The Conquering Family

by Thomas B. Costain

  The lionhearted prince was referring to a story about the Angevins which had been widely circulated and believed. The grandmother of Henry’s father, the handsome and futile Geoffrey, had gone to mass so seldom that doubts had arisen about her. It was observed that she never remained for the consecration. Her husband decided to make a test and took four men to mass with them with orders that the countess was to be kept in her seat by force if necessary. When the moment came she sprang up as usual and they tried to lay hands on her. However, they only succeeded in retaining her cloak. The countess had flown out of the window, leaving behind her a frightened congregation and a strong smell of brimstone!

  The third son, Geoffrey of Brittany, had the same fatalistic streak in him which Richard had displayed. “It is our proper nature,” he declared, “planted in us by intention, that ever brother should strive against brother, and son against father.”

  There was so much switching of sides and betraying of allies that to recite the whole sequence of events would be repetitious and would, moreover, serve no useful purpose. Henry was not able to fight against his rebellious cubs with his usual spirit. On two occasions he sent envoys to them to discuss peace, but they butchered the unfortunate go-betweens by way of answer. Another time he went to Limoges, and a shaft was launched at him from the battlements of the castle. It came close enough to its mark to kill his horse. With tears streaming down his face the saddened King asked his son Geoffrey, “What hast thy unfortunate father done to deserve being made a mark for thy archers?”

  These events were to have a sequel which involved Henry in the greatest sorrow of his life. A message reached him in 1183 that his eldest son was dangerously ill at Château Martel near Limoges and wanted to see him. It looked like a trap. The King could not be sure the message had come from his son and so paid no attention to it.

  But the heir of England was even more ill than the message indicated. He was dying. A malignant fever had taken possession of him, and he seemed to be burning away to nothing before the eyes of his attendants. His sins weighed heavily on his mind and he talked incessantly of the need for repentance. Finally, it being clear that the end was at hand, the stricken young man asked that a bed of cinders be made on the floor beside his couch and that a rope noose be tied around his neck. He then ordered his servants to drag him to the bed of cinders by the end of the rope. This was done, and in a very few seconds the heir of England breathed his last.

  The King had not loved anyone as much as his son Henry. The news of his death was a loss from which the rapidly aging monarch never recovered. It was clear to all about him that he had received a mortal blow. He brooded continuously, his temper was short, he took no interest in what went on about him. The Young King was dead. Nothing else seemed to matter.

  6

  All through the harrowing struggle the hand of Bertran de Born could be detected. This famous knight and troubadour, who was not a rich landowner but the lord of a single castle in Périgueux called Hautefort, had it firmly fixed in his mind that the only hope for the people of the west and south was to keep the English and the French at war. As long as Henry and Louis continued to fight, they would not be free to disturb the peace-loving people of Aquitaine and Limousin and Auvergne. To accomplish his purpose he proceeded to sow enmity between Henry and his sons. He was always at the shoulder of the Young King or of Richard, implanting suggestions and ideas which would keep the feud alive. Everything that happened was grist to his mill. He made capital of Henry’s overtures to Rome in the matter of a divorce. He disturbed the minds of the naturally suspicious princes by surmises as to what was behind the appointment to the chancellery of Geoffrey, the bastard son of Fair Rosamonde. Did the King harbor any idea of giving preference to Geoffrey at his death?

  When Eleanor was made a prisoner he wrote a song of lamentation which struck sorrow to the hearts of Aquitaine. “Return, poor prisoner!” he declaimed in verse. “Return to thy people, if thou canst. And if thou canst not, weep and say, ‘Alas, how long is my exile!’ Weep, weep again, and say, ‘My tears are my bread, both day and night!’ ”

  When the Young King first threw in his lot with Richard and the Aquitainians, a coalition which the machiavellian knight himself had done much to bring about, he wrote his most famous sirvientes, Pois Ventadorns e Combor ab Segur. This song reverberated throughout Aquitaine, and it brought armed men riding in with Eleanor’s colors on their lance tips and a fever in their blood to sever the tie with the Angevin empire. As has already been told, however, the coalition proved an unhappy one. The first hint of reverse sent a cold chill down the spine of Louis, and so the Young King felt compelled to abandon his allies.

  Bertran de Born seems to have had a great affection for Li Reys Josnes. He was always ready to forgive his vacillations and prepared to trust him again, even after it became abundantly clear that the English prince was unstable and treacherous. The death of the prince at Château Martel caused him genuine grief which he vented in two beautiful songs. With Richard, however, he was continually on his guard. He it was who coined the phrase Richard Oc e No for that war-loving prince, Richard Yea and Nay.

  The activities of the knight of Hautefort were maintained after the death of the oldest son, and they involved him finally in a struggle for his existence against the King and Richard, the latter having decided for some unexplained reason to support his father against his former friends and associates in rebellion. King Henry had been aware of the activities and plottings of Bertran de Born and had marked him for punishment. The chance to deal with the fearless troubadour seemed to have arrived. Henry marched his forces down the Loire and into Limousin and invested the castle of Hautefort.

  It was not one of the strong feudal castles which could resist attack indefinitely. Originally no more than a motte and bailey, a central court surrounded by a line of fortification, it was built with some thought to comfort and the possibility of gardens and flowers under the warm southern sun. However, the uncertainty of the times had persuaded the owner to the addition of bastions and to raising the walls. He defended himself, therefore, with such spirit and success that the King was finally compelled to use a malvoisin. It was a “bad neighbor” in every sense of the word, for it was a wooden tower which rose above the level of the walls of the castle and thus turned the tables on the defenders. Bertran and his men were no longer in a position to shoot arrows and hurl stones and pitch on the besieging army from a superior height; instead they were exposed to bombardments from the top of the malvoisin. It was impossible for the garrison to hold out, and the troubadour knight surrendered.

  He was certain, when he was summoned to appear before Henry in the lower level of the temporary tower, where the King had settled himself, that he would not have long to live. Accordingly he laid aside his battered hauberk and arrayed himself in his best attire. The men of the south went in much for fine silks and velvets and the most pleasing colors, and the cloak which the vanquished knight wore into the presence of his victorious foe was of a rich blue with trimmings of white and gold. He had curled and perfumed his hair and was wearing rings on his fingers.

  The interior of the malvoisin was dark, as there were only a few slits in the wooden walls for light and ventilation. Ladders had been built up into the high belly of the tower, and there were piles of shavings and empty sacks and a peasant’s bed in one corner which the head of the Angevin empire had been using. Richard, his face set and unfriendly, was sitting on a pile of saddles. The King, as usual, was pacing up and down.

  Henry came to a stop in front of the captive and ran a bitter eye over the fine plumage of the man who had caused him so much trouble.

  “Bertran, Bertran, you used to say you never had occasion for half your wit,” he said. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “The time has come when you’ll need more wit than you ever possessed.”

  The knight returned the King’s glance with complete ease. He had made up his mind to death and so was beyond fear. “My lord, it is tru
e,” he said. “I spoke even so; and what I said was the truth.”

  The light back of Henry’s eyes could be clearly seen, spelling danger for the man who faced him so easily. “I think your wit has failed you at last,” said the King.

  Bertran de Born nodded his head slowly. “Yes. It failed me on the day when the valiant Young King, your son, expired. On that day I lost sense and knowledge as well as wit.”

  Henry had known, of course, of the deep affection the knight felt for his son. Silence took possession of the room and then, to the surprise of everyone, it was seen that the King was weeping. He walked slowly to one of the narrow apertures in the dusty wall, his thoughts bitterly concerned with the vision of his beloved son, a rope around his neck, dying alone on a bed of cinders. Suddenly he reached out a hand to the wall but toppled back before he could stay himself. He fell to the floor in a dead faint.

  When the King regained his senses, it seemed to him that no more than a second of time had elapsed. Bertran de Born had not moved from his position, and his hand was still on his belt of silver links which he had been fingering when the King collapsed. Richard was still sitting on the saddles, his reddish-gold head bent over deliberately and his hands tightly clasped, as though they desired a chance to close around the neck of this impudent knight. A servant, who had been washing the royal face with cold water, immediately betook himself out of sight when it was apparent that the King had recovered his senses.

  Henry got slowly to his feet. He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Sir Bertran—” he began. His mood had changed completely, and it was clear that all hostile purpose had left him. “You had good reason,” he went on in a sad tone, “and good right to lose your wits for my son. He wished you better than any man in the world.” Better than he had wished his father! Henry knew this. He sighed deeply. “For love of him, I give you your life, your castle, and—and all you have.”

  Turning to leave through the open door of the dark shed, the King nodded once to the knight, muttered that he would be paid five hundred silver marks for the losses he had suffered, and shuffled slowly out. Richard followed, with a scowl which made it clear he did not share his father’s willingness to forgive.

  The part played by Bertran de Born has been debated down the ages and has been variously interpreted. In his own country, where men knew the need which had driven him, he was regarded as a hero and even a statesman. Too many refused to remember anything save that he had incited the sons to rise against their father. Dante heard the story of the man who sowed dissension and proceeded to insert the troubadour knight in the Inferno. In Canto 28 he describes a headless figure stumbling through the gloom of the nether regions and carrying his severed head in his hands. “Bertran de Born am I,” declared this specter, “the man who gave such evil counsel to the youthful King. Father and son I set against each other.”

  The inspired Italian should have looked more carefully into the records of that day.

  That the troubadour’s actions were inspired by a patriotic motive was proven during the last stages of the struggle between Henry and his remaining sons. He took the side of Richard, the son who had not forgiven him, against the father who had been so magnanimous! He did this because Henry was still bent on keeping Aquitaine under his own stern control, while Richard had been won over to the idea of letting the gay and carefree people do as they pleased.

  7

  The death of Louis provided Henry with a harder and much more resourceful opponent. Philip was only fourteen years old when he ascended the throne of France, but he was soon to give proofs of his mettle.

  Several references have been made to Gisors as the scene of peace conferences. It had been selected for the purpose because it possessed a remarkable oak tree, a magnificent specimen so large that it took four men to span the trunk with their arms. The branches extended out and touched the ground and thus, like the banyan tree, made a cool and well-shaded arbor where many men could assemble in comfort. On one of the occasions when Henry and Louis had met under the oak tree to settle their differences, the latter had brought his son with him. Henry was conscious from the first moment of the steady regard of the youthful prince, an unfriendly and unblinking look. Not until the parleys had ended did the boy venture to speak. Then, planting himself in front of Henry and pointing an accusing finger, he addressed the King of England.

  “My lord,” he said, “you do my father wrong. I perceive you can always get the better of him. I can’t hinder you, my lord, but I tell you now that, when I am grown up, I will take back all of which you have deprived him.”

  From the moment he became King, Philip set himself with a fierce determination, which seemed strange in a boy of his years, to carrying out his threat. He made a point of winning the friendship of the three remaining sons of the English King and became particularly close to Geoffrey, the Duke of Brittany. Geoffrey was the most difficult of all the English princes, and so his liking for Philip was certain to cause trouble. The tie was soon broken, however, in a way which caused the tired King still more grief. Geoffrey, who was the handsomest member of the royal family and almost as adept with arms as the mighty Richard, entered a tournament in Paris. He was thrown from his horse and trampled to death.

  The tragedy was an even greater blow to Eleanor, who had loved Geoffrey next to Richard. She received the news of his death at Winchester, and it caused her to fall into a long period of deep melancholy. She had been addressing letters to the Pope with complaints of her plight, and in one of them she wrote, “The Young King and the Duke of Brittany both sleep in dust while their wretched mother is compelled to live on, though tortured by the irremediable recollections of the dead.”

  Before the French King could set his coalition in action against Henry, Archbishop William of Tyre came through Europe, preaching a new crusade. The Christians in Palestine had not been able to maintain themselves against a great leader who had arisen among the Saracens named Sallah-ed-din, which later was corrupted to Saladin. The royal house of Jerusalem had ended in a girl named Sibylla, and the man she married, Guy of Lusignan, had been declared King. He was not capable of contending against Saladin. Tiberias fell to the infidels, and the capture of Jerusalem itself followed soon after. As a result the Holy Cross was taken by the Saracen forces.

  William of Tyre, depicting the cross in the hands of unbelievers, fired the minds of the people of western Europe with the same fervor which Peter the Hermit and Bernard of Clairvaux had created for the First and Second Crusades. Philip and Richard decided they would take the cross and go together. Even in Henry’s old veins the blood began to pound. He could not go himself, but he promised to back the effort with all his resources. A truce was declared which was to last until the concerted attack of the west had wrested the Holy Land once more from the paynim. The Church, naturally, was anxious to keep the peace, and Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury issued an automatic writ of excommunication against anyone who might initiate strife during a period of seven years. Henry’s approval of this measure had been secured in advance. It was all in his favor, for what he desired above everything was peace with his sons and with France. He had welcomed the preaching of the Crusade as a diversion which might keep these passionate young men busy. Philip and Richard were furious, and the latter said openly he would pay no heed to the writ if events made it necessary for him to break again with his father. Except in moments of intense emotional strain, Richard had small regard for the Church. The irreligious streak which had always been exhibited by the Angevins was particularly noticeable in the prince of the lion heart.

  Henry returned to England to raise the funds needed for the army he had promised. He levied a tax of ten per cent on all property and was stern and unrelenting in the collection. He went from city to city himself, talking to his subjects and questioning them as to their ability to pay. He does not seem to have been particularly happy over the need for this sharp assessment. The fervor inspired by William of Tyre was beginning to evaporate, and he did not lik
e to draw so deeply on the wealth of his kingdom. He became irritable, and any suggestion of criticism caused his temper to flare. “If they curse me now,” he retorted to the wife of a baron who had said the people were turning against him, “it is without just cause. If I live to see the end of this, they shall curse me again—and with just cause!”

  Soon after this he learned that Philip had disregarded Baldwin’s writ and broken the truce. He had invaded Auvergne and captured many castles. Aquitaine was rising to help him, and it was said that Richard would be in the French camp.

  Henry crossed hurriedly to France. The army he took with him was small, and his movements lacked the speed and sureness he had always shown in his campaigns. He had little stomach left, it was clear, for this continuous family warfare. He said repeatedly that he did not expect to see England again.

  The Church, fearing that war in France might end the plans for the Crusade, did everything possible to settle the differences. Philip was persuaded to meet Henry under the oak of Gisors. Perhaps his willingness to see his aging rival was due to memory of that occasion when he had threatened the great Angevin monarch. It was time for retaliation to begin. They met, as a result, in a mood of mutual animosity. Old wrongs filled the mind of the French King, while Henry soon realized that he had already conceived a greater dislike for the aggressive youth than he had ever felt for the ineffective father. It was impossible for anything good to come out of such a meeting. The two monarchs argued bitterly for three days and then parted without reaching terms.

  Later they met at Bonmoulins, again on the urging of the Church, and here Henry was subjected to the greatest humiliation he had yet experienced in life. He saw his son Richard bow the knee to Philip and swear homage for all the lands he ruled in his mother’s right. It developed later that the Lionheart had thus belittled himself because he had heard Henry was planning to thrust him aside and declare John his successor. Perhaps Henry had been moving in that direction. He had suggested again that the way to settle the long squabble over Princess Alice was to make her Joints wife—a little later. This could easily have aroused suspicions in the mind of Richard.