The Peterborough Chronicle
In 1137 King Stephen went across to Normandy and was well received there, because people thought that he would be just like his uncle, Henry I, and also because he still held the royal treasury. However, he gave it away or spent it foolishly. King Henry had accumulated a great deal of gold and silver, but it was not used for the good of his soul.
When King Stephen returned to England he called a council at Oxford, and arrested Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, and also Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln and Roger the Chancellor, his nephews, putting them in prison until they surrendered their castles to him. But when the traitors in the land saw that Stephen was of a mild disposition, soft and kind-hearted, and unable to impose justice, they committed all kinds of atrocities. They had declared their loyalty to him and had sworn oaths, but reneged on all of this. All the oaths were false and they were all broken, because every rich man built a castle and held it against the king – the whole country was full of these castles, and the poor people of the land were greatly overworked in building them. When the castles had all been built, they filled them with veritable devils and wicked men. Both by night and by day they would seize men (and women) that they thought had any property, and put them into prison for the sake of their gold and silver, and tortured them in unspeakable fashion – the holy martyrs were never subjected to such pain as this. Some were hung up by the feet and suffocated with foul smoke. Some were hung up by the thumbs, others by the head, and they had heavy chain-mail coats tied to their feet. Some had knotted cords tied around their heads, which were then twisted so that the knots penetrated the brain. Some were placed into dungeons with vipers and other snakes and toads, and were killed that way. Others again were placed inside an instrument of torture made like a short, narrow and shallow box, and sharp stones were put in it so that the man inside was crushed and all the bones in his body broken. The torture-chambers of many of these castles had a special instrument consisting of a head-band and halter, which was so heavy that it took two or three men to carry one. It was constructed as follows: it was fastened to a beam and a sharp metal halter was put round a man’s throat and neck in such a way that he could move in no direction, not sit, lie or sleep, because of the weight of all that iron. Many thousands died of starvation. I cannot and will not tell of all the atrocities and all the tortures that were perpetrated upon this land, and which went on for the nineteen years that Stephen was king, getting worse and worse. Every so often they would impose a tax on the towns, which they called ‘insurance money.’ When the wretched people had no more to give, they plundered and burned the settlements, so that it was easy to travel for a whole day and not find a settlement that wasn’t deserted, or land that had been tilled. Corn was dear, and so was meat, cheese and butter, because there was none to be had in the land. Many poor wretches died of starvation, while others, who had once been wealthy, were forced to beg in the streets. Others fled the country. There was never a land more wretched, nor did heathen men ever behave as badly, for in all their wantonness they spared neither church nor churchyard, but stole everything there was to steal, and then set fire to the church and all its buildings. Nor, indeed, did they spare the lands of bishops, abbots or priests, but they plundered monks and clergymen, and everyone robbed his neighbour. If two or three men ever rode together towards a town, all the inhabitants would flee, because they assumed that these were robbers. Bishops and clergy pronounced curses upon them, but it made no difference to them, since they were all excommunicated, damned and lost. When the land was actually tilled, the corn would not grow because the earth was ruined. It was said openly that ‘Christ and His saints were sleeping.’ We had to suffer things like this – and more than we can tell – for nineteen years, for our sins.
Richard I
The reign of Richard I (1189–99) is interesting partly because the old super-hero image of the Lionheart is now a little tarnished. He wasn’t the best king for England; he rarely visited it, preferring Aquitaine, Sicily, wars in the middle east, and some not very competent political wheeling-and-dealing with the French, the Austrians and others. Three short extracts from Latin histories make the point, one from the huge Polychronicon of Ranulph Higden (d. 1364), a Benedictine from Chester, one from the History of England by the Yorkshire monk William of Newburgh (d. 1198), and one from the Minor Chronicle of Matthew Paris (d. 1259), the historian-monk of St Albans. The first shows Richard’s unpleasant Lord Chancellor, William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, singularly failing to disguise himself as a woman; the second documents an even darker side of the Crusaders as they robbed Jewish communities in England (with additional problems that had to be sorted out by St Hugh); the third shows how Richard was bailed out, as usual, by the English taxpayer.
Ranulph Higden
The Polychronicon
VII
The notoriety of the wicked Lord Chancellor, William Long-champ, filled all England, so that great men complained and lesser men cursed him. John, the King’s brother, was extremely angry because William had taken prisoner their half-brother, Geoffrey the Bastard, Archbishop-elect of York, so he gathered together a large number of troops from his own lands and from Wales, and pursued the common tyrant from Windsor to the Tower of London, and then further on, to Dover. When he got there, William was much afraid that he would not be able to cross the Channel freely, so he put on women’s clothing over his ecclesiastical vestments, covering his head and much of his face with a kerchief. He walked along the shore with a length of linen over his left arm as if he were selling it, and carried a yardstick in the other, thinking that by this trick he would not be spotted and could escape more easily. But because he was quite unable to open or close his garments like a woman, he was caught – quite literally – by the private parts, and thus exposed in a most ignominious fashion. However, he eventually got away, and the administration of the kingdom passed to the Bishop of Rouen.
William of Newburgh
History of England
IV, 8
After the massacre of the Jews at King’s Lynn there was a new rising against the Jews in Stamford. There, at a market-fair at the beginning of Lent a crowd of young men from various places, who had assembled to take the Cross of Our Lord before setting out for Jerusalem, were indignant that the enemies of Christ’s Cross who lived there should possess so much wealth when they themselves had so much less to go on their journey with; and so they took by force from the supposedly undeserving owners of this wealth what they needed for their forthcoming pilgrimage. Reckoning that they were doing service to Christ by attacking His enemies (whose property they were after), they boldly set upon them, and no-one, whether native to the place or whether they had come in for the fair, dared to resist so many. Several of the Jews were killed, while others escaped wounded to the Castle. Their homes were looted and a great deal of money stolen. The robbers got away with the booty from their deeds, and none gave any thought to public order. One of them, a cocky young man from Northampton, whose name was John, left his share of the money with someone, and was secretly murdered by him for the sake of that cash. His body was thrown out of the town at night, but was found and by chance was recognised by someone, and the greedy killer fled. Soon, there were reports of dreams, visions and supernatural magic at that place, and simple folk attributed to the dead man all the merit and glory of a martyr, and they kept solemn vigils over his burial-place. The fame of the dead man spread amongst the ordinary people, who came there in curiosity and devotion, first from the immediate area and then later from further afield; and no-one who came to the new martyr, either to see the miracles or to seek aid, came empty-handed. This was mocked by the wise, but welcomed by the clerics who did well out of this superstition. The matter was referred to Bishop Hugh of Lincoln, a man of the greatest virtue, who boldly visited the place and removed all the trappings of the false martyr, and by Papal authority and under pain of excommunication he put a stop to the superstitious veneration of this dead man. Thus, by the pious a
nd effective intervention of this saintly pastor, the affair was brought to an end and the nonsense stopped.
Matthew Paris
The History of the English (The Minor Chronicle)
HOW THE DUKE OF AUSTRIA SOLD KING RICHARD TO THE EMPEROR
In the year of grace 1193 King Richard was in the custody of Leopold, Duke of Austria, who then sold him to the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI, for sixty thousand pounds of silver (reckoned on the Cologne standard). And when he had taken him, the Emperor kept him very well guarded indeed. In order to hold the King so as to exchange him for an enormous cash ransom, he had him imprisoned at Trifels, from which prison no-one had thus far ever escaped, and in which it was reckoned to be crueller to lock a man up than to kill him – the place was notorious. There he was kept prisoner under the guard of a large number of armed soldiers with swords at the ready. All this was quite unable to put the most noble Richard out of countenance, and he seems always to have laughed and joked or acted in a bold manner, according as time, place, circumstances or people dictated. So as not to delay the course of this history, however, I shall leave others to relate these amazing things about him.
HOW THE EMPEROR ACCUSED RICHARD OF A VARIETY OF SERIOUS CRIMES
The Emperor had been extremely angry with and greatly inimical towards the King for a long time, and would on no account allow him to plead before him, because he wanted to make a serious accusation of a number of crimes. Eventually, after the intervention of his friends, notably the Abbot of Cluny and William Longchamp, Richard’s Chancellor, the Emperor ordered the King to be brought into his presence with all solemnity, having summoned all his bishops, dukes and counts, and accused him directly in public of a variety of crimes … However, when King Richard was charged by the Emperor with all these calumnies, he stood right in the open, and although he had been called murderous, arrogant and villainous, he spoke so splendidly and rhetorically against each of the charges, that he drew the admiration of all, so much so that no suspicion of guilt for any of the things of which he had been accused remained in the minds of any of those listening. And so, when he had put his case for a long time before the Emperor and his princes, justifying himself so persuasively, the Emperor, much admiring this great eloquence on the King’s part, and also his steadfastness in the face of his tribulations, stood up and drew the King towards him to embrace him. From that day onward the Emperor began to deal with Richard more kindly, and to treat him with honour.
HOW KING RICHARD RAISED ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY THOUSAND POUNDS OF SILVER FOR HIS RANSOM
After all this, and with his friends again acting as mediators, there were long discussions about the King’s ransom. Eventually it was agreed that in exchange for Richard’s release the Emperor should be given one hundred and forty thousand marks of Cologne-standard silver, all of which would have to be found before he was freed. Thus an oath was taken on June 29, the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, by the bishops, dukes and barons, that the King should be enabled to raise that sum as soon as possible, so that he could return home. The substance of this agreement was conveyed back to England by Lord Chancellor William, Bishop of Ely, who took with him the King’s letters with the golden seal of the Emperor upon them, and right away he issued an edict by the King’s justices that all bishops, clerics, earls and barons, abbots and priors should give up one quarter of their income for the release of the King. Over and above this the Church contributed its chalices and the Cistercian Order a year’s wool-tax. No church and no monastic order was exempt. John, Bishop of Norwich, indeed, gathered half of the value of the chalices in his whole diocese to this end, and added half of his own fortune. So too, Abbot Warin of St Albans added a hundred marks of silver of his own to that of his diocese and church. Hugh, Bishop of Chester, who had with great assiduousness gathered many great gifts for the King’s cause was, when staying near Canterbury, robbed during the night of everything he had. However, Matthew de Clere, Constable of Dover, had aided and abetted the thieves, and for that the Archbishop of Canterbury excommunicated him.
Edward II
Edward II or Edward of Caernarvon (1307–1327) is another of the more confusing English monarchs. His sexual orientation has been discussed, and his less than half-hearted Scottish campaign led to Bannockburn in 1314. But he remains known primarily for his habit of allowing the kingdom to be run by ill-chosen favourites like Piers Gaveston, actually of a good Gascon family, but widely viewed in England as a grubby upstart and killed in 1312, or Hugh Despenser (ditto, in 1326). Edward himself was murdered in 1327, the prime movers being his wife Isabella, unaffectionately known as the ‘She-Wolf of France,’ and her lover, Mortimer. Isabella was tough where Edward was weak (rather than wicked, and he was fit and strong physically, which made him difficult to kill); but their son ruled as Edward III for nearly fifty years. The extracts are from three Latin chronicles: the anonymous London Annals of St Paul’s (on the general unpopularity of Piers Gaveston); the History of England 1272–1381 by Thomas of Walsingham, another monk of St Albans (on the necessarily very visible public death of Despenser); and Sir Thomas de la Moore’s account in his Life and Death of Edward II, composed about twenty years after the events, of the dreadful end of Edward himself, which, unlike that of Hugh, had to look as if it had been natural, even if his screams had been heard for miles around.
The Annals of St Paul’s
1308
In that year King Edward kept Christmas with Piers Gaveston at Wye, in a manor belonging to Battle Abbey. It was at this time that the Pope, seeking peace between the two kingdoms of France and England, confirmed the marriage which King Edward I had, in his wisdom, arranged long before, joining in matrimony the daughter of King Philip of France, that is, and Edward, son of King Edward I of England. Having made preparations for the marriage, the king gave the custody of the kingdom into the hands of Gaveston, and set out on January 22 for Boulogne, where he was received by the King of France with delight and great honour, for Philip had been eagerly awaiting him for some time. And so the King of England married Isabella, daughter of the King of France, at St Mary’s in Boulogne, on January 25, 1308. At the festivities were dukes and earls from thirty-two different countries, not counting those who had come across the sea with Edward. The King of France gave his new son-in-law, the King of England, the seal-ring of his kingdom, a marriage-bed more beautiful than had ever been seen, some superb war-horses, and many other gifts, gifts without number. All these the King of England sent right away to Piers Gaveston. Then, after several days of wedding-feasts, and after he had done homage to the King of France for the lands he held from him, King Edward returned on February 7, with his wife Isabella, to England.
But Piers Gaveston, named Earl of Cornwall, though a complete upstart, now began to despise the English. He had organised a tournament in honour of his own wife at Wallingford, with sixty knights entered against the same number. But on the appointed day he cheated by entering the field with two hundred armed warriors, and put to flight any of them that got in his way. From this arose much indignation on the part of the English. On another day a second tournament was proclaimed between two sides at Faversham in Kent, in celebration of the King’s wedding. This time on the appointed day he craftily feigned fighting, openly mocking the barons. This led to even greater annoyance on the part of the earls and nobles. A third tournament was proclaimed, in honour of the King’s coronation, at Stepney. Gaveston was afraid to go there, and suggested to the King that the nobles were planning to kill him, and the King at once forbade the tournament. Everywhere one could hear murmurings against Gaveston, and words of hatred from the people. But however great the hatred on the part of worthy men became against this man – who had been raised from the dungheap – the more fervent in proportion to it grew the love of the King for Piers Gaveston. Because of his excessive affection for him, the King referred to Gaveston as his ‘brother.’ But the world at large used to call him the King’s ‘idol,’ whom the king was as afraid to annoy as if Piers
had been his father, and as eager to please as if he had been his superior. The King had in his gift various kinds of favour, which were his to dispense by his own royal prerogative – they were his own, and it was inappropriate for them to be in the hands of anyone else, but he transferred their operation to Gaveston. Now, if one of the nobles or lords required a special favour of the King in some matter that needed settlement, the King sent him to Piers Gaveston, and whatever he ordered or said, that would soon be done, and the King accepted this. But the whole population was angry about the situation of having two kings ruling the land, one in name and one in reality.
Thomas of Walsingham
A History of England
1326
After this, the aforementioned Sir Hugh Despenser [the Younger] was condemned to death without right of appeal at Hereford, and was there dragged through the streets, then hanged on a gallows that was fifty feet high. Then he was decapitated and quartered, and the four pieces sent to the four parts of the kingdom. His head, though, was placed on London Bridge. He had been dragged through the street in a surcote with his own arms on it, on which was clearly written in fine letters the words of Psalm LII, from ‘Why boasteth thou thyself in mischief’ down to ‘I am like the green olive tree.’ And afterwards it was written of him:
The Dedalus Book of Medieval Literature Page 5
