John Lackland. Kate Norgate
This siege, and that of Tickhill, which was undertaken by Archbishop Geoffrey of York and Bishop Hugh of Durham, were in progress when on April 20 Hubert Walter, the bishop of Salisbury, landed in England.[197] Hubert had come direct from the captive king, and it was now useless for John to pretend any longer that Richard was dead. On the other hand, Hubert knew the prospect of Richard’s release to be still so remote and so uncertain that he deemed it highly imprudent to push matters to extremity with John. He therefore, although both Windsor and Tickhill were on the verge of surrender, persuaded the justiciars to make a truce whose terms were on the whole favourable to the count of Mortain. The castles of Tickhill and Nottingham were left in John’s hands; those of Windsor, Wallingford and the Peak were surrendered by him, to be given over to the custody of Queen Eleanor and other persons named, on the express understanding that unless Richard should reach home in the meanwhile, they were to be restored to John at the expiration of the truce, which was fixed for Michaelmas, or, according to another account, All Saints’ Day.[198]
The immediate object of the justiciars and the queen-mother in making this truce was to gain John’s co-operation in their measures for raising the king’s ransom. Considering how large a portion of the kingdom was held by John in what may almost be called absolute property, it is obvious that a refusal on his part to bear his share of the burden would make a serious difference in the result of their efforts. It appears that John undertook to raise from his own territories a certain sum for his brother’s ransom, that he confirmed this undertaking by an oath, and that he put it on record in writing.[199] He had, however, taken no steps towards its execution when at the beginning of July a warning reached him from Philip Augustus—“Take care of yourself, for the devil is loosed!”—which meant that the terms of Richard’s release had been finally agreed upon between Richard and the Emperor on June 29. John immediately hurried over to France, to shelter himself under Philip’s wing against the coming storm, as was thought in England;[200] more probably to keep a watch upon Philip and take care that he should not break his promises as to the conditions of peace with Richard. The two allies could have no confidence in each other, and they seem to have been both almost ridiculously afraid of the captive Lion-heart. He, however, was at the moment equally afraid of them, and not without good reason. Three months before he had complained bitterly to the first messengers from England who reached him in his prison of the treachery and ingratitude of John. “Yet,” he added, “my brother is not a man to win lands for himself by force, if there be any one who will oppose him with another force, however slight.”[201] The words were true; and no less true was the implication underlying the words. Of John as an open enemy Richard could afford to be contemptuous; of John’s capacity for underhand mischief, especially in conjunction with Philip, he was in such fear that no sooner was his treaty with the Emperor signed than he despatched his chancellor and three other envoys to France with orders to make with the French king “a peace of some sort.”[202] The envoys executed their commission literally, by accepting in Richard’s name the terms which were dictated to them by Philip with John at his side. These included the cession by Richard to Philip of the places taken by the French king during his late campaign in Normandy; the ratification of the arrangements made by Philip and John for certain of their partisans; and the payment to Philip of twenty thousand marks, for which four castles were given to him in pledge. “Touching Count John,” the treaty ran, “thus shall it be: If the men of the king of England can prove in the court of the king of France that the same John has sworn, and given a written promise, to furnish money for the English king’s ransom, he, John, shall be held bound to pay it; and he shall hold all his lands, on both sides of the sea, as freely as he held them before his brother the king of England set out on his journey over sea; only he shall be free from the oath which he then swore of not setting foot in England; and of this the English king shall give him security by himself, and by the barons and prelates of his realm, and by the king of France. If, however, Count John shall choose to deny that those letters are his, or that he swore to do that thing, the English king’s men shall prove sufficiently, by fitting witnesses, in the French king’s court, that he did swear to procure money for the English king’s ransom. And if it shall be proved, as hath been said, that he did swear to do this, or if he shall fail to meet the charge, the king of France shall not concern himself with Count John, if he should choose to accept peace for his lands aforesaid.”[203]
1193–1194
This treaty was drawn up at Nantes on July 9.[204] John at once returned to Normandy and there took an oath of liege homage to his brother; whereupon Richard ordered all the castles of John’s honours to be restored to him, on both sides of the sea. “But the keepers thereof would not give up any castle to him” on the strength of this order.[205] John in a rage went back to France, and Philip immediately gave him the custody of two Norman castles, Driencourt and Arques, which by the recent treaty had been intrusted to the archbishop of Reims in pledge for the twenty thousand marks promised to Philip by Richard.[206] At Christmas the two allies made a last desperate effort to prevent the “devil” from being “loosed.” They offered the Emperor three alternatives: either Philip would give him fifty thousand marks, and John would give him thirty thousand, if he would keep Richard prisoner until the following Michaelmas (1194); or the two between them would pay him a thousand pounds a month so long as he kept Richard in captivity; or Philip would give him a hundred thousand marks and John fifty thousand, if he would either detain Richard for another twelvemonth, or deliver him up into their hands. “Behold how they loved him!” says a contemporary writer.[207] A hundred and fifty thousand marks was the ransom which had been agreed upon between Henry VI. and Richard, and the one question which troubled Henry was whether he had a better chance of actually getting that sum from Richard or from his enemies. He unblushingly stated this fact to Richard himself, and on February 2, 1194, showed him the letters of Philip and John. Richard appealed to the German princes who had witnessed his treaty with Henry, and by promises of liberal revenues to be granted to them from England induced them to take his part and insist upon Henry’s fulfilling his agreement. On February 4 the English king was set at liberty, and a joint letter from the Emperor and the nobles of his realm was despatched to Philip and John, bidding them restore to Richard all that they had taken from him during his captivity, and threatening that if they failed to do so, the writers would do their utmost to compel them.[208]
1194
Before this letter could have reached its destination, John sent to England a confidential clerk, Adam of S. Edmund’s, with secret letters, ordering that all the castles which he held there should be made ready for defence against the king. This man, having reached London without hindrance, foolishly presented himself on February 9 at the house of the new archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter. The archbishop invited him to dinner, an unexpected honour by which Adam’s head was so completely turned that he boasted openly at table of his master’s hopes of political advancement. Hubert listened without remark, and thinking that to arrest the babbler on the spot would be a breach of hospitality, suffered him to depart after dinner; but the mayor of London—warned no doubt by the archbishop himself or by one of the other guests—seized Adam on his way back to his lodging, took possession of his papers, and sent them to Hubert, who on the following day laid them before a council of bishops and barons. The council unanimously decreed that John should be disseised of all his lands in England, and that his castles should be reduced by force; the bishops excommunicated him and all his adherents. Then the old bishop of Durham set off to renew the