“King John was not willing to trust to chance and the decision of the French, who liked him not; and he feared above everything to be reproached with the shameful murder of Arthur. The grandees of France, nevertheless, proceeded to a decision, which they could not do lawfully, since he whom they had to try was absent, and would have gone had he been able.”
The condemnation, not a whit the less, took full effect; and Philip Augustus thus recovered possession of nearly all the territories which his father, Louis VII., had kept but for a moment. He added, in succession, other provinces to his dominions; in such wise that the kingdom of France, which was limited, as we have seen, under Louis the Fat, to the Ile-de-France and certain portions of Picardy and Orleanness, comprised besides, at the end of the reign of Philip Augustus, Vermandois, Artois, the two Vexins, French and Norman, Berri, Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Poitou, Touraine, and Auvergne.
In 1206 the territorial work of Philip Augustus was well nigh completed; but his wars were not over. John Lackland, when worsted, kicked against the pricks, and was incessantly hankering, in his antagonism to the King of France, after hostile alliances and local conspiracies easy to hatch amongst certain feudal lords discontented with their suzerain. John was on intimate terms with his nephew, Otho IV., Emperor of Germany and the foe of Philip Augustus, who had supported against him Frederick II., his rival for the empire. They prepared in concert for a grand attack upon the King of France, and they had won over to their coalition some of his most important vassals, amongst others, Renaud de Dampierre, Count of Boulogne. Philip determined to divert their attack, whilst anticipating it, by an unexpected enterprise--the invasion of England itself. Circumstances seemed favorable. King John, by his oppression and his perfidy, had drawn upon him the hatred and contempt of his people; and the barons of England, supported and guided by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, had commenced against him the struggle which was to be ended some years afterwards by the forced concession of Magna Charta, that foundation-stone of English liberties. John, having been embroiled for five years past with the court of Rome, affected to defy the excommunication which the pope had hurled at him, and of which the King of France had been asked by several prelates of the English Church to insure the efficient working. On the 8th of April, 1213, Philip convoked, at Soissons, his principal vassals or allies, explained to them the grounds of his design against the King of England, and, by a sort of special confederation, they bound themselves, all of them, to support him. One of the most considerable vassals, however, the sometime regent of France during the minority of Philip, Ferrand, Count of Flanders, did not attend the meeting to which he had been summoned, and declared his intention of taking no part in the war against England. “By all the saints of France,” cried Philip, “either France shall become Flanders, or Flanders France!” And, all the while pressing forward the equipment of a large fleet collected at Calais for the invasion of England, he entered Flanders, besieged and took several of the richest cities in the country, Cassel, Ypres, Bruges, and Courtrai, and pitched his camp before the walls of Ghent, “to lower,” as he said, “the pride of the men of Ghent and make them bend their necks beneath the yoke of kings.” But he heard that John Lackland, after making his peace with the court of Rome through acceptance of all the conditions and all the humiliations it had thought proper to impose upon him, had just landed at Rochelle, and was exciting a serious insurrection amongst the lords of Saintonge and Poitou. At the same time Philip’s fleet, having been attacked in Calais roads by that of John, had been half destroyed or captured; and the other half had been forced to take shelter in the harbor of Damme, where it was strictly blockaded. Philip, forthwith adopting a twofold and energetic resolution, ordered his son Philip to go and put down the insurrection of the Poitevines on the banks of the Loire, and himself took in hand the war in Flanders, which was of the most consequence, considering the quality of the foe and the designs they proclaimed. They had at their head the Emperor Otho IV., who had already won the reputation of a brave and able soldier; and they numbered in their ranks several of the greatest lords, German, Flemish, and Dutch, and Hugh de Boves, the most dreaded of those adventurers in the pay of wealthy princes who were known at that time by the name of roadsters (routiers, mercenaries).