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
