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Rh in Germany. After two years of constant defeat, Henry’s capitulation at Azai proved once more that fortune is never with the old. The English king had to submit himself to “the advice and desire of the king of France,” doing him homage for all continental fiefs (1187–1189).

The defection of his favourite son John gave Henry his deathblow, and Philip Augustus found himself confronted by a new king of England, Richard Cœur de Lion, as powerful, besides being younger and more energetic. Philip’s ambition could not rest satisfied with the petty

principalities of Amiens, Vermandois and Valois, which he had added to the royal demesne. The third crusade, undertaken, sorely against Philip’s will, in alliance with Richard, only increased the latent hostility between the two kings; and in 1191 Philip abandoned the enterprise in order to return to France and try to plunder his absent rival. Despite his solemn oath no scruples troubled him: witness the large sums of money he offered to the emperor Henry VI. if he would detain Richard, who had been made prisoner by the duke of Austria on his return from the crusade; and his negotiations with his brother John Lackland, whom he acknowledged king of England in exchange for the cession of Normandy. But Henry VI. suddenly liberated Richard, and in five years that “devil set free” took from Philip all the profit of his trickery, and shut him off from Normandy by the strong fortress of Château-Gaillard (1194–1199).

Happily an accident which caused Richard’s death at the siege of Chalus, and the evil imbecility of his brother and successor, John Lackland, brilliantly restored the fortunes of the Capets. The quarrel between John and his nephew Arthur of Brittany gave Philip Augustus

one of those opportunities of profiting by family discord which, coinciding with discontent among the various peoples subject to the house of Anjou, had stood him in such good stead against Henry II. and Richard. He demanded renunciation on John’s part, not of Anjou only, but of Poitou and Normandy—of all his French-speaking possessions, in fact—in favour of Arthur, who was supported by William des Roches, the most powerful lord of the region of the Loire. Philip’s divorce from Ingeborg of Denmark, who appealed successfully to Pope Innocent III., merely delayed the inevitable conflict. John of England, moreover, was a past-master in the art of making enemies of his friends, and his conduct towards his vassals of Aquitaine furnished a judicial pretext for conquest. The royal judges at Paris condemned John, as a felon, to death and the forfeiture of his fiefs (1203), and the murder of Arthur completed his ruin. Philip Augustus made a vigorous onslaught on Normandy in right of justice and of superior force, took the formidable fortress of Château-Gaillard on the Seine after several months’ siege, and invested Rouen, which John abandoned, fleeing to England. In Anjou, Touraine, Maine and Poitou, lords, towns and abbeys made their submission, won over by Philip’s bribes despite Pope Innocent III.’s attempts at intervention. In 1208 John was obliged to own the Plantagenet continental power as lost. There were no longer two rival monarchies in France; the feudal equilibrium was destroyed, to the advantage of the duchy of France.

But Philip in his turn nearly allowed himself to be led into an attempt at annexing England, and so reversing for his own benefit the work of the Angevins (1213); but, happily for the future of the dynasty, Pope Innocent III. prevented this. Thanks to the ecclesiastical sanction of his royalty, Philip had successfully braved the pope for twenty years, in the matter of Ingeborg and again in that of the German schism, when he had supported Philip of Swabia against Otto of Brunswick, the pope’s candidate. In 1213, John Lackland, having been in conflict with Innocent regarding the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, had made submission and done homage for his kingdom, and Philip wished to take vengeance for this at the expense of the rebellious vassals of the north-west, and of Renaud and Ferrand, counts of Boulogne and Flanders, thus combating English influence in those quarters.

This was a return to the old Capet policy; but it was also menacing to many interests, and sure to arouse energetic resistance. John seized the opportunity to consolidate against Philip a European coalition, which included most of the feudal lords in Flanders, Belgium and

Lorraine, and the emperor Otto IV. So dangerous did the French monarchy already seem! John began operations with an attack from Anjou, supported by the notably capricious nobles of Aquitaine, and was routed by Philip’s son at La Roche aux Moines, near Angers, on the 2nd of July 1214. Twenty-five days later the northern allies, intending to surprise the smaller French army on its passage over the bridge at Bouvines, themselves sustained a complete defeat. This first national victory had not only a profound effect on the whole kingdom, but produced consequences of far-reaching importance: in Germany it brought about Otto’s fall before Frederick II.; in England it introduced the great drama of 1215, the first act of which closed with Magna Carta—John Lackland being forced to acknowledge the control of his barons, and to share with them the power he had abused and disgraced. In France, on the contrary, the throne was exalted beyond rivalry, raised far above a feudalism which never again ventured on acts of independence or rebellion. Bouvines gave France the supremacy of the West. The feudalism of Languedoc was all that now remained to conquer.

The whole world, in fact, was unconsciously working for Philip Augustus. Anxious not to risk his gains, but to consolidate them by organization, Philip henceforth until his death in 1223 operated through diplomacy alone, leaving to others the toil and trouble of conquests, the advantages of which were not for them. When his son Louis wished to wrest the English crown from John, now crushed by his barons, Philip intervened without seeming to do so, first with the barons, then with Innocent III., supporting and disowning his son by turns; until the latter, held in check by Rome, was forced to sign the treaty of Lambeth (1217). When the Church and the needy and fanatical nobles of northern and central France destroyed the feudal dynasty of Toulouse and the rich civilization of the south in the Albigensian crusade, it was for Philip Augustus that their leader, Simon de Montfort, all unknowing, conquered Languedoc. At last, instead of the two Frances of the langue d’oc and the langue d’oïl, there was but one royal France comprising the whole kingdom.

Philip Augustus was not satisfied with the destruction of a turbulent feudalism; he wished to substitute for it such unity and peace as had obtained in the Roman Empire; and just as he had established his supremacy over the feudal lords, so now he managed to extend it over the

clergy, and to bend them to his will. He took advantage of their weakness in the midst of an age of violence. By contracts of “pariage” the clergy claimed and obtained the king’s protection even in places beyond the king’s jurisdiction, to their common advantage. Philip thus set the feudal lords one against the other; and against them all, first the Church, then the communes. He exploited also the townspeople’s need for security and the instinct of independence which made them claim a definite place in the feudal hierarchy. He was the actual creator of the communes, although an interested creator, since they made a breach in the fortress of feudalism and extended the royal authority far beyond the king’s demesne. He did even more: he gave monarchy the instruments of which it still stood in need, gathering round him in Paris a council of men humble in origin, but wise and loyal; while in 1190 he instituted baillis and seneschals throughout his enlarged dominions, all-powerful over the nobles and subservient to himself. He filled his treasury with spoils harshly wrung from all classes; thus inaugurating the monarchy’s long and patient labours at enlarging the crown lands bit by bit through taxes on private property. Finally he created an army, no longer the temporary feudal ost, but a more or less permanent royal force. By virtue of all these organs of government the throne guaranteed peace, justice and a secure future, having routed