If, however--which God
forbid!--you should find yourself in such straits that you can hold
out no longer, then do whatsoever our trusty and well-beloved Peter of
Preaux, William of Mortimer, and Hugh of Howels, our clerk, shall bid
you in our name."
An English chronicler says that John "being unwilling"--or
"unable"--"to succor the besieged, through fear of the treason of his
men, went to England, leaving all the Normans in a great perturbation
of fear." It is hard to see what they feared, unless it were John's
possible vengeance, at some future time, for their universal readiness
to welcome his rival. Not one town manned its walls, not one baron
mustered his tenants and garrisoned his castles, to withstand the
invader. Some, as soon as John was out of the country, openly made a
truce with Philip for a year, on the understanding that if not
succored by John within that time they would receive the French King
as their lord; the rest stood passively looking on at the one real
struggle of the war, the struggle for Chateau Gaillard.
At length, on March 6, 1204, the Saucy Castle fell. Its fall opened
the way for a French advance upon Rouen; but before taking this
further step Philip deemed it politic to let the Pope's envoy, the
Abbot of Casamario, complete his mission by going to speak with John.
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