John could as yet only meet the claim by delay.  His policy had still to wait for its fruits at Rome, his diplomacy to reap its harvest in Flanders, ere he could deal with England.  From the hour of his submission to the Papacy his one thought had been that of vengeance on the barons who, as he held, had betrayed him; but vengeance was impossible till he should return a conqueror from the fields of France.  It was a sense of this danger which nerved the baronage to their obstinate refusal to follow him over sea:  but furious as he was at their resistance, the Archbishop’s interposition condemned John still to wait for the hour of his revenge.  In the spring of 1214 he crossed with what forces he could gather to Poitou, rallied its nobles round him, passed the Loire in triumph, and won back again Angers, the home of his race.  At the same time Otto and the Count of Flanders, their German and Flemish knighthood strengthened by reinforcements from Boulogne as well as by a body of English troops under the Earl of Salisbury, threatened France from the north.  For the moment Philip seemed lost:  and yet on the fortunes of Philip hung the fortunes of English freedom.  But in this crisis of her fate, France was true to herself and her king.  From every borough of Northern France the townsmen marched to his rescue, and the village priests led their flocks to battle with the Church-banners flying at their head.  The two armies met at the close of July near the bridge of Bouvines, between Lille and Tournay, and from the first the day went against the allies.  The Flemish knights were the first to fly; then the Germans in the centre of the host were crushed by the overwhelming numbers of the French; last of all the English on the right of it were broken by a fierce onset of the Bishop of Beauvais who charged mace in hand and struck the Earl of Salisbury to the ground.  The news of this complete overthrow reached John in the midst of his triumphs in the South, and scattered his hopes to the winds.  He was at once deserted by the Poitevin nobles; and a hasty retreat alone enabled him to return in October, baffled and humiliated, to his island kingdom.

[Sidenote:  Rising of the Baronage]

His return forced on the crisis to which events had so long been drifting.  The victory at Bouvines gave strength to his opponents.  The open resistance of the northern barons nerved the rest of their order to action.  The great houses who had cast away their older feudal traditions for a more national policy were drawn by the crisis into close union with the families which had sprung from the ministers and councillors of the two Henries.  To the first group belonged such men as Saher de Quinci, the Earl of Winchester, Geoffrey of Mandeville, Earl of Essex, the Earl of Clare, Fulk Fitz-Warin, William Mallet, the houses of Fitz-Alan and Gant.  Among the second group were Henry Bohun and Roger Bigod, the Earls of Hereford and Norfolk, the younger William Marshal,