safe and well, John was in danger. It must be remembered that the king was already under sentence of deprivation by the French court, on account of the appeal of the Poitevin barons. If the alliance was not to be overwhelming Arthur ought either to be handed over to William des Roches or to be put out of the way. Some of John's friends suggested mutilation. In his anger at failure, after the only brilliant military achievement of his life, John agreed, and sent two servants to Falaise, where, his feet fettered by a triple chain, the young man was guarded by Hubert de Burgh, the chamberlain. Hubert, moved partly by the agony of Arthur, partly by the folly of the deed, prevented John's agents from accomplishing the royal command. Yet he felt also that the only way to coerce the Bretons was to convince them of Arthur's death. What folly there might be in mutilation or murder lay in the fact that John's subjects, especially his knights, would refuse to serve a parricide. Hubert announced that Arthur had died. For fifteen days (we see here the fifteen days of the Bretor story) the rumour spread. The place of Arthur's burial was known also. Then the Bretons, fully roused, swore that they would never cease their attacks on the king of England after this atrocious deed. They believed that Arthur had been murdered. It is not at all unlikely that they held a solemn assembly; the Coggeshall narrative rather implies common action. In this case the chief facts of the Breton version would be true, and the fifteenthcentury and later writers were following veracious but obviously independent annals in their detailed account of the gathering at Vannes. The error simply lay in this, that Arthur was not yet dead.

This explanation is the more probable because from that time Arthur disappeared. Hubert, when the danger increased rather than diminished, announced that he was alive, but the Bretons could have no proof of this. They would naturally prefer to believe that Arthur was dead, if he was not handed over. Philip and they clamoured for

his release and offered hostages in vain. Their scepticism is expressed distinctly in the charter of King Philip in which he refers to Arthur if he still lives.' Till the spring of 1204 this scepticism was maintained; then it became certainty that Arthur was dead; but there was no proof. The semi-official chronicler Rigord of St. Denis, who lived till about 1206, makes no mention of it. A few chroniclers tell us that Arthur was removed to Rouen; and no doubt, as time went on, this fact became common knowledge. But after that all was darkness and vague rumour. Only here and there e.g. by the chronicler of Tours?— was Arthur supposed to have been killed. In 1204 Philip refused peace, partly because he was confident of success in war, partly and especially because he had heard that Arthur had been drowned in the Seine. Many years later even Matthew Paris, who was not exactly friendly to John, can only give the various stories of his death and hope doubtfully that the story of murder is not true. Gradually, in popular talk Arthur's fate became subject to the variations of time and place and incident which control all mysteries.

Such was the main historical tradition concerning the relations between John and his nephew. Putting aside other evidence as valueless, M. Bémont has urged that it is sufficient to disprove the story that John was condemned, a second time, for the death of Arthur. It certainly does not prove it, but it is hard to see how it can be said to do more. The condemnation of John ought to be considered. together with the question, When did Philip become morally certain of Arthur's death by murder? The orthodox view is as follows: John must have been

1. Delisle, Catalogue des Actes de Philippe-Augustus, no. 783, p. 177, October, 1203, before Château-Gaillard, charter for Guy of Thouars; Bémont, Revue Hist., xxxii, 42.

2. Historiens de France, xviij, 295.

3. Saeviebat autem permaxime pro nece Arturi, quem in Sequana submersum fuisse audierat: Coggeshall, p. 145.

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condemned, if at all, in 1203; and, as Philip was uncertain of Arthur's fate in April 1204, John could not have been condemned at all. Now the only serious reason for the statement that John must have been condemned, if at all, in 1203 is that Philip continued the war in 1203, and sentence must come before the punishment. This in its turn seems to imply that Philip would not have invaded Normandy in 1203, if John had not been condemned. It is true that the later writers, looking back, are so much impressed by the crime that they say it caused the loss of Normandy, as indeed it did to a large extent. Philip was urged on by indignation. One or two very important witnesses, as we shall see, imply that Normandy was escheated because of the sentence. Indeed, if sentence was passed, this must have been true also. But all these considerations are irrelevant to the fact that Philip, while still uncertain or ignorant of Arthur's fate, invaded Normandy in 1203, and would have done so in any case. The evidence for the condemnation is not invalidated because some of the witnesses thought that it caused a war already in progress. The truth is that Philip and John

were at war and that there was no break. It is certain that Philip regarded Normandy as escheated in 1202, together with Poitou and the other possessions of King John. There is no hint that the military operations from the opening of war in 1202 to the surrender of Rouen in June 1204 were not regarded as continuous. Rigord says

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1. Revue Historique, xxxii, 55.

2. The anonymous chronicler of Laon, who is especially interested in Anglo-Norman history, puts the case exactly from the retrospective standpoint: 1203, Iohannes rex Anglie Arturum . . crudelissime iugulavit. . . . Guera inter regem Francie et regem Anglie fit solito gravior (ed. Cartellieri, p. 61).

3. This is proved by the papal letters of 1203 (Potthast, no. 2013) taken with Arthur's letters of July, 1202 (Layettes, i, 236, no. 647).

explicitly that there was no truce at the end of 1202;1 and there was certainly no break at the end of 1203. Hence it is impossible to connect the operations of 1203 exclusively with Arthur's death or the condemnation of John. So far as this argument goes, it shows that the condemnation might have been passed in 1203 or 1204 or 1205, or any other year. At the same time Philip, who had been urging on war all the more fiercely because of his suspicions, became convinced that Arthur was dead. In reply to every suggestion of peace he said, Either produce Arthur, or, if you have killed him, surrender all your continental possessions.' At last he felt sure. He had heard, says Ralph of Coggeshall, that he was drowned. This was in the spring of 1204, and the condemnation, if it was passed, would most naturally follow then. Philip did not know the exact details, nor do I think that he knew them until some years had gone by.

Our chief authority for this summary has been the abbot of Coggeshall. All historians, except Miss Norgate, are convinced of the value of this writer. His narrative is at bottom annalistic, embroidered by tales of visitors and neighbours. There is no attempt at continuous history, but, mixed with jejune summaries, we find two kinds of story, both of which show the sort of authority upon which they are based. One of them is the religious marvel, the other the striking political incident. We do not need the abbot's explicit statement to know that a special source-a visitor, a monk who has been on business, a neighbouring baron has produced these stories. The vivid narrative of Richard's capture was related by the royal chaplain, Anselm. Another eye-witness, Hugh de Nevill, brought back a story of the crusade. In spite of Miss Norgate's

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1. Rigord, ed. Delaborde, i, 153. Superveniente veso hyeme uterque sine pace et treuga, marchiis munitis, a bello cessavit. This is the more significant, since John attempted to bring about a truce.

2. Cf. Petit-Dutaillis, p. 111.

3. Coggeshall, p. 54.

4. Ibid, p. 45.

Above, p. 241.

criticism the account of the first condemnation of John in 1202 has been amply verified by French scholars; nor is there any reason to disbelieve the circumstantial relation of the events at Falaise, though they are not mentioned by any other writer. Now it seems to me to be a valid argument that, if the widespread tale of Arthur's supposed death at Falaise has only come down in one chronicle, his mysterious fate would be still more likely to pass unchronicled, or would only be revealed accidentally through the gossip of the few people who knew what had happened. It is only when a chance discovery, like that of the biography of the Marshal, brings some unknown authority to light that we can realise faintly what a vast story lies untold. By accident or good fortune a chronicler here and there heard one thing out of a hundred, or a rhyming biographer put down the reminiscences of his hero. Except in rare and definite cases the argument e silentio is invalid for the medieval historian. Further, when there is reason for secrecy, the chances of truth are of course less. Arthur subito evanuit, said Roger of Wendover. We must not think of Arthur at this time as a popular hero, except in Brittany. When John's crime was made a political question by Philip and Louis in 1216, the pope did not trouble himself to deny it. He made little of it. The chronicles, he said, tell us of the murder of innocent persons by many princes, the kings of France as well as others, but we do not read that the murderers were ever condemned to death. Arthur was no innocent victim; he was captured at Mirebeau, a traitor to his lord, to whom he had sworn homage (cui homagium et liganciam fecerat), and he could rightly be condemned without a formal trial to die the most shameful of deaths.1

In the spring, then, of 1204 Philip was becoming convinced that Arthur was dead. If the Breton tradition be

1. Matt. Paris, Chron. Mai., ii 659 (from Wendover). For remarks on the effect of Arthur's disappearance see above, p. 247. The papal view of treason was evidently more comprehensive than the feudal view (above, p. 418.)