ssa
(Frederick I.), the great Emperor of Germany. Before the Holy Land was
reached the wise and crafty Philip Augustus and the fiery Richard had
quarrelled.

Philip had been carefully observing these two brothers who were
successively to wear the crown of England. He knew the foibles of the
romantic and picturesque Richard; and he also knew that John, corrupt
to the core, was a traitor to whom no trust would be sacred. In his
own cold-blooded fashion he intended to use them both.

John had conspired against his own father, now Philip would help him to
supplant his brother, while Richard was safely occupied in Palestine.
And when he had made John king, he, Philip Augustus, was to be rewarded
by the gift of Normandy! With this in view, Philip returned to France.
It was an ingenious plot, but all was spoiled by Richard's safe return
from the thrilling adventures of the Crusade. In 1199, however, the
crown passed naturally to John by the death of his brother, and this
vicious son of Eleanor was King of England.

There were other means of recovering his lost possessions. Philip
espoused the cause of the young Arthur, John's nephew, a rival claimant
to the English throne. And when that ill-fated Prince was murdered, as
is believed by the orders of his uncle, for this and other offences
King John, as Duke of Normandy--thence vassal to the King of
France--was summoned to be tried by his peers.

When after oft-repeated summons John refused to appear at Philip's
court, by feudal law the King of France had legal authority to take
possession of the dukedom.

In vain did King John strive to defend by arms his vanishing
possessions. In the war which ensued, all north of the Loire was
seized by Philip, and at one stroke he had mastered his enemies at home
and abroad.

Not only were Normandy, Anjou, Touraine, and Poitou restored to France,
but they were hereafter to be held, not by dukes and counts, as before,
but by the king, as a part of the royal domain. And kingship, towering
high above all the great barons of France, had for the first time
become a reality.

It was Philip's policy of expansion which gave color to his reign; not
an expansion which would bring extension into foreign lands, but
solidity and firmness of outline to France itself. We have seen how
and why this policy was vigorously carried out in the north. The
growth toward the south is a less pleasant story.

The province of Toulouse, nominally s