Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

C >> Charlotte Mary Yonge >> Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

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"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 friendship."

"Better the hatred of the King of France!" exclaimed the high-spirited
boy; "he has not broken his faith, and with a noble 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 godfather 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 God.
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 assassins, 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 assumed 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 duchess 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 noblesse,
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 assistance, and enter into no
treaty with the Pope save with his consent."

Finding his nobles in this disposition, Philippe ventured on an
unprecedented step, namely, that of summoning the King of England, as
his vassal for Normandy and Anjou, to answer for the crime done on the
person of his nephew, before his peers, namely, the other great crown
vassals 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 vassal 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 assembly was held in the Louvre: the nobles 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 pronounced 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 pass 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 compassionate 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
assailants, who rejoiced in their valor.

Only one feeble attempt had been made by John to succor these noble
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 pass
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 Duchess 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 shilling; 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 passed
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.)

_King of England._ 1199. John. _King of Scotland_ 1163. William. _King
of France_ 1180. Philippe II. _Emperors of Germany._ 1208. Otho IV.
1209. Friedrich III. _Pope._ 1198. Innocent III.

The election of bishops still remained a subject of dispute in the
Church, in spite of the settlement apparently effected in the time of
Archbishop Anselm, when it was determined that, on the vacancy of a see,
the King should send a _Conge d'elire_ (permission to elect) to the
chapter of the cathedral, generally accompanied with a recommendation,
and that the prelate should receive investiture from the Crown of the
temporalities of his see. However, in the case of archbishoprics, the
matter was complicated by the right of the bishops to have a voice in
the choice of their primate, and by the custom of the Pope's presenting
him with a pall, which the grasping pontiffs of the thirteenth century
would fain have converted into a power of rejection. At each election to
Canterbury the debate broke out, enhanced by the jealousies between the
secular clergy, who often formed the majority of the bishops, and who
usually held with the sovereign, and the regular monks of St. Augustine,
who were the canons of the cathedral, and looked to the Pope.

Richard, who succeeded Thomas a Becket, was a monastic priest, mild, and
somewhat time-serving, conniving at irregularities, and never apparently
provoked out of his meekness, except by the perpetual struggle for
precedence with the see of York--and no wonder, when, at a synod at
Westminster, Roger, Archbishop of York, fairly sat down in his lap on
finding him occupying the seat of honor next to the legate. Upon this
the Pope interfered, pronouncing the Archbishop of York, Primate of
England, and him of Canterbury, Primate of all England; but the jealousy
as to the right of having the cross carried before them in each other's
provinces continued for centuries to a lamentable and shameful degree.

Baldwin, who succeeded him, seems to have been secular, but little is
known of him. He, with the consent of Richard Coeur de Lion, laid the
foundation of a convent at Lambeth, which he intended as a residence for
the primate, in order to lessen the preponderance of the canons of St.
Augustine; he then accompanied the King on the Crusade, and died of
fever before the walls of Acre.

Walter Hubert, Bishop of Salisbury, was also a Crusader, and a great
friend of Richard, who, from his imprisonment, wrote letters to point
him out as archbishop--a favor which he returned by great exertions
in raising the King's ransom. He was a completely worldly and secular
priest, continually giving umbrage to his chapter, who used to complain
of him to the Pope, and obtain censures, of which he took no heed. When
Richard made him Grand Justiciary, they declared that it was contrary
to all rule for him to be judge in causes of blood; whereupon the Pope
ordered the King to remove him from the office, but without much effect.
Sharing Richard's councils, he had the same dislike to Constance and her
son, and willingly crowned John, making a dangerous and disloyal speech,
in which he pronounced the kingdom elective, and to be conferred on the
most worthy of the royal family. He accepted the chancellorship from
John, and was so fond of boasting of its riches and dignities, that he
drew on himself a rebuke from Hugh Bardolfe, one of the rude barons. "My
Lord, with your leave, if you would consider the power and dignity
of your spiritual calling, you would not undertake the yoke of lay
servitude." But, unchecked by this rebuke, he gave offence to John by
foolishly trying to vie with the King in the richness of the raiment
given at Christmas to his retainers--an affront to John which a
sumptuous feast at Easter could not efface.

The chief grievance to the Augustine chapter at Canterbury was the
new foundation at Lambeth; they dreaded that Becket's relics might he
translated thither, and they never ceased appealing to Pope Innocent
III. till they had obtained an order for its demolition. This dispute
made them more than ever bent on an archbishop of their own choice.

Hubert died at Canterbury, July 18th, 1205, and the younger monks were
misled by party-spirit into the attempt to steal a march on the rest.
They assembled on the night of his death, and elected their sub-prior
Reginald, conducted him to the cathedral, placed him on the
archiepiscopal throne, and hurried him off in secret to Rome, with
strict injunctions not to divulge his election till he had obtained
confirmation of it from the Pope.

Reginald was as imprudent as might have been expected from his
acceptance of a dignity thus conferred; he had no sooner crossed the
sea, than he began to boast of his rank as archbishop-elect. These
tidings coming back to England, his own supporters were ashamed of him,
and, willing to have their transaction forgotten, joined with their
elders, the bishops, and the King, in appointing John de Gray, Bishop of
Norwich, a man apparently of the same stamp as Hubert, as he was one of
the Justiciaries, and little attentive to the affairs of his diocese.
Twelve of the canons of St. Augustine were despatched to Rome to explain
the affair to the Pope, offer him a present of 12,000 marks, and obtain
the pall for Gray.

The Pope examined into the subject, and pronounced, of course,
Reginald's election null, and Gray's also null, because made before the
former claim had been disposed of. The twelve canons were therefore to
make a fresh election, and as this had been foreseen before they left
home, the King had bound them by oath to choose no one but Gray.
Innocent might justifiably object to such a person, but his proceedings
were in accordance with the violent and domineering spirit which
actuated him. His nominee was an Englishman named Stephen Langton, a
learned man, who had taught in the University of Paris, of which he was
now chancellor; he had been recommended from thence to Innocent, who had
given him high office at Rome, and made him a cardinal. His life was
irreproachable, and he was deeply learned in the Scriptures, which it
is said he was the first to divide into verses. To so distinguished and
excellent a person Innocent hoped no objection could arise; and when
the canons of St. Augustine demurred as to their oath, and the King
and chapter's right, he silenced their scruples by threats of
excommunication, and they all, excepting one named Elias de Braintefeld,
concurred in appointing Langton and enthroning him, singing _Te Deum_
while Elias stood at the door.

Innocent wrote to John two letters. The first was merely complimentary,
and contained four rings, with explanations of their emblematic meaning.
Their circular form signified eternity; their number, constancy; the
emerald was for faith; the sapphire for hope; the red granite for
charity; the topaz for good works. In his other letter, he recommended
Langton to the King, dwelling on his many high qualities, on which John
himself had previously complimented him.

A good archbishop was the last thing John desired, especially a man of
high spirit and ability, who would act as a restraint on him, and he
refused to receive the letters. The chapter of Canterbury, however,
confirmed the election, and the Pope, after waiting in vain for an
answer from the King, consecrated Stephen Langton at Viterbo, June 17th.

John certainly so far had the advantage that his opponents had placed
themselves in the wrong, but as no one could outdo him in that respect,
he instantly fell on the unfortunate monks of Canterbury, and declaring
them guilty of high treason, sent two of his most lawless men-at-arms
and their followers to drive them out of the country. At the same time
he wrote to the Pope that he was astonished at his thus treating a
country that contributed so largely to the papal revenues; that he was
resolved to support Gray's election, and that he was determined that
Langton should never set foot in England.

Innocent remonstrated in vain, declaring that this should never be made
a precedent for interference with future appointments. John held out,
and at length the Pope availed himself of the power ascribed to him, to
force the King to compliance, by declaring his country under the ban of
the Church.

It is said that, in the midst of the horrible confusion that followed
the death of Charlemagne, the idea of such an expedient had first
arisen. In the Synod of Limoges, the Abbot Odolric had proposed that,
till the nobles should cease from their ravages, the churches should be
stripped of their ornaments, the mass not be celebrated, no marriages
take place, and the abstinence of Lent be observed. This universal
mourning had brought the ferocious nobles to a sense of their guilt, and
more peaceful times had succeeded, so that an interdict was considered
as one of the mightiest weapons in the armory of the Church.

Only a few years before, Innocent had, by an interdict on the kingdom of
France, forced Philippe Auguste to put away Agnes de Meranie, whom he
had married in the lifetime of his lawful wife Ingeberge. Then (if ever)
it was properly employed, to enforce morality; but it was a different
thing to lay a whole nation under the ban of the Church merely for a
dispute respecting an appointment.

Innocent sent orders to the bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, to
publish the interdict on the Monday of Passion week, 1208 (the second
before Easter). They went to the King, and besought him to be reconciled
with the Pope, and avert this dreadful edict. He grew pale with rage,
foamed at the mouth, and threatened them furiously; swore at the clergy,
drove them from his presence, and issued orders that his officers
should seize, the property of every man who paid any attention to the
interdict. "If you, or any of your body, dare to lay my states under
interdict, I will send you to Rome, and seize your goods; and if I catch
one Roman priest in my realms, I will cut off his nose and put out his
eyes, that all may know he is a Roman!"

Nevertheless, on the appointed day it was pronounced by the three
prelates, according to the appointed form.

At night the clergy assembled, each bearing a torch, and with one voice
chanted the _Miserere_, and other penitential psalms and prayers, while
the church-bells rang out the 'broken funeral-knell. Veils were hung
over the crucifixes, the consecrated Wafer of the Host was consumed by
fire, the relics and images of the saints were carried into the crypts,
and then the bishops, in the violet robes of mourning used on Good
Friday, announced to the frightened multitude, in the name of Heaven,
that the domains of John, King of England, were laid under the ban of
the Church until he should have rendered submission to the Holy See.
Every torch was then at once extinguished, in token that the light of
the Gospel was denied them!

Thenceforth every church was closed; no bell pealed forth, no mass was
offered, no matins nor vespers were sung. Only the dying were permitted
to communicate, but their corpses were laid in the ground with maimed
rites; infants were baptized, but their mothers were churched only in
the churchyard, where on Sunday a sermon was preached, and on Good
Friday the cross was carried out and exposed for the veneration of the
people.

The monasteries were allowed to carry on their services, on condition
that they did so with closed doors, admitting no one from without; and
the Cistercian order considered it as their privilege to be exempt, and
to open their churches for worship as usual. Neither did the King's
favorite, Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, nor De Gray himself,
choose to acknowledge the interdict, so that the services continued as
usual in their sees, and in many single parishes. These were the only
two bishops in England; for the three who proclaimed the interdict
had at once to flee for their lives, and the others, few in number at
present, soon followed them. De Gray being soon after sent as deputy to
Ireland, Des Roches was the sole bishop left to all England.

The King made light of it; and when, in the chase, he killed an
unusually fat buck, he said, laughing, "Here is a fellow who has
prospered well enough without ever hearing matins or vespers." But he
was much enraged; he imprisoned the relatives of the fugitive bishops,
and announced himself ready to drive every priest who should obey the
interdict out of the kingdom, to be maintained, as he said, by the Pope.
The Archdeacon of Norwich experienced his cruelty for consulting with
his brethren on enforcing it. The Angevin soldiers seized him, and
soldered on his neck a cope of lead, so that he perished in prison under
its weight, and from hunger.

Afterward, however, some terror seized on John, and he ordered his
officers to allow the bishops enough to provide them two dishes of meat
each day, while the secular clergy were to receive as much as should be
adjudged needful for their support by four sworn men of their parish.
Moreover, the man who, by word or deed, abused any of the clergy, should
forthwith be hanged upon an oak!