ld
make himself master of it. "I would take it," said the French King,
"were its walls of iron." "I would hold it," retorted Richard, "were
its walls of butter." Richard made his word good, and kept the castle
as long as he lived; but his successor, John, was of poorer and meaner
stuff. He left his Norman nobles to carry on the war against Philip
as best they could. At last, after much territory had been lost, the
English King made an attempt to regain it. But it was too late, and
"Saucy Castle" fell. Then the end speedily came. Philip seized all
Normandy and followed up the victory by depriving John of his entire
possessions north of the river Loire. (See map facing p. 84.)

192. Good Results of the Loss of Normandy.

Thus after a union of nearly a hundred and forty years Normandy was
finally separated from England (S108). From that time the Norman
nobles were compelled to choose between the island of England and the
Continent for their home. Before that time the Norman's contempt for
the Saxon was so great, that his most indignant exclamation was, "Do
you take me for an Englishman?"

Now, however, shut in by the sea, with the people he had hitherto
oppressed and despised, the Norman came to regard England as his
country, and Englishmen as his countrymen. Thus the two races, who
were closely akin to each other in their origin (S126), found at last
that they had common interests and common enemies,[1] and henceforth
they made the welfare of England their main thought.

[1] Macaulay's "England"; also W. Stubb's "Early Plantagenets,"
p. 136.

193. The King's Despotism.

Hitherto our sympathies have been mainly with the kings. We have
watched them struggling against the lawless nobles (S173), and every
gain which they have made in power we have felt was so much won for
the cause of good government. But we are coming to a period when our
sympathies will be the other way. Henceforth the welfare of the
nation will depend largely on the resistence of these very barons to
the despotic encroachments of the Crown.[2]

[2] Ransome's "Constitutional History of England."

194. Quarrel of the King with the Church (1208).

Shortly after his defeat in France (S191), John entered upon his
second quarrel. Pope Innocent III had commanded a delegation of the
monks of Canterbury to choose Stephen Langton archbishop in place of a
person whom the King had compelled them to elect. When the news
reached John, he for