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.Otto therefore was ready to promisehelp to any one from whom he could hope for aid in return, orto take part in any enterprise from which a change of the gen-eral situation might be expected.Ferdinand of Portugal, justbecome Count of Flanders marriage with Jeanne, the heir-ess of the crusading Count Baldwin, the emperor Baldwin ofthe new Latin empire, had at the moment of his accession beenmade the victim of Philip Augustus s ceaseless policy of ab-sorbing the great fiefs in the crown, and had lost the two citiesof and St.Omer.He was ready to listen to John s soli-citations, and after some hesitation and delay joined the alli-ance, as did also most of the princes on the north-east betweenFrance and Germany.John laboured long and hard withmuch skill and final success, at a combination which wouldisolate the king of France and make it possible to attack himwith force at once from the north and the south.With a view, in all probability, to calling out the largestmilitary force possible in the event of a war with France,John at this time ordered a new survey to be taken of theservice due from the various fiefs in England.The inquestwas made by juries of the hundreds, after a method verysimilar to that lately employed in the carucage of I and THE PAPACYCHAP.earlier in the Domesday survey by William the Conqueror,though it was under the direction of the sheriffs, not of spe-cial commissioners.The interesting returns to this inquiryhave been preserved to us only inIf John hoped to beable to attack his enemy abroad in the course of the year1212, he was disappointed in the end.His combination ofallies he was not able to complete.A new revolt of the Welshoccupied his attention towards the end of the summer and ledhim to hang twenty-eight boys, hostages whom they had givenhim the year before.Worst of all, evidence now began to flowin to the king from various quarters of a serious disaffectionamong the barons of the kingdom and of a growing spirit ofrebellion, even, it was said, of an intention to deprive him ofthe crown.We are told that on the eve of his expeditionagainst the Welsh a warning came to him from the king ofScotland that he was surrounded by treason, and anotherhis daughter in Wales to the same effect.Whatever thesource of his information, John was evidentlyvery likely he needed but little to convince him-of a dangerwhich he must have been always suspecting.At any rate hedid not venture to trust himself to his army in the field, butsent home the levies and carefully guarded himself for a time.Then he called for new declarations of loyalty and for hos-tages from the barons; and two of them, Eustace de Vescyand Robert Walter, fled from the country, the king out-lawing them and seizing their property.About the sametime a good deal of public interest was excited by a hermit ofYorkshire, Peter of Pontefract, who was thought able tofuture, and who declared that John would not be kingon next Ascension day, the anniversary of his coronation.It was probably John s knowledge of the disposition of thebarons, and possibly the hope of extorting some informationfrom him, that led him, rather unwisely, to order the arrest ofthe hermit, and to question him as to the way in which heshould lose the crown.Peter could only tell him that theevent was sure, and that if it did not occur, the king might dowith him what he pleased.John took him at his word, heldhim in prison, and hanged him when the day had safely passed.that of May, however, a great change had taken EVENTS GOINGplace in the formal standing of John among the sovereigns of CHAP.the world, a change which many believed fulfilled thetion of Peter, and one which affected the history of Englandfor many generations.As the year 1212 drew to its close,John was not merely learning his own weakness in England,but he was forced by the course of events abroad to recognizethe terrible strength of the papacy and the small chance thateven a strong king could have of winning a victory overHis nephew Otto IV had been obliged to retire, almostdefeated, before the enthusiasm which the young Frederickof Hohenstaufen had aroused in his adventurous expeditionto recover the crown of Germany.Raymond of Toulouse,John s brother-in-law, had been overwhelmed and almostdespoiled of his possessions in an attempt to protect hissubjects in their right to believe what seemed to them thetruth.For the moment the vigorous action which John hadtaken after the warnings received on the eve of the Welshcampaign had put an end to the disposition to revolt, andhad left him again all powerful.He had even been able toextort from the clergy formal letters stating that the sums hehad forced them to pay were voluntarily granted him.Buthe had been made to understand on how weak a foundationHe must have known that Philip Augus-his power rested.tus had for some time been considering the possibility ofan invasion of England, whether invited by the barons toundertake it or not, and he could hardly fail to dreadthe results to himself of such a step after the lesson hehad learned in Normandy of the consequences of treason.The at home and abroad forced upon him the con-clusion that he must soon come to terms with the papacy,and in November he sent representatives to Rome to signifythat he would agree to the proposals he had rejected whenmade by Pandulf early in the previous Even in thiscase John may be suspected, as so often before, of making aproposition which he did not intend to carry out, or at leastof trying to gain time, for it was found that the embassycould not make a formally binding agreement; and it is clearthat Innocent III, while ready to go on with the negotiationsand hoping to carry them to success, was now convinced thatRalph of Walter of Coventry, ii, lviii.4. CONFLICT THE PAPACYCHAP.must bring to bear on John the only kind of pressure toxxwhich he would yield [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]