by David Boyle
Free at least to move around the court at Hagenau and Worms, Richard began to receive queues of visitors: barons, bishops and clerks from England — seeking advice, providing information, asking permissions — and dignitaries from foreign countries too. They were followed by a stream of letters passing from Worms to the English court, some of them arriving intact, some of them replaced by downright forgeries. 'However many times we send messages to you in England with orders for you, you are only to believe those which concern our own honour and advantage,' Richard wrote to Walter of Coutances. 'Those which do not affect our honour or profit are not to be believed.'
It was an imperfect way of running his kingdom. Even whenthe letters were genuine, they were liable to disappear on the road, seized by the agents of foreign powers, just as the emperor's original letter to Paris had been. The journey to see him down the Rhine was also fraught with difficulty. The Bishop of Chester was ambushed by thieves even before he got to Germany, resting near Canterbury on his way to Dover. The feeling against Longchamp was still strong enough to suspect his brother-in-law Matthew of Clare, the castellan of Dover Castle, of complicity.
But despite all the enormous difficulties, and the frustration and concerns that he must have had, Richard was astonishingly optimistic in prison. In some ways it is one of the most potent testimonies to his character. He may have had flaws as a husband, he may have left his own kingdom almost bankrupt after his short reign, but under overwhelming pressure he kept his nerve enough to inspire those around him — from the two abbots onwards. 'No tribulation could cloud the countenance of this most serene prince,' wrote Ralph of Coggeshall, the chronicler with the sources closest to Richard at the time. 'His words remained cheerful and jocund, his actions fierce or most courageous as time, place, reason or person demanded.'
The number of visitors astonished and unnerved his captors, and there was evidently a considerable amount of work to be done — advisers and ambassadors to consult with, letters to write, orders to issue and proclamations to seal. But there was time on his hands too. The chronicles report that he spent some of this on the castle walls, and devoted considerable effort to getting his jailers drunk, testing his strength against theirs by wrestling with them and playing practical jokes on them. Ransom was a legitimate chivalrous demand — though perhaps not for crusaders on the way home — and Richard took his vows seriously. He would have been given wide freedom around the court on condition that he did not try to escape. He even sent to England for his hawks, which were dispatched to Germany so that he could go hunting. The English government accounts, known as the Pipe Rolls, have an entry for 'scarlet cloth and green cloth and hauberks and capes of doeskinand of lamb's wool and three silver cups brought to Germany, £44 11s 2d'.
There were other entertainments too. Like Richard, the emperor was a songwriter. Henry had learned to write songs in Italy in his early twenties. His palace on the hill at Hagenau -where Richard had lodged after his release from Trifels — had the full array of minnesingers and minstrels, as well as an impressive library of classical authors, and brand new wall-paintings illustrating Barbarossa's part in the Third Crusade. Despite John of Salisbury's warnings, Henry presided over a sophisticated and cultured court and Richard must have loved the colour, the music, the great red gold pinnacles on the towers of the Hohenstaufen castles. He must have enjoyed the ladies reading French aloud to each other in the garden, the food and drink provided each day by the stewards and cupbearers in the great hall, with the most luxurious dishes that medieval kitchens could provide — roast peacock, salted herring from the Baltic, braised heron or even, occasionally, roast dolphin.*
In a court that valued music and romance, it is hardly surprising that the legends that wove themselves around Richard in prison should have been about these — including the famous story about how he earned his 'Lionheart' nickname. The tales tell how Richard was arrested by King Modred of Almain (Swabia) when he and his friends refused to share their roast goose in a wayside inn with a wandering minstrel. They gave false names and were imprisoned for espionage. In prison, Richard was loved by the king's daughter Margery, who smuggled herself night after night into his cell and helped him survive two crucial trials of strength.
The first of these was when he played a game of 'pluck-buffet' - exchanging blows — with Modred's gigantic son Ardour. Having survived Ardour's tremendous blow, he asked permission to rebuild his strength by eating and to return the blow the following day, and he spent the evening in his cell coating his hand with wax. When he struck Ardour on the cheek with his wax-covered fist, Ardour was killed instantly. Modred was furious, not so much about the death of his son but about the seduction of his daughter, and Richard was forced to face another trial. His only request to Margery was for forty of her silk handkerchiefs. So when a hungry lion was released into his cell, Richard protected his arm by wrapping it with the handkerchiefs, and then thrust his hand into the lion's throat and pulled out its beating heart. The lion fell dead, and Richard thanked God, strode out into the great hall in front of all the barons of the court, and there he sprinkled salt on the heart and ate it before their horrified gaze.
The story of the lion seems to have originated in a German manuscript called The Romance of Richard the Coeur de Lion, written sometime before 1250, but there may have been an earlier version that has been lost. Richard seems actually to have been identified with lions for most of his adult life, described as the 'lion-hearted prince' by the historian Giraldus Cambrensis. What is most interesting about the story is how much the popular imagination — and probably Richard's own — linked him with King Arthur. Modred or Mordred was originally King Arthur's enemy and nemesis in the legends, and the story of the exchanged blows with Ardour sounds very like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight — right down to the magical garments of protection — which was to become such a critical story in the development of English literature nearly two centuries later. Not just King Arthur either: the mythical Irish hero Cuchulain was also said to have torn a lion's heart out from its throat.
Richard may have been transforming himself into a hero of folklore, but the facts of his imprisonment were all too real. There must have been moments of despair for him, and probably the news that some of his fellow crusaders — those he had fought alongside at Acre — had surrendered their Norman castles to Philipwithout a fight was among the worst. It may have been then that Richard put pen to paper and wrote one of the only songs of his to have survived: 'Ja nus hons pris' (No one who is in prison). It was written both in Old French and Occitan and was addressed to his half-sister Marie of Champagne, the mother of Henry of Champagne — now king of Jerusalem — and the patron among others of Chretien de Troyes. It starts 'fa nus hons pris ne dira sa raison Adroitement, se dolantement non (see Appendix):
No one who is in prison sees his fate
With honesty; for all he feels is sad -
But he can still compose a hopeful song.
I am so rich in friends, but poor in help:
They should be ashamed if, for my ransom,
I lie here one more year.
The song was written in a popular form, perhaps because that was how he wrote, but he may also have intended it — like the good troubadour that he was — to be taken up and sung across Europe by other minstrels to help raise the ransom. It is unclear whether he wrote it to comfort himself, to amuse his cultured relatives or to reach a wide audience. Perhaps it was a little of all three.
It is also recognizably his song: you can detect the peculiar mixture that made up Richard's personality — a hint of pride, but a flash of ironic humour as well. Once again, it is almost impossible to pin down Richard's contradictions. The awareness of his own importance is here, but at the same time he is not ashamed to wrestle with the servants responsible for his imprisonment. It was a contradiction summed up by his old adversary the troubadour Bertran de Born after he was released in a poem called 'Now Comes the Pleasant Season': T like the custom wh
ich the lion has, that is not cruel to a conquered thing, but is proud against pride.'
The biggest mystery about the song is the final lines, which are obscure and hard to translate — as well as being more like a private accompanying note to the song — and therefore tend to be left out of the translations:
Sister, Countess, your sovereign right
May God preserve, and guard the one I claim
For whom I suffer here.
These are clearly addressed to his half-sister Marie of Champagne, and they are followed by two even more obscure final lines:
I do not speak of the lady of Chartres,
The mother of Louis.
Who did he mean? The 'one I claim' could conceivably have referred to his wife, though it is not clear why Marie of Champagne might have a role in guarding her — unless Marie was visiting Poitiers at the time, where Berengaria was. It may have been his sister Joanna, though again it is not clear why his imprisonment was on her account. There is one other possibility, which is more likely, that this means Henry of Champagne, Marie's eldest son and Richard's nephew, whom he had left behind as king ofjerusalem. If so, it would be clear why there might be some link in Richard's mind between their two fates. As for the mother of Louis, this refers to their sister Alix, whose son Louis was the new Count of Chartres and Blois, and was for dynastic reasons tied in allegiance to the French. But why mention her at all, except in a wry way to make clear which 'Sister, Countess' he was referring to? Somehow you feel that these mysterious lines might provide a key to some of the unanswered questions about how Richard could have been condemned to prison so far from home.
If Richard had melancholic moments, he generally kept them hidden with activity. He wrote to the Old Man of the Mountains, asking for a deposition clearing him of blame for the murder of Conrad of Montferrat, though the reply to this letter, which still exists — and granting his wish — has been dismissed as a forgery. He even sent his own armour back to England, so that it could go on a fund-raising tour around the country. On 30 March he had written the first of a string of letters to his mother, asking her totake personal control of the fund-raising and to appoint Hubert Walter to the vacant position of Archbishop of Canterbury. 'Nothing apart from my own freedom matters more than this does,' he said, hinting later in the letter that there might be some advantages in his predicament that he would not have wanted to miss. His strategic mind was exploring diplomatic opportunities.
But then news reached him of the planned meeting between Philip Augustus and the emperor, and he realized that all his plans could be undermined if the conference was allowed to go ahead. Once Henry was in France, the likelihood was that there would be an agreement — perhaps backed by large payments from Philip — that would keep him in prison or, worse, transfer him to a prison in France. It was vitally important that the meeting should not happen. Summoning his key advisers, Richard and the English government began a dramatic series of diplomatic manoeuvres to regain the initiative.
Richard had reason to believe, correctly, that the emperor's eventual ambition was to curb the growing power of France and reclaim French territory for the empire. He guessed, correctly again, that there was an opportunity to persuade Henry of how useful a long-term relationship with England would be in comparison to one with France. Throughout the early summer of 1193, he also worked to build links with some of the emperor's most difficult princes of the Lower Rhineland, in particular working closely with his now ageing brother-in-law in Saxony to build new relationships with his fellow rebels, while at the same time negotiating trading links with England. Just as Philip had understood that Henry needed more than anything to heal the political rift inside the empire, this was where Richard's efforts were devoted. But it was Richard who achieved it, managing to transform himself into a crucial asset for Henry as he battled to regain the trust of his vassal princes. Powerful north German princes and prelates were now confirmed English allies — Conrad and Adolf, respectively archbishops of Mainz and Cologne; Henry, Duke of Limburg and his son Simon, the bishop-elect of Liege; Henry, Duke of Brabant; and Dietrich, Count of Holland. The vitalmeeting with the German barons and bishops was organized for the emperor around Midsummer's Day, and so instead of meeting Philip Augustus at Valcouleurs, Henry was meeting his former rebels at negotiations that were managed and facilitated by Richard and the English diplomats.
Richard then requested that the court that had heard his case in March be reconvened at Worms, also meeting in a palace next to a massive and recently finished Romanesque cathedral, beside one of the biggest synagogues in continental Europe.* For the second time, the leading princes of the empire were able to discuss Richard's imprisonment. Once more Longchamp and Walter, the short and the tall, stood by Richard during their five-day deliberations. Also with him for the occasion were Baldwin of Bethune and Hubert Walter's co-justiciar, William Brewer.† It was here that the final moves in the English diplomatic game were concluded. Henry swore to the assembled prices and bishops that he was innocent of the murder of the short-lived bishop-elect of Liege, and promised a new election for bishop. The general settlement also included a renegotiation of the terms of Richard's ransom. He would now be freed once the emperor had received 100,000 silver marks plus hostages for another 50,000 which had to be paid within seven months of his release. These 50,000 would be waived if Richard was able to achieve something too secret to be recorded, but it may have been a full reconciliation between the emperor and his most implacable opponent, Henry the Lion of Saxony. As well as all the diplomatic effort, it had cost Richard the promise of another 50,000 silver marks to make sure the meeting at Valcouleurs did not take place. Again, he was in no position to bargain.
Once the news of the agreement reached Paris, it seemed to Philip — as it must have seemed to Richard — that release was onlya matter of days away. He then sent his famous message to John: 'Look to yourself, the Devil is loosed.'
Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe imagines John receiving this message at a tournament in Ashby de la Zouch and going white with fear. In reality, a terrified John made his way quickly to the coast and fled across the Channel to Paris. Once he had left, his estates in England were confiscated by the justiciars and his remaining supporters abandoned to their fates. To seal his dependence on the French, John also handed over the key fortresses in Touraine that his father and brother had so painstakingly developed. It was then that Philip began to conceive the contempt for John that was to characterize their difficult relationship for the rest of their lives. And then, finally, Pope Celestine acted on Richard's behalf. He excommunicated both Philip and John for attacking a returning crusader.
Longchamp and William Brewer travelled separately to Paris to negotiate a proper truce with Philip. It made sense to Philip to consolidate his gains while he could plan something more dramatic, and the treaty signed at Mantes on 9 July allowed him to keep all the lands he had gained, and Richard agreed to pay Philip 20,000 silver marks in four instalments after his release. Once the castles had been handed over formally to him, Philip also promised that he 'receive the king of England into his favour and make request to the emperor for his liberation'. Probably nobody at the negotiations expected Philip to fulfil this part of the bargain, but it might prove important later.
One of the agreements was that a series of castles in Normandy would be handed over to John. This was clearly in Richard's interest because it provided a lure to extract John from the influence of Philip's court in Paris. Once the treaty had been signed, messages from Germany urged John to take possession of his new castles. But it was a measure of the distrust with which he was regarded that the castellans refused to hand them over to him, and he returned in a rage to Paris.
*
Philip was preparing a far more dramatic move, and had been making preparations ever since his withdrawal from Rouen. He knew that a full-scale invasion of England would require allies and probably also a bigger fleet than he had available. Since hi
s wife, Isabella, had died giving birth to stillborn twins just as they were preparing to leave for the crusade in 1190, three years before, he had been weighing up the most advantageous marriage.* Having briefly considered and dismissed Richard's widowed sister Joanna, he had finally come to the conclusion that a diplomatic marriage with Denmark would have great advantages. Not only was King Cnut VI's eighteen-year-old sister, Ingeborg, said to be extraordinarily attractive, but his naval strength dominated the southern Baltic. Cnut also had the added advantage of a distant claim on the English throne, because his ancestor had been the famous King Cnut, who ruled England until his death in 1035 — the same claim that had led the Norwegian Harald Hardrada to invade England back in 1066. The marriage was arranged swiftly and Ingeborg arrived in France with her household, chaperoned by the Bishop of Roskilde, on 15 August. Philip finally met his new bride in procession in Arras with an enormous range of gifts. Together they were taken to Amiens, where they were married in the cathedral, and Ingeborg was crowned queen of France by Philip's uncle the Archbishop of Reims. There then followed one of the most extraordinary, unexplained events of medieval history.
The first sign of trouble came in the middle of the ceremony, when Philip was seen to go deathly pale and begin to tremble. He recovered shortly afterwards and the rest of the festivities continued without difficulty. But after the king and his new queen retired for their wedding night behind closed doors, something happened so dreadful — at least in Philip's mind — that he was prepared to do anything to rid himself of her. He was prepared to abandon hiswhole alliance with Denmark, and with it his invasion plans, just to dissolve the marriage and unstitch himself from his saintly new bride. At dawn the next morning, he sent Ingeborg back to the Bishop of Roskilde and the other Danish envoys, but they refused to take her and hurried out of France. Three months later, he had the marriage dissolved by some compliant bishops, one of whom was Conrad of Montferrat's old friend Philip, Bishop of Beauvais.