e.] regardless both of the
menaces of the pope, who exclaimed against these irregular
proceedings, and of the resentment of the injured count, who soon
found means of punishing his powerful and insolent rival.

[MN 1201.] John had not the art of attaching his barons either by
affection or by fear. The Count de la Marche, and his brother, the
Count d'Eu, taking advantage of the general discontent against him,
excited commotions in Poictou and Normandy, and obliged the king to
have recourse to arms, in order to suppress the insurrection of his
vassals. He summoned together the barons of England, and required
them to pass the sea under his standard, and to quell the rebels: he
found that he possessed as little authority in that kingdom as in his
transmarine provinces. The English barons unanimously replied, that
they would not attend him on this expedition, unless he would promise
to restore and preserve their privileges [h]: the first symptom of a
regular association and plan of liberty among those noblemen! but
affairs were not yet fully ripe for the revolution projected. John,
by menacing the barons, broke the concert; and both engaged many of
them to follow him into Normandy, and obliged the rest who stayed
behind to pay him a scutage of two marks on each knight's fee, as the
price of their exemption from the service.
[FN [h] Annal. Burton, p. 262.]

The force which John carried abroad with him, and that which joined
him in Normandy, rendered him much superior to his malecontent barons;
and so much the more as Philip did not publicly give them any
countenance, and seemed as yet determined to persevere steadily in the
alliance which he had contracted with England. But the king, elated
with his superiority, advanced claims which gave an universal alarm to
his vassals, and diffused still wider the general discontent. As the
jurisprudence of those times required that the causes in the lords'
court should chiefly be decided by duel, he carried along with him
certain bravos, whom he retained as champions, and whom he destined to
fight with his barons, in order to determine any controversy which he
might raise against them [i]. The Count de la Marche, and other
noblemen, regarded this proceeding as an affront, as well as an
injury; and declared that they would never draw their swords against
men of such inferior quality. The king menaced them with vengeance;
but he had not vigour to employ against them the force in