The Demon's Brood

by Desmond Seward

  THE DEMON’S BROOD

  Also by Desmond Seward

  The Hundred Years War

  The Wars of the Roses

  The Last White Rose

  THE DEMON’S BROOD

  DESMOND SEWARD

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the UK by Constable,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2014

  Copyright © Desmond Seward 2014

  The right of Desmond Seward to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-78033-177-5 (hardback)

  ISBN 978-1-47210-564-6 (ebook)

  Printed and bound in the UK

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Cover design by Bob Eames

  For Frederick, Kristin, William and Julian

  Acknowledgements

  Among those who helped, I should particularly like to thank my agent Andrew Lownie for encouraging me to persevere with so daunting a project. I owe another debt to my copyeditor, Elizabeth Stone, for helping me to make the book more readable. I am also grateful to the staff of the London Library for unfailingly courteous and imaginative assistance, and to the staff of the British Library.

  Contents

  Family trees

  Introduction: The Demon and Her Heirs

  Timeline

  Part 1

  The First Plantagenets

  1 The First Plantagenets

  2 The Eagle – Henry II

  3 The Lionheart – Richard I

  4 The Madman – John

  5 The Aesthete – Henry III

  Part 2

  Plantagenet Britain?

  6 The Hammer – Edward I

  7 The Changeling – Edward II

  Part 3

  Plantagenet France?

  8 The Paladin – Edward III

  9 The Absolutist – Richard II

  10 The Usurper – Henry IV

  11 The ‘Gleaming King’ – Henry V

  Part 4

  Lancaster and York

  12 The Holy Fool – Henry VI

  13 The Self-Made King – Edward IV

  14 The Suicide – Richard III

  15 Postscript – The Kings in the National Myth

  Notes

  Index

  Introduction:

  The Demon and Her Heirs

  The French Kings of England rose . . . to an eminence which was the wonder and dread of all neighbouring nations.

  Lord Macaulay1

  In 999 a Plantagenet forebear, Count Fulk the Black of Anjou, had his young wife, Elisabeth of Vendôme, burned alive in her wedding dress in the marketplace at his capital of Angers, in front of the cathedral, after catching her in flagrante with a goatherd.2 A few days later, all Angers went up in flames, torched by unknown hands, and the townsmen suspected Fulk. There is no record of what happened to the goatherd.

  The Black Count was just as merciless on campaign, slaying and destroying, robbing and raping. When, as an old man, he put down a rebellion by his equally ferocious son, Geoffrey the Hammer, he made him crawl around the floor in front of his courtiers, saddled and bridled like a horse, begging for mercy, while his father screamed, ‘You’re broken in, broken in!’ Yet on pilgrimages to the Holy Land Fulk ordered his servants to flog him through the streets of Jerusalem as he howled for God’s forgiveness. The Angevins decided that a devil’s blood must run in the veins of their sinister lord.

  A story grew up that, while hunting in the depths of a forest, Black Fulk’s father or grandfather had met and married on the spot a lady of unearthly beauty but mysterious origin, called Melusine, who bore him four children. She shocked her husband and his court by rarely attending church – if she did, she left Mass after the reading of the Gospel, deliberately missing the most sacred moment, the Consecration. Finally, her husband ordered his knights to intervene: next time she tried to leave they seized hold of her cloak. Melusine reacted by slipping out of the cloak to fly up into the air, vanishing through a church window, with two sons under her arm. Neither the demon countess nor the boys was ever seen again.3 But she left behind the other sons.

  This is the account given by Gerald of Wales, who was a courtier of Henry II and his son Richard I. Gerald’s friend, Walter Map, tells a similar tale in his Courtiers’ Trifles, but tactfully does not mention the Plantagenets. He describes the ‘loveliest of girls’ who captured the heart of ‘Henno with the Big Teeth’ and bore him four beautiful children. She too always left Mass before the Consecration, until, when bathing with her maid, her mother-in-law spied on her and, seeing them both change into dragons, had them sprinkled with holy water by a priest, whereupon they shrieked horribly and disappeared through the roof.4 (Behind this lie two very ancient European myths, those of the wood or water sprite and of the succubus – a female demon who seduces men in dreams.)

  According to Gerald of Wales, the tale of Melusine was frequently told by King Richard, who said that with such an ancestor it was not surprising that he and his brothers quarrelled. ‘We come from the Devil and we’ll end by going to the Devil’, joked the Lionheart.5 What might be termed diabolical genes were part of the family inheritance. ‘The things we call aristocracies and reigning houses are the last places to look for masterful men,’ John Buchan suggested, just after the First World War. ‘They began strongly, but they have been too long in possession. They have been cosseted and comforted, and the devil has gone out of their blood.’6 Yet until the very end the devil never abandoned Plantagenet blood.

  The royal family who reigned longest over the English, descendants of Fulk and the demon, had a strange surname – Plantagenet – which they took from a twelfth-century count who wore a sprig of broom-flower (Planta genista in medieval Latin) on his cap. Although the family did not adopt it as a cognomen until 1460, it is used throughout this book to stress the continuity of the line. Academics restrict ‘Plantagenet’ to the kings from Henry II to Richard II, but the Lancastrians and Yorkists were no less members of the dynasty.

  These men from Anjou, who ended as the most English of the English, not only spearheaded the merger of Normans and Anglo-Saxons into a nation but saved the country from disintegrating into separatist parts. Henry II rebuilt England after the anarchy left by King Stephen, although there were further attempts to undo this good work, not least with the revolt of Henry’s sons in the 1170s; and even as late as the fifteenth century rebel magnates allied with the Welsh leader Owain Glyndwr to divide England between them, to be defeated by Henry IV. The Plantagenets began the colonization of Ireland and conquered Wales, if they failed to absorb Scotland. During the Hundred Years War they overran north-western France, creating an Anglo-French dual monarchy – Paris was occupied for nearly fifteen years, Normandy for thirty. However, it all ended in defeat abroad and bankruptcy at home. Divided between Lancaster and York, the family was destroyed by the series of dynastic murders and battles that became known as the Wars of the Roses, its last king dying at Bosworth in 1485.

  Although they produced gifted rulers, four Plantagenets were murdered, two came close to deposition, and another was killed in battle by rebels – as Richard I had predicted, t
here was a diabolical streak until the end. Shakespeare’s tragedies have shaped the way in which we see no less than six of them.

  This book is an attempt to provide non-specialists with a short, readable, easily accessible overview of the whole dynasty in one volume. It is based on the major contemporary sources and also reflects recent research – I use quotations from earlier historians when they are more telling than those from modern academics. At the same time, it is a very personal interpretation of my reading across the years – and no doubt, some people may disagree with how I see Henry V or Richard III.

  Timeline

  1152

  Henry Fitz-Empress marries Eleanor of Aquitaine

  1153

  Treaty of Wallingford – King Stephen recognizes Henry as heir to the English throne

  HENRY II

  1162

  Thomas Becket becomes Archbishop of Canterbury

  1164

  Constitutions of Clarendon

  Thomas Becket goes into exile

  1166

  Assize of Clarendon

  1170

  Murder of Thomas Becket

  1172

  Henry conquers Ireland

  1173

  Rebellion of Henry’s son, the ‘Young King’

  1174

  Defeat of the Young King’s rebellion

  1187

  Henry quarrels with his son and heir, Richard

  1189

  Richard openly rebels, aided by Philip II of France – death of Henry II

  RICHARD I

  1190–2

  Richard on Crusade

  1193

  Richard, a captive of the emperor

  1194

  Richard’s return to England

  1194–9

  Richard’s war in France against Philip II

  1199

  Death of Richard I

  JOHN

  1203

  John murders his nephew, Arthur of Brittany

  1204

  Philip II conquers Normandy, Anjou, Maine and most of Poitou

  1205

  English barons refuse to help John reconquer his lands in France

  1207

  Stephen Langton made Archbishop of Canterbury – John refuses to accept him

  1208

  Pope Innocent III places England under an interdict

  1210

  John campaigns in Ireland

  1211

  John subdues Llewelyn ap Iorwerth in north Wales – Llewelyn counter-attacks

  1212

  English barons plot to murder John

  1213

  John becomes the pope’s vassal

  1214

  John’s campaign in France wrecked by his German allies’ defeat at Bouvines

  1215

  John forced to grant Magna Carta

  1216

  Civil war between John and the barons, who invite Louis of France to replace him

  1216

  Death of John

  HENRY III

  1216

  Henry crowned at Gloucester

  1217

  William Marshal routs the barons and the French at Lincoln

  Louis of France concedes defeat

  1219

  Hubert de Burgh becomes justiciar

  1230

  Henry’s unsuccessful campaign in France

  1231

  Systematic attacks on papal tax collectors in England

  1232

  Dismissal of Hubert de Burgh

  Stephen de Segrave becomes justiciar – government run by Peter des Roches

  1234

  Henry rules as his own first minister

  1242

  Henry’s defeat at Taillebourg

  1255

  Henry accepts the crown of Sicily for his son Edmund

  1258

  The Provisions of Oxford

  1264

  The Mise of Amiens – Louis IX decides in favour of Henry

  Simon de Montfort refuses to accept Louis’s decision

  Henry defeated at Lewes by Simon, who rules

  England as Lord Steward

  1265

  The Lord Edward defeats and kills Simon de Montfort at Evesham

  1270

  Edward goes on Crusade

  1272

  Death of Henry III

  EDWARD I

  1275

  First Statute of Westminster

  1277

  Defeat of Llewelyn ap Gruffydd

  1279

  Statute of Mortmain

  1282

  Final conquest of Wales

  1285

  Statute of Merchants

  1290

  Expulsion of the Jews

  1291

  Parliament of Norham to discuss Scottish succession

  1294

  Philip IV invades Gascony

  Rebellion of Madog ap Llewelyn

  1296

  Edward conquers Scotland

  1297

  William Wallace defeats the English at Stirling

  Barons refuse to fight in Gascony

  1298

  Edward destroys Wallace’s army at Falkirk

  1304

  All Scotland submits to Edward

  1306

  Robert the Bruce revolts against English rule

  1307

  Death of Edward I

  EDWARD II

  1308

  Exile of Edward II’s favourite, Piers Gaveston

  1312

  Murder of Gaveston

  1314

  Scots defeat the English at Bannockburn

  1318

  Edward accepts ordinances limiting his power

  1322

  Earl of Lancaster defeated at Boroughbridge and executed

  1322

  Edward defeated by Scots at Old Byland

  1322

  Despensers’ tyranny

  1326

  Queen Isabella and Mortimer invade – fall of the Despensers

  1327

  Edward II abdicates

  EDWARD III

  1329

  Treaty of Northampton recognizes Scottish independence

  1330

  Edward III overthrows Mortimer

  1333

  English archers annihilate the Scots at Halidon Hill

  1337

  Edward claims the French crown

  1340

  Edward defeats the French fleet at Sluys

  1346

  English defeat the French at Crécy

  English defeat the Scots at Neville’s Cross

  1347

  English capture Calais

  1348

  Black Death

  1349

  Ordinance of Labourers

  1355

  Black Prince’s campaign in France

  1356

  Black Prince defeats the French at Poitiers, capturing King John II

  1360

  Treaty of Brétigny gives Aquitaine to the English

  1369

  Charles V ‘confiscates’ Aquitaine

  1372

  Castilians defeat English fleet off La Rochelle

  1373

  Failure of John of Gaunt’s campaign – loss of Aquitaine

  1376

  Death of the Black Prince

  1377

  Death of Edward III

  RICHARD II

  1381

  The Peasants’ Revolt

  1387

  Royal army defeated by Lords Appellant at Radcot Bridge

  1388

  The Merciless Parliament purges Richard’s supporters

  1389

  Richard regains control

  Peace with France

  1394

  Richard’s Irish campaign

  1397

  Murder of Thomas, Duke of Gloucester

  Richard’s revenge on the Lords Appellant

  1398

  Richard’s despotism

  Gaunt’s so
n, Bolingbroke, is exiled

  1399

  Gaunt dies and his estates are confiscated

  Richard’s new campaign in Ireland

  Bolingbroke seizes the throne

  HENRY IV

  1400

  Owain Glyndwr’s revolt

  1403

  Henry defeats the Percys at Shrewsbury

  1405

  Archbishop Scrope’s rebellion

  Henry struck down by disease

  1407

  French invade Gascony, unsuccessfully

  1408

  Northumberland and Lord Bardolf defeated and killed at Bramham Moor

  1409

  Surrender of Harlech Castle – defeat of Owain Glyndwr

  1411

  English expedition to help Burgundians against Armagnacs

  1412

  Henry quarrels with his heir, Prince Henry