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July 16.

CHAP. against their disobedience, cannot be doubted: but in a few weeks that active and fearless pontiff expired: his death suspended all ecclesiastical proceedings at Rome; and John saw himself deprived of his most powerful friend at a moment, when he stood in the greatest need of his protection.

He lands

in England.

At the appointed time Louis departed from Calais with a fleet of six hundred and eighty sail. The weather was stormy, and dispersed the ships: many were taken by the mariners of the cinque ports: and John with a numerous May 21. army lay in the vicinity of Dover. But his heart failed him at the approach of the enemy: he feared that his mercenaries might desert him; decamped on a sudden; and ravaging the country as he passed, retired through Winchester to Bristol, where he was joined by the legate. The French prince, having waited three days for the May 30. stragglers, landed at Sandwich, besieged and reduced the castle of Rochester, and hastened his march to the capital. He was received in procession by the barons and citizens, and conducted to St. Paul's, where, after he had made his prayer, he received the homage of his new subjects, and took a solemn oath to govern them by good laws, to protect them against their enemies, and to reinstate them in their former rights and possessions.98 By his affa

June 2.

98 Paris, 287. Chron. Dunstap. 75.

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bility Louis charmed the natives: he won their CHAP. confidence by appointing Simon Langton, the brother of the primate, to the office of chancellor. The campaign was opened with the fairest June 14. promise of future success. All the counties in the neighbourhood of the capital submitted: the men of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, with the king of Scots, declared in his favour: the foreigners, who had hitherto swelled the army of John, began, with the exception of the natives of Gascony, either to join his standard, or to return to their homes: and at his summons several of the royal barons, perhaps through fear of his power, perhaps with the view of spreading disaffection among his adherents,99 hastened to do him homage and to swear fealty. Still the spirits of John were upheld by the presence of Gualo, who fought most manfully with his spiritual weapons, and by the knowledge, that, if his rival had gained possession of the open country, yet every fortress of importance was garrisoned by his own troops. To reduce these fortresses was the next object of the confederates. Louis besieged the castle of Dover; the July 25. barons, under the earl of Nevers, that of Windsor. The prince had received from his father a military engine of the most formidable descrip

99 Mailros, 191. Among them was his brother William, earl of Salisbury. But his, desertion was the effect of resentment: quia ei innotuit dictum Joannem regem cum ipsius uxore rupto fœdere naturali commississe incestum. Gul. Armor. 90.

I.

Aug. 8.

CHAP. tion, called the mal-voisin, or bad neighbour, with which he expected to make a breach in the walls. But the garrison kept him at too great a distance, compelled him to turn the siege into a blockade, and employed him in this useless project during the space of four months. The tediousness of the siege was partially relieved by the arrival of a royal vassal, Alexander, king of Scots, who, in consequence of a summons to that purpose, after the reduction of Carlisle, marched through the heart of the kingdom within sight of John, visited Louis ́at Dover, obtained a confirmation of the cession made to him by the barons, did homage in London, and returned to his own country without molestation.100

King is joined by some of

Sep. 13.

While his enemies lay before the two castles, the king had improved the opportunity to pilthebarons. lage their estates, and intercept their supplies. He was at Wallingford, when the barons, by the persuasion of the earl of Nevers, whom they afterwards charged with perfidy, undertook to surprise him. They raised the siege, and marched rapidly to Cambridge: but the king, anticipating their object, had already passed through that city and retired as far as Stamford. Foiled in this attempt, they returned to join Louis at Dover, while John reduced Lincoln, and again distributed among his followers the lands

Sep. 22.

100 Mailros, 191. Paris, 241. Dunstap. 76. Anderson's Independence of Scot. App. No 26.

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belonging to the confederates. The royal cause CHAP. began to assume a more promising aspect.The two last months had been wasted in idleness by the French prince: the men of the cinque ports perpetually intercepted his supplies from France: associations against him had been formed in Hampshire and Sussex; and John, to invigorate the efforts of his friends, had not been sparing of promises to enlarge the privileges of those who were free, and to bestow liberty and rights on those who were not. 101 Louis, by grants to his own countrymen, particularly of the earldom of Winchester to the count de Nevers, and of that of Lincoln to Gilbert de Gand, had alarmed the English barons :102 and it was whispered that the viscount de Melun had confessed on his death-bed, that he had sworn with the prince and fifteen others to treat the natives as men, whose perfidy to their late, was an earnest of future perfidy to their new sovereign.103 They became jealous of their allies: and several barons and knights actually joined, forty others on the promise of pardon offered to join, the royal standard.104 The king returned from Lincoln Oct. 2. through Grimsby and Spalding to Lynn, a town Oct. 9. strongly attached to his interests, and the gene

101 Rym. i. 214. 102 Paris, 240. Dunst. 76. 103 Paris, 241. 104 Paris, 242. Dunst. 78. In detailing the motions of the king I have deserted Paris, who is evidently mistaken, and adopted the route and dates, which Brady has extracted from the rolls. Brady, ii. 515.

I.

Oct. 12.

treasures.

Oct. 14.

CHAP. ral depot for his supplies and treasures. Thence he marched to Wisbeach, and resolved to proceed athwart the Wash from the Cross Keys to the Fossdike. The army had reached the land: Loses his but on turning back John beheld a long train of waggons and sumpter-horses, which carried his jewels, insignia, and money, swallowed up in a whirlpool, caused by the afflux of the tide and the current of the Welland. With a heavy heart he proceeded to the Cistercian convent of Swineshead, where fatigue, oranxiety, or poison, or a surfeit (for all these causes are mentioned) 105 threw him into a dangerous fever. He set out, however, in the morning: but was obliged to exchange his horse for a litter, and was conveyed with difficulty to the castle of Sleaford. There he passed the night, and dictated a letter to the new pope Honorius III. recommending in the most earnest terms the interests of his children to the protection of that pontiff.106 The next day conducted him to the castle of Newark; where, sensible of his approaching fate, he sent for a confessor, appointed his eldest son Henry to succeed him, and expressed a wish that his body might be buried at Worcester, near the shrine of St. Wulstan. He expired three days later, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the seventeenth of his reign.107

Oct. 15.

Dies.

Oct. 19.

105 Paris, 242. West. 276. Wikes, 38. Waverl. 182. Hem. 560. 106 Apud Raynald, i. 231. 107 Paris, 242. West. 276.