Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 25, 2025
Philip immediately sent a powerful army to punish the rebels, which was defeated under the walls of Courtrai by the Flemish militia, which some nobles, partisans of the count, had hastily joined. The consequences of the Battle of the Golden Spurs were considerable. It reversed the situation created, a century before, by Bouvines.
Philip Augustus had begun to have a taste of their strength during his quarrels with Count Ferdinand of Portugal, whom he had made Count of Flanders by marrying him to the Countess Joan, heiress of the countship, and whom, after the battle of Bouvines, he had confined for thirteen years in the tower of the Louvre.
The injuries done to the barons by the free-companions were beyond the King's power of restitution, but the Pope adjudged him to pay 15,000 marks for the present, after which John set off on his disastrous journey to Bouvines. In his absence, Fitzpiers died, and this quite consoled him for his defeat. "It's well," he cried; "he is gone to shake hands in hell with our primate Hubert!
The surrender to the Pope and the defeat at Bouvines so enraged the barons and clergy in England that they combined to force John to sign Magna Carta . But John was now under the protection of the Pope; and although Innocent's own archbishop took the lead in the movement against John, Innocent issued a bull in condemnation of the charter; but so long as John lived, even the interdict and excommunication which followed failed to move the barons.
And this union of different classes and different populations in a sentiment, a contest, and a triumph shared in common was a decisive step in the organization and unity of France. The victory of Bouvines marked the commencement of the time at which men might speak, and indeed did speak, by one single name, of the French.
The confederates were severely defeated at Bouvines , and, for nearly a century, the hegemony of France became paramount in the Low Countries. Not only did the kings henceforth rule in their own estates of Flanders, but they were able to extend their influence over the whole country as far as Liége.
This renewal of confidence was cruelly dissipated three days later when, on reaching Bouvines, half-way to Namur, after a fifty-league march over bad roads, Lafayette was met by frightened, breathless couriers with despatches detailing the humiliating disasters which had befallen both Biron's and Dillon's divisions.
As the Bishop of Beauvais did, who being with Philip Augustus at the battle of Bouvines, had a notable share in that action; but he did not think it fit for him to participate in the fruit and glory of that violent and bloody trade.
'H'm! he said, giving a sort of grunt that made me feel dreadfully ignorant, 'why, I had an excursus on it myself in the Archæological Gazette only last week. And, do you know, it turned out that the Battle of Bouvines was fought in the Thirteenth Century, and had, as far as I could make out, something to do with Magna Charta."
The general rejoicing was but another expression of the force before which in reality the English dominion in France had fallen. The effects of the battle of Bouvines were not confined to France nor to the war then going on. The results in German history the fall of Otto IV, the triumph of Frederick II we have no occasion to trace.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking