The History of France (Vol. 1-6). Guizot François
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It was not granted to Philip Augustus to resuscitate the Frankish empire of Charlemagne, a work impossible for him or any one whatsoever in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; but he made the extension and territorial construction of the kingdom of France the chief aim of his life, and in that work he was successful. Out of the forty-three years of his reign, twenty-six at the least were war-years, devoted to that very purpose. During the first six, it was with some of his great French vassals, the Count of Champagne, the Duke of Burgundy, and even the Count of Flanders, sometime regent, that Philip had to do battle, for they all sought to profit by his minority so as to make themselves independent and aggrandize themselves at the expense of the crown; but, once in possession of the personal power as well as the title of king, it was, from 1187 to 1216, against three successive kings of England, Henry II., Richard Coeur de Lion, and John Lackland, masters of the most beautiful provinces of France, that Philip directed his persistent efforts. They were in respect of power, of political capacity and military popularity, his most formidable foes. Henry II., what with his ripeness of age, his ability, energy, and perseverance, without any mean jealousy or puerile obstinacy, had over Philip every advantage of position and experience, and he availed himself thereof with discretion, habitually maintaining his feudal status of great French vassal as well as that of foreign sovereign, seeking peace rather than strife with his youthful suzerain, and some-times even going to his aid. He thus played off the greater part of the undeclared attempts or armed expeditions by which, from 1186 to 1189, Philip tried to cut him short in his French possessions, and, so long as Henry IL lived, there were but few changes in the territorial proportions of the two states. But, at Henry’s death, Philip found himself in a very different position towards Henry’s two sons, Richard Coeur de Lion and John Lackland. They were of his own generation; he had been on terms with them, even in opposition to their own father, of complicity and familiarity: they had no authority over him, and he had no respect for them. Richard was the feudal prince, beyond comparison the boldest, the most unreflecting, the most passionate, the most ruffianly, the most heroic adventurer of the middle ages, hungering after movement and action, possessed of a craving spirit for displaying his strength, and doing his pleasure at all times and in all places, not only in contempt of the rights and well-being of his subjects, but at the risk of his own safety, his own power, and even of his crown. Philip was of a sedate temperament, patient, persevering, moved but little by the spirit of adventure, more ambitious than fiery, capable of far-reaching designs, and discreet at the same time that he was indifferent as to the employment of means. He had fine sport with Richard. We have already had the story of the relations between them, and their rupture during their joint crusade in the East. On returning to the West, Philip did not wrest from King Richard those great and definitive conquests which were to restore to France the greater part of the marriage-portion that went with Eleanor of Aquitaine; but he paved the way for them by petty victories and petty acquisitions, and by making more and more certain his superiority over his rival. When, after Richard’s death, he had to do with John Lackland, cowardly and insolent, knavish and addle-pated, choleric, debauched, and indolent, an intriguing subordinate on the throne on which he made pretence to be the most despotic of kings, Philip had over him, even more than over his brother Richard, immense advantages. He made such use of them that after six years’ struggling, from 1199 to 1205, he deprived John of the greater part of his French possessions, Anjou, Normandy, Touraine, Maine, and Poitou. Philip would have been quite willing to dispense with any legal procedure by way of sanction to his conquests, but John furnished him with an excellent pretext; for on the 3d of April, 1203, he assassinated with his own hand, in the tower of Rouen, his young nephew Arthur, Duke of Brittany, and in that capacity vassal of Philip Augustus, to whom he was coming to do homage. Philip had John, also his vassal, cited before the court of the barons of France, his peers, to plead his defence of this odious act. “King John,” says the contemporary English historian Matthew Paris, “sent Eustace, Bishop of Ely, to tell King Philip that he would willingly go to his court to answer before his judges, and to show entire obedience in the matter, but that he must have a safe-conduct. King Philip replied, but with neither heart nor visage unmoved, ‘Willingly; let him come in peace and safety.’ ‘And return so too, my lord?’ said the bishop. ‘Yes,’ rejoined the king, ‘if the decision of his peers allow him.’ And when the envoys from England entreated him to grant to the King of England to go and return in safety, the King of France was wroth, and answered with his usual oath, ‘No, by all the saints of France, unless the decision tally therewith.’ ‘My lord king,’ rejoined the bishop, ‘the Duke of Normandy cannot come unless there come also the King of England, since the duke and the king are one and the same person. The baronage of England would never allow it in any way, and if the king were willing, he would run, as you know, risk of imprisonment or death.’ King Philip answered him, ‘How now, my lord bishop? It is well known that my liegeman, the Duke of Normandy, by violence got possession of England. And so, prithee, if a vassal increase in honor and power, shall his lord suzerain lose his rights? Never!’
“King John was not willing to trust to chance and the decision of the French, who liked him not; and he feared above everything to be reproached with the shameful murder of Arthur. The grandees of France, nevertheless, proceeded to a decision, which they could not do lawfully, since he whom they had to try was absent, and would have gone had he been able.”
The condemnation, not a whit the less, took full effect; and Philip Augustus thus recovered possession of nearly all the territories which his father, Louis VII., had kept but for a moment. He added, in succession, other provinces to his dominions; in such wise that the kingdom of France, which was limited, as we have seen, under Louis the Fat, to the Ile-de-France and certain portions of Picardy and Orleanness, comprised besides, at the end of the reign of Philip Augustus, Vermandois, Artois, the two Vexins, French and Norman, Berri, Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Poitou, Touraine, and Auvergne.
In 1206 the territorial work of Philip Augustus was well nigh completed; but his wars were not over. John Lackland, when worsted, kicked against the pricks, and was incessantly hankering, in his antagonism to the King of France, after hostile alliances and local conspiracies easy to hatch amongst certain feudal lords discontented with their suzerain. John was on intimate terms with his nephew, Otho IV., Emperor of Germany and the foe of Philip Augustus, who had supported against him Frederick II., his rival for the empire. They prepared in concert for a grand attack upon the King of France, and they had won over to their coalition some of his most important vassals, amongst others, Renaud de Dampierre, Count of Boulogne. Philip determined to divert their attack, whilst anticipating it, by an unexpected enterprise—the invasion of England itself. Circumstances seemed favorable. King John, by his oppression and his perfidy, had drawn upon him the hatred and contempt of his people; and the barons of England, supported and guided by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, had commenced against him the struggle which was to be ended some years afterwards by the forced concession of Magna Charta, that foundation-stone of English liberties. John, having been embroiled for five years past with the court of Rome, affected to defy the excommunication which the pope had hurled at him, and of which the King of France had been asked by several prelates of the English Church to insure the efficient working. On the 8th of April, 1213, Philip convoked, at Soissons, his principal vassals or allies, explained to them the grounds of his design against the King of England, and, by a sort of special confederation, they bound themselves, all of them, to support him. One of the most considerable vassals, however, the sometime regent of France during the minority of Philip, Ferrand, Count of Flanders, did not attend the meeting to which he had been summoned, and declared his intention of taking no part in the war against England. “By all the saints of France,” cried Philip, “either France shall become Flanders, or Flanders France!” And, all the while pressing forward the equipment of a large fleet collected at Calais for the invasion of England, he entered Flanders, besieged and took several of the richest cities in the country, Cassel, Ypres, Bruges, and Courtrai, and pitched his camp before the walls of Ghent, “to