In 1215 John bestowed on Falkes the hand of Margaret de Rivers, a grant which should have carried with it the enjoyment of her dower-lands; but this, as has been seen, Margaret and Falkes did not obtain till March, 1218.[1040] Then the regent also granted to Falkes, to hold “until the King’s coming of age,” the custody of the person of Margaret’s young son by her first husband, and of all the lands and castles which had belonged to the boy’s late grandfather Earl William of Devon and Wight, and to which the boy himself was now heir.[1041] Thus throughout the next six years the extensive possessions of the house of Rivers were in Falkes’s hands; for practical purposes he represented that great house and was, as a contemporary says, “made equal to an Earl.”[1042] The other magnates, some of whom seem to have resented the necessity of admitting even Hubert de Burgh to social equality with themselves, naturally resented still more the intrusion into their ranks of one whom they looked upon as a mere upstart stranger. Moreover he came into collision with more than one of them through his autocratic dealing with the lands held by them in the shires under his command; and the violently abusive language in which, when his fiery temper was roused, he railed at some of the greatest men of the land and at the English nation in general, gave almost as much offence as his more substantial misdoings.[1043] The clergy and religious orders, especially the monks of the great abbey of S. Alban’s—by one of whom later historians, for the most part, have been somewhat unduly influenced in their views of men and things in the reign of John and the early years of Henry—had other reasons for detesting Falkes. Cruelty and rapacity were common, more or less, in all medieval warfare, and the spoiling of churches and monasteries was a form of ill-doing of which neither party in the civil war was altogether guiltless; but in these matters Falkes stood without a peer save John himself. His crowning outrage was committed in 1217, when in the dusk of a January morning he fell suddenly upon S. Alban’s, captured and plundered the town, carried off its inhabitants to prison in his own castles, slew a servant of the abbey at the very door of the church, and by a threat of burning down the whole place wrung from the abbot a ransom of a hundred pounds of silver.[1044] The spoil, however, went to maintain the soldiers who, if they were the fiercest and most ruthless, were also the most daring and the most uniformly successful troops in the service of the young King. They and their leader played, as we have seen, an important part in the battle of Lincoln; and whatever may have been the personal feelings of Henry’s guardians and counsellors towards Falkes, time after time throughout the early years of the minority, when a man of prompt and vigorous action was wanted for some specially awkward or unpleasant piece of work, Falkes was the man on whom they relied, and they never relied on him in vain. It was Falkes who was set to keep the King’s uncle from intruding into a royal castle of which he was not the lawful custodian. It was Falkes whom Hubert de Burgh employed to overawe the riotous citizens of London and to rid him of their dangerous leader. In their hearts, however, Hubert and Falkes were rivals, urged to secret mutual jealousy by a characteristic which, unlike as they were in other respects, was common to them both; when once they had risen to power and authority, neither of them was inclined to brook an equal.[1045] Accordingly, Falkes had joined Chester and the other discontented magnates in their effort to rid themselves of the Justiciar; and when that effort had failed, Justiciar, magnates, and King, having none of them any further use for Falkes, joined hands to rid themselves of him.
Three days after the council of reconciliation in London, had dispersed in April, 1224, a charge of capital crime, said to have been committed eight years previously, was laid before the King against Falkes.[1046] A writ was at once issued, on 26th April, to the sheriff of Bedfordshire bidding him “at every shire-court call Falkes de Bréauté to stand to right concerning the complaint made against him in that county, of a breach of the King’s peace,” and if Falkes did not appear, cause him to be outlawed. On 28th May the sheriff was told to call Falkes at his next shire-court, which was to be on the Monday after the octave of Trinity (17th June), as he had previously done, but the outlawry was to be respited till further orders. Two days later (30th May) this respite was countermanded; if on the appointed Monday Falkes did not answer, the sheriff was bidden to outlaw him at once.[1047] In Whitsun week, 2nd–8th June, certain of the justices in eyre went to hold pleas of novel disseisin at Dunstable.[1048] One of these justices, Henry de Braybroke, had long been at enmity with Falkes’s brother William, and now found an opportunity which he was not slow to use against William and Falkes both at once. He deprived William—such at least is Falkes’s story—of some of his lands and other possessions without trial.[1049] He insisted, seemingly without warrant, on the payment by both the brothers of certain dues and arrears which they owed to the Crown.[1050] Sixteen pleas of forcible disseisin were brought before him against Falkes; in every case Falkes was convicted, and sentenced to pay a heavy fine.[1051]
William de Bréauté was at this time commandant, under his brother Falkes, of the castle of Bedford. After the close of the assizes at Dunstable, on 17th June—the day on which Falkes was to be called for the last time in the Bedford shire-court—Henry de Braybroke, on his way to join the council which had assembled on the previous day at Northampton, was captured by William de Bréauté and carried as a prisoner to Bedford.[1052] Some of his companions who escaped capture spread the tidings abroad; his wife hurried to Northampton and laid her complaint before the King and the Council.[1053] Every one believed that the Bréauté brothers had plotted the outrage between them;[1054] Falkes’s account of the matter is that William had acted half in wantonness, half in vengeance, and wholly without the knowledge of Falkes himself.[1055] Even if this were so, however, Falkes was legally responsible for the action of his sub-castellan and for a prisoner immured in a castle which was under his charge. Where Falkes was, does not appear. He was clearly not at the county court at Bedford; but as soon as the capture of the judge became known, he hurried to the castle.[1056] According to his own account, his purpose was to set the judge at liberty but when he reached the castle prisoner and castellan had both disappeared; William had hidden himself and his captive in the neighbouring Forest of Wabridge {18 June}. Two knights had meanwhile been despatched with a citation to Falkes to appear at Northampton on the morrow (19th June) and answer to the King in person for the seizure of the judge and for “all other matters which should be brought against him.” Falkes hereupon sent, on the 19th, messengers to the Earls of Winchester and Chester, begging that they would endeavour to procure him a day’s respite, on the plea that he must first find his brother {19 June}. They performed their commission, and the King appeared disposed to grant their request; but the enemies of Falkes determined that forcible steps should be taken that very night;[1057] and next morning the whole multitude which had come together at Northampton, King, prelates, barons, knights, and men-at-arms, appeared before the gate of Bedford castle.[1058]
The King summoned the garrison to admit him, and to surrender the castle to the Justiciar. William de Bréauté had now returned with his prisoner—if indeed they had ever really been away—but Falkes had disappeared in his turn. William and his knights refused to obey the King’s summons without instructions from Falkes, “chiefly because they were not bound by homage or fealty to the King,”[1059] and also because Falkes, having taken the Cross,[1060] was by a privilege from the Pope entitled, for himself, his lands, and his men, to exemption from molestation by the secular powers.[1061] This second plea might probably have carried some weight with the spiritual members of the King’s host, had it not been neutralized by the other. Feudal law, as understood on the side of the Channel whence Falkes and his followers had come, recognized liege homage to a mesne lord as a valid ground for disclaiming all duty to a suzerain and even a sovereign; but in England this principle had never been admitted, and was justly held to be—in the words of a modern writer—“the essence of feudal anarchy.” Disregarding an appeal to the Pope with which the garrison wound up their defiance of the King, Archbishop Stephen and the other bishops present acted upon the orders which they had received from Rome in the preceding year for dealing with refractory castellans. They lighted their candles and laid Falkes {20 June}, his liegemen in the castle, and all their aiders and abettors, under sentence of excommunication.[1062] Immediately afterwards the siege was begun.
On that siege the whole energies of the King’s government were concentrated for eight weeks; and before half that time had elapsed Poitou was lost. In May Louis had outbidden Henry for the support of the Lusignans, and received the liege homage of Hugh and of his kinsman Geoffrey, the viscount of Châtelheraut.[1063] On Midsummer day the French King’s host mustered at Tours. He led it first to Montreuil-Bellay; there he met the aged viscount Almeric of Thouars, who for many years had played in Aquitanian politics a part almost more important than that of the Lusignans. With Almeric Louis made a truce for a year. On 3rd July he laid siege to Niort. Savaric de Mauléon was there; seeing that he could not, without succour from over sea, hold the country against Louis, the Lusignans, and Almeric all united, he surrendered Niort on the 5th and withdrew to La Rochelle, after swearing on the Gospels that he would not defend any place except that one beyond All Saints’ day. Louis advanced next to S. Jean d’Angély, which opened its gates to him. He then marched upon La Rochelle. Its garrison, headed by Savaric and reinforced by the men whom he had brought with him from Niort and by the English knights under Richard de Gray and Geoffrey de Neville, sallied forth to give battle, and “slew many of the French,” but were driven back into the city. On the 15th Louis set up his engines before the walls. He also opened negotiations with the civic rulers; and the result was that on 3rd August the place was surrendered. The garrison marched out with the honours of war; the citizens, on the 13th, swore fealty to Louis.[1064] The fall of La Rochelle sealed the fate of Poitou, by cutting off Henry’s remaining partisans there from their last hope of succour from England. Limoges had already joined the winning side; Périgord did the like. The conqueror entered Poitiers without further difficulty, and in September he returned to Paris, leaving a part of his army, under a new seneschal whom he had appointed instead of Savaric, to join Hugh of La Marche in an invasion of Gascony.[1065]
According to the Barnwell annalist, “it was said by some persons that Falkes and his supporters suggested to King Louis that he should invade Poitou; and in order that Louis might do this freely and without fear or danger, he, Falkes, promised to keep King Henry so fully occupied with most urgent business in the middle of his own country that he would leave his transmarine lands destitute of military forces.”[1066] We need hardly go about to demonstrate that Louis needed no “suggestion” from Falkes or any one else for the invasion of Poitou. The whole of this absurd story, avowedly resting only on what “was said by some people,” would be beneath notice, but that its latter part seems to be a distorted and exaggerated report of an assertion which actually was made by Hubert de Burgh and the King. Before the successes of Louis were known in England, Henry wrote to the Pope an account of the circumstances which had, he said, “compelled” him to lay siege to Bedford castle, “neglecting for the present all the other affairs which are pressing upon us in Ireland and in Poitou; which imminent perils,” he added, “we may not unjustly impute to Falkes and his accomplices.”[1067] Fifteen years later Henry imputed the loss of Poitou to Hubert, whom he charged with having sent to that country barrels filled with stones and sand instead of money and treasure, whereby the nobles and townsfolk were so disgusted with the King’s service that they went over to his enemies. Hubert answered that he had never sent any such barrels; that by the advice of the magnates of England over a hundred knights and many men-at-arms had been sent to Poitou, and remained there till, without their assent, the burghers of La Rochelle made terms with the enemy, and thus it was not through negligence on his own part or on that of the knights that La Rochelle was lost; “but,” he added, “it was lost through the excesses of Falkes, who with his people made an insurrection while La Rochelle was besieged.”[1068] Hubert’s defence here is self-contradictory; if La Rochelle was lost not for want of reinforcement but by the wilfulness of its citizens, no “insurrection” in England could have any influence in the matter. Practically, however, Hubert admits that further reinforcements should have been sent, but insinuates that their despatch was made impossible by the conduct of Falkes. Thus did King and Justiciar alike, at different times, seek to cast upon Falkes the responsibility for a failure which lay at their own door. Even had the host gathered at Northampton on 16th June been in truth destined for Poitou, its gathering would have been tardy. But we cannot believe that its nominal destination was anything else than a blind. If it were, the choice of the meeting-place would be inexplicable. No sane commander would, without any necessity, have chosen to muster an army drawn from all parts of the realm, and intended for service beyond the Channel, at Northampton, a town in Mid-England, five days journey from the sea. For a full half of such an army the choice would involve literally double toil and trouble—a long, toilsome march, from Kent and Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset, Devon and Cornwall, up to Northampton and then down again to a place of embarcation on the south coast, to which some of these contingents could have gone direct in half the time, while others must have actually come from its immediate neighbourhood; and all this without any advantage to their fellow-soldiers from the Midlands and the North, or to the King himself, all of whom could just as easily have met them, as had been customary in former reigns, at the port whence they were to sail.[1069] The barons were summoned to Northampton because their help was wanted in the execution of a project predetermined in the royal Council, for the ruin of Falkes de Bréauté.
Such a project was, in itself, not without justification. Falkes seems to have been generally, and deservedly, regarded as a public nuisance; and his extraordinary personality, coupled with the peculiar character of the followers under his control, gave him, even after the loss of all his sheriffdoms and most of his castles, the power to make himself also a public danger, if he were so minded. He was, however, not a whit more of a nuisance and, owing to the events of the past winter, considerably less of a possible danger at the moment when the government first took action against him, than he had been at any time in the past seven or eight years. This was implicitly, though perhaps unconsciously, admitted by Hubert when he said that the “insurrection” which—as he and Henry alike insinuate—left King and Council neither time nor energy nor men to spare for any other object, took place “while La Rochelle was besieged.” Strictly speaking, this is not correct; Henry de Braybroke was captured nearly a month before Louis laid siege to La Rochelle, and, indeed, a week before the French host set out from Tours. But the statement is none the less, or rather all the more, a clear proof that the Justiciar knew of no grounds for charging Falkes with treason or rebellion[1070] earlier than the capture of Braybroke; that is to say, earlier than 17th June, the day after the royal host began to assemble at Northampton. That assembly had been arranged not later than 26th April; its arrangement had been immediately followed by the raking-up of a charge against Falkes concerning a matter which dated from the earliest days of Henry’s reign or even from a time before his accession, and had apparently never been heard of since; this again had been followed by Henry de Braybroke’s rigorous dealing with Falkes and his brother at the Dunstable assizes. All these legal proceedings may in themselves have been perfectly just; but, begun thus suddenly, without (so far as can be seen) any special provocation, and crowded all together at this particular time, they might well have goaded even a man of cooler temper than Falkes to play into his enemies’ hands by committing some outrage which would furnish the government with an occasion for crushing him completely; and to crush him the King and his councillors were evidently already determined, before that outrage was committed. The abstract justice and wisdom of their determination need not be discussed here. As a matter of policy, however, the time for its execution was singularly ill chosen. The moment when a swarm of locusts was known to be on the point of advancing upon Poitou was not the moment for stirring up a hornet’s nest in England. The King paid dearly for his own share—whatever it may have been—in this blunder. Some share in it, and in all likelihood the larger share, must have belonged to Hubert; and for Hubert only one possible excuse can be suggested. As he seems to have underrated the dangers over sea, so he may, at the outset, have underrated the difficulty of the task upon which he was entering in England.[1071] The muster at Northampton may have been designed for a mere military demonstration, in the heart of the lands which had been so long under Falkes’s charge, with the expectation that Falkes would be thereby overawed into making complete submission, somewhat as Count William of Aumale had been overawed in 1220 and 1221, and that the host might, when it had accomplished this preliminary purpose, proceed to the south coast and still reach Poitou before it was too late. Such an expectation would hardly be consistent with the knowledge which Hubert must have possessed of the character and the resources of Falkes. If it was still entertained by any one when in the dawn of 20th June the host set out for Bedford, a very brief experience there must have sufficed to shew that it was utterly hopeless.
In 1215 the constable of Bedford castle, William de Beauchamp, had incurred forfeiture by welcoming the rebel barons within its walls. Falkes had regained it for the King,[1072] and had been rewarded with a grant of its constableship in Beauchamp’s stead.[1073] On its fortification in John’s interest and under John’s orders he had lavished wealth, labour, and skill; he had crowned it with towers and battlements—partly built of the stones of two churches which neither he nor the King scrupled to pull down for that purpose[1074]—encompassed it with walls and outworks and stone-clad ditches and ramparts, stored it with military engines and arms. Its garrison in 1224 consisted of eleven knights and a proportionate number of men-at-arms, all picked men, amply sufficient to defend a fortress which was generally reputed impregnable.[1075] On the other hand, the besiegers were not all as eager about their task as were the King, the Justiciar, and, it seems, most of the bishops. The Earls of Chester and Aumale, the Bishop of Winchester, William de Cantelupe, Brian de Lisle, Peter de Maulay, had obeyed the King’s summons and accompanied him to Bedford with their followers, but made no secret of their lack of sympathy with the object of the expedition; and after a while Bishop Peter and Earl Ranulf, finding themselves excluded from the King’s private counsels, quitted the camp and went each to his own home.[1076] Meanwhile urgent orders were being despatched to all parts of the country for cartloads of ropes, targes, quarrels, pickaxes, tents, victuals, mangonels and other engines of war, and men to work the engines.[1077] The current expenditure which all this involved was so much more than the treasury could meet that the Archbishop of Canterbury and other prelates who were present in the host voluntarily made a grant for the King’s necessities. “Of their mere grace and liberality,” those of them who had a portion of land separate from that of their chapters gave half a mark for every ploughland thus held by them in demesne; those who had not separate portions gave two shillings per ploughland from the demesne lands of their churches; all alike gave two shillings for every ploughland held by their tenants and sub-tenants, and for every hide of land, both demesne and enfeoffed, the personal assistance of two workmen to drag and work the machines.[1078] After the close of the siege letters patent were issued by the King, carefully explaining that this generous aid had been voted by the prelates purely as a matter of grace, and was not to constitute a precedent for any future occasion.[1079]
At the approach of the royal forces Falkes had slipped away into the territories of the Earl of Chester, where the King’s writs did not run. There, according to his own account, he “composed some letters” to the King, asking for a safe-conduct to go to the court and “do whatever the barons and the laws of the land should require of him”; but this messenger on reaching the camp and finding that Falkes had been excommunicated was so afraid of incurring a share in the excommunication that he went away without delivering the letters.[1080] Falkes was said to have told the Bedford garrison that he would succour them within forty days.[1081] As that period drew towards a close the besiegers seem to have realized that the capture of the man was becoming almost more important than, and was likely to prove almost as difficult as, the capture of the castle. A band of men-at-arms was detached from the siege to go in search of him, but came back reporting that he had fled into Wales.[1082] This was the more alarming because neither Llywelyn’s promised amends for the Kinnerley affair nor the trial of the claims and counter-claims arising out of that affair had yet taken place. The settlement which was to have been made at Candlemas had been three or four times postponed; each time that a new date for it was fixed, the King had been too hard pressed with more urgent business to keep his appointment with Llywelyn; it now stood fixed for 28th July.[1083] On 10th July letters were sent out calling upon all the King’s bailiffs and other faithful subjects to help in catching “our enemy Falkes.”[1084] Two days later the sheriffs of Staffordshire and Shropshire were told that Falkes was known to have gone into Wales to form with some of its “mighty men” a league against the King, but, having failed in this, was expected to return secretly to England; and they were bidden to search for him, to order a hue and cry to be raised after him, and not to let it cease till he was captured.[1085] Some three weeks later, as the attainment of that object seemed no nearer, the King addressed a private letter of appeal or remonstrance to the Earl of Chester—who by this time had withdrawn from the host—and also one to Llywelyn of Wales. These letters are lost, but their tenour can be made out from the replies. Henry appealed, seemingly in justification of his own conduct, to Ranulf’s personal knowledge of the circumstances which had led to the siege of Bedford. He declared that, according to reports which he had received, Falkes was plotting against him to the uttermost of his power; and he begged that Ranulf would strive to avert or check any mischief which might be threatening in his neighbourhood, and if nothing of the kind seemed to be impending there, at once return to the camp. Ranulf’s answer was a model of quiet dignity. He did, he said, know the circumstances relating to the siege of Bedford, and so did many other persons. Of Sir Falkes de Bréauté’s reported machinations against the King he knew nothing; he had only seen and observed Sir Falkes bear himself patiently under the King’s anger, as one who desired nothing else than to appease it by his own endeavours and the help of his friends. For his own part Ranulf was (he continued) ready now, as ever, to protect the King’s interests as much as in him lay, and accordingly he had, on receipt of the King’s letter, immediately gone to confer with Llywelyn, and obtained his promise to leave the King’s land in peace for a month from 4th August. Having secured this, he was, agreeably to Henry’s command, coming back to the royal presence as quickly as he could.[1086] To Llywelyn the King related the capture of Henry de Braybroke and the steps taken in consequence of it; and he forbade the Prince to harbour Falkes or his men or to give them aid or counsel. Llywelyn answered by repeating Falkes’s version of the story as it had been told him by Falkes in a flying visit of less than a day’s duration, and refusing to recognize an excommunication against which he declared that Falkes would be justified in defending himself even if it came from the Pope in person.[1087]
Baffled in his attempts to capture Falkes, the King swore “by his father’s soul” that if Bedford castle were taken by force, he would hang every man who was in it. The garrison retorted by bidding his messengers see to it that no one came with any more demands for surrender.[1088] Formidable as was the King’s siege train, its work progressed but slowly. A stone-caster and two mangonels stationed on the east side of the castle hurled stones all day long at the keep; two other mangonels battered at the “old tower” on the west side; two more were gradually making as many breaches in the outer walls, one on the northern and the other on the southern side; a “cat” sheltered the ingoing and outgoing of miners who were digging their way underground to the foundations of the keep; other machines concealed crossbowmen and slingers whose missiles, despatched thus by unseen hands, caught the besieged at unawares; at last two moveable wooden “castles,” towers, or “belfries,” so lofty that their occupants could look down into every part of the castle enclosure, not excepting the keep itself, were constructed and filled, the one with scouts to watch all the doings of the garrison, the other with crossbowmen from whose quarrels, shot down like bolts out of the sky, no man among the besieged was safe for a moment without his armour.[1089] Nevertheless William de Bréauté and his men continued to hurl projectiles at their assailants;[1090] in the eight weeks of the siege the King lost six knights and, it was said, more than two hundred men-at-arms and labourers working the machines.[1091] At length an assault was made upon the barbican; it was taken, and four or five “foreigners”[1092] were slain. A second assault won the outer bailey, where “many were slain,” and the King’s men “came into possession of horses, harness, armour, crossbows, bullocks, live pigs, bacon, and other things innumerable,” besides sheds full of corn and hay which they burned. Next, the miners succeeded in bringing down a part of the wall close to the “old tower”; the King’s men rushed in through the breach, and after a desperate fight in which many of them perished, they gained possession of the inner bailey. The keep still defied them; ten of them who tried to enter it were shut in and kept fast by the garrison.[1093]
Meanwhile Falkes had been tracked by Bishop Alexander of Coventry. Alexander had carried the King’s letter to Earl Ranulf;[1094] the Bishop of Exeter seems to have joined him at Coventry, and there these two prelates heard that Falkes was at a place three miles beyond Chester. They immediately published his excommunication, and then Alexander went to seek him in the hope of bringing him to submission.[1095] To the bishop’s persuasions Falkes replied that he was ready to stand to the King’s command and judgement in all things, on condition that three men whom he believed to be personally hostile to him[1096] should not be present; or he would submit entirely to the King’s judgement and accept his mercy, but on condition that these same three should have no part in discussing the terms of that mercy. He further begged that either he might be released from excommunication by Bishop Alexander, or the whole case might be submitted to the Pope. The first part of the message thus brought back by Alexander to the royal camp was received with jeers; as to the last point, Archbishop Stephen was resolute that no one but himself should absolve the culprit. Alexander and Earl Ranulf went back together to Falkes, and persuaded him to return with them as far as Coventry.[1097] Thither, on 12th August, a safe-conduct was sent to him for himself and the members of his household who were with him, that they might come to Northampton for absolution within the next ten days.[1098]
To Northampton Falkes—seemingly accompanied by Bishop Alexander—came without delay; and thence he sent word to his soldiers of his inability to help them.[1099] On the evening of 14th August the King’s miners kindled a fire underneath the keep of Bedford castle. The garrison, seated at supper, saw the room fill with smoke, and presently found that its walls were cracking. On this they sent forth all the women in their company—among whom was the wife of Falkes—together with Henry de Braybroke and the other prisoners, escorted by some of their own number charged with an offer of surrender. These messengers were put in chains and kept by the King as pledges for the good faith of their comrades, who were suffered to spend the night in the crumbling tower after hoisting the royal standard on its summit. Next morning {15 Aug.} all the survivors of the desperate band were brought before the King.[1100] One of them was the chaplain of the castle; he was handed over to the Archbishop to be judged according to Church law.[1101] Most of the others, knights and men-at-arms, were grievously wounded.[1102] The King remitted them to the bishops for absolution; when they had received it,[1103] he kept his vow; he sent them all to the gallows. For three of them some of the nobles interceded, and though “to save the King’s oath” these three were hanged with the rest, they were cut down immediately, and delivered to the Templars, on condition of joining that Order in Holy Land.[1104]
When these things were done, the Bishop of Carlisle and one of the judges, Martin of Pateshull, were sent to Falkes with the tidings, and with an invitation or citation from the Archbishop to present himself at Bedford for absolution.[1105] He swooned with horror at the unexpected fate of his brother and his friends[1106]—a fate from which he, like them, had hoped that they would be saved by his vow of crusade and their appeal to the Pope. On coming to himself he was at first reluctant to accede to the Archbishop’s summons, being still set on prosecuting his appeal to Rome, and also fearing the personal enmity on the part of Stephen and Hubert of which he believed himself to be the object; at last, however, he consented to go,[1107] but entreated the Bishop of Coventry to accompany and protect him.[1108] Thus escorted, he went to Bedford, fell at the King’s feet and threw himself on his mercy.[1109] Henry committed him to the custody of Bishop Eustace of London till his fate should be judicially determined;[1110] for that purpose a council was appointed to meet in London fifteen days after Michaelmas (14th October). The few followers who accompanied him were then absolved, but it seems to have been deemed more prudent to defer the absolution of Falkes himself till he had surrendered, or at least given security for surrendering, the two castles which he still held—Plympton and Stoke Courcy[1111]—and all his other property,[1112] and also to make it as public as possible, in order that, as the absolution of an excommunicate person was an extremely humiliating ceremony for the penitent, it might serve as a salutary warning to other possible rebels. Accordingly, when Falkes had sworn to submit himself to this humiliation on 25th August in London, a safe-conduct was given him, on 19th August, to go thither for the twofold purpose of receiving absolution and paying into the treasury, as compensation for the damage and losses incurred by the King in the siege of Bedford, the money which he had stored at Westminster.[1113] On the appointed day {25 Aug.}, in presence of a great concourse of people, the Archbishop had him stripped according to the rule of the Church and then gave him absolution.[1114] He then executed a deed whereby he surrendered to the Crown all his possessions of every kind, and consented to fall under excommunication again if his constables at Plympton and Stoke Courcy failed to give up those two castles within a fortnight.[1115]
A woman struck the next blow at the fallen man. Margaret his wife came before the King and the Archbishop and declared that she had never consented to her marriage with him, but had been taken by force in time of war and wedded to him against her will, wherefore she prayed that the marriage might be annulled. A day was set for the Archbishop to pronounce, after due consideration, his judgement on the matter.[1116] Margaret’s story of the marriage may very likely have been true; but her protest was made too late to deserve a hearing. Even in 1215 the widow of Baldwin de Rivers was no mere child, for she was already a mother. If the disturbed state of public affairs and the absence of the Primate prevented her seeking legal redress during the next two years, she could certainly have brought her claim before Stephen at any moment after his return in the spring of 1218. Instead of doing so, she waited till the man whose prosperous fortunes she had shared for nine years, and by whom she had at least one child,[1117] was brought down to the dust, and then she, too, sought to be rid of him. Such an abuse of the laws of marriage as she petitioned for was not likely to be sanctioned by Stephen de Langton, however sternly he might, for the public weal, deem it necessary to deal with her husband. His judgement on her petition is not recorded; but there are clear indications that it was given against her.[1118]
For more than nine weeks Falkes was kept, strictly guarded, in the custody of the Bishop of London. The meeting of the Council which was to decide his fate had been fixed for 14th October, but no decision seems to have been reached till about the 26th.[1119] {Oct.} Moved partly by remonstrances which the Pope had, some months before, addressed both to the King and to the Primate in behalf of Falkes,[1120] partly by their own undeniable knowledge of Falkes’s long and faithful service to the King’s father, the Council unanimously determined that he should be spared in life and limbs, on condition that he would abjure the realm and go over sea on pilgrimage, never to return.[1121] The Primate exacted from him a further promise not to carry his complaints to the Pope.[1122] To these conditions he submitted. On 26th October he received a safe-conduct to go to the coast and remain there till he could get across the sea,[1123] and orders for the manning of the ship which was to carry him were issued to William de Breuse and the Earl of Warren,[1124] the latter of whom was commissioned to see him safely on board. It was reported that when parting from the Earl, Falkes with tears begged him to carry his greetings to “his lord the King,” declaring with a solemn oath that his disturbances of England’s peace had been instigated by “the great men of the land.” Five of his men-at-arms accompanied him to Normandy.[1125] So far was Louis from regarding him as an ally that he was seized by the French King’s bailiffs immediately on landing at Fécamp and brought as a prisoner before Louis himself.[1126] The cross on his shoulder, however, procured his release.[1127] Next Easter (1225)1225 he proceeded to Rome.[1128] On his way across France he met Robert Passelewe,[1129] a man learned in law, who may have put into shape (or at least into Latin) the “Complaint” which—in defiance of his promise to Archbishop Stephen—he presented to the Pope. In August he was captured in Burgundy by a knight called Anselm “de Duime,” whom he had once made prisoner and put to heavy ransom in England. The Pope seems to have procured his release,[1130] on which he returned to France, and dwelt for a year at Troyes; at last he was driven out of the country because he refused to do homage to Louis. Returning to Rome, he once more entreated the Pope to insist that he should be restored at least to the enjoyment of his wife’s society and of the proceeds of her patrimony.[1131] Honorius wrote accordingly, both to the King and to Archbishop Stephen.[1132] Soon afterwards, however, the whole matter was ended by the death of Falkes.[1133] A year later {1226} Henry was trying—with what success we know not—to reclaim from the Master of the Temple in London eleven thousand marks which Falkes on his death-bed was said to have confessed were still in the head house of the Order in England, where he had deposited them for secrecy and safety.[1134]