by David Boyle
The obvious option — to press on through the Straits of Gibraltar — was also impossible because of the strong currents in the opposite direction, faster than the speed of the fastest vessel then afloat. Before the fourteenth century, all the seagoing traffic through the Pillars of Hercules went eastwards; none of Richard's original fleet of English ships would ever have returned home. Making the attempt would also have risked landing in Muslim territory on either side of the straits. No, there was really only one option, and by the time their ship had reached North Africa, it was clear to Richard what that was. In the light of what happened next, the idea of turning round, sailing up the Adriatic in winter, landingnear Hungary and making the long overland journey to Saxony to link up with his brother-in-law Henry the Lion seems outrageously foolhardy — if this was Richard's decision, and even that is impossible to know for certain. But it was definitely bold and, in his predicament — the whole Mediterranean world united against him and only six weeks to Christmas — Richard required boldness.
Still, it must have been a controversial decision among his loyal group of companions, and there must have been at least some secret forebodings of looming disaster as the ship's two rudders were heaved over, the great triangular sail was tacked and they headed back to Corfu.
*Hugh of Nonant was already notorious for sending troops in against his own monks. 'What did I tell you about monks?' he said to Richard 1189. 'If you would follow my advice, in a short time not one monk would be left in England. To the devil with all monks.'
† Reginald was about to be one of the shortest-serving archbishops of Canterbury, dying later in the year before he could even be consecrated. His place at Bath was taken over by the fearsome Savaric de Bohun, who later used military force to annex Glastonbury Abbey into his diocese.
*The phrase 'sent to Coventry' is supposed to have originated in the English Civil War, but this example of the Bishop of Coventry being 'sent to Coventry' may imply an earlier explanation.
*The round Templar church, which is still in existence, had been consecrated by the Patriarch of Jerusalem only seven years before. It was considered a neutral place for negotiation. John was challenged by his barons here before the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215.
*This was big, though the Saracens had ships capable of carrying 1,500. Three centuries later, Columbus's Santa Maria was only 75 feet long.
*Not only would the masters normally have insisted on inspecting the cargo, they would also have to show whoever was hiring the ship any ropes needed for hoisting cargo on board — the origin of the expression 'showing the ropes'.
* Eleanor had been rescued, only to be blown across the Mediterranean throughout the summer of 1148 by a vicious wind known as the gregale, which took her all the way to the North African coast before her ship was able to limp back to Palermo.
* It was a fearsome crossing: a century later, half the Sicilian fleet would be wrecked on exactly this journey.
6. Disguise
Tn a very short time the wind had filled the sail and blown us out of sight of the land of our birth. And I tell you now that anyone who sets out on such a dangerous course is foolhardy. For at night you fall asleep without knowing whether you will find yourself the next morning at the bottom of the sea.'
Jean de Joinville, on leaving for the Seventh Crusade by sea
'O lord, heavenly father, let the angels watch over thy servants, that they may reach their destination in safety . . . that no enemy may attack them on the road, nor evil overcome them. Protect them from the periods of fast rivers, thieves or wild beasts.'
medieval blessing for pilgrims
Richard and his colleagues were now under no illusion about the peril of their situation. The whole of the north coast of the Mediterranean had been transformed, in a frighteningly short time, from a series of friendly ports ready to welcome and cheer the hero of Christendom to a border bristling with hidden menace where he might be seized and condemned as a murderer, compromiser and traitor. The fact that this sudden shift in European opinion had been so quick that it had to have been coordinated — by either Henry VI or Philip Augustus — was really no comfort. Every inlet and haven now held dangers for Richard and his companions.
Their chosen solution was also dangerous. Sailing back across the Mediterranean in winter was difficult enough, especially when it was illegal to be at sea, according to the laws of most of the localmaritime powers. Travelling across Europe from south to north, without proper maps or languages, carried its own pitfalls and threats. But the real worry for Richard was not so much the risk of physical harm — a fear he was unusually immune to — as the danger to himself as king. England lay on the brink of civil war; Normandy faced invasion from a powerful neighbour. His disappearance at this critical time might be enough to guarantee disaster. But capture could have been far worse: the chances were that he would then be handed over to the king of France in return for a generous payment, with untold implications for England and the empire. There would be a show trial, and mischievous and destructive proclamations would be made in his name that he would be powerless to prevent, followed by either a humiliating treaty involving the loss of Normandy and other French possessions or worse. England and France teetered for centuries on the edge of merger into one kingdom under one or other royal line — even in 1940 the idea of merger was debated by the French cabinet as an alternative to defeat by the Nazis — and Richard's capture by a clever monarch like Philip might easily have decided the matter France's way.
When he set out from Acre, still under something of a misapprehension about the welcome that awaited him in Europe, Richard could have expected to reach Venice or Brindisi by November and be home in early January. It was clearly going to be a long and difficult period before that was now possible. As he and his companions were turning the ship around from the coast of North Africa, his wife and sister and the Cypriot princess had arrived in Naples with the English admiral Stephen de Turnham, who immediately set off with them on the road north towards Rome — their home for the next six months, under the protection of the Pope. Retracing his steps meant for Richard once more braving the unpredictable currents around Sicily, hugging the Italian coast and sailing due east towards Corfu — this time on an almost empty and far more lethal ocean. Navigated by Stephen de Turnham's brother Robert, the ship passed again through the unpredictable eastern Adriatic islands that harboured the pirates who had brieflyseized his mother more than half a century before. But this time, they would not be allowed to pass through unmolested.
Mediterranean trade in those days was seriously threatened by pirates, but the dividing line was blurred between corsairs, who were praised for preying on Muslim shipping, and those who were execrated for preying on Christian shipping. There were pirates who might be financed legitimately as investments in Venice or Genoa to haunt the sea lanes between Corsica and the Barbary coast, spreading fear among the Muslim traders plying their trade between North Africa and Spain. Seizing Muslim cargoes could be a lucrative business venture. But if for some reason that trade seemed sparse, they might in practice swoop on a shipload of Christian pilgrims and sell them into slavery at the nearest Muslim port.
As it became clear that the two galleys with high prows approaching them were intending to attack and board their ship, Richard and his companions would have unpacked what they were still carrying of their armour. Chain mail rusted easily and was always packed away carefully for the voyage, so there may not have been time to find it. If there had been, it meant slipping an undershirt on first — a special guild of linen armourers made clothing to wear underneath chain mail to stop the links being embedded in the flesh following a sword swipe — then pulling the heavy chain tunic over their heads, down to their calves and over their hands. Their helmets were probably nearer to hand as the pirate ships approached, with their fearsome crews poised to leap over the side, and they would have had their swords and shields ready to receive them.
Befo
re medieval sea battles, it was traditional for minstrels to play while the grappling irons were laid out and the crossbows were being armed at either end of the ship. Most sea battles involved throwing what was known as Greek fire from the height of the prow: a mixture of pitch, resin, sulphur, naphtha, saltpetre and charcoal that could be extinguished only by a mixture of vinegar and urine. Ships sailed into battle protected by felt soaked in vinegar — but there was no time to prepare anything of the kindnow. In any case, pirates would not normally risk setting light to the ships they wanted to seize.
As the galleys approached, Richard's companions could see the marines and armed boarders gathering on the platforms at the bows, next to the bronze catapult used for throwing Greek fire. Pirates could not board over the side because even making a galley list a little would make rowing impossible. What happened then defies explanation or description. Somehow, just as the ships clashed, Richard was able to summon up the reserves of authority that made him such a successful military commander and prevent the battle from taking place. It is not clear how he achieved this, but it may have involved him making himself completely recognizable and trusting to his fame. According to one story, the pirates surrendered to him as soon as they realized who he was — his reputation as a military miracle worker was clearly still intact. According to another, Richard was somehow able to deflect their attack into a negotiation about hiring their ships. Either way, with relief from his companions, an agreement was quickly reached that the ships and crews were his for hire for 200 silver marks. In order to sail in early December secretly up the tortuous narrows of the coast of Dalmatia he would require a crew with a wealth of local knowledge; there was no point in defeating them and taking the ship from them.
There are alternative accounts of Richard's encounter with the pirates. The English historian Roger of Howden had him sighting the galleys from Corfu, moored towards the mainland, and taking a boat out to them directly to open negotiations, but, as with many aspects of Richard's abortive journey home, it is impossible to know exactly which account is correct. Most detailed sources say that his final leg by sea was conducted in either a pair or a trio of galleys. Either way, for the second time in a month, they anchored under the great citadel that towered above the town and harbour of Corfu — for centuries a haven from the fierce winds of the Adriatic for sailors, for Venetian traders on their way to Byzantium and for returning pilgrims from the Holy Land. Most of those had now disappeared for the winter, and it must have been a conspicu- ous royal party that set foot there this time. Their presence must have been noted by those who kept the emperor informed.
Roger of Howden was very precise about the number of companions Richard kept by him — he says there were twenty of them — and perhaps this is a clue as to why he needed two boats. In the first of many similar manoeuvres on his secret journey north, Richard divided his companions to make it ambiguous which group he was with. The group that stayed with him included William de I'Etang, the lawyer Baldwin of Bethune, Richard's clerk, Philip of Poitou (later Bishop of Durham), his admiral Robert de Turnham, his chaplain, Anselm — who would eventually be the source of the most reliable account of the journey — plus four Templar knights. Apart from Hubert Walter, who made his own way back through Italy after their first visit to Corfu, the others who had set out with him from Acre drop out of the pages of history. But there is one exception — at least perhaps in the pages of mythology — and that is the dramatic, legendary encounter between Richard and one of them, Blondel de Nesle, as they sang to each other through the walls of Diirnstein Castle.
If Richard's buss was barely seaworthy after mid-November, this was nothing to the problems faced by sailing anywhere by galley a few weeks later.* Galleys were smooth coastal craft designed for naval actions, or for transporting royalty swiftly from port to port. They were not easy to manage even in mild ocean conditions, and the Mediterranean could be anything but mild. Naval historians believe that medieval galleys probably reached their limits, with their low seaboards, in a Force 4 or 5 gale — and weather of that magnitude was almost certain at some time on the short voyage north. But Richard and his advisers must have calculated that — especially after their deliberate ruse outside Brindisi — his ship was now too well known and expected imminentlyall over the southern coast of Europe. It made sense to shift into something less predictable.
The only description that survives of the galleys Richard hired was that they were 'high-necked' and 'Rumanian'. They had rams, and he may have felt these were necessary because he feared some kind of arrest from seagoing Venetian patrols. They had not been used in the original attack on Richard's previous ship, presumably because it was so valuable. If this was anything like the average galley at the time, and there is no reason to think otherwise, Richard would have become temporary master of a sizeable crew, with two decks of over ioo oarsmen under a large triangular sail, plus four helmsmen — two on duty at any one time — an assortment of marines to board their prey and handle the rockets and catapults, and a few boys. But galleys were also fast and at this point Richard needed speed as well as anonymity. They could probably manage a cruising speed that would allow progress of up to ioo miles a day, and at this speed Richard could begin to accelerate his frustratingly slow progress northwards.
But nothing was going according to plan. At some time early in the second week of December, as the king's galley snaked its way between the green islands scattered off the Dalmatian coast, the fearsome Adriatic wind known as the bora intervened. A storm battered the galley and forced a decision to put in at the nearest port, Ragusa.
Richard's galley never made it into Ragusa harbour — modern Dubrovnik — the safe haven under the walls of one of the great Adriatic trading ports. He was forced ashore within sight of his goal on the island of Lokrum, about half a mile out to sea and at the very entrance to the harbour. He and his companions, as well as the galley's crew, struggled ashore across the large rocks that cover the island's beaches in all directions at the height of the storm and must have sheltered under the trees. As the weather began to lift, they may have walked to the top of the hill to work out where they had come ashore, mindful of Richard's promise as the ship veered towards the rocks that he would spend 100,000ducats (gold coins from Venice) building a church if and wherever he had the good fortune to land. Or perhaps they had by then discovered the door to the small Benedictine priory there, where the monks prepared a meal for him and his companions, and heard about Richard's typically spendthrift vow.
It is possible that Richard was intending to disguise himself as a Templar when he landed. That would have been an obvious first thought. He was with four trusted Templar knights and it was the self-appointed task of Templars to protect crusaders on their way to and from the Holy Land. It was also their special role to look after holy relics and Richard was probably carrying some of these, perhaps even one of the pieces of the True Cross that he had stumbled upon outside Jerusalem six months before. This might also have been a particularly appropriate disguise, because legend has it that Richard considered himself to be a Templar. Before setting sail, Richard seemed to describe himself to the Master of the Temple as a 'brother Templar'. It was an ambiguous phrase, which may simply have meant that he was asking for the privileges of a fellow Templar, but it would have been very much in character for him to be secretly initiated into the order — as some legends say he was — and the Templars would have been only too happy to oblige.
The story of Richard's journey and his arrest contains so many mysterious elements that are now impossible to make sense of. It seems extraordinary, given the circumstances, that he should have arrived within a couple of miles of Duke Leopold of Austria, one of the few men in Europe with a seriously personal motive for arresting him, after the humiliating rebuff when his Austrian banner was thrown into the moat at Acre. Perhaps the continuing mystery might be explained by a secondary mission on behalf of the secretive order of soldier-monks, which might explain the presen
ce of the four unnamed Templar knights. But if there was one, it is now beyond recovery.
It may be that, as Richard was rowed from Lokrum across to Ragusa harbour, he was still intending to stick to the Templar story. But there seems to have been no attempt to do so once hearrived among the masts and sails and the ships pulled up on the beach for the winter. Perhaps the pirate crew, who discovered his identity as they tried to storm his ship, were unable to keep the secret. Perhaps he knew they would be unable to. Either way, he was welcomed to Ragusa by the leading figures of the city under his own name. Richard appeared to have chanced upon one of the few ports where he was not in danger of arrest. Rumours of his munificent offer to build a church on Lokrum reached the city before he did and a delegation of the leading inhabitants came to him and begged him instead to help them rebuild the dilapidated cathedral, which was in need of repairs having been there since the seventh century. Richard agreed, on two conditions — that the Pope would allow him to change the terms of his vow and that some of the money would be spent rebuilding the monastery on Lokrum.