The Conquering Family

by Thomas B. Costain

  John was not at all mollified by the letter he received from the Pope, informing him of what had happened. Innocent had tried to placate him by a gift of four immensely valuable rings and had indited a homily in his own handwriting on the form of them and the significance of the precious stones with which they were set. The King kept the rings but indulged himself in retaliatory action at once. He dispatched two of his most violent officers to Canterbury to expel the monks and take over the revenues of the see. Fulk de Cantelupe and Henry de Cornhulle entered the abbey with drawn swords and carried out his orders with a thoroughness which fell just short, fortunately, of the violence offered Thomas à Becket. John announced to the world that the action of the Pope had been in contravention of his established rights (which, of course, it was) and that he would never allow Stephen Langton to set foot on land of mine, by which he meant England.

  The Pope was not to be intimidated. He sent the bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester to inform John that an interdict would be laid on England if he did not give in. All the bishops of the realm were present when this message was delivered. They were frightened, knowing the inflexible will of the young Pontiff, and they fell on their knees before John and begged him to save his people from this dread punishment. John was so enraged that he foamed at the mouth, as his father had done so often when crossed, and swore that if the Pope carried out his threat he would expel from the kingdom every bishop, every abbot, every prior, every priest, and every monk, from the wearer of the proudest miter to the most humble of shaven-polls. He swore that all servants of the Vatican who appeared in England on the Pope’s orders would have their eyes burned out and their noses slit.

  John was in a poor position, however, to oppose the will and the power of the Vicar of Christ. His relations with the barons had been growing more strained all the time. If he had assembled them at once and explained the unwarranted authority the Pope had taken into his hands, he might have united them behind him for the struggle. He was unwilling at this stage to face the barons in a body, fearing, no doubt, that they would take advantage of the chance to deprive him of some of the unwarranted authority he had been seizing. He decided to oppose Innocent alone and thereby compromised his case and condemned himself to inevitable defeat.

  Other popes had talked of interdicts when kings were recalcitrant but had contented themselves with threats. Innocent was different. When he made a threat, he carried it out.

  John had been given until Monday of Passion week to change his mind. Convinced that nothing would happen, the King spent the day as usual, joking with his attendants, telling them that soon there would be a worse devil at large than he had ever been. There would be a postponement, he was sure, leading to more negotiations and more threats. But he had wrongly judged the temper of the young Pope.

  That night the three bishops to whom the papal instructions had been given followed out their orders. Wearing the violet robes of mourning usually reserved for Good Friday, they entered their episcopal churches, escorted by priests carrying torches and chanting the Miserere. The bells were tolling a funeral knell and the people stood about in silent masses outside and watched, more than half expecting to see the heavens open and avenging angels swoop down to carry God’s punishment over England.

  The proper procedure for the occasion was followed inside the churches. The shrines and crucifixes were covered, the relics were removed to places of safekeeping, the Wafer of the Host was burned. In loud voices it was proclaimed that the dominions ruled by John had been laid under the ban of the Church. Instantly all torches were extinguished to denote the withdrawal of light from the land.

  England had been laid under the dreaded interdict.

  4

  None of the common people knew what was happening until the first outward signs of the interdict appeared. Hearing no church bells, they hurried to see what was amiss and found the priests removing the bells from the steeples and packing them away in straw. This was going on all over England. In every town and hamlet in the land, therefore, the same questions were asked by people with bewildered faces: What was this? Was God leaving them to the mercy of the powers of evil? Or were the bells to be melted down to pay the bad King’s taxes?

  The panic spread when the work of dismantling was carried on inside as well. All the sacred vessels were taken down and packed away, the monstrance was removed from the altar, the candles which had been set alight by reverent hands were snuffed out. The doors were closed and locked in the faces of the frightened watchers.

  When the meaning of this became clear to them, the people of England were unhappier than they had ever been before. Had God and the Holy Mother and all the good saints given up the struggle in their behalf against the devil? Would all time and life now belong to the powers of evil? Men who conceived of themselves as walking constantly in the Shadow believed that a moment’s relaxation on the part of their guardian angels would deliver them into the hands of the imps of hell with their pitchforks and red-hot pincers. And now they were alone and had no protectors, divine or otherwise.

  Then it became known throughout the bewildered country that five of the bishops had already fled from England, that priests were following them in droves, that those who remained behind would celebrate mass in locked and darkened churches for themselves alone. There would be no marrying, no burying in consecrated ground as long as the Pope’s interdict held. To make matters worse, it was said that the wicked King, who had brought this curse on the land, was swearing he would banish every priest and hang those who remained. This bad King, cried the people in anguish, must indeed be in league with the devil that such things could come to pass!

  Quite apart from this feeling of abandonment, the people knew they would miss the ministrations of the Church. In lives as bare as theirs, the tolling of bells at stated hours was a great pleasure, as was the ritual of matin and compline. They were accustomed to hear the knelling when someone they knew was dying, the slow and measured strokes teaching them the solemnity of death. Some of the sting of separation was taken from death by the customs which wrapped it about. They liked the services and they found a sense of God’s nearness therein, even in the dread moment when the hearse was taken down from the ceiling of the church where it was suspended, a triangular frame of wood or latten. It would be placed in front of the altar and fifteen lighted candles would be deposited on it, fourteen of yellow wax to represent the eleven apostles and the three Mary’s, and one of white which stood for the Christ. Then the fourteen psalms of Tenebrae would be sung, and at the end of each, one of the yellow candles would be extinguished. And then finally only the white taper of Christ would remain, and this would be carried behind the altar so that darkness descended on the church.

  There had never been any fear for the souls of departed relatives and friends when the tolling of bells accompanied the carrying out of the coffin, nine strokes for a man, six for a woman, three for a child; nay, there had been solace and comfort and a complete sense of security. There had even been pleasure in the good cheer of the arvil, the funeral feast, and a chance for some amusement out of the sin-eaters, those Old Sires who sat outside the house on low stools called crickets and were ready, on payment of a groat, a crust of bread, and a mazer of ale, to rise up and declare that they would pawn their souls for the ease and rest of the departed.

  Death would now become a grim and frightening thing. Would the bodies of those who were unfortunate enough to die be buried or would they be left in ditches to rot away? Certainly bodies would be held for more than the usual three days allowed in the hope that they might come back to life, for would not that be the only hope?

  It was feared, too, that the joy would go out of weddings, if indeed they would be possible at all. The mating rites had always been jolly affairs in merrie England: the gay procession to the church, the minstrels leading with their capering and playing, the youths next to carry the bride-cup with its gilt rosemary and ribbons, the bride and her two bachelor attendants precedin
g the groom and his two maidens who held the dow-purse, in which would be the dowry. Would couples in search of happiness be allowed to kneel before priests at the church door and say the responses while the groom endowed his bride by throwing money into a handkerchief held open by the maids in attendance? Certainly there would be no right now to go into the church and kneel together under the care-cloth (a great privilege which only professed virgins were permitted to enjoy) while the blessing was pronounced.

  Perhaps feasting at weddings would still be allowed, but would the best man throw a plate from a window when the couple appeared (if the plate broke, the marriage would be a success), and would later the oatmeal cake be smacked down on the bride’s head? Would the John Anderson dance be performed with as much zestful passing of the cushion and as much happy chanting of

  Prinkcam, prankcam is a fine dance:

  And shall we go dance it once again?

  Once again, and once again?

  Later it was found that things would not be so bad as feared. The papal bull had carried with it some modifications. Children could be christened, weddings could be performed at the church door, sermons could be preached in churchyards, priests would be permitted to recite the offices for the dead in private homes. The hardest problem facing the nation was that of burial, for no bodies could be laid in consecrated ground. The result was that they were placed in fields. Later, when the ban was lifted, the bodies were transferred to the churchyards. It is recorded that in one small community as many as twenty had to be exhumed. In London it became necessary to make use of empty lots and of the yards of hospitals. There was a large area around St. Bartholomew’s which the authorities enclosed and devoted to the burying of the dead. The hospitals did not object; they charged fees both ways.

  Most reports of what happened in connection with burials were exaggerated. It was said that bodies lay in ditches and were gnawed by dogs and rats and that pestilence was spread by the stench of them. The problem was handled, as a matter of fact, with common sense and expedition.

  The harm that the interdict did was borne equally by people and Church. Cut off from the consolations and the rites of religion, many men found that they suffered no harm. They began to wonder. Was religion as important as they had believed? Heretical ideas, which had not been spreading in England, received impetus from the conditions which Innocent imposed on the country. There was also the matter of tithes and payments for this and that, the mortuary claims of the Church and deodand. Freed from much of this during the years that the interdict lasted, men would find it hard to accept again their share in the upkeep of the Church.

  The struggle between Pope and King continued much longer than Innocent had expected when he ordered the three bishops to put the land under ban by bell, book, and candle. As the years passed the rift became deeper and the feeling more bitter. Church properties fell into disrepair, the rents were expropriated to the Crown, the ranks of the clergy shrank. It must have become apparent soon to the Pope that, in casting the thunderbolt, he had indulged in a costly gamble. But the step had been taken and there was no turning back.

  John fought with fang and claw. He tried to regain the loyalty of the people by conducting campaigns in Scotland and Wales. He went on processionals from city to city, taking in his train a bevy of beautiful hostages who had been put in his hands. They included the princesses Margaret and Isabella of Scotland; the Pearl of Brittany, Arthur’s lovely sister, who was to remain a captive in England all her life; and Ada, the fair young countess of Holland. He seems to have respected these hostages of high degree; in fact, he went to great pains to find husbands for some of them. He saw that they were clothed expensively, and there is one item among royal expenditures for the purchase of one hundred pounds of figs for their pleasure and health.

  In the meantime John was carrying the war to the enemy. Stephen Langton’s father, a humble North Country man, had to flee the country into Scotland. The primate himself had taken up residence at Pontigny, where Thomas à Becket had spent most of his exile, and was addressing letters to the people of England. John had the ports watched to stop all such communications from getting into the country, and it became a criminal offense to possess or read these messages. The property of all churchmen who obeyed the commands of the Pope was confiscated.

  The bitter seesaw of invective and retaliation went on interminably between the main actors in the drama. And because of this an innocent nation suffered.

  5

  The Pope had withheld some of his thunder. When the interdict seemed to be failing of results, the second thunderbolt was launched. Innocent called for his bell and he called for his book and he called for his bishops three. They were given another dangerous and thankless task, the excommunication of the King. They obeyed with an understandable degree of caution. Knowing that John would hang them if they set foot on English soil, they published the decree from their safe sanctuaries.

  The effect was felt at once. The interdict was a condition shared by all, but excommunication was a personal ban which cut the victim off from all human relationships, as surely in theory, at least, as a leper was banned in practice. John was marked as accursed, and no one was supposed to speak to him except a few officials whose duties made contact obligatory.

  John had been in a smoldering state ever since the laying of the interdict. His own excommunication drove him into an explosive fury. When Geoffrey, the Archdeacon of Norwich, withdrew from the Court of Exchequer with the explanation that it was forbidden to serve a ruler on whom the ban of the Church had been laid, the King struck out viciously. Geoffrey, a man of advanced years, was thrown into prison and a cope of lead was soldered on his shoulders. This form of torture, which slowly broke the bones by the weight of the cope, proved so effective that the archdeacon died within a few days.

  Officers of the Church who had remained at their posts up to this time began to desert now. The new Bishop of Lincoln fled the country and betook himself to Pontigny to make his submission to Stephen Langton. Others followed in such numbers that the wearisome business of watching the whole coast line had to be taken up again.

  This could not last long, however. The King, realizing that his position was degenerating rapidly, sent an invitation to Cardinal Langton to meet him at Dover, announcing in advance the concessions he was prepared to make. He was ready to have the cardinal installed at Canterbury, to forgive all churchmen who had fled the country or had refused to obey him, and to make financial settlements. The invitation, however, had been addressed to the cardinal and not the archbishop, and so Langton refused to accept it. He stood out, moreover, for an unconditional surrender and the promise of the King to pay for all losses the Church had suffered. John was not yet ready to give in on such terms as these. He snorted, cursed, roared, foamed at the mouth, and sent a venomous refusal.

  But the Pope had still another weapon to unsheathe. In 1212 he absolved all subjects of John from their oaths of allegiance, coupling with this the declaration that the ban of excommunication would thenceforth apply to anyone who continued to serve him, who lived in his household, who sat or served at his table, who held the stirrup when he set forth to ride, or who spoke a word to him in public or private.

  If the royal staff shrank as a result, it was barely perceptible. By this time men were accustomed to the situation. They had to live in spite of all the banning and fulminating and the rumble of sacerdotal storms. The King held his ground. He was beginning to think that England could be made a self-contained corner where the writ of the Vatican would not run nor the papal thunder be heard.

  John, in fact, was more disturbed by the prediction of a hermit named Peter of Pontefract, who had given it out that he had only one year to reign and that on the following Ascension Day he would cease to sit on the throne. The hermit was brought to Windsor, and the King demanded to know what grounds he had for such treasonable utterances. Peter of Pontefract was a slow-witted countryman who fitted a term much used at the time, edmede, meaning h
umble and gently disposed. There was nothing he could say except that the conviction had been lodged in his mind by an agency he believed divine. It had been like a vision, and a voice had said he must tell what he had heard and seen. The prophet was sent to Corfe Castle to await developments.

  Pope Innocent now went to the final extreme. He summoned before him all the cardinals in Rome and solemnly declared the deposition of John as King of England. He then took the desperate step of announcing that the crown would be given to Philip of France, a man more capable of ruling nobly and well than the deposed monarch.

  Philip had been consulted in advance, of course, and had agreed to act in accordance with the papal policy. He had been eager to start, for this would be the final stage of the plans which had taken possession of the mind of an angry boy under the oak of Gisors. He held a great council at Soissons on April 8, 1213, and gained the consent of the nobility of France to the invasion of England. Having dismembered the limbs of Angevin power, he was now to strike at the very heart of it. He went jubilantly to work to raise the largest army France had yet seen and to assemble in the ports of Normandy a fleet estimated at seventeen hundred ships. All France rang with military preparations. Once again Englishmen looked across the Channel, as they had done in the days of the Conquest and as they were to do many times thereafter, and waited for the ships of the invader to appear.