With the Lord as our witness, so be it.
There were several moments of stunned silence. The look on the face of Hugh of Ballon said it all. His small village had not only been visited by the three most powerful men in western Europe, but he had also witnessed two turning points in history. First, he had seen the humiliation of a man who had ruled the Plantagenet Empire with an iron fist for thirty-five years and the passing of that mantle to a new ruler. And second, he had heard the declaration of the launch of a third Great Crusade to the Holy Land.
King Henry, hunched and in pain, struggled to his feet. As he did so, the Lionheart approached him to receive the Kiss of Peace. The King gave the kiss, but with obvious detestation. When their cheeks met, the old warrior, in a thin, frail voice, whispered in his son’s ear.
‘God grant that I may not die until I have my revenge on you.’
Richard ignored the bile and helped the stewards take his father outside, where a litter stood waiting to take him back to Chinon.
Two days later, Henry was dead, a passing that had been made yet more melancholy by the news that his youngest son, John, had also deserted him.
England and the Plantagenet Empire would have a new King.
14. Ricardus Rex
The autumn of 1189 became one long regal procession for the Lionheart. His first act was to release his mother from the incarceration which his father had imposed on her; this was a hugely popular move. He rewarded his Grand Quintet with lands and titles, and made a particular point of rewarding those who had stayed loyal to his father until the end. He was heard to remark, ‘If they stay loyal to me, like they were to him, then I will have nothing to fear.’
He was deliberate and calculating in trying to create a good impression. He smiled and waved wherever he went – gestures that were reciprocated with warmth and goodwill. He released King Henry’s enemies from captivity, restored lands and titles to those who had had them unfairly removed, and assured those who had been cowed by the King that they would not suffer the same fate under his own rule.
To my joy, I was granted five carucates of land in the valley of the Lune near to my beloved Lancaster; Godric was made a captain of the guard, and each of the Little Quintet was promoted to sergeant. Father Alun was perhaps the greatest beneficiary; he was made Abbot of Rievaulx, a Cistercian foundation near Helmsley in Northumbria. The Abbey provided him with an income and a home to go to after his service to the Lionheart. But more importantly, it was close to his roots, the significance of which would only emerge later in our journey together.
The Duke was girded with the ducal sword as Duke of Normandy at Rouen amidst great pomp and ceremony. Soon afterwards, we sailed from Barfleur for England where, on Sunday 13 September 1189, our liege was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey. As the sun beamed down like a day in high summer, we travelled to Westminster Abbey from St Paul’s, passing thousands of ecstatic well-wishers cheering their new warrior King. With my men to my rear, I rode escort just behind the King and, as an Englishman, felt very proud to do so. He was a Plantagenet of Norman blood, but he also carried our blood and thus he was greeted as one of us.
Many said he resembled King Harold, who had fought so bravely to withstand both the Norwegians and the Normans in 1066. Every building flew the new King’s gonfalon – three golden lions passant on a gules shield. When the crowd saw Queen Eleanor next to her son, looking resplendent in a pure white linen kirtle and a glorious fur mantle of alternating white miniver and brown sable, they cheered even more loudly. Although she was approaching seventy years of age, in their eyes she was still the beautiful queen they had welcomed to England all those years ago and who had since been so badly treated by her husband, a King they were all glad to be rid of.
The ceremony was held before a gathering of the entire hierarchy of England, and was attended by guests from all the Celtic domains. The abbey was a tapestry of colour, with regalia of every hue and kind; coronets, armour and weapons gleamed, and pungent incense filled the air. Wearing only plain braies and a white cotton chemise open to his waist, the Lionheart was anointed by Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, with holy chrism from the Gold Ampulla, on his hands, chest and head. Monks then stepped forward to dress him for the crowning in his corselet and robes of cloth of gold, with gleaming regalia of sword, sceptre and orb.
As the echoes of the Te Deum rang around the towering vaults of the abbey built by his ancestor St Edward the Confessor, before the Normans arrived in England, the Lionheart startled everyone. In an unprecedented move, and with the audacity that defined him, he picked up the crown and held it aloft before handing it to the Archbishop so that Baldwin could place it on his head. Shocked at first, the assembly suddenly burst into spontaneous applause. Instead of being horrified that the heir to their kingdom should be so bold, they adored his bravura.
Because it had been locked in the treasury at Westminster since Henry II’s coronation thirty-five years before, few people had ever seen St Edward’s Royal Crown. Said to include jewels from the crown of Alfred the Great, I was within ten feet of the throne and could see the crown in all its glory. A heavy, solid-gold band lined with red velvet and an ermine ruff, it had alternating decorations of crosses and fleur-de-lis. The band and crosses were encrusted with pearls, sapphires, rubies and emeralds; it was an extraordinarily beautiful object to behold.
Led by the Grand Quintet behind the new King, and flanked by every earl and bishop in the realm, a great roar of approval echoed around the nave. England had a new monarch, Richard the Lionheart, descendant of both the houses of Wessex and of Normandy, a man of Saxon, Plantagenet, Viking and Celtic descent. He was a warrior king behind whom all could unite, in every corner of the Empire. I thought of Earl Harold and of the Empress Matilda. How proud they would have been to see this day.
The coronation banquet was organized by Eleanor, now the Dowager Queen of the realm. A thousand guests were invited and the nave of the great cathedral was cleared to seat them. Four oxen were roasted and three dozen hogs; the serving tables sagged under the weight of meat, game, fowl and fish. Fresh fruit was brought from as far south as the Mediterranean, some varieties of which had never been seen in London. It took the potters of burghs far and wide two months to make the dishes and pitchers for the feast. Wine was brought from Bordeaux on a fleet of specially commissioned ships. The chroniclers later wrote that the steps of Westminster Abbey were awash with torrents of wine. This was not true; hardly a drop was spilled, because it was too good to waste.
Sadly, one community did not enjoy the coronation. Hostility towards Jews had surfaced because of the mood of outrage at the loss of Jerusalem. Although the Jews were not involved in the wars in the Holy Land, as ‘non-believers’ people associated them with Muslims and they bore the stigma of the nation who had turned on Jesus. When several Jewish leaders came to Westminster to offer gifts to the new King, the crowd outside denied them entry and turned on them, killing several and wounding many more. The rioting spread to the walled burgh of London and eventually to other burghs around the country. Richard asked me to lead his conrois into London to quell the trouble and we arrested several troublemakers, all of whom Richard ordered to be hanged as soon as the festivities were over.
But we could not protect the Jews of York, where they were slaughtered in their hundreds. A few managed to find refuge in York Castle, but when they realized their position was hopeless, there was a mass suicide, leaving only a handful of survivors. Their besiegers then made them an offer, saying that if they came out and promised to convert to Christianity, they would be spared. The hapless inmates accepted the offer. But when they emerged, the crowd turned on them and kicked and beat them to death.
When the Lionheart heard the story, he was livid. He despatched a messenger to the Castellan of York, demanding that the perpetrators be punished. Within a week, he had appointed Geoffrey, one of his father’s illegitimate sons, as the new Archbishop of York, ably supported by Otto of Gisors, a good
soldier, as the new Earl of York. His instructions to them were clear.
‘I want peace in Northumbria. You will enforce it. If you fail, you will answer at the end of my sword.’
Over the coming weeks, the new King made many similar appointments: bishops, abbots and priors, as well as earls, barons, sheriffs and knights. His father had left many appointments vacant so that he could collect the revenues from their tithes and taxes for his own exchequer.
The Lionheart gave all his appointees the same command, ‘I want peace in my realm,’ followed by the same punitive threat, ‘or you will feel the point of my sword.’
Shrewdly, the Lionheart wanted to secure the peace in the Celtic parts of his realm before his commitment to the Holy Land began. So, after the festivities in London, which continued for three days, we travelled to the scenes of my forays into Wales when I served King Richard’s father fifteen years previously.
With no concern for his own personal safety, in late September the Lionheart took only the Little Quintet and a single conroi of men and journeyed into what was known as the ‘Lair of the Welsh Dragons’, Mathrafal, the castle of the Prince of Powys, to meet him and the other Welsh princes. No English monarch had ever entered Mathrafal in peace, nor with so few men. The Welsh were impressed, both by the new King’s reputation and by his demeanour.
He was a model of diplomacy and charm; he gave gifts and spoke of goodwill and friendship. By the end of his visit, the Welsh lords gave solemn assurances to keep the peace in their lands while the King was away. Indeed, several young knights agreed to take the cross and join the expedition. It was a strange experience for me; these Celts were noted for their ferocity and intransigence, especially towards the English, but the Lionheart had drawn their sting and soothed their savage hearts.
I was immensely proud to be at the Lionheart’s side. I was reminded of stories that my father used to tell me of exploits of years ago: of King Harold when he was Earl of Wessex, when he rode into Wales to challenge the fierce Celtic princes with just the housecarls of his personal hearthtroop; or of Hereward, Thegn of Bourne, and his band of followers; or of King Arthur challenging the Danelaw. They were childish thoughts of hero worship, but very real all the same.
With four knights of Powys keen to take the cross, distinctive in their deep-red Celtic leines and carrying their massive shields and long pikes, we traversed almost the entire breadth of the domain, to reach Canterbury. There we welcomed William, King of the Scots, also called ‘Lion’ for his powerful build and red hair. As he had charmed the Welsh dragons, so the Lionheart charmed the Scottish lion. After much horse trading, brokered by Abbot Alun, he framed the agreement in which, in exchange for 10,000 marks, King Richard agreed to return Berwick and Roxburgh to the Scots, which his father had forced them to surrender, and acknowledged Scotland’s independence from Westminster.
The Lionheart knew it was a momentous agreement, so he had the arrangement widely heralded and enshrined as the ‘Quitclaim of Canterbury’, written in Abbot Alun’s own hand in his impeccable blackletter script and sent to be stored with the King’s Pipe Rolls at Winchester. Abbot Alun said it was his greatest achievement.
It caused consternation among the English earls, who were astonished that their King had relinquished sovereignty to a land that their fathers and grandfathers had fought so hard to seize. But it was greeted with euphoria north of the border, where Richard’s reputation knew no bounds. And there was the rub; as Abbot Alun was quick to point out, in less than a month, the Lionheart had won over two nations which had been implacable enemies of England for centuries.
The new King was also generous to his brother, John. Although not entirely altruistic, as he needed his sibling’s loyalty while he was away, he plied him with new titles and granted him the lordships of six English counties, including Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, and approved his marriage to Isabel of Gloucester, whose inheritance included Bristol, Glamorgan and Newport. In a symbolism that was not lost on a grateful brother, the lands he gave John were almost an exact match to the realm held by his grandmother, the Empress Matilda, in her civil war against Stephen of Blois in the 1140s.
In just four months, the Lionheart had transformed the hierarchy in England and brought a calm sense of goodwill that had not been felt in living memory. And he had appeased and charmed our Celtic cousins in a way that had not been experienced before.
On the road to Dover, getting ready for our departure to Normandy, Abbot Alun remarked on Richard’s achievements to me.
‘Our young lion is no longer the ferocious beast; he has the sagacity of a ruler twice his age. Hildegard would be proud of him.’
Over the next few months, Richard also proved to be a master of military preparation and quartermastering. He decided to sail the materiel for his army to the Mediterranean, rather than carry it on a baggage train, and began the process of commissioning the ships and the men to sail them. The Cinque Ports alone had to provide thirty ships. Henry of Cornhill, one of London’s sheriffs and a fanatic for detail, was made responsible for building the navy and recruiting its crew. He offered 2d a day for sailors and 4d for steersmen. He also took charge of finding the materiel for the voyage. The task was immense: 2,000 horses, 200 farriers, 400 grooms and 50,000 horseshoes from the ironworks in the Forest of Dean.
Arrows and quarrels came in long convoys of carts from all over England. Carpenters, shipwrights and cordwainers, as well as blacksmiths, weaponsmiths and armourers, had to be recruited. Feeding the army was one of the biggest challenges. Every large house in the realm had to train new kitchen staff so that its cooks could be enlisted. Their utensils had to be commissioned, providing a windfall for every cutler, tinker, tinsmith and pewterer in the Empire. They flocked to Smithfield, just beyond London’s walls, where Henry of Cornhill was assembling his arsenal and storehouses.
Salt in huge barrels and sacks of herbs and spices were brought from the warehouses by the Thames, and the infirmarers prepared their pennyroyal potions and other remedies to ward off the putrid fever and bloody flux that had devastated previous crusades. Siege engineers from Aquitaine arrived with their tools: grappling hooks, winches, pulleys and ropes, and their sulphur and lime for their notorious incendiaries. Nothing like it had ever been seen in London before, and crowds flocked through the postern at Aldersgate to gawp at the preparations, which stretched as far as the eye could see.
By March 1190, the third leader of the Great Crusade, the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, was already on his way down the Danube. Kings Richard and Philip, not wanting the German legend to steal all the glory, set the date of departure of their armies for 24 June.
In the meantime, we travelled south, to the Pyrenees, so that the King could make a point to Raymond, Count of Toulouse, who was the only major Latin prince not to take the cross. There was no doubting what the Count’s intentions would be once we had left for the Holy Land, so the King wanted to exert his authority and remind the Count of the consequences of any infringements into Plantagenet territory while he was away.
The excursion was an overt demonstration of pomp and power. We journeyed with a body of men sufficient to reflect the scale of the Plantagenet Empire and a courtly retinue appropriately resplendent in their regalia and finery. Behaving impeccably and smiling profusely, we went from lord to lord. The King enjoyed their hospitality and in return dispensed expensive gifts or parcels of new land, and arbitrated over disputes. It was all very civilized on the surface, but each of our hosts knew the King’s real, if unspoken, purpose: While I am away fighting for Christ’s holy realm in Palestine, remember who your temporal master is here in Aquitaine, especially if the Count of Toulouse comes to woo you.
There was just one unsavoury incident. Bernard IV, Lord of Bigorre, a minor Gascon fiefdom in the Pyrenees, was a notorious warlord in an area noted for recalcitrant rulers and endemic lawlessness. We had crossed swords with his family before, a dozen years earlier, when the young Lionheart was dealing
with the rebellion in Aquitaine against his father.
Numerous plaintiffs complained to the King about the Lord of Bigorre’s behaviour. Not only was he filling his treasury by stealing the precious possessions of pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela, but he was also humiliating, beating, torturing and murdering them if they tried to resist his thieving. The King despised bullies and was intent on teaching this one a lesson.
When we approached his fortification at Bagnères, he was nowhere to be found. His family and garrison were also gone, and his treasury was bare. But it was not difficult to track him down. The townsfolk of Bagnères, who had suffered his cruelty for many years, were only too willing to reveal to us that their lord had sent his family to Bayonne with his treasury and half his garrison. However, he had taken the rest of his men and hidden in the high Pyrenean forests at the headwaters of the Adour River.
The King organized a small troop of light cavalry and with that gleam in his eye that always signalled his love of the chase, we rode up the valley of the Adour in deadly earnest.
Only three hours later, we saw the smoke from Bigorre’s camp. There were perhaps fifteen of them, a posse of cut-throats posing as a local militia. We numbered six knights, their men-at-arms and one of our elite conrois of cavalry. It was hardly a contest. Within moments of the Gascons seeing the Lionheart’s standard at the head of our galloping column, they scattered into the trees like startled sheep.
Bernard of Bigorre attempted to do the same, but his considerable girth made that impossible. His groom had also deserted him, and his horse was nowhere to be seen. He did have one companion, a sobbing young girl – perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old – who, judging by her peasant clothing, was his current plaything.
The Lionheart dismounted with his usual athleticism and strode towards the Gascon. Even though the rotund lord had drawn his sword, the King kept his in its scabbard, knowing that he did not need a weapon; his presence was enough to make his opponent buckle. The girl continued to sob, but the King walked over to her, turning his back on the fat Gascon, and held out his hand. Reluctant at first, she was won over by the Lionheart’s warm smile. He led her to Godric and asked him to give her some food and water.
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