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THE SECOND NORMAN 
 CONQUEST OF ENGLAND 
 
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 ENGLAND 
 
 to King John at the height of the French invasion. 
 
THE SECOND 
 
 NORMAN* CONQUEST 
 
 OF ENGLAND 
 
 BY 
 CHARLES EDWARD CHENEY 
 
 CHICAGO LITERARY CLUB 
 1907 
 

 ^S, 
 
 ** 
 
 J 
 
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 Copyright, 1907 
 * CHARLES EDWARD CHENEY 
 
 .1 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 The following sketch had its birth in the 
 mind of the writer through his accidental 
 possession of a copy of LHistoire des 
 Dues de Normandie et des ' Rois d' Angle - 
 terre — an anonymous chronicle in ancient 
 French, which is supposed by competent 
 authorities to have been written in the first 
 quarter of the thirteenth century. By so 
 distinguished an historian as Petit-Dutaillis 
 (whose Life of Louis VIII. of France has 
 been of invaluable aid in the preparation of 
 this essay), LHistoire des Dues de Nor- 
 ma?idie et des Rois d y Angleterre is believed 
 to be the work of an eye-witness of the 
 scenes and events related. Careful study 
 has been given in the preparation of this 
 paper to the works of such chroniclers as 
 Matthew Paris, Matthew of Westminster, 
 Walter of Coventry, and especially Roger 
 of Wendover. Among modern histories, 
 in addition to La Vie et la Regnc de Louis 
 VLIL, by Petit-Dutaillis, Norgate's Life of 
 John Lackland, Ramsay's Angevin Empire, 
 
and Milman's Latin Christianity have 
 been freely consulted. 
 
 The writer desires to express his great 
 obligation, for valuable suggestions and the 
 use of rare historical works, to Professor 
 James Westfall Thompson, of the Univer- 
 sity of Chicago. 
 
 C. E. C. 
 
THE SECOND NORMAN 
 CONQUEST OF ENGLAND 
 
 N the twenty-first day of 
 May in the year of grace 
 12 16, 1 a horseman in full 
 armor drew rein upon the 
 beach where the ancient 
 town of Sandwich looks 
 out upon the sea. Though 
 short of stature, and lack- 
 ing the stately presence often associated 
 with long lineage and lofty rank, his broad 
 shoulders and well-knit frame suggested 
 physical strength, while the heavy jaw, not 
 wholly hidden by his tawny beard, bespoke 
 a man of iron will and a temper it were 
 wise not to rouse. a Lifting his mailed 
 hand to his forehead to shield his eyes 
 from the glare of the morning sun, the 
 
 1 Roger of Wendover, vol. 2, p. 364. Norgate's 
 King John, p. 268. 
 
 2 Norgate, p. 10. Ramsay's Angevin Empire, p. 
 502. 
 
rider looked eagerly to the eastward. For 
 two days and nights the coast had been 
 swept by a tempest so fierce that every 
 chronicler of the thirteenth century records 
 the story of its terrors. 1 But as the sun 
 rose on that memorable day, the almost 
 preternatural clarity of the atmosphere 
 which sometimes follows a furious storm 
 revealed across the English Channel the 
 outlines of the shores of France. It was 
 not, however, the distant coast-line, hardly 
 distinguishable from the yet troubled sea, 
 which fixed the attention of that early vis- 
 itor. Only a few miles from the British 
 coast, and rapidly sweeping before a favoring 
 wind toward that southeasternmost point 
 of England known as the Isle of Thanet, a 
 squadron of seven ships was plainly visi- 
 ble. 2 Witnesses of that scene have drawn 
 in vivid colors the picture of its effect upon 
 their leader. Turning to his trumpeter, 
 the horseman ordered him to sound. As 
 if the narrow streets of Sandwich and the 
 dunes of the shore had given birth to a 
 host of men, an army answered to the call. 
 Then, seized with indecision, the chief gave 
 the signal for retreat. As his puzzled 
 troops withdrew, he gave himself up to 
 impotent rage. Spurring his horse till its 
 
 1 Hist, des Dues de Normandie, p. 168. Petit- 
 Dutaillis, Vie de Louis VIII., p. 99. 
 
 2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 100. Histoire de la Marine 
 Francaise, p. 309. 
 
flanks were wet with blood, he rode at a 
 mad pace — now north — now south, up 
 and down the sands of Pegwell Bay, vent- 
 ing in an aimless gallop his mingled wrath 
 and terror. 1 Says one of the old chron- 
 iclers, portraying the same conspicuous 
 figure on another but similar occasion, 
 "His whole body was so contorted with 
 fury as to be scarcely recognizable; a 
 scowl of rage furrowed his brow, his eyes 
 flashed fire, and his color changed to a 
 livid white." 2 
 
 Such, on that historic day, was John 
 Lackland, King of England. The seven 
 ships which he watched till they came to 
 anchor at Stonar, 3 a few miles distant from 
 his point of view, were the vanguard of a 
 mighty fleet. On the evening of the twen- 
 tieth of May, eight hundred vessels had set 
 sail from Calais, bearing a vast host of the 
 nobility and chivalry of France, with their 
 retainers, to conquer England, punish its 
 wicked monarch, and place upon the throne 
 Louis, the heir of the King of France. 
 Travelling backward over a period of nearly 
 two hundred years, the student of history 
 finds a parallel to this invasion. On the 
 twenty-eighth of September, 1066, William 
 
 1 Norgate's Life of John, pp. 268, 269. Hist, des 
 Dues, p. 169. Vie de Louis VIII., p. 100. 
 
 2 Norgate (quoting R. Devizes), p. 32. 
 
 8 Norgate, p. 268. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 100. Wen- 
 dover, vol. 2, p. 364. 
 
the Norman had set foot on English soil. 1 
 Contrasting the two military enterprises, 
 that of Louis gave by far the greater 
 promise of success. William had scant 
 grounds for counting upon support from 
 the people whose crown he coveted, 2 
 while Louis entered England only by the 
 urgent solicitation of the great lords and 
 powerful barons of the realm. The Nor- 
 man nobles hesitated long before commit- 
 ting themselves to the hazardous venture 
 of their war-lord, and only fear of his ter- 
 rible vengeance overcame their reluctance 
 at the last. 3 But Louis was the idol of 
 the French, and his summons to rally to 
 his banner was answered with universal 
 enthusiasm. The great military chief 
 whose daring and strategy gained the vic- 
 tory of Senlac, and left his rival Harold 
 dead upon the field, was after all the 
 grandson of a tanner. His birth record 
 was smirched with shame, and when he 
 had besieged Alencon, the mocking citi- 
 zens had hung out upon the walls hides 
 bearing the legend, "Work for the Tan- 
 ner. " 4 In strong contrast is the fact that 
 Louis was the eldest son and heir apparent 
 of the monarch whose political craft and 
 warlike prowess had revived in France the 
 
 1 Green, Hist. Eng. People, vol. I, p. ioo. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. gg. 
 
 3 Green, Hist. Eng. People, vol. i, p. gg. 
 
 4 Ibid., vol. i, pp. g5, g6. 
 
 io 
 
memories of Charlemagne. l But that which 
 gives to the enterprise of Louis a peculiar 
 conspicuity is, that it was a reversal of the 
 current of history. The tide of conquest 
 had rolled the other way. William Rufus, 
 Henry First, Henry Second, and Richard 
 of the Lion Heart, 2 had each in turn led 
 his armies across the channel, and harried 
 the realm of France. But not since Wil- 
 liam the Conqueror landed at Pevensey 
 and fought at Hastings had a great French 
 armament whitened with its canvas the 
 separating sea, and borne a mighty host to 
 invade the territory of an English king. 
 When all the precedents of two centuries 
 are thus turned upside down, so excep- 
 tional a fact demands explanation as im- 
 peratively as would the reversal of the 
 current of some great river, or the back- 
 ward movement of a planet in its orbit. 
 
 Such explanation, amply adequate, is 
 found in the life and character of John 
 Lackland. No contemporary chroniclers 
 have given us what may be called a biog- 
 raphy of King John. But they have 
 reproduced certain isolated events in his 
 stormy life with all the vividness of instan- 
 taneous photography. This paper is de- 
 signed merely to provide the screen upon 
 which the light of historic study may throw 
 
 1 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 3. 
 
 3 Green, vol. 1, pp. 114, 115. Wendover, vol. 2, 
 PP- 31. J 35» 136. 
 
 11 
 
these scenes, and to make them pass like 
 moving pictures in rapid succession be- 
 fore the mental vision. As we catch these 
 glimpses of the man from his early youth 
 until the hour when his dishonored body 
 lay stark in death, we shall behold such a 
 revelation of moral obliquity that we shall 
 cease to wonder that the English people, 
 driven to desperation, turned to a foreign 
 prince for deliverance from a tyranny so 
 intolerable. 
 
 No one of the ancient chateaux of 
 Touraine has a profounder fascination for 
 the lover of history than the Castle of 
 Chinon. The memories of kings and 
 queens cling like the ivy to its moulder- 
 ing walls. Its desolate apartments seem 
 haunted by the ghosts of famous men and 
 fair women, who schemed and plotted, loved 
 and hated, fought and danced, in those 
 now lonely halls. It was the fourth day 
 of July in the year 1189 that an aged 
 man, sick unto death, lay propped by 
 cushions in one of the smaller chambers of 
 Chinon, and fastened his eager eyes upon 
 a parchment scroll which his sole attendant 
 was about to read. Henry Plantagenet, 
 King of England, second of the name, had 
 reached the last stage of a hitherto brilliant 
 career. The morning of that fateful July 
 day had seen him bend his proud knee 
 to his great rival, Philippe Augustus of 
 
 12 
 
France; and surrender himself in abject 
 humiliation to whatever conditions the con- 
 queror might demand. 1 But — bitterest 
 ingredient in his cup of gall — Henry had 
 thrown down his arms in the full knowl- 
 edge that the French king could not have 
 humbled the sovereign of England, if 
 Henry's own son Richard had not allied 
 himself to Philippe in parricidal conspir- 
 acy. 2 Through all the wretched rebellion 
 of his children, one spark of consolation 
 had been nurtured by Henry, till now, in 
 the awful chill of his dying hour, it warmed 
 his very soul. Whatever his other sons 
 had been, his youngest, his favorite, John, 
 could not be seduced from filial devotion. 
 Henry's passionate attachment to his latest 
 born had made the young prince, while yet 
 a boy, lord of Ireland, with the royal 
 pledge that he should be crowned king of 
 that island. 3 One chronicler asserts that 
 Henry had declared a purpose to put John 
 in possession of the vast Angevin empire 
 which Henry ruled, save only Normandy 
 and England. Bound by such ties of 
 gratitude, one son of the crushed and 
 dying monarch could be trusted even in 
 the hour of his father's disastrous defeat 
 and shame. That night at Chinon there 
 
 1 Ramsay's Angevin Empire, p. 244. Wendover, 
 vol. 2, p. 76. 
 
 2 Hist, des Dues, p. 84. 
 
 3 Ramsay, pp. 228, 232. 
 
 13 
 
had been placed in the hands of the chan- 
 cellor a list of the great nobles and princes 
 of the blood, whose treachery had contrib- 
 uted to the triumph of France. 
 
 "Read the names," said the king to 
 his companion. The chancellor hesitated. 
 The king repeated his command. ' ' Sire, ■ ' 
 stammered the chancellor, with tears in 
 his voice, "the first name upon the list is 
 that of your son, the lord John." Henry 
 turned on his couch with a groan. ' ' Now, ' ' 
 said he, "let all things go as they will. I 
 care no more for myself, nor for anything 
 in the world." His heart was broken, 
 and his death-blow struck. 1 
 
 The panoramic canvas moves, and an- 
 other glimpse is given us, revealing this 
 scion of the Plantagenet line farther on 
 in his career. Richard has become King 
 of England, and of all the splendid heri- 
 tage on the continent which Norman Wil- 
 liam bequeathed to his successors. Fren- 
 zied with the chivalrous enthusiasm of the 
 age, and possibly dreaming that he might 
 atone by deeds of heroism in the cause of 
 the Church for the crimes of his earlier 
 years, the king with the lion's heart had 
 gathered a huge armament, and gone 
 across the seas to recover the Holy Sepul- 
 chre from the infidel Saracen. But not 
 until he had lavished upon his brother John 
 
 1 Ramsay, p. 244. Wendover, vol. 2, p. 76. 
 14 
 
stately castles and broad manors from 
 Cornwall to the Scottish border. Nor 
 were the flood-gates of the royal bounty 
 shut down before six great and wealthy 
 earldoms — Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, 
 Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall — 
 with all their enormous revenues, had 
 been laid at the feet of John. 1 
 
 The story is familiar which relates how 
 Richard, returning from Syria, was impris- 
 oned by Henry Sixth, Emperor of Ger- 
 many. Immured in the Castle of Speyer, 
 where the Rhine receives the tribute of the 
 Speyerbach, the fiery king of England had 
 been for eighteen months like an eagle 
 beating against the bars of its cage. The 
 2d of February, 1194, may have been 
 wintry in the valley of the Rhine. But to 
 King Richard it brought the warmth and 
 cheer of hope. On that day the emperor 
 led forth his captive, and with a splendid 
 cavalcade of the princes of the Empire, and 
 bishops and archbishops of the Church, 
 escorted Richard to Mainz, 2 there to meet 
 the envoys of his brother John. Aware 
 that almost superhuman efforts had been 
 made by his subjects to gather a ransom 
 for the monarch whom they idolized, 3 the 
 king must have felt that these representa- 
 
 1 Norgate, p. 27. Ramsay, p. 275. 
 » Walter of Coventry, p. 48. 
 3 Roger of Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 128, 129. Ram- 
 say, p. 333- 
 
 15 
 
tives of England, coming direct from John, 
 could be none other than the bearers of the 
 price of Richard's liberty. But when the 
 public conference had closed, the emperor 
 showed his prisoner a private letter bear- 
 ing his brother's sign-manual. It did in- 
 deed proffer a great sum of money ; but 
 not to ransom the king from his captivity. 
 It contained a pledge that if the emperor 
 would hold his prisoner for another year, 
 until John should be firmly seated on the 
 English throne, this loving and grateful 
 brother would pay thirty thousand marks 
 for the service thus rendered ! ' 
 
 Four years pass by. A cross-bow bolt 
 has ended the strange, romantic, and half- 
 savage career of Richard. His body is lying, 
 by his own direction, at Fontevraud, buried 
 at the feet of the father whose gray hairs 
 he had brought down in sorrow to the grave. 
 The heart, which tradition says was of 
 larger mould than those of other men, rests 
 in a casket of gold under the high altar of 
 the cathedral of Rouen. John has reached 
 the goal of his long-cherished ambition. 
 As a wolf which at last has run down some 
 noble stag, and feasts his eyes upon his 
 prey before he rends it, so does John 
 Lackland gloat over England, Ireland, and 
 nearly half of France, prostrate at his feet. 
 Yet like the favorite of the Persian Xerxes, 
 
 1 Walter of Coventry, pp. 46, 48. Ramsay, p. 333. 
 16 
 
who cried, "All this availeth me nothing, 
 so long as Mordecai the Jew sitteth at the 
 king's gate," John realizes that in his cup 
 of success one bitter ingredient is mingled. 
 His brother Geoffrey had left a son — 
 Arthur by name — who had inherited the 
 lordship of Brittany. Though Arthur was 
 but a lad at John's accession, the crafty 
 Philippe of France had recognized the pos- 
 sibilities of the boy's future. At sixteen 
 years of age the young Duke of Brittany 
 became the husband of Philippe's daughter 
 Jeanne, and received at the hand of his 
 father-in-law the order of knighthood, with 
 the investiture of Anjou, Maine. Touraine, 
 and Poitou. 1 
 
 Well did the new king of England know 
 that the law of primogeniture branded him 
 as a usurper, and made Arthur, as Geof- 
 frey's only surviving son, the true heir of 
 the English throne. Like hot coals in his 
 bosom was the recollection that when 
 Richard set out for Palestine, he had des- 
 ignated Arthur as his successor. 2 It does 
 not affect the moral quality of the tragedy 
 which followed, that the young prince, 
 conscious of the righteousness of his cause, 
 allowed the hot blood of his Angevin 
 ancestry to show itself in defiance of his 
 
 1 Ramsay, pp. 393, 394. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 5. 
 Norgate, p. 61. 
 
 2 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 95. Matt, of Westminster, 
 vol. 2, p. 81. Norgate, p. 308. 
 
 17 
 
uncle. 1 Captured at the storming of the 
 fortress of Mirabeau on the Vienne, Arthur 
 was imprisoned in the Castle of Falaise. 
 Thence, in order that he might be more 
 immediately under the surveillance of John, 
 he was transferred to Rouen, where the 
 king was then holding court. 2 
 
 From the hour that the drawbridge of 
 the Castle of Rouen was trod by the young 
 duke's entering feet, and the portcullis fell 
 behind him, Arthur, Duke of Brittany, 
 Count of Maine, Anjou, Touraine, and 
 Poitou, legitimate heir to the crown of 
 England, and son-in-law of one of the 
 greatest of the long line of the kings of 
 France, vanished from the knowledge of 
 men as completely as if the earth had 
 yawned and swallowed him up. That his 
 royal uncle murdered him with his own 
 hand was universally believed on both 
 sides of the British Channel. Though 
 John was publicly charged with the crime 
 again and again, neither he nor his partisans 
 ever contradicted the terrible accusation. 3 
 Even contemporary writers vary in their 
 stories as to the method of the assassination. 
 That which historians count as having the 
 most probability is sufficiently blood-cur- 
 dling. Under cover of the night a boat was 
 
 1 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 205. Norgate, p. 91. 
 
 2 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 205. Ramsay, p. 396. 
 
 3 Ramsay, p. 396. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 77. Roger 
 of Wendover, vol. 2, p. 206. 
 
 18 
 
rowed at high tide to the water-gate of the 
 Castle, and moored to its stone stairs. The 
 warden was summoned, a few whispered 
 words were exchanged, and Arthur was 
 brought from his cell. In an instant John's 
 poniard was plunged in his nephew's heart. 
 A cry ! A splash ! Then the waters of 
 the Seine closed over the only rival that 
 John's jealous soul could fear. 1 
 
 Five years have passed since Arthur's 
 blood stained the dagger of his royal uncle. 
 It is Easter Sunday, the thirtieth of March, 
 1208. The sun shines, the hedge-rows 
 put on their spring greenery, here and 
 there the early flowers unfold their blos- 
 soms, the cattle dot the hillsides, from the 
 pastures comes the bleating of the flocks, 
 and little children are playing on the vil- 
 lage green. But from where the Cornish 
 coast thrusts itself out into the Atlantic, 
 northward to the Northumbrian hills, no 
 church bell sends out its Easter sum- 
 mons. Over cathedral and minster and 
 village Church alike broods a deathlike 
 silence. No skilful fingers press the organ 
 keys, the chaunting choirs are stricken 
 dumb, and the awful stillness itself be- 
 comes a pitiful "Deus Misereatur" 
 
 For King John had at last defied the 
 only power before which tyrants in that 
 
 1 Ramsay, p. 397. (Vide Ramsay's quotation 
 from Le Breton, same p., foot-note.) 
 
 19 
 
age were forced to bow, and over the land 
 Pope Innocent the Third had flung the 
 black shadow of an interdict. From one 
 end of England to the other, no public 
 prayer was offered, no sacrament cele- 
 brated, no message preached from pulpit 
 or wayside cross. The dying stretched 
 our their hands in vain pleading for priestly 
 offices, and the dead, barred out from 
 consecrated churchyards, were buried as 
 unblessed by religious rites as if men cov- 
 ered from sight the carcases of beasts. 1 
 Three bishops — they of London, Ely, and 
 Worcester — had pronounced the sentence 
 of the Pope on Palm Sunday, and then 
 "fled from the wrath to come." 2 None 
 too early did they make their escape. In 
 uncontrollable fury John swore his favorite 
 oath, "by the teeth of God, " that he would 
 tear out the eyes and split the nose of any 
 priest who dared to proclaim the papal 
 edict.* Every bishop in the realm, save 
 two abject pensioners of the king, followed 
 the three chief offenders into exile. 4 Every 
 priest was banished. The monks were 
 driven from their convents. Abbeys, pri- 
 ories, and bishoprics were put in charge of 
 laymen, and the entire revenue of the 
 
 1 Roger of Wendover, vol. 2, p. 246. 
 
 2 Wendover, vol 2, p. 246. Norgate, p. 127. 
 Ramsay, p. 415. 
 
 3 Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 245, 246. 
 
 4 Norgate, p. 130. 
 
 20 
 
ecclesiastical establishments was confis- 
 cated to the crown. 1 When a bandit who 
 had robbed and then murdered a priest 
 was brought before John as his judge, 
 "Let him go," was the monarch's decree, 
 "he has killed one of my enemies." 2 But 
 the flames of John's wrath swept beyond 
 the bounds of the Church. In the mad- 
 ness of his fury all men became his ene- 
 mies. He desolated the agricultural dis- 
 tricts, tearing away hedges and filling the 
 ditches which protected tilled fields, "so 
 that," says one of the old chroniclers, 
 "while men starved, the beasts of the 
 chase should fatten on the growing crops. ' ' 3 
 The unknown writer of "The Dukes of 
 Normandy and Kings of England" tells 
 us that the wild creatures "roamed as 
 freely through the fields and along the 
 highways as if they had been sheep, and 
 did not fly at the approach of men. ' ' 4 
 
 Dark suspicion of the nobility brooded 
 in the mind of the king. He forced the 
 great families of the realm to place their 
 sons in his ward as hostages for the loyalty 
 of the distinguished houses that they rep- 
 resented. 5 William de Braose was the 
 lord of vast estates in England, Wales, and 
 
 1 Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 246, 247. 
 
 2 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 247. Ramsay, p. 416. 
 
 3 Norgate, p. 131. 
 
 4 Hist, des Dues, p. 109. 
 
 6 Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 247, 248. 
 
 21 
 
Ireland. 1 One day in the year 1208 there 
 appeared at one of the many castles of de 
 Braose a detachment of John's foreign 
 mercenaries demanding that the eldest son 
 of the family should be delivered up to the 
 guardianship of the king. As the royal 
 messengers delivered the mandate of their 
 master, the Lady Maud, the wife of de 
 Braose, could not restrain her indignation. 
 "1 will not," she cried, "give up my son 
 to your lord, King John. His hands are 
 yet red with the blood of his own nephew 
 Arthur." 2 Terrified at her own daring 
 words, she fled to Ireland, only to be ulti- 
 mately captured with her son, loaded with 
 chains, carried back to England, and im- 
 mured in the dungeons of Windsor Castle. 
 There, by John's command, the mother 
 and son were starved to death. 3 The con- 
 temporary chronicler describes with grew- 
 some detail the horrible appearance of the 
 corpses, when, after eleven days of agony, 
 the dungeon doors were opened. 4 De 
 Braose himself wandered from one hiding- 
 place to another, but within a year died of 
 a broken heart. 5 
 
 Such were the horrors which roused 
 the barons of England to a sense of their 
 
 1 Ramsay, p. 416. Hist, des Dues, p. III. 
 
 2 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 248. Norgate, p. 150. 
 
 3 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 255. Norgate, pp. 1 56, 288. 
 
 4 Hist, des Dues, pp. 114, 115. 
 
 6 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 256. Hist, des Dues, p. 
 115. 
 
 22 
 
shameful degradation. But the first effect- 
 ive blow dealt to the maddened despot 
 was to come from another source. The 
 Pope added to the miseries of the interdict 
 the personal excommunication of the king. 
 Every subject was absolved from alle- 
 giance, and John and all his posterity were 
 pronounced incapable of exercising any 
 regal function. 1 To Philippe of France 
 was offered the throne of England by the 
 loftier sovereignty of the Pope, on condition 
 that the French King should at once lead 
 a crusade against the rebellious monarch. 
 Sudden as a lightning-flash was John's 
 recoil from the black gulf yawning at his 
 feet. On the 22d of May, 1213, he flung 
 himself prostrate before Pandulf, the legate 
 of the Pope, confessing himself to be the 
 chief of sinners against God and His 
 holy Church. To earn absolution he sur- 
 rendered England and Ireland to the Pope. 
 Henceforth he would hold his ancestral 
 realms only as the Holy Father's tenant, 
 paying to the See of Rome a yearly rental 
 of a thousand marks. 3 He would prove 
 his sincerity by a humble invitation to the 
 banished bishops to return to their sees, 
 the priests to their cures, and the monks 
 to their convents. Nor did his humilia- 
 
 1 Norgate, p. 161. Roger of Wendover, vol. 2, 
 p. 250. 
 
 2 Norgate, p. 161. Wendover, vol. 2, p. 259. 
 
 3 Roger of Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 268, 269. 
 
tion stop short of a vow to restore in full 
 the wealth of which he had robbed the 
 Church. 1 Curious is the commentary on 
 this profound conviction of sin afforded by 
 a story which, alone of the old chroniclers, 
 Matthew Paris relates. True or false, it 
 is an index of the contemporary opinion of 
 King John. The monk tells us that the 
 King, repenting of his humiliating agree- 
 ment before the year was out, sent a depu- 
 tation to the great Emir of Morocco, then 
 holding sway over North Africa and part 
 of Spain, offering, on condition of the 
 Moor's military aid, to make over to him 
 the realm of England, to abandon the 
 Christian religion which he had ceased to 
 believe, and to yield an implicit obedience 
 to the laws of Mahomet. 2 
 
 John's reconciliation to Rome was the 
 cunning of the trapped wild beast. Across 
 the Channel Philippe Augustus, with his 
 huge army and splendid fleet, balked of 
 his prey, gnashed his teeth in impotent 
 fury. Henceforth John and his barons 
 found their old positions reversed. The 
 nobles of England had become the rebels 
 against the Pope, and the awful spiritual 
 power of interdict and excommunication 
 was to reinforce the tyrant in his struggles 
 
 1 Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 265-270. Norgate, pp. 
 180, 190. 
 
 2 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 283. (Note from Matt. 
 Paris.) Norgate, p. 182, note. 
 
 24 
 
to enslave the people. All the world 
 knows the story of the revolt of the barons, 
 resulting in wresting from the unwilling 
 not terrified John, the Great Charter of 
 English liberty. But there were conse- 
 quences flowing from that check upon the 
 tyrant, which all the world does not know, 
 because the historians have been almost 
 silent regarding the details. England had 
 not long to wait for proofs of the Pope's 
 resolve to buttress with all his mysterious 
 power the tottering authority of John. 1 
 Innocent hurled a new excommunication, 
 aimed, not, as six years before, against the 
 monster on the throne of the Plantagenets, 
 but against those who dared to defend the 
 Magna Charta when assailed by this pious 
 son of the Church. 2 Then burst out the 
 conflagration of civil war. John's mer- 
 cenaries, gathered from the dregs of his 
 continental domains, 3 swept through the 
 unhappy island with fire and sword. The 
 track of these hired banditti was like that 
 of the locusts of the Orient. " Before 
 them the land was as the garden of Eden, 
 and behind them a desolate wilderness. ' ' 4 
 Even before the Great Charter had been 
 
 1 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 326. Walter of Coventry, 
 vol. 2, p. 222. 
 
 2 Norgate, p. 246. Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 329, 
 330. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 355, 357. 
 
 3 Walter of Coventry, vol. 2, p. 224. 
 
 * Wendover, vol. 2, pp. 356, 357. Norgate, pp. 
 248-252. 
 
 25 
 
extorted from him, the horrible cruelties 
 of John had lost for him the capital of 
 Britain. While the king was storming the 
 castles of the great, burning the cottages 
 of the peasantry, and putting women and 
 children to torture or the sword, the 
 citizens of London opened its gates to the 
 armies of the barons, and from that hour 
 the ancient city never knew again the pol- 
 lution of the presence of King John. 1 
 
 At last retribution, which even his great 
 ally at Rome could neither prohibit nor 
 postpone, was on the track of the wicked- 
 est monarch that ever wore the English 
 crown. It could not have been far from 
 the last day of October, 12 15, that a dis- 
 tinguished English embassy appeared at 
 the court of Philippe Augustus. Headed 
 by the Earls of Winchester and Hereford, 
 these representatives of the barons, in the 
 most solemn and definite language, offered 
 the crown of England to Louis, the eldest 
 son of the King of France, and swore 
 upon the Gospels that they would never 
 again accept the sovereignty of John. Q In 
 the midst of this impressive scene a star- 
 tling incident had well-nigh put an end to 
 further negotiations. A letter was placed 
 in Philippe's hands, over which he glanced 
 with visible agitation. Then bursting 
 
 1 Walter of Coventry, vol. 2, p. 220. Wendover, 
 vol. 2, p. 307. Ramsay, p. 473. 
 
 2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 70. Wendover, vol. 2, p. 358. 
 
 26 
 
through all the restraints of diplomatic 
 courtesy, he hurled at Saher de Quinci, 
 Earl of Winchester, the accusation of 
 treachery. For the letter bore the signa- 
 tures and seals of the great nobles of Eng- 
 land, and announced that King John having 
 come to terms with the barons, Louis need 
 put himself to no further trouble or peril 
 on behalf of his English allies. 1 It was a 
 terrible moment for the two great Earls 
 and their associates. But the cloud was 
 dispelled as quickly as it had risen. The 
 Earl of Winchester asked the royal per- 
 mission to examine the letter, and demon- 
 strated, even to the satisfaction of King 
 Philippe, that both signatures and seals 
 were clumsy forgeries, by which John had 
 tried to postpone the day of retribution. 
 Sir Walter Scott has been severely criti- 
 cised for making a brave knight commit a 
 crime more congruous with a commercial 
 than a chivalrous age. But John Lack- 
 land, belted knight and royal head of Eng- 
 land's chivalry, had wrought that very 
 crime three hundred years before the days 
 of Marmion. 2 
 
 Before that momentous conference closed, 
 Louis of France had become King of Eng- 
 land, so far as such dignity was in the 
 power of the barons to bestow, and Phi- 
 
 1 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 71. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 71. 
 
 27 
 
lippe Augustus had entered into definite 
 agreement to send his son across the Chan- 
 nel with a force which should make his 
 claim irresistible. 1 Between the promise 
 and its fulfilment a wide gap was to inter- 
 vene, and obstacles anticipated by neither 
 of the parties to the contract were to be 
 surmounted. Louis was a man of sincere 
 religious character. His pure life, in happy 
 contrast to that of his father and other 
 monarchs of his time, 2 may not have been 
 wholly the fruit of the religious influence 
 of the Church. But it cannot be supposed 
 that such a man was superior to the terror 
 which in the thirteenth century the wrath 
 of the Pope inspired. For no sooner did 
 the news of the compact with the English 
 barons reach Rome, than Innocent the 
 Third denounced the proposed invasion, 
 and threatened with excommunication any 
 who should dare to lift a finger against 
 that loyal son of the Church, King John 
 of England. Crafty and time-serving, 
 Philippe Augustus drew back. He dared 
 not brave the thunders of the papal indig- 
 nation. While secretly hoping for his 
 son's success, Philippe endeavored to de- 
 ceive the Pope with the idea that the 
 enterprise of Louis met with his father's 
 disapproval. 3 On the twenty-fourth day of 
 
 1 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 71. Hist, des Dues, p. 160. 
 
 2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 14. 
 
 3 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 95. 
 
 28 
 
April, 12 1 6, a great Council was convoked 
 by the King of France, where Cardinal 
 Gualo, the papal legate, again fulminated 
 the prohibition of his master. With a show 
 of judicial fairness, Philippe Augustus ad- 
 dressed the assembly, professing his loyalty 
 to the see of Rome, but demanding that 
 Louis's reasons for the step he proposed 
 should be heard. 1 Out of the throng ap- 
 peared a knight whom Louis had chosen 
 as his advocate. 2 In eloquent terms he 
 set forth the iniquities with which John 
 Lackland had shocked the moral sense of 
 Christendom. His treachery to his brother 
 Richard, his murder of his nephew Arthur, 
 his surrender of his kingdom to the Pope 
 as if it were a commodity to be bought and 
 sold, his trampling beneath his feet the 
 rights of the barons and the people guar- 
 anteed by the Magna Charta, and above 
 all the desolation of his own country, the 
 torturing of his own subjects, and the inno- 
 cent blood with which he had crimsoned 
 the very soil of England, formed some of 
 the counts in that terrible indictment. 
 Had the pleader for the condemnation of 
 the English king paused here, his argu- 
 ment would have been well-nigh irresisti- 
 ble. But when he proceeded to urge that 
 because Louis had married Blanche of Cas- 
 
 1 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 362. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 94. 
 
 2 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 362. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 94. 
 
 29 
 
tile, a niece of John, therefore the young 
 prince was the legitimate heir of the throne 
 of England, 1 the weakness of this link in 
 the chain of his logic vitiated his entire 
 argument. Gualo, the legate, fought 
 fiercely and with the eloquence of sin- 
 cerity the pretensions of Louis. Once 
 more he threatened the most terrible ar- 
 rows in the quiver of the Church, to be 
 launched against the assailant of the saintly 
 monarch of England, who had pledged him- 
 self to a crusade for the recovery of the 
 Holy Sepulchre. 2 It was impossible that 
 such disputants should find any common 
 ground, and without attaining any defi- 
 nite results the council was dissolved. 
 Louis and his friends hastened to make 
 their final preparations, and Gualo, in a 
 paroxysm of rage, resolved to dog the 
 steps of the prince, follow him across the 
 Channel, and thwart his plans on English 
 soil. 
 
 Meantime, John had learned of his ene- 
 my's preparations, and formed a bold but 
 skilful plan to frustrate them. The ton- 
 nage of the English ships gave him a vast 
 advantage. One of John's great vessels, 
 according to the chroniclers of the time, 
 was worth four of those in the service of 
 Louis. 3 With such superiority on the sea, 
 
 1 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 363. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 84. 
 
 2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 73. Wendover, vol. 2, p. 363. 
 
 3 Hist, des Dues, p. 167. 
 
 30 
 
John resolved not to wait till actual invasion 
 should occur, but to make a sudden dash 
 across the Channel, and blockade and burn 
 the French fleet in the harbor of Calais. 1 
 But the stars in their courses fought 
 against him. The fearful tempest of 
 the 20th of May had scattered the naval 
 force of England from one end of the 
 Channel to the other. With no opposition 
 save that of the heavy seas, Louis had 
 embarked. As we have already seen, only 
 seven of his nearly eight hundred vessels 2 
 braved that memorable storm, and bearing 
 the prospective conqueror of England, 
 came to anchor in the narrow waterway 
 which then parted the Isle of Thanet from 
 the mainland. 3 Stonar, at which Louis 
 made his landing, for three hundred years 
 after the Norman conquest was a seaport 
 of importance. But the silting of the 
 Channel, and a terrible inundation which 
 overwhelmed it in 1385, have blotted out 
 from the modern maps of England this 
 ancient and historic town. 4 The thirteenth 
 century was a superstitious age, and Louis 
 must have been strangely unlike most 
 mediaeval characters, if an incident attend- 
 ing his landing did not waken some dread 
 
 1 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 100. Norgate, p. 267. 
 
 2 Hist, de la Marine Francaise, p. 309. Hist, des 
 Dues, p. 167. 
 
 3 Hist, de la Marine Francaise, p. 309. 
 
 4 Thanet and the Cinque Ports, vol. I, pp. 119-121. 
 
 31 
 
forebodings in his soul. Eager to be the 
 first to set foot on the coveted island, and 
 seeing a priest bearing a crucifix, who had 
 come to the water's edge to welcome the 
 invader, Louis leaped from his boat, but 
 only to plunge neck-deep in the water. 
 Apparently the prince discerned no omen 
 of ill in his unpremeditated bath, and wad- 
 ing ashore, he seized the crucifix, and 
 having devoutly kissed it, he planted his 
 lance deep in English soil. 1 
 
 John's hesitation in striking a decisive 
 blow when he first saw the seven tiny 
 French ships making for the coast at 
 Stonar, was fatal to his cause. For, when 
 on the "day following more than seven hun- 
 dred vessels which had been storm-bound 
 at Calais rejoined the prince, and disem- 
 barked a great French army on the Isle 
 of Thanet, John's opportunity was forever 
 lost. In his distrust of his hirelings — 
 most of whom were French — he had slunk 
 away from the sight he had seen off the 
 shore at Sandwich, and taken flight to 
 Dover. 2 Thence he hurried to Winchester, 
 there to meet Gualo, and in Winchester 
 Cathedral, the ancient burial-place of 
 John's ancestors, the legate thundered 
 forth a general excommunication against 
 Louis, his French comrades, and the 
 
 1 Petit-Dutaillis, p. ioo. 
 
 2 Hist, des Dues, pp. 169, 170. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 
 100. 
 
 32 
 
rebellious barons of England. 1 Meanwhile 
 Louis had seized upon Sandwich, 2 and 
 captured the greater part of John's fleet, 
 together with a vast quantity of provisions 
 and military stores. 3 Philippe Augustus is 
 said to have declared, after his son's invasion 
 had ended, that Louis had shown himself no 
 strategist when he pushed into the heart of 
 England, and left behind him Dover, "the 
 key to the country, ' ' in the hands of King- 
 John. 4 But knowing as he did that the 
 barons were eager to receive him in their 
 stronghold in London, the prince shrank 
 from the long delay that the reduction of 
 Dover Castle would involve. Canterbury 
 opened its gates to the invader, and 
 Rochester was taken with but slight resist- 
 ance. Here a force of French knights 
 and men at arms, whom he had sent over 
 the Channel some months before his own 
 fleet had set sail, came out from London 
 to bid their lord a welcome to the land. 5 
 But far more significant was the fact that 
 with these compatriots of his own was a 
 great crowd of the most famous English 
 nobility, men whose ancestral names had 
 been interwoven with Anglo-Norman his- 
 tory from the days of William the Con- 
 
 1 Hist, des Dues, p. 170. 
 
 2 Thanet and the Cinque Ports, vol. 2, p. 24. 
 
 3 Hist, des Dues, p. 170. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 101. 
 
 4 Norgate, p. 275. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 108, foot- 
 note. 
 
 6 Hist, des Dues, p. 171. Norgate, p. 270. 
 
 33 
 
queror. 1 The Earls of Hertford, of Essex, 
 of Oxford, of Pembroke, together with a 
 host of barons hardly less distinguished, 
 came to kiss the hand of Louis, and to 
 swear allegiance to him as the rightful 
 King of England. 2 One after another the 
 castles along his line of march yielded to 
 his authority, and on the second day of 
 June, only ten days after his landing, he 
 entered London in triumph, welcomed with 
 wildest enthusiasm by a populace drunk 
 with the joy of deliverance from the mon- 
 strous despotism of King John. 3 The stay 
 of the prince at London was of brief dura- 
 tion. Tarrying only long enough to receive 
 the homage of the people, and to take a 
 solemn oath that he would rule England 
 with justice and with scrupulous observance 
 of their ancestral customs, 4 Louis hurried 
 to Winchester, where John had taken 
 refuge, and where Gualo was gnashing his 
 teeth and thundering his curses. At the 
 invader's approach both his royal and 
 ecclesiastical foes took to flight. Win- 
 chester, with its two great castles, surren- 
 dered, but not until half the city had been 
 swept away by a conflagration, which some 
 of the chroniclers assert was kindled by 
 
 1 Hist, des Dues, p. 171. Petit-Dutaillis, pp. 101, 
 102. 
 
 2 Hist, des Dues, p. 171. 
 
 3 Hist, des Dues, p. 171. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 102. 
 
 4 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 102. 
 
 34 
 
the orders of King John. 1 Then Louis 
 awoke to the consciousness that he had 
 committed a strategical blunder in having 
 left such a fortress and seaport as Dover in 
 the hands of the royalists. That town and 
 castle were defended by the famous Hubert 
 De Burgh, a knight whose magnificent 
 qualities as a soldier were only surpassed 
 by his fidelity to a bad master. For fifteen 
 weeks was the fortress bombarded with 
 huge stones hurled by the French mago- 
 nels. 2 The siege failed, but to Louis came 
 compensation grateful to his wounded 
 pride. While his attack upon Dover was 
 at its height, Alexander, King of Scotland, 
 made his way through England with an 
 army at his back, and offered alliance and 
 homage to the invader. 3 
 
 It would be tedious to relate the details 
 of this wonderful yet almost unknown 
 conquest of England. It suffices to say, 
 that from the time of Louis's landing on 
 the 2 1 st of May, to the close of the month 
 of July, only two months and ten days 
 had elapsed. But in that brief space the 
 French prince and his English allies had 
 brought into subjection all England, from 
 the Channel to the Scottish border, with 
 some important "missing links" in the 
 
 1 Norgate, p. 271. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 106. 
 
 2 Wendover, vol, 2, p. 374. Petit-Dutaillis, pp. 
 108, 109. 
 
 3 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 376. 
 
 35 
 
chain of conquest. 1 John still held several 
 of the southwestern shires, although it is 
 uncertain from the chronicles of the time 
 whether the great peninsula of Devon and 
 Cornwall may be counted as his or his 
 rival's, and over some of the strongest 
 castles here and there throughout the 
 realm the royal standard still floated. 
 But the great earldoms of the southeast 
 were in Louis's possession. All the north 
 to the very bounds of Scotland had ac- 
 cepted him as the sovereign of England. 
 Even the wild tribes of Wales, among 
 whom it never had been forgotten that 
 John starved to death the wife and son of 
 William de Braose, threw themselves into 
 the invader's arms. 2 Far more important 
 in its moral effect must have been the fact 
 that at London, where from Anglo-Saxon 
 days had been the capital of England, this 
 foreign prince fixed his throne and ruled 
 with authority which none disputed. 
 When it is recalled that for the greater 
 part of a year Louis held sovereign sway 
 over the major part of England, it does 
 not seem historically inaccurate to style 
 this dominance "The Second Norman 
 Conquest of England. ' ' 
 
 The venturesome craft which had Louis 
 at its helm, for half a year made pros- 
 
 1 Petit-Dutaillis, pp. H2, 113. Norgate, p. 274. 
 
 2 Petit-Dutaillis, pp. 112, 113. 
 
perous voyaging. But now through more 
 than one gaping seam disaster found its 
 way. Some of the great lords who had 
 followed Louis from France, discouraged 
 by the failure to capture Dover, and prob- 
 ably terrified by the spiritual weapons of 
 Gualo, deserted with all their following, 
 and weakened irreparably the army of in- 
 vasion. 1 In his well-meant efforts to re- 
 tain the remainder of his French forces, 
 Louis began to show a natural favoritism 
 toward the nobles of his own race. As 
 might have been expected, the English 
 barons grew moody and jealous as they saw 
 high offices and rich domains bestowed 
 upon foreign adventurers. 2 
 
 It may have been in the summer or 
 autumn of the year 1216 that the Vi- 
 compte de Melun, one of the bravest of 
 the nobles of King Philippe's court, was 
 seized at London with a mortal malady. 
 Conscious that his end was near, he sum- 
 moned some of the English barons to his 
 bedside, and made to them a startling con- 
 fession. In effect it was that Louis and 
 sixteen of his lords — among whom was 
 the Vicompte de Melun himself — had 
 entered into an oath-bound agreement that 
 as soon as the French Prince should 
 be crowned King of England, all the Eng- 
 
 1 Hist, des Dues, pp. 177, 178. 
 
 2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 119. 
 
 37 
 
lish nobles who had solicited and welcomed 
 the invasion should be sent into perpetual 
 banishment, on the strange charge that 
 they were traitors to their liege lord! 
 Scarcely had this terrible revelation es- 
 caped his lips, when the vicompte breathed 
 his last. 1 Although nearly all the chroni- 
 clers concur in the telling of this story, it 
 bears suspicious marks of being a fiction, 
 contrived by John or his partisans. 2 But, 
 true or false, its effect was irresistible. 
 Henceforth, a suspicion which nothing 
 could allay, filled with brooding solicitude 
 the minds of the English barons. 3 Mean- 
 while, Louis had sworn that he would 
 never cease to batter the walls of Dover 
 till that stronghold acknowledged him as 
 King of England. 4 John recognized his 
 opportunity. While the greater part of 
 the French army and its English allies were 
 pounding at the battlements of Dover, the 
 King of England burst forth from his hid- 
 ing-place, and, like a tiger escaped from 
 its cage, began to rend and devour. His 
 course was northward along the eastern 
 border of the island. The story of that 
 savage raid lingered for centuries among 
 the people of Suffolk, Norfolk, and Lin- 
 
 1 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 377. Matt. Paris, vol. 2, 
 p. 287. 
 
 2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 118. 
 
 3 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 377. 
 
 4 Wendover, vol. 2 t p. 375. 
 
 38 
 
colnshire. One hundred and sixty-five 
 years after John was laid in his unhonored 
 grave, Wat Tyler and his rebels — many 
 of whom were from the eastern counties 
 — compelled Richard the Second to swear 
 that no prince of the name of John should 
 ever sit upon the English throne — an 
 oath which yet remains inviolate. 1 In the 
 path of the raging king broad earldoms 
 were swept with fire and sword. Peasants 
 dared no longer cultivate the soil. Fairs 
 and markets ceased to be held. Every- 
 thing of value was buried in the earth. 
 Men furtively bought and sold in the 
 graveyards under the illusion that such a 
 place had a sacredness that even John 
 might respect. 2 The churches and abbeys 
 were profaned. At Crowland, which from 
 Saxon days had been regarded with some- 
 thing of the reverence inspired by the Holy 
 Sepulchre or the Garden of Gethsemane, 
 John ordered the abbey church to be set 
 on fire, and stood at a distance to watch 
 the blaze. When one of his officers, 
 moved by the pleadings of the monks, 
 brought to the king a sum of money as a 
 ransom for their ripe harvest fields, John's 
 fury knew no restraint. Heaping abuse 
 on his too tender-hearted lieutenant, the 
 raging monarch with his own hands fired 
 
 1 Green'sJHist. Eng. People, vol. I, p. 394. 
 
 2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 127. 
 
 39 
 
the wide expanse of waving gold, running 
 up and down amidst the smoke and flames, 
 till the whole territory of St. Guthlac was 
 a blackened desert. 1 The chroniclers re- 
 cord that neither women nor little children 
 were spared by this pitiless monster. To 
 extort money, men were tied to the tails 
 of horses ; they were hung by the feet 
 or hands ; salt and vinegar were flung into 
 their eyes ; they were fastened to a tripod 
 over glowing coals, then plunged into icy 
 water. ' ' Everywhere, ' ' says the annalist 
 of Waverly, " resounded the groans of 
 agony and the cries of mourning. ' ' 2 
 
 Parting the counties of Norfolk and Lin- 
 coln, to-day as in mediaeval times, a broad 
 inlet of the sea bears the name of "The 
 Wash." Five rivers find outlet to the 
 ocean through this estuary. Its vast area 
 of sands, although passable at low tide, 
 has been the grave of many a venturous 
 traveller. On the 12th of October, 12 16, 3 
 a long cavalcade wound its way along the 
 southern shores of the Wash. The steel 
 armor of mounted knights flashed back the 
 rays of the autumn sun. Archers and 
 men-at-arms marched in solid phalanx. 
 Silken banners fluttered in the breath of 
 the sea. But, central amidst that host, 
 
 1 Norgate, p. 278. 
 
 2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 127. 
 
 3 Norgate, pp. 281, 282. Ramsay, p. 500. 
 
 40 
 
guarded with jealous care on the front and 
 flank and rear, rumbled a train of heavily 
 laden wagons. In them was such freight- 
 age as no graybeard in all England had 
 ever seen before. Money beyond all com- 
 putation, wrung by torture from the high 
 and the low; jewels which the great 
 families had proudly kept as heirlooms, 
 and bequeathed from generation to genera- 
 tion; costly garments adorned with gold 
 and precious stones; and endless stores of 
 gold and silver vessels and vestments stiff 
 with embroidery, from desecrated and 
 plundered churches; — these and other spoils 
 of robbery made the wheels of the great 
 wains to creak and groan under the pre- 
 cious load. 1 
 
 The tide had only partially receded. 
 No guide could be found to risk the lead- 
 ing of that host over the quicksand of the 
 Wash. 2 But the furious temper of the 
 chief would brook no delay. Leading the 
 column, he pushed rapidly on till he reached 
 the sands through which the river Welland 
 winds. Suddenly the ground beneath 
 their feet seemed to open. Whirlpools 
 boiled with a foaming flood, and sucked 
 down into their depths men and horses and 
 every wagon of the priceless baggage train. 
 A great part of the army was engulfed, 
 
 1 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 378. 
 
 2 Ramsay, p. 500. Norgate, p. 282. 
 
 41 
 
but their lord, with those in immediate 
 attendance upon him, reached, as by a 
 miracle, the other shore. 1 As John Lack- 
 land looked back upon that frightful grave- 
 yard, no man on earth constituted a 
 stranger picture. He was a king with- 
 out a kingdom, a ruler without subjects, a 
 leader without followers, and a robber 
 whose booty the hand of God had snatched 
 away. 2 Maddened by the disaster, the 
 king made his way to Swineshead Abbey, 
 where he was seized with a raging fever. 
 Always the slave of his appetites, he 
 gorged himself that night on the good 
 monks' peaches and cider. 3 Desperately ill 
 next morning, he persisted in pushing north- 
 ward, bent on some new scheme of slaugh- 
 ter and devastation. No longer able to 
 bestride his horse, he was carried for a 
 little way upon a rude litter woven by his 
 attendants of willow boughs cut with their 
 
 J Wendover, vol. 2, p. 378. Norgate, p. 282. 
 
 2 Since this essay was completed, my friend Pro- 
 fessor James Westfall Thompson has kindly point- 
 ed out to the writer, an article appearing recently 
 in the Journal of the British Numismatic Society, 
 by its Honorary Secretary, Mr. W. J. Andrew, upon 
 the general subject of " Buried Treasure." It con- 
 tains the following significant statement : — 
 
 "There is still a vast army-chest lying but a few 
 feet below English soil, compared to which all 
 these other discoveries pale into insignificance. 
 This is the entire treasure of King John, including 
 the ancient regalia of England, the jewels of the 
 Normans, and perhaps even the crown of Alfred." 
 
 ' Wendover, vol. 1, p. 378. Norgate, p. 282. 
 
 42 
 
swords. But with shrieks and curses he 
 cried out that this wicker vehicle was an 
 instrument of torture, and once more they 
 lifted him upon his horse. So he came to 
 Newark. 1 The traveller in the north of 
 England, visiting that ancient city, is still 
 shown the ruined castle of the bishop of 
 Lincoln, overlooking the waters of the 
 Trent. In some chamber of that now 
 crumbling edifice, at the hour of midnight 
 on the 1 8th of October, 1216, John Lack- 
 land closed his career of unexampled 
 crime. It was fitting that when such a 
 tempestuous soul passed out of the world, 
 the elements should be convulsed with a 
 furious storm which shook the houses of 
 the townsfolk, and howled like an army of 
 demons through the turrets of the castle. 2 
 As a monk of the bishop's household en- 
 tered the death-chamber with the morning 
 light, he met the servants of the king 
 hurrying away with such of his personal 
 effects as had not been buried in the 
 quicksands of the Wash. The body was 
 found stripped even of the scanty garments 
 in which John breathed his last. 3 Matthew 
 Paris closes his estimate of this monarch's 
 character with these words of monkish 
 consolation : — 
 
 1 Norgate, p. 282. Roger of Wendover, vol. 2, 
 p. 378. 
 
 2 Norgate, p. 285. 
 
 3 Ramsay, p. 501. Norgate, p. 285. 
 
 43 
 
" It is, however, to be confidently hoped that some 
 good works which he performed may plead in his 
 favor at the tribunal of Jesus Christ ; for he founded 
 a monastery of the Cistercian order at Beaulieu, 
 and gave to the Abbey of Croxton lands worth ten 
 pounds." » 
 
 Strangest of all the contradictions of 
 history, the bells of Worcester Cathedral, 
 tolling for the burial of John Lackland, 
 pealed out the death-knell of the invasion 
 led by Louis of France. Had Almighty 
 God permitted to the English monarch a 
 longer space in which to harry his own 
 country, to burn the castles of the nobility 
 and the homes and harvests of the poor, 
 to rob the most sacred shrines, and to wring 
 money from the helpless by inflicting 
 agonies of torture, it is at least probable 
 that the whole nation would have turned to 
 Louis as their only deliverer from horrors 
 no longer to be borne. 
 
 But when all over England flew the tid- 
 ings that the tyrant had perished, new hope 
 sprang in the breasts of the people. And 
 when it was known that John in dying had 
 committed the guardianship of the heir to 
 the throne (then a child of but ten years) to 
 the great Earl of Pembroke, Marshal of the 
 realm, 2 loyalty to the Plantagenet line surged 
 up like the floodtide of the sea. Why, it was 
 asked, should Englishmen go pleading with 
 
 1 Wendover, vol. 2 p., 379, foot-note. 
 
 2 Hist, des Dues, p. 180. 
 
 44 
 
a French prince to accept the crown, when 
 an heir of the Angevin house, whose title 
 none could question, claimed their fealty. 
 True, the young Henry was but a child, 
 and with the blood of John Lackland in his 
 veins. But the real ruler of the land would 
 be the wisest, bravest, and best beloved of 
 the nobles of England. William, Earl of 
 Pembroke, had been the idol of the English 
 people since under Henry the Second he 
 had entered upon his chivalrous career. In 
 him were blended a dauntless courage, a 
 knightly generosity, and a skill as a war- 
 rior only equalled by his sagacity in coun- 
 sel. 1 The tide of hate, which had reached 
 its flood when John ravaged the east- 
 ern coast, suddenly turned. Its ebb was 
 strangely rapid. Churchmen, terrified by 
 the nearer thunders of the papal wrath, fell 
 away from the French prince as from a 
 leper. Only one bishop continued to stand 
 by him. 2 Desertion of a "lost cause' ' 
 became the order of the day. Five hun- 
 dred of the English nobles who had been 
 fighting under the banner of the invader, 
 in one day swore allegiance to Henry. 3 
 Four times did Louis return to the siege of 
 Dover Castle, but as vainly as the surges 
 of the Channel beat against Dover cliffs. 
 Recognizing his desperate situation, 
 
 1 Norgate, p. 29. Ramsay, p. 423. 
 
 2 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 134. 
 
 Ibid., p. 144. Walter of Coventry, vol. 2, p. 235. 
 45 
 
Louis negotiated a truce (to which neither 
 side was faithful) while he crossed to France 
 to seek succor among his compatriots. 1 
 But wily Philippe Augustus had no wel- 
 coming hand to stretch out to the prince 
 whom the Pope had styled the French 
 King's il Prodigal Son." Philippe even 
 declined to speak to Louis. 2 Almost a 
 year after his first landing, the prince again 
 disembarked at Sandwich, with some re- 
 enforcements and a little treasure borrowed 
 from his friends. 3 But his return to England 
 was the signal for a new and irreparable 
 disaster. 4 For some months his forces 
 had held the city of Lincoln, while the 
 castle overlooking the town was flying the 
 banner of King John, and its chatelaine, 
 the heroic Dame de la Haye, was flinging 
 an Englishwoman's defiance on the for- 
 eigners below. On Thursday, the 25th of 
 May, 12 17, as Louis was once more ham- 
 mering ineffectually at the gates of Dover 
 Castle, came the news that Lincoln was 
 lost. The hold of the invasion on the 
 north of England had been wrenched loose, 
 and to render the defeat the more humil- 
 iating, the barons to whom the city had 
 been intrusted and the flower of the chiv- 
 
 1 Petit-Dutaillis, pp. 139, 141. 
 Hist, des Dues, p. 187. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 145. 
 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 146. 
 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 150-155. 
 
 46 
 
airy of France were prisoners in the hands 
 of the regent. 1 
 
 In that bitter hour the devotion of 
 Blanche of Castile led to another and 
 supreme effort to save her husband from 
 total shipwreck of his enterprise. When 
 Philippe Augustus coldly refused to aid his 
 son, the faithful Blanche swore that she 
 would raise money by mortgaging her two 
 children. Unwilling to face such an alter- 
 native, the king supplied secretly the treas- 
 ure with which Blanche fitted out a fleet of 
 eighty ships, bearing three hundred knights 
 and their retainers, and carrying to the 
 almost despairing prince gold and silver 
 and implements of war. 2 On the 22d of 
 August a powerful English fleet met the 
 French off Dover, and in one of the most 
 ferocious, as it was one of the most deci- 
 sive, naval combats of the Middle Ages the 
 last hope of Louis perished. 3 
 
 It had taken but three months for the 
 rising sun of French invasion to climb 
 to the zenith of the conquest of England. 
 But that August day when the blood of 
 the chivalry of France dyed the waters of 
 the Channel was the disastrous sunset of an 
 ill-starred venture. 
 
 1 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 396. 
 
 2 Preface to Histoire des Dues, p. xxxviii. Petit- 
 Dutaillis, p. 163. 
 
 3 Hist, des Dues, pp. 201, 202. Hist, de la Marine 
 Fran?aise, pp. 313, 314. 
 
 47 
 
There is no mystery in the fact that the 
 story here related is but little known to 
 the average reader of history. It was but 
 human on the part of the English historians 
 to touch lightly upon the humiliating 
 truth that a foreign prince had landed on 
 their shores, gained the allegiance of the 
 great nobles of the realm, conquered the 
 country from the Channel to the Cheviot 
 Hills, and held in his grasp for more than 
 a year the ancient capital of Edward 
 the Confessor and William the Norman. 
 Equally did patriotic pride refuse to let 
 the annalists of France tell in its minuter 
 features how that bold attempt of Louis 
 ended in defeat and shame. 1 The true 
 picture of the times of John Lackland and 
 Louis of France is a mosaic of fragments 
 gathered here and there from the records 
 of monkish chroniclers, and patiently put 
 together. 
 
 It is the thirteenth day of September, in 
 the year of grace 12 17. The autumn sun- 
 shine falls in yellow light upon the grassy 
 meadows of an islet in the river Thames. 2 
 There, prostrate on the earth, clad in a 
 long white woollen garment, and with 
 naked feet, Louis of France grovels in 
 penitence for his sins committed against 
 
 1 Preface to Hist, des Dues, p. iv. 
 
 2 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 402. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 170. 
 
 48 
 
God's vicegerent in the world. High above 
 the repentant prince, is throned the haughty 
 Gualo, legate of the Pope. Over his head 
 a gorgeous canopy is hung. Around him, 
 like satellites around the sun, are mitred 
 bishops resplendent in jewelled vestments. 
 As if at the bar of the Eternal Judge, 
 Louis pleads for pardon. He swears 
 upon the crucifix to obey henceforth every 
 decree of the Church, neither to invade 
 England nor make war upon its king, and 
 for two years to come to pay a tenth of all 
 his revenues to redeem from the infidels 
 the Sepulchre of Christ. Then — and 
 then only — does the triumphant legate 
 deign to lift from this penitent sinner the 
 crushing weight of excommunication. 1 
 
 Fifteen days pass by. 2 Two men are 
 standing on the quay at Dover, and wav- 
 ing farewell to a vessel as she pushes out 
 into the Channel. Eighty years of a 
 stormy life have not bent the stately figure 
 of William of Pembroke, Earl Marshal 
 and Regent of the realm. 3 Nor has long 
 residence on English soil sufficed to alter 
 the cunning of the Italian in the shifty ex- 
 pression of Gualo 's eyes. 4 But as Louis 
 of France leans on the ship's rail, and 
 
 1 Petit-Dutaillis, pp. 172, 173. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 178. 
 
 3 Wendover, vol. 2, p. 403. 
 
 4 Petit-Dutaillis, p. 178. 
 
 49 
 
looks back at the land he has coveted, at 
 the grim castle which has withstood his 
 four assaults, and at the two men who 
 have turned his victory to disaster, bitter 
 indeed is his cup of gall. But the west 
 wind blows, and the chalk cliffs of Dover 
 are fading from his eyes. So in the lapse 
 of the centuries has faded into forgetful- 
 ness the story of the second Norman Con- 
 quest of England. 
 
 50 
 
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