred years, did the dukedom that first raised the Norman line to the rank of princes pa.s.s from the race of Rollo, disgracefully forfeited by a cowardly murder.

The four little isles of Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, and Sark, are the only remnant of the duchy won by the Northman. They still belong to the Queen, as d.u.c.h.ess of Normandy, are ruled by peculiar Norman laws, and bear on their coinage only the three lions, without the bearings of her other domains.

Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, were won by the French, without one blow struck in their defence by Ingelger's degenerate descendant, "whose sinful heart made feeble hand." The recovery of his continental dominions served as a pretext for a tax of every tenth s.h.i.+lling; but this being illegal, Geoffrey, the Archbishop of York, refused to consent to, and threatened excommunication to all in his diocese who should pay it. John vowed vengeance, and placed his life in such danger that he was forced to flee from the country, and his death abroad saved the King from the guilt of the murder of a brother.

With the money John had raised, he levied a force of Brabancons and free-companions, entered Anjou, burnt Angers, and besieged Nantes; but on hearing of Philippe's advance, retreated, and thus ended all hopes of his regaining his inheritance. The Norman barons, whose lands had pa.s.sed to the French, told him that, if their bodies served him, their hearts would be with the French, and, for the most part, transferred their allegiance, and he remained with his disgrace. Thus was Arthur avenged.

CAMEO XXVI. THE INTERDICT. (1207-1214.)