Richard was at that moment striving to subdue Britanny. Ever since the death of Henry II the wardship of little Arthur and of his duchy had been in dispute between Richard and Philip; but the boy’s mother, Constance, supported by the Breton people, had hitherto managed to keep both her child and her country under her own control. In the spring of 1196 Richard summoned, or invited, her to a conference with him in Normandy; at the frontier she was met, captured, and imprisoned by her husband, Earl Ranulf of Chester.[1207] The Bretons at once rallied round their child-duke, in his name threw off all allegiance to Richard, and began to make raids on the Norman border.[1208] Richard set out to punish them[1209] in the ruthless fashion habitual to him when dealing with rebels, “sparing neither grown man [Sidenote: _Good Friday April 19_] nor child, not even on the day of our Lord’s Passion.”[1210] They fled before him, carrying Arthur with them, to the remoter fastnesses of their country, and thence conveyed the boy to the court of France.[1211] Thereupon the treaty of Louviers was flung to the winds. Richard infringed it in the Vexin by building a castle on an island in the Seine at Porte-Joie, between Louviers and Pont-de-l’Arche, and in Berry by calling the lord of Vierzon to account to him on a matter which (according to Philip’s historiographer) belonged to the jurisdiction of the French Crown, and when the man refused to obey him, making a raid on Vierzon and levelling it to the ground.[1212] Philip again laid siege to Aumale. Richard ordered all property held within his dominions by four abbots who had been Philip’s sureties for the treaty to be seised into his own hands,[1213] bribed the French garrison of Nonancourt to give up that fortress to him, and then went to relieve Aumale. He was, however, repulsed in an attack on Philip’s camp, and went off to lay siege to Gaillon, which was held for Philip by a famous mercenary captain, Cadoc. A bolt from Cadoc’s crossbow struck the king’s knee as he was reconnoitring the place. The wound disabled him for a month; before he had recovered, Aumale had surrendered after a seven weeks’ siege, and Philip had razed its walls and regained Nonancourt.[1214]