PHILIP II AUGUSTUS, King of France. - Having succeeded his father, Louis VII, in 1180, at a very young age (he was born in Paris on 21 Aug. 1165), he spent his whole life in the defense of the monarchical institution and in the struggle against the overweening power of the great feudal lords. At the outset he had the support of the count of Flanders, Philip of Alsace, against whom he was later to turn, with the help of Henry II of England, against whom in turn he was also to fight, in the attempt to weaken English power in France, where it was predominant. And, with the unexpected support of Henry II's own son, Richard the Lionheart, he was to strike the first blows against the English king. The commotion aroused by the fall of Constantinople meanwhile renewed, in Christendom, the expectation of a crusade.
F. A., with Frederick Barbarossa and Richard the Lionheart, who had meanwhile succeeded Henry II, took part in it. After the first skirmishes of a clash at Messina, the events of the siege of St. John of Acre made F. A. and Richard enemies. The former returned swiftly to France: the fall into captivity, in the hands of the duke of Austria and then of Henry VI, of his rival, delaying the latter's presence on the contested soil, gave F. A. the opportunity to seize the English fiefs in France. The attempt, however, did not succeed, because of the ransom, first, and, then, of the fortunes in war of Richard the Lionheart. Only the intervention of Innocent III saved the Capetian monarchy. The sudden death of Richard and the different worth of his successor, John Lackland, reopened the way to the unifying enterprise of F. A. The English king's rivalry with Arthur, count of Brittany, further favored French designs: at the beginning of the new century, Normandy, Brittany, Poitou and Aquitaine became part of the French monarchy. Once again, it had been the intervention of Innocent III, weary of the vexations suffered by the English clergy, that decisively favored the cause of F. A. In 1215 the invasion of England was on the point of being carried out, when, to halt it, came John's submission to the Pope. A matrimonial question had, meanwhile, deeply divided F. A. and Innocent: the divorce from his second wife Ingeborg, of Denmark, and the new marriage with Agnes of Merano. There was a series of pontifical acts (among others an interdict on France), a Council at Soissons, a feigned reconciliation, followed by an actual imprisonment of the unfortunate Ingeborg. Then, foto A. de la Monarcas, A. Hegana, S. d'Argenti, Virema de Pile, de France. Paris 1918, p. 31
FILIPPO AUGUSTO - Seal (1286), Paris, National Archives.
upon the death of Agnes, the sovereign restored Ingeborg to her rights. It was the hoped-for invasion of England, with the need it brought for the Danish alliance, that had that practical weight which the word of the Pontiff had not been able to obtain. There was also a clash between king and pontiff over the imperial crown: F. A. supported the Swabian, his namesake, the Pontiff supported Otto of Brunswick. In 1214, at Bouvines, F. A. nevertheless broke the power of Otto, allied with his rebellious feudatories. In the last years of his reign, he linked his name to the crusade against the Albigensians and to the concluding episode of the long struggle with the rival Plantagenet dynasty: the expedition to England of his son Louis. With extreme duplicity, he publicly disavowed the dauphin, while secretly aiding his initiative. And Louis, husband of the niece of John Lackland, entered London in triumph, while the conquered king died. However, the English, recovering their solidarity, forced the invader to return to France. A few years later, F. A. died, on 14 July 1223, the architect, if ever there was one, with all his faults, of French unity around the monarchy.
Bibliography4 works
Pier Fausto Palumbo