CHAPTER XXIV
A DESPERATE EXPEDIENT
It was the Christmas of 1215; and the barons, cooped up in London, andnot daring to venture beyond the walls, were almost in despair, andlistened with unavailing regret to reports of the devastation wrought bythe royal army on its march northward, and with dread to the sound ofthe spiritual artillery which Pope Innocent directed against them.However, they, as well as the citizens, celebrated Christmas withunusual festivity, and appeared anxious to show the king and hispartisans that they were not to be cast down by adversity, and toconvince the pope and the legate that they did not tremble before thethunders of Rome.
Nevertheless, Robert Fitzwalter and his confederates were sadlydisheartened by all that was taking place, and in mortal terror of whatmight take place in London, if John turned his face towards the capital;and Falco, and Manlem, and Soltim, and Godeschal had an opportunity ofstabling their steeds at Baynard’s Castle and the Tower, and quarteringtheir men among the worthy citizens who had proved such good friends inthe day of need to “the army of God and of the Church.”
Moreover, it was the reverse of flattering to Fitzwalter and De Vesci,and De Clare and De Roos, and the Bigods and Bohuns, to find that, afterall, they had been fooled and humbled by a king whom they had not onlydisliked but despised; and wounded pride and vanity whispered constantlyto each that it would be better to adopt any expedient likely to lead totheir relief from the perplexity of the present, than trust to thecourse of events and the chapter of accidents. Nevertheless, it was notvery easy to discover a ready and short way out of their multitudinousdifficulties, and they spent many days in anxious debate and somewhatunmanly lamentations. Naturally enough, different opinions wereexpressed, and there was much variance; but nobody could refuse to admitthat something must be done, and that quickly; and at length theyarrived at a resolution which, to say the least of it, was unpatriotic,imprudent, and unfortunate.
At that period, Philip Augustus, no longer young, was still occupyinghimself with the projects which he had conceived in youth for renderingFrance the great monarchy of Europe, and of all men he was the likeliestto lend an attentive ear to any proposal for humbling the house ofPlantagenet; and it happened that Louis, the son of Philip by his firstwife, Isabel of Hainault, had, in 1200, espoused Blanche of Castile,daughter of King Alphonso, the conqueror of Muradel, by Eleanor,daughter of our second Henry. Louis, who was now in his twenty-ninthyear, cannot be described as one of the great princes of the Capet line,though he rated himself very highly, owing to inheriting, through hismother, Isabel, the blood of Charlemagne; and chroniclers, wishing to becomplimentary, have been content to call him “the son of an able father,and the father of an excellent son.” But the barons were not in aposition to be very nice when in search of a puppet, and nobody, at allevents, could deny that Louis of France, the heir of Hugh Capet andCharlemagne, was also the husband of Blanche of Castile, and that hermother was a princess of the blood royal of England; so the barons, intheir perplexity, seem to have considered her claim to the crown ofEngland quite good enough to serve their purpose, and to have believedthat they could not do better, all things taken into account, than callher and her husband to the throne which her maternal grandsire hadoccupied. It is true that some dozen persons, male and female, actuallystood before Blanche of Castile in the legal order of succession; butthe barons were in no humour to make nice distinctions, or to befastidious as to genealogies; and early in the year 1216, while KingJohn was ravaging the North with his mercenaries, they actuallydespatched Fitzwalter and De Quency as ambassadors to invite PrinceLouis, the heir of Philip Augustus, to land in England and takepossession of the crown which, with a fine disregard of facts, theyrepresented as his wife’s rightful inheritance.
To a man of ambition the prize was certainly tempting, and had therebeen no more serious obstacle to encounter on the way to it than John’sarmy of foreign hirelings, Philip Augustus would have urged his son tograsp at it resolutely, and to hold by it tenaciously. But Philip, whohad fought side by side with the English in the Holy Land, and face toface with them in Normandy in the days of Cœur-de-Lion, understoodwhat kind of people they were, and well knew that, whatever theAnglo-Norman barons and the citizens of London might say, the English asa nation would never submit to the rule of a foreigner, and thatforeigner a French prince. Besides, he could not overlook the fact thatJohn was under the especial protection of the pope; and he could notforget that, years before, when he suffered excommunication for marryingAgnes de Méranie, and vainly attempted to resist the power of Rome, hehad learned to his severe experience how good a friend and how terriblea foe the pope could be to one of the sovereigns of Europe. It was nopleasant retrospect, but it was instructive.
Much more caution was, therefore, observed in the matter by the court ofParis than the barons had expected, or than they relished; but theinvitation was by no means declined. On the contrary, Louis seems tohave relished the prospect of reigning over England, and to have thoughthis royal sire somewhat too cautious. In any case, a little fleet ofFrench ships reached the Thames in February, with several French knightson board, who brought assurances that, by Easter, Louis would be atCalais to embark for England, and that he only asked the barons to sendhim their sons or nephews as hostages for the fulfilment of their partof the covenant.
Probably the barons and the Londoners were not very well pleased with somuch hesitation and delay. But they had gone too far to recede, andevery day, while making their position more desperate, added to theaversion which the barons had always felt towards the king. Besides, theaccounts which were given of the cruelties exercised by John in theNorth were such as could not fail to add greatly to his unpopularity,and every citizen who met his neighbour in the market-place, or gossipedwith him across the street from the house-tops, had something horribleto relate of what was going on in York and Northumberland. One told howthe king was in the habit, after lodging during the night in any house,of setting fire to it before he took his departure next morning; asecond told how on such occasions he had not only set fire to the house,but ordered the host to be hanged at his own door-post; and a third toldthat in the royal army the king had a number of Jews, whom he made theinstruments of his cruelties. Such stories, constantly repeated, andlosing nothing in the telling, ere long made the king so odious that thecitizens and populace of London began to regard the evil of calling in aforeign prince to make himself master of England as a very light evilindeed compared with that of living under a tyrant who set truth, andjustice, and humanity at defiance; and they shouted loudly, “Come whatmay, we will not any longer have this man to reign over us.”
Meanwhile, at Poissy and in Paris, Prince Louis and his advisers weremaking out as good a claim for Blanche of Castile as circumstances wouldadmit of their doing. It was, indeed, no easy matter. But what withreviving the recollection of John having been forfeited by the GreatCouncil of England for rebellion against his brother, RichardCœur-de-Lion, and of his having been condemned by the peers of Francefor the murder of his nephew Arthur, and what with pronouncing hischildren disqualified to succeed, and overlooking the existence ofEleanor of Brittany and of Blanche’s own brother and her elder sister,they did make out a case which satisfied themselves, and which perhapsthey deemed good enough for their confederates in England; and PhilipAugustus, though hesitating, or pretending to hesitate, did not offerany opposition to his son’s preparations; though Gualo, the cardinal ofSt. Martin and papal legate, passing through France, visited Paris, andwarned Prince Louis against embarking on an enterprise of which the holysee disapproved.
So far matters went smoothly, and the barons and citizens lookedlongingly for the arrival of Prince Louis, whom they daily became moreeager to welcome as a deliverer. But their patience was put to a trial;and Easter passed, and May Day passed, and the “merry, merry month ofMay” was rapidly running its course, and still the French princelingered.
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