Philip Augustus - King of France

Philip, unlike many of his fathers, left no legacy of difficulties and disunion for his heir. Of the forty-three years of his reign at least twenty-six had been years of war, and from each war the monarchy hail risen stronger than before. To restore his power to the strength of that of Charles the Great, men said he had declared to Ire his aim. He had done as much as one man could do to accomplish the task. He had found France a small realm hedged in by mighty rivals. When he began to reign, lint a very small portion of the French-speaking people had owned his sway. As suzerain his power was derided. Even as immediate lord he was defied and set at nought. But when he died the whole face of France was changed. The king of the Franks was undisputedly the king of by far the greater part of the land. And the internal strength of his government had advanced as rapidly and as securely as the external power. Philip Augustus was the first of his race who could reign if he willed as a despot. In conquering the Angevins he had succeeded to something of the characteristics of their government. The master of Rouen and of Angers was a different man from the mere lord of Paris and Orleans. 

The march of the monarchy under Philip the Conqueror by changing the face of France changed the history of Europe. It placed a new power among the great states, which should henceforth exercise a commanding influence. It bad been Philip’s task to found France in the sense in which we now use the word. Under him the king of the Franks is first clearly seen to be sovereign of Gaul. Great as a conqueror, he was even greater in constructive and unifying power. What he found he consolidated, and what he founded he laid firm. In a century of great men, beside Innocent III and Frederic I and Henry II and S. Bernard, he stands with the greatest. In his work and in himself he is worthy to take place among the great statesmen who have made the Europe of today...