his unfortunate ardour soon put an end to his hopes and his claims. Being of an enterprising disposition, and fond of military glory, he had laid siege to a fortress in which Eleanor, the dowager queen, was protected, and defended by a weak garrison. John, therefore, falling upon his little army before they were aware of his approach, the young prince was taken prisoner, together with the most considerable of the revolted barons. The greater part of the prisoners were sent over to England; but the unfortunate prince himself was shut up in the castle of Falaise. John, thus finding a rival at his mercy, from whom he had every thing to dread, began to meditate upon measures which would most effectually remove his future apprehensions. No other expedient suggested itself but what is foremost in the imagination of tyrants, namely, the young prince's death. How this brave youth was despatched, is not well known: certain it is, that from the moment of his confinement he was never heard of more. The most probable account of this horrid transaction A. D. is as follows. The king having first proposed to one of his 1203. servants, William de la Braye, to despatch Arthur, the brave domestic replied, that he was a gentleman, and not an executioner. This officer having positively refused to comply, John had recourse to another instrument, who went, with proper directions, to the castle where Arthur was still confined, to destroy him. But still this prince's fate seemed suspended: for Hubert de Bourg, chamberlain to the king, and constable of the place, willing to save him, undertook the cruel office himself, and sent back the assassin to his employer. However, he was soon obliged to confess the imposture; for Arthur's subjects vowing the severest revenge, Hubert, to appease them, revealed the secret of his pretended death, and assured them that their prince was still alive, and in his custody. John, finding that his emissaries had more compunction than himself, resolved, with his own hands, to execute the bloody deed; and for that pur pose he commanded that Arthur should be removed to the castle of Rouen, situated upon the river Seine. It was at midnight when John came in a boat to the place, and ordered the young prince to be brought before him. Long confinement, solitude, and the continuance of bad fortune, had now broken this generous youth's spirit; and perceiving that his death was meditated, he threw himself in the most imploring manner upon his knees before his uncle, and begged for mercy. John was too much hardened in the school of tyranny, to feel any pity for his wretched suppliant. His youth, his affinity, his merits, were all disregarded, or were even obnoxious in a rival. The barbarous tyrant, making no reply, stabbed him with his own hands; and, fastening a stone to the dead body, threw it into the Seine. This inhuman action rid John of a hated rival ; but, happily for the instruction of future princes, it opened the way to his future ruin. Having in this manner shown himself the enemy of mankind in the prosperity of his reign, the whole world seemed to turn their back upon him in his distress. John was now detested by all mankind; and during the rest of his reign he only supported himself in power, by making it the interest of some to protect him, and letting others feel the effects of his resentment, if they offered to defend themselves. The loss of all his French provinces quickly followed his last transgression. Not but that he attempted a defence; and even laid siege to Alençon, one of the towns that had revolted from him. But Philip, his active rival, persuaded a body of knights, who were assembled at a tournament, to take his part; and these readily joining against the parricide, quickly obliged him to raise the siege. John, therefore, repulsed and stripped of his dominions, was obliged to bear the insult with patience; though, indeed, such was the ridiculous absurdity of his pride, that he assured those about him of his being able to take back, in a day, what cost the French years in acquiring. Normandy did not long resist the arms of Philip. ChateauGaillard, one of its strongest fortresses, being taken after an obstinate siege, the whole duchy lay open to the invader; and while John basely sought safety by flying into England, Philip, secure of his prey, pushed his conquests with vigour. The whole duchy submitted to his authority; and thus, after being for nearly three centuries dismembered from the French monarchy, was again united to it. A. D. 1204. John, being thus deprived of all his continental dominions, resolved to wreak his vengeance on that part of the monarchy which still acknowledged subjection. Upon his arrival, therefore, in England, he began to lay the blame of this ill success upon his barons, who, he pretended, had deserted his standard in Normandy. To punish them for this imputed offence, he levied large sums upon their estates and effects, under colour of preparations for a Norman expedition. He then summoned all his barons to attend him; but capriciously deferred the execution of his projects to another opportunity. The year following he put to sea, as if with a firm resolution to do wonders; but returned soon after, with- 1205. out making the smallest attempt. Another year elapsed, when he promised that he would then redeem his country's reputation by a most signal blow. He set sail, landed at Rochelle, marched to Angers, laid the city in ashes; and hearing that the enemy were preparing to oppose him, he re-embarked his troops, 1206. and returned once more to his indignant country, loaded with shame and confusion. A. D. A. D. Hitherto John was rather hateful to his subjects than contemptible; they rather dreaded than despised him. But he soon showed that he might be offended, if not without resentment, at least with impunity. It was the fate of this vicious prince to make those the enemies of himself whom he wanted abilities to make the enemies of each other. The clergy had for some time acted as a community independent of the crown, and had their elections of each other generally confirmed by the pope, to whom alone they owned subjection. However, the election of archbishops had for some time been a continual subject of dispute between the suffragan bishops and the Augustine monks; and both had precedents to confirm their pretensions. Things being in this situation, Hubert, the archbishop of Canterbury, died: and the Augustine monks, in a very private manner, made choice of Reginald, their sub-prior. The bishops exclaimed at this election, as a manifest invasion of their privileges; and a furious theological contest was likely to ensue. A politic prince would have seized such a conjuncture with joy, and would have managed the quarrel in such a manner, as to enfeeble the exorbitant power of the clergy by inflaming their mutual amimosity. But John was not a politic prince. He immediately sided with the suffragan bishops; and John de Grey, bishop of Norwich, was unanimously chosen. To decide the claims of both parties, it was expedient to appeal to the see of Rome: an agent was sent by the bishops to maintain their cause, while the monks despatched twelve of their order to support their pretensions. Innocent III., who then filled the chair, possessed an unbounded share of power, and his talents were equal to the veneration in which he was held. He seized with avidity that conjuncture which John failed to use: and vacating the claims of both parties, as uncanonical and illeA. D. gal, he enjoined the monks to choose cardinal Stephen Langton, an Englishman, then at the court of Rome, as a fit person to fill the vacant dignity. 1207. This was an encroachment of power that the see of Rome had long been aiming at, and was now resolved to maintain. The being able to nominate to the greatest dignity in the kingdom, next to that of the king, was an acquisition that would effectually give the court of Rome an authority which it had hitherto vainly pretended to assume. So great an insult was to be introduced to this weak prince with persuasions adapted to his capacity; and the pope accordingly sent him a most affectionate letter, with a present of four gold rings set with precious stones. He begged John to consider seriously the form of the rings, their number, their matter, and their colour. Their form being round, shadowed out eternity, for which it was his duty to prepare. Their number, four, denoted the four cardinal virtues, which it was his duty to practise. Their matter being gold, the most precious of metals, denoted wisdom, the most precious of accomplishments, which it was his duty to acquire: and as to their colour, the green colour of the emerald represented faith; the yellow of the sapphire, hope; the redness of the ruby, charity; and the splendour of the topaz, good works. John received the rings, and thought all the pope's illustrations very beautiful, but resolved not to admit Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury. As all John's measures were conducted with violence, he sent two knights of his train, who were fit instruments for such a prince, to expel the monks from their convent, and to take possession of their revenues. The pope was not displeased at this instance of his impetuosity; he was sensible that John would sink in the contest, and therefore persevered the more vigorously in his pretensions. He began his attempts to carry his measures by soothing, imploring, and urging; he proceeded to threats, and at last sent three English prelates to the king to inform him, that, if he persevered in his disobedience, he would put the kingdom under the sentence of an interdict. The other prelates threw themselves on their knees before the king; entreated him in the most earnest manner not to bring upon them the resentment of the holy tribunal; exhorted him to receive the new primate, and to restore the monks to their convent, from which they had been expelled. But these entreaties served only to inflame his resentment. He broke out into the most violent invectives; and swore by God's teeth, his usual oath, that if the kingdom was put under an interdict, he would banish the whole body of the clergy, and confiscate all their possessions. This idle threat only served to hasten the resentment of the pontiff. Perceiving the king's weakness, and how little he was loved by his subjects, he issued at last the sentence of the interdict, which A. D. was so much dreaded by the whole nation. This instru- 1208. ment of terror in the hands of the see of Rome, was calculated to strike the senses in the highest degree, and to operate upon the superstitious minds of the people. By it a stop was immediately put to divine service, and to the administration of all the sacraments but baptism. The church-doors were shut, the statues of the saints were laid on the ground. The dead were refused Christian burial, and were thrown into the ditches and on the highways, without the usual rites, or any funeral solemnity. Marriage was celebrated in the church-yards, and the people were prohibited from the use of meat, as in times of public penance. They were debarred from all pleasure; they were prohibited from shaving their beards, from saluting each other, and giving any attention to their apparel. Every circumstance seemed calculated to inspire religious terror, and testified the apprehensions of divine vengeance and indignation. Against such calamity, increased by the deplorable lamentations of the clergy, it was in vain that John exerted all his authority, threatened and punished, and opposed the terrors of his temporal power to their ecclesiastical censures. It was in vain that he banished some, and confined others; it was in vain that he treated the adherents of Langton with rigour, and ordered all the concubines of the clergy to be imprisoned. The church conquered by perseverance; and John saw himself every day growing more obnoxious and more contemptible. The barons, many of whose families he had dishonoured by his licentious amours, were almost to a man his declared enemies. The clergy represented him in the most odious light to the people: and nothing remained to him but the feeble relics of that power which had been so strongly fixed by his father, that all his vices were hitherto unable totally to overthrow it. In the meantime the pope, seeing all the consequences he expected attending the interdict, and that the king was thus rendered perfectly disagreeable to his subjects, resolved to second his blow; and, while the people were yet impressed with terror, determined to take advantage of their consternation. The church of Rome had artificially contrived a gradation of sentences; by which, while she inflicted one punishment, she taught the sufferers to expect more formidable consequences from those which were to ensue. On the back of the interdict, therefore, came the sentence of excommunication, by which John was at once rendered impious and unfit A. D. for human society. No sooner was this terrible sentence 1209. denounced against him, than his subjects began to think of opposing his authority. The clergy were the first to set an example of disobedience. Geoffrey, archdeacon of Norwich, who was intrusted with a considerable office in the court of exchequer, resigned his employment; which so exasperated the king, that he had him confined, and, ordering his head to be covered with a great leaden cope, thus kept him in torment till he died. Most of the other bishops, dreading his fate, left the kingdom. Many of the nobility also, terrified at the king's tyranny, went into voluntary exile; and those who remained employed their time in cementing a confederacy against him. The next gradation of papal inA. D. dignation was to absolve John's subjects from their oaths of fidelity and allegiance, and to declare every one excommunicated who had any commerce with him in public or private, at his table, in his council, or even in private conversation. John, however, still continued refractory; and only one step more remained for the pope to take, and this was to give away the kingdom to another. 1211. No situation could be more deplorable than that of John upon this occasion. Furious at his indignities, jealous of his subjects, and apprehending an enemy in every face,—it is said that, fearing a conspiracy against his life, he shut himself up a whole night in the castle of Nottingham, and suffered none to approach his person. Being informed that the king of Wales had taken part against him, he ordered all the Welsh hostages to be instantly put to death. Being apprehensive of the fidelity of his barons, he required their sons and daughters as hostages for their obedience. When his officers repaired on this odious duty to the castle of William de Braouse, a nobleman of great note, that baron's wife resolutely told them, that she would never trust her children in the hands of a man who had so barbarously murdered his own nephew. John was so provoked at this merited reproach, that he sent a body of forces to seize the person of Braouse, who fled into Ireland with his wife and family. But John's indignation pursued them there; and, discovering the unhappy family in their retreat, he seized the wife and son, whom he starved to death in prison, while the unfortunate father narrowly escaped by flying into France. Meanwhile the pope, who had resolved on giving the kingdom to another, was employed in fixing upon a person who was willing to accept the donation, and had power to vindicate his claim. Philip, the king of France, seemed the fittest for such an undertaking: he was politic and powerful; he had already despoiled John of his continental dominions, and was the most likely person to de |