Eustace de Vesci and Robert Fitz-Walter have long figured in history as typical examples of the way in which individual barons were goaded into hatred and vengeance against John by his invasions of their domestic peace, and also as foremost among the “patriots” to whom England is supposed to be indebted for her Great Charter. On both aspects of the lives of these two men—especially of the life of Fitz-Walter, whom Professor Tout has glorified as “the first champion of English liberty”—a few considerations may be offered here.

1. The earliest mention of John’s unsuccessful attempt to entrap the wife of Eustace de Vesci is in an addition made by a chronicler at Furness Abbey, writing c. 1270–1298, to the Stanley chronicler’s continuation of the history of William of Newburgh. This Furness writer (Howlett, Chron. of Stephen, etc., vol. ii. p. 521) merely states the bare fact, without any details, in the briefest and simplest way, and without any clue to the date. Walter of Hemingburgh, who was living in 1313, tells the story in an elaborate form which is certainly not impossible, perhaps not even very improbable, although it somewhat resembles a story in Procopius (see Dic. Nat. Biogr. “Vesci, Eustace de”). Walter gives it as an illustration of John’s character, of which he inserts a picture—painted in the most frightful colours—between the coming of the Franciscans in 1212 and the rising of the barons in 1215; but he connects the incident directly with the latter event, representing Eustace as inducing those of his fellow-barons whom the king had injured in a similar way to join him in a common effort for vengeance, which widens into the struggle for the Charter (Hemingburgh, vol. i. pp. 247–9). The affair would thus seem to have occurred some years after Eustace’s desertion from the king’s host and flight from England in 1212; a desertion for which, therefore, it cannot serve as an excuse.

2. The legend of Robert Fitz-Walter’s daughter which became famous in prose and verse in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is based upon a passage in the Chronicle of Dunmow, printed in Monasticon, vol. vi. pt. i. p. 147. This chronicle, written in a monastery of which the Fitz-Walters were patrons, begins with the year 1054, but the MS. (Cott. Cleopatra C. iii.) is of the end of the fifteenth century; it ends at the year 1501. The story is placed in 1216, and is briefly this: John demands Robert’s daughter, the fair maiden Matilda; her father refuses to give her up to him; the civil war breaks out, and the city of London joins the barons; afterwards they are worsted, whereupon the king destroys Robert’s fortress in London—Castle Baynard—and causes Matilda to be poisoned at Robert’s manor of Dunmow. Meanwhile Robert has fled to France. War continues on both sides of the Channel. Presently John goes to France, and has a conference with Philip Augustus; Robert Fitz-Walter displays his prowess in a single combat in presence of both the kings; John admires his valour, they are reconciled, and remain friends from that time forth.

On a tale so monstrous and so nonsensical as this, comment is needless. There is, however, a much earlier and more rational account of the quarrel between John and Fitz-Walter. According to the contemporary Histoire des Ducs de Normandie, Robert Fitz-Walter, “qui estoit uns des plus haus homes d’Engletierre et uns des plus poissans” (he was lord of Dunmow in Essex, of Baynard’s Castle in London, and also, by his marriage with an heiress, of large estates in the north), had two daughters, of whom the elder was married to Geoffrey de Mandeville, eldest son of Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, chief justiciar of England. “Une fois” when the king was visiting Marlborough, a quarrel for lodgings arose between the servants of this young Geoffrey and those of William Brewer; they came to blows, and Brewer’s chief “sergeant” was slain by the hand of Geoffrey himself. Geoffrey, fearing the wrath of the king, whom he knew to be jealous of his father’s power and wealth, fled to his wife’s father, who went to intercede for him with the king; John, however, “jura les dens Diu que non auroit (merchi), ains le feroit pendre, se il le pooit tenir.” Robert in return swore “Par Corpus Domini, non ferÉs! ains en verriÉs ii. m. hiaumes laciÉs en vostre tierre, que chil fust pendus qui ma fille a.” At last John promised a “day” for agreement between himself and Geoffrey at Nottingham, intending to seize him at his coming; but Robert, “ki le roi connissoit À moult gaignart,” came with his son-in-law, and with five hundred knights at his back. The king then proposed another “day,” and the same thing happened a second time. Then John began to plot vengeance upon Robert; he sent secret orders to “ses bourgois de Londres, qui se faisoient apelier baron,” to pull down Castle Baynard; and they, not daring to disobey him, did as they were bid. Robert, knowing very well that they had acted on an order from the king, fled over sea with his wife and children. On reaching the Continent “il fist À entendre par tout que li rois Jehans voloit sa fille aisnÉe, qui feme estoit Joffroi de Mandeville, avoir À force À amie, et por chou que il ne le vaut soufrir, l’avoit il chaciÉ de sa tierre et tout le sien tolut.” This was the tale which he also told to King Philip of France, at whose court he—after staying some time at Arras—presented himself just as Philip was preparing to invade England. When the invasion had been checked by John’s submission to Pandulf and Pandulf’s prohibition to Philip, Robert went to “Pandoufle le clerc” and to him told another tale: “li dist que il s’estoit partis d’Engletierre por le roi qui escumeniiÉs estoit, car il ne voloit pas estre en la compaignie des escumeniiÉs; et por chou li avoit li rois toute sa terre tolue”; wherefore he begged Pandulf, now that the king was excommunicate no longer, to make peace for him and get him back his land, which Pandulf accordingly did (Hist. des Ducs, pp. 115–25).

Here, at any rate, it is clear that the date of the quarrel cannot have been later than the spring of 1213; perhaps, as we are not told how long Robert stayed in Flanders before going to France, it might be some months earlier. This agrees with the date assigned to Robert’s flight from England by the Barnwell annalist, Ralph of Coggeshall, and Roger of Wendover, all of whom place it in the latter part of 1212 (see below, p. 292). The cause of the flight, however, still remains doubtful. It will be observed that the writer of the Histoire des Ducs, speaking in his own person, makes the quarrel between John and Robert arise out of John’s enmity to Robert’s son-in-law, Geoffrey de Mandeville, and also makes that enmity originate in the king’s jealousy of Geoffrey’s father (the Justiciar), without a word about Geoffrey’s wife; but that he represents Robert Fitz-Walter as having given to different persons two different accounts of the matter, both of which are quite distinct not only from the account given by the writer himself, but also from each other. To the third of these three accounts—the assertion which Robert is said to have made to Pandulf, that he left England because he would not keep company with an excommunicate sovereign—it is hardly possible for any one who has read the story of the years of interdict to attach any weight. Robert’s appeal to Pandulf, moreover, is chronologically out of place; it is represented as having been made after John’s agreement with Pandulf, whereas in reality the restoration of Robert Fitz-Walter, and also of Eustace de Vesci, was one of the conditions of that agreement. The statement which Robert is said to have made “everywhere,” on the other hand, is only too likely to be true, and may well contain the true explanation of John’s designs against the husband of Fitz-Walter’s daughter; while none of the three versions is incompatible with either of the others. Still the fact remains that three different versions are thus given—two on the alleged authority of Robert Fitz-Walter, one on his own authority—by a writer who was strictly contemporary, and who ranks as one of the best, and certainly the most impartial, of our informants on the closing years of John’s reign; and this fact leaves a somewhat sinister impression as to the opinion which that writer, at least, entertained of the truthfulness of the “first champion of English liberty.”

The main facts which can be gathered from other sources as to Robert Fitz-Walter’s relations with the king are these. In 1203 he and Saher de Quincy were jointly charged by John with the defence of the castle of Vaudreuil. They surrendered the place to Philip Augustus under circumstances so exceptionally disgraceful that Philip himself felt constrained to make an example of them as cowards and traitors of too deep a dye to be left unpunished, and flung them into prison at CompiÈgne, whence they were only released on payment of a heavy ransom (R. Wend. iii. 172; R. Coggeshall, pp. 143, 144). “Ex qua re,” adds Ralf of Coggeshall, “facti sunt in derisum et in opprobrium omni populo utriusque regni, canticum eorum tota die, ac generositatis suae maculaverunt gloriam” (cf. Hist. des Ducs, p. 97). Alone, the sovereign whom they had betrayed sought to shield their reputation at the risk of his own. Of course he acted from a motive of self-interest. As neither Robert nor Saher held any lands in Normandy, their money was to Philip more useful than their personal adhesion could have been. But for John the friendship of two barons of such importance in England was worth buying back, and he endeavoured to secure it by treating them with an exaggerated generosity which was evidently designed to impress them by its contrast with Philip’s severity; he issued (July 5, 1203) letters patent declaring that they had surrendered Vaudreuil under a warrant from himself, and ordering that neither they nor its garrison should be made to suffer for their act (Rot. Pat. vol. i. p. 31). Fitz-Walter therefore came back in peace to his English possessions. Like Eustace de Vesci, he joined the host which John gathered for a Welsh war in 1212; like Eustace, too, he withdrew from it secretly on learning that John had received a warning of treason in its ranks (Ann. Waverl. a. 1212); and like Eustace, again, he did not come when summoned to make his “purgation” with the other barons, but, as has been already seen, fled the country instead (W. Coventry, ii. 207; R. Coggeshall, p. 165; R. Wendover, iii. 240). The Barnwell annalist (W. Coventry, l.c.) dates the demolition of Castle Baynard, and of Robert’s other castles, after his flight; the Annals of Dunstable place the destruction of Castle Baynard a year earlier, viz. in 1211.

There remains the question: What was the reason for the special mention of Eustace de Vesci and Robert Fitz-Walter in the terms of reconciliation between the Pope and John? At first glance it seems natural to infer that there must have been some peculiar injustice in John’s outlawry of these two men, to make their restoration a matter for intervention on the part of the Pope. But, as has been seen, all the ascertained facts of the case point the opposite way. If indeed Fitz-Walter’s alleged assertion to Pandulf, that he had fled on account of the king’s excommunication, were true, he would naturally be among the “laicis ad hoc negotium contingentibus” (R. Wendover, iii. 248), while the fact that the rest of these lay sufferers seem to have been all of lower rank might possibly account for his being specially mentioned by name. But it was not true; and with regard to De Vesci no such assertion is mentioned. Nevertheless, it is extremely probable that both Fitz-Walter and De Vesci may have contrived to represent to the Pope or his commissioner the cause of their exile in the way in which Fitz-Walter is described as representing his own case to Pandulf; and neither Pandulf nor Innocent could have at his command the means of knowing what all the evidence now available goes to show—that these two men had fled their country and left their property to fall into the king’s hand, not for conscience’s sake, but because their consciences accused them of treason.