Seen with hindsight, following his untimely death and the subsequent collapse of the rebellion in Aquitaine, the stripping of these great abbeys of the Angoumois and Limousin has often been regarded as the last desperate move by the Young King in a rapidly failing campaign. In reality, however, it seems likely that he was raising funds for a major new phase of operations. For from Grandmont he led his army south, reaching Uzerche on 26 May, where a rendezvous had been scheduled with reinforcements brought by Count Raymond of Toulouse, Raymond II, viscount of Turenne, and Odo, eldest son of Duke Hugh of Burgundy.130 While Raymond of Turenne seems to have been a member of the original coalition against Richard, the involvement of the counts of Toulouse and Burgundy represented a very significant escalation in the scope of the war. Count Raymond V, who had become young Henry’s vassal in 1173, was the duke of Aquitaine’s greatest rival in the region, and the alliance of his opponent Alfonso II of Aragon with Henry II and Richard gave him still greater reason to side with the Young King. Burgundy was a staunch supporter of the Capetians, and Bertran de Born had eagerly expected his aid: ‘The duke of Burgundy has sent word that he’ll help us in summer, with the aid of Champagne. Some five hundred armed men will come, so when we are all joined, Poitiers [i.e. Richard] will be sure to complain.’131 Born also implies that in Gascony those sympathetic to or actually in league with the Young King included Gaston VI, viscount of Béarn, and Vezian II, viscount of Lomagnac, as well as Bernard IV, viscount of Armagnac, and the viscounts of Dax and Marsan.132 It seemed, as Walter Map put it, that ‘all the power of the world was flocking to Absalom’.133 It was also at this time that William Marshal rejoined the Young King’s service. The History claimed that he had obtained letters of protection from King Philip, the archbishop of Rheims and the counts Robert of Dreux and Theobald of Blois, and that on the strength of these, Henry II allowed him safe conduct to join his son in the Château of Limoges.134 As he was accompanied by Hugh de Hamelincourt and the notable Flemish lord Baldwin de Béthune, and as William, castellan of St Omer, is known to have been with the Young King at this time, it seems more likely that the Marshal had come as part of a force of Flemish knights to young Henry’s summons for stipendiary knights.135
On the very day the reinforcements joined the Young King at Uzerche, a very different kind of assembly took place in Normandy at the great abbey of St Etienne in Caen. So serious and protracted had the hostilities in Aquitaine become that, on Henry II’s orders, Richard, archbishop of Canterbury, together with the bishops of Bayeux, Evreux, Lisieux, Sées and Rochester, with many of the abbots of Normandy, solemnly and publicly pronounced excommunication against anyone who attempted to stand in the way of peace or who sowed discord between King Henry and his sons, though the sons themselves were excepted from such anathema.136 Archbishop Richard himself wrote to the Young King, urging him to make peace with his father, reminding him of a range of biblical and classical examples of both loyal and rebellious sons but adding that ‘concerning Absalom I shall remain silent, for his story is known to all’. Richard rebuked young Henry for becoming a leader of Brabançons, ‘people excommunicate and utterly lost’, and for despoiling churches, warning that if he did not cease hostilities against his father, then he would with reluctance be forced to excommunicate him.137 The action of the clergy at Caen was a dramatic gesture, informed by the strictures of the 1179 Lateran Council, but one that reflected a sense of desperation on Henry II’s part. More tangibly, he summoned aid from his ally, Alfonso of Aragon.138
It was at Uzerche, however, that young Henry began to feel the first signs of a sickness that rapidly became increasingly severe. He moved via Donzenac on 27 May to the small fortified town of Martel on the 28th, where Viscount Raymond put on a horse race ‘to delight the common people’.139 Here, young Henry recovered sufficiently to ride due south to the great pilgrimage church of Rocamadour, the famous the shrine to the Virgin. Henry II had travelled there in 1170 when recovering from his near-fatal illness, and it seems most likely that young Henry similarly came as a pilgrim, seeking healing from his growing sickness.140 Yet the chroniclers naturally saw a more impious purpose when his men stripped the gold, silver and gems off the feretory of St Amator and took away the treasures in the church.141
The allies’ intention appears to have been to march north against Henry II, who had now returned to the Limousin. Roger of Howden believed that, misled by evil counsel, the Young King was bent on joining battle with his father around 6 June. On learning of his intentions, the Old King had been greatly disturbed, for he had few forces with him, and was uncertain of the loyalty of some of his nobles. He was faced with the choice of trying to escape capture by his son by flight, to his everlasting shame and opprobrium, or risking the doubtful outcome of battle.142 Roger’s account, occurring as it does in a speech given by him to Henry II immediately on hearing of the Young King’s death, must be treated with caution, and it seems highly improbable that young Henry was actively seeking a pitched battle with his father. But if the newly reinforced allied army was indeed significantly stronger than the forces assembled by Henry II at Limoges, a bold strike to force the Old King to again withdraw from the Limousin made good strategic sense. Yet as he returned north from Rocamadour, the Young King was struck once more by his illness. Howden believed this was ‘in consequence of indignation and rancour of mind’ because he ‘could not do any material injury to the king, his father’.143 He had, in fact, contracted dysentery and was ‘attacked first by a fever, then by a flux of the bowels, which reduced him to the point of death’.144 He was forced to remain at Martel, where he lay ill in the house of Stephen, ‘surnamed the Smith’.145 The Young King’s life, and the success of the allies’ war in Aquitaine, alike hung in the balance.
CHAPTER 14
Vir Sanctus
DEATH, COMMEMORATION AND LEGACY
In mercy’s name I pray to my companion, if ever I wronged him may he forgive it; and may he pray to the Lord Jesus on His throne, both in Romance and in what Latin he knows.
I have lived my life in prowess and joy, but now we both part company, and away I shall go to Him in Whom all sinners find their end …
All have I quit that I used to love, chivalry and noble pride; and since it pleases God, all this I accept, and pray to him to keep me by His side.
All my friends I pray, at my death, to come and do me great honour, for I have known joy and delight both far and near, and within my own bounds.
Thus I quit joy and delight, rich clothes and precious sable.
– William IX, duke of Aquitaine, Pos de chanter m’es pres talentz1
AS HIS SYMPTOMS grew worse, it was evident that Henry would not recover.2 He sent to his father, begging him to come to him, but after the events of the past months, Henry II could no longer bring himself to trust his son. Fearing a trap, he refused.3 He did, however, send Bishop Bernard of Agen and Rotrou, count of Perche, to the Young King bearing a letter and a precious sapphire ring as a token of his pardon.4 Young Henry in turn sent his father letters in which he begged his forgiveness, and implored him to take pity on both his mother, Queen Eleanor, and on his wife, Queen Margaret.5 Conscious of his duty as a good lord, he also looked to the well-being of his own men: he besought the Old King to provide for his knights and servants, to whom he had promised much but now, because of his imminent death, was unable to reward.6 Fearing that they, as well as the dissident nobles who had recently been his allies, would be exposed to Henry II’s vengeance, he implored the king his father to set aside his ira et malevolentia towards his knights and other retainers and to treat the barons of Poitou mercifully.7
In these last letters, young Henry also asked his father to make reparation on his behalf for whatever he had despoiled from the Church. Ecclesiastical writers were naturally swift to see in his illness and untimely death God’s punishment for his rebellion and recent acts of sacrilege.8 As Walter Map grimly punned, ‘he took an oath against his father at Martel, and on that same day smitten
with the hammer (martellus) of death by the all-righteous avenging hand, he was not, and riot was turned to quiet’.9 Young Henry is likely to have seen the tympanum above the west door of the church in Martel itself, which depicts Christ as judge, stern and unbending, with hands outstretched to reveal the wounds of the cross. He is flanked by two angels holding instruments of the passion, while with their trumpets two other angels summon the dead from their tombs to face the Last Judgment.10 Fears of such a judgment and the fate of the damned must have deeply troubled the Young King, for his conscience was heavy. In violation of repeated oaths of fidelity, he had rebelled against his father and lord; he had stirred up mortal war against his brother; and he had stripped the shrines of some of the holiest places in Aquitaine. Accordingly, Henry now subjected himself to a harsh penance. In what the History of William Marshal called ‘his seemly act of repentance (sa bone repentance)’, he confessed his sins to the clergy who were in attendance, including Bishop Bernard, first in private, then publicly, as was required of penitents.11 The leading bishops then granted him absolution and remission of his sins.12 Even the hostile Geoffrey of Vigeois was moved by young Henry’s fulsome contrition.13 Roger of Howden, who clearly had access to an eyewitness account of the Young King’s last days, records how young Henry then put off his princely finery and assumed the garb of a penitent:
After this, laying aside his fine garments, he put on a hairshirt, and fastening a noose around his neck, said to the bishops and other religious men who stood around him, ‘By this halter I deliver myself, an unworthy, guilty and culpable sinner, to you, the ministers of God, beseeching that our Lord Jesus Christ, who remitted his sins to the thief when confessing upon the cross, will, through your prayers and his ineffable mercy, have compassion upon my most wretched soul.’ To which all made answer, ‘Amen.’14
Henry then ordered his men to drag him from his bed by the rope around his neck, symbolizing his status as a traitor and felon to God, to another bed strewn with ashes, and to place under his head and feet ‘two large square stones’ instead of pillows.15 Such ‘exaggerated, almost extravagant humility’ did not stand in isolation.16 In 1039, on the last of his four pilgrimages to Jerusalem, his great Angevin forebear, Fulk Nerra, was said to have ordered his men to drag him round the Holy City with a halter around his neck while a servant scourged his naked back and the count cried to heaven for mercy.17 Similarly, Abbot Suger of St Denis reported how, when in 1138 Louis VI knew himself to be dying, he made his confession, then ‘ordered that a carpet be spread on the ground and ashes be shaped on the carpet in the form of a cross’, on which he was then laid.18 Though young Henry was urged by one of the clergy to give away the ring sent by his father, lest possession of any earthly goods impede his salvation, he vehemently refused, insisting on keeping this token of his father’s forgiveness and benediction which he could show at the Last Judgment.19
The Young King then commanded his testament, ‘a will well and wisely made’, to be read.20 Though this has not survived, he must have relied on his father to disburse the sums he allocated, as he himself was now without either money or land to fulfil any bequests. His unfulfilled crusading vow weighed heavily on his mind. He entrusted the cloth cross which he had received on becoming a crucesignatus to his old friend and tutor in arms, William Marshal, begging him to fulfil this pilgrimage to Jerusalem in his stead.21 ‘Marshal, Marshal,’ the History has the Young King declare, ‘you have ever been loyal to me, a staunch supporter in good faith. I leave you my cross, so that on my behalf you can take it to the Holy Sepulchre and with it pay my debts to God.’ The Marshal thanked Henry for giving him the honour of performing this task, and assured his lord that ‘I shall certainly do it gladly, for that man is no loyal friend who is found wanting in help in a moment of great need.’22 His presence at young Henry’s deathbed and his acceptance of the proxy pilgrimage made a fitting gesture of reconciliation between the two men who had forged such a close bond in life. It was for good reason that Geoffrey of Vigeois could refer to the Marshal as one very dear to the Young King – his carissimus.23
The king commanded that his eyes, brain and intestines were to be buried before the shrine of St Martial at Limoges, as a token of reverence and contrition.24 His body, however, was to be buried at Rouen, in the cathedral of St Mary, next to the tomb of his uncle, William FitzEmpress.25 Such a division of the body was a common practice among royalty and the nobility: its practical function was to remove the organs which would decay the quickest if the corpse itself needed to be transported any distance, but it also allowed the continued presence in death of the individual at more than one site within his lands.26 Bishop Bernard and many others, mindful of how long and difficult the journey from Martel to Rouen would be, urged him to be buried instead at Grandmont, which was considerably closer, and was already a foundation greatly favoured by Henry II. Henry, however, remained adamant in his choice of Rouen.27 Racked with fever, the Young King now became delirious: according to the subsequent testimony of his chaplain Thomas of Earley, he saw a vision of the saints Eustace and Thomas Becket standing before him, and took comfort that Thomas, his old nutricius, had come to safeguard his soul as he passed from this life.28 ‘His face grew pale,’ noted the History of William Marshal, ‘and that fresh and youthful complexion, so fair and pleasant to behold, became sallow, wan and livid.’29 Finally, the end came, and ‘being fortified with the viaticum of the holy body and blood of our Lord, in the fear of the Lord, he breathed forth his spirit’.30 The messenger sent by his father to tell the Young King that Henry II would, as requested, pay whatever his son had promised, arrived too late.31 ‘King Henry the Third, son of King Henry, son of the Empress Matilda, daughter of King Henry I’, as Howden calls him, died on 11 June, on the feast of St Barnabas the Apostle.32 He was ‘in the flower of his youth, having lived twenty eight years, fourteen weeks and six days’, noted Ralph of Diss, adding regretfully that he had died ‘among very barbarous peoples’.33
The day after his death, the Young King’s body began its long journey north to Normandy, the bier being borne on the shoulders of his ‘fellow knights (commilitones)’. As they passed by the villages, castles and towns on the route, the people hurried to watch.34 They proceeded via Brive to the monastery of Vigeois, where Prior Geoffrey and a group of monks and laymen observed the procession’s passing, then on to Uzerche, where Abbot Bernard provided candles for the obsequies. Geoffrey, keen to draw a contrast with the riches the young Henry had impiously taken from St Martial’s and other monasteries just days before, stressed the poverty of the Young King’s household: a collection for Masses raised only twelve pence, which were promptly seized by one of the Young King’s chaplains, while his retainers were reduced to selling the king’s fine horse to buy supplies. Such was their need that the monks gave food to the famished retinue.35 Yet given that Viscount Aimar, Geoffey de Lusignan and other knights soon arrived to grieve for the Young King, it is unlikely that they left his mesnie in so abject a state as Prior Geoffrey wished to convey. The presence of clergy and loyal men, moreover, including William Marshal, meant that at least the younger Henry was spared the indignity that would befall Henry II in 1189, when his corpse was plundered of jewellery and clothes by his servants, and deserted with indecent haste by those seeking to ingratiate themselves with the new political order.36
From Uzerche, the cortège skirted the east of Limoges, still closely besieged by the forces of Henry II and Richard, and came to the monastery of Grandmont. Here, three days after his death, more elaborate obsequies were carried out by the monks and higher clergy, including John, bishop of Nevers, Theobald, abbot of Cluny, Sailbrand, priest of Limoges, and Bertrand, bishop of Agen. The solemnities, however, were threatened by the bishop of Limoges, who denounced the deceased king as an excommunicate. He was finally pacified by William, the prior of Grandmont, who offered sureties that Henry II would restore any treasure taken from St Martial’s and other churches by the Young King.37 It was here that his bo
dy was prepared for its journey further north and its eventual burial. Perhaps because of the dangers of the ongoing siege of Limoges, his viscera, brain and eyes were interred at Grandmont, rather than at St Martial’s as he had requested, while the young Henry’s corpse was embalmed with aromatic spices, or more functionally, according to Howden, with large quantities of salt.38 It was then wrapped in a white linen cloth, consecrated with the holy oil used at his coronation, covered with a bull’s hide, and sealed in lead, while a rich cloth of green sendal was placed over it.39
Henry II did not attend these rites at Grandmont, even though it was but a few miles away from Limoges, where he continued his siege. The dire news of his son’s death had been brought to him by a monk of Grandmont, Bernard de Reynat, who had found the king taking shelter from the summer heat in a peasant’s hut as the army lay encamped around the city.40 According to Howden, Henry had been incredulous on hearing the first tidings of his son’s death, until it was confirmed by the arrival of other messengers. Ordering his men to leave him, the Old King was overwhelmed by paroxysms of grief.41 Despite the periods of tension between them, the sources leave little doubt that Henry II loved his son deeply, and that his death was, as the History noted, ‘a bitter shock’.42 His grief was such that Peter of Blois felt compelled to compose a letter of consolation to the king, replete with biblical citations, urging him to moderate his sorrow and assuring him that young Henry’s deep contrition and pious death would spare him from divine punishment.43 Nevertheless, in this time of crisis, Henry II realized it was imperative not to show weakness: withholding his emotions from his forces, he immediately sent word to Richard, who was besieging Aixe, and ordered the siege of Limoges to be pressed home with greater vigour.44 Repeated attacks finally wore down the defenders, weakened by hunger and demoralized by the realization that the chance of the rising’s success had died with the Young King. Finally, on 24 June, Viscount Aimar and the men of the Château surrendered the castle and all the defences to Henry II. The king thereupon completely demolished the fortifications, not leaving one stone upon another, and likewise ordered the destruction of other rebel castles.45
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