[34] Clearly, therefore, it was not as the avenger of
Arthur's murder that Philip took the field at the end of April. On the
other hand, Philip had never made the slightest attempt to obtain
Arthur's release; early in 1203, if not before, he was almost openly
laying his plans in anticipation of Arthur's permanent effacement from
politics.
The interests of the French King were in fact no less concerned in
Arthur's imprisonment, and more concerned in his death, than were the
interests of John himself. John's one remaining chance of holding
Philip and the Bretons in check was to keep them in uncertainty
whether Arthur were alive or dead, in order to prevent the Bretons
from adopting any decided policy, and hamper the French King in his
dealings with them and with the Angevin and Poitevin rebels by
compelling him to base his alliance with them on conditions avowedly
liable to be annulled at any moment by Arthur's reappearance on the
political scene. If, therefore, Arthur--as is most probable--was now
really dead, whether he had indeed perished a victim of one of those
fits of ungovernable fury in which--and in which alone--the Angevin
counts sometimes added blunder to crime, or whether he had died a
natural death from sickness in prison, or by a fall in attempting to
escape,[35] it would be equally politic on John's part to let rumor do
its worst rather than suffer any gleam of light to penetrate the
mystery which shrouded the captive's fate.
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