Wolves in Armour nc-1

by Iain Campbell

  “Now, talking about Reliefs, I’m aware that there have been many abuses of power by Earl Ralph, Bishop William and Engelric, both directly by them and by their minions. Many of these are crimes which the sheriff is required to investigate. I speak not of simple cases of overcharging, such as I have just experienced, but of threats and extortion and forced marriages. I’m recently back from Ipswich were I made a full report to Roger Bigod, the sheriff of Suffolk, and I believe he’s undertaking a full investigation. I have here 29 depositions of complaint, written in both English and Latin and sworn by the deponents in the presence of upstanding and honourable members of the local community- usually the local priest and the village head-man.

  “Of the 29, 14 relate to matters which are a crime under both English and Norman law. Two relate to you personally. Two to Earl Ralph or his servants. Three to Engelric personally and the rest to the servants of yourself, the earl, the bishop and Engelric. I am sure that other depositions will be received. It’s your responsibility as sheriff to investigate these crimes to the fullest extent of the law, irrespective of who has been accused. I expect that you will place an immediate halt on the forced marriages that are proposed. The depositions each include a statement by the brides-to-be that they do not consent to the proposed match. A duplicate copy of each deposition will be placed by me into the hands of Chancellor Regenbald as soon as I can travel to London.” FitzWymarc looked as if he was about to become apoplectic, gasping with anger and bright red of face.

  Just then Leof arrived back with a large and heavy sack full of coins, which Osmund insisted be counted out on the table- all 1,920 silver pennies, weighing nearly six pounds in weight. A receipt was demanded and received. This took some time as the coins were counted into piles. Osmund then handed the bag of written depositions directly into fitzWymarc’s hand.

  The clearly furious sheriff made a gesture to stay Alan as he started to rise from his seat. “You made a comment a few minutes ago regarding my not being present with my men at Hastings. As you know I came to England years ago and received land from King Edward. You will also know that I am kin to King William. William does not reward either those who are disloyal or those who shirk their duty. After William was crowned I received the office of sheriff of Essex in place of the man who fell at Hastings. Consider those facts well.”

  Alan thought briefly and then nodded. FitzWymarc had ridden into William’s camp shortly before the battle at Hastings and met with the man who was then duke and would become king, before again riding off. He now appreciated in hindsight that he had made a mistake and made an enemy of a man who was both capable and in royal favour. Any complaint against fitzWymarc was likely to be ignored. In the future he would have to try to mend bridges and avoid further confrontation.

  “Well, that has ‘put the cat amongst the pigeons’,” commented Osmund wryly as they walked down the hill towards ‘The Hog’s Head’ Tavern after leaving the castle.

  The Tavern was easy to find. It had no sign, but instead a dried and wizened pig’s head stared with empty eyes onto the street. ‘Brun the one-eyed’ was similarly obvious enough to find. He was the barman and had a verbal message from Linn, the young bandit who fitzWymarc had released several weeks earlier. Linn confirmed Pearce’s story of organised banditry across much of Essex and advised that he had joined a band operating in the forest and hills near Braintree and Coggeshall at the junctions of Lexden Hundred, Hinckford Hundred and Witham Hundred. Further contact could be made via a patron of ‘The Prancing Pony’ Tavern at Coggeshall called ‘Old Aelfhare’. Linn also reported that Peace had bolted north for Suffolk and points beyond as soon as he had been released. Alan handed over a penny for the information.

  The pigeons came home to roost a few days later when Alan received a written message from Earl Ralph abruptly and rudely ordering him to attend immediately at Norfolk. Alan had Osmund pen a polite response ‘I must decline the kind offer of Earl Ralph to meet with me at Norfolk as that is not on my intended itinerary at this time and is of course some considerable distance. My own duties prevent me from accepting, but I am sure that we will meet in the near future either when you travel through the southern part of your earldom, or alternatively in London, where we will no doubt both shortly need to attend as members of the King’s Council’.

  The following day another messenger rode in, this time with a much more polite letter from William Bishop of London asking to see Alan ‘on matters of mutual concern at your earliest convenience when you are next in London’.

  It was now Wednesday 18th July, and with the warm and dry summer the village moot had decided to commence the harvest several weeks earlier than normal. Men, women and the older children walked the fields cutting the wheat, oats, rye and barley with scythes and tying it into sheaves that were then arranged in stooks at the end of the fields. The sheaves were next taken away for threshing, with the stalks then being placed in barns, made into haystacks or cut as chaff, and the grain stored in sacks in the communal granary. The cattle were allowed to graze the cut stubble. Certain that only sudden and cataclysmic heavy rain, of which there was no sign, could prevent a successful harvest, Alan was satisfied that it was time for a journey to London. If nothing else he needed to order the glass for the windows in the Hall before autumn came.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  LONDON AUGUST 1067

  On the journey to London Alan was accompanied by Anne, two maids, Leof, Osmund, ten Wolves and ten huscarles. All the men were mounted and the women travelled in a light cart, and they made a leisurely journey with a halt for the night at Chelmsford. The second day was spent on the road through the Great Forest before they entered London through Aldgate at the east side of the city, travelled through much of the city and noted that the preliminary construction of fortified positions of The Tower, Baynard Castle and Montfichet Tower had been completed, with further work to strengthen their defences underway.

  As a man who had spent most of his life in small country villages, with only a few brief years at Rouen and then Paris, and with his time in the former largely spent in the isolation of the Benedictine monastery, Alan was both uncomfortable and excited by being in London. Uncomfortable because he hated the crowding, the streets teeming with people bustling to and fro and the filth from discarded refuse and offensive industries such as tanning and dying. Excited because something was always happening and every stroll through the streets was a new adventure- if you survived it, particularly after dark.

  The city proper, the area within the walls, was less than two-thirds of a mile wide along the river by a third of a mile deep from the river to the swamp and farms outside the walls to the north. Large areas of habitation outside the walls straggled along the roads from Westminster to the west and Mile End and Oldford to the east.

  Southwark, on the south side of the river, was in Surrey and outside the jurisdiction of the officials in London, with the inevitable result that the buildings were largely ramshackle and there were large numbers of officially permitted brothels called ‘stews’.

  The city itself, although crowded, was not in all parts excessively crammed and there were some open areas, particularly close to the Chepe market. There were other areas where land was vacant not by design but by accident as a result of fire. Almost all the buildings in and near the city were of wooden construction and most were thatched. With so many buildings so close together a spilled oil lamp or an unattended fire, whether it be a cooking fire, bread oven or forge, could get out of hand in moments and wreak havoc.

  Most of the houses, in some places crammed closely together, were of two, three and sometimes four storeys in height. Many were filthy tenements into which the poor were packed one family to a room with sometimes ten people with barely space to spread a shared straw palliasse on the floor.

  On his previous visit Alan had found the people themselves were also different. They were less deferential and more confident and assertive, almost cocky, even in their dealings with customers. A
lan, who didn’t see himself as having an over-inflated self-opinion, frankly found it annoying to have a filthy young lad dressed in rags approach him in the streets to try to sell pies or other items and address him in a cheeky manner, almost as an equal. The ‘ladies of the night’ were equally bold in their marketing efforts, even during the day- and even when Alan was accompanied by Anne.

  The streets were thronged with people hurrying to and fro. Costermongers selling from their carts. Stall-holders whose stalls blocked the narrow walkways on each side of the streets, causing pedestrians to have to walk on the roadway. In many places stalls were placed opposite each other, creating bottle-necks through which the pedestrians and traffic struggled. Shop owners, many with open-fronted shops and with trestle tables set up to display their wares, were seeking custom but keeping a close eye to ensure that prospective customers or passers-by didn’t purloin their goods. Baker-boys carried trays of pies, breads and sweetmeats on trays supported by a leather strap around their neck. There were touts for all sorts of businesses from taverns to tailors, barbers to ribbon-merchants, with a cacophony of voices as they all called attention to themselves and their goods or services.

  Not only the ears and eyes were assaulted, so also was the nose. Sometimes the smells were pleasant, such as when passing a bakery, stalls selling cooked meats or in the Vintry. Most often the smells were offensive, such as on passing the premises of tanners, dyers or fullers, where vats of urine and chemicals gave off rank odours and passers-by paused to make a contribution of urine into pots placed by the footpath; the Fish Market and the Shambles with their stench of spoiled meat, blood and entrails and with rats, cats, curs and crows picking at the noisome heaps; rotten vegetables at the Vegetable Market in Chepe; and the ever-present excrement of people and animals that littered the streets, pot-fulls of night-soil being hurled from upper windows and often striking and miring those walking below.

  They finally took rooms at the ‘Fox and Goose’ Inn in Watling Street, just near St Peter’s Church and close to St Paul’s Cathedral in the west of the city. The inn appeared well kept from the outside and Anne was satisfied as to its suitability after a brief inspection. The cathedral bells were ringing Vespers in the evening when Alan had finished his negotiations with the innkeeper to take eight rooms for 28 people, including meals, for a penny per person per a night. He then gave Leof a note to deliver to the St Paul’s Cathedral Minster office, with strict instructions to wait for a reply- and that when he returned he was to take a circuitous route through crowds and alleys to ensure he wasn’t followed. Alan gave him a penny, the first money Leof had ever owned.

  Alan’s note was addressed to Bishop William of London, announced his arrival and indicated his availability for the following day, Friday. It was the first time that he had used his new seal-ring given to him by Anne.

  As there were still two hours to sunset, Alan and Osmund, accompanied by four huscarles, rode the short distance along the Strand to the Westminster Palace to see if King’s Chancellor Regenbald was in residence. By good fortune he was, and when Alan and Osmund walked into his office the aged prelate rose to clasp forearms before inviting his guests to sit.

  Alan had met Regenbald both at the royal coronation and in his subsequent discussions with the king and had a true liking for the old man, together with an appreciation for his perceptiveness, intelligence and quick wit. The cleric had been in charge of Edward’s writing office until appointed by William as Chancellor immediately following the latter’s coronation.

  On handing over the bag of rolls of depositions Alan explained the problems being experienced with the Heriot charges in East Anglia in particular and his understanding that the problem was more wide-spread. Osmund gave a quick precis of each of the depositions that they had received from both Suffolk and Essex, and which ones had been referred to the sheriffs for investigation, referring to a summary list that he had drawn up.

  Sitting with one leg up on a foot-stool Regenbald apologised for the bout of gout he was presently suffering, which was why he was staying in his chambers in the palace instead of riding home each night. “That and some current domestic discord,” he said pulling a wry face, a reference to the fact that like many English priests Regenbald was married. “Now, this lot is not going to make you any friends here at court at all, and won’t help your future prospects. Even the king is likely to be unhappy that you have raked up this muck. Odo and fitzOsbern are likely to be livid, as it reflects badly on their administration in the absence of the king. Firstly, are you sure you should be presenting them to me and not to the Lords Regent?”

  “I’m quite happy handling things this way. Odo of Bayeux is the last person I would want to look at these pleadings. You are the King’s Secretary, the man who handles his correspondence. I want the king to have a look at this correspondence and not just have it quietly buried and forgotten. I expect that by the time the king returns most, if not all, of these complaints will have been favourably resolved by Earl Ralph, Bishop William and Engelric and the blame placed on over-zealous or corrupt servants and minor officials. You and I both know that in fact theft, corruption and extortion are currently running rampant in the kingdom, with the co-Lord Regent Odo of Bayeux being amongst the worst offenders- which in part is why he’s having so much dissent and protest in his own earldom of Kent. The English don’t like people abusing their office at the people’s expense. Some minor corruption is expected, but not blatant robbery and extortion.”

  “And what do you hope to obtain?” asked Regenbald thoughtfully, looking over steepled fingers.

  “Justice for these specific individuals whose legal rights have been abused. Hopefully a more temperate use of powers and less abuse of powers by the appointed officials. King William took an oath at his coronation that the laws of Edward would be upheld. At the moment it is as if a pack of wolves, Norman and English, are ravaging the country, the middle-thegns, poorer thegns and freemen, for their own benefit. If King William orders taxes are to be levied that is one thing. Private theft and extortion are another matter. The sheriffs need to be put on notice that they are expected to act and not either ignore or participate in financially ruining thousands of Englishmen,” replied Alan.

  “Admirable sentiments, if perhaps overly virtuous,” rejoined Regenbald. “I actually meant what do you hope to obtain for yourself?”

  Alan looked at him in blank incomprehension for a moment before replying, “Oh, I’m sorry! Of course you’re used to dealing with courtiers who only look to further their own benefit. The short answer is ‘nothing’. King William is likely to be annoyed at me for wasting his time and pointing out his poor choice of appointed officials. He may relish the opportunity to let those officials know that they are under scrutiny and perhaps punish one or two.

  “Earl Ralph, the earl of East Anglia where I hold my own lands, will no doubt do whatever he can to make my life and that of my friends as difficult as possible. I don’t expect much trouble from Bishop William or Engelric as I can cause them more trouble than they can cause me. I hold my lands as tenant-in-chief from the king himself. I’m subservient to only one man under God, and I view this as a matter that God has given me to do as I must. William fitzOsbern will be angry with me because he brooks little intervention in what he does and he takes his appointment as co-regent seriously. He’s somewhat puffed up about his own importance and will reject any criticism. Odo will object to any interference in his own program of theft and illegal acquisition.”

  Regenbald stroked his chin. “So a man who is honest, ferht and God-fearing, on a quest to protect the unwitting, with no thought of self-benefit- and indeed accepting that his own interests will be harmed.” Alan was not sure if the tone was astonished or ironic.

  “I have no political ambitions and am happy with what I hold, which only the king can take from me. I’m sure that King William will not do that, if for no reason other than to use me as a weapon against those he wishes to keep in check,” confirmed A
lan.

  “You have obviously given this much thought and prayer and I salute your courage. As King’s Chancellor I have no higher office to look forward to and I will support your position. As an Englishman I object to the abuses that are taking place against my fellow-countrymen and I’m glad to see someone from what might be viewed as ‘the other side’ supporting the common folk. You have my regard, my best wishes and whatever assistance I can provide you- as I am Chancellor of England that may be of some assistance in ‘keeping those wolves off your back’. Now, it’s after dark and as the gates of the city will be closed for your return to your inn, I’ll provide you with an escort to ensure that the gates are opened for you. I look forward with expectation to your future involvement in politics in England.”

  When Alan and Osmund arrived back at the ‘Fox and Goose’ they found a reply waiting from William, Bishop of London, brought by Leof. The reply, in a clerk’s hand, indicated he should attend at Bishop’s Palace near the cathedral at eleven the next morning. Leof was adamant that when he had returned as darkness was falling there was no way he could have been followed as he had dashed down Watling Street, past the shops in Gutter Lane, down Bread Street and back up Wood Street before sneaking in the back entrance of the inn.

  Alan and Anne rose reasonably early at six in the morning the next day, although still two hours after sunrise and the opening of the city gates. It was about a twenty minute very careful walk with Osmund and four huscarles, not now in armour but still carrying swords and a haughty expression that cleared the street for the others following, through the crowded pavements and streets of Chepe Street to Bishopsgate Street.

  There they met with the Jews, firstly with Gideon and then with Malachi, completing their financial arrangements quite quickly. Alan asked if they knew of any large houses for sale either within the city walls or along The Strand leading to Westminster. Malachi was of great assistance, saying that it was a suitable time to buy property and that he knew a number of Englishmen under financial pressure as a result of the Heriot who may be prepared to part with their town-houses at modest process, and he would send a list of possible properties the next day.