Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/50

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NOTES AND QUERIES. in s. vn. JAN. is, 1013.

Dr. Lingard, following the legends that King John stabbed his nephew with his own hand, is the only historian whose work I have read who notices the marriage of Arthur's mother with Guy de Thouars. He writes :

"It is unfortunate that at this interesting crisis we are deserted by the contemporary .annalists, and are compelled to rely on the Authority of writers who lived at a later period, furnish a connected or satisfactory narrative. After a short pause the whispers of suspicion were converted into the conviction of the King's guilt. The Bretons immediately assembled, swore to be revenged on the murderer, and proceeded to settle the succession to the dukedom. Guy de Thouars entered the meeting, carrying in his arms a child of the name of Alice, his daughter by Constantia, whom he had married after the death of her first husband. The princess was acknowledged without prejudice to the right of Eleanor, now in the custody of her sanguinary uncle ; and Guy was appointed her guardian and governor of the duchy. The bishop of Rennes then hastened to Paris to accuse the English king of the murder ; and Philip gladly sum- moned him to prove his innocence in the presence of the French peers. John, however, refused; and the court pronounced judgment that, whereas John, Duke of Normandy, in violation of his oath to Philip his lord, had murdered the son of his elder brother, a homager of the crown of France, and near kinsman to the king, and had perpetrated the crime within the seignory of France, he was found guilty of felony and treason, and was therefore adjudged to forfeit all the lands which he held by homage."
 * and whose broken and doubtful notices cannot

Thus our own historians.

M. Luchaire, the French historian, writes : " It was then that John had his nephew removed to Rouen, where he had him assas- sinated." But he ridicules the sources whence the intelligence came,' and is infi- nitely more fair to King John in his relation of the affair, as he is also in other matters where King John is concerned, than any of our own authors with whom I am ac- quainted. He goes on to say :

Britanriy, in Anjou, and in the Court of Philippe Auguste" during the winter of 1203-4. Contem- poraries have very vaguely known how and when the evil deed was done. From the moment that Arthur was removed to the tower at Rouen, it was supposed at the Court of France that his life was in danger, but in the spring of 1204 the danger was at that time only awaited. In the treaty of alliance concluded in March, 1203, between Philippe Auguste and the feudal power of Anjou, a clause is inserted where the fatal termination was foreseen. // Arthur should die, Maurice de Craon should become liege man to the King of France. In the treaty signed with Guy de Thouars in October, 1203, Philippe Auguste retained the right of Arthur if the prince loas
 * ' The news of the crime found currency in

alive. In March, 1204, when the envoys of King John made a last attempt to bring about a peace, the King of France exacted as a condition sine qua non that the young Arthur should be delivered to him alive, and that if he had ceased to exist (si illc demio jam siiblatus est) his sister Eleanor should be delivered to Philippe with all the continental states of the Plantagenets. This shows that at the French Court they were not in possession of any precise intelligence.

" The best informed of the English asserted their ignorance on the subject. Rigord, the historian of Philippe Auguste, does not say a word concerning the death of Arthur.

" There is nothing to show that John himself was the executioner. A king in the Middle Ages could easily find scoundrels to get rid of a child for him.

" What history did not know the popular imagination both in England and France in- vented.

" A monk of Wales asserts that Arthur died on the 3rd of April, 1203, smitten by his uncle's own hand, and thrown into the Seine with a stone around his neck. Later his corpse was picked up by a fisherman and buried in the Priory at Bee. This is why John was cited before the council of the peers of France to justify himself on account of this murder. Instead of appearing he took refuge in England, and by the judgment of the Council of the King was condemned and disinherited of all the lands he held of the Crown of France.

" William le Breton, the chaplain of Philippe Auguste, produced the picture of the crime, as if he had seen it : ' John made secret applica- tion among his most devoted servants, and endeavoured, by promising them great rewards, to find out some method of getting rid of his nephew. All of them refused to undertake so great a crime. Then he suddenly quitted his Court, was absent for three days, and retired to a wooded valley where the little village of Moulineux is situated. From there, on the arrival of the fourth night, John in the midst of darkness entered a little boat, and went along the river. He landed at Rouen before the postern gate which led to the great tower, where the banks of the Seine were twice a day covered by the tide. From the side of the boat he gave order that his nephew should be brought to him by a page ; when he was in the boat he pushed off a little, until he was clear of everything in the river. The unhappy boy, understanding that his last hour was come, threw himself at the feet of the King and cried, ' Uncle, have pity on your young nephew! Uncle, my good uncle, spare me, spare thy own blood, spare the son of thy brother ! " Vain lamentations ! this tyrant seized him by the hair of his head, thrust his sword up to the hilt in his belly; then withdrawing it all wet with his precious blood, he plunged it anew into his head through both his temples. The murder accomplished, he threw the lifeless body into the waves which flowed by him.'

" A fantastic picture where the chronicler poet reproduces in his own fashion what was said in the palace of the Capets concerning the mystery of the tower of Rouen.

" The murder of Arthur had the ordinary result of great political crimes. It turned against