After a defiant verbal exchange with John, he is subjected to the same fate and then hurled by the castle trebuchet into a keep wall. Marshall recovers in time to don his knight's battle armour and charge the Danes on his war-horse, buying time for the survivors to pull back to the keep.Īubigny is dragged before the King and forced to watch as the hands of two prisoners are chopped off. During the chaos, d'Aubigny is wounded and left behind in the chaos of the retreat. Tiberius leads the charge into the castle grounds while his Danes slaughter the garrison. Guy discovers the infiltrators and sounds the alarm, but it is too late. The Danish leader, Tiberius, threatened by John to take the castle or risk the King reneging on their bargain, adopts a different approach in his next attack and manages to sneak a small force of men over the walls before dawn to open the castle gates from within. The castle morale is bolstered by Marshall's act and he gives in to the advances of Cornhill's young wife Isabel, breaking his Templar vows. As the season turns to winter, the hunger of the castle's occupants continue Marshall leaves the castle under cover of night and then returns ahead of his pursuers with food stolen from the Danish camp. The Archbishop is informed that Prince Louis is biding his time in France and negotiating with John, and sets off in haste to expedite affairs. John's forces then attempt to starve out the defenders. In the aftermath, Aubigny offers his men leave if they wish none accept.Ī second assault sees the Danes' siege tower destroyed by a trebuchet crafted by the defenders from within the castle. When John's army finally arrives and lays siege to Rochester, the garrison holds fast and manages to beat the initial Danish assault. Aubigny's party fights and kills the Danes, and then claim Rochester Castle in the name of the rebellion, much to the displeasure of Cornhill. A party of seven finally leaves for Rochester where, on arriving, they discover several Danish mercenaries have already claimed the castle the fourth man had betrayed them to the king. The three men agree that John must be stopped, and that the place to do so is Rochester Castle, the seat of Baron Cornhill and a strategic stronghold that controls southern England and allows access to London and the rest of the country.ĭ'Aubigny persuades three of his men to join him, including his squire, Guy, and a petty criminal named Jedediah, but a fourth turns down the baron's call to arms. Langton reveals that the Pope has sided with King John and that he himself is to be excommunicated for writing Magna Carta. Once he has reached Canterbury, Marshall meets with Archbishop Langton, the author of Magna Carta, and Baron William d'Aubigny, a former soldier turned wool merchant. The abbot dies before night of his wound, and Marshall breaks his vow of silence to swear that his sacrifice will not be in vain. Marshall and the two other knights fight the Danes, during which Marshall escapes the castle on horseback carrying the abbot the two knights left behind are slain. The Abbot attempts to intervene and the King orders that the abbot's tongue be cut off. Baron Darnay signed Magna Carta and in retribution John orders him hanged. By morning, King John arrives at the castle with his army and mercenaries. One of the knights, Thomas Marshall, is assured by the abbot that Marshall's release from the Templar Order will be sought at Canterbury. The Abbot Marcus leads three Templar knights (who have taken vows of silence) on a pilgrimage to Canterbury and they take shelter from the rain at Darnay Castle. Soon after, he hires an army of pagan Danish mercenaries under the leadership of a warlord, Captain Tiberius, to restore John's absolute authority over the kingdom, under the presumption that the Pope has agreed to keep Christian missionaries out of their lands in Denmark. King John regrets succumbing to the pressure of the barons to sign Magna Carta. It ended with the King signing Magna Carta, a document granting rights to all English freemen. A prologue describes how the barons of England, aided by the Knights Templar, fought against tyrannical King John in a war that lasted more than three years.
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