Chapter XIII: Part 13

The barons sent Stephen Langton to Rome to plead their cause, and found themselves obliged to take up arms. William de Albini, one of the twenty-five sureties, was sent to possess himself of the Castle of Rochester; but before he could bring in sufficient stores, he was invested by John, with Savary de Mauléon, called the Bloody, and a band of free-companions, whose _noms de guerre_ were equally truculent--namely, the Merciless, the Murderer, the Iron-hearted. One of the archers within the walls bent his bow at the King’s breast, and said to the castellane, “Shall I deliver you from yonder mortal foe?” “No; hold thy hand,” said Albini; “strike not the evil beast; shouldst thou fail, thy doom would be certain.” “Then, betide what God will, I hold my hand!” said the archer.

For two months these brave men held out, but by St. Andrew’s Day they had eaten all their horses, and the walls were battered down, so that Albini was forced to surrender. John was for hanging the whole garrison, but Mauléon said, “Sir, the war is not over; the chances are beyond reckoning. If we begin by hanging your barons, your barons may end by hanging us.” So Albini and the nobles were spared, but the archers and men-at-arms were hung in halters to every tree in the forest.

Meanwhile, the Archbishop had failed at Rome, and partly by his own fault, for he had tried to make his brother Simon, a man generally detested, Archbishop of York, and thus had given Innocent good reason for again interfering. He was placed under sentence of suspension; the barons, beginning with Fitzwalter, were excommunicated as rebels against a Church vassal and Crusader, and termed as wicked as Saracens; and the city of London was laid under an interdict.

The Londoners boldly declared that the Pope had no power to meddle in their case, kept their churches open, and celebrated their Christmas as usual; but beyond their walls it was less easy to be secure.

John now had two great armies of foreigners, and had been joined by several of the barons’ party; and he marched with one of them for the North, where young King Alexander of Scotland had laid siege to Norham, and had received the homage of the neighboring nobility.

As John advanced, the barons burnt their houses and corn before him, while he and his marauders ruined all they approached; he every morning, with his own hands, set fire to his night’s lodgings, and in eight days five principal towns were consumed, and the course of his army was like the bed of a torrent.

Vowing he would unkennel the young fox, as he called Alexander, on account of his red hair, John sent his troops into Scotland, where they laid the whole country waste up to Edinburgh, and then, returning, reduced the castles and ravaged the lands of the barons in Yorkshire, and the same dreadful atrocities were perpetrated by his other army in the south of England, till the country people called the free-companions by no other name than Satan’s Guards, and the Devil’s Servants.

The barons had no stronghold left them but London, and saw their rank, their families, and estates, at the mercy of the remorseless tyrant and his savage banditti, backed by the support of their spiritual superiors. In this condition they deemed all ties between them and their sovereign dissolved, and, as their last resource, resolved to offer the crown to Louis, the son of Philippe Auguste, and the husband of Blanche of Castile, the marriage made to separate France from the cause of Arthur. It was a step which even their extremity could not justify, passing over, as it did, the rights of the captive Pearl of Brittany, of John’s own innocent children, and of those of his eldest sister. But men have seldom been harder pressed than were these barons; and they were further tempted by the hope that all the mercenaries who were French subjects might be detached from the enemy by seeing their own prince’s standard unfurled against him.

Saher de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, and Robert Fitzwalter, were deputed to carry letters to Prince Louis, who was then at war with the Albigenses of Languedoc. The wary old King Philippe dissembled his joy at the promised triumph over the hated Plantagenet, and at first declared that he could not trust his son’s person in England, unless twenty-four nobles were first given up to him as hostages; but he permitted Louis to send a favorable reply to England, and the barons were so delighted at its reception, accompanied by a few French volunteers, that they held another tournament in its honor, but this was closed by the death of Geoffrey Mandeville, who was accidentally killed by the lance of a Frenchman.

Innocent was much incensed at the enterprise of the French prince, forgetting that he had already shown him the way to England. He sent his legate, Gualo, with letters to forbid Philippe’s interference with a fief of the Holy See, and these were laid before the court in full council. Philippe, who always tried to have the law apparently on his side, began by saying he was the devoted subject of the Pope, and it was by no counsel or advice of his that his son disobeyed the court of Rome; but as he declared that he had some rights to the English crown, it was fair to hear him.

A knight then arose, and declared that John had been attainted and condemned by Philippe’s own court on account of Arthur’s murder; that he had since given his crown away without the consent of his barons; and as no sovereign had any such right, the throne was vacant by his own act, and his barons had full power to elect, and Louis to accept.

The legate declared John to be a Crusader, and therefore under the Church’s peace for four years. He was answered, that John had himself violated that peace; and then Louis, rising, and turning to his father, said, “Sir, if I am your liegeman for the lands you have given me here, you have no right to England, which is offered to me: you can decree nothing on that head. I appeal to the judgment of my peers, whether I ought to follow your commands or my rights. I beg you not to hinder my designs, for my cause is just, and I will fight to the death for my wife’s inheritance.” Then, red with anger, Louis the Lion left the assembly, while the legate asked the King for a safe-conduct to England; and Philippe replied, that on the French territory he was safe enough; but if, on the coast, he fell into the hands of _King_ Louis’s men, he could not be responsible for his safety.

Gualo, however, came safely to England, and joined John at Dover, where he promised him the succor of the Church; and Innocent, as an earnest, excommunicated Louis, and preached to his cardinals on Ezekiel xxi. 28: “The sword, the sword is drawn.” But this was one of the last public acts of his life; he died at Perugia on the 8th of July, 1216, without having been able to send any support to his obedient vassal.

Meanwhile, Louis collected a great force, and embarked with it in 680 vessels, under the command of Eustace the Monk, a recreant who had become a pirate, and was reckoned the best mariner of his time. John fled from Dover, leaving it to the trusty and loyal Hubert de Burgh, while Louis disembarked at Sandwich, and was received by the barons, who were charmed with his chivalrous and affable demeanor. They conducted him to London, where, in St. Paul’s, he received their homage, and made oath to govern them by good laws, after which he appointed Simon Langton his chancellor. Nearly the whole country gave in their adhesion, Alexander of Scotland paid him homage, the North rose in his favor, and the chief strongholds that remained to John were Windsor Castle; Corfe, where, under the care of his wicked follower, Pierre de Maulae, were his queen and little children; and Dover, gallantly defended by Hubert de Burgh.

Nearly four months were spent by Louis in a vain attempt to take this place; his supplies were cut off by the sailors of the Cinque Ports, who were in John’s interest; and though Louis’s father sent him a battering machine, called Malvoisine, or “Bad Neighbor,” he could make no impression on the walls. Meantime, the estates of the barons were devastated by John and his free-companions; and if ever the French prince retook any of the castles, he retained them in his own hands, or gave them to his French followers, instead of restoring them to their owners. They began to suspect that they were in evil case, more especially when the Vicomte de Melun, being suddenly seized by a mortal sickness, sent for all the nobles then in London, and thus spoke: “I grieve for your fate. I, with the prince and fifteen others, have sworn an oath, that, when the realm is his, ye shall all be beggared, or exterminated as traitors whom he can never trust. Look to yourselves!”

Suspicion thus excited, William Longsword and several other barons returned to their allegiance, and forty more offered to do the same on the promise of pardon. Louis was forced to raise the siege of Dover, and John’s prospects improved; he took Lincoln, and marched to Lynn, whence he wont to Wisbech, intending to proceed by the Wash from Cross-keys to Foss-dyke, across the sands--a safe passage at low water, but covered suddenly by the tide, which there forms a considerable eddy on meeting the current of the Welland.

His troops were nearly all on the other side, when the tide began to rush in. They gained the higher ground in safety; but the long train of wagons, carrying his crown, his treasure, his stores of provision, were suddenly engulfed, and the whole was lost. Some years since, one of the gold circlets worn over the helmet was found by a laborer in the sand, but, in ignorance of its value, he sold it to a Jew, and it has thus been lost to the antiquary.

King John went into one of his paroxysms of despair at the ruin he beheld, and, feverish with passion, arrived at the Cistercian convent of Swineshead, where he seems to have tried to forget his disaster in a carouse upon peaches and new ale, and in the morning found himself extremely ill; but fancying the monks had poisoned him, he insisted on being carried in a litter to Sleaford, whence the next day he proceeded to Newark, where it became evident that death was at hand. A confessor was sent for, and he bequeathed his kingdom to his son Henry. As far as it appears from the records of his deathbed, no compunction visited him; probably, he thought himself secure as a favored vassal of the Holy See. When asked where he would be buried, he replied that he committed himself to God and to the body of St. Wulstan (who had been canonized by Innocent III. in 1203). He dictated a letter to the new Pope, Honorius III., and died October 19, 1216, in the forty-ninth year of his age, the last and worst of the four rebellious sons of Henry II., all cut off in the prime of life.

His death made a great difference in the aspect of affairs. His innocent sons had forfeited no claim to the affection of the English, and their weakness was their most powerful claim.

The Earl of Pembroke at once marched to Corfe Castle, and brought the two boys, nine and seven years old, to Gloucester, where young Henry’s melancholy coronation took place. In lieu of his father’s lost and dishonored crown, a golden bracelet of his mother’s was placed upon his head by the papal legate, instead of his own primate, and he bent his knee in homage to the see of Rome. The few vassals who attended him held their coronation banquet, and afterward bound a white fillet around their heads, in token of their vow of fidelity to their little, helpless king. Magna Charta was revised a few days after at Bristol; Henry was made to swear to agree to it, and the Earl of Pembroke appointed as his protector.

Meantime, Louis had received the news of his rival’s death while again besieging Dover, the capture of which was most important to him, as securing his communications with his own country. He sent tidings of it to the garrison by two English barons, one of them Hubert’s own brother, Thomas de Burgh. On their approach the sentinels sounded their horns, and, without opening the gates, the governor came to speak to them, with five archers, their crossbows bent. They told him of the King’s decease, and reminded him of the oath Louis had made to hang him and all his garrison if the town were taken by assault instead of surrender. His brother said he was ruining himself and all his family, and the other knight offered him, in the prince’s name, the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. But Hubert would hear no more. “Traitors that you are,” he cried, “if King John is dead, he leaves children! Say no more; if you open your lips again, I will have you shot with a hundred arrows, not sparing even my brother.”

Louis was obliged to draw off his forces, returned to London, and took Hertford; Robert Fitzwalter claimed the keeping of the castle as a family right, but Louis forgot the necessity of conciliating the barons, and replied that he could not trust a man who had betrayed his King. This, of course, led to further desertions on the part of the English, and the truce which prevailed through Lent added greater numbers to the young King’s party than Blanche of Castile was able to collect in France for her lord.

After Easter the Earl of Pembroke besieged Mountsorrel, in Leicestershire. The Count de Perche came to its relief, and, after forcing him to retreat, attacked Lincoln Castle, which was bravely held by the late castellane’s widow, Nicolette de Camville. She contrived to send the Earl tidings of her distress, and he set out from Newark with four hundred knights and their squires, two hundred and fifty crossbowmen and other infantry, all wearing white crosses sewn on their breasts, and sent forth by the legate as to a holy war. The crossbowmen, under one of John’s free-companions, were a mile in advance, and entered the castle by a postern, while the French, taking the baggage for a second army, retreated into the town; but there the garrison made a sally, and a battle was fought in the streets, which ended in the total discomfiture of the French. The Count de Perche was offered his life, but swearing that he would yield to no English traitor, he was instantly slain, and the Fair of Lincoln, as it was called, completely broke the strength of Louis.

He wrote word to his wife and father of his perilous situation, shut up within the walls of London, and the whole country in possession of Henry, and entreated them to send him reinforcements. Fear of the Pope prevented Philippe from putting himself forward, but he connived at Blanche’s exertions, and she succeeded in collecting three hundred knights, who were to embark in eighty large ships, under the command of Eustace the Monk.

Hubert de Burgh, landsman as he was, resolved to oppose them to the utmost, and with much difficulty collected a fleet of forty ships of all sizes. Several of the knights, believing his attempt hopeless, declared that they knew nothing of sea fights, and refused to share his peril; and he himself was so persuaded that he was sacrificing himself, that he received the last rites of the Church as a dying man, and left orders that, in case of his being made prisoner, Dover should on no account be surrendered, even as the price of his life.

Midway in the strait he met the French fleet; his archers showered their arrows and quarrels, and, being on the windward, threw clouds of quicklime, which blinded the eyes of the enemy; then, bearing down on them, grappled the ships with iron hooks, and boarded them so gallantly, that the French, little accustomed to this mode of warfare, soon gave over resistance: many of the ships were sunk, and the rest completely dispersed; the pirate monk Eustace was taken, and, being considered as a traitor and apostate, was put to death, and his head carried on a pole to Dover in triumph.

This defeat completely broke the hopes of Louis, and he sent to demand a safe-conduct for messengers to Henry, or rather to the Earl of Pembroke, offered to leave England, and concluded a peace, restoring the allegiance of the barons, and even engaging to give up Normandy and Anjou on his accession to the crown of France. He then returned to his own country, where his father received him affectionately, blaming him, however, for the want of skill and judgment with which he had conducted his affairs. His departure took place in the end of 1217, and thus closed the wars which established the Great Charter as the foundation of English law.

CAMEO XXVIII. THE FIEF OF ROME. (1217-1254.)

_King of England_.
1216. Henry III.

_Kings of Scotland_.
1214. Alexander II.
1249. Alexander III.
_Kings of France_.
1180. Philip III.
1223. Louis VIII.
1226. Louis IX.

_Emperors of Germany_.
1209. Friedrich II.
1250. Conrad IV.

_Popes_
1198. Innocent III.
1216. Honorius III.
1227. Gregory IX.
1241. Celestin. IV.
1242. Innocent IV.

The Fief of Rome! For many years of the reign of Henry III. England could hardly be regarded in any other light.

Henry’s life was one long minority; the guardians of his childhood were replaced by the favorites of his manhood, and he had neither power nor will to defend his subjects from the bondage imposed on them by his father’s homage to Innocent III.

The legates, Gualo and Pandulfo, undertook the protection of the desolate child, and nominated to the government the excellent William, Earl of Pembroke, Earl Marshal; but on his death, shortly after, the administration was divided between the justiciaries, Hubert de Burgh, and John’s favorite, Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester. The latter was a violent, ambitious, and intriguing prelate, and it was well for England and the King when he engaged in a Crusade, and left the field to the loyal Hubert.

Under the care of this good knight Henry grew up devoid of the vices of his father, with more of the Southern troubadour than of the Northern warrior in his composition, gentle in temper, devout of spirit, tender of heart, well-read in history and romance, skilled in music and poetry, and of exquisite taste in sculpture, painting, and architecture, Hubert must have watched his orphan charge with earnest hope and solicitude.

Gradually, however, there was a sense of disappointment; years went by, and Henry of Winchester was a full-grown man, tall and well proportioned, his only blemish a droop of the left eyelid; but no warlike, no royal spirit seemed to stir within him; he thought not of affairs; he left all in the hands of his justiciaries, and, so long as means were given him of indulging his love of splendor, he recked not of the extortions by which the Italian clergy ruined his country, and had no idea of taking on him the cares and duties of royalty.

His young Queen encouraged all his natural failings. She was one of the four daughters of Beranger, last Count of Provence, highly accomplished young heiresses. One of them already was wedded to Louis IX., the son of Louis the Lion, who, by the death of his father and grandfather, had been placed on the throne of France nearly at the same age and time as Henry in England. Marguerite, whose device, the daisy, Louis wore entwined with his own lily, was a meek, peaceful lady, submitting quietly to the dominion exercised over her by Queen Blanche, her mother-in-law. Eleanor, the next sister, was the beauty and genius of the family; she was called La Belle, and, at fourteen, composed a romance in rhyme on the adventures of one Blandin, Prince of Cornwall, which was presented to King Henry’s brother, Richard, Earl of Cornwall, when, on returning from pilgrimage, he passed through Provence.

Richard was struck with her beauty, and spoke of it to his brother, who, against the wishes of De Burgh, offered her his hand. Richard soon after married Sancha, another of the sisters, and Beatrix, the fourth, was the wife of Charles, Count of Anjou, brother of Louis IX. The two queens seem to have been proud of their dignity, for they used to make their countess sisters sit on low stools, while they sat on high chairs. Sancha and Beatrix pined to see their husbands kings, and in time had their wish. Four uncles followed Queen Eleanor, young brothers of her mother, a princess of Savoy. They were gay and courtly youths, and the King instantly attached himself to them, and lavished gifts and honors upon them, among others, the palace in London still called the Savoy.

Another tribe of his own relations soon followed. His mother’s first love, Hugh de Lusignan, Count de la Marche, had been released from durance at Corfe Castle in 1206, and had offered his aid to John, on condition of the infant Joan, the child of his faithless Isabelle, being at once betrothed to him and placed in his own hands. Lodging her in one of his castles in Poitou, he went on a crusade, and, on his return, found her but seven years old, but her mother a widow, beautiful as ever, and still attached to him. They were at once married, and Joan was sent home to England, where she became the wife of Alexander II. of Scotland, and his sister, the Princess Margaret, was at the same time wedded to Hubert de Burgh.

The Lusignans were an old family, who had given a King to Jerusalem and a dynasty to Cyprus; but they were a wild race, and a fairy legend accounted for their family character.

Raymond de Lusignan, a remote ancestor, met, while wandering in a forest, a maiden of more than mortal beauty, named Melusine, and, falling at once in love, obtained her hand, on condition that he should never ask to behold her on a Saturday. Their marriage was happy, excepting that all their children had some deformity; but at last, in a fit of curiosity, Raymond hid himself, in order to penetrate into his lady’s secret, and, to his dismay, perceived that from the waist downward she was transformed into a blue-and-white serpent, an enchantment she underwent every Saturday. For years, however, he never divulged that he had seen her in this condition; but at length, when his eldest son, Geoffrey (who had a tusk like a wild boar), had murdered his brother, he forgot himself in a transport of grief, and called her an odious serpent, who had contaminated his race. Melusine fainted at the words, lamented bitterly, and vanished, never appearing again except as a phantom, which flits round the Castle of Lusignan whenever any of her descendants are about to die.

In this haunted castle the Queen contrived to gain a reputation for sorcery and poisoning, and the connection brought no good on her royal son, for she involved him in a war with France on behalf of her husband. He met with no success, and his French domains were at the mercy of Louis IX.; but that excellent prince would not pursue his advantage. “Our children are first cousins,” he said; “we will leave no seeds of discord between them.” He even took into consideration the justice of restoring Normandy and Anjou, but concluded that they had been justly forfeited by King John.

Four young Lusignans, or, as they were generally called, De Valence, were sent by Isabelle to seek their fortune at the court of their half-brother, who bestowed on them all the wealth and honors at his disposal; and gave much offence to the English, who beheld eight needy foreigners preying, as they said, upon the revenues.

Feasts and frolics, songs, dancing, and pageantry, were the order of the day; romances were dedicated to the King, histories of strange feats of chivalry recited, the curious old lays of Bretagne were translated and presented to him by the antiquarian dame, Marie. Italian, Provençal, Gascon, Latin, French, and English, were spoken at the court, which the English barons termed a Babel, and minstrels of all descriptions stood in high favor. There was Richard, the King’s harper, who had forty shillings a year and a tun of wine; there was Henry of Avranches, the “archipoeta,” who wrote a song on the rusticity of the Cornishmen, to which a valiant Cornishman, Michael Blampayne, replied in a Latin satire, politely describing the arch-poet as having “the legs of a sparrow, the mouth of a hare, the nose of a dog, the teeth of a mule, the brow of a calf, the head of a bull, the color of a Moor!” There was poor Ribault the troubadour, whose sudden madness had nearly been fatal to Henry. Imagining himself the rightful King, he rushed at midnight into a chamber he supposed to be the King’s, and was tearing the bed to pieces with his sword, when Margaret Bisset, one of the Queen’s ladies, who was sitting up reading a book of devotions, heard the noise; roused the guard, and he was secured. There, too, was the half-witted jester, who, we are sorry to say, was a chaplain, with whom the King and his brother Aymer were seen playing like boys, pelting each other with apples and sods of turf.

The King was fond of ornamenting his palaces with curious tapestry and jewelry, worthy of the wedding-gift his wife had received from her sister, Queen Marguerite, namely, a silver ewer for perfumes, in the shape of a peacock, the tail set with precious stones. He adorned the walls with paintings; there were Scripture subjects in his palace at Westminster; and at Winchester, his birthplace, were pictures of the Saxon kings, a map of the world, and King Arthur’s round table, inscribed with the names of the knights, and Arthur’s full-length figure in his own place. It has survived all changes; it was admired by a Spanish attendant at the marriage of Philip II. and Queen Mary; it was riddled by the balls of the Roundheads, and now, duly refreshed with paint, hangs in its old place, over the Judge’s head in the County Hall.

To do Henry justice, he spent as freely on others as on himself; he clothed and fed destitute children; and when in his pride, at the goodly height of his five-year-old boy, he caused him and his little sisters to be weighed, the counterpoise was coined silver, which was scattered in largesse among his lieges.

Henry’s special devotion was to a Saxon saint, the mild Confessor, to whom his own character had much likeness, and whose name he bestowed on his eldest child, while he presented a shrine of pure gold to contain his relics, and devoted £2,000 a year to complete the little West-Minster of St. Peter’s, the foundation and last work of St. Edward. He rendered it a perfect specimen of that most elegant of all styles, the early-pointed, and fit indeed for the coronation church and burial-place of English kings.

There was soon an end of Henry’s treasure, however; and no wonder, when, besides his own improvidence, the Pope was sucking out the revenues of the country. _Talliages_, of one tenth or one-twentieth of their property, were demanded of the clergy; the tax of a penny, usually called Peter-pence, was paid to him by every family on St. Peter’s Day, and generally collected by the two orders of begging friars, who rode about on this errand in boots and spurs, and owning the rule of no one but the Pope, were great hindrances to the bishops and parish clergy. Still worse was the power the Pope assumed to himself of seizing on Church patronage, and thrusting in Italian clergy, often children or incapable persons, and perfectly ignorant of the language. At one time 7,000 marks a year were in possession of these foreigners, one of whom held seven hundred places of preferment at once!

Innocent IV., who was chiefly guilty of these proceedings, was engaged in a long struggle with Frederick II. of Germany, respecting the kingdom of the two Sicilies, and the Guelf and Ghibelline struggle forever raging in Italy, and it was this apparently remote quarrel which was in reality the cause of the oppression and simony that so cruelly affected England.

The English bitterly hated the foreign clergy, and quarrels were forever breaking out. When Otho, the legate, was passing through Oxford, and lodging at Osney Abbey, a terrible fray occurred. The students, a strange, wild set, came to pay him their respects; but his porter, being afraid of them, kept them out, and an Irish priest, pressing forward to beg for food, had some scalding water thrown in his face by the clerk of the kitchen, the brother of the legate, who, used to Italian treachery, entrusted to no one the care of his food. A fiery Welsh scholar shot the legate’s brother dead with an arrow, and a great riot ensued. Otho locked, himself up in the church-tower till night, then fled, through floods of rain, hunted by the students, all yelling abuse, and getting before him to the fords, so that the poor man had to swim the river five times, and came half dead to the King at Abingdon. Next morning the scene was changed. Earl Warenne and his bowmen came down upon Oxford, forty of the rioters were carried off in carts like felons, interdicts and excommunications fell on the university, and only when doctors, scholars, and all came barefoot to ask the legate’s pardon, was the anger of the Pope appeased.

Moreover, there was a widespread confederation among the gentry against these Italians, and rioters arose and plundered their barns, distributing the corn to the poor.

Walter do Cantilupe, the young Norman Bishop of Worcester, was thought to be among those in the secret, and the outrages grew more serious when an Italian canon of St. Paul’s was seized and impressed by five men in masks. Des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester, who had returned home, and was very jealous of Hubert de Burgh, thought this a fit time for overthrowing him, and publicly accused him of being in the plot. A young knight, Sir Robert Twenge, came forward and confessed that he had been the leader of the rioters under the name of Will Wither, and that the good old justiciary had nothing to do with them. He was sent to do penance at Rome, and Hubert’s enemies continued their machinations.

Henry and his Queen were tired of the sage counsels of the brave knight, and open to all Des Roches’ insinuations, forgetting the wise though punning warning of the wonderful Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon, who told Henry there was nothing so dangerous in a voyage as “_les Pierres et les Roches_.” At Christmas, the Bishop invited them to Winchester, and there his sumptuous banquets and splendid amusements won the King’s frivolous heart, and obtained his consent to dismiss Hubert from all his offices, even from the government of Dover, which he had saved. Soon after orders were sent forth for his arrest, that he might be tried for the disturbances against the Italians, and likewise for having seduced the King’s affections by sorcery and witchcraft.

Hubert placed his wealth in the care of the Templars, and took sanctuary in the church of Merton, in Surrey; but the Mayor of London was ordered to dislodge him, and the whole rabble of the city were setting forth, when the Archbishop and Earl of Chester represented the scandal to the King, and obtained letters of protection for him until the time for his trial, January, 1233. Trusting to these letters, he set out to visit his wife at Bury, but at Brentwood was waylaid by a set of ruffians called the Black Band, and sent by the Bishop of Winchester. He retreated into the church, but they dragged him from the very steps of the altar, and called a blacksmith to chain his feet together.

“No, indeed,” said the brave peasant, “never will I forge fetters for the deliverer of my country.”

However, he was led into London with his feet chained under his horse. There the Bishop of London, threatening excommunication for the sacrilege, forced his enemies to return him to Brentwood church, which, however, they closely blockaded till hunger forced him to deliver himself up to them.

He bought his life by giving up his treasures, and was imprisoned at Devizes. Shortly this castle was given to Des Roches; and De Burgh, who knew by experience how the change of castellane often brought death to the captive, sought to escape. He gained over two of his guards, who carried him to the parish church, for he was too heavily ironed to walk, and there laid him down before the altar. They could take him no further, and the warden of the castle cruelly beat him, and brought him back; but, as before, the Bishop maintained the privileges of the sanctuary, and forced the persecutors to restore him, and though he was again hemmed in there by the sheriff, before he was starved out a party of his friends came to his rescue, and he was carried off to the Welsh hills, there remaining till recalled by the influence of the Archbishop. He was restored to his honors, and though he once again had to suffer from Henry’s fickleness and the rapacity of his court, his old age was peaceful and honored, as befitted his unsullied fame.

This Archbishop was Edmund Rich, who had been elected in 1232, after two short-lived primates had succeeded Langton. He was of a wealthy family at Abingdon, and had been brought up entirely by an excellent mother, his father having retired into a monastery. His whole childhood had been a preparation for holy orders, and when he went to study at Oxford, he led a life of the strictest self-denial, inflicting on himself all the rigorous discipline which he hoped would conduce to a saintly life. When he had become a teacher in his turn, such was his contempt for money, that, when his pupils paid him, he would sprinkle it with dust, and say, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” and would let it lie in the window, without heeding whether any was stolen. When, shortly after, made treasurer of Salisbury, he kept an empty dish by his side at meals, and put into it what he denied himself, sending it afterward by his almoner to the sick poor. He was a constant reader of the Scriptures day and night, always kissing the holy volume before commencing, and thus he derived the judgment and firmness which enabled him to battle with the evils of his day.

Gifts were especially held in scorn and contempt by him. He was wont to say, that between _prendre_ and _pendre_ there was but one letter’s difference; and in a court so full of corrupt and grasping clergy, this gave him untold power.

Peter des Roches was the head of these, representing King John’s former policy, and uniting himself with the young Gascon relations of the King, who were wont to say, “What are English laws to us?”

The family of Pembroke, Earls Marshal of England, were especially obnoxious to this party, as resolute supporters of Magna Charta, and of much power and influence. William, the eldest son of the late Protector, was married to Eleanor, the King’s sister. He died early, and this party tried to deprive his brother Richard of his inheritance; then, when this did not succeed, Des Roches wrote letters in the King’s name to some of the Norman-Irish nobles, offering them all his lands in that island, provided they would murder him, ratifying these promises with the great seal.

The assassins stirred up the Irish to attack Pembroke’s castles, so as to bring him to Ireland; they then pretended to join with him in putting down the rebellion, and, in the midst, waylaid him, and attacked him while riding with a few attendants. Some of these he ordered at once to convey his young brother to a place of safety, and gallantly defended himself, but his horse was killed, and he was stabbed in the back; his servants, returning, carried him home to his castle, but there the letter purporting to be from the King was shown him, and his grief was so great that he would not permit his wounds to be dressed, and died in a few hours.

Archbishop Edmund procured letters exposing this black treachery, and read them before the whole court. Henry and all present burst into tears, and the poor careless King confessed with bitter grief that he had often allowed Des Roches to attach his seal to letters without knowing their contents, and that this must have been one of them. Des Roches was dismissed, and sent to his own diocese, where he soon after died at his castle of Farnham. He was the founder of many convents, several in Palestine, and others in his own diocese, among which was Netley, or Letley (_Laeto Loco_), near Southampton, a beautiful specimen of the pointed style.

Edmund could not prevent the King from intruding on the see of Winchester the giddy young Aymar de Valence, already Bishop-designate of Durham. “If my brother is too young, I will hold the see myself,” said the King.

Every attempt Edmund made to repress the grievous evils that prevailed was frustrated by the authority of Rome.

The imperial family of Hohenstaufen were held in the utmost hatred by the Popes; and Frederick II., being likewise King of Naples and Sicily, was an object of great dread and defiance. Fierce passions on either side were raging, and Innocent IV. regarded his spiritual powers rather as weapons to be used against his foe the Emperor, than as given him for the salvation of men’s souls.

As a warrior, he needed money: it was raised by exactions on the clergy, going sometimes as far as demanding half their year’s income; as head of a party, he needed rewards for his friends, and bestowed benefices without regard to the age, the character, or the fitness of the nominee; moreover, he trusted to the religious orders, especially those called Mendicant, for spreading his influence, and he did not dare to restrain or reform their disorders.

Archbishop Edmund, with his two friends, Robert Grosteste, Bishop of Lincoln, and Richard Wych, Chancellor of Canterbury, did their best. Robert’s history is striking. He was a nameless peasant of Suffolk, of the meanest parentage, and only called Grosteste from the size of his head, needing plenty of stowage (says Fuller) for his store of brains. How he obtained education is not known, but he worked upward until he became a noted teacher at Oxford, and afterward at Paris, where he lectured on all the chief authors then known in Greek and Latin. He wrote two hundred books, many on sacred subjects, and several poems in Latin and French; for he was a great lover of minstrelsy, and his contemporary translator tells us that

“Next his chamber, besyde hys study
Hys harper’s chamber was thereby.”

This poet and scholar was a most active, thorough-going, practical man, and, when chosen as Bishop of Lincoln, showed his gratitude for the benefits of his education by maintaining a number of poor students at the University. He set himself earnestly to reform abuses in his diocese, forcing the monasteries which held the tithes of parishes to provide properly for their spiritual care, and making a strict inquiry into the condition of the religious houses. They, however, appealed to Rome; and Innocent, who had at first sanctioned his proceedings, was afraid of losing their support, and ordered Grosteste to desist. The resolute Bishop set off to Rome, and laid the Pope’s own letters before his face.

“Well,” said Innocent, “be content; you have delivered your own soul. If I choose to show grace to these persons, what is that to you?”

Robert was anything but content, but he went home, and manfully struggled with the evils that were rife, sometimes prevailing, sometimes disappointed, always honest and steadfast. The more gentle Archbishop gave up the contest, worn out by the vain attempt to preserve purity and order between the fickle King, the oppressive Pope, the turbulent nobles, and the avaricious clergy. Orders to him, to Robert, and to the Bishop of Salisbury, to appoint no one to a benefice till three hundred Italians were provided for, seemed finally to overpower him; he, with Richard Wych, secretly left London, and arrived at Pontigny, where, three years after, he died, in 1142, and has been revered as a saint.

Canterbury remained vacant for several years, the revenues being absorbed by the King, and the refractory chapter tailing upon them to quarrel with Grosteste, and going so for as to excommunicate him; whereupon the sturdy Bishop trod the letter under foot, saying, “Such curses are the only prayers I ask of such as you.”

After three years the King appointed to Canterbury the Queen’s uncle, Boniface of Savoy, a man of no clerical habits; but the Queen wrote a persuasive letter, by which she obtained the consent of Innocent.

So many monstrous demands had been made by the Pope, that, in 1245, the nobles sent orders to the wardens of the seaports to seize every despatch coming from Rome, and they soon made prize of a great number of orders to intrude Italians into Church patronage. Martin, the legate, complained to the King, who ordered the letters to be produced, but the barons took the opportunity of laying before the King a statement of the grievances of the Church of England, 60,000 marks a year being in the hands of foreigners, while the whole of the royal revenue was but 20,000. Henry could only make helpless lamentations, and, under pretext of a tournament, the Barons met at Dunstable, and sent a knight to expostulate with the legate. This envoy threatened him, that if he remained three days longer in England, his life would not be safe--an intimation which drove him speedily from the country.

The barons, hearing that the Pope was holding a council at Lyons, sent deputies thither, with a letter drawn up by the Bishop of Lincoln, so powerfully enforced by William de Powerie, their spokesman, that the exposure of the enormities permitted in England called up a deep blush on the face of Innocent, and he allowed that he had been wrong in thrusting in these incompetent Italians. There was one good effected at this council, namely, the appointment of Richard Wych to the see of Chichester.

Richard was the son of a Worcestershire yeoman, and was early, with his elder brother, left an orphan. He was a studious, holy, clerkly boy, looked on as fit for the cloister: but when his brother came of age, it was found that the guardians had so wasted their goods, that their inheritance lay desolate. The brother was in despair, but young Richard comforted him, bade him trust in God, and himself laying aside the studies he delighted in, look up the spade and axe, and worked unceasingly till the affairs of the homestead were in a flourishing state. Then, when prosperity dawned on the elder brother, the younger obtained his wish, and went to study at Oxford, where he was so poor that he and two other scholars had but one gown between them, lived hard, and allowed themselves few pleasures; but this he was wont to call the happiest time in his life.

Afterward he went to Bologna, and, after seven years there, returned, and was made Chancellor, first of Oxford, and afterward of Canterbury. There was a most earnest attachment between him and St. Edmund, whom he followed into his exile. The Bishop whom the King had appointed to Chichester was examined by Grosteste, and found deficient in theology, and the chapter and Pope agreed in choosing Richard Wych, who was consecrated by Innocent himself. Henry, in displeasure, took all the temporalities of the see into his hands, and for a year Richard lived at the expense of a poor parish priest named Simon, whom he strove to requite by working in his garden, budding, grafting, and digging, as he had once done for his brother.

He went about his diocese visiting each parish, and doing his work like the early bishops of poorer days, and all the time making his suit to the King to do him justice; but whenever he went to Westminster, meeting only with jests and gibes from the courtiers.

The Pope was too busy to attend to him. That council at Lyons had ended in sentence of deposition upon Frederick, and the combat raged in Italy till his death, when Innocent, claiming Sicily as a fief of the Church, offered it, if he could get it, to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who had too much sense to accept such a crown.

It then was offered to Henry for his son Edmund, whom he arrayed in the robes of a Sicilian prince, and presented to the barons of England, asking for men and money to win the kingdom. Not a man of them, however, would march, or give a penny in aid of the cause, and therefore Innocent raised money from the Lombard merchants in the name of the King of England.

No wonder Henry could not pay. His own household had neither wages, clothes, nor food, except what they obtained by purveying--in their case only a license to rob, since no payment was ever given for the goods they carried off. His pages were gay banditti, and the merchants, farmers, and fishers fled as from an enemy when the court approached; yet, at each little transient gleam of prosperity, the King squandered all that came into his hands in feasting and splendor, then grasped at Church revenues, tormented the Jews, laid unjust fines on the Londoners, or took bribes for administering justice, and all that he did was imitated with exaggeration by his half-brothers, uncles, and favorites.

His chancellor, Mansel, held seven hundred benefices at once, and so corrupted the laws, that one of the judges pronounced the source poisoned from the fountain. Another chancellor was expelled from the court for refusing to set the great seal to a grant to one of the Queen’s uncles of four-pence on every sack of wool, and at one time Eleanor herself actually had the keeping of the seal, and when the Londoners resisted one of her unjust demands, she summarily sent the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs to the Tower.

Isabel Warenne, the King’s cousin, and widow of the Earl of Arundel, an excellent and charitable lady, still young, came to the King’s court to seek justice respecting a wardship of which she had been deprived. She spoke boldly to Henry: “My Lord, why do you turn your face from justice? Nobody can obtain right. You are placed between God and us, but you govern neither yourself nor us. Are you not ashamed thus to trample on the Church, and disquiet your nobles?”

“What do you mean, lady?” said the King. “Have the great men of England chosen you for their advocate?”

“No, sir,” said the spirited lady; “they have given me no such charter, though you have broken that which you and your father have granted and sworn to observe. Where are the liberties of England, so often granted? We appeal from you to the Judge in heaven!”

All Henry could say, was, “Did you not ask me a favor because you were my cousin?”

“You deny my right; I expect no favor,” and, so saying, Isabel left him.

After two years, Richard of Chichester was permitted to assume the temporalities of his see, and most admirably he used them, doing every kindness to the poor in his diocese, and always maintaining the right, though more gently than his friend at Lincoln. Those were evil days, and men’s sense of obedience and sense of right were often sorely divided. Richard died in the year 1253, after a short illness, in which he was attended by his friend Simon, leaving the memory of his peaceful, charitable life, much beloved in his diocese, and was shortly after canonized. “Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us,” were among his last words.

The champion Robert Grosteste had one more battle to fight ere following his two saintly brethren.

He was wont always to compare each bull which he received with the Gospels and the canon law, and if he found anything in it that would not stand this test, he tore it in pieces. In 1254, one of these letters commanded him to institute to a benefice a nephew of the Pope, a mere child, besides containing what was called the clause “_non obstante_” (namely, in spite of), by which the Pope claimed, as having power to bind and loose, to set aside and dispense with existing statutes and oaths, at his pleasure.

Grosteste wrote an admirable letter in reply. He said most truly, “Once allowed, this clause would let in a flood of promise-breaking, bold injustice, wanton insult, deceit, and mutual distrust, to the defilement of true religion, shaking the very foundations of trust and security;” and he also declared that nothing could be more opposed to the precepts of our Lord and His apostles, than to destroy men’s souls by depriving them of the benefits of the pastoral office by giving unfit persons the care of souls. He therefore absolutely refused to publish the bull, or to admit the young Italian to the benefice.

Innocent flew into a passion on reading the letter. “What meaneth this old dotard, surd and absurd, thus to control our actions? Did not our innate generosity restrain us, I would confound him, and make him a prodigy to all the world!”

One of the Spanish cardinals, however, spoke thus: “We cannot deal harshly with such a man as this. We must confess that he speaketh truth. He is a holy man, of more religious life than any of us; yea, Christendom hath not his equal. He is a great philosopher, skilled in Greek and Latin, a constant reader in the schools, preacher in the pulpit, lover of chastity, and hater of simony.”

Authorities are divided as to whether the Pope was persuaded to lay aside his anger, or not. Some say that he sent off sentence of suspension and excommunication; others, that he owned the justice of Grosteste’s letter. It made little difference to the good Bishop, who lay on his deathbed long before the answer arrived. He spoke much of the troubles and bondage of the Church, which he feared would never be ended but by the edge of a blood-stained sword, and grieved over the falsehood, perfidy, and extortion, that were soiling his beloved Church; and thus he expired, uplifting his honest testimony both in word and deed, untouched by the crimes of his age.

Innocent IV. did not long survive him, and there is a remarkable story of the commencement of his last illness. He dreamt that the spirit of Robert Grosteste had appeared, and given him a severe beating. The delusion hung about him, and he finally died in the belief that he was killed by the blows of the English Bishop.

Sewel, Archbishop of York, had the same contest with Rome. Three Italians walked into York cathedral, asked which was the Dean’s seat, and installed one of their number there; and when the Archbishop refused to permit his appointment, an interdict was laid on his see, and he died under excommunication, bearing it meekly and patiently, and his flock following his funeral in weeping multitudes, though it was apparently unblest by the Church.

These good men had fallen on days of evil shepherds, and lamentable was the state of Europe, when men’s religious feelings were perverted to be engines for exalting the temporal power of the popedom, and their ministers, mistaking their true calling, were struggling for an absolute and open dominion, for which purity, truth, meekness, and every attribute of charity were sacrificed.

CAMEO XXIX. THE LONGESPÉES IN THE EGYPTIAN CRUSADES. (1219-1254.)

_King of England_.
1216. Henry III.

_Kings of Scotland_.
1214. Alexander II.
1249. Alexander III.

_Kings of France_.
1180. Philip III.
1223. Louis VIII.
1226. Louis IX.

_Emperors of Germany._
1209. Friedrich II.
1259. Conrad IV.

_Popes._
1216. Innocent III.
1227. Honorius III.
1241. Gregory IX.
1241. Celestin IV.
1242. Innocent IV.

The crusading spirit had not yet died away, but it was often diverted by the Popes, who sent the champions of the Cross to make war on European heretics instead of the Moslems of Palestine.