Richard I

by Thomas Asbridge

  4

  The Warrior King

  When King Richard left the Near East in early October 1192, he most likely expected to be back in England by the start of the New Year. Had the journey home passed smoothly, the Lionheart would have found his realm all but untouched by his absence. Up to this point, the plans laid and systems of governance instituted to secure the kingdom while he crusaded in the Levant had proved remarkably successful. As it was, Richard did not return for close to eighteen months – and in that time, terrible, near-fatal damage was done to the Angevin realm.

  Having set sail from the Holy Land, the king rejected the idea of retracing his outward route via Marseilles, probably for fear of attracting unwanted attention from Philip Augustus and his agents. Ever since he returned to France a year earlier, King Philip had pursued an energetic propaganda campaign designed to blacken Richard I’s reputation in the West. The Angevin monarch was accused of ‘treason, treachery and mischief’ – with his crimes supposedly including collusion with Saladin – and despite the fact that he was under papal protection as a crusader, calls were made for the Lionheart to be arrested and tried.

  With this in mind, Richard sailed up the Adriatic, hoping to reach the lands of his German brother-in-law, Henry the Lion. However, a heavy storm forced the Lionheart to shore near Venice, leaving him little choice but to continue his journey overland through Austria – the domain of Duke Leopold V, a veteran of the recent crusade who harboured a vengeful hatred of the Angevin king. When Acre fell in July 1191, the duke had sought to stake a claim to a portion of the city’s spoils by raising his banner above its walls, but Richard was in no mood for such presumption. The emblem was ripped down and, it was said, cast ‘into the mud and trampled upon’. Fuming with anger at this act of stark humiliation, Leopold returned home. When rumours began to circulate regarding the Lionheart’s whereabouts in late 1192, the duke seized upon his chance to exact retribution and a furious chase began.

  Accompanied by only a handful of his closest supporters, Richard resorted to disguising himself as a common traveller and managed to narrowly evade capture on two separate occasions. But the net eventually tightened in mid December 1192 and the Lionheart was caught in or around Vienna, in what was described as a ‘disreputable house’, his jewel-encrusted ring having supposedly given away his true identity. The king was now a prisoner – the only English sovereign ever to be held captive by a foreign power.1

  For a time, Richard was kept in the Austrian castle of Dürnstein, perched above the River Danube, but in March 1193 Leopold handed him on to his overlord, Emperor Henry VI of Germany, who had recently forged an alliance with Philip of France.fn1 There was little danger of the Lionheart coming to any physical harm given his royal status and potential value as a hostage, but there was a real possibility that he might be held for a lengthy period – perhaps even indefinitely. Captivity was a tried-and-tested method for removing high-status opponents from the political fray. Indeed, Richard’s predecessor King Henry I of England had kept his brother and rival, Robert of Normandy, prisoner for nearly thirty years, while the Lionheart’s own mother, Queen Eleanor, endured a lengthy period of confinement by her husband Henry II. Everything now depended on Richard finding a way to secure his swift release, because once news of his incarceration spread, his enemies were quick to act.

  In January 1193, his brother John, Count of Mortain, entered into a treasonous alliance with Philip Augustus, hoping that the French king might help him seize the English crown. John travelled to Paris and paid homage to the Capetian monarch for all of the Angevins’ continental lands and, so it was rumoured, even for the kingdom of England itself. In the months that followed, the count ceded further rights to a large portion of Normandy, while to the south, in the Loire Valley, he also gave up the mighty fortress of Loches and the city of Tours. John had given his family’s arch enemy licence to dismember the Angevin realm. That April, King Philip received the surrender of Gisors Castle, the lynchpin of the Norman Vexin – the highly contested border zone between the duchy of Normandy and the kingdom of France. In return, the Capetian monarch was expected to mount a full-scale invasion of England and put John on the throne. As it was, Philip made little effort to support John’s claim through the remainder of that year, focusing instead upon a furious drive to seize Angevin territory. His historic gains reset the balance of power in northern France in the Capetians’ favour.

  At the same time, John returned to England, loudly proclaiming his brother Richard to be dead, while affirming his own intention to assume the mantle of king. There were some who supported his claim, and the count was able occupy a number of major castles – including those at Windsor, Nottingham and Wallingford – but many remained loyal to the Lionheart. With his mother, Queen Eleanor, championing the resistance, and no aid forthcoming from Philip, John found his path to the crown blocked. By the start of 1194 most of his gains in England had been lost, and John had scuttled back across the Channel.

  It was, at this stage, clear to all that not only was Richard I alive and well – he would soon be free. The Lionheart’s aptitude as a politician and diplomat did much to bolster his cause. When subjected to a show trial in Speyer in March 1193, he defended himself with such skill that most of the German court was won round to his cause. Indeed, even a contemporary chronicler who strongly favoured the Capetians admitted that the king spoke ‘eloquently and regally’ and in ‘a lionhearted manner’.2 Despite his captive status, Richard also worked ably behind the scenes to reconcile Henry VI with a group of rebellious German princes, recognizing that once the emperor enjoyed greater security at home, he would be less inclined to uphold his pact with the French. All of this abetted the dogged efforts by Queen Eleanor and the likes of William Longchamp to negotiate terms of release. A ransom of 150,000 silver marks was finally agreed with Henry VI and, in February 1194, Richard regained his freedom.

  The task of reaffirming his authority in England and restoring the now-tattered fortunes of the wider Angevin realm stood before him. Such was the damage wrought by the Lionheart’s duplicitous brother, so grievous were the predations of his enduring rival Philip, that this endeavour would consume the best part of Richard’s remaining years. Indeed, the struggle would prove, in many ways, to be the defining labour of his life and his finest hour in the field of war.

  Much has rightly been made of the Lionheart’s estimable qualities as a knight, a battlefield commander and a general. In terms of martial reputation, Richard I stands shoulder to shoulder with England’s greatest warrior-kings, from Edward I, the ‘Hammer of the Scots’, to Henry V, the victor at Agincourt. Scholars now customarily characterize the Lionheart as ‘rex bellicosus’ – the warlike, or war-loving, king – praising his clinical mastery of the science of medieval warfare.3 But this trend has also fostered the impression that Richard somehow came to the throne in 1189 with no more to learn about military affairs. Current assessments of Richard’s martial achievements generally present his early years as Duke of Aquitaine (from 1172) as the decisive and formative phase in his development as a commander. Having acquired and honed his skills, it is argued, the Lionheart went on to achieve his greatest victories during the Third Crusade.

  This approach overstates the importance of some of Richard’s successes in the Near East – most notably at the Battle of Arsuf – and underplays the significance of the campaigns he prosecuted upon his return to Europe. In fact, the Lionheart began the Third Crusade as a recently crowned, relatively untested king, and spent much of the expedition sharpening his expertise in fields such as siege-craft, raiding, logistics and overall strategic planning. The crusade may have ended in stalemate, but it was in the fires of this holy war – as Richard I and Saladin fought one another to a standstill – that the Angevin king truly tempered his martial genius. He returned to the West having acquired a new depth of experience and insight, and proved only too capable of putting the lessons learned in the Levant to good use as he strove first to subdue
England, and then to reclaim the likes of Normandy from Philip of France. It is this period, between 1194 and 1198, that rightly should be recognized as the pinnacle of Richard I’s military career.

  Having avoided France by travelling through the Low Countries, Richard made the crossing to Sandwich, in Kent, on 13 March 1194. Now aged thirty-six, the Lionheart had matured into a remarkably well-rounded leader. He possessed an acute eye for the fine detail of campaigning and the intellect for precise planning, yet retained his appetite for the dirtier work of front-line combat. His ability to inspire loyalty in his troops was unrivalled – he was ever to be seen fighting in their midst, attentive to their needs and at ease in their presence. He also knew the value of reliable lieutenants, such as the knight William Marshal, or the mercenary commander Mercadier: trusted men who could follow orders, but also improvise when necessary. And to top it all, Richard’s undoubted charisma was leavened by a hard edge of decisive ruthlessness – arguably a prerequisite for success amid the bloody business of medieval warfare.

  All of these qualities were immediately apparent once Richard made landfall back in England. His first priority was to sweep away the few remaining pockets of support for Count John. Chief among these was Nottingham Castle – a stoutly defended stone and timber fortress, well positioned on a ridge overlooking the River Leen. One contemporary even claimed the stronghold was ‘so well fortified by nature and artifice’ that it seemed ‘unconquerable’, and up to this point its garrison had stubbornly refused to surrender.4

  The Lionheart knew full well the tools required to break down Nottingham’s formidable defences, and he possessed the organizational infrastructure of logistical support to procure what was needed in short order. While assembling his troops, the king called in his master engineer, Urric, from London, and also summoned two siege engines from Leicester and twenty-two carpenters from Northampton. Administrative records even indicate that Richard ordered a supply of Greek Fire – the deadly naphtha-based concoction popular in the East that, once lit, could not be extinguished by water. He reached Nottingham on 25 March at the head of a large, well-equipped army.

  Richard’s prosecution of the siege that followed was almost frighteningly efficient. He understood that his every effort at Nottingham cost time and money. With finite crown resources and a long war on the continent before him, the king intended to achieve success in this first encounter with maximum speed and minimum outlay. The Lionheart announced his arrival in dramatic style with a thundering chorus of blaring trumpets and horns, hoping to terrify Nottingham’s garrison into immediate surrender. The defenders were apparently ‘confounded and alarmed’ by the sudden clamour but remained resolute, so the king launched a frontal assault to properly gauge their strength and resilience. There was fierce fighting that first day, with casualties on both sides. As ever, Richard threw himself into the fray – clad only in light mail armour and an iron cap, but protected from missile fire by a ring of shield-bearing guards – and killed an enemy knight with a well-aimed arrow. By nightfall, the castle’s main gate had been burned and its outer defences overrun, and a number of prisoners taken.

  At dawn the next day, Richard despatched an envoy calling upon the members of the garrison to lay down their arms, but they bluntly refused, claiming that they did not believe the king had in fact returned to England. Richard reacted with a chilling show of force. His siege engines were assembled and dragged into position, primed to unleash a deadly rain of missiles, and a makeshift gibbet was thrown up so that some of the captives seized the previous day could be hanged in full view of the castle. Duly cowed, two members of the garrison came forth to parley that same evening, and by the following morning the fortress had capitulated. The defenders ‘threw themselves on the king’s mercy’ and, while he generally showed clemency, two leading members of Count John’s attempted coup were severely punished for their disloyalty – one being flayed alive, the other thrown into a dungeon and starved to death. The Lionheart had crushed the resistance of a supposedly impregnable castle in just a few days.5

  It is perhaps worth pausing to note that Richard’s visit to Nottingham did not presage an encounter with Robin Hood; nor did the king find himself battling against Count John’s evil sheriff in 1194. In fact, the idea that the career of the legendary outlaw intersected with that of the Lionheart did not begin to circulate until the sixteenth century. Even though this spurious suggestion had no basis in contemporary evidence, it was followed and further embroidered in numerous works of literature, gaining particular currency through the writing of Sir Walter Scott – the influential early nineteenth-century author of romanticized historical fiction. The best guess of scholars actually working with medieval records is that, if he ever really existed at all, the very earliest that Robin Hood could have been active was at the start of King Henry III’s reign, more than twenty years after Richard I’s death.fn2 There may have been no meeting with Robin in 1194, but before leaving the region the Lionheart did make his one and only visit to Sherwood Forest, which – according to one well-placed eyewitness – ‘pleased him greatly’.6

  Richard spent the next month reasserting his authority in England and attending to matters of state. A public crown-wearing ceremony, performed at Winchester on 17 April, served as a powerful, visual affirmation of his sovereign might. Clear in the knowledge that he soon would have to dedicate the bulk of his time and energy to a war fought on the continent, the Lionheart took care to select an able representative to manage the kingdom’s governance in his absence, naming Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, as his new justiciar. At the same time, feverish preparations for the coming campaign were undertaken and the king also initiated an elaborate two-year building programme that would see Portsmouth developed as a major naval base, supply depot and conduit of contact with Normandy.

  Funding the continental war placed an enormous burden upon England and seems to have contributed to a significant hike in inflation across the realm. Some contemporaries grated at the crown’s exactions and the Lionheart’s renewed absence, but in truth – unless he was willing to simply surrender Normandy and the rest of the Angevin heartlands – Richard had no choice other than to fight. By mid May, the king was ready to set sail across the Channel with a hundred ships, all reportedly ‘laden with warriors, horses and arms’.7 He would never again set foot on English soil.

  The Angevin king now faced a monumental challenge. Philip of France had capitalized upon Count John’s treachery, snatching what one chronicler described as ‘the greatest and best part of Normandy’.8 Most of the major fortresses in the eastern half of the duchy had fallen into Capetian hands and even the ducal capital of Rouen had been threatened. By May 1194, Philip had almost completed his work of conquest and was locked into the siege of Verneuil – one of the last Angevin border outposts south of Rouen – fast proving that he too had learned a few valuable lessons about the waging of war while in the Holy Land. Meanwhile, the French king’s accomplice, Count John, had been tasked with holding the nearby castle of Évreux.

  Richard made landfall more than a hundred miles away at Barfleur, on the Cotentin Peninsula, just north of what centuries later would serve as the D-Day landing site of Utah Beach. Jubilant crowds were said to have greeted his arrival, chanting that the Capetians were now sure to be driven from Normandy. In public, the king exuded confidence, but one of his closest retainers later recalled that even the mighty Lionheart harboured nagging doubts through the early days of the campaign and proved unable to sleep. Resolving to take immediate action, Richard led his army on a forced march to relieve Verneuil. Along the way, at Liseux, he was met by John. The count had not come to offer resistance, but rather to make a grovelling appeal for forgiveness. The king was said to have looked down upon the forlorn figure of his brother, trembling at his feet, and declared: ‘John have no fear. You are a child and you had bad men looking after you.’9 In spite of all of John’s grave betrayals, Richard treated his younger sibling with magnanimity �
� resisting any temptation to try him for treason or bundle him into prison. John was stripped of his lands, but permitted to serve in the Lionheart’s army and soon turned Évreux over to Richard.

  Pressing on to Verneuil, Richard discovered that the stronghold was mere days away from capture. King Philip had used a combination of siege engines and sappers to bring down a section of its walls and was preparing to mount a frontal assault. Faced with this same situation, a less experienced or more headstrong commander might have rushed in to engage the Capetian army directly. The Lionheart adopted a cannier approach. A heavily armed party of knights and crossbowmen were sent ahead to break through the French lines and reinforce Verneuil’s garrison. At the same time, a second detachment marched in a wide arc to the east and south, cutting Philip’s line of supply. Having been on the brink of a notable victory, the Capetian monarch now suddenly found himself isolated and dangerously exposed to a counter-attack. On 28 May, he initiated a humiliating retreat, leaving Richard free to enter Verneuil and to celebrate an early triumph.

  The Lionheart had prevailed in this initial confrontation, but the war was far from over. Assembling every available ounce of manpower, Richard gathered a host of around 20,000 men at Verneuil and began the real work of reclaiming Normandy and the wider Angevin realm. The campaigning in that first year was conducted at a blistering pace. Richard moved with speed and assurance, targeting critical centres of power. Driving south into the Loire Valley, he advanced in force on the wealthy city of Tours. Confronted by the sight of the Angevin army, its populace paid Richard a handsome bribe of 2,000 silver marks to forestall an attack and promptly renounced their short-lived allegiance to the Capetians. The Lionheart then turned his attention to Loches, the site of a famous stone keep, towering more than a hundred feet over the surrounding landscape. After an assault that lasted just three hours, Richard overran this mighty stronghold, taking 220 prisoners.