ndoned.
[FN [s] M. Paris, p. 146. M. West. p. 266. [t] M. Paris, p. 146. M.
West. p. 264.]

John, while he neglected all domestic resources, had the meanness to
betake himself to a foreign power, whose protection he claimed: he
applied to the pope, Innocent III., and entreated him to interpose his
authority between him and the French monarch. Innocent, pleased with
any occasion of exerting his superiority, sent Philip orders to stop
the progress of his arms, and to make peace with the King of England.
But the French barons received the message with indignation;
disclaimed the temporal authority assumed by the pontiff; and vowed
that they would, to the uttermost, assist their prince against all his
enemies; Philip, seconding their ardour, proceeded, instead of obeying
the pope's envoys, to lay siege to Chateau Gaillard, the most
considerable fortress which remained to guard the frontiers of
Normandy.

[MN 1204.] Chateau Gaillard was situated partly on an island in the
river Seine, partly on a rock opposite to it; and was secured by every
advantage which either art or nature could bestow upon it. The late
king, having cast his eye on this favourable situation, had spared no
labour or expense in fortifying it; and it was defended by Roger de
Laci, Constable of Chester, a determined officer, at the head of a
numerous garrison. Philip, who despaired of taking the place by
force, purposed to reduce it by famine; and, that he might cut off its
communication with the neighbouring country, he threw a bridge across
the Seine, while he himself, with his army, blockaded it by land. The
Earl of Pembroke, the man of greatest vigour and capacity in the
English court, formed a plan for breaking through the French
intrenchments, and throwing relief into the place. He carried with
him an army of four thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry, and
suddenly attacked, with great success, Philip's camp in the
night-time; having left orders that a fleet of seventy flat-bottomed
vessels should sail up the Seine, and fall at the same instant on the
bridge. But the wind and the current of the river, by retarding the
vessels, disconcerted this plan of operations; and it was morning
before the fleet appeared; when Pembroke, though successful in the
beginning of the action, was already repulsed with considerable loss,
and the King of France had leisure to defend himself against these new
assailants, who also met with a repulse. Aft