The Conquering Family

by Thomas B. Costain

  John’s English subjects were pleased with the beauty of the girl Queen, but this did not wipe out unpleasant memories of the way she had been stolen, and they were still distressed at the cavalier setting aside of Avisa of Gloucester. They need not have wasted sympathy on the first wife. She was married twice later and was relieved, no doubt, to escape participation in the kind of life John proceeded to live.

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  It was two years later that the storm broke overseas. The Count of Lusignan and his brother had been stirring up disaffection ceaselessly, and now Arthur, free of his uncle’s restraint, came out boldly to assert his rights by force of arms. This was done by prearrangement with Philip, who had veered around again. The French Song moved his army into Touraine at the same time. John was quarreling with the barons of England over the laxity and corruption of his rule and he found it hard to raise a large enough force to protect his interests in France. By the time he landed in Normandy, the French had taken many cities and castles, Lyons, Mortimar, and Boutavant. The situation was beginning to look grave. Arthur was now fifteen and had been knighted by Philip and married to his daughter Marie. He came fiercely down from Brittany with an army at his back, dreaming of military fame. John had taken Isabella with him and was as notoriously a lie-abed as before, a habit which the Queen seems to have encouraged. He was slow in organizing the defense of his wide-flung dominions, and his followers muttered more bitterly than ever.

  It remained for Queen Eleanor to set fire to the resolution of her slothful son and at the same time to fill the greatest role of her career. She was now eighty, and there was no longer any denying that her end was drawing near. Nevertheless, she was fulfilling her duties and traveling about as necessity dictated. This took her, as it happened, to the town of Mirabeau just as the young prince issued out from Brittany. Arthur had no feeling of loyalty or affection for his grandmother, and he turned aside with unfilial zest to invest the town.

  It should have been an easy matter to take a place as unimportant as Mirabeau. It was not strongly held or stocked to resist a siege. What followed, nevertheless, was a triumph for the Queen. Bent and tired, clutching a cane in one hand, she collected as many men as she could and occupied the keep within the town. She took on herself the direction of the defense, seeing to it that the battlements were manned and that the resolution of her little band remained equal to the task of holding off the forces of Brittany. No details of the siege have been preserved, but it is easy to see the frail figure pacing the ramparts, watching the movements of the hostile troops in the streets which hemmed them about, waiting anxiously for results from the messengers she had sent off to her son. Her voice was shrill as she called orders to her tiny garrison. It was certain they could not hold out long; that, in fact, they would not be holding out at all if she had not been there.

  John received the message and came to life with a vengeance. He marched his troops the eighty-odd miles to Mirabeau in two days. His arrival was so unexpected that Arthur and his men were trapped inside the town and had to surrender. Among those taken prisoner was Hugh of Lusignan, which undoubtedly added a note of personal pleasure to John’s pride in his military achievement.

  Eleanor was a proud woman when her son came riding into Mirabeau to greet her. She laid stern injunctions on him, nevertheless, knowing the flaws in his character. If he had a shred of statesmanship in him, she said, he would treat Hugh of Lusignan as a chivalrous foe. If he valued his immortal soul, he would not lay a finger on his captive nephew. John, still submissive where his mother was concerned, agreed on both points.

  After another forced march by which he relieved the garrison at Arques, which Philip was attacking, the now victorious King took counsel with himself as to what should be done about the prisoners. He had a vindictive streak which made it impossible for him to carry out the promises he had made his mother. The knights captured at Mirabeau were twenty-two in number, including the brave Hugh. They were sent off to England in the most humiliating manner the King could think of, chained together two and two in oxcarts. Hugh was put in Bristol, but the rest were shoved into Corfe Castle, an immensely strong place on a high cliff on the Isle of Purbeck, which John seems to have favored as a prison. The King observed the letter of his promise to his mother in the sense that no violence was offered the prisoners. No food was sent into their cells, however, and most of them died of starvation. An exception was Savaric de Mauleon, a rics-baron of Poitou and a noted troubadour. This resourceful fellow succeeded in making his guards drunk, broke their heads, and escaped. He afterward turned his coat and became a leader of mercenaries for John. He will be heard of later.

  Hugh of Lusignan was spared and finally released, because John feared to estrange his young wife.

  The captive prince was taken to Falaise and lodged in a cell of the castle. He was protected by the promise John had made his mother and by every consideration of political expediency, for his death would alienate the sympathy of even the closest supporters of the King and strengthen the forces against him. But, knowing John, people waited with the deepest foreboding.

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  Falaise Castle was familiar to Englishmen, for it had played an important part in the story of Anglo-Norman relations. Here Robert of Normandy had brought the tanner’s daughter and here the healthy child had been born to her who became William the Conqueror. Here the Norman kings had gone most frequently when they returned to the duchy. This tall castle stood so high on a boat-shaped rock between heavily wooded country and the Cleft of Val d’Ante that it had not been thought necessary to equip it with the usual aids to defense, moat and barbican. The walls were nearly ten feet thick and in places they were double, with passages between in which two men could walk abreast. All the cells in Falaise, and there were many of them, were sunk into the walls, as was the comparatively cheerful apartment where the tanner’s daughter had lived.

  John arrived at Falaise and went to his chamberlain, Hubert de Burgh, who was in charge. Hubert de Burgh was a distant relation of the King, being descended from a half brother of the Conqueror, and he was a stouthearted and generous knight. He had been an indulgent jailer to the despondent young prince, and it was with grave misgivings, undoubtedly, that he considered the meaning of the King’s visit.

  Arthur had been allowed some liberty, and it was in a comfortable and even light apartment on the second floor of the keep that he faced his royal uncle. He had donned a tunic with the loose Breton sleeve, and close-fitting trunks; a tall youth, slender and as pliant as a willow bough, his dark eyes showing no fear at all, though he must have known that his position was desperate.

  John had a habit of speaking in an almost gentle voice when his designs were most dangerous. He began to urge his nephew to give up all pretensions to a crown he would never wear, and his tone was friendly and forgiving. The prince was not deceived. He knew his uncle hated him. This did not affect the stand he proceeded to take, which was a bold denial that he had been at fault. In fact, he faced the King as determinedly as though their positions were reversed.

  When John offered his friendship the boy cried out, “Better the hatred of the King of France!”

  The King boasted that his power was now supreme and that his towers were high and strong; so high and so strong that no prisoner could hope to escape him.

  “Neither towers nor swords,” declared the boy, “shall make me coward enough to deny the right I hold from my father and my God!”

  John abandoned any idea he might have had of coming to an understanding with the prince. “So be it, fair nephew,” he said in the familiar subdued tone as he turned and left the apartment.

  Hubert de Burgh knew what the sequel would be and he was apprehensive at once when a party of the King’s men arrived at Falaise shortly thereafter. John had decided, it developed, that he could not fly in the face of world opinion by killing the boy. To take his eyesight would, however, eliminate him as a candidate for power; and so the instructions of the party were to make use of t
he white-hot irons with which this form of mutilation was performed.

  Arthur had already demonstrated his courage. When he learned the purpose of his cruel uncle, however, his resolution failed him. He was still a boy in years and he wanted to enjoy the life which stretched ahead of him. He wanted eyes to lead armies, to fight on the field of honor, to see the children he would beget, to enjoy the rich pageantry of royal existence. To go through the long years with blackened holes in lieu of eyes, to be denied all the sweets of life, was a fate he could not face. He dropped to his knees before the executioners and begged for mercy.

  Hubert de Burgh was a man of compassion and, fortunately, of stout heart as well. He had become fond of the boy and, moreover, he knew that the claim of the young prince to the throne of England was a better one than that of John. He made, accordingly, one of those decisions which so often change the course of history. He disregarded the royal order and sent the executioners away. Then, being very much afraid that what he had done might endanger his own eyes or even his life, he resolved on a deception. He had the bells in the chapel toll as though for a death and gave it out that Arthur of Brittany was no more.

  The storm which broke over France when this became known was greater even than he had feared. The subjects and supporters of John were as angry and horror-stricken as his enemies. Realizing now the enormity of his mistake, John disclaimed any part in the death of his nephew. Hubert de Burgh was forced to acknowledge the deception and to produce his prisoner as proof that nothing had happened to him. The storm died down, but it did not take men long to fit together the ends of this curious train of events and to come on the truth. John’s reputation suffered almost as much as though his design had been carried out.

  It was said that the King was secretly relieved that Hubert de Burgh had disobeyed him. Nevertheless, he had the prince taken from Falaise and imprisoned in Rouen instead. Here a man named William de Braose, the lord of Bramber, was in charge. He was the King’s familiar and confidant, a man of great physical strength and high ambition and, it was believed, of no scruples.

  It was generally known that the prince had been imprisoned in Rouen, but after the heavy doors clanged shut behind him he was never seen again. No information could be had from the King’s men who garrisoned the place. Apprehensions which had fed on the fiasco at Falaise flared up. What had been done with the unfortunate youth? Had the King dared to do away with him after all?

  John does not seem to have said anything. None of the men under him could be induced to talk. It became apparent finally that the disappearance of the prince was as much a mystery to the underlings as to the world outside the walls. The only exception, perhaps, was William de Braose. That bull-necked baron continued to enjoy the King’s confidence exclusively, and he was as uncommunicative as John himself.

  Then rumors began to circulate. The prince, it was said, had been taken from his cell at night and placed in a boat occupied by the King and one other man. He had been murdered by the King’s hand and his body had been weighted and thrown into the Seine. This story contains flaws which make it hard to accept. Why should the victim be murdered in the open, and in a boat where he might resist with more hope of success, when he could have been killed in his cell, where he would have no chance to defend himself or to raise an alarm? This was believed, nevertheless, and it is still the story which is told and accepted.

  A deep silence was maintained by the King, and so the disappearance of the brave young prince remained a mystery.

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  But why should it be considered a mystery? The scant evidence, when viewed in the light of subsequent events, points the way clearly to the explanation.

  It has already been stated that William de Braose was in charge of the new citadel at Rouen when the prince was taken there from Falaise. One other man would have to know what happened to Arthur besides the King whose orders were carried out, and that would be the lord of Bramber. He returned to England with John and remained in high favor, such high favor that others became jealous of the power and pretensions of this overbearing nobleman. “Braose was with the King at Windsor,” says one historian, “with him in the court, and with him in the chase.” The emphasis thus placed on the fact that they were always together, the guilty King and the man who, perhaps, had been his instrument, is significant.

  Braose was married to a most remarkable woman. She had been Maud de Valeri, although in some versions her name is given as Maud de Hay. At any rate, she was a great heiress and had brought her husband many castles along the Welsh Marches, in the valley of the Usk and along the Nedd and the Wye, Castles Radnor, Hay, Brecon, and Bradwardine. She was a handsome woman of the heroic type, a Lady Macbeth in many respects, bold and unscrupulous and intensely ambitious. When her husband was away she took charge and thought nothing of donning armor and leading troops into battle. In fact, she was as quick to string up a prisoner as her violent lord and master. She is said to have been the original of Moll Walbee, the heroine of several old Breconshire romances.

  William de Braose and his amazonian spouse were in such high favor during the first years of John’s reign that they married their eldest son to a daughter of the house of Gloucester and their own daughter to the sixth Baron de Lacey, who was also the lord of Trim in Ireland. They were growing wealthy rapidly and, as it was a rare thing for anyone around the King to accumulate money, whispers began to circulate. Braose was believed to have some power over the King. This continued for ten years, an exceptional length of time for anyone to retain the favor of the capricious John.

  An end always comes, however, to the tenure of favorites. Perhaps a distaste was growing in the King for this man who was waxing so fat beside him. At any rate, the time came when he needed money himself and he made a bargain with De Braose by which the latter was to buy certain lands in Leinster which belonged to the King. At least the King said they did. It developed immediately that there was some question as to his ownership of the lands in question. Two churchmen, the Bishop of Worcester and a brother of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, claimed ownership of part and they refused, naturally enough, to allow the transfer of title to the prospective purchaser. The price John had set was five thousand marks, a large sum indeed in those days, and the King had no intention of letting it slip through his fingers. Not being able to do anything with the two stubborn churchmen, John brusquely ordered his favorite to pay over the five thousand marks and settle things himself with the other claimants.

  De Braose must have been very sure of his position, or of the power he had over the King. At any rate, he refused to do anything about it.

  By this time John was experiencing the bitter opposition of the barons. To compel a more complaisant attitude on their part, he had demanded that each member of the nobility place a child in his care as hostage for future behavior. The children were kept at Windsor and Winchester and they waited on the Queen. None of the Braose children had been included, but when the difficulty arose over the five thousand marks, John ordered them to send a son to serve as a royal page. Braose and his wife now sensed that their day of favor was over. In spite of this, the haughty Maud was foolish enough to refuse the royal demand. In the hearing of the King’s officers she declared that “she would not deliver her children to a king who had murdered his own nephew.”

  Many people had said the same thing, of course, but never as openly. The statement, coming from the wife of the man who had been the custodian of the Rouen citadel, was almost like a confession. Maud de Braose knew the enormity of her mistake as soon as she had spoken and she hastened to make amends as best she could. She sent to the Queen a herd of four hundred beautiful cattle, all of them pure white except their ears, which were a reddish brown, hoping that this would be accepted as a peace offering. The cattle were kept, but the gift did the outspoken donor no good at all.

  The King declared war. If he had been showing favor to De Braose because of what the latter knew, he now went to the other extreme and persecuted hi
m because of it. Orders were given to seize the castle of Bramber. When this home of the once favored companion was found to be an empty shell, the owner having been warned in time to remove everything of value, the King led a force himself to the border marches and took possession of all the castles there which had been part of the dower of the Lady Maud. The now thoroughly frightened and repentant De Braose waited on the King at Hereford and begged for terms. The King demanded that the purchase price for the lands in Leinster be paid in full and that in addition the castles of Radnor, Hay, and Brecon be thrown in. The lord of Bramber agreed to this, having no alternative. However, in a sudden fit of spleen, he set fire to property of the King and fled to Ireland with his family. Later he made another effort to patch things up, keeping at a safe distance, and was told that the price of peace had risen. Never had terms risen more sharply! He was informed that now he would have to pay forty thousand marks, almost a third of the ransom money for Richard, a sum completely beyond the means of any private man.

  The sequel to this is one of the grimmest stories in history. Maud de Braose and her eldest son William were captured while trying to leave Ireland for the Scottish coast and were brought to the King. He had them thrown into a single cell in the keep at Windsor with a sheaf of wheat and a flitch of uncooked bacon. The door of the cell was closed upon them.