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its junction with the Eure, instead of the latter river, but was also to take in a stretch of country to the north, defined by a a point midway between Evreux and Neubourg.1 Damville on the Itun was to remain Norman, also Tillières on the Avre; hence we may suppose that a line drawn between the two rivers, east of these places, was to mark the connection between the new boundary and the old.

A marriage and a dowry were to guarantee the permanence of the treaty. They were old expedients, and usually very vain. Yet on this occasion the project is interesting, for it shows the desire of the negotiators to secure peace in the west of Europe. Blanche, the niece of John, and the daughter of Alphonso of Castile, was to marry Louis, the son of Philip. Between January and May John was busy with the arrangements for this marriage. As a dowry, besides certain hypothetical gifts, he surrendered in Berri the fiefs of Issoudun and Graçay and the fiefs of Andrew of Chauvigni. Philip was to hold these lands until the marriage of Blanche and Louis, who were as yet but children, should be consummated. They were married on the day after the treaty was made, at Portmort near Le Goulet, by the archbishop of Bordeaux. 5

1. See note A at end of this chapter.

2. See Rot. Chart., 58b. The charter rolls show considerable activity at this time in the reorganisation and settlement of Poitou and Gascony. Queen Eleanor went for Blanche (Howden, iv, 114; Richard, Les Comtes de Poitou, ii, 366-73).

3. The lands ("citra mare Anglie") of Hugh of Gournai, the count of Aumâle and the count of Perche were to be added to the dowry, if John died without heirs. Coggeshall (p. 101) and especially Rigord (i, 148) write carelessly of this part of the treaty.

4. See Cart. Norm., p. 281. John's letter to Andrew of Chauvigni. Also in Rot. Chart., 96a.

5. Howden, iv, 115. Portmort was the last church before the border. As France was under an interdict, the marriage could not take place on French soil. St. Louis was the child of Blanche and Louis.

Finally, and in some ways this is the most significant fact in the treaty, John gave Philip 20,000 marks sterling, as a relief for his lands (rechatum) and as payment for the recognition of his overlordship in Brittany.1 This large payment not only involved a heavy carucage in England; it must have impressed the more warlike element among John's subjects as an unfavourable sign of change. On the king's mind it probably impressed still more forcibly the one-sided theory of feudal duty which I worked his ruin in the future. It is not fanciful to connect his feudal extortions of the following year with the novel exaction to which he himself submitted.3 From Philip's point of view the payment was a fresh acknowledgment of the judicial supremacy of the French court; it must be connected with John's acquiescence in the stricter relations between Philip and the great feudatories of the north, Flanders and Boulogne. Philip, by the recognition of John's rights in Anjou and Brittany, got more than he gave, for John had received them by an award of his court. In the meantime, Arthur, deserted though he was by the Angevins, was still a weapon held in reserve; for after he had done homage to his uncle at Vernon, on May 23rd-the day of his cousin's wedding with Louis of France the boy had been handed again into Philip's

1. Both versions of the treaty give this sum. Most of the chroniclers say 30,000 marks. The Annals of Margam state the sum as £20,000 (Ann. Mon., i, 25).

2. The connection between the carucage and the payment to Philip is emphasised by the Annals of Dunstable (Ann. Mon., iii, 27) and Coggeshall, p. 101.

3. Howden, iv, 157. Compare the remark of M. Luchaire (Lavisse, Histoire de France, III, i, 126): "jamais les Plantagenêts n'avient fait aux Capétiens de pareilles concessions."

4. According to Coggeshall (p. 101, cf. above p. 200, note 4), Philip's court judged Brittany to John; according to the Chronicle of St. Martin of Tours, John on his later visit to Paris "de comitatu Andegavensi fuit per curiae regalis judicium investitus” (Historiens de France, xviii, 295).

keeping. 1 Whether the legal net would suffice to hold John in the future would depend upon the way in which he availed himself of the peaceful opportunity which Philip's embarrassments now offered him.

Such was the last of the four attempts which were made to secure the future of the Angevin empire after Henry II's death. The next treaty between a king of England and a king of France was made under very different conditions nearly sixty years later, when, in 1259, the barons of England forced Henry III to acquiesce in the annexation of Normandy to the French crown.

II.

During the period of these negotiations, from October 1199, to May 1200, and for some months afterwards, John's position was by no means unfavourable. William des Roches had surrendered Le Mans to him, and the way was open for a settlement between the uncle and nephew. The position was one of some delicacy, for the temptation to play upon the suspicion which the action of William must have created was obvious. In reality John could not afford to divide the party of Arthur. If he had seized William des Roches, he would have alienated by his treachery the baronage of Maine and Anjou; if he tried to get rid of Arthur, he would immediately unite the Bretons and Angevins against him. There is no evidence that the seneschal wished to desert the cause of Arthur altogether; he seems rather to have hoped for an arrangement. Certainly, as later events were to prove, the personal safety of Arthur was the condition of his support. In addition to the difficulties raised within the Arthurian party by the precipitate action of the seneschal, there was the problem created by the alternative administration

1. It is possible that, although Howden puts the transaction earlier in 1199, it was only after the desertion of William des Roches that Constance formally surrendered her son to Philip at Tours. This seems to follow from the chronicle of St. Martin (Historiens de France, xviii, 295). See above, pp. 196 note, 199; below, p. 206.

which the king had established in Anjou. His position had been maintained by the Poitevin allies whom Queen Eleanor had rallied. To one of them, the viscount of Thouars, John had entrusted the castle of Chinon and the seneschalship of Anjou and Touraine. It would now be necessary to make some new arrangement. John was apparently so delighted by the adhesion of William des Roches and the surrender of Le Mans, that he felt safe enough to disregard the susceptibilities both of Arthur and of the Poitevins. The viscount of Thouars, who had come to Le Mans on the day of its surrender, was forced to give up Chinon and the seneschalship. The rumour spread that Arthur was to be imprisoned. In consequence the parties were brought together. Constance and the viscount combined to hurry Arthur off to Angers; regardless of her marriage with the earl of Chester, Constance married Guy of Thouars, the viscount's brother; and so a dangerous alliance of Breton and Poitevin interests was formed, which was, through its hostility to the king of England, bound in the end to turn again to Philip of France. The incident is an admirable illustration of the checks and balances which composed the feudal state.

For the present, however, the adherents of Arthur were isolated. In other quarters the old allies of Richard had rallied to John in the hope of war; and the king could rely upon the support of his other nephew, the emperor. 2

1. The authority is Howden, iv, 96, 97. See Dubois, in Bibliothèque de l'école des Chartes (1869), xxx, 416 seqq.

2. Baldwin of Flanders, in August, 1199, at Rouen, devenit homo Johannis regis Anglie (Howden, iv, 93). The treaty is in Rot. Chart., 31a. A similar convention against Philip was made with the counts of Flanders and Boulogne at Roche Andeli on August 18th, immediately after the failure of the negotiations (Rot. Chart., 30; Malo, Renaud de Dammartin, pp. 61, 62). At the same time, according to Howden, conventions were made between John and the French allies of Richard (Howden, iv, 95). The emperor also urged John to hold out (Ibid, 96). Cf. also Annals of Winchester (Ann. Mon., ii, 72): on the morrow after John's coronation in England, i.e., May 28th, the duke of Louvain, and the counts of Boulogne and Guisnes demanded jura sua quae tenentur habere in Anglia.

The quiet of the next two years may well seem to justify the claims to statesmanship which have been made on John's behalf. The Norman border was preserved almost intact, and Arthur was forced to remain satisfied with Brittany. By his marriage with Isabella of Angoulême John secured the alliance of a power whose hostility was very dangerous. Throughout the Angevin dominions, as the spread of communal rights might be said to show, there was a revival of prosperity and common interests. On the other hand, we must remember that, during this very period, French politics were disordered by the quarrel between Philip and Innocent III. Moreover, by the very terms of peace, John had broken up the system of alliances which his brother had arranged; no preparations were made for a future struggle, and when war broke out, there were none to help.

Throughout the summer of 1200 John devoted himself with extraordinary energy and success to the consolidation and government of his vast possessions. The records of his chancery bear out the statements of the chroniclers that he established his authority to the Pyrenees, 2 and by peaceful means or by force secured the submission of those

1. The legate, Peter of Capua, had already laid an interdict on Normandy and France on account of the captivity of the bishop of Beauvais and the bishop elect of Cambrai by the kings of England and France respectively, and had brought about their release. The great interdict on France, on account of Ingeborg, was laid on January 15th (Howden, iv, 94, 112; Diceto, ii, 167; Rigord, i, 146, 147 and notes).

2. Chron. S. Albini, MS. B, 1200. "Octavo autem die ante festum beati Johannis-Baptistae cepit Rex Johannes Andegavim et acquisivit totum regnum quod erat patris sui usque ad Crucem-Caroli Regis" (Halphen, Recueil des annales angevines, pp. 19, 20. The reference is to the cross at Chateau-Pignon near Roncevaux). For John at

Angers, where he took 150 hostages, see Howden, iv, 125. Relations with Raymond of Toulouse were also established (Ibid, iv, 124–5; Rot. Chart., 97b).

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