If society in the twelfth century could follow the effects of these relationships, personal and feudal, it was cleverer than society in the twentieth; but so much is simple:  Louis of France, Thibaut of Chartres, and Thomas of Le Perche, were cousins and close friends in the year 1215, and all were devoted to the Virgin of Chartres.  Judging from the character of Louis’s future queen, Blanche of Castile, their wives were, if possible, more devoted still; and in that year Blanche gave birth to Saint Louis, who seems to have been the most devoted of all.

Meanwhile their favourite uncle, Coeur-de-Lion, had died in the year 1199.  Thibaut’s great-grandmother, Eleanor of Guienne, died in 1202.  King John, left to himself, rapidly accumulated enemies innumerable, abroad and at home.  In 1203, Philip Augustus confiscated all the fiefs he held from the French Crown, and in 1204 seized Normandy.  John sank rapidly from worse to worst, until at last the English barons rose and forced him to grant their Magna Carta at Runnimede in 1215.

The year 1215 was, therefore, a year to be remembered at Chartres, as at Mont-Saint-Michel; one of the most convenient dates in history.  Every one is supposed, even now, to know what happened then, to give another violent wrench to society, like the Norman Conquest in 1066.  John turned on the barons and broke them down; they sent to

[Genealogical chart showing the relationships among England, Champagne and Chartres and France and La Perche.]

France for help, and offered the crown of England to young Louis, whose father, Philip Augustus, called a council which pledged support to Louis.  Naturally the Comte du Perche and the Comte de Chartres must have pledged their support, among the foremost, to go with Louis to England.  He was then twenty-nine years old; they were probably somewhat younger.

The Zodiac window, with its inscription, was the immediate result.  The usual authority that figures in the histories is Roger of Wendover, but much the more amusing for our purpose is a garrulous Frenchman known as the Menestrel de Rheims who wrote some fifty years later.  After telling in his delightful thirteenth-century French, how the English barons sent hostages to Louis, “et mes sires Loueys les fit bien gardeir et honourablement,” the Menestrel continued:—­

Et assembla granz genz par amours, et par deniers, et par lignage.  Et fu avec lui li cuens dou Perche, et li cuens de Montfort, et li cuens de Chartres, et li cuens de Monbleart, et mes sires Enjorrans de Couci, et mout d’autre grant seigneur dont je ne parole mie.

The Comte de Chartres, therefore, may be supposed to have gone with the Comte du Perche, and to have witnessed the disaster at Lincoln which took place May 20, 1217, after King John’s death:—­

Et li cuens dou Perche faisait l’avantgarde, et courut tout leiz des portes; et la garnisons de laienz issi hors et leur coururent sus; et i ot asseiz trait et lancie; et chevaus morz et chevaliers abatuz, et gent a pie morz et navreiz.  Et li cuens dou Perche i fu morz par un ribaut qui li leva le pan dou hauberc, et l’ocist d’un coutel; et fu desconfite l’avantgarde par la mort le conte.  Et quant mes sires Loueys le sot, si ot graigneur duel qu’il eust onques, car il estoit ses prochains ami de char.