Page:The Normans in European History.djvu/153

Rh but a clever case has recently been made by Powicke, who, minimizing the importance of the accepted argument from the silence of immediate contemporaries, argues, on the basis of the Annals of Margam, that there probably was a second condemnation in 1204. After all, the question is of subordinate importance, for Philip's effective action was based on the trial of 1202, and by John's fate was already sealed.

The decisive point in the campaign against Normandy was the capture of Château Gaillard, the key to the Seine valley, in May, 1204, after a siege of six months which seems to have justified its designer, save for a stone bridge which sheltered the engineers who undermined the outer wall. Western Normandy fell before an attack from the side of Brittany; the great fortresses of the centre, Argentan, Falaise, and Caen, opened their gates to Philip; and with the surrender of Rouen, 24 June, 1204, Philip was master of Normandy. John had lingered in England, doing nothing to support the defense, and when he crossed at last in 1206 he was obliged to sign a final surrender of all the territories north of the Loire, retaining only southern Poitou and Gascony. Gascony and England were united for two centuries longer, but the only connection was by sea. The control of the Seine and the Loire had been lost, and with that passed away the Plantagenet empire.

The results of the separation of Normandy from