suspicious, Richard, entirely neglecting the policy of William the Conqueror, made him earl of territories which amounted to almost a third of the kingdom, but exacted an oath from him that he would never come to England. John does not seem to have expected his brother back again from the wars, and acted as if he might at any time become king. In this he was helped by Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, a natural son of Henry II.; and the two raised the barons against Longchamp, who was expelled, and retired to Normandy. Longchamp's place was taken by Walter of Coutance, Archbishop of Rouen, who brought letters of authority from Richard, and conducted the government of the country till he was succeeded by Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, the nephew of Ranulf Glanville, who had been justiciar under Henry II. Richard's adventures. Meanwhile Richard had travelled by sea to Sicily, where he met his ally, Philip of France, at the court of Tancred, King of Sicily, who was himself a Norman. There Richard was married to Berengaria of Navarre, and thence he sailed to Cyprus, which he captured in revenge for the murder of some shipwrecked sailors. He then went to Acre, where he found Philip of France. Acre is a seaport town not far Siege of Acre. from Mount Carmel, and commands the coast of Syria. It had fallen into the hands of the Mahomedans, and was besieged by the Christians, who were themselves attacked by Saladin; so it was difficult to say who were the besieged and who the besiegers. The energy of Richard carried all before him, and the city was taken 1191; but Richard, though brave and energetic, was not the man to weld together so motley a troop of fighting men as composed a crusading army, and he found it impossible to form the siege of Jerusalem, from which he had to retreat. Philip of France, on the plea of ill health, had already gone home, and Richard, hearing that on his return he was planning with John an attack upon his dominions, set off home with a few followers. Unfortunately, Richard was wrecked in the Adriatic, and, while trying to make his way home by land, was recognized, and fell into the hands of his personal enemy, Leopold, Duke of Austria, who handed him over to the emperor, captivity. Henry VI. As soon as Richard's captivity was known, John did homage to Philip for Normandy; but Eleanor, Richard's mother, Richard's and the chief English ministers, made the greatest exertions to secure their king's release, which was at length effected, at the cost of one hundred thousand pounds paid to the emperor. Richard's return to England. In 1194 Richard was at liberty and came back to England. He raised more money by sale and extortion, while, to secure himself against being thought to have lost dignity by his imprisonment, he was crowned a second time. He then left England, after a visit of two months, and spent the remainder of his life in making war upon Philip of France and his rebellious vassals, though he kept on comparatively good terms with his brother John. Rebellion of Osbert. The exactions which Hubert Walter had to make to supply the king with money for these wars caused a great deal of discontent, and in 1195 the poorer citizens of London, comWilliam Fitz plaining that they had to pay too large a share of the taxes due from the city, broke out into rebellion under William Fitz-Osbert, but were easily crushed. In 1198 Hugh of Avalon, Bishop of Lincoln, was successful in refusing to Resistance to pay money to support the war in France, which is the taxation. first real instance of successful resistance to taxation. The same year Hubert Walter retired, and Geoffrey Fitz-Peter became justiciar. Richard's death. Importance of the reign. A year later Richard himself was killed while besieging the castle of a petty knight, who was the possessor of some treasure to which Richard thought he had a claim. Richard's reign of ten years, of which but a twentieth part was spent in England, was very useful to the nation, because it gave time for the legal and administrative reforms of Henry II. to get into working order, and to take a firm hold upon the country. Richard was extolled as the ideal of a feudal knight. He was certainly brave, but his selfishness, cruelty, and vanity deprive him of all claim to respect. CHAPTER III. JOHN, 1199-1216 (17 years). Born 1167; married, {1200, Isabella of Angoulême. 1189, Hadwisa of Gloucester (divorced). Chief Characters of the Reign.-Hubert Walter, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, Stephen Langton, William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, and Peter des Roches. Election of John. WHEN Richard was dead there were two candidates for the crown of England. One was Arthur, the son of Geoffrey, Richard's next brother, who had died before him; the other was John, the youngest son of Henry II. Philip of France was expected to support Arthur, and to his court Arthur fled; but Philip at that moment was quarrelling with the pope about a wife that he wished to put away, and could give him no active assistance. The throne, therefore, fell to John. In France no one worked harder for him than his mother Eleanor, who wished to keep together all the dominions over which she and Henry II. had ruled, and for that reason always supported that one of her sons who she thought was most likely to effect this. In England he had the support of Archbishop Hubert, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, the old ministers of Richard, and of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke. These statesmen held a meeting of the chief men at Nottingham, where John was chosen king, the uncle of full age being preferred, according to the old English practice, to the nephew who was a minor. After a solemn admonition from the archbishop, John was crowned, and made Hubert his first Chancellor. After a very slight effort on his behalf Philip gave up the claims of Arthur, and made peace with John, while he compelled Arthur as Duke of Brittany to do homage to John. John might now have enjoyed an honourable and prosperous reign; but his character was so bad, and his imprudence led him to act so foolishly, that he not only lost for England most of her continental possessions, but only saveu himself by dying from losing his crown. John's prospects. Divorce and John's first mistake was to divorce his wife, Hadwisa of Gloucester, who was related to some of the strongest of the English barons, and then to marry Isabella of Angoulême, who was re-marriage of betrothed to the Earl of March, one of the most John. powerful of the nobles of France. In this way he contrived to irritate against himself the nobility both of his English and Continental dominions. War with Philip and Arthur. This quarrel led him to oppress some of the nobles of Poitou; they in due form appealed to their feudal superior, the King of France, and Philip summoned John to Paris to be tried by his peers. John refused to go, and Philip and Arthur attacked his dominions. In the war, while Arthur was besieging his grandmother Eleanor, in the castle of Mirabel, he was captured by John, and then all trace of him was lost. John was held responsible for his death, and the French king again summoned John to Paris to be tried for this new offence. Again John refused to go, and Philip seized the occasion to attack Normandy. John was too lazy to bestir himself. The result of the fighting was that Philip completely conquered all the strong places in Maine, Normandy, Anjou, and Touraine. This did good, as it compelled the barons to throw in their lot with other Englishmen. Hitherto Loss of Maine they had been neither French nor English. Death of Eleanor and of Walter. The next year, 1205, John lost another of his supporters by the death of Hubert Walter, which involved him in a quarrel with the pope. There were two parties who claimed to elect the Archbishop of Canterbury-the monks of the ancient monastery of Canterbury, and Election of an the suffragan bishops of the province. In this instance archbishop. the monks were divided among themselves, for the younger monks named Reginald, their sub-prior, and sent him to Rome to obtain his pallium from the pope. Reginald was told to go as quietly as possible; but, on reaching the Continent, he assumed all the state of an archbishop-elect, and, the secret being out, the elder monks then chose John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, who had been suggested by the king. A deputation of the elder monks Laen went to Rome to press the claims of De Grey, while the suffragan bishops (i.e. those bishops who belonged to the province of Canterbury) put in a claim to have a voice in the election. The Pope, Innocent III., set aside both elections, and persuaded the electors to agree upon Stephen Langton, an Englishman at the papal court, who had distinguished himself in many ecclesiastical capacities. Country put under an interdict. This threw John into a rage, and he refused to receive Langton. The pope replied by putting the country under an interdict, which forbade services to be held in the churches, and only allowed them to be held in the chapels of the Knights Templars. John cared little about the interdict, and retaliated by attacking the Church property, and even chose this as the best moment to march to the north and receive, from the King of Scots, such homage as was received before the treaty of Falaise. Finding John obdurate, the pope excommunicated him in person, and in revenge John seized the property of the bishops. The pope's next step was to depose John, and call on Philip to do the work of deposing him. This was no empty threat; for the Welsh, taking advantage of the pope's permission, made a raid on the border counties, and Philip collected a fleet and army to invade the southern coast in 1211. John excommunicated. John wins the pope to his It was clear to John that, unless he could divide his enemies, he would be lost, so he determined to make the pope his friend, and by an artful movement put himself on the same side as the wielder of excommunication. The price the pope demanded was high, but John did not shrink, and he actually, in 1213, agreed to hold England as a fief of the papacy, and to pay the pope a thousand marks a year, as an acknowledgment of his position. side. The success of this move was apparently great. The pope withdrew his sentence of deposition, and forbade Philip to continue the enterprise, while the English fleet put to sea, and inflicted a severe defeat on the French at Damme. Elated by his success, John determined to invade Invasion of planned. France; but his barons refused to follow him while the conditions of G |