Henry the Young King, 1155-1183

by Matthew Strickland

  I have heard a great story about the Young King, who has dropped his claim on his brother Richard, because his father told him to. He says he was driven to it! Since Sir Henry neither holds nor governs lands, let him be King of the Fools (reis del malvatz)!91

  He goes on to pour scorn on the Young King’s dependent status as shameful and contemptible, for in such a condition he can never achieve great deeds. The Young King

  acts like a fool, living this way entirely on an allowance, by count and by measure. A crowned king who takes victuals from another scarcely resembles Arnaut, the marquis of Bellande, or brave William who stormed the tower at Mirmanda. How high he was praised! Since in Poitou Sir Henry lies to his men and cheats them, he will never be loved there as much. Never by dozing will he be king of the Cumberland English, or conquer Ireland, or hold Angers or Montsoreau or Candes, or the watchtower of Poitiers, or be duke of Normandy or count palatine (coms palatz) either of Bordeaux or of the Gascons beyond the Landes, or lord of Bazas.92

  Here Bertran compares young Henry unfavourably not only with the deeds of two legendary heroes of the chansons, William of Orange and his grandfather Arnaut de Beaulande, but also with those of his own father, King Henry, whose vigour has forged a great empire. While his brother Richard was busy laying siege to his wayward vassals and destroying their land and castles, jibed Bertran, the Young King ‘will be up there tourneying’ in northern France. Such passivity, warns the troubadour, has so weakened young Henry’s position that Richard no longer has any need to ‘flatter his men for fear they might turn to his brother’.93

  Whether or not he was moved by such taunts, the Young King now renewed his oath to his allies. Telling his father that he could not bear to see the harm Henry II was inflicting on his men in Limoges, he left for Le Dorat before returning to the Château at Limoges.94 Entering the abbey of St Martial, he made a highly dramatic gesture: on the relics of the saint, he vowed that he would take the cross. On hearing this news, Henry II was deeply troubled, uncertain whether young Henry had done so out of devotion or more out of rancour towards him because of his landless state. Father and son met, and in a highly emotional scene, young Henry insisted that he had taken the cross to absolve himself of the sins which he had committed against Henry II, and that unless his father desisted from his attempts to prevent him, he would take his own life. He revealed that he had taken the cross some time earlier, but had not wished to make this known until he stood better in his father’s grace and might gain his permission for his pilgrimage.95 Writing with the benefit of hindsight of the ensuing denouement, those in the Old King’s entourage such as Roger of Howden and Walter Map regarded such drama as part of a cynical sham, intended to dupe his father. Walter Map, with Henry II at Limoges, recorded how ‘again and again, as I witnessed myself, he was perjured to his father: repeatedly he set snares in his way, and when foiled returned to him, ever the more prone to crime the more clearly he saw that it was impossible not to forgive him’.96

  Rather than studied duplicity, however, it is more likely that young Henry’s conduct reflected his own troubled state of mind.97 He was increasingly aware that control of events, never secure, was slipping further from his grasp. His quarrel had been with Richard alone and, despite the allegations of attempted parricide flung at him by his father’s courtiers, young Henry seems to have genuinely wished no harm to his father. Yet now Henry II had sided with Richard, and appeared implacable against the rebellious nobles of Aquitaine, who had looked to young Henry as their liberator. Having pledged his aid, he could not in all conscience abandon them, yet in supporting their cause he was being drawn inexorably into conflict with his father, something he wished to avoid. He may well have seen taking the cross as the only way out of an increasingly impossible conflict of loyalties that had plunged him into emotional turmoil. Henry II’s reaction bears out such an interpretation. Unlike in 1182, when he had suspected the Young King’s wish to take the cross as being merely a means of political leverage, King Henry was now convinced of his son’s sincerity. He may reluctantly have realized, moreover, that young Henry’s absence in the Holy Land might help defuse the serious political dissensions within his lands that had been brought to a head by the animosity between his sons. The Old King not only consented to the Young King’s request but promised to equip him with a retinue and supplies that would make his expedition to Jerusalem the grandest yet seen.98

  Effusive in his thanks to his father, young Henry asked that he treat the men in the Château and the nobles of Aquitaine mercifully. Henry II agreed to his son’s petition, whereupon the Young King led a number of the burgesses to his father, and joined them on his knees to implore forgiveness for them. This was granted, on condition that a small number of hostages would be given. This settlement promised to mark an end to the fraught stand-off at Limoges. Yet Roger of Howden claimed that when Henry II’s envoys went to collect these hostages they were set upon, barely escaping with their lives, while shortly afterwards, members of another delegation bringing a truce at the request of the Young King were killed in young Henry’s very presence.99 A few days later, so Howden alleged, it was Geoffrey’s turn to preside over another outrage when two members of Henry II’s household, bearing another truce at the count of Brittany’s request, were attacked; Ger de Musterol was wounded by a sword blow, while Oliver FitzErnis was thrown from the bridge into the Vienne.100 But Roger was not with King Henry II at Limoges during these events, and his reportage is impressionistic and imprecise.101 He evidently received information from members of the Old King’s household, but his account reads like a series of hearsay allegations of treachery stemming from the court but lacking accurate chronology and any sense of their wider political context or knowledge of the situation among the defenders of the Château. If such attacks did occur in the manner Howden alleges, how far was young Henry responsible? He may have found himself unable to control the forces within the Château: it is quite possible that Count Geoffrey, or those Aquitanian lords implacably opposed to Henry II, were attempting to wreck any peace settlement by such actions and drive a wedge between the Young King and his father in order to fan the flames of the rebellion anew. The deficiencies of the sources make it impossible to know. It seems, however, that these events marked a critical turning point in the relations between Henry II and his son. Young Henry now unequivocally threw in his lot with the defenders of Limoges, while Henry II recommenced the siege in earnest. Father and son would never meet again.

  Within the Château, the besieged inhabitants sought to augment their defences by invoking divine protection. In the Young King’s presence, the clergy led a procession around the inside of the walls, bearing the relics of the saints, including those of St Martial and St Austriclinianus, praying to God to deliver them. The womenfolk tied a thread of tow round the whole circumference of the walls, then cut this up to make wicks for many candles, which they offered up at the abbey of St Martial and other churches.102 Incessant rain and bitter cold, however, began to sap morale: many lords who had come to the Young King’s aid departed for home, and in vain he reminded them of the fealty they had sworn to him.103 As the siege intensified, moreover, tensions began to surface within the Young King’s own household. Such at least was the belief of the History of William Marshal, which tells how the Young King’s anonymous ‘seneschal’, one of the ringleaders in the earlier attempt to discredit the Marshal, now protested that, as he was Henry II’s liege man, he dare not remain and asked for leave to join King Henry. The younger Henry was, claims the History, so angry at this betrayal that he snatched up the sword by his bedside and would have attacked him, had not Geoffrey of Brittany physically held him back. Instead, on Geoffrey’s advice, the seneschal was ignominiously banished, while the Young King’s chamberlain, Ralph FitzGodfrey, was sent to recall the Marshal to his service.104 The author of the History, however, was less concerned with the facts than with presenting a morality tale: those who had falsely denounced the Marshal as as a traitor sh
owed the reality of their base and cowardly nature by deserting their lord the Young King in his hour of great need, while young Henry, realizing he had been deceived, turned in this crisis to the one man he now knew he could rely on, the Marshal.

  Young Henry’s routiers, by contrast, stayed loyal as long as he had the money to pay them. But his funds were now close to exhaustion. To keep his own forces in the field, Henry II had his war chests regularly replenished from England; treasure had been shipped from Southampton to Normandy at Easter and Whitsun.105 By contrast, the Young King had no such resources on which to draw. As Geoffrey of Vigeois remarked, the Young King had been not so much generous as prodigal with his daily allowance of 1,500 shillings, but once he had leagued against Richard, his father had cut off this subsidy.106 Now he asked the burgesses of the Château for a loan of 2,000 shillings, but this was soon consumed in supplies and wages for the Palearii, Count Ademar’s Brabançons, Basques and other groups.107 Fearful lest these bands desert to his father for the promise of greater pay, young Henry had been ruinously generous to them. In a desperate search for money, he turned to the greatest source of wealth in Limoges – the abbey of St Martial itself. By the 1180s, this was among the richest and most powerful abbeys in Aquitaine, with many dependent priories in southern France. The wealth brought by the stream of pilgrims to the tombs of St Martial and of St Valérie had allowed the monks to build on a grand scale; the infirmary buildings constructed under Abbot Isembard (1174–98) alone were likened to a royal palace.108 But as a strong supporter of Duke Richard and Henry II, Isembard had been forced to flee Limoges, and the monks were leaderless. They watched helplessly as the Young King’s men entered the cloisters and expelled the younger monks, who might be most capable of any resistance. The pleas of the remaining brothers were of no avail and on the following day they bowed to the inevitable, handing over many of the church’s most precious religious artefacts as a ‘loan’. These included richly worked golden altar tables and their frontals, adorned with figures, a golden chalice, an exquisitely worked silver vase, two great crosses, one of which alone was made of fifty marks of gold, as well as 103 marks of silver, and even the reliquary casket of St Austriclinianus.109 All of this was assessed at a value of 22,000 shillings, and the Young King solemnly gave the monks a charter in the form of a chirograph, validated with his seal, promising to repay this sum. But, noted Geoffrey of Vigeois bitterly, these treasures were worth far more, and no account was taken of the value of the goldsmithing or the gold used to gild the silverware.110 Worse still, he lamented, these sacred objects, reflecting the pious donations of many, were to be given to the sacrilegious routiers, the very men whom the Lateran Council had condemned as godless heretics.111

  Young Henry realized that he needed to make better strategic use of such ruinously expensive troops than merely garrisoning the Château of Limoges. His Taillefer allies had urgent need of his support against a vigorous counter-attack by Richard, for while Henry II had pressed the siege of Limoges, the count of Poitou had taken the offensive and in a lightning campaign had recovered control of the Angoumois and the Saintonge, even raiding into Brittany in reprisal against Geoffrey.112 Accordingly, the Young King led his routiers out of Limoges south-west to reinforce Angoulême, and celebrated Easter there on 17 April. In Aquitaine, the allies were on the back foot, but the shock waves of the war were now threatening to destabilize other parts of Henry II’s domains. The Old King himself had celebrated Easter at Limoges, but shortly before this he had given orders to his officials in England and his continental lands to seize and imprison all those who had been his enemies in the war of 1173–74.113 He clearly feared that the Young King or his supporters would attempt to revive the fires of rebellion. Among those to suffer arbitrary arrest were Robert, earl of Leicester, and his countess, Petronilla. His lands were taken into royal control, chattels were sold and the sheriff took the earl’s third penny for the Exchequer.114 King Henry’s suspicions may not have been groundless: the king’s justices heavily fined a number of burgesses of Northampton for sending to Leicester for hauberks and for communicating with the king’s enemies, which perhaps suggests a plan to seize this vital royal base in the Midlands.115 Howden notes that many of the most powerful and wealthy lords in England were also seized, including William, earl of Gloucester.116 Repairs were made both to key fortresses such as Northampton, reflecting Henry II’s fear of fresh insurrection in the former rebel heartlands in the Midlands, but also to coastal strongholds such as Dover, Colchester and ‘New Hastings’, to guard against possible invasion from Flanders.117 Henry II’s anxiety that the war would spread from Aquitaine to his northern lands receives support from Bertran de Born, who eagerly anticipated hostilities in the Vexin and Normandy, and the direct involvement of the count of Flanders and the king of France in the developing struggle: ‘It started in the Limousin, but it will end somewhere else. Between the Île-de-France and Normandy, towards Gisors and Neufmarché, I hope they’ll hear shouts of “Arras!” and “Montjoie!” and “Dieu Aie!”’118 A further troubling echo of the events of 1173 came when the Young King again challenged the episcopal election of one of Henry II’s trusted clerical servants, this time that of Walter of Coutances to the see of Lincoln. Despite the unanimous consent of the chapter to Walter’s elevation, young Henry protested that Walter had not been elected with his consent, and so forbade his consecration and appealed to the pope.119

  Despite Richard’s military successes, moreover, Henry II’s position in the Limousin was weakening. His army had now been besieging Limoges for over a month and a half, but with little effect. As the war of 1173–74 had so graphically shown, major towns presented attackers with a formidable challenge. Though the urban fortifications of the Château at Limoges were makeshift, it was defended in strength, and the Young King’s ability to lead his army out to reinforce Angoulême indicates that Henry II’s forces had been unable to establish an effective cordon around it. Yet in the circumstances of rebellion, sustaining a major siege presented a king with more than simply tactical, logistical and financial problems: the drawn-out nature of such an investment allowed ample opportunities for fifth-column elements within his own forces secretly to assist the besieged, either by allowing in reinforcements and supplies, or by keeping the enemy informed of his dispositions and intentions. With so many nobles brought together in the siege camp from all parts of his realm, there was a very real danger that disaffection, even treason, might spread rapidly among his erstwhile supporters. Indeed, it was now Henry II’s turn to suffer widespread desertion. Walter Map, an eyewitness to the siege, complained bitterly how young Henry had

  stirred up all Aquitaine and Burgundy, and many of the French, against our lord his father, and all them of Maine, Anjou and the Bretons; and of those who were fighting on our side the more part fell away to him. They of Maine and Anjou indeed, when we were besieging Limoges, set at naught our tears and entreaties and openly deserted us and set off for home, forcing us to disband our army because so few were left.120

  Bertran de Born more gleefully recorded the desertion of the Angevin levies: ‘This game I consider won for our side and begun again. We’ve cleared the board of the pawns of La Vallée; without taking leave – none of them did – all of them ran away scared.’121 Infantry were a vital component of Anglo-Norman and Angevin armies, especially for siege warfare. Yet among those serving out of customary obligation rather than as stipendiaries, desertion was common, and it was notoriously diffficult to keep such troops in the field beyond their stipulated period of service.122 Map, however, suggests a collapse of loyalty beyond such considerations: the fidelity of the Manceaux to Henry II in 1173–74 had at best been equivocal, and, as events would soon show, they regarded the Young King with far greater affection. It is probably to this time that we can date Peter of Blois’ reproach to Ralph, bishop of Angers, regarding the treachery of the Angevin people and the army of Anjou which had deserted the king.123 The combination of dwindling numbers, the thre
at of an attack on Normandy by Philip Augustus or Count Philip of Flanders, and the need to show his presence in the Angevin heartlands forced Henry II to lift the siege of Limoges and return north.124

  His father’s retreat gave the Young King the opportunity to return to Limoges, where he attempted to take the Cité. The citizens, however, refused to submit and drove him off.125 He had greater success at Aixe, which he took on 23 May: a ruse had reduced the garrison of the keep to only two knights and twelve serjeants, who now surrendered the castle. Having thus gained control of the left bank of the Vienne, young Henry swung his forces north-east of Limoges to the nearby abbey of Grandmont. Only the year before, Count Geoffrey, together with his father, had been entertained by the monks in their refectory, a singular honour.126 Nonetheless, its treasures now met the same fate as those of the abbey of St Martial. Geoffrey of Vigeois was particularly appalled that a golden dove to hold the Eucharist, which had been given by Henry II himself to this, his most favoured foundation, was not spared.127 During his earlier stay in Angoulême, the Young King had also seized the moveable wealth of the rich Benedictine abbey of La Couronne, which lay a short distance to the south-west, and in the Limousin had similarly extorted valuables from the monasteries of Dalon and Beaulieu.128 The commandeering of church wealth in times of war was far from unprecedented, and these religious houses in all probability received pledges of repayment from the Young King similar to those given to the monks of St Martial.129 Yet to expropriate ecclesiastical treasures on such a scale was rare, and to do so to fund troops that were seen as the particular enemies of the Church shocked ecclesiastics. Clerical writers regarded such a violation as a grievous sin, and the outrage which coloured their description of the Young King’s last campaign contributed much to the negative image of him which they bequeathed to posterity.