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perspicacity. First, the pope had been sadly disappointed in Stephen Langton, who was a man of strong independence and a fanatic devotion to true justice. Thus, Innocent was at daggers drawn with the man he had forced on John in the belief he was inserting a faithful tool of his own into the government of England. It was most unlikely he would attend to anything Langton wrote. |
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Joanna and Alinor also dismissed the idea of John's being fair out of hand. They took comfort in the thought that the pope was a man of great wisdom and had seen through John's demands. Oddly, Geoffrey did not agree. As much as he loathed his uncle, he believed John did want peace at this time and was anxious to be conciliatory. Since John's best hope for peace was if the pope acted as mediator, it was not impossible that the king had stated the problem honestly. |
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Whatever the reason, Innocent did not blast the charter or those who proposed it. He offered instead that if there were differences between the king and his barons that he would himself, or through an impartial legate, arbitrate the differences. It was at this point that Geoffrey's predictions came true. The hard core of real disaffected showed their purpose. They neither accepted the pope's offer nor reiterated their demand that John sign the reasonable charter that had been written. What they did was to publish a new set of demands that were, frankly, outrageous. John refused with dignity and calm. On May 3, Eustace de Vesci, Robert Fitz Walter, and their kinsmen and adherents formally renounced their homage to the king and moved to besiege Northampton. |
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Joanna had the news by May 5. She was in Roselynde, Geoffrey having refused to take her to court with him because at last there was a hope that she was breeding. She did not weep when she heard that civil war was at hand, but she did not dare look in the mirror for she knew what kind of eyes would look back at her. Grimly, she told old Beorn to choose out a party to accompany her within the next few days. She was sure she would need to ride out to urge men to answer a war summons they would rather ignore and to gather supplies. The ugly task fell upon her shoulders be- |
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