in-law had quarrelled. Early in 1205 they were reconciled, and clauses in the deed of reconciliation which was drawn up at Vernon, provided for a joint attack upon England for the recovery of their English lands.2 They might expect to be joined by others who had been deprived of English revenues as a result of the separation of England from Normandy.

John and his advisers passed the year which followed the fall of Rouen in much perplexity. The contemporary writers describe a period of jarring counsels, of suspicion. and personal rivalries. It is clear that the archbishop of Canterbury suspected those who, like the Marshal, had most to gain from peace and feared lest they should allow the king to acquiesce too readily in the loss of Normandy. The Marshal's biographer states that the archbishop went so far as to warn the king of France that the Marshal, who was again sent to France in the spring of 1205, had not full powers to treat.3 Colour was given to the suspicion under which the Marshal fell at this time by his homage to King Philip for his Norman lands-the year of waiting being over. John and the archbishop could not appreciate the Marshal's moral code; and painful interviews occurred between the king and this prominent vassal after the latter's return. These interviews took place at

4

1. The important fact was Henry of Louvain's change of policy at this time; first in joining Philip of Swabia against Otto, secondly in being reconciled to Renaud of Boulogne. Malo, Renaud de Dammartin, pp. 81-3; Smets, Henri I, duc de Brabant, pp. 109-15; Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, i, 208.

2. Edited by Malo, op. cit, p. 273, and often elsewhere (Delisle, Actes de Philippe Auguste, no. 910, p. 209). Its importance was seized by Coggeshall, pp. 148-9.

3. Guillaume le Maréchal, iii, 178 et seqq. This private mission must have been undertaken between April and the end of May, 1205. The Marshal was in England at the beginning of June, for he was with John in the neighbourhood of Portsmouth (Coggeshall, p. 152). The Patent Rolls for the years 1204-1206 are unfortunately meagre and badly arranged.

4. Guillaume le Maréchal, iii, 178.

Portsmouth, where the king was gathering ships and men with a view to the war in Poitou.

To this expedition both the Marshal and the archbishop were opposed. It was well known that the count of Boulogne intended to invade England. He would naturally seize the opportunity given by John's absence, when the country was depleted of a large army. Moreover the Marshal had brought back from Normandy a lively sense of Philip's power, of the size of his armies, and the thoroughness of his occupation. He and others pointed out all these things to the king, and the archbishop, to whom John turned for advice, joined in their view. After a brief voyage in the Channel, during which the argument was continued, the king surrendered and the large fleet was dispersed. This was in June, 1205, a month before the archbishop died. He was the greatest survivor of Henry II's reign and had been found watchful and cautious-perhaps over-suspicious-to the last.

It was doubtless wise to postpone the expedition. The error had been committed in 1204, when John's return in force to Normandy had been so unwarrantably delayed. But, although the king's policy had been weak abroad, there had been no hesitation at home, and during these years England made an imposing demonstration of unity and wealth. Across the Channel Angevin power was undermined by provincial jealousies, by the scandal of Arthur's disappearance, and by the tendency of all feudal interests to rally to a strong suzerain against an unsatisfactory lord. In England the mere threat of invasion thrilled all men to resistance. Ten years of John's rule were still required to break down for a time the sense of unity. In April of 1205 the country was organised for defence. Every group of nine knights was to equip a tenth. The population was formed into a vast sworn commune, in which every male of twelve years of age and

1. Coggeshall, pp. 152, 153; Wendover, ii, 9-10; Guillaume le Maréchal, iii, 182, and notes.

1

upwards was to bear arms. The hundreds and shires, and the cities and boroughs were placed under a hierarchy of constables for the arranging of this host, and the whole of England was divided into six districts under commissioners who had the duty of supervising the equipment and the choice of the knights. At the same time, the preparations which had gradually been made since the beginning of the year 1204 for an expedition over sea, could now be diverted, if necessary, to the defence of the kingdom. The traders and fishermen of the ports had been busy in providing their quotas of ships for the fleet which gathered at Portsmouth. Even distant Galloway had contributed.2 And the Cinque Ports were, on account of their closer organisation, always at the call of the government.3

During John's reign the tension was so great that the defence of the kingdom was hardly distinguished from enterprises abroad. For the first time in English history since the Conquest, war with France involved the constant possibility of invasion. The king of England was set upon the recovery of his lost possessions, the king of France upon carrying his victories across the Channel. In 1205 the danger of invasion was sufficient to keep John at home. In 1206 he was able to leave for Poitou, and to introduce Englishmen (Angligena) to new scenes of warfare. The situation was emphasised in 1207, when a thirteenth was levied upon the property of clergy and laity for the double purpose of defending the kingdom and recovering the

1. Rot. Pat., 55; Stubbs' Constitutional History, i, 632–3, and note. It is worthy of notice that the king had rearranged the administration of the shires in the previous autumn, and placed many of them under two or more bailiffs instead of a sheriff. See Rot. Pat., 46b-47.

2. Rot. Pat., 51, for the galiae of Thomas of Galloway.

3. On January 30, 1204, John bade the barons of the Cinque Ports send twelve men from each port to confer with the archbishop and others on the business of the king (Rot. Pat., 38b).

4. Wendover speaks of their prowess (ii, 14). Many men had gone from England in 1205 (Coggeshall, pp. 153-4). For instances of fines "ut milites non transfretent in Pictaviam," see Rot. de Fin., 366.

continental lands; and a sum of nearly £60,000 was collected in a few months. In spite of the disaffection which succeeded the chaotic tyranny of the next few years, John persisted in his attempt. The emperor Otto, with whom he had been on the closest terms since 1204, came to England in 1207. The two princes conferred together at Stapleford in Essex, and doubtless discussed the joint attack upon Philip which they finally made seven years later, in 1214. The disasters of that year brought their inevitable punishment, the invasion of England and the downfall of Otto.

3

Hence during the ten years or so which followed 1204, the affairs of Normandy were overshadowed by the events of a wider contest. After the treaty of Lambeth, in September 1217, the future of the duchy became again an object of prime interest. The treaty of Lambeth did not deal with the conquests of Philip Augustus; it was concerned with the conditions of Louis' departure from England; but, according to Wendover and a London chronicle, the parties to the treaty paid some attention to the young King Henry's claims upon the old Angevin empire. Louis is said to have promised that he would restore Henry's possessions when he should come to the throne of France; and this promise, whatever its origin

1. Stubbs' Constitutional History, i, 620.

2. Rot. de Fin., 459: "Recepta tocius tredecime tam de communi quam de finibus religiosorum et de donis episcoporum, quinquaginta et septum millia ccccxxjli. xjs. vd." This sum would equal nearly £230,000 in money of Tours or Angers.

3. For Otto's visit, see Wendover, Rolls Series, ii, 35: and especially the annals of Saint Edmund (Memorials of St. Edmund, ii, 16) which give the place, Stapleford "in thalamo Samsonis abbatis Sancti Aedmundi." There is a reference to the visit in Rot. de Fin., 384.

4. Wendover, iii, 31; Liber de Antiquis Legibus, ed. Stapleton, Appendix, p. 204. No promise to this effect is to be found in the treaty, but some conversation would of course take place upon the future of the continental lands. M. Petit-Dutaillis suggests that Louis may have promised to approach his father upon the matter; see his Etude sur la vie et le règne de Louis VIII (1894), pp. 175-6.

and character may have been, was the basis of Henry's later contention that in spite of the conquests of Philip and the judgments of his court, the succession to Normandy and the other continental lands still lay in himself.1

The claim to Normandy was not waived till 1259. In the charters and letters of Henry III, as in those of his father, reference is frequently made to the future recovery of the duchy, and relations between England and the Normans were frequent. From the outset John had been careful to encourage trade between English and Norman ports,2 and Henry III was equally anxious, notwithstanding the measures which the English government took against French merchants, to maintain the goodwill of the Norman traders. The ships of Dieppe, Rouen and Barfleur were especially favoured.3 Before the failure of Henry's expedition to Brittany in 1230, negotiations were also frequent between the king and the Norman barons and clergy. The rule of Philip Augustus and his successors necessarily involved hardship to some persons and caused disappointment to more. Guérin of Glapion, for example, was accused-high though he was in Philip's favour-of intriguing with the emperor Otto. Many Normans joined the allies against Philip in 1214, and for a long time every crisis in French politics, the death of a king, a baronial revolt or an English invasion, reacted upon Norman

1. Matthew Paris, Chron. Maj., v. 193: "Rex Henricus bis, ut jura sua ultramarina, praecipue Normanniam, de qua pater ejus judicio duodecim parium Franciae abjudicabatur, tanquam de caede nepotis sui Arthuri cruentus, in manu forti reposceret, cum exercitu transfretavit, et bis rediit inglorius, pauper et confusus." On Louis' promise as a basis of Henry's demands, see Wendover, ii, 271; Annals of Dunstable, Ann. Monastici, iii, 82-3.

2. See the long letter of June 4, 1204, in Rot. Pat., 42-3, an elaborate regulation of trade with the possessions of the French king. Safe conduct for particular merchants of Rouen and Caen in December, 1204, and January, 1205 (Rot. Pat., 49, 49b).

3. Berger, in his valuable Histoire de Blanche de Castille, Reine de France (1895), has illustrated this, e.g., p. 76.

4. Above, p. 256. Compare the case of Guy de la Roche, below, p. 415.