seized upon this armed band of French invaders, and added them to their list of the excommunicated. They stated that there had arrived from the French kingdom certain nobles, with an armed band of knights and followers, all of whom they wished to fetter with the sentence of excommunication; "for they invade the kingdom of England, in opposition to our lord the Pope and the Roman Church, —are daily robbing it, and in part keeping possession of it, as is evident to all, in England as well as elsewhere."1 These men were all excommunicated by name, along with those who had lent their assistance or money against the King to invade the kingdom of England. It may not be out of place here to state that the men, barons, or traitors, or what you will, who invited an invasion from France in the year A.D. 1216, were the same men who were in France inviting an invasion of England in the year A.D. 1213; and also that these same men or barons were, under Stephen Langton, the French professor, the great actors at Runnemead of the insulting farce called MAGNA CHARTA. Put that and this together, reader. Connecting these men, Langton, De Quinci, Fitz-Walter, and De Vesci, with French intrigues and French invasions, over a period of six years at least, and finding the getting up of the great MAGNA-CHARTA gathering at Runnemead to be entirely and altogether in their hands, and finding, as we do, that one of their French invasions, that of 1213, drove King John, by the advice of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, Walter Gray, his Chancellor, and others, to take refuge for himself and kingdom in the Church of Rome, to save that kingdom from annexation to France, we make bold to pronounce that the surrender of the crown of England to the Pope, in so far as it was blameworthy, was the act and deed of these men; and that they were traitors to the crown of England in inviting a French invasion—a threatening of invasion that drove the King of England to the position which he had to take at Dover before Pandulph the legate. 1 Roger de Wendover, vol. ii. p. 360. Further, seeing that the getting up of 'Magna Charta' at Runnemead was theirs two years afterwards, we fearlessly affirm that 'Magna Charta' was the production of traitors, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, acting under French advice and French influences in short, that 'Magna Charta' was the fruit of a French traitorous conspiracy, carried into execution by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his abettors, Robert FitzWalter, Eustace de Vesci, Saher de Quinci, and others. Having made these few remarks on Magna Charta and its chief perpetrators, we will now return to the invasion from France. Soon after Easter, Louis left the port of Calais, in company with his earls, barons, knights, and numerous followers, in six hundred ships and eighty cogs, making for the isle of Thanet, where they landed at Stanshorė on the 21st day of May. King John was at Dover at the time, but did not give battle to Louis on his landing, but rather strategetically retreated, leaving Dover Castle in the charge of Hugh de Burgh. He continued to Winchester by way of Guildford. Louis repaired from Sandwich to London, where he was received with great joy by all the barons. He there received homage from all of them, and homage or fealty from the citizens, as the case might require; while he himself swore on the Holy Gospels that he would grant good laws, and restore their inheritances to each and all of them.1 Louis appointed Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, his Chancellor, who preached to the citizens of London, as well as the excommunicated barons. Who ever heard before of an Archbishop of Canterbury to an English king being chancellor of a French king invading the realm by force of arms? Louis made an inroad into the county of Kent and subdued it, excepting Dover Castle; and, marching onward, he gained possession of the county of Sussex, with all the towns and fortresses. But here, as the monk writes, a young man named William Collingham, gentleman of the county of Sussex, at the head of one thousand archers, encountered - Ro er de Wendover, vol. ii. p. 364. Louis and his troops at every point of the great forest lying across this county, where the French troops and their allies of the "Army of God" might happen to pass to or from through the county, within the limits of this forest.1 The name of William Collingham of Sussex is an illustrious one. We class him with the two Grays, John and Walter, Peter de Rupibus, Roger de Laci, and other firm friends of the King. From London, Louis made an incursion into Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, and garrisoned the castle of Norwich, which he found empty, with his own soldiers. He also sent a large force against the town of Lynn, and took it, and then returned with great booty to London. Gilbert de Gant, being girt by Louis with the sword of the county of Lincoln, was sent to check the incursions of the garrisons of Nottingham and Newark Castles. At the same time, Robert de Roos, Peter de Brus, and Richard Percy reduced the city of York, with the whole county, to subjection to Louis; and Gilbert de Gant and Robert Roppelle took the city of Lincoln and county, without the castle.2 On the day of the Nativity of St John the Baptist, Louis, with a powerful force of knights and soldiers, laid siege to Dover Castle, defended by Hubert de Burgh, but could not take it. Another party of barons from London made an incursion into the country near Cambridge, and took the castle; and from this place they marched into the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and exacted large ransoms from Yarmouth, Dunwich, and Ipswich. Colchester also they ravaged as they returned to London. After this the barons laid siege to Windsor Castle, but without success, as the place was so well defended by the garrison under the command of one of John's Brabanter friends, Ingelard d'Athie, a man well tried in war. We cannot follow the monk in all the marches and depredations of both parties in Cambridgeshire and neighbouring counties, and still more in the north, where Eustace de Vesci was killed by an arrow shot from Barnard Castle. 2 Ibid., p. 374. 1 Roger de Wendover, vol. ii. p. 366. CHAPTER X. "IN THE SHADOWS:" DEATH. WHILE John was taking vengeance on the barons of Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, and Norfolk, as the Earl of Arundel, Roger Bigod, William de Huntingfield, Roger de Cresi, and others; the barons, making no way at the siege of Windsor Castle, thinking to intercept the King in Cambridgeshire, on his way to Lincoln Castle, suddenly raised the siege and marched for Cambridge. But the King had taken refuge in Stamford for a time, whence he proceeded to Lincoln Castle, now besieged by Gilbert de Gant, Louis's newly-created Earl of Lincoln, and was pursued towards Lynn. From Lynn he marched, probably precipitately, across the river Wellstream, where he took his carts, waggons, and baggagehorses, together with his money and all his valuables. The King and his army had a narrow escape from drowning; but they did escape with their lives, and repaired to Swineshead Abbey for the night, some miles distant. This numerous party, by delay, had missed their calculation of rise of tide at the ford, and, like others similarly placed, ran every chance of drowning. No doubt but the King got a thorough ducking; and as he had to travel in his wet clothes to Swineshead Abbey, ten miles off, he got a severe cold, which ended in fever. The King was very ill; but yet, as no time was to be lost, with the barons in pursuit, he left Swineshead Abbey at early dawn for the castle of Sleaford, distant about fourteen miles. Here he became worse; but yet on the following morning he rode on horseback to Newark Castle, a distance of twenty miles, where he became worse still. This violent exercise, in his weak state of body, increased the fever; so that at Newark he died, surrounded by some of his best friends,—one of whom, Randulph Blandeville, Earl of Chester, wrote an account of his death, the particulars of which have come down to our time, and the substance of which we are truly happy to give here, as so many fabulous and malignant statements have gone to the world from the monkish writers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The following account of John's illness and death is from the pen of the Rev. Samuel Pegge, in a very admirable Paper prepared by him : "King John was at Linn, in Norfolk, on the 11th of October 1216-17, intending to cross the washes, or flooded marshes, which part the two counties of Norfolk and Lincoln.1 In making the attempt to cross with his whole army-probably from unexpected delay or loss of time in passing so large a force in a certain prescribed time he lost his opportunity—he was overtaken by the tide flowing up the river Wellstream, which overflows these marshes at spring-tides, when all his baggage was lost, and he, with his army, had a very narrow escape of being drowned. He contrived to cross with his life, and arrived late at night, wet and worn out in body and prostrated with disappointment in mind; and was here, where he remained one or two days, laid low by fever and dysentery. On leaving Swineshead Abbey 2—whether on the first or the second day-for Sleaford,3 on horseback, he found that he was unable to bear the fatigues of the saddle, and so had to be transferred to a litter, on which he was carried 1 These washes are between a place called The Cross-Keys, in Norfolk, and Fosdike, in Holland, in the county of Lincoln. Annot. on Rapin and Brady, p. 516. As for the Wellstream, see Dr Brady, p. 516. According to Caxton,-an English chronicle cited by Mr Lewis, John Fox, and my (Rev. Mr Pegge's) MS. chronicle, he stayed two days at Swineshead. But see Brady, p. 515, and Appendix, p. 163. 3 R. Higden makes him dine there. This was 14th October. Brady, p. 516. |