England under the Angevin Kings, Volumes I and II

CHAPTER IX. — THE FALL OF THE ANGEVINS, 1199–1206

When Richard the Lionheart died at Châlus in April 1199, Philip Augustus moved to dismantle the Angevin empire. John, then in Brittany, secured the Chinon treasury three days after Richard’s funeral by swearing to execute Richard’s bequests. After Easter at Beaufort he entered Normandy, where Archbishop Walter invested him with the ducal sword, lance and coronet; John let the lance fall before courtiers, a widely noted ill omen. Hubert Walter and William the Marshal smoothed John’s succession, but Philip exploited the dormant Breton alliance. While Philip invaded Évreux, 12-year-old Arthur of Brittany went to Anjou with troops; his mother Constance, freed from captivity, joined him with Breton forces, and they swept toward Le Mans. John fled the night before the city fell, and Angers surrendered to Arthur via its governor, a nephew of seneschal Robert. On Easter Day, Anjou, Touraine and Maine barons unanimously named Arthur Richard’s lawful heir per the three counties’ customs, and their capitals submitted. At Le Mans Arthur did homage to Philip, with Constance swearing fealty; at Tours she formally placed him under Philip’s guardianship. Eleanor of Aquitaine, at Fontevraud when Richard died, fought for her only surviving son. With Provençal captain Mercadier and his Brabantine troops, she overran Anjou, then met Philip at Tours and did homage for Poitou, securing Aquitaine for John. John burned Le Mans in revenge, but could not reconquer until securing Normandy and England. In England, Hubert and the Marshal had maintained the peace. News of Richard’s death arrived on Easter Eve; raiding began. Hubert excommunicated offenders and summoned all to swear fealty to John as Henry Fitz-Empress’s heir. Barons took the oath; only the Scottish king refused without restoration of the lost northern shires. John landed at Shoreham on May 25 and was crowned at Westminster on Ascension Day, May 27. The coronation was the last formal assertion of the old English doctrine of elective kingship. In the crowded abbey, Hubert declared no man had an inherent right to succeed another unless unanimously chosen by the whole realm after invoking the Holy Spirit. Foreboding disaster, the primate warned John not to accept the crown unless he truly intended to uphold his oath. John affirmed he would, with God’s help—but omitted the sealing act: for the first and only time in Latin Christendom, a king did not take communion on his coronation day. John confirmed Geoffrey Fitz-Peter as justiciar and the Marshal in their offices, granting them their earldoms; Hubert accepted the chancellorship. John received baronial homage, made a pilgrimage to St Alban’s, and sailed for Normandy on June 20. The war opened poorly but John initially held his ground, secured by his alliance with Flanders and support from his nephew Otto, Pope-recognized Emperor-elect, who promised imperial aid. By autumn Philip was tightening his hold, but was hamstrung by papal legate Cardinal Peter of Capua, punishing Philip for repudiating his Danish queen Ingebiorg to marry Agnes of Merania. At Dijon in December 1199, the legate placed an interdict on the royal domain, to be proclaimed 20 days after Christmas—exactly when Philip’s truce with John was set to expire. Philip accepted favorable terms at Gaillon in January 1200: his son Louis would marry John’s niece Blanche of Castile; John would grant her Évreux and Norman castles, pay 20,000 marks of silver, and swear not to aid Otto. While Eleanor traveled to Spain to fetch her granddaughter, John raised the funds via a 3-shilling carucage on every ploughland. Yorkshire Cistercians refused; John furiously ordered sheriffs to place all White Monks outside the law until Hubert’s protests forced revocation. The treaty was signed at Gouleton on May 22, 1200: John ceded Berry claims to Blanche and Louis, reduced the payment from 30,000 to 20,000 marks, acknowledged Arthur owed homage for Brittany, and Philip recognized him as rightful heir to all his father and elder brother’s dominions. The next day, Louis and Blanche married, and John received Arthur’s homage at Vernon. John squandered these gains. He convinced Aquitanian and Norman bishops to annul his marriage to his cousin Avice of Gloucester, granting Gloucestershire lands to her brother-in-law Count Almeric of Évreux while retaining her other estates. He then infuriated the Lusignans by stealing Isabel, only child of Count Ademar of Angoulême and betrothed to young Hugh of La Marche. Ademar, learning a king sought Isabel, took her from Hugh and married her to John at the end of August 1200, alienating the Lusignans entirely. John brought his child bride to England at the end of October, and they were crowned together at Westminster on October 8. 1201 brought new crises: a second Cistercian quarrel, his unprecedented entry into Lincoln Cathedral in royal state, and a dispute with barons summoned to his continental campaign, who refused to sail “unless he gave them back their rights.” It was clear barons no longer considered overseas service binding without explicit consent. The threat of castle confiscations brought dissenters to Portsmouth, but the dispute ended in compromise: John collected scutage in lieu of service and ordered the barons home, before crossing to Normandy himself. In France, the situation turned against John. Philip had resolved his ecclesiastical issues after Agnes of Merania’s death, taking Ingebiorg back as queen. John had seized Driencourt Castle, belonging to a brother of Hugh the Brown of Lusignan, and further insulted Poitevin barons by summoning them to prove innocence of treason via ordeal of battle. They appealed to Philip, and on March 25, 1202, Philip met John at Gouleton and ordered him to surrender all French fiefs to Arthur. Philip then cited John, as Duke of Aquitaine, to appear at the French court in Paris 15 days after Easter. John promised to appear and surrender Tillières and Boutavant castles as security, but failed to do either. The French peers condemned him by default and sentenced him to forfeit all his lands. Philip marched on Normandy, seizing Boutavant, Tillières, Eu, Radepont, Aumale and the rest of its county. At Gournay he granted Arthur the hand of his infant daughter Mary, knighthood, and investiture of all Angevin dominions except Normandy, which he planned to keep. Mary was one of the two children of Philip’s second wife Agnes of Merania, both of whom had been legitimated by Pope Innocent III, removing any canonical impediment to their status and suitability for dynastic marriage alliances. While John sat idle at Rouen, messengers reported French forces seizing his castles; John dismissed them, saying “Let him alone, I shall win back all he is taking someday.” His remaining barons grew exasperated and deserted him one by one, including Hugh of Gournay, who had held out bravely a year prior. When his mother Eleanor was trapped in Mirebeau by Arthur and the Lusignans, John acted with Angevin vigor. Hearing of her danger near Le Mans on July 30, he suddenly appeared before Mirebeau on August 1. The town had fallen, the keep held Eleanor; the complacent besiegers were surprised and overpowered, and the Lusignans and Arthur were captured. Philip, besieging Arques, hurried south; John sent Arthur to prison at Falaise. Philip withdrew after taking and burning Tours, which John then marched on and destroyed. The reprieve was short. By the end of 1202 John had quarreled with Otto; William des Roches, after failing to secure Arthur’s release, organized a Breton league strong enough to seize Angers by late October. Arthur was transferred from Falaise to Rouen, and rumors of his fate spread. By Easter 1203, news of his death was across all France; it was widely believed, confirmed by John’s conduct, that he had been stabbed and thrown into the Seine on his uncle’s orders. The murder eliminated John’s internal rival but forced his disaffected subjects to choose between him and Philip. Within two weeks of Easter, Philip took Saumur and entered Aquitaine. The viscount of Beaumont joined the anti-John league, and the count of Alençon placed himself and all his lands at Philip’s disposal. Secure on the southern frontier and master of the Norman border from Eu to Gisors, Philip took Vexin castles one by one. By autumn 1203 he focused on Château-Gaillard, Richard’s “Saucy Castle” above the Seine. Roger de Lacy’s defense was heroic. Philip built a boat bridge across the Seine and ringed the rock with a 1,200-foot double line of entrenchments topped with wooden forts. Roger had admitted Lesser Andely townsfolk into the castle; with 1,400+ non-combatants consuming stores, the garrison was soon in dire straits. Roger expelled the non-combatants, but Philip drove them back, and for three months the starving people survived in the ravines on leaves, scant herbage, and dog flesh. Cannibalism had broken out when Philip, out of pity, ordered survivors relieved—of roughly 400, only half remained, and most died after their first meal. While these horrors unfolded, John held a Christmas feast at Canterbury at Hubert’s expense, having abandoned Normandy on December 6 and made no effort to relieve the castle. Philip built a wooden gallery and movable tower, stormed the first ward, undermined the great round tower, and took it by fire. Days later, a young Frenchman named Bogis climbed through an unguarded window in John’s new chapel, lowered a rope, and let the entire French army inside. Château-Gaillard fell on March 6, 1204. Within three months, all of Normandy surrendered: Rouen opened its gates on Midsummer Day, and Falaise, Domfront, Séez, Lisieux, Caen, Bayeux, Barfleur, Cherbourg, Coutances, Arques, Verneuil and more yielded without a fight. When entreated to aid them, John told the defenders to do whatever they thought best. Breton barons and prelates met at Vannes demanding an inquest before French peers into John’s treatment of their captive duke; the French court condemned John for murder and sentenced him and his heirs to forfeit all lands and honors held of the French Crown. Anjou, Touraine and the rest of the old Angevin lands were quickly overrun; only Chinon and Loches held out, the latter defended gallantly by Gerald of Atie. Eleanor died on April 1, 1204, removing the last legal obstacle to Philip’s conquest of Poitou. By year’s end, nearly the entire Angevin inheritance except lands south of the Dordogne was in Philip’s hands. John launched three expeditions in 1205 and 1206, taking Montauban and winning Angers on September 6, 1206, and ravaging southeastern Brittany when Philip crossed the Loire and raided the viscounty of Thouars under John’s nose. John proposed a truce, then slipped away the night before terms were finalized at Thouars on October 26, fleeing to La Rochelle, where he sailed for England on December 12. A month before this final withdrawal, Hubert died. “Now for the first time am I truly king of England!” John exclaimed. He was indeed king of England, and of England alone: the sword of Hrolf the Ganger, William the Conqueror, Fulk the Red and Fulk the Black had fallen from their unworthy descendant’s hand. He was left only the sceptre of his English forefathers—but the England he now ruled was no longer the exhausted realm of the Anarchy. It was a new England, grown silently under Henry II and his ministers, once more capable of standing alone. The day of reckoning between this new England and its foreign king was now at hand.