PRINCE John had reason to fear his brother, for he had been a traitor to him in his captivity. He had secretly joined the French King; had vowed to the English nobles and people that his brother was dead; and had vainly tried to seize the crown.
He was now in France, at a place called Évreux. Being the meanest and basest of men, he contrived a mean and base expedient for making himself acceptable to his brother. He invited the French officers of the garrison in that town to dinner, murdered them all, and then took the fortress. With this recommendation to the good will of a lion-hearted monarch, he hastened to King Richard, fell on his knees before him, and obtained the intercession of Queen Eleanor.* ‘I forgive him,’ said the King, ‘and I hope I may forget the injury he has done me, as easily as I know he will forget my pardon.’
Philip II had been quietly nibbling away at Richard’s lands, and John had been helping him, which is how he came to be dining on friendly terms with French noblemen at Évreux in Normandy. Richard was remarkably successful at regaining his lost territories, adding to his formidable reputation as a general at home and abroad. On one occasion, Philip’s men were so desperate to reach safety in the castle at Gisors in Normandy that as they clattered over the bridge and through the gate, they knocked their indignant King into the moat.