Brittany; and the other French possessions of the
Plantagenets--Anjou, Maine, and Touraine--declared for
Arthur in preference to John.

At this time France was ruled by Philip Augustus, who ranks
among the shrewdest and ablest of all her monarchs. Dreading
the vast power of the Plantagenets, he naturally sought to
divide their domains by upholding Arthur. This unhappy lad,
only twelve years old, was made a mere pawn in the savage
game of his elders. His tragic fate is powerfully depicted
by Shakespeare in his _King John_.

After some fighting and several sharp political moves and
countermoves, John and Philip came to terms, May 18, 1200,
by which the French King conferred almost all of the
disputed fiefs on John. Constant bickering, however,
continued. John had to do homage for his fiefs, and his
French vassals took every opportunity to appeal from him to
Philip, as their overlord.

Finally, when the moment seemed propitious, Philip demanded
from his overgrown vassal certain Norman castles as a sort
of guarantee of good behavior. This led up to the war in
which the Plantagenets lost all
their French domains, and became lords only of England.

It was arranged that John and Philip should hold a conference at
Boutavant. John, it appears, kept--or at least was ready to keep--the
appointment; but Philip either was, or pretended to be, afraid of
venturing into Norman territory, and would not advance beyond
Gouleton. Thither John came across the river to meet him. No agreement
was arrived at. Finally, Philip cited John to appear in Paris fifteen
days after Easter, 1202, at the court of his overlord the King of
France, to stand to its judgment, to answer to his lord for his
misdoings, and undergo the sentence of his peers. The citation was
addressed to John as Count of Anjou and Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine;
the Norman duchy was not mentioned in it. This omission was clearly
intentional; when John answered the citation by reminding Philip that
he was Duke of Normandy, and as such, in virtue of ancient agreement
between the kings and the dukes, not bound to go to any meeting with
the King of France save on the borders of their respective
territories, Philip retorted that he had summoned not the Duke of
Normandy, but the Duke of Aquitaine, and that his rights over the
latter were not to be annulled by the accidental union o