The King's Spies
Page 38
‘She will not be a corpse,’ objected Matilda. ‘Besides, she is our mother. Of course she will stand at the head of the family.’
‘Not over me,’ insisted Bellême. ‘I will not agree to it. When she returns, it will be as my vassal, and she will do what I tell her.’
‘She will not,’ said Matilda, trying to remain patient with him. ‘She is no longer human, and cannot be subject to human control. She will be more powerful than either of us. If you want your English estates back, then you must bow to her commands.’
‘I will not!’ shouted Bellême furiously. ‘And if debasing myself before a woman is the only way to reclaim my properties, then Henry can keep them.’
Before Matilda could stop him, he had reached into the box and snatched up the head by its matted grey mane. Dried dirt and the shells of long-dead insects scattered across the floor as he brandished it. Then he strode to the window and cast the object out, watching it arc as it fell down and down, until it landed with a splash in the deep, fast-running waters of the River Dives below.
Matilda gave a cry of horror and rushed to the window, but the deed was done, and Mabel de Bellême would remain headless into eternity. She watched her brother kick the box closed and storm from the room. She fought to control her temper, thinking about all that was lost. Then she wondered whether Old Mabel might answer her calls anyway, because head and body had been united, albeit briefly. She rummaged around in Emma’s possessions until she found the scroll containing ancient words in a mysterious tongue. She laid it on the coffin, and surrounded it with lighted candles, as she had seen Emma do so many times. Then she stopped, listening intently.
Had she heard a faint knock from inside the box? Or had it been her imagination?
Historical Postscript
Roger was almost right in that Robert de Bellême, Earl of Shrewsbury, would never tread on English soil again. He came once more, at Christmas 1105, probably in an attempt to reconcile himself with Henry and have his lands back. Henry would not see him, and Bellême went home empty-handed.
After his expulsion at the end of summer 1102, Bellême retired to Normandy in a foul frame of mind. He immediately started to face trouble from his family. Arnulf thought Bellême should share his Normandy estates on the grounds that he had lost his own fighting his brother’s cause, and when Bellême refused, Arnulf started to donate the disputed castles to the Duke of Normandy. Others also rose up against the unpopular Earl. Bellême reacted with characteristic savagery. He suppressed the rebellion brutally, and several vassals and high-ranking churchmen were obliged to flee to England. Among them was Abbot Ralph of Sées.
Bellême was excommunicated twice, then started to make trouble for King Henry’s brother, the Duke of Normandy. Bellême met the Duke and King Henry in open combat at the Battle of Tinchebrai in 1106, where he was thoroughly routed. He asked for a pardon, which was granted, along with the return of some of his lands, although none in England. The final confrontation of Bellême and Henry came in 1112, when Bellême rebelled yet again. This time there was no pardon, and Bellême was imprisoned, first at Cherbourg and then at Wareham, where he died at an unknown date. Contemporary records do not mention him again, so he was probably kept in close confinement until he died.
The House of Montgomery-Bellême was powerful, and included Bellême’s brothers Hugh (who died in 1098); Roger the Poitevin, Count of Marche; Philip the Grammarian (who died at the siege of Antioch – and who was a good deal more valiant than portrayed in this fictional account); and Arnulf, Earl of Pembroke (who later schemed to marry an Irish princess and died on his wedding day). All joined their older brother in rebelling against either King William Rufus or King Henry. They also had four sisters: Emma (abbess of Alménches, 1074–1113), Matilda de Mortain, Mabel (who I left out of this tale on the grounds that more than two Mabels would be confusing!) and Sybilla (or Sybil) fitzHaimo. It is thought that Sybilla had four daughters called Mabel (who later married King Henry’s most famous illegitimate son, Robert of Gloucester), Haweis, Cecily and Amise.
Old Mabel de Bellême was as colourful and unpleasant as her offspring. She was short, said to be extremely vindictive and enjoyed a reputation as a poisoner. She had amassed a huge number of enemies when, probably around 1078, a man called Hugh of Saugei, who had suffered many injustices at her hands, burst into her castle at Bures with three of his brothers. Mabel had been bathing in the nearby River Dives, and was lying naked on her bed to dry off. Despite the fact that her son Hugh was in the castle with sixteen knights, the Saugei brothers reached her chamber and hacked her to pieces. One chopped off her head and took it with him, and it is said she was buried headless. The Saugei brothers were never punished for the crime.
Accounts vary as to whether Greek Fire was used during the First Crusade, although most scholars agree that it was deployed in later ones. However, a contemporary account by Crusade leader Raymond de Agiles reports Arabs firing incendiary devices such as pitch, wax, sulphur and tow during the siege of Jerusalem in 1100.
The Crusaders faced two problems in using Greek Fire. First, no one was quite sure what it was, and even today scholars argue about its consistency. Suffice to say it was a sort of medieval napalm, and that once it burned it was difficult to put out. The leading authority on the subject is the chemist J.R. Partington, who indicates that there were a number of substances under the loose name of ‘Greek Fire’. He suggests that the ‘secret ingredient’, which made it so much more dreadful than mere pitch or quicklime, was some kind of refined oil. He goes on to say that the Arabs had probably already worked out how to refine petroleum jelly from natural oil, and the addition of this would give the right consistency for something that would burn and stick, and cause such terror.
The second problem with Greek Fire was actually propelling it into enemy lines. This was before the days of gunpowder, so it basically had to be hurled using catapult-like devices, which made it difficult and dangerous to handle. Misfires and accidents must have been commonplace.
Other characters mentioned in this book were real people, besides the Bellêmes. Bishop Maurice of London (died 1107) was famous for starting work on the great cathedral church of St Paul’s in London (rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren in a style Maurice would not have recognized) and for insisting that his rabid appetite for women was a medical necessity.
Richard Beaumais (or Belmeis; died 1128), who became Bishop of London when Maurice died, was a follower of Bellême until 1102, when he changed sides. Henry rewarded him by making him Sheriff of Shropshire, where he set about subduing this unruly area with a treachery and deceit that would have made Bellême proud. He enticed Prince Iorwerth to Shrewsbury and promptly imprisoned him, and kept the Welsh lords in tow by stirring up petty quarrels and intrigues to keep them divided. William Pantulf was another defector. He persuaded Iorwerth to change sides, thus helping to bring about Bellême’s defeat. After Bellême’s exile, Pantulf was rewarded with Stafford Castle.
Ralph d’Escures, Abbot of Sées (died 1122), is a more appealing character. In an age dominated by hard, aggressive and self-serving men, Ralph had a considerable degree of integrity, was pious (not always a given in twelfth-century monastics) and was generally liked. He was intelligent, but enjoyed a joke. He later became Archbishop of Canterbury. It was Ralph who handed King Henry the keys to Shrewsbury Castle, because it was said that Bellême could not bring himself to do it.