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Title: Philip Augustus; or, The Brothers in Arms
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHILIP
AUGUSTUS; OR, THE BROTHERS IN ARMS ***
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source: Google Books
Philip Augustus, or, The brothers in arms by James, G. P. R.
(George Payne Rainsford), 1801?-1860
Published 1837
Publisher London: R. Bentley; Edinburgh: Bell and Bradfute
Web Archive:
https://archive.org/details/philipaugustusor00jame
STANDARD
NOVELS.
No. LIX.
"No kind of literature is so generally attractive as Fiction. Pictures of life and manners,
and Stories of adventure, are more eagerly received by the many than graver productions,
however important these latter maybe. Apuleius is better remembered by his fable of Cupid
and Psyche than by his abstruser Platonic writings; and the Decameron of Boccaccio has
outlived the Latin Treatises, and other learned works of that author."
PHILIP AUGUSTUS.
COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON
STREET;
BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH;
J. CUMMING, DUBLIN.
1837.
London:
Printed by A. Spottiswoode,
New-Street-Square.
Philip Augustus
Death of Gallon the Jester
PHILIP AUGUSTUS;
OR,
THE BROTHERS IN ARMS.
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."--Henry IV.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
"DARNLEY," "ATTILA," &c.
REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ILLUSTRATED WITH NOTES, ETC.
BY THE AUTHOR.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON
STREET;
BELL AND BRADFUTE. EDINBURGH;
J. CUMMING, DUBLIN.
1837.
TO
ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. LL.D.
My Dear Sir,
Were this book even a great deal better than an author's partiality
for his literary offspring can make me believe, I should still have
some hesitation in dedicating it to you, if the fact of your allowing
me to do so implied any thing but your own kindness of heart. I
think now, on reading it again, as I thought twelve months ago
when I wrote it, that it is the best thing that I have yet composed;
but were it a thousand times better in every respect than any thing I
ever have or ever shall produce, it would still, I am conscious, be
very unworthy of your acceptance, and very inferior to what I could
wish to offer.
Notwithstanding all your present fame, I am convinced that future
years, by adding hourly to the reputation you have already acquired,
will justify my feelings towards your works, and that your writings
will be amongst the few--the very few--which each age in dying
bequeaths to the thousand ages to come.
However, it is with no view of giving a borrowed lustre to my book
that I distinguish this page by placing in it your name. Regard,
esteem, and admiration, are surely sufficient motives for seeking to
offer you some tribute, and sufficient apology, though that tribute be
very inferior to the wishes of,
My dear Sir,
Your very faithful Servant,
G. P. R. JAMES.
Maxpoffle, near Melrose, Roxburghshire,
May 25, 1831.
ADVERTISEMENT
TO THE
NEW EDITION IN THE STANDARD NOVELS.
I have little to say regarding this work, which has been received by
the public with so much favour, as to dispense with the necessity of
any apology on the part of the author for the faults that it contains.
Some persons, indeed, have objected to that part of the dedication
to the first edition, in which I stated my belief that Philip Augustus
was the best romance I had at that time written. I cannot, however,
see any presumption in comparing my own works amongst
themselves, when I neither make any reference to those of others,
nor seek to bow public taste to my individual opinion. I am perfectly
sensible that Philip Augustus has many errors; the chief of which,
perhaps, is the slender connection between the two stories which
run through the book. This I have found it utterly impossible to
remedy, and I have, therefore, in this edition, confined my
alterations to some verbal corrections, to the addition of some notes,
and to the cutting out of some heavy poetry which had nothing to
do with the story.
Fair Oak Lodge,
Aug. 15, /1837.
ADVERTISEMENT
TO
THE FIRST EDITION.
Very few words of preface are necessary to the following work. In
regard to the character of Philip Augustus himself, I have not been
guided by any desire of making him appear greater, or better, or
wiser than he really was. Rigord his physician, William the Breton,
his chaplain, who was present at the battle of Bovines, and various
other annalists comprised in the excellent collection of memoirs
published by Monsieur Guizot, have been my authorities. A different
view has been taken of his life by several writers, inimical to him,
either from belonging to some of the factions of those times, or to
hostile countries; but it is certain, that all who came in close contact
with Philip loved the man, and admired the monarch. All the
principal events here narrated, in regard to that monarch and his
queen, are historical facts, though brought within a shorter space of
time than that which they really occupied. The sketch of King John,
and the scenes in which he was unavoidably introduced, I have
made as brief as possible, under the apprehension of putting my
writings in comparison with something inimitably superior. The
picture of the mischievous idiot, Gallon the Fool, was taken from a
character which fell under my notice for some time in the South of
France.
PHILIP AUGUSTUS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
Although there is something chilling in that sad, inevitable word, the
past--although in looking through the thronged rolls of history, and
reading of all the dead passions, the fruitless anxieties, the vain,
unproductive yearnings of beings that were once as full of thrilling
life and feeling as ourselves, and now are nothing, we gain but the
cold moral of our own littleness--still the very indistinctness of the
distance softens and beautifies the objects of a former epoch that
we thus look back upon; and in the far retrospect of the days gone
by, a thousand bright and glistening spots stand out, and catch the
last most brilliant rays of a sun that has long set to the multitude of
smaller things around them.
To none of these bright points does the light of history lend a
more dazzling lustre than to the twelfth century, when the most
brilliant (if it was not the most perfect) institution of modern Europe,
the feudal system, rose to its highest pitch of splendour; when it
incorporated with itself the noblest Order that ever the enthusiasm
of man (if not his wisdom) conceived--the Order of Chivalry: and
when it undertook an enterprise which, though fanatic in design,
faulty in execution, and encumbered with all the multitude of frailties
that enchain human endeavour, was in itself magnificent and heroic,
and in its consequences grand, useful, and impulsive to the whole of
Europe--the Crusades.
The vast expenses, however, which the crusades required--
expenses not only of that yellow dross, the unprofitable
representative of earths real riches, but also expenses of invaluable
time, of blood, of energy, of talent--exhausted and enfeebled every
christian realm, and left, in each, the nerves of internal policy
unstrung and weak, with a lassitude like that which, in the human
frame, succeeds to any great and unaccustomed excitement.
Although through all Europe, in that day, the relationships of lord,
vassal, and serf, were the grand divisions of society, yet it was in
France that the feudal system existed in its most perfect form, rising
in gradual progression:--first, serfs, or villains; then vavassors, or
vassals holding of a vassal; then vassals holding of a suzerain, yet
possessing the right of high justice; then suzerains, great
feudatories, holding of the king; and, lastly, the king himself, with
smaller domains than many of his own vassals, but with a general
though limited right and jurisdiction over them all. In a kingdom so
constituted, the crusade, a true feudal enterprise, was, of course,
followed with enthusiasm amounting to madness; and the effects
were the more dreadful, as the absence of each lord implied in
general the absence of all government in his domains.
Unnumbered forests then covered the face of France; or, rather,
the whole country presented nothing but one great forest; scattered
through which, occasional patches of cultivated land, rudely tilled by
the serfs of glebe, sufficed for the support of a thin and diminished
population. General police was unthought of; and, though every
feudal chief, within his own territory, exercised that sort of justice
which to him seemed good, too little distinction existed between the
character of robber and judge, for us to suppose that the public
benefited much by the tribunals of the barons. The forests, the
mountains, and the moors, swarmed with plunderers of every
description; and besides the nobles themselves, who very frequently
were professed robbers on the highway, three distinct classes of
banditti existed in France, who, though different in origin, in
manners, and in object, yet agreed wonderfully in the general
principle of pillaging all who were unable to protect themselves.
These three classes, the Brabançois, the Cotereaux, and the
Routiers, have, from this general assimilating link, been very often
confounded; and, indeed, on many occasions they are found to have
changed name and profession when occasion served, the same band
having been at one moment Brabançois, and the next Cotereaux,
wherever any advantage was to be gained by the difference of
denomination; and also we find that they ever acted together as
friends and allies, where any general danger threatened their whole
community. The Brabançois, however, were originally very distinct
from the Cotereaux, having sprung up from the various free
companies, which the necessities of the time obliged the monarchs
of Europe to employ in their wars. Each vassal, by the feudal tenure,
owed his sovereign but a short period of military service, and, if
personal interest or regard would sometimes lead them to prolong it,
anger or jealousy would as often make them withdraw their aid at
the moment it was most needful. Monarchs found that they must
have men they could command, and the bands of adventurous
soldiers, known by the name of Brabançois[1], were always found
useful auxiliaries in any time of danger. As long as they were well
paid, they were in general brave, orderly, and obedient; the moment
their pay ceased, they dispersed under their several leaders,
ravaged, pillaged, and consumed, levying on the country in general,
that pay which the limited finances of the sovereign always
prevented him from continuing, except in time of absolute warfare.
[2]
Still, however, even in their character of plunderers, they had the
dignity of rank and chivalry, were often led by knights and nobles;
and though in the army they joined the qualities of the mercenary
and the robber to those of the soldier, in the forest and on the moor
they often added somewhat of the frank generosity of the soldier to
the rapacity of the freebooter.
The Cotereaux were different in origin--at least, if we may trust
Ducange--springing at first from fugitive serfs, and the scattered
remains of those various bands of revolted peasantry, which, from
time to time, had struggled ineffectually to shake off the oppressive
tyranny of their feudal lords.
These joined together in troops of very uncertain numbers, from
tens to thousands, and levied a continual war upon the community
they had abandoned, though, probably, they acted upon no general
system, nor were influenced by any one universal feeling, but the
love of plunder, and the absolute necessity of self-defence.
The Routier was the common robber, who either played his single
stake, and hazarded life for life with any one he met, or banded with
others, and shared the trade of the Coterel, with whom he was
frequently confounded, and from whom, indeed, he hardly differed
except in origin.
While the forests and wilds of France were thus tenanted by men
who preyed upon their fellows, the castles and the cities were
inhabited by two races, united for the time as lord and serf, but both
advancing rapidly to a point of separation; the lord at the very acme
of his power, with no prospect on any side but decline; the burgher
struggling already for freedom, and growing strong by association.
Tyrants ever, and often simple robbers, the feudal chieftains had
lately received a touch of refinement, by their incorporation with the
order of chivalry. Courtesy was joined to valour. Song burst forth,
and gave a voice to fame. The lay of the troubadour bore the tidings
of great actions from clime to clime, and was at once the knight's
ambition and his reward; while the bitter satire of the sirvente, or
the playful apologue of the fabliau, scourged all that was base and
ungenerous, and held up the disloyal and uncourteous to the all-
powerful corrective of public opinion.
Something still remains to be said upon the institution of chivalry,
and I can give no better sketch of its history than in the eloquent
words of the commentator on St Palaye.[3]
"Towards the middle of the tenth century, some poor nobles,
united by the necessity of legitimate defence, and startled by the
excesses certain to follow the multiplicity of sovereign powers, took
pity on the tears and misery of the people. Invoking God and St.
George, they gave each other their hand, plighted themselves to the
defence of the oppressed, and placed the weak under the protection
of their sword. Simple in their dress, austere in their morals, humble
after victory, and firm in misfortune, in a short time they won for
themselves immense renown.
"Popular gratitude, in its simple and credulous joy, fed itself with
marvellous tales of their deeds of arms, exalted their valour, and
united in its prayers its generous liberators with even the powers of
Heaven. So natural is it for misfortune to deify those who bring it
consolation.
"In those old times, as power was a right, courage was of course
a virtue. These men, to whom was given, in the end, the name of
Knights, carried this virtue to the highest degree. Cowardice was
punished amongst them as an unpardonable crime; falsehood they
held in horror; perfidy and breach of promise they branded with
infamy; nor have the most celebrated legislators of antiquity any
thing comparable to their statutes.
"This league of warriors maintained itself for more than a century
in all its pristine simplicity, because the circumstances amidst which
it rose changed but slowly; but when a great political and religious
movement announced the revolution about to take place in the
minds of men, then chivalry took a legal form, and a rank amidst
authorised institutions.
"The crusades, and the emancipation of the cities which marked
the apogee of the feudal government, are the two events which
most contributed to the destruction of chivalry. True it is, that then
also it found its greatest splendour; but it lost its virtuous
independence and its simplicity of manners.
"Kings soon found all the benefit they might derive from an armed
association which should hold a middle place between the crown and
those too powerful vassals who usurped all its prerogatives. From
that time, kings created knights, and bound them to the throne by
all the forms used in feudal investiture. But the particular character
of those distant times was the pride of privileges; and the crown
could not devise any, without the nobility arrogating to itself the
same. Thus the possessors of the greater feofs hastened to imitate
their monarch. Not only did they create knights, but this title, dear in
a nation's gratitude, became their hereditary privilege. This invasion
stopped not there, lesser chiefs imitated their sovereigns, and
chivalry, losing its ancient unity, became no more than an
honourable distinction, the principles of which, however, had for long
a happy influence upon the fate of the people."
Such then was the position of France towards the end of the
twelfth century. A monarch, with limited revenues and curtailed
privileges; a multitude of petty sovereigns, each despotic in his own
territories; a chivalrous and ardent nobility; a population of serfs,
just learning to dream of liberty; a soil rich, but overgrown with
forests, and almost abandoned to itself; an immense body of the
inhabitants living by rapine, and a total want of police and of civil
government.
The crusade against Saladin was over.--Richard Cœur de Lion was
dead, and Constantinople had just fallen into the hands of a body of
French knights at the time this tale begins. At the same period, John
Lackland held the sceptre of the English kings with a feeble hand,
and a poor and dastardly spirit; while Philip Augustus, with grand
views, but a limited power, sat firmly on the throne of France; and
by the vigorous impulse of a great, though a passionate and
irregular mind, hurried forward his kingdom, and Europe along with
it, towards days of greatness and civilisation, still remote.
CHAPTER II.
Seven hundred years ago, the same bright summer sun was shining
in his glory, that now rolls past before my eyes in all the beneficent
majesty of light. It was the month of May, and every thing in nature
seemed to breathe of the fresh buoyancy of youth. There was a light
breeze in the sky, that carried many a swift shadow over mountain,
plain, and wood. There was a springy vigour in the atmosphere, as if
the wind itself were young. The earth was full of flowers, and the
woods full of voice; and song and perfume shared the air between
them.
Such was the morning when a party of travellers took their way
slowly up the south-eastern side of the famous Monts d'Or in
Auvergne. The road, winding in and out through the immense forest
which covered the base of the hills, now showed, now concealed,
the abrupt mountain-peaks starting out from their thick vesture of
wood, and opposing their cold blue summits to the full blaze of the
morning sun. Sometimes, turning round a sharp angle of the rock,
the trees would break away and leave the eye full room to roam,
past the forest hanging thick upon the edge of the slope, over
valleys and hills, and plains beyond, to the far wanderings of the
Allier through the distant country. Nor did the view end here; for the
plains themselves, lying like a map spread out below, stretched away
to the very sky: and even there, a few faint blue shadows, piled up
in the form of peaks and cones, left the mind uncertain whether the
Alps themselves did not there bound the view, or whether some
fantastic clouds did not combine with that bright deceiver, fancy, to
cheat the eye.
At other times, the road seemed to plunge into the deepest
recesses of the mountains, passing through the midst of black
detached rocks and tall columns of grey basalt, broken fragments of
which lay scattered on either side; while a thousand shrubs and
flowers twined, as in mockery, over them; and the protruding roots
of the large ancient trees grasped the fallen prisms of the volcanic
pillars, as if vaunting the pride of even vegetable life over the cold,
dull, inanimate stone.
Here and there, too, would often rise up on each side high
masses of the mountain, casting all in shadow between them; while
the bright yellow lights which streamed amidst the trees above,
spangling the foliage as if with liquid gold, and the shining of the
clear blue sky overhead, were the only signs of summer that
reached the bottom of the ravine. Then again, breaking out upon a
wide green slope, the path would emerge into the sunshine, or,
passing even through the very dew of the cataract, would partake of
the thousand colours of the sunbow that hung above its fall.
It was a scene and a morning like one of those days of unmixed
happiness that sometimes shine in upon the path of youth--so few,
and yet so beautiful. Its very wildness was lovely; and the party of
travellers who wound up the path added to the interest of the scene
by redeeming it from perfect solitude, and linking it to social
existence.
The manner of their advance, too, which partook of the forms of
a military procession, made the group in itself picturesque. A single
squire, mounted on a strong bony horse, led the way at about fifty
yards' distance from the rest of the party. He was a tall, powerful
man, of a dark complexion and high features; and from beneath his
thick, arched eyebrow gazed out a full, brilliant, black eye, which
roved incessantly over the scene, and seemed to notice the smallest
object around. He was armed with cuirass and steel cap, sword and
dagger; and yet the different form and rude finishing of his arms did
not admit of their being confounded with those of a knight. The two
who next followed were evidently of a different grade; and, though
both young men, both wore a large cross pendant from their neck,
and a small branch of palm in the bonnet. The one who rode on the
right hand was armed at all points, except his head and arms, in
plate armour, curiously inlaid with gold in a thousand elegant and
fanciful arabesques, the art of perfecting which is said to have been
first discovered at Damascus. The want of his gauntlets and
brassards showed his arms covered with a quilted jacket of crimson
silk, called a gambesoon, and large gloves of thick buff leather. The
place of his casque was supplied by a large brown hood, cut into a
long peak behind, which fell almost to his horse's back; while the
folds in front were drawn round a face which, without being
strikingly handsome, was nevertheless noble and dignified in its
expression, though clouded by a shade of melancholy which had
channelled his cheek with many a deep line, and drawn his brow into
a fixed but not a bitter frown.
In form he was, to all appearance, broad made and powerful; but
the steel plates in which he was clothed, of course greatly concealed
the exact proportions of his figure; though withal there was a sort of
easy grace in his carriage, which, almost approaching to negligence,
was but the more conspicuous from the very stiffness of his armour.
His features were aquiline, and had something in them that seemed
to betoken quick and violent passions; and yet such a supposition
was at once contradicted by the calm, still, melancholy of his large
dark eyes.
The horse on which the knight rode was a tall, powerful German
stallion, jet black in colour; and though not near so strong as one
which a squire led at a little distance behind, yet, being
unencumbered with panoply itself, it was fully equal to the weight of
its rider, armed as he was.
The crusader's companion--for the palm and cross betokened that
they both returned from the Holy Land--formed as strong a contrast
as can well be conceived to the horseman we have just described.
He was a fair, handsome man, round whose broad, high forehead
curled a profusion of rich chestnut hair, which behind, having been
suffered to grow to an extraordinary length, fell down in thick
masses upon his shoulders. His eye was one of those long, full, grey
eyes, which, when fringed with very dark lashes, give a more
thoughtful expression to the countenance than even those of a
deeper hue; and such would have been the case with his, had not its
clear powerful glance been continually at variance with a light,
playful turn of his lip, that seemed full of sportive mockery.
His age might be four or five and twenty--perhaps more; for he
was of that complexion that retains long the look of youth, and on
which even cares and toils seem for years to spend themselves in
vain:--and yet it was evident, from the bronzed ruddiness of what
was originally a very fair complexion, that he had suffered long
exposure to a burning sun; while a deep scar on one of his cheeks,
though it did not disfigure him, told that he did not spare his person
in the battle-field.
No age or land is, of course, without its foppery; and however
inconsistent such a thing may appear, joined with the ideas of cold
steel and mortal conflicts, no small touch of it was visible in the
apparel of the younger horseman. His person, from the shoulders
down to the middle of his thigh, was covered with a bright haubert,
or shirt of steel rings, which, polished like glass, and lying flat upon
each other, glittered and flashed in the sunshine as if they were
formed of diamonds. On his head he wore a green velvet cap, which
corresponded in colour with the border of his gambesoon, the
puckered silk of which rose above the edge of the shirt of mail, and
prevented the rings from chafing upon his neck. Over this hung a
long mantle of fine cloth of a deep green hue, on the shoulder of
which was embroidered a broad red cross, distinguishing the French
crusader. The hood, which was long and pointed, like his
companion's, was thrown back from his face, and exposed a lining of
miniver.
The horse he rode was a slight, beautiful Arabian, as white as
snow in every part of his body, except where round his nostrils, and
on the tendons of his pastern and hoof, the white mellowed into a
fine pale pink. To look at his slender limbs, and the bending pliancy
of every step, one would have judged him scarcely able to bear so
tall and powerful a man as his rider, loaded with a covering of steel;
but the proud toss of his head, the snort of his wide nostril, and the
flashing fire of his clear crystal eye, spoke worlds of unexhausted
strength and spirit; though the thick dust, with which the whole
party were covered, evinced that their day's journey had already
been long. Behind each knight, except where the narrowness of the
road obliged them to change the order of their march, one of their
squires led a battle-horse in his right hand; and several others
followed, bearing the various pieces of their offensive and defensive
armour.
This, however, was to be remarked, that the arms of the first-
mentioned horseman were distributed amongst a great many
persons; one carrying the casque upright on the pommel of the
saddle, another bearing his shield and lance, another his brassards
and gauntlets; while the servants of the second knight, more scanty
in number, were fain to take each upon himself a heavier load.
To these immediate attendants succeeded a party of simple
grooms leading various other horses, amongst which were one or
two Arabians, and the whole cavalcade was terminated by a small
body of archers.
For long, the two knights proceeded silently on their way,
sometimes side by side, sometimes one preceding the other, as the
road widened or diminished in its long tortuous way up the acclivity
of the mountains, but still without exchanging a single word. The
one whom--though there was probably little difference of age--we
shall call the elder, seemed, indeed, too deeply absorbed in his own
thoughts, to desire, or even permit of conversation, and kept his
eyes bent pensively forward on the road before, without even giving
a glance to his companion, whose gaze roamed enchanted over all
the exquisite scenery around, and whose mind seemed fully
occupied in noting all the lovely objects he beheld. From time to
time, indeed, his eye glanced to his brother knight, and a sort of
sympathetic shade came over his brow, as he saw the deep gloom in
which he was involved. Occasionally, too, a sort of movement of
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