m towards
him, saying, "Get up, traitor; thou art not worthy to sit at my son's
table; by my father's soul I cannot think of meat or drink so long as
thou art living." A servant of the King of Navarre, to defend his
master, drew his cutlass, and pointed it at the breast of the King of
France, who thrust him back, saying to his sergeants, "Take me this
fellow and his master too." The King of Navarre dissolved in humble
protestations and repentant speeches over the assassination of the
Constable Charles of Spain. "Go, traitor, go," answered John: "you will
need to learn good rede or some infamous trick to escape from me." The
young Duke of Normandy had thrown himself at the feet of the king his
father, crying, "Ah! my lord, for God's sake have mercy; you do me
dishonor; for what will be said of me, having prayed King Charles and his
barons to dine with me, if you do treat me thus? It will be said that I
betrayed them." "Hold your peace, Charles," answered his father: "you
know not all I know." He gave orders for the instant removal of the King
of Navarre, and afterwards of the Count d'Harcourt and three others of
those present under arrest. "Rid us of these men," said he to the
captain of the Ribalds, forming the soldiers of his guard; and the four
prisoners were actually beheaded in the king's presence outside Rouen, in
a field called the Field of Pardon. John was with great difficulty
prevailed upon not to mete out the same measure to the King of Navarre,
who was conducted first of all to Gaillard Castle, then to the tower of
the Louvre, and then to the prison of the Chatelet: "and there," says
Froissart, "they put him to all sorts of discomforts and fears, for every
day and every night they gave him to understand that his head would be
cut off at such and such an hour, or at such and such another he would be
thrown into the Seine . . . whereupon he spoke so finely and so softly
to his keepers that they who were so entreating him by the command of the
King of France had great pity on him."

With such violence, such absence of all legal procedure, such a mixture
of deceptive indulgence and thoughtless brutality, did King John treat
his son-in-law, his own daughter, some of his principal barons, their
relations, their friends, and the people with whom they were in good
credit. He compromised more and more seriously every day his own safety
and that of his successor, by vexing more and more, without destroying,