John Lackland by Kate Norgate

Author:Kate Norgate [Norgate, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780722222539
Google: sgvxmhCHnD0C
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 1902-01-15T00:44:29+00:00

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CHAPTER V

JOHN AND THE POPE

1210–1214

[Rex] prudenter sane sibi et suis providens in hoc facto, licet id multis ignominiosum videretur, et enorme servitutis jugum. Cum enim res in arto esset, et undique timor vehemens, nulla erat via compendiosior imminens evadendi periculum, nec forsitan alia; quoniam ex quo se in protectione posuit apostolica, et regna sua beati Petri patrimonium fecit, non erat in orbe Romano princeps qui in sedis apostolicae injuriam vel illum infestare, vel illa invadere praesumeret.

W. Coventry, ii. 210.

1210–10

During John’s absence in Ireland, England had been disquieted by rumours of a threatened Welsh invasion. His ministers, however, faced the peril boldly; the justiciar, the treasurer (Bishop Peter of Winchester), and the earl of Chester marched into Wales with “a great host” and built three castles on Welsh soil,[700] and on the king’s return the Welsh “vanished,” as a chronicler says, into their mountains, “and the land kept silence before him.”[701] John, however, was in no mood, now that England, Scotland and Ireland were all at his feet, to be content with mere silence on the part of the Welsh princes, and especially of his own son-in-law, Llywelyn, who, having secured the hand of the king’s daughter and the mastery over the greater part of Wales, was now openly turning against the power by whose help he had risen. The case is frankly stated by a Welsh chronicler: “Llywelyn, son of Jorwerth, made cruel attacks upon the English; and on that account King John became enraged, and formed a design of entirely divesting Llywelyn of his dominion.”[702] The native rivals whom Llywelyn had forced into submission were always on the watch for a chance of flinging off the North-Welsh yoke; and when John assembled his host at Chester, seemingly in the third week of May 1211,[703] he was joined by most of the chieftains of the south.[704] At the tidings of his approach, “Llywelyn,” says the same chronicler, “moved with his forces into the middle of the country, and his property to the mountain of Eryri (Snowdon); and the forces of Mona, with their property, in the same manner. Then the king, with his army, came to the castle of Dyganwy. And there the army was in so great a want of provisions that an egg was sold for a penny halfpenny, and it was a delicious feast to them to get horseflesh; and on that account the king returned to England, after disgracefully losing many of his men and much property.”[705]

1211

Whatever military “disgrace” there may have been was speedily wiped out; John had only gone home to collect fresh supplies and larger forces.[706] Setting forth again from Whitchurch in July,[707] “the king”—again it is a Welsh chronicler who tells the story—“returned to Wales, his mind being more cruel and his army larger; and he built many[708] castles in Gwynedd. And he proceeded over the river Conway towards the mountain of Eryri, and incited some of his troops to burn Bangor. And there Robert, bishop of Bangor, was seized in his church, and was afterwards ransomed for two hundred hawks.

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