Meanwhile John had started out for Aquitaine, there to receive the homage of his subjects. He met, at one of the _fêtes_ which were celebrated, Isabel, daughter of the Count of Angoulême and wife of the Count of Marche; she was remarkably beautiful, and as ambitious as she was beautiful. Her beauty attracted the king, and the ambition of the countess prompting her, she abandoned her husband to marry John Lackland, who himself had been married for ten years to the daughter of the Earl of Gloucester. An insurrection soon broke out in Aquitaine; it was insignificant at first, but at the beginning of the year 1202 Philip-Augustus, delivered from his quarrels with Pope Innocent III., stirred the flame of the rebellion in the southern provinces, organized an insurrection in Brittany, and suddenly took up Arthur's cause again, who had recently lost his mother. "You are aware of your rights," he said to the young prince, "do you wish to become king?" "Decidedly I do," said Arthur. "Very well then," said Philip, "there are two hundred knights, take them and march against your own provinces whilst I enter into Normandy." The Bretons rallied round their young duke, who advanced with his little army against the town of Mirebeau in Poitou, where his grandmother Eleanor was staying, whom his mother had taught him to hate. {203} He hoped, by capturing her, to obtain better conditions from his uncle; but the old queen defended herself valiantly, and held the castle sufficiently long to allow her son to come to her assistance. A nobleman of the country delivered up the town to him on the night of the 31st of July, 1202, on King John's promising not to do any harm to his nephew. All the noblemen who supported the young duke, amongst whom was the Count of Marche, were made prisoners, and Prince Arthur himself was imprisoned in the Castle of Falaise, whence he was transported a short time afterwards to Rouen. There all trace of him is lost in history, and no information concerning him exists except vague and contradictory tradition. The most probable story relates that the king arrived by night with his esquire, Peter of Maulac, to see the unfortunate young prince in his dungeon, and that he took the latter with him in a little boat upon the Seine. The young man was in fear, and begged his uncle to spare his life; but John made a sign and De Maulac, after plunging his dagger into the prisoner's heart, threw his body overboard; but it is also said that De Maulac conceived a horror of the crime beforehand and refused to commit it, and that the king himself struck the fatal blow. It was on the 3rd of April, 1203. Rumors of the murder spread throughout France and England, adding fresh indignation to the hatred which John already inspired. The Bretons proclaimed Alice of Thouars, daughter of the Duchess Constance by her third husband, instead of Prince Arthur's sister, Eleanor, the Pearl of Brittany, who was in the power of her uncle, and was shut up by