by David Boyle
Philip stormed back to Paris and began raising an armed force. The whispering campaign, which claimed that Richard was never coming home, was stepped up. Philip also wrote to John, inviting him to cross the Channel and promising him that, if he did so, he would be made lord of all the Angevin lands in France — including Normandy and Aquitaine — and that he could marry Alys, strengthening his claim to the English throne. The fact that John was already married was apparently beside the point. Worse, it became clear that John was prepared to act on the invitation. He had gathered a force of mercenaries and was in Southampton, preparing to sail to join Philip.
When the news reached Eleanor in Rouen in the first week of February, she realized that everything now depended on her. She could no longer avoid the situation simply by avoiding Longchamp. Setting off immediately, she landed in Southampton on 11 February, before John had left. But instead of remonstrating with him, she ignored him completely, heading straight for Winchester and the treasury. Once there, she sent out letters to the barons who were capable of shutting off John's access to money, and convened a series of councils in Windsor, Oxford, London and Winchester. In each of these, her rhetoric provided the members of the Great Council with enough courage to stand up to John — and just in time. He abandoned his plans and withdrew to his castle in Wallingford, from where he emanated ill-will.
To complicate matters further, a messenger arrived from Longchamp during the London meeting to say that he had arrived in Dover and was staying in the castle. He considered himself not only still Chancellor of England but also an emissary from Rome. This was an unnecessary complication, because to summon up enough nerve to withstand the Pope, the barons felt they needed John's support. Reluctantly, they sent a delegation to see him in Wallingford. John used the opportunity for a threatening reminder that he now had no access to funds. 'The Chancellor fears the threats of none of you, nor all of you together. Nor will he beg your suffrance if only he may succeed to have me as his friend,' said John, according to the chronicler Richard of Devizes, reminding them of their powerlessness if he was to choose to back Longchamp after all. 'He has promised to give me £700 of silver within a week, if I shall interpose between you and him. You see, I am in want of money. To the wise, a word is sufficient.'
Faced with this blackmail, the Great Council had little choice, and they agreed to outbid Longchamp. They also wrote a joint letter with Eleanor, advising Longchamp to return across the Channel, 'unless he has a mind to take his meals under the custody of an armed guard'.
Having successfully held England together, Eleanor embarked on a flurry of tidying other outstanding issues. She brokered an agreement between the two northern bishops at a meeting in the Temple Church in London.* She successfully appealed to the Pope to lift the interdict on Normandy, and a tour around the diocese of Ely — 'wherever she passed, men, women and children, a piteous company, their feet bare, their clothes unwashed, their hair unshorn' — convinced her to lean on the new administration to lift the interdict there too.
Eleanor of Aquitaine retained her ferocious political talents and she had briefly succeeded in preventing John from creating a rift with his brother that would have torn the Angevin empire apart. The news had reached her that, in fact, Philip's most important barons had refused to take up arms against a crusader. But the situation was still extremely unpredictable. By personal reputation and willpower alone, Eleanor was holding the kingdom together. But for almost a year now she had been urging Richard to come home. If he could just have taken Jerusalem, not even the king of France would have dared stand against him. As it was, the factions inside the crusade, as well as those inside the crusader kingdom, seemed to be conspiring to make sure he never reached home at all.
For medieval sailors, dependent on a clear sky to fix their position, the Mediterranean was unpredictable at the best of times. It may have been the most navigated ocean in the world, but even the biggest three-masted ships clung to the coastline when they could, and resigned themselves to extraordinary detours at the hands of the mysterious currents and winds — the sirocco, the ghibli, the mistral and the bora. Roman military writers used to advise nobody to sail beyond 14 September, but it was the practice by the twelfth century to allow ships on to the Mediterranean until 10 November before closing the ports for the winter. Richard would be cutting his journey very fine to reach the French coast in that time.
He had chosen an inconspicuous buss that was for many years believed to have been called Franchenefi though that is now thought to have been a misunderstanding of the original chronicle. But even if its name has been forgotten, Richard chose this ship because it was ordinary, so we can picture it with some confidence: just over 100 feet long and maybe 40 feet wide, with space for maybe 1,000 passengers or 100 horses and their attendants squeezed together below.* It probably had two masts, with a large triangular cotton sail on the mainmast, and a spare sail of canvas for stiff winds, but none of the usual colourful pennants and ensigns to show who was aboard. There was a platform at the bows — the forecastle, where a few trusted men at arms were posted — and another at the stern, from where the two heavy rudders on either side eased the ship through the narrow channels between the rocks along the southern coast of Asia Minor, dodging between islands to evade potential pursuers.
Also at the stern were stored up to twenty spare anchors, probably made in Venice and leased from the big anchor store in Acre, strapped to the ship because anchors were notoriously easy to lose. Underneath the stern platform was Richard's cabin, a small room with windows looking out behind. We know that similar ships half a century later had their chambers for nobles panelled andthere is no reason to suppose this one would have been any different. There was probably no latrine on board, so everyone would have been expected to use a bucket, emptying it over the side after making very sure which direction the wind was blowing. There must have been cargo, some equipment belonging to the king and maybe others — possibly a closely guarded secret. It may have been a small, wide ship by modern standards, but it had a large, highly experienced crew of seventy-five, including a ship's scribe, a cross between an accountant and a lawyer, who kept a record of everything coming on or leaving the ship.*
The only way Richard's master could judge their position was with an astrolabe to measure the altitude of the sun. At midday, by the master's pocket sundial, they could then work out how many degrees they were from the Equator. That gave them latitude; a method ofjudging longitude was still some centuries away. Alexander Neckham, the son of Richard's wet nurse, described a compass back in the 1180s, but these were not yet reliable and were reserved for when the ship was fog-bound — and even then probably consisted of no more than a magnetic needle in a bowl of water. Masters put their faith in lookouts in the crow's nest above the mainsail; they could see for up to eight nautical miles, or an hour and a half's journey time, around them. But there was also the position of the pole star, and the lamps that were lit at night outside chapels on promontories dedicated to St Nicholas and to Mary the Virgin all along the northern Mediterranean coast — often in converted temples to Poseidon and Artemis — put there specifically to guide shipping in the dark. The behaviour of seabirds and clouds could also tell the crew about the nearest land. Along particularly dangerous coasts, the master used local pilots who knew the channels. This was a vital and responsible job: under Catalan laws, incompetent pilots were beheaded. Otherwise it wasa matter of relying on the experience of the navigator and the will of God.
Sailing was an uncomfortable business as well as dangerous, listening to the waves crashing against the hull and the groaning of the ship's timbers, and trying to ignore the inevitable seasickness and the stench of rat urine. The poorest pilgrims normally stayed below deck, next to the horses and the pump, existing on a diet of bread, salt and water. These would not have been on Richard's ship. His small party — by tradition this included Blondel — would have brought their own warm clothes and mattresses, and bedded down
in a corner of the deck near the capstan, or the big hatches, or the permanent altar on the quarterdeck. They would have heeded the advice to sea travellers of the day to bring with them their own ginger, figs, pepper, cheese and salted meat, because ships' food was notoriously maggot-ridden. Most voyagers between Western Europe and Palestine — and there were already regular sailings from Venice — ate on land every night, because that was where the fresh food and the firewood were, and it reduced the chances of the braziers setting fire to the ship. But Richard was in a hurry, and they were sailing by night as well as by day, stopping regularly to take on water and check their position with the locals. Their meals were otherwise taken on board, heralded by a trumpet — first for the travellers to bring them to the small tables on deck, and then again for the crew. Richard ate alone, but in full view: by tradition, kings had to eat in public. Then there were chess, cards and dice on deck, and communal singing — perhaps some of Blondel's better-known compositions — military voices carrying over the dark ocean.
The process of gathering together the fleet from England and sailing with it from France to Palestine had fascinated Richard. So had the experience of working with the Pisan fleet to keep his army supplied, and he had come to know a great deal about maritime fighting and sea power. In later years, he would use this knowledge to found the Royal Navy and its historic base at Portsmouth. His character and temperament being what they were, Richard would not have left the master to himself as they felt their way between the islands; he would have been by his side, urging him on to greater speed and greater risk.
The midnight sailing had given Richard a head start. It was important to land before the informers who hung around the alleys of Acre could get their messages to his enemies that he had sailed. They continued up the coast past Tyre until they could see Beirut on the starboard bow, then Richard's ship turned west and, within three days of their departure, anchored in the harbour of Limassol in Cyprus.
It has never been clear exactly why Richard needed to stop there, potentially giving his journey and schedule away to the spies who clustered in these outposts where the different religions and races of the region mixed freely and anonymously. It was probably to secure the administration for the hapless Guy of Lusignan. Although he had been given the island by Richard under the agreement to hand over the throne of Jerusalem to Conrad, Guy might well have needed Richard's presence and authority to make it quite clear to the remaining Templars there that he was now in charge. Richard probably also needed money, and Guy had taken on the commitment to pay for the island, something the Templars had failed to do.
From Cyprus the ship probably set sail at night again — striking north along the coast of Asia Minor at a best speed of six knots, heading for Rhodes. The rising swell made it clear that the weather was already closing in. This was no simple voyage even in summertime, and Richard was sailing against the wind. In 1103 the early pilgrim Saewulf had arrived in Rhodes sailing the other way, and finally managed to reach the Sea of Marmora and Constantinople more than three months later. 'The voyage from Rhodes to Chios is dangerous,' wrote one mariner two centuries after Richard's voyage. 'As the land of Turkey is very close on the right hand; and there are many islands, both inhabited and deserted on the other side, so that it is dangerous to sail over this route at night, or inbad weather.' Richard was doing both, picking up local pilots where possible, pressing on when not, with the currents behind him pushing them north.
At Rhodes, the ship sailed into Emborikos harbour, avoiding the sandbank by the entrance of the main commercial port and passing the site of the famous Colossus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Leaving Rhodes through the Dodecanese islands — each one with its own particular hazards of shoals and rocks — they sailed south-west, leaving Karpathos to the starboard, heading for Crete. Then, avoiding the ports on the safer northern shore — in Byzantine hands — they took the fast route along the southern side of the island, which meant risking the sudden squalls and the reefs of Gavdos Island. Then north again up the western coast of Greece.
Richard passed safely through the area of limbo that his mother had told him about when he was a child, where she had been briefly seized along with all her baggage by Byzantine corsairs on her way home from the Second Crusade, and under the very gaze of her first husband, Louis VII.* Richard no doubt breathed a sigh of relief having avoided his mother's Mediterranean fate, and set course for Corfu, passing between Odysseus' island of Ithaca and the Greek coast. The approach was especially dangerous, and it was customary to arrive and leave from the south to avoid the Erikoussa islets. This meant that Richard's ship would have hugged the coast through the Zakynthos Channel between Corfu and the mainland, avoiding the Strofades Islands and their reefs, including the notorious rock Arpia, which gave its name to the Harpies.
Philip had also stopped in Corfu — then ruled from Constantinople — on his way home, and it is possible that Richard risked coming ashore here in connection with Philip's visit. Corfu was another meeting place between three worlds, the Byzantine, the Muslim and the Western, with its rival Italian traders. It was a place where secrets were known and for sale, and Richard needed information: which was the safest way home and who were now the most dangerous intriguers against him? It was almost certainly here that he met agents sent from Sicily by Tancred, who told him about the crucial meeting between Philip and Emperor Henry VI, at which Henry had promised to arrest Richard if he ventured into his territory. Even if the possibility was still in his mind, this information would have decided Richard firmly against travelling back through Italy. It seems to have been in Corfu that Hubert, Bishop of Salisbury, left ship to make his own way home through Italy, now that Richard could not.
Richard sailed from Corfu on n November, past the great citadel towering over the town and the Venetian ships hauled on to the shore for the winter. It was near the deadline beyond which no ship should be at sea for fear of the winter storms as they set out into the Ionian Sea — rough even in the summer months. It was here that Odysseus had been washed ashore at the end of his wanderings around the Mediterranean.
A few days later, Richard's ship was seen by some pilgrims off the coast of Italy, heading for Brindisi. It was the last sighting before his disappearance — evidence for the doubters back home that he was on his way. Even so, it was almost certainly a piece of disinformation, as it had never been his intention to land at Brindisi. At best, that would have meant an enforced stay in Rome, as happened to his wife, his sister and the Cypriot princess; at worst, arrest by the emperor's men. It is possible that he deliberately allowed the ship to be recognized heading in that direction, before turning away again the moment the useful pilgrims were out of sight. In fact, Richard and the crew went round Cape St Maria di Leuca, across the Gulf of Taranto and probably not through the Straits of Messina, where he had sailed at the head of his fleet just eighteen months before — and where he was too liable to be seen — but down the southern coast of Sicily. The objective now was the south of France, and from Sicily it was generally advised that the quickest way there — given that Richard did not want to hugthe Italian coast all the way to France, giving advance warning of his arrival — was to cross direct with the currents that flowed towards Cape Spartivento and the North African coast. It was wise to avoid running too close to the dangerous west coasts of Corsica and Sardinia, with their treacherous rocks.* Equally, sailing too close to the North African coast risked wandering into the territories of the Barbary pirates and Muslim corsairs who hunted in those waters.
Keeping a sharp lookout, it was here — off the North African coast near Tunis, and only three days' sailing from Marseilles — that the full seriousness of his position came home to Richard, and he opted for an even more uncertain alternative. There are still many mysterious aspects to his decision to turn round, and why it was taken here. It is possible that he put into Sicily as he sailed down its southern coast and met agents sent by Tancred to warn him. Or had he been
mulling over the new risk revealed to him in Corfu all the way across the Adriatic? Or did he simply hail a ship passing in the other direction? Whatever it was, Richard was given information about a plot to seize him and take him hostage the moment he stepped ashore in the self-governing port of Marseilles. Worse, the eldest son of Raymond of Toulouse, Raymond, Count of St Gilles, had bands of trusted men at all the ports in southern France. Given his character, Richard's first reaction would have been to accept the risk and fight it out. But the prospect of being at the mercy of his most troublesome vassal was extremely worrying, especially as he was almost certainly in league with Philip. If Richard was captured by that combination, it would seal the fate of England and probably Aquitaine too. His advisers on board were led by William de I'Etang, one of the handful of trusted knights who had held off the Saracen attack outside Jaffa in August. There were only a few of them with him on the ship and they must have urged him not to even consider that option. The moment Richard stepped ashore in Marseilles or any of thesouthern French ports, he would have been recognized. There really was no alternative. He had to land somewhere else.
But where? He could have landed along the east coast of Spain and made his way home to Aquitaine through territory controlled by his new allies in Navarre, but that would have required first landing in Barcelona, in what was now the combined kingdom of Aragon and Catalonia, which was on bad terms with its neighbours — including Navarre — and had quite likely been offered a considerable bribe by Philip to arrest Richard if he came ashore there. Aragon also then controlled most of the coastline of Provence. Richard must by then have heard about the invasion of Toulouse by his brother-in-law Sancho of Navarre, and knew that sailing to Barcelona risked interception by patrols from Toulouse, Pisa or Genoa. It would also have involved getting dangerously close to the island of Majorca, then still in Muslim hands and the base for corsairs who were patrolling the approaches. He could have landed in northern Italy, but the risks there would have been even greater for the journey home. Genoa was now a close ally of Philip's and the French, and the territory north of there around Piedmont belonged to the relatives of Conrad of Montferrat, whose pride that Conrad had been chosen as king ofjerusalem was now tempered by their conviction that he had been murdered on Richard's orders. Even his former allies in Pisa had signed a treaty with the emperor for his forthcoming attack on Sicily, as Richard must by now have been aware, and this could well have involved his arrest.