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.This decree he afterwards modified at the requestof Hubert Walter, but he refused an offer of a thousandmarks for a confirmation of their charters and liberties, andreturned to Normandy in the words quoted by the chronicler, SECOND397breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the CHAP.XIXvants of Christ. John was now in a position where he should have usedevery effort to strengthen himself against the next move ofPhilip, which he should have known was inevitable, andwhere, if ever, he might hope to do so.Instead of that, bya blunder in morals, in which John s greatest weakness lay, byan act of passion and perfidy, he gave his antagonist a betterexcuse than he could have hoped for when he was at lastready to renew the war.John had now been for more thanten years married to Isabel of Gloucester, and no children hadbeen born of the marriage.In the situation of the Angevinhouse he may well have wished for a direct heir and havebeen ready to adopt the expedient common to sovereigns inAt any rate about this time he procured from thesuch cases.Bishops of Normandy and Aquitaine a divorce, a formalannulling of the marriage on the ground of consanguinity,the question raised at the time of their marriage never, itwould seem, having been settled by dispensation.Then hesent off an embassy to ask for a daughter of the king ofPortugal.In the meantime he went on a progress throughthe French lands which had been secured to him by treatywith Philip, and met the beautiful Isabel, daughter of theCount of then twelve years of age, and determinedto marry her out of hand.The fact that she was alreadybetrothed to Hugh the Brown, son and heir of his ownvassal the Count of La and that she was then livingin the household of her intended father-in-law, made no moredifference to him than his own embassy to Portugal.Itseems possible indeed that it was in the very castle of theCount of La that the plan was formed.Isabel sfather also did not hesitate in the choice of sons-in-law, andhis daughter having been brought home, she was at oncemarried to John.An act of this kind was a most flagrantviolation of the feudal contract, nor was the moral blundersaved from being a political one by the fact that the injuredhouse was that of the Lusignans, great barons and longturbulent and unruly vassals of Aquitaine.John had giventhem now a legal right of appeal to his suzerain and a moraljustification of rebellion. THE OF NORMANDYCHAP.After his marriage John went back to England for thecoronation of his queen, which took place on October AtLincoln he received the homage of William of Scotland andmade peace with the and then went on a progressthrough the north as far as Carlisle.In the meantime, aswas to be expected, hostilities had begun with the family ofthe Count of La and the king sent out a summons tothe barons of England to meet him at Portsmouth attide prepared for service abroad.On receipt of this notice theearls held a meeting at Leicester and by agreement repliedto the king that they would not go over sea with him unlesshe restored to them their rights.There is no evidencethe single account we have of this incident that the earlsintended to deny their liability to service abroad.It isprobable they intended to take their position on the moresecure principle that services due to the suzerain who violatedthe rights of his vassal were for the time being, at least, sus-pended.If this is so, the declaration of the earls is the firstclear evidence we have that the barons of England werebeginning to realize their legal right of resistance and to getsight of the great principle which was so soon to give birthto the constitution.The result of the opposition to John ssummons we do not know, unless the statement which followsin the chronicle that the king was demanding the castles ofthe barons, and taking hostages if they retained them, washis answer to their demand.At any rate they appeared asrequired at Portsmouth ready for the campaign abroad, butJohn, instead of sending them over to France, took away themoney which they had brought to spend in his service, andlet them go home.From the time of John s landing in Normandy, aboutJune I, until the same time the next year, he wasoccupied with negotiating rather than with fighting.Philipwas not yet ready to take part himself in the war, but he kepta careful watch of events and made John constantly awarethat he was not overlooking his conduct toward his vassals.Several interviews were held between the kings of a notunfriendly character the treaty of the previous year wasconfirmed, and John was invited to Paris by Philip and enter-tained in the royal palace.It was at first proposed that the AND SENTENCE OF JOHN399case between John and the Lusignans be tried inhis own court as Count of Poitou, but he uponthat the trial was refused Meanwhile Philip saffairs were becoming settled he was able to takeup again his plans of conquest.The of Agnes ofpossible a reconciliation with the Church, andthe of the Count of Champagne the revenues ofthat great barony to his own through his of theheir.In the spring of 1202 he was ready for action.Thebarons of Poitou had an appeal with him asagainst the illegal acts of John.This gave him alegal opportunity without violating any existing treaty.Afteran interview with John on March 25, which left things asthey were, a formal summons was issued citing John toappear before Philip s court answer to any chargesagainst him.He neither came nor properly himself,though he triecl to the difficulty.He alleged asDuke of Normandy he not be summoned to Paris fortrial, and was answerecl that he had not been summoned asDuke of Normancly but as Count of Poitou.Hea safe conduct and was that he could have one for hiscoming, but that his return on the sentence ofHe that the king of Englancl coulcl not sub-the court.mit to such a trial, and was answerecl that the king of Francecoulcl not lose his rights over a vassal because he tohave acquired another clignity.Finally, John s legal rightsof and excuse being exhausted, the court thathe should be of all the fiefs which he held of Franceon the of failure of service.All the steps of thisaction from its beginning to its seem to have beenperfectly regular, John being of course, not on the ap-peal of the barons of Poitou which had led to the king s action,but for his refusal to obey the summons, the severe sen-tence with which it closed was that which the law provided,though it was not often enforced in its extreme form, andprobably would not have been in this case if John beenwilling to submit.1The sentence of his court Philip gladly accepted,But lx.45-85,whose argument is, however, not convincing. 1202THE OF NORMANDYinvaded Normandy about June I, capturing place after placewith almost no opposition from John.Arthur, now sixteenyears old, he knighted, gave him the investiture of all theAngevin fiefs except Normandy, and betrothed him to hisown daughter Mary.On August I occurred an event whichpromised at first a great success for John, but proved in its con-sequences a main cause of his failure, and led to the act of in-famy by which he has ever since been most familiarly known
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