Hoodsman: Revolt of the Earls

by Smith, Skye

  The garrison were Cheshire sheriff's men, so the garrison had not been pulled towards Shrewsbury. The only reason this band still existed was because they had a dozen Welsh bows. The bows protected them from raids by the garrison and provided the meat they ate.

  * * * * *

  Early the next morning, dressed in their English clothes and their king's tunics, Raynar and one of his bowman rode into Wrexham and directly to the garrison. The commander was a sheriff's constable and they were promptly taken to his house. "My apologies for the early call," Raynar said to him, "but I expected the sheriff to be here with his army."

  "The sheriff is in Chester," replied the constable irritably, "and I am not party to his planning. You speak of the call to arms by the king, no doubt. I have been given no orders, so that is none of my concern."

  "Well and carefully spoken," said Raynar, "but this is not just a call to arms to the kings loyal lords. He is raising the fyrd. At this moment able and dangerous from across the shires are making their way to Bridgnorth to support the king against Belleme. The outlaw bands along the border here have been pardoned by the king if they rally to his banner."

  "I was not told this," replied the constable, suddenly very interested. "They will be traveling across open country. I will finally be able to catch the devils."

  "Do so at your peril for they have the king's archers riding with them, and if you attack them they will take you for Belleme's men and slaughter you."

  "Why was I not told? Where are my orders?"

  "This is not a time of orders. This is the first time the fyrd has been raised for thirty years, and the first time by a Norman king. The fyrd do not march by orders, they march as a hoard. From here they are marching to Hesleie, just north of Shrewsbury to box Belleme in. As I see it you have two choices. Stay here and protect this town, or join the fyrd and make for Hesleie."

  "Then I stay here."

  "You say that the sheriff is in Chester," said Raynar, "then can you spare me an escort to take me there."

  "That I can do. The same escort can bring back my latest orders."

  And so it was that less than an hour later, Raynar, a bowman, and six men-at-arms rode towards Chester. They arrived at the old city in time to share a mid day meal with the sheriff in one of the splendid Roman style houses. This sheriff, of all sheriffs, would have had continuous dispatches from Henry, and Raynar was hoping for up to date news of the king's campaign.

  The sheriff took one look at his treasury robes and his escort, and ushered him away from the hall and into his private quarters. What they had to say was not for everyone's ears, especially in Chester where Belleme and the princes of Wales each had well placed agents.

  Raynar quickly explained his mission to the sheriff. This included the siege at Arundel, delivering Arundel's couriers to Belleme, convincing Prince Gruffydd to rally the Welsh to the King and taking them out of Staffordshire, and raising the fyrd wherever he went. The sheriff looked at him in disbelief, so he fished inside his pipe for the King's letter of transit and unrolled it for the man to read.

  The sheriff read it slowly and carefully. He could barely read. It basically said that one Raynar, identified by an ancient scar running down his entire back, was to be obeyed as if his words were from the king's mouth. He then searched for and found the hidden code words within the paper and checked them against those of his latest dispatches to ensure that the letter did indeed come from the king.

  "I have never seen such a letter before," said the sheriff. "The king must trust you well, and better than any of his barons."

  "Perhaps that is because I am the Queen's man, and have no desires for lands or titles."

  "How can I be of help?" asked the sheriff.

  "First, some food. Your constable in Wrexham was too mean to feed us. As I eat you can tell me the latest news."

  The sheriff took a gulp of summer ale and began. "The news is all good. Some of it is from the king's dispatches, and some of it is from my agents in Shropshire and Wales. The king regained his health and did not wait at Arundel for their surrender. He took a small and swift force north to Nottingham.

  There he was strengthened by the sheriff's men, and the local fyrd, and outlaws from Sherwood, and together they marched to Belleme's castle at Tickhill. On seeing such an army marching towards them, the castellan opened the gates and surrendered immediately. Meanwhile Arundel surrendered as expected, so the king is now on his way to Belleme's castle at Bridgnorth, with the fyrd gathering behind him as he marches.

  The Welsh have quit Staffordshire, and have sent tokens of peace to King Henry. They are now retreating through south Shropshire making for the hills south of Shrewsbury. From there they can defend, fight, or flee to the border depending on the outcome at Bridgnorth."

  "And you?" asked Raynar, "what will you do?"

  "I have no specific orders, yet I am expected to show strong support for my king. What would you suggest?"

  "I have ordered the fyrd between here and Oswestry to march to Hesleie. It is a hamlet about four miles north of Shrewsbury. If enough gather there, then Belleme will be trapped with the king to the east, the Welsh to the south and west, and your local fyrd to the north. The northern fyrd will be a mob without leadership. If you take a force of regulars and join them, then they will have leadership and a good reason not to start looting when they get bored."

  The suggestion was a good one, but the sheriff was not eager. Raynar sold it by saying, "You could be leading an army of five thousand. A man leading such numbers and placing them strategically will surely earn Henry's thanks."

  "I'll do it," said the sheriff with newly found enthusiasm.

  "Good, then send messages out immediately to raise the fyrd. It takes a few days to get them moving. If they know they will have the protection of your garrison, then they will follow you to Shropshire in droves." Raynar chased some gravy around his bowl with a scrap of bread. "When you tell the English about raising the fyrd, tell them that the queen is raising it to protect her husband. I have found that they are more willing to march in the queen's name. And tell them that outlaws will earn their pardons promised in Henry's charter."

  "How will this all end, Raynar?"

  "Good for the English, and bad for Belleme I hope. The kingdom needs some peace, and so long as the crown is in dispute there will be none. My own hope is that Belleme and his lords are killed in battle, for I fear that otherwise Henry will forgive them."

  "Be careful for what you wish, Raynar. If Belleme dies, then others of the Montgomery clan will take his place. A peace built on his death will be short lived. In such cases I always council locking the lord in a cell and running the estates in trust in his name. Even better would be to have him attainted and banished."

  "Attainted?" Raynar asked, "your knowledge of law is beyond mine, sheriff. What exactly is attainted?"

  "If he is declared a traitor," explained the sheriff, "then that is cause enough for him to lose his property and his titles, and more important, his right to pass them to his heirs. He would be attainted. It would be easier and faster if he confessed to the crime, but to get Belleme to confess he would bargain a safe conduct to France or Normandy where he is also a baron."

  Raynar spent some hours with the sheriff reviewing maps and crafting simple messages for the criers to spread across the shires. By mid afternoon Chester was a hive of gossip and the gossip was spreading north along the highways towards the villages of the Mersey and to Manchester.

  Raynar and his one remaining bowman had decided not wait for the sheriff to mobilize his forces, but to press ahead to Hesleie, and then on to Bridgnorth. There were armed farmers marching on every highway. Each village they passed was working on improving their defenses with rough stockades made from poles and brambles. Livestock was being gathered and kept in these stockades for safety.

  There was good company to be had at the ale houses and along the highways. Men were in high spirits in expectation of some adventure to liven their
mundane lives. From a hill they looked out in all directions and in all directions there seemed to be men on the move. How could anyone have predicted that the English peasants would leap forth in such numbers to the call to the fyrd? What started with a few dangerous men hoping for adventure or a pardon, was now turning into a seductive comradery and no man wanted to be left behind.

  "If William the Conqueror had landed in the summer, rather than during harvest, he would have been driven into the sea by sheer numbers," grumbled Raynar to himself. He would have damned the fates, but that was too dangerous when armies of men were on the move all around him.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Hoodsman - Revolt of the Earls by Skye Smith

  Chapter 20 - The largest fyrd army ever, at Bridgnorth in August 1102

  Henry, King of the English sat still on a still horse on the top of the highest part of the hill overlooking the River Severn and the castle of Bridgnorth. From here he could see in all directions, and in all directions there were clouds of dust raised by thousands of feet on the march. On the east bank of the river were gathering all the men who had marched to relieve Staffordshire, and then had followed him here. On the west bank of the river were all the men who marched with the fyrd from Herefordshire, Shropshire, and Cheshire in order to overthrow the tyrant Belleme.

  "How are you going to feed them all?" asked Raynar. Henry was a master of logistics. If anyone could figure out how to supply such a huge army, he could. "There are tens of thousands already and more arriving every hour."

  "An army of this size is like a plague of locusts. They must keep moving to keep feeding." Henry called to his aides to come to him. "I will talk to the army this afternoon. Have them gather peacefully within sight of the bridge. I will talk from there. I want trusted men with big voices stationed throughout the mob to pass my words back through the ranks exactly as I speak them."

  Henry motioned to two of his barons to come to him. "Take a message to the castellan that we will parley on the bridge this afternoon, and provide a guard for him. Tell the men closest to the castle and the bridge that I want the way from castle gate and across the bridge cordoned off and I want no threatening displays within my sight."

  "Raynar," Henry grabbed his shoulder, "If there are any Welshmen left on the west bank I want them close enough to hear my words. Find some of them and escort them through to the bridge." Raynar faced his horse down the rise and was ready to leave. "No, don't leave yet," Henry said "wait until the bridge has been cleared. Besides I need to roll some ideas through your English brain." He dismounted and walked to where his chamberlain had set a table and some benches on the river side of the rise, where there was a glorious view of the castle and of the wondrous beauty of the valley it commanded.

  Raynar joined him and they both picked up a lamb pie to munch on. There was a continuous din of curses that workers are wont to use when assembling engines. Not two hundred paces from them there were siege engines being built, including three mangonels of the type that were so useful at Arundel. "I doubt we will need the engines, Henry. Those lords on the castle wall can see the size of your army as well as we can. There is no reason to even take the castle because you have enough men to surround and isolate a dozen such castles. There is nothing to stop you from marching on Shrewsbury this minute."

  "That is why I have been allowing Belleme's couriers free passage between Shrewsbury and Bridgnorth. Frontal attacks on castles are too dear in lives, and always end in the vengeful slaughter of the residents when the walls fail. If I say the right things on the bridge in a few hours, and this castle surrenders quickly because of my words, then I will have earned the leadership of this mob." He spat out a mouthful of pie. "My stomach is churning at the thought. I needs something less greasy in my mouth."

  Henry picked up an early apple and began to munch on it. "My barons want me to accept a rich tribute and an oath from Belleme and then forgive him and leave him as Earl."

  It was Raynar’s turn to spit out a mouthful of pie. "Do that and your barons will be slaughtered with Belleme and his henchmen. This mob did not leave their families and walk for days to leave Belleme as the Earl."

  "So I have told my lords. You have walked the highways with the fyrd. What does the mob want?"

  "Those ten thousand over there," he pointed to the Shropshire bank of the river, "want the earl and his henchmen wriggling on impaling poles. Those ten thousand over there," he pointed to the Staffordshire bank of the river, "want them all doing the gallows jig. Your bowmen along that ridge, want them stripped of land, wealth, title, and weapons and made outlaw so they learn what it means to starve in poverty in the forests. Your cavalry and heavy infantry down along the river bank want them and their families banished for life, and their lands apportioned out between them."

  "My spies all agree with you, except for your counting. They estimate twenty thousand on each bank." he watched the mans jaw drop at the number. "So what does Raynar Porter want?"

  "I want peace and a good harvest. I want your Charter of Liberties to be applied evenly across the kingdom. I want slavery and serfdom to end." Raynar stopped his list at the hard stare of the king. He started again, "Belleme, the entire Montgomery clan, and their henchmen should be legally found guilty of treason, and then attainted, and then banished forever from this kingdom. They should be loaded onto a ship and sent to your brother in Normandy, and hopefully the ship will sink and they will all drown without blame sticking to any of us."

  "Amen to that," said Henry, "and what did my wife ask of you?"

  "That I kill Belleme before he has a chance to kill you," replied Raynar. "She trusts him and his coven not at all."

  * * * * *

  The fyrdsmen growled angrily as Raynar led the Welsh chief and their guard through the crowd on the west bank of the river. Luckily he had brought thirty huge English bowmen with him to enforce the peace. Eventually they could go no further. The word that Welsh chiefs were being led through had raced ahead of them and there was a solid block of armed fyrdsmen in their path. The bowmen at the front were pulling their swords free of their scabbards, while those behind were nocking arrows. Raynar yelled at them, "Sheath your weapons. English will not fight English on this day."

  He raised his voice to the fyrdman blocking him. "These Welshman need to get to the bridge. They need to know the outcome to tell of it in their kingdom. You may not like it but it is their right. They have suffered more from the tyrant Belleme than any of you. Belleme was quick to impale Welshmen."

  There was undeniable truth in the words. The fyrdmen of Shropshire had seen many a Welsh body slung on a pole beside the highway. They mumbled to each other and then a few in the front moved aside, and then they all moved aside.

  When they reached the bridge, Raynar left the chiefs with their escort, and walked to stand behind Henry at the highest point of the arching roadbed. Henry and his barons were waiting for the arrival of the party from the castle. It was a short wait, for the gate opened and five nobles with a dozen guards walked towards the bridge. A murmur in the crowd rose to a roar and Henry pushed is hands to the sky and motioned them to be calm. The roar became a murmur and then an uncanny quiet.

  Introductions were made, and they took too long and so the murmur and coughing in the ranks began again. Roger FitzCorbet and Robert of Neuville were amongst the negotiators, so Ulger must have been left in charge of the walls. They spoke in French as did the barons on the kings side. They were all taken aback when the king himself translated their words into English and bellowed them to the mob. They also noticed that anything that the king said, and only what the king said, was being repeated by callers in all directions out through the ranks and up the hillsides.

  FitzCorbet made a case for Belleme that he regretted a hasty decision that had him side with his old friend, the kings brother, against the king, and that the events that had followed this decision had a life of their own. He told that Belleme was willing to make a restitution of
three thousand pounds, and gift the castles at Arundel and Tickhill to the crown for use by the king's sheriffs if his bad decision could be forgiven and he pardoned and allowed to continue as earl in the king's service.

  The kings barons stepped forward almost as one and told the king how this was a good solution to diffuse much violence and bring peace to the kingdom. It was as if they had already known what FitzCorbet was about to say, and had already been swayed to favour it.

  The king interpreted and translated the flowery court phrases into simple English and bellowed it out to the mob. "Belleme will pay me three thousand pounds if I send you all home and allow him to continue as Earl. My barons urge me to accept the offer." He motioned to the callers and they bellowed it on and on like echoes down the valley. A murmur turned into shouting, and the shouting into a roar of tens of thousands of voices.

  The message from the mob was clear. "Kill them all."

  Raynar climbed on to the wall of the bridge so that he was standing higher than all others and he held his bow in two hands high above his head. The roar softened and then died to a murmur. He called in English to the king in his loudest voice, "Henry, lord king, don't trust these traitors. They're trying to deceive you and undermine the rigor of royal justice. Why listen to men who urge you to spare a traitor and leave unpunished a conspiracy against your life?

  Instead trust your subjects, your farmers, your workers," he twisted right and left to point to the tens of thousands watching, "we all stand loyally by you and are ready to obey you in all things. Assault the fortress relentlessly, pressure the traitors relentlessly from all sides, and make no peace with him until you have him in your hands, dead or alive."

  Henry signaled to the callers to bellow Raynar’s words, while he translated them into French for the nobles.