by Ed West
Quite the opposite, for Edward was famous for his ruthlessness. As a young man, he ordered his attendants to put out the eyes and cut the ears of an adolescent who angered him.4 Archbishop Corbridge of York had an interview with the king and was so shaken that afterwards he took to his bed and died. In another famous story attached to Edward, a cleric dropped dead with fear upon approaching the king with a request for lower taxation.
Unlike his gentle father, Edward had the characteristic violent rage of the House of Plantagenet. The dynasty originated with Geoffrey of Anjou in the mid-twelfth century, whose descendants later earned their name after the planta genista broach he wore.5 Geoffrey came from a line of warlords in western France so brutal they were considered by some to be descended from Satan himself. His father Fulk IV Rechin, count of Anjou, was excommunicated for abusing his authority by keeping his brother in a dungeon until he went mad. Geoffrey’s great-grandfather, Fulk III the Black, son of Geoffrey Greycloak, was a violent pervert of “fiendish cruelty” who had his first wife burned at the stake in her wedding dress and later tortured his own son. Legend had it that that Fulk’s grandmother had been Melusine, a dragon disguised as a woman who was one day exposed during Mass, only to fly off shrieking with two of her children.
Melusine was a popular figure of early medieval folklore in western and northern France, often appearing as a fish or snake, seductive and supernatural, but a bringer of evil (like her near-namesake Melisandre, the red woman of Westeros). Melusine often appears in “spinning yarns,” stories told by ladies as they spun cloth, and was most likely once a pagan-era water fairy: magical creatures believed to be capable of bringing all sorts of disasters, and who sometimes swapped people’s children with changelings. (In the tales of King Arthur, the “Lady of the Lake” is supposed to be a water fairy.)
In reality, the Plantagenet line originated with the earliest counts of Anjou, a region to the south of Normandy that was the birthplace of medieval cavalry; with lush, fertile lands growing wheat and wine in abundance, it was the most heavily contested territory in western Europe, and only the most belligerent of warlords emerged to becomes its rulers. The House of Anjou was one such, as were their bitter enemies the Dukes of Normandy—a rivalry that came to an end with a marriage alliance between Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda, daughter of Duke Henry. Henry was also King Henry I of England, so the House of Anjou came to rule that land in 1154—but over the next century and a half the line would collapse dramatically with Edward’s descendants slaughtering each other.
Lannister and Plantagenet share the same sigil, or as they were called in real life, coat of arms. The Lannister sigil is of one lion rampant, the same as that of the kings of Scotland; in England the symbol of the three lions came about from the union of two duchies, combining Normandy’s flag of two lions with the one lion of Aquitaine, the region to the south of Anjou for many years joined to the English crown. By adding two lions to one, Edward’s great-uncle Richard the Lionheart had created the famous symbol now most recognizable as that of the England national soccer team and its occasionally marauding supporters.6
Lions were well regarded in Europe, and medieval people had strange ideas about the animals, which they believed were heroic and honorable and would not devour injured men.7 A theory best not tested. The thirteenth century Bestiary in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, a sort of medieval guide to the natural world, states that “the merciful nature of lions is confirmed by numerous examples. They will spare men lying on the ground and will lead captives with whom they meet to their home. They will attack men rather than women. They only kill children if they are exceptionally hungry.”8
This is obviously untrue and anthropomorphizes the animals to give them the qualities most idealized in chivalry—strength, Christian mercy, and deference toward women. But then men would want their family emblems to reflect the traits they hoped to be known for, and so lions appeared on one in six coats of arms, five times as often as the second most popular animal, the eagle. The lion displaced more traditional Germanic imagery, of wolves, bears, and boars, these being the animals most commonly found in the forests of northern Europe. Lions were also popular because of their symbolism in Christianity, especially with the gospel-writer St Mark, a link which continued in the Arthurian legend when Yvain rescues a lion, and most recently in the Chronicles of Narnia, in which Aslan represents Christ.
Lions in heraldry were sometimes also referred to as leopards, which at the time were believed to be a cross between a lion and the mythical pard. Edward was regularly compared to both. The Song of Caerlaverock, written in praise of Edward’s military adventures in Scotland by one of his soldiers, told that “the king confronting his enemies was like the three lions embroidered in gold on the red of his banner—dreadful, fierce and cruel.”9 More commonly he was known as the Leopard because the animals were believed capable of changing their spots, just as Edward would switch sides or do anything to win.
Like Tywin, he was shaped by having witnessed a weak father troubled by unruly vassals. Tytos Lannister faced a rebellion from two houses, Reyne and Tarbeck, and so his elder son Tywin raised an army to defeat Lord Robert Reyne. As Tywin’s brother Kevan stated: “Our own father was gentle and amiable, but so weak his bannermen mocked him in their cups. Some saw fit to defy him openly . . . At court they japed of toothless lions.”10 In real life Edward would do the same to take on those who humiliated his father, with brutal effectiveness.
Henry III had become monarch at the age of nine during a civil war between his father King John and the country’s leading magnates, in particular a group of Northerners who objected to the king’s cruelty and rapaciousness. Unlike John, who openly mocked religion and would sit in church fidgeting, Henry was an extremely holy man who went to Mass several times a day, a gentle soul described as “simple” by a chronicler. He was “pious, amiable, easy-going, and sympathetic,”11 and he cried during religious sermons. He also rebuilt Westminster Abbey, the equivalent of the Great Sept of Baelor, and idolized its founder Edward the Confessor, even naming his first son after him.
But Henry could not inspire fear or respect among his people. One day he and his half-brother Geoffrey de Lusignan and some other noblemen were walking through an orchard when they were pelted with “turf, stones, and green apples” by one of Geoffrey’s chaplains, a man “who served as a fool and buffoon to the king . . . and whose sayings, like those of a silly jester . . . excited their laughter.” The chaplain pressed “the juice of unripe grapes in their eyes, like one devoid of sense.”12
Desperately short of money, Henry III began to meet the most powerful subjects in the realm for informal talks, where they would discuss their grievances and in return grant him money. The meetings were given the name of Parliament in 1236, but between 1248 and 1249, four such parliaments refused Henry any money, complaining about corruption, and the influence of foreigners. Then, in 1258, the country was hit by famine and disease, and while Henry went on a tour of East Anglian shrines, order seemed to be breaking down. A group of rebellious barons were led by the king’s brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort, a French nobleman who had arrived in England at the age of twenty-two to claim his peerage after a youth spent fighting a particularly bloodthirsty crusade, this one against heretics in the south of France.
The de Montforts originally hailed from the House of Reginar, a Frankish dynasty of the tenth century who had been dominant in Lothringia, today’s Lorraine. And despite his own origins, de Montfort was able to exploit the xenophobia directed at the family of Henry’s queen, Eleanor of Provence, who were widely hated. Young de Montfort displayed a terrifying ability to lead and a ruthlessness in battle, as well as religious fanaticism extreme even for the age; he drove the Jews from Leicester with as little pity as his father had slaughtered the Cathar heretics, and Henry III was known to fear him greatly. Simon had even married the king’s sister Eleanor despite the monarch’s objections.
De Montfort had demanded that the realm s
hould be governed only by “native-born men,” and under his radical proposals, Parliament would meet annually, and would not need to be summoned by the king. These terms were unacceptable to the monarch, and, in 1260, the conflict descended into full-on civil war, with de Montfort close to controlling the country—but for Edward.
Henry’s elder son had once been close to his uncle, but as de Montfort had become more power-crazed, he had switched sides. At one point, rebels held both the king and his son prisoner, but the prince escaped after asking his jailors if he could try out the horses in the yard, before riding off on one. As he sped off Edward shouted: “Lordlings, I bid you good day. Greet my father well and tell him that I hope to see him soon.”13
He then negotiated the king’s release, and Henry went away for recuperation in Gloucester castle, while Edward arranged negotiations with rebel leader William de Clare at his camp, with an offer of a compromise. The next day de Clare woke up with severe stomach pains and died, while his brother lost all his hair, fingernails, and toenails. In 1264, the two sides came to blows at the Battle of Lewes, where the royalists flew the dragon banner “that signalled the intention of fighting to the death, taking no prisoners.”14 At the battle were London infantry volunteers described by chroniclers as “bran-dealers, soap-boilers and clowns,” and utterly destroyed by Edward’s cavalry.15 However, the battle proved inconclusive, so the following year the two sides met again at the Battle of Evesham, at which Edward displayed a shocking ruthlessness.
Although the rebel leader did not know it, Edward had engaged de Montfort’s son in battle and defeated him. De Montfort’s barber, an expert at recognizing heraldry, saw Simon’s banners in the distance at the front of a large army and informed him that his son was arriving with his men. As it got closer, though, and too late, it became clear that the Leopard was using trickery, and as Edward’s forces came closer, the barber panicked and shouted: “We are all dead, for it is not your son as you believed.” De Montfort replied calmly, even gleefully: “By the arm of St James, they are advancing well. They have not learned that for themselves but were taught it by me.”16 (Again, this was similar to a trick used by Tywin Lannister in Robert’s rebellion, as related in A Game of Thrones, when the gates of King’s Landing were opened to Tywin in the belief he had come to help. “So the mad king had ordered his last mad act,” Ned told Robert.)
Henry, helpless in combat during the battle, was almost killed by his own side who did not recognize him, until his son came to his rescue; but de Montfort was seized from behind by a royalist knight and stabbed to death. His two eldest sons were also killed, and afterwards thirty of his knights were executed on the spot. Edward had his uncle’s testicles cut off and hung around his nose, his body cut up into four pieces and sent around the country, and his head delivered to a noblewoman who had helped him escape from de Montfort’s imprisonment, as a token of appreciation. In coldly killing his defeated opponents, Edward had broken the rules of medieval warfare, where aristocrats were ransomed, executions were rare, and it was condemned as murder by one contemporary. Edward had begun a precedent, and by the end of this period, the rules of war had disappeared completely, and rival barons were only intent on exterminating their enemies.
And yet just as The Rains of Castamere immortalised Tywin’s eradication of House Reyne, so The Song of Lewes praised the royal heir and compared him to a lion, “because we saw that he was not slow to attack the strongest places, fearing the onslaught of none, with the boldest valour making a raid amidst the castles.” It also gave warning to any other uppity house that “if Fortune’s moving wheel would stand still for ever; wherein let the highest forthwith know that he will fall, and that he who reigns as lord will reign but a little time.”17
Unrest continued in much of the countryside for the next couple of years, and it was during this period, when defeated aristocrats known as the “Disinherited” were blamed for numerous atrocities, that the Robin Hood legend was first set. Yet soon the realm was pacified, and the monarch and his son in any case gave the rebels much of what they wanted; in 1275, the new king Edward signed the Statute of Westminster formalizing Parliament, and for the first time, commoners—knights and burgesses (city men)—were allowed into the Privy Council, the king’s inner circle of advisers.
Like Tywin, Edward was a dedicated husband who did not even have mistresses; Tywin is devoted to his wife, his cousin Joanna Lannister, and their wedding day is supposed to be one of few in which he smiled openly. After she died giving birth to their son, Tyrion, he never smiled again. Likewise, Edward and his beloved Queen Eleanor were cousins, both great-grandchildren of her namesake Eleanor of Aquitaine. The couple were betrothed when he was fifteen and she just nine, a marriage brokered to make an alliance with Castile, to the south of France, but it was an enduring romantic attachment unusual for the age. When she died, in 1291, he was so devastated that he had twelve “Eleanor crosses” built by the route her coffin had taken from Lincoln down to the village of Charing, three of which still survive. (Although today’s Charing Cross, by Trafalgar Square in London, is a replica.)
And like Tywin, Edward would have a violently difficult relationship with his son, who was an outcast in medieval life.
The royal couple’s marriage was marked by tragedy. In Game of Thrones, Cersei reflects on losing her child, who unlike her later offspring is actually Robert’s, and such misery was the norm. In medieval Europe infant mortality was widespread—indeed it was very unusual for a couple to not lose a child or two. Edward and Eleanor had sixteen, of whom only six survived childhood and just four outlived the king; of these, seven died in their first year. Even for the wealthiest of aristocrats, life was unbearably tragic.
Until the early eighteenth century, when infant mortality rates began to fall in western Europe, childhood was bleak and often short; indeed, child death rates in seventeenth century Europe were no better than in hunter-gatherer societies.18 In this period, between 30 and 50 percent of people died before the age of five, the bulk of those being in the first year of life.19 Today the rate in the industrialised world is 0.1 per one thousand.
And even queens were not immune to such horror. Edward’s mother Eleanor of Provence had nine children, of whom just five survived, and Margaret Tudor, wife of Scotland’s James IV, had just one child make it out of six, and her daughter-in-law Mary of Guise saw only one in five live to adulthood. The most luckless monarch was Queen Anne, who died in 1714, after enduring seventeen pregnancies, but giving birth to only five live children—of whom none survived childhood.
When the couple were young, Eleanor made a present to her husband of a French translation of De Re Militari, the Roman writer Vegetius’s treaties on war. The most popular and well-read martial manual of the time, this Concerning Military Matters was required reading for anyone who wished to be a warrior and, in 1270, Edward duly went off on crusade, taking his wife and two young children with him. While there he almost died in Haifa, in modern-day Israel, after being seriously wounded by an Assassin, a member of a secretive death-cult; the dagger was poisoned, and his life was only saved when his wife sucked out the poison.20 Edward was in Sicily in 1272, on his return, when he learned that his father had died, but it took the new king almost two years to get home, stopping off in France along the way to take part in a tournament that almost killed him.
Edward was a terrifying figure whose men feared and respected him, even if they did not love him. Unafraid to get his hands dirty, he would sleep out in the cold with his troops on campaign; in one later offensive, while besieging Conwy in Wales, he shared his one barrel of wine with his soldiers: Edward was in his fifties or sixties by then, an old man for the times.
His long reign would be dominated by wars across Britain, first in Wales and then in Scotland, although the simmering hostilities with France also intensified. Conflict had begun in the west after the Prince of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, refused to turn up to Edward’s coronation because the King of England had g
iven shelter to his arch-enemy, Dafydd, who also happened to be his brother. Wales was for most Englishmen still a wild and strange place; Anglo-Normans had been encroaching on the south of the country for two hundred years, but in deepest Wales where Llywelyn’s rule held sway, the old laws called Hywel Dda still applied, with disputes settled by blood feuds. The country was extremely poor, even compared to England let alone France or Italy, and its mountainous terrain made it difficult to unite, and yet Llywelyn had come to extend his lordship over most of the land.
Edward raised an army and marched west, crushing opposition and building a series of castles, most of which still stand, among them Caernarfon, Flint, Rhuddlan, Conwy, Criccieth, and Aberystwyth. These fortresses could be defended by as few as twenty soldiers and, with stairs that led directly to the sea, could withstand a siege for several years. Slowly, but steadily, they ensured English domination of the country, which had already been heavily colonized under the reigns of Edward’s predecessors.
Llywelyn had married Edward’s cousin Eleanor without his permission and so in response Edward kidnapped her, then allowed her to wed the Welshman when it became expedient; but after she died in childbirth he had her daughter Gwenllian jailed, in case she might be used by his enemies. She remained a prisoner her entire life, dying at the age of fifty-four—but with the royal blood of Wales and England in her veins she was a threat to Edward. Also imprisoned with her in far-off Lincolnshire, on the North Sea coast, were the daughters of Llywelyn’s brother Dafydd. His two young sons were not so lucky: they were sent to Bristol castle where one, another Dafydd, died after four years and the other, Owain, was placed in a cage of wood bound with iron. He was never released.