Henry the Young King, 1155-1183

by Matthew Strickland

  169.GH, I, 126–7; PR 22 Henry II, 179; PR 23 Henry II, 29 (Leicester); PR 23 Henry II, 144 (Bennington, Hertfordshire). Mountsorrel was taken into the king’s hands because a jury ruled that it was part of the royal demesne (GH, I, 126–7). Geoffrey de Tourville’s castle at Weston Turville, which was dependent on the honour of Leicester, had been destroyed earlier (PR 20 Henry II, 82; and for its link to Leicester, Crouch, Beaumont Twins, 120, 134–5).

  170.GH, I, 124. Over an eighteen-month period, Ilchester was given wide powers to reorganize the Exchequer, tax, and enforce assizes. He left in 1177 and his place was taken until 1200 by William FitzRalph (Neveux, La Normandie, 542). At some stage, whether earlier or now, Henry had the castles of William of Tancarville demolished (Map, 488–9).

  171.Torigni, 272.

  172.GH, I, 124–5.

  173.GH, I, 11–20, where Howden notes the departure of the clerical escort after the council at Winchester convened on 15 August, 127; Howden, II, 94–8.

  174.GH, I, 120. For Joanna’s marriage and journey to Sicily, C. Bowie, The Daughters of Eleanor of Aquitaine (Turnhout, 2014), 89–94, 131–40.

  175.GH, I, 131. Geoffrey and John were with their father in England, while Richard held a separate Christmas court at Bordeaux.

  176.GH I, 127, where Howden notes that Ralph was ‘the wealthiest of the barons of the king of England in Berry’. Torigni, 274, with pardonable exaggeration, claimed its worth to be ‘equal to the revenue of the duchy of Normandy’. For the lordship of Châteauroux, Boussard, Le Gouvernement, 128–32; and for its strategic significance Gillingham, ‘Events and Opinions’, 58–9; idem, Richard I, 56–7.

  177.GH, I, 127.

  178.M. Pacaut, Louis VII et son royaume (Paris, 1964), 178–202; Boussard, Gouvernement, 128–32; Warren, Henry II, 144.

  179.GH, I, 131–2; Gillingham, Richard I, 56.

  180.GH, I, 132.

  181.GH, I, 132.

  182.GH, I, 132.

  183.Henry’s policy in 1177 was exceptional in its threat of direct aggression against Louis, marking, as Yves Sassier notes, ‘une logique de vengeance’ (‘Reverentia regis’, 34–5).

  184.GH, I, 138.

  185.GH, I, 133, 136.

  186.GH, I, 158–9. Henry gave Philip 500 marks, while he supplied a further 500 marks through the Hospitallers to retain a force of knights in defence of the kingdom of Jerusalem (GH, I, 133, 158, 159).

  187.GH, I, 159.

  188.Howden, II, 136.

  189.GH, I, 134–5.

  190.GH, I, 161.

  191.GH, I, 154.

  192.GH, I, 143–4; S. D. Church, ‘Roger Bigod (III), second earl of Norfolk (c.1143–1221)’, ODNB.

  193.GH, I, 160.

  194.GH, I, 160; Howden, II, 133.

  195.GH, I, 160–1.

  196.GH, I, 162.

  197.GH, I, 167.

  198.GH, I, 168; Howden, II, 143.

  199.Boussard, Gouvernement, 523–4; Warren, Henry II, 144–5.

  200.Recueil, II, 61; Warren, Henry II, 145, n. 2.

  201.GH, I, 169.

  202.GH, I, 168–9.

  203.GH, I, 175, 177.

  204.GH, I, 178–9.

  205.GH, I, 177.

  206.Warren, Henry II, 145.

  207.GH, I, 181, 190.

  208.GH, I, 190.

  209.GH, I, 190–94. The full text of the treaty, in which the Young King is listed as a witness, is also given by Gerald of Wales in De principis, 166–9. The site of the conference was chosen not only because it was on the duchy’s south-east frontier with France, but because, earlier that year, on the death of Waleran, son of William Lupellus, Henry II had finally obtained possession of this key stronghold, ‘which he had long desired’ and which, despite its close ducal associations, neither his father nor his grandfather had held directly (Torigni, 276).

  210.GH, I, 195; Torigni, 275, who noted that such were the storms at sea that some thirty ships of the wine fleet from Poitou had also been sunk.

  211.GH, I, 194–5, presumably with the host of Normandy, which Henry II had summoned to muster at Argentan on 9 October (ibid.).

  212.GH, I, 195–6.

  213.GH, I, 196.

  214.GH, I, 196–7.

  215.Torigni, 276.

  Chapter 11: Apogee

  1.HWM, ll. 2637–44.

  2.In his Estoire de la guerre sainte, written in the later 1190s, the poet Ambroise could remember him as ‘the young king who jousted with such great vigour (ki si jostoit a grand desroi)’ (Ambroise, The History of the Holy War, ed. and trans. M. Ailes and M. Barber, 2 vols (Woodbridge, 2003), ll. 94–6). Similarly, the Histoire des ducs de Normandie, 82, noted, ‘Les tornoiements antoit et amoit’.

  3.For the tournament and its development, M. Parisse, ‘Le Tournoi en France, des origines à la fin du XIIIe siècle’, Das ritterliche Turnier im Mittelalter, ed. J. Fleckstein (Göttingen, 1985), 175–211; J. Barker, The Tournament in England, 1100–1400 (Woodbridge, 1986); R. Barber and J. Barker, Tournaments. Jousts, Chivalry and Pageants in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 1989); Crouch, Tournament, which provides the most extensive analysis yet of the organization, operation and social context of twelfth- and thirteenth-century tournaments; and D. Barthélemy, ‘Les origines du tournoi chevaleresque’, Agôn: a la compétition, Ve-XIIe siècles, ed. F. Bougard, R. Le Jan and T. Leinhard (Turnhout, 2012), 112–29.

  4.HWM, ll. 4971–6. For Anet and Sorel, HWM, III, note to line 3889, and for Ressons-sur-Matz, ibid., III, note to line 2473. On the season, Crouch, Tournament, 11, 32–5, and for the location of tournaments, ibid., 8, 11, 39–55.

  5.Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, Lanzelet, cited in K. G. T. Webster, ‘The Twelfth-Century Tourney’, Anniversary Papers by Colleagues and Pupils of George Lyman Kitteridge (Boston and London, 1913), 227–34, at 228.

  6.Galbert of Bruges, The Murder of Charles the Good, Count of Flanders, trans. J. B. Ross (New York, 1960), 91–2.

  7.Historia Gaufridi, 83; Crouch, Tournament, 166. John’s account, however, of Geoffrey’s tournament at the head of a Breton contingent against the Normans at Mont St-Michel, supposedly c.1128, contains much that is fictitious and literary.

  8.Crouch, Image of Aristocracy, 135.

  9.Gilbert of Mons, cc. 55, 57, 62, 77, 85, 92, 98, 100, 101; HWM, ll. 2909–17.

  10.O. Verlinden, ‘The Fairs of Champagne and Flanders’, Cambridge Economic History of Europe, ed. M. M. Postan et al., III (Cambridge, 1963), 119–50.

  11.HWM, ll. 3141–2.

  12.Melrose, 37; HWM, ll. 1319–41, and ibid., III, note to l. 1324, for King William’s presence at a tournament held in 1166 between Saint-Jamme and Valennes, in which the Marshal captured Peter, his chamberlain.

  13.WN, II, 422; Barker, The Tournament, 7–10; Crouch, Tournament, 9–11, 40–1.

  14.Suger had even disapproved of Louis VI’s individual feats of arms as a knight in war itself as unbecoming the royal majesty (Vie de Louis VI, 78–80; Koziol, ‘The Problem of Sacrality’, 135).

  15.Sazzarin, Roman de Ham, in Histoire des ducs de Normandie et des rois d’Angleterre, ed. F. Michel (Paris, 1840), 216; trans. Crouch, Tournament, 199.

  16.Diceto, I, 428. Ralph’s comments would suggest a qualification to the view that Henry regarded his son’s activities merely as ‘wasteful and trivial’ (Crouch, Tournament, 23).

  17.M. Keen and J. R. V. Barker, ‘The Medieval English Kings and the Tournament’, Das ritterliche Turnier im Mittelalter, ed. J. Fleckenstein (Göttingen, 1985), 212–28; and for the context of these developments, N. Saul, For Honour and Fame. Chivalry in England, 1066–1500 (London, 2011).

  18.HWM, ll. 1201–12. For the organization of such teams, Crouch, Tournaments, 72–4, 80, 89.

  19.HWM, ll. 257–8.

  20.HWM, ll. 2780–7. For the date, HWM, II, 75, note to line 2775.

  21.HWM, ll. 4481–749. In listing the knights of the Young King’s retinue by name according to these regional divisions, it is clear that the author of the History was following the layou
t of the tournament roll he had in front of him.

  22.HGM, III, 58, n. 4. After the war, Robert held important posts in the duchy, including the farm of the prévôté of Lillebonne between 1175 and 1180, and that of Lyons la Forêt in 1179–80. It may well be for this reason that, though English, Roger appears among the Norman contingent of the Young King’s team.

  23.Diceto, I, 428.

  24.HWM, ll. 3381–90. All three of these Flemish lords would go on to play important roles in the service of Richard I.

  25.HWM, ll. 3583–92. The author of the History regrettably did not fulfil his promise that ‘one day I shall list them for you and name them, every single one’ (ibid., ll. 3591–8).

  26.HWM, ll. 4489–541.

  27.HWM, ll. 3197–201, and for the date, HWM, III, note to l. 3182; HWM, ll. 4557–780. John, the author of the History, tells that he drew on an escrit, almost certainly a surviving rotulet drawn up for the tournament itself (HWM, l. 4539). Crouch, ‘Hidden History’, 116, suggests this was ‘perhaps a souvenir list made up for the participants’, but it may equally have been based on a form of muster roll or wage list. That such a roll was preserved in the Marshal’s archives perhaps suggests that one of his functions in the Young King’s household was to supervise the muster and payment of knights, just as the Marshal of England did (ibid., 116; J. H. Round, The King’s Serjeants and Officers of State with their Coronation Services (London, 1911), 76–7, 82).

  28.For the significance of the emergence of the banneret, D. Crouch, The Birth of Nobility. Constructing Aristocracy in England and France, 900–1300 (Harlow, 2005), 247–8.

  29.HWM, ll. 4762–7.

  30.As David Crouch, Tournament, 24, notes, ‘two hundred pounds was the annual income of a moderately wealthy baron, or the amount that the county of Worcester owed the king every year’.

  31.HWM, ll. 4768–70.

  32.HWM, ll. 5073–89.

  33.HWM, ll. 3720–63.

  34.History of the Counts of Guisnes, ch. 92; trans. Shopkow, 125. This was the (unnamed) nephew of Arnold of Cayeux, who had been appointed principal advisor to Arnold by his father.

  35.HWM, ll. 3202–8.

  36.HWM, ll. 2637–50.

  37.Gilbert of Mons, c.57; trans. Napran, 57.

  38.HWM, ll. 2651–66.

  39.GH, I, 207, quoting Cassiodorus (Libro I Epistolarum, XXXIX, and Variarum libri, XII, I.50).

  40.HWM, ll. 2563–636; ll. 3606–59; ll. 5547–53. ‘And of course,’ notes the History, ‘was that not bound to be the case? After all, he had the best instructor in arms that there ever was in his time or since’ (ll. 3651–5).

  41.HWM, ll. 5547–53.

  42.HWM, ll. 3599–615.

  43.The Young King’s brother Richard would rescind their father’s prohibition and from 1194 license tournaments in England ‘considering that the French were more expert in battle, from being more trained and instructed’, and ‘so that from warlike games they [the English] might previously learn the real art and practice of war, and that the French should not insult the English knights as unskilful and uninstructed’ (WN, II, 423).

  44.HWM, ll. 1308, 1210, 2502–3, 3455–520, 3707–14, 4987; III, 64 note to line 1308; Crouch, Tournament, 68. Some tournaments, such as the one at Ressons-sur-Matz, might begin directly with the mêlée, for here ‘there were no formal contests, there were no preliminaries’ (HWM, ll. 2502–3).

  45.HWM, ll. 5513–19.

  46.HWM, ll. 1304–6; HWM, III, notes to lines 5529 and 1304; Crouch, Tournament, 80–1.

  47.HWM, ll. 1307–8, ‘then the companies (li conrei) rode forward in tight and ordered formation (sereement e sanz desrei)’.

  48.HWM, ll. 5569–88.

  49.HWM, ll. 2497–8, ‘Li conrei … serré et bataillé se tindrent’; and ll. 2499–518.

  50.HWM, ll. 2736, ‘fols est qui trop tost se desrote’.

  51.HWM, ll. 2801–11.

  52.HWM, ll. 2815–19.

  53.For the importance of keeping a reserve, HWM, ll.10, 583–676; Gillingham, Richard I, 288.

  54.HWM, ll. 4823– 906.

  55.HWM, ll. 2713–29.

  56.HWM, ll. 4823–6, 4908–26.

  57.J. Gillingham, ‘War and Chivalry in the History of William Marshal’, Thirteenth Century England II, ed. P. Coss and S. Lloyd (Woodbridge, 1988), 1–13, reprinted in J. Gillingham, Richard Coeur de Lion: Kingship, Chivalry and War in the Twelfth Century (London, 1994), 227–41, especially 231–8.

  58.HWM, ll. 2719–29.

  59.HWM, l. 2718, ‘a grand proëce a mestier sens’.

  60.HWM, ll. 2820–45, and for the rule-breaking, HWM, III, 75, n. to l. 2801.

  61.HWM, l. 2750, and HWM, III, 74, n. to l. 275.

  62.For the arms of William FitzEmpress, Early Northamptonshire Charters, 24–5; A. Ailes, ‘Heraldry in Twelfth-Century England: The Evidence’, England in the Twelfth Century. Proceedings of the 1988 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. D. Williams (Woodbridge, 1990), 1–16, at 3, and plate 1; idem, The Origins of the Royal Arms of England (Reading, 1982), 64–6. For the possible arms of Henry II, R. Viel, ‘Les Armoiries probables d’Henri II d’Angleterre’, Archivum Heraldicum, 70 (1965), Bulletin 2–3, 19–23; Ailes, Origins of the Royal Arms, 54–63; Vincent, ‘The Seals of Henry II’, at 17–22. Gervase of Tilbury, referring to the Prophecies of Merlin, noted of Henry and his sons: ‘You see, then, how from the roaring lion there sprang four cubs, each of which grew into a powerful lion himself, or at least gave evidence of having a similar nature, fostering the hope of future distinction’ (Otia imperialia, 488–9).

  63.Ailes, Origins of the Royal Arms, 64–6; idem, ‘The Governmental Seals of Richard I’, Seals and their Context in the Middle Ages, ed. P. R. Schofield (Oxbow, 2015), 101–10. Between 1185 and 1199, however, John’s seal as Lord of Ireland and Count of Mortain depicts a shield bearing two lions: A. Ailes, ‘The Seal of John as Lord of Ireland and Count of Mortain’, The Coat of Arms, 117 (1981), 341–50.

  64.Crouch, William Marshal, 47.

  65.At the start of a combat at Eu, for example, William Marshal avoided the lance of his attacker Sir Matthew de Walincourt, and in turn ‘dealt him such a violent blow as they met that he knocked him off his horse to the ground’, before leading away his horse as a prize (HWM, ll. 3215–23).

  66.HWM, ll. 4856–60.

  67.HWM, ll. 2509–11: ‘there you would have seen many a blow dealt by mace and sword to the head and to the arms’.

  68.HWM, ll. 3780–92.

  69.HWM, ll. 3780–805.

  70.GH, I, 350, 361. He noted, however, that others said he had died of an illness of the bowels (ibid., I, 350).

  71.Howden, II, 166–7, trans. H. T. Riley, The Annals of Roger of Hoveden, 2 vols (London, 1853), I, 490; Seneca, Epist. XIII.

  72.HWM, III, note to l. 3107; Gillingham, ‘Conquering the Barbarians’, in idem, The English in the Twelfth Century, 50; Crouch, Tournament, 142–3.

  73.HWM, ll. 1438–61.

  74.HWM, ll. 4899–902. No records for the purchase of the Young King’s armour survive, but it was doubtless the best that could be bought. A revealing indication of how costly royal equipment might be is the payment of no less than £16 6s. 8d. for ‘the helmet of the king and a belt’ for Henry II in 1159 (PR 5 Henry II, 2).

  75.HWM, ll. 4935–70.

  76.HWM, ll. 1335–41, ‘a lui bonement se fia’; ll. 1344–8, ‘celui afia prison a render sei en sa prison’; ll. 1351–3.

  77.HWM, ll. 2840–74.

  78.For example, HWM, ll. 1436–40, and ll. 1423–61. William is praised for taking Philip de Valognes and another knight captive in 1166 ‘sanz maufere e sanz mesprisons’ (ibid., ll. 1349–50).

  79.HWM, ll. 1324–38; 2840–56; HWM, III, 65 note to line 1332.

  80.HWM, ll. 4861–98.

  81.HWM, ll. 2607–18.

  82.HWM, ll. 2958–9.

  83.HWM, ll. 2519–40.

  84.HWM, ll. 2542–1.

  85.HWM, ll. 2552–62.

  86.HWM, ll. 251
9–62.

  87.HWM, ll. 2607–12; ll. 5561–5.

  88.See, for example, HWM, ll. 2615–18; ll. 5561–5. The editors of the History suggest this reflects ‘what must have been a major contemporary criticism of the Marshal’s conduct’ (HWM, III, 74, n. to l. 2545).

  89.HWM, ll. 3426–40; ll. 4319–28; ll. 2875–82.

  90.At a tournament c.1177, the History records how even before the fight, in their lodgings, the over-confident French ‘had shared out all the equipment and money [from redeeming horses and arms] belonging to the English’ (HWM, ll. 2600–6).

  91.HWM, ll. 2933–5 and ll. 1502–11.

  92.The History, ll. 4235–72, notes a horse worth £40, though the Marshal succeeded in paying on £7 to another knight claiming half of the horse. In 1173, the agreement between Henry II and Count Raymond of Toulouse reckoned a ‘dextrarius de pretio’ to be worth 10 marks of silver or more (GH, I, 36), but often warhorses could cost far more – as much as £50–£100 or above (R. H. C. Davis, The Medieval Warhorse, London, 1989, 67).

  93.Gilbert of Mons, ch. 131, noted that in 1187, at Châteauroux, Baldwin de Strépy was the only knight in the retinue of Count Baldwin not to have an armoured horse.

  94.HWM, ll. 1353–60. Horses so taken would then be entrusted to squires, to be kept safely while the knight returned to the fray (HWM, ll. 3269–327).

  95.Crouch, Tournament, 96.

  96.HWM, ll. 3367–73; ibid, ll. 1367–1372.

  97.HWM, ll. 3391–424. The History describes Roger as ‘a brave and doughty man, renowned for feats of arms, venturesome and clever, but inclined to be greedy’ (HWM, ll. 3382–90). For Roger, also named ‘de Gaugy’, HWM, III, note to l. 3385.

  98.Wigain ‘li clers de la cuisine’, is referred to in PR 28 Henry II, 155, as ‘Wigan clericus regis filii Regis’; HGM, III 43; and HWM, III, n. to l. 3417. For such rolls, D. Crouch, ‘ Hidden History’, 115–16, ‘the biographer can only be quoting from and describing a little parchment rotulet he had before his eyes’.

  99.HWM, ll. 3254–366. At Joigny in 1178 or 1179, however, the Marshal generously shared out his booty with those taken prisoner and with those knights who had taken a crusader’s vow, while he released many of the knights he himself had captured, and ‘for this he was considered a very worthy man’ (HWM, ll. 3558–62).