John Lackland. Kate Norgate
been sent away by his father for safety, or had found some pretext for quitting his company, and that, in either case, he used the opportunity to go his own way with such characteristic ingenuity that for three whole weeks his father never guessed whither that way really tended.[110]
1189
Henry and Richard had been set at strife by an illusion of their own imaginations. Richard had been spurred to rebellion by the idea that his father aimed at disinheriting him in favour of John, and might succeed in that aim, unless prevented by force. Henry’s schemes for John were probably in reality much less definite and less outrageous than Richard imagined; but there can be little doubt that the otherwise unaccountable inconsistencies and self-contradictions, the seemingly wanton changes of front, by which the king in his latter years had so bewildered and exasperated his elder son, were the outcome of an insatiable desire to place John, somehow or other, in a more lofty and independent position than a younger son was fairly entitled to expect. The strange thing is that Henry never perceived how hopeless were his efforts, nor Richard how groundless were his fears; neither of them, apparently, realizing that the substitution of John for Richard as heir of the Angevin house was an idea which could not possibly be carried into effect. The utter selfishness of John, however, rendered him, mere lad of one-and-twenty as he was, proof against illusions where his own interest was concerned; and it was he who pricked the bubble. On July 4 Henry, sick unto death, made his submission to Philip and Richard, and received a list of the traitors who had transferred their homage to the latter. That night, at Chinon, he bade his vice-chancellor read him the names. The vice-chancellor hesitated; the king insisted; at last the truth which was to give him his death-blow came out: “Sire, the first that is written down here is Lord John, your son.”[111]
FOOTNOTES: [Skip footnotes]
[1] I.e. Henry II.
[2] The place comes from the prose addition to Robert of Gloucester, ed. Hearne, vol. ii. p. 484; on the date see Stubbs, pref. to W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. xvii.
[3] R. Torigni, a. 1155; Gerv. of Canterbury, vol. i. p. 162.
[4] R. Torigni, a. 1160.
[5] R. Diceto, vol. i. p. 306.
[7] R. Torigni, a. 1159.
[8] R. Torigni, a. 1166.
[9] “Quartum natu minimum Johannem Sine Terra agnominans,” W. Newburgh, l. ii. c. 18. Cf. W. Armor. Philippis, l. vi. vv. 591, 592, who says, addressing John—“Antea quam fato fieres ludente monarcha,Patris ab ore tui Sine-Terra nomen habebas.”The name seems to have been commonly used as if it were a part of John’s proper designation: “Johannes … quem vocant Sine Terra, quamvis multas et latas habet possessiones et multos comitatus,” says R. Torigni, a. 1185. So the writer of the Estoire de la Guerre Sainte: “Johan sanz Terre ot nom li mendres,” v. 179; “Johan sanz Terre, Por qui il ot tant noise e guere,” vv. 101, 102.
[10] Cf. R. Torigni, a. 1169; Gerv. Cant. vol. i. p. 208, and Robertson’s Materials for Hist. of Becket, vol. vi. pp. 506, 507. According to the writer of this last account, young Henry’s homage to Louis was only for Anjou and Maine, and he adds: “In hac autem honorum distributione Franci regno suo arbitrantur plurimum esse prospectum; eo quidem magis quod cum acerbiori dolore meminerant Henricum filium regis Angliæ regi Francorum pro omnibus hominium fecisse, quando inter ipsum et filiam regis Francorum sponsalia contracta sunt.” But R. Torigni’s account of young Henry’s homage to Louis in 1160, when compared with his account of the settlement in 1169, seems distinctly to imply that the former was for Normandy alone.
[11] Robertson, Materials, vol. vi. p. 507.
[12] “Tradidit ei [i.e. Henrico] Johannem fratrem suum minimum ad promovendum et manutenendum,” Gesta Hen. vol. i. p. 7. The charge cannot have been given personally, for though John may have been with his father, the young king was in England.
[13] R. Howden, vol. ii. p. 6.
[14] See Bishop Stubbs’s notes to R. Howden, vol. ii. p. 6, and vol. iii. p. xxiv., note 1.
[15] R. Torigni, a. 1168; Stapleton, Mag. Rot. Scacc. Norm. vol. i. introd. pp. lxiii., cxxiii.
[16] R. Torigni, a. 1171.
[17] Gesta Hen. vol. i. p. 35.
[18] Gesta Hen. vol. i. pp. 35–39.
[20] Cf. ib. p. 41, and Gerv. Cant. vol. i. p. 242.
[21] Cf. Gesta Hen. vol. i. pp. 77–79; R. Howden, vol. ii. pp. 67–69, and Foedera, vol. i. pt. i. p. 30.
[22] R. Torigni, a. 1175.
[23] Art de Vérifier les Dates, vol. xvii. p. 165.
[24] John and Isabel of Gloucester were cousins in the fourth degree according to the canon law; i.e. they were what is now commonly called second cousins, being both great-grandchildren of Henry I.
[25] Gesta Hen. vol. i. pp. 124, 125; R. Diceto, vol. i. p. 415, giving the date, September 28, 1176.
[26] Gerv. Cant. vol. i. p. 243.
[27] Gesta Hen. vol. i. p. 131.