Great Britain -- History -- John, 1199-1216; Great Britain -- Kings and rulers -- Biography; John, King of England, 1167-1216
Philip was at that moment busy with the siege of Arques; on the
receipt of these tidings he left it and turned southward,[381] but he
failed, or perhaps did not attempt, to intercept John, who, bringing
his prisoners with him, made his way leisurely back to Falaise.[382]
There he imprisoned Arthur in the castle,[383] and despatched his
victorious troops against Arthur’s duchy; they captured Dol and
Fougères, and harried the country as far as Rennes.[384] Philip, after
ravaging Touraine, fired the city of Tours and took the citadel;
immediately afterwards he withdrew to his own territories, as by that
time John was again at Chinon. As soon as Philip was gone, John in his
turn entered Tours and wrested the citadel from the French garrison
left there by his rival; but his success was won at the cost of another
conflagration which, an English chronicler declares, was never forgiven
him by the citizens and the barons of Touraine.[385]
For the moment, however, he was in luck. In Aquitaine he seemed in a
fair way to carry all before him without striking a blow. Angoulême
had passed into his hands by the death of his father-in-law on June
17.[386] Guy of Limoges had risen in revolt again, but at the end of
August or early in September he was captured.[387] The Lusignans,
from their prison at Caen, made overtures for peace, and by dint of
protestations and promises succeeded ere long in regaining their
liberty, of course on the usual conditions of surrendering their
castles and giving hostages for their loyalty.[388] It was almost
equally a matter of course that as soon as they were free they began
intriguing against John.[389] But the chronic intrigues of the south
were in reality, as John himself seems to have discovered, a far less
serious danger than the disaffection in his northern dominions. This
last evil was undoubtedly, so far as Normandy was concerned, owing in
great measure to John’s own fault. He had entrusted the defence of
the Norman duchy to his mercenaries under the command of a Provençal
captain whose real name is unknown, who seems to have adopted for
himself the nickname of “Lou Pescaire,” “The Fisherman”--which the
Normans apparently corrupted into “Louvrekaire”--and who habitually
treated his employer’s peaceable subjects in a fashion in which other
commanders would have shrunk from treating avowed enemies.[390] Side
by side with the discontent thus caused among the people there was
a rapid growth of treason among the Norman barons;--treason fraught
with far greater peril than the treason of the nobles of Aquitaine,
because it was more persistent and more definite in its aim; because it
was at once less visible and tangible and more deeply rooted; because
it spread in silence and wrought in darkness; and because, while no
southern rebel ever really fought for anything but his own hand, the
northern traitors were in close concert with Philip Augustus. John
knew not whom to trust; he could, in fact, trust no one; and herein
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