The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume VII Part 21

REIGN OF RICHARD I.

[Sidenote: Richard I. A.D. 1189]

Whilst Henry lived, the King of France had always an effectual means of breaking his power by the divisions in his family. But now Richard succeeded to all the power of his father, with an equal ambition to extend it, with a temper infinitely more fiery and impetuous, and free from every impediment of internal dissension. These circ.u.mstances filled the mind of Philip with great and just uneasiness. There was no security but in finding exercise for the enterprising genius of the young king at a distance from home. The new Crusade afforded an advantageous opportunity. A little before his father's death, Richard had taken the cross in conjunction with the King of France. So precipitate were the fears of that monarch, that Richard was hardly crowned when amba.s.sadors were dispatched to England to remind him of his obligation, and to pique his pride by acquainting him that their master was even then in readiness to fulfil his part of their common vow. An enterprise of this sort was extremely agreeable to the genius of Richard, where religion sanctified the thirst of military glory, and where the glory itself seemed but the more desirable by being unconnected with interest. He immediately accepted the proposal, and resolved to insure the success as well as the l.u.s.tre of his expedition by the magnificence of his preparations. Not content with the immense treasures ama.s.sed by his father, he drew in vast sums by the sale of almost all the demesnes of the crown, and of every office under it, not excepting those of the highest trust. The clergy, whose wealth and policy enabled them to take advantage of the necessity and weakness of the Croises, were generally the purchasers of both. To secure his dominions in his absence, he made an alliance with the princes of Wales, and with the King of Scotland. To the latter he released, for a sum of money, the homage which had been extorted by his father.

His brother John gave him most uneasiness; but finding it unworthy, or impracticable, to use the severer methods of jealous policy, he resolved to secure his fidelity by loading him with benefits. He bestowed on him six earldoms, and gave him in marriage the Lady Avisa, sole heiress of the great house of Gloucester; but as he gave him no share in the regency, he increased his power, and left him discontented in a kingdom committed to the care of new men, who had merited their places by their money.

It will be proper to take a view of the condition of the Holy Land at the time when this third Crusade was set on foot to repair the faults committed in the two former. The conquests of the Croises, extending over Palestine and a part of Syria, had been erected into a sovereignty under the name of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. This kingdom, ill-ordered within, surrounded on all sides by powerful enemies, subsisted by a strength not its own for near ninety years. But dissensions arising about the succession to the crown, between Guy of Lusignan and Raymond, Earl of Tripoli, Guy, either because he thought the a.s.sistance of the European princes too distant, or that he feared their decision, called in the aid of Saladin, Sultan of Egypt. This able prince immediately entered Palestine. As the whole strength of the Christians in Palestine depended upon foreign succor, he first made himself master of the maritime towns, and then Jerusalem fell an easy prey to his arms; whilst the compet.i.tors contended with the utmost violence for a kingdom which no longer existed for either of them. All Europe was alarmed at this revolution. The banished Patriarch of Jerusalem filled every place with the distresses of the Eastern Christians. The Pope ordered a solemn fast to be forever kept for this loss, and then, exerting all his influence, excited a new Crusade, in which vast numbers engaged, with an ardor unabated by their former misfortunes; but wanting a proper subordination rather than a sufficient force, they made but a slow progress, when Richard and Philip, at the head of more than one hundred thousand chosen men, the one from Ma.r.s.eilles, the other from Genoa, set sail to their a.s.sistance.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1191]

In his voyage to the Holy Land accident presented Richard, with an unexpected conquest. A vessel of his fleet was driven by a storm to take shelter in the Isle of Cyprus. That island was governed by a prince named Isaac, of the imperial family of the Comneni, who not only refused all relief to the sufferers, but plundered them of the little remains of their substance. Richard, resenting this inhospitable treatment, aggravated by the insolence of the tyrant, turned his force upon Cyprus, vanquished Isaac in the field, took the capital city, and was solemnly crowned king of that island. But deeming it as glorious to give as to acquire a crown, he soon after resigned it to Lusignan, to satisfy him for his claim on Jerusalem; in whose descendants it continued for several generations, until, pa.s.sing by marriage into the family of Cornaro, a Venetian n.o.bleman, it was acquired to that state, the only state in Europe which had any real benefit by all the blood and treasure lavished in the Holy War.

Richard arrived in Palestine some time after the King of France. His arrival gave new vigor to the operations of the Croises. He reduced Acre to surrender at discretion, which had been in vain besieged for two years, and in the siege of which an infinite number of Christians had perished; and so much did he distinguish himself on this and on all occasions, that the whole expedition seemed to rest on his single valor.

The King of France, seeing him fully engaged, had all that he desired.

The climate was disagreeable to his const.i.tution, and the war, in which he acted but a second part, to his pride. He therefore hastened home to execute his projects against Richard, amusing him with oaths made to be violated,--leaving, indeed, a part of his forces under the Duke of Burgundy, but with private orders to give him underhand all possible obstruction. Notwithstanding the desertion of his ally, Richard continued the war with uncommon alacrity. With very unequal numbers he engaged and defeated the whole army of Saladin, and slew forty thousand of his best troops. He obliged him to evacuate all the towns on the sea-coast, and spread the renown and terror of his arms over all Asia. A thousand great exploits did not, however, enable him to extend his conquests to the inland country. Jealousy, envy, cabals, and a total want of discipline reigned in the army of the Crosses. The climate, and their intemperance more than the climate, wasted them with a swift decay. The vow which brought them to the Holy Land was generally for a limited time, at the conclusion of which they were always impatient to depart. Their armies broke up at the most critical conjunctures,--as it was not the necessity of the service, but the extent of their vows, which held them together. As soon, therefore, as they had habituated themselves to the country, and attained some experience, they were gone; and new men supplied their places, to acquire experience by the same misfortunes, and to lose the benefit of it by the same inconstancy. Thus the war could never be carried on with steadiness and uniformity. On the other side, Saladin continually repaired his losses; his resources were at hand; and this great captain very judiciously kept possession of that mountainous country which, formed by a perpetual ridge of Liba.n.u.s, in a manner walls in the sea-coast of Palestine. There he hung, like a continual tempest, ready to burst over the Christian army. On his rear was the strong city of Jerusalem, which secured a communication with the countries of Chaldea and Mesopotamia, from whence he was well supplied with everything. If the Christians attempted to improve their successes by penetrating to Jerusalem, they had a city powerfully garrisoned in their front, a country wasted and dest.i.tute of forage to act in, and Saladin with a vast army on their rear advantageously posted to cut off their convoys and reinforcements.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1192.]

Richard was laboring to get over these disadvantages, when he was informed by repeated expresses of the disorder of his affairs in Europe,--disorders which arose from the ill dispositions he had made at his departure. The heads of his regency had abused their power; they quarrelled with each other, and the n.o.bility with them. A sort of a civil war had arisen, in which they were deposed. Prince John was the main spring of these dissensions; he engaged in a close communication of councils with the King of France, who had seized upon several places in Normandy. It was with regret that Richard found himself obliged to leave a theatre on which he had planned such an ill.u.s.trious scene of action. A constant emulation in courtesy and politeness, as well as in military exploits, had been kept up between him and Saladin. He now concluded a truce with that generous enemy, and on his departure sent a messenger to a.s.sure him that on its expiration he would not fail to be again in Palestine. Saladin replied, that, if he must lose his kingdom, he would choose to lose it to the King England. Thus Richard returned, leaving Jerusalem in the hands of the Saracens; and this end had an enterprise in which two of the most powerful monarchs in Europe were personally engaged, an army of upwards of one hundred thousand men employed, and to furnish which the whole Christian world had been vexed and exhausted.

It is a melancholy reflection, that the spirit of great designs can seldom be inspired, but where the reason of mankind is so uncultivated that they can be turned to little advantage.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1193]

With this war ended the fortune of Richard, who found the Saracens less dangerous than his Christian allies. It is not well known what motive induced him to land at Aquileia, at the bottom of the Gulf of Venice, in order to take his route by Germany; but he pursued his journey through, the territories of the Duke of Austria, whom he had personally affronted at the siege of Acre. And now, neither keeping himself out of the power of that prince, nor rousing his generosity by seeming to confide in it, he attempted to get through his dominions in disguise. Sovereigns do not easily a.s.sume the private character; their pride seldom suffers their disguise to be complete: besides, Richard had made himself but too well known. The Duke, transported with the opportunity of base revenge, discovered him, seized him, and threw him into prison; from whence he was only released to be thrown into another. The Emperor claimed him, and, without regarding in this unfortunate captive the common dignity of sovereigns, or his great actions in the common cause of Europe, treated him with yet greater cruelty. To give a color of justice to his violence, he proposed to accuse Richard at the Diet of the Empire upon certain articles relative to his conduct in the Holy Land.

The news of the king's captivity caused the greatest consternation in all his good subjects; but it revived the hopes and machinations of Prince John, who bound himself by closer ties than ever to the King of France, seized upon some strongholds in England, and, industriously spreading a report of his brother's death, publicly laid claim to the crown as lawful successor. All his endeavors, however, served only to excite the indignation of the people, and to attach them the more firmly to their unfortunate prince. Eleanor, the queen dowager, as good a mother as she had been a bad wife, acted with the utmost vigor and prudence to retain them in their duty, and omitted no means to procure the liberty of her son. The nation seconded her with a zeal, in their circ.u.mstances, uncommon. No tyrant ever imposed so severe a tax upon his people as the affection of the people of England, already exhausted, levied upon themselves. The most favored religious orders were charged on this occasion. The Church plate was sold. The ornaments of the most holy relics were not spared. And, indeed, nothing serves more to demonstrate the poverty of the kingdom, reduced by internal dissensions and remote wars, at that time, than the extreme difficulty of collecting the king's ransom, which amounted to no more than one hundred thousand marks of silver, Cologne weight. For raising this sum, the first taxation, the most heavy and general that was ever known in England, proved altogether insufficient. Another taxation was set on foot. It was levied with the same rigor as the former, and still fell short.

Amba.s.sadors were sent into Germany with all that could be raised, and with hostages for the payment of whatever remained. The king met these amba.s.sadors as he was carried in chains to plead his cause before the Diet of the Empire. The amba.s.sadors burst into tears at this affecting sight, and wept aloud; but Richard, though touched no less with the affectionate loyalty of his subjects than with his own fallen condition, preserved his dignity entire in his misfortunes, and with a cheerful air inquired of the state of his dominions, the behavior of the King of Scotland, and the fidelity of his brother, the Count John. At the Diet, no longer protected by the character of a sovereign, he was supported by his personal abilities. He had a ready wit and great natural eloquence; and his high reputation and the weight of his cause pleading for him more strongly, the Diet at last interested itself in his favor, and prevailed on the Emperor to accept an excessive ransom for dismissing a prisoner whom he detained without the least color of justice. Philip moved heaven and earth to prevent his enlargement: he negotiated, he promised, he flattered, he threatened, he outbid his extravagant ransom.

The Emperor, in his own nature more inclined to the bribe, which tempted him to be base, hesitated a long time between these offers. But as the payment of the ransom was more certain than Philip's promises, and as the instances of the Diet, and the menaces of the Pope, who protected Richard, as a prince serving under the Cross, were of more immediate consequence than his threats, Richard was at length released; and though it is said the Emperor endeavored to seize him again, to extort an other ransom, he escaped safely into England.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1194]

Richard, on his coming to England, found all things in the utmost confusion; but before he attempted to apply a remedy to so obstinate a disease, in order to wipe off any degrading ideas which might have arisen from his imprisonment, he caused himself to be new crowned. Then holding his Court of Great Council at Southampton, he made some useful regulations in the distribution of justice. He called some great offenders to a strict account. Count John deserved no favor, and he lay entirely at the king's mercy, who, by an unparalleled generosity, pardoned him his multiplied offences, only depriving him of the power of which he had made so bad a use. Generosity did not oblige him to forget the hostilities of the King of France. But to prosecute the war money was wanting, which new taxes and new devices supplied with difficulty and with dishonor. All the mean oppressions of a necessitous government were exercised on this occasion. All the grants which were made on the king's departure to the Holy Land were revoked, on the weak pretence that the purchasers had sufficient recompense whilst they held them.

Necessity seemed to justify this, as well as many other measures that were equally violent. The whole revenue of the crown had been dissipated; means to support its dignity must be found; and these means were the least unpopular, as most men saw with pleasure the wants of government fall upon those who had started into a sudden greatness by taking advantage of those wants.

Richard renewed the war with Philip, which continued, though frequently interrupted by truces, for about five years. In this war Richard signalized himself by that irresistible courage which on all occasions gave him a superiority over the King of France. But his revenues were exhausted; a great scarcity reigned both in France and England; and the irregular manner of carrying on war in those days prevented a clear decision in favor of either party. Richard had still an eye on the Holy Land, which he considered as the only province worthy of his arms; and this continually diverted his thoughts from the steady prosecution of the war in France. The Crusade, like a superior orb, moved along with all the particular systems of politics of that time, and suspended, accelerated, or put back all operations on motives foreign to the things themselves. In this war it must be remarked, that Richard made a considerable use of the mercenaries who had been so serviceable to Henry the Second; and the King of France, perceiving how much his father, Louis, had suffered by a want of that advantage, kept on foot a standing army in constant pay, which none of his predecessors had done before him, and which afterwards for a long time very unaccountably fell into disuse in both kingdoms.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1199.]

Whilst this war was carried on, by intervals and starts, it came to the ears of Richard that a n.o.bleman of Limoges had found on his lands a considerable hidden treasure. The king, necessitous and rapacious to the last degree, and stimulated by the exaggeration and marvellous circ.u.mstances which always attend the report of such discoveries, immediately sent to demand the treasure, under pretence of the rights of seigniory. The Limosin, either because he had really discovered nothing or that he was unwilling to part with so valuable an acquisition, refused to comply with the king's demand, and fortified his castle.

Enraged at the disappointment, Richard relinquished the important affairs in which he was engaged, and laid siege to this castle with all the eagerness of a man who has his heart set upon a trifle. In this siege he received a wound from an arrow, and it proved mortal; but in the last, as in all the other acts of his life, something truly n.o.ble shone out amidst the rash and irregular motions of his mind. The castle was taken before he died. The man from whom Richard had received the wound was brought before him. Being asked why he levelled his arrow at the king, he answered, with an undaunted countenance, "that the king with his own hand had slain his two brothers; that he thanked G.o.d who gave him an opportunity to revenge their deaths even with the certainty of his own." Richard, more touched with the magnanimity of the man than offended at the injury he had received or the boldness of the answer, ordered that his life should be spared. He appointed his brother John to the succession; and with these acts ended a life and reign distinguished by a great variety of fortunes in different parts of the world, and crowned with great military glory, but without any accession of power to himself, or prosperity to his people, whom he entirely neglected, and reduced, by his imprudence and misfortunes, to no small indigence and distress.

In many respects, a striking parallel presents itself between this ancient King of England and Charles the Twelfth, of Sweden. They were both inordinately desirous of war, and rather generals than kings. Both were rather fond of glory than ambitious of empire. Both of them made and deposed sovereigns. They both carried on their wars at a distance from home. They were both made prisoners by a friend and ally. They were both reduced by an adversary inferior in war, but above them in the arts of rule. After spending their lives in remote adventures, each perished at last near home in enterprises not suited to the splendor of their former exploits. Both died childless. And both, by the neglect of their affairs and the severity of their government, gave their subjects provocation and encouragement to revive their freedom. In all these respects the two characters were alike; but Richard fell as much short of the Swedish hero in temperance, chast.i.ty, and equality of mind as he exceeded him in wit and eloquence. Some of his sayings are the most spirited that we find in that time; and some of his verses remain, which is a barbarous age might have pa.s.sed for poetry.

CHAPTER VIII.

REIGN OF JOHN.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1199]

We are now arrived at one of the most memorable periods in the English story, whether we consider the astonishing revolutions which were then wrought, the calamities in which both the prince and people were involved, or the happy consequences which, arising from the midst of those calamities, have const.i.tuted the glory and prosperity of England for so many years. We shall see a throne founded in arms, and augmented by the successive policy of five able princes, at once shaken to its foundations: first made tributary by the arts of a foreign power; then limited, and almost overturned, by the violence of its subjects. We shall see a king, to reduce his people to obedience, draw into his territories a tumultuary foreign army, and destroy his country instead of establishing his government. We shall behold the people, grown desperate, call in another foreign army, with a foreign prince at its head, and throw away that liberty which they had sacrificed everything to preserve. We shall see the arms of this prince successful against an established king in the vigor of his years, ebbing in the full tide of their prosperity, and yielding to an infant: after this, peace and order and liberty restored, the foreign force and foreign t.i.tle purged off, and all things settled as happily as beyond all hope.

Richard dying without lawful issue, the succession to his dominions again became dubious. They consisted of various territories, governed by various rules of descent, and all of them uncertain. There were two compet.i.tors: the first was Prince John, youngest son of Henry the Second; the other was Arthur, son of Constance of Bretagne, by Geoffrey, the third son of that monarch. If the right of consanguinity were only considered, the t.i.tle of John to the whole succession had been indubitable. If the right of representation had then prevailed, which now universally prevails, Arthur, as standing in the place of his father, Geoffrey, had a solid claim. About Brittany there was no dispute. Anjou, Poitou, Touraine, and Guienne declared in favor of Arthur, on the principle of representation. Normandy was entirely for John. In England the point of law had never been entirely settled, but it seemed rather inclined to the side of consanguinity. Therefore in England, where this point was dubious at best, the claim of Arthur, an infant and a stranger, had little force against the pretensions of John, declared heir by the will of the late king, supported by his armies, possessed of his treasures, and at the head of a powerful party. He secured in his interests Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Glanville, the chief justiciary, and by them the body of the ecclesiastics and the law. It is remarkable, also, that he paid court to the cities and boroughs, which is the first instance of that policy: but several of these communities now happily began to emerge from their slavery, and, taking advantage of the necessities and confusion of the late reign, increased in wealth and consequence, and had then first attained a free and regular form of administration. The towns new to power declared heartily in favor of a prince who was willing to allow that their declaration could confer a right. The n.o.bility, who saw themselves beset by the Church, the law, and the burghers, had taken no measures, nor even a resolution, and therefore had nothing left but to concur in acknowledging the t.i.tle of John, whom they knew and hated. But though they were not able to exclude him from the succession, they had strength enough to oblige him to a solemn promise of restoring those liberties and franchises which they had always claimed without having ever enjoyed or even perfectly understood. The clergy also took advantage of the badness of his t.i.tle to establish one altogether as ill founded. Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the speech which he delivered at the king's coronation, publicly affirmed that the crown of England was of right elective. He drew his examples in support of this doctrine, not from the histories of the ancient Saxon kings, although a species of election within a certain family had then frequently prevailed, but from the history of the first kings of the Jews: without doubt in order to revive those pretensions which the clergy first set up in the election of Stephen, and which they had since been obliged to conceal, but had not entirely forgotten.

John accepted a sovereignty weakened in the very act by which he acquired it; but he submitted to the times. He came to the throne at the age of thirty-two. He had entered early into business, and had been often involved in difficult and arduous enterprises, in which he experienced a variety of men and fortunes. His father, whilst he was very young, had sent him into Ireland, which kingdom was destined for his portion, in order to habituate that people to their future sovereign, and to give the young prince an opportunity of conciliating the favor of his new subjects. But he gave on this occasion no good omens of capacity for government. Full of the insolent levity of a young man of high rank without education, and surrounded with others equally unpractised, he insulted the Irish chiefs, and, ridiculing their uncouth garb and manners, he raised such a disaffection to the English government, and so much opposition to it, as all the wisdom of his father's best officers and counsellors was hardly able to overcome. In the decline of his father's life he joined in the rebellion of his brothers, with so much more guilt as with more ingrat.i.tude and hypocrisy. During the reign of Richard he was the perpetual author of seditions and tumults; and yet was pardoned, and even favored by that prince to his death, when he very unaccountably appointed him heir to all his dominions.

It was of the utmost moment to John, who had no solid t.i.tle, to conciliate the favor of all the world. Yet one of his first steps, whilst his power still remained dubious and unsettled, was, on pretence of consanguinity, to divorce his wife Avisa, with whom he had lived many years, and to marry Isabella of Angouleme, a woman of extraordinary beauty, but who had been betrothed to Hugh, Count of Marche: thus disgusting at once the powerful friends of his divorced wife, and those of the Earl of Marche, whom he had so sensibly wronged.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1200.]

The King of France, Philip Augustus, saw with pleasure these proceedings of John, as he had before rejoiced at the dispute about the succession.

He had been always employed, and sometimes with success, to reduce the English power through the reigns of one very able and one very warlike prince. He had greater advantages in this conjuncture, and a prince of quite another character now to contend with. He was therefore not long without choosing his part; and whilst he secretly encouraged the Count of Marche, already stimulated by his private wrongs, he openly supported the claim of Arthur to the Duchies of Anjou and Touraine. It was the character of this prince readily to lay aside and as readily to rea.s.sume his enterprises, as his affairs demanded. He saw that he had declared himself too rashly, and that he was in danger of being a.s.saulted upon every side. He saw it was necessary to break an alliance, which the nice circ.u.mstances and timid character of John would enable him to do. In fact, John was at this time united in a close alliance with the Emperor and the Earl of Flanders; and these princes were engaged in a war with France. He had then a most favorable opportunity to establish all his claims, and at the same time to put the King of France out of a condition to question them ever after. But he suffered himself to be overreached by the artifices of Philip: he consented to a treaty of peace, by which he received an empty acknowledgment of his right to the disputed territories, and in return for which acknowledgment he renounced his alliance with the Emperor. By this act he at once strengthened his enemy, gave up his ally, and lowered his character with his subjects and with all the world.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1201.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1202.]

This treaty was hardly signed, when the ill consequences of his conduct became evident. The Earl of Marche and Arthur immediately renewed their claims and hostilities under the protection of the King of France, who made a strong diversion by invading Normandy. At the commencement of these motions, John, by virtue of a prerogative hitherto undisputed, summoned his English barons to attend him into France; but instead of a compliance with his orders, he was surprised with a solemn demand of their ancient liberties. It is astonishing that the barons should at that time have ventured on a resolution of such dangerous importance, as they had provided no sort of means to support them. But the history of those times furnishes many instances of the like want of design in the most momentous affairs, and shows that it is in vain to look for political causes for the actions of men, who were most commonly directed by a brute caprice, and were for the greater part dest.i.tute of any fixed principles of obedience or resistance. The king, sensible of the weakness of his barons, fell upon some of their castles with such timely vigor, and treated those whom he had reduced with so much severity, that the rest immediately and abjectly submitted. He levied a severe tax upon their fiefs; and thinking himself more strengthened by this treasure than the forced service of his barons, he excused the personal attendance of most of them, and, pa.s.sing into Normandy, he raised an army there. He found that his enemies had united their forces, and invested the castle of Mirebeau, a place of importance, in which his mother, from whom he derived his right to Guienne, was besieged. He flew to the relief of this place with the spirit of a greater character, and the success was answerable. The Breton and Poitevin army was defeated, his mother was freed, and the young Duke of Brittany and his sister were made prisoners. The latter he sent into England, to be confined in the castle of Bristol; the former he carried with him to Rouen. The good fortune of John now seemed to be at its highest point; but it was exalted on a precipice; and this great victory proved the occasion of all the evils which afflicted his life.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1203.]

John was not of a character to resist the temptation of having the life of his rival in his hands. All historians are as fully agreed that he murdered his nephew as they differ in the means by which he accomplished that crime. But the report was soon spread abroad, variously heightened in the circ.u.mstances by the obscurity of the fact, which left all men at liberty to imagine and invent, and excited all those sentiments of pity and indignation which a very young prince of great hopes, cruelly murdered by his uncle, naturally inspire. Philip had never missed an occasion of endeavoring to ruin the King of England: and having now acquired an opportunity of accomplishing that by justice which he had in vain sought by ambition, he filled every place with complaints of the cruelty of John, whom, as a va.s.sal to the crown of France, the king accused of the murder of another va.s.sal, and summoned him to Paris to be tried by his peers. It was by no means consistent either with the dignity or safety of John to appear to this summons. He had the argument of kings to justify what he had done. But as in all great crimes there is something of a latent weakness, and in a vicious caution something material is ever neglected, John, satisfied with removing his rival, took no thought about his enemy; but whilst he saw himself sentenced for non-appearance in the Court of Peers, whilst he saw the King of France entering Normandy with a vast army in consequence of this sentence, and place after place, castle after castle, falling before him, he pa.s.sed his time at Rouen in the profoundest tranquillity, indulging himself in indolent amus.e.m.e.nts, and satisfied with vain threatenings and boasts, which only added greater shame to his inactivity. The English barons who had attended him in this expedition, disaffected from the beginning, and now wearied with being so long witnesses to the ignominy of their sovereign, retired to their own country, and there spread the report of his unaccountable sloth and cowardice. John quickly followed them; and returning into his kingdom, polluted with the charge of so heavy a crime, and disgraced by so many follies, instead of aiming by popular acts to reestablish his character, he exacted a seventh of their movables from the barons, on pretence that they had deserted his service. He laid the same imposition on the clergy, without giving himself the trouble of seeking for a pretext. He made no proper use of these great supplies, but saw the great city of Rouen, always faithful to its sovereigns, and now exerting the most strenuous efforts in his favor, obliged at length to surrender, without the least attempt to relieve it Thus the whole Duchy of Normandy, originally acquired by the valor of his ancestors, and the source from which the greatness of his family had been derived, after being supported against all shocks for three hundred years, was torn forever from the stock of Rollo, and reunited to the crown of France. Immediately all the rest of the provinces which he held on the continent, except a part of Guienne, despairing of his protection, and abhorring his government, threw themselves into the hands of Philip.

Meanwhile the king by his personal vices completed the odium which he had acquired by the impotent violence of his government. Uxorious and yet dissolute in his manners, he made no scruple frequently to violate the wives and daughters of his n.o.bility, that rock on which tyranny has so often split. Other acts of irregular power, in their greatest excesses, still retain the characters of sovereign authority; but here the vices of the prince intrude into the families of the subject, and, whilst they aggravate the oppression, lower the character of the oppressor.

In the disposition which all these causes had concurred universally to diffuse, the slightest motion in his kingdom threatened the most dangerous consequences. Those things which in quiet times would have only raised a slight controversy, now, when the minds of men were exasperated and inflamed, were capable of affording matter to the greatest revolutions. The affairs of the Church, the winds which mostly governed the fluctuating people, were to be regarded with the utmost attention. Above all, the person who filled the see of Canterbury, which stood on a level with the throne itself, was a matter of the last importance. Just at this critical time died Hubert, archbishop of that see, a man who had a large share in procuring the crown for John, and in weakening its authority by his acts at the ceremony of the coronation, as well as by his subsequent conduct. Immediately on the death of this prelate, a cabal of obscure monks, of the Abbey of St. Augustin, a.s.semble by night, and first binding themselves by a solemn oath not to divulge their proceedings, until they should be confirmed by the Pope, they elect one Reginald, their sub-prior, Archbishop of Canterbury. The person elected immediately crossed the seas; but his vanity soon discovered the secret of his greatness. The king received the news of this transaction with surprise and indignation. Provoked at such a contempt of his authority, he fell severely on the monastery, no less surprised than himself at the clandestine proceeding of some of its members. But the sounder part pacified him in some measure by their submission. They elected a person recommended by the king, and sent fourteen of the most respectable of their body to Rome, to pray that the former proceedings should be annulled, and the later and more regular confirmed. To this matter of contention another was added. A dispute had long subsisted between the suffragan bishops of the province of Canterbury and the monks of the Abbey of St. Austin, each claiming a right to elect the metropolitan. This dispute was now revived, and pursued with much vigor. The pretensions of the three contending parties were laid before the Pope, to whom such disputes were highly pleasing, as he knew that all claimants willingly conspire to flatter and aggrandize that authority from which they expect a confirmation of their own. The first election, he nulled, because its irregularity was glaring. The right of the bishops was entirely rejected: the Pope looked with an evil eye upon those whose authority he was every day usurping.

The second election was set aside, as made at the king's instance: this was enough to make it very irregular. The canon law had now grown up to its full strength. The enlargement of the prerogative of the Pope was the great object of this jurisprudence,--a prerogative which, founded on fict.i.tious monuments, that are forged in an ignorant age, easily admitted by a credulous people, and afterwards confirmed and enlarged by these admissions, not satisfied with the supremacy, encroached on every minute part of Church government, and had almost annihilated the episcopal jurisdiction throughout Europe. Some canons had given the metropolitan a power of nominating a bishop, when the circ.u.mstances of the election were palpably irregular; and as it does not appear that there was any other judge of the irregularity than the metropolitan himself, the election below in effect became nugatory. The Pope, taking the irregularity in this case for granted, in virtue of this canon, and by his plenitude of power, ordered the deputies of Canterbury to proceed to a new election. At the same time he recommended to their choice Stephen Langton, their countryman,--a person already distinguished for his learning, of irreproachable morals, and free from every canonical impediment. This authoritative request the monks had not the courage to oppose in the Pope's presence and in his own city. They murmured, and submitted.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1208.]

In England this proceeding was not so easily ratified. John drove the monks of Canterbury from their monastery, and, having seized upon their revenues, threatened the effects of the same indignation against all those who seemed inclined to acquiesce in the proceedings of Rome. But Rome had not made so bold a step with intention to recede. On the king's positive refusal to admit Langton, and the expulsion of the monks of Canterbury, England was laid under an interdict. Then divine service at once ceased throughout the kingdom; the churches were shut; the sacraments were suspended; the dead were buried without honor, in highways and ditches, and the living deprived of all spiritual comfort.

On the other hand, the king let loose his indignation against the ecclesiastics,--seizing their goods, throwing many into prison, and permitting or encouraging all sorts of violence against them. The kingdom was thrown into the most terrible confusion; whilst the people, uncertain of the object or measure of their allegiance, and distracted with opposite principles of duty, saw themselves deprived of their religious rites by the ministers of religion, and their king, furious with wrongs not caused by them, falling indiscriminately on the innocent and the guilty: for John, instead of soothing his people in this their common calamity, sought to terrify them into obedience. In a progress which he made into the North, he threw down the inclosures of his forests, to let loose the wild beasts upon their lands; and as he saw the Papal proceedings increase with his opposition, he thought it necessary to strengthen himself by new devices. He extorted hostages and a new oath of fidelity from his barons. He raised a great army, to divert the thoughts of his subjects from brooding too much on their distracted condition. This army he transported into Ireland; and as it happened to his father in a similar dispute with the Pope, whilst he was dubious of his hereditary kingdom, he subdued Ireland. At this time he is said to have established the English laws in that kingdom, and to have appointed itinerant justices.

At length the sentence of excommunication was fulminated against the king. In the same year the same sentence was p.r.o.nounced upon the Emperor Otho; and this daring Pope was not afraid at once to drive to extremities the two greatest princes in Europe. And truly, nothing is more remarkable than the uniform steadiness of the court of Rome in the pursuits of her ambitious projects. For, knowing that pretensions which stand merely in opinion cannot bear to be questioned in any part, though she had hitherto seen the interdict produce but little effect, and perceived that the excommunication itself could draw scarce one poor bigot from the king's service, yet she receded not the least point from the utmost of her demand. She broke off an accommodation just on the point of being concluded, because the king refused to repair the losses which the clergy had suffered, though he agreed to everything else, and even submitted to receive the archbishop, who, being obtruded on him, had in reality been set over him. But the Pope, bold as politic, determined to render him perfectly submissive, and to this purpose brought out the last arms of the ecclesiastic stores, which were reserved for the most extreme occasions. Having first released the English subjects from their oath of allegiance, by an unheard-of presumption, he formally deposed John from his throne and dignity; he invited the King of France to take possession of the forfeited crown; he called forth all persons from all parts of Europe to a.s.sist in this expedition, by the pardons and privileges of those who fought for the Holy Land.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1218.]

This proceeding did not astonish the world. The King of France, having driven John from all he held on the continent, gladly saw religion itself invite him to farther conquests. He summoned all his va.s.sals, under the penalty of felony, and the opprobrious name of _culvertage_,[82] (a name of all things dreaded by both nations,) to attend in this expedition; and such force had this threat, and the hope of plunder in England, that a very great army was in a short time a.s.sembled. A fleet also rendezvoused in the mouth of the Seine, by the writers of these times said to consist of seventeen hundred sail. On this occasion John roused all his powers. He called upon all his people who by the duty of their tenure or allegiance were obliged to defend their lord and king, and in his writs stimulated them by the same threats of _culvertage_ which had been employed against him. They operated powerfully in his favor. His fleet in number exceeded the vast navy of France; his army was in everything but heartiness to the cause equal, and, extending along the coast of Kent, expected the descent of the French forces.

Whilst these two mighty armies overspread the opposite coasts, and the sea was covered with their fleets, and the decision of so vast an event was hourly expected, various thoughts arose in the minds of those who moved the springs of these affairs. John, at the head of one of the finest armies in the world, trembled inwardly, when he reflected how little he possessed or merited their confidence. Wounded by the consciousness of his crimes, excommunicated by the Pope, hated by his subjects, in danger of being at once abandoned by heaven and earth, he was filled with the most fearful anxiety. The legates of the Pope had hitherto seen everything succeed to their wish. But having made use of an instrument too great for them to wield, they apprehended, that, when it had overthrown their adversary, it might recoil upon the court of Rome itself; that to add England to the rest of Philip's great possessions was not the way to make him humble; and that in ruining John to aggrandize that monarch, they should set up a powerful enemy in the place of a submissive va.s.sal.

They had done enough to give them a superiority in any negotiation, and they privately sent an emba.s.sy to the King of England. Finding him very tractable, they hasted to complete the treaty. The Pope's legate, Pandulph, was intrusted with this affair. He knew the nature of men to be such that they seldom engage willingly, if the whole of an hardship be shown them at first, but that, having advanced a certain length, their former concessions are an argument with them to advance further, and to give all because they have already given a great deal. Therefore he began with exacting an oath from the king, by which, without showing the extent of his design, he engaged him to everything he could ask.