The Greatest Knight

by Thomas Asbridge

  It is obvious that lust and adultery were real possibilities in the setting of an aristocratic household; even an illicit affair with a married woman of royal birth might not have been utterly unimaginable in this period. But no other shred of evidence suggests that William Marshal and Queen Marguerite were in any way familiar with one another, nor is there any hint that either of them had a reputation for licentious behaviour. The History of William Marshal maintained a discrete silence regarding the more raucous celebrations that must have followed many tournaments – what the historian David Crouch described as the ‘après-tournoi’ entertainments. In fact, almost nothing is known of William’s sexuality in the 1170s and 1180s – there are no traces of mistresses or illegitimate children. The same is true of Marguerite; beyond the one child she conceived with Henry in 1176, she remains a virtually invisible cipher. All of this makes the accusation of an adulterous affair hard to believe.

  The muted nature of the Young King’s reaction was perhaps even more telling. In similar circumstances, his one-time ally, Count Philip of Flanders, had responded with merciless fury. In the summer of 1175 Philip accused a knight named Walter of Fontaines of committing adultery with his wife, Isabel of Vermandois (Young Henry’s cousin). Walter denied the charges and offered to prove his innocence, but he was never given the opportunity. Instead, supposedly driven by his ‘fury’, the count had Walter beaten with cudgels to within an inch of his life. A makeshift gallows was then erected above a foul-smelling latrine trench. Walter was stripped, bound and strung up by his feet, with his head left dangling into the cesspit until he died of suffocation.*

  Henry the Young King’s response in late 1182 seems remarkably mild by comparison. The shock of the accusations levelled against one of his closest friends and confidants – the man under whose watchful gaze he had grown up over the last thirteen years – must have been devastating. The History admitted that Henry’s ‘hatred for the Marshal was violent and bitter’, and that as a result ‘[William] withdrew from his lord’s company, not coming anywhere near him’. Nonetheless, Marshal was not immediately banished or publicly punished – a stark contrast to the brutal treatment meted out to the Young King’s vice-chancellor Adam for his treachery in 1176. It is also notable that other members of Henry’s mesnie, past and present – including men such as Baldwin of Béthune – remained on close terms with William, though this might be explained by William’s elevated status and fame. The only other hint of a reaction related to Queen Marguerite, as she was subsequently removed from Young Henry’s court and sent to her brother Philip of France in Paris. At first glance this seems to indicate a serious marital rift, but in fact her dispatch to the Capetian capital took place only in February 1183, and might easily be explained by the fractious political climate at that particular moment. On balance, there has to be a very strong possibility that the whole accusation of an adulterous affair was a fabrication, and seen as such by the Young King, though the charge of dishonouring Henry by supplanting his position remained. With the surviving evidence, however, the exact truth of these events remains hidden.

  Into exile

  In the late autumn of 1182, William and the Young King attended their last tournament together, held north of Paris, between Gournay and Ressons, but it was a lamentable affair and the estrangement between the two former friends was obvious to all. Both men seem to have been ill at ease with the public exposure of their quarrel: Henry was left ‘blushing with shame and the Marshal likewise . . . full of anger and shame’. Philip of Flanders reportedly counselled the Young King not to ‘let the Marshal slip away from him’, but Henry refused to make any effort at a rapprochement. William’s accusers had achieved their goal – he had fallen from favour. Once the tournament was done, Marshal absented himself from the mesnie, going into a kind of voluntary exile. Soon after, the Young King travelled to visit the great Cistercian abbey of Fontevraud, near Chinon – a monastery favoured by the Angevins. There he issued two charters that survive to this day, one in its original form, the other in a later medieval copy. Both documents bear the names of Henry’s leading household knights. William Marshal’s name – so often in pride of place at the head of this type of witness list – is absent, and tellingly, his position has been usurped by none other than Thomas of Coulonces. The second named conspirator, Adam of Yquebeuf, is also listed just behind Gerard Talbot, Robert Tresgoz and John of Préaux. The Young King’s household had been reordered.

  William Marshal made one final attempt to clear his name at the massive Angevin assembly held by King Henry II at Caen, in Normandy, that December. The annual Christmas Court was always a time of celebration and lavish feasting. These gatherings offered a perfect opportunity for the public affirmation of royal eminence and largesse, and gave a chance for the thronged aristocracy to see and be seen – to marvel at the unrivalled regal spectacle, while flaunting their own status. The assembly in 1182 was especially ostentatious, with nobles gathered from across the Angevin realm, and guests from Germany and Gascony in attendance. All four of Henry II’s sons were present, as was his daughter Matilda and her husband Henry, the Lion of Saxony, with a grand retinue of 1,000 knights.

  The Christmas Court was also a time when nobles might present their grievances or seek royal justice – indeed, at this same gathering, Marshal’s old patron the lord of Tancarville openly complained to the Old King that his role as chamberlain of Normandy was being usurped. By this point, news of William Marshal’s alleged crimes had already been brought to the attention of Henry II, but it was to the Young King himself that William came during the feast. Marshal seems to have been oblivious to the swirling currents of political tension pulsing just beneath the surface at Caen. The Court that year was alive with intrigue and machination – a greater game was afoot – but William was concerned only to achieve some measure of reconciliation with Young Henry.

  Marshal’s sudden appearance at Caen was unexpected. The History noted that he was ‘made very welcome by the high-ranking people’, though his enemies were ‘greatly displeased’. William clearly felt the eyes of the crowd upon him, because by now the accusations against him were ‘public knowledge’. He presented himself before the Young King and requested an opportunity to prove his innocence through trial by combat. William offered to fight no less than three opponents, one after the other, stating that if bested he would willingly go to the gallows. He even suggested that his accusers could try cutting off one of the fingers from his right hand to see if that would make him ‘admit defeat’. But Young Henry remained unmoved, bluntly refusing any such trial or test. With that, Marshal’s fall from grace was complete. He was now effectively banished from the Young King’s military household. Realising that he might face arrest, imprisonment or even attack, William requested and received letters of safe conduct from Henry II, and these saw Marshal safely to the borders of the Angevin realm. His exile had begun.

  In early 1183, William Marshal found himself without master or mesnie for the first time in fifteen years. Now around thirty-six, he was suddenly out in the cold. News of the scandal – or at least of the ‘strife between the Marshal and his lord’ – spread across northern France, but William’s famed prowess as a tournament champion meant that other nobles, outside the Angevin world, were still willing to recruit him into their own households. The History was rather coy about Marshal’s behaviour in this period. His biographer was happy enough to admit that a bidding war to secure William’s services broke out, with Philip of Flanders offering £500, Duke Hugh of Burgundy matching that sum and the lord of Béthune proposing to pay £1,000, and throw in the hand-in-marriage of his beautiful daughter to boot. According to the History, Marshal declined all of these offers, remaining in effect a free agent, but this may have been a convenient blurring of the truth, designed to maintain the impression of William’s unbroken loyalty to Young Henry. In fact, William probably entered the count of Flanders’ entourage for a brief time, as charter evidence indicates that Marshal accepted th
e substantial endowment of one quarter of the income drawn from the Flemish town of St Omer from Philip, presumably as remuneration for joining his tournament team.

  There is certainly no suggestion that William struggled to make ends meet in early 1183, and was said to have ‘led a very fine, sumptuous and magnificent existence in France’. This was no return to the frightening uncertainty of 1166 and his short-lived ostracism from the Tancarville household. Marshal also struck up a close friendship with another prominent figure from the tournament circuit, the great James of Avesnes. Once the annual break in chivalric games began with the coming of Lent, the pair made a pilgrimage to Cologne in Germany, where a great golden casket, thought to contain the bones of the Three Magi who visited the infant Christ, could be venerated. It seems likely that William only returned to France in mid- to late April 1183. At some point thereafter he apparently met the Young King’s chamberlain, Ralph FitzGodfrey, on his travels. The History described Ralph literally seeing Marshal approaching along on the road and galloping up to greet him. The chamberlain had spent weeks scouring the towns and cities of northern France looking for William, and he bore an urgent message from the Young King. The accusations against William had been discredited and he would now be welcomed back into Henry’s household. But Ralph urged him to come with all possible speed, because the Young King was in the middle of a bloody war in Aquitaine.

  THE FINAL GAMBIT

  Seemingly unbeknown to William, the inexorable march towards this conflict had begun almost the moment he left the Christmas Court at Caen. Henry II and his sons moved on to the city of Le Mans in late December and the Old King recognised, amid the tense and fractious atmosphere, that he must finally take some decisive action to clarify the balance of power between his heirs. At first he ruled in favour of Young Henry. On 1 January 1183, Richard and Geoffrey were required to pay homage to the Young King, thus acknowledging the subjection of Brittany and Aquitaine to his ultimate overlordship. Geoffrey readily acceded to his father’s demand and, though Richard grumbled, eventually he too agreed, but only on the proviso that Young Henry first guaranteed his rights to Aquitaine in perpetuity. With the hard-won terms of this pact in place, Henry II must have thought that his eldest son would be mollified. The pre-eminent status that he yearned for could now be confirmed.

  In fact, any semblance of peace was about to unravel before the Old King’s eyes. Standing before his father, brothers and a large crowd of Angevin courtiers, Young Henry placed his hands on a copy of the Holy Gospels and ‘swore that from that day forward . . . he would remain loyal to King Henry [II]’, but he also confessed that ‘he had pledged to support the barons of Aquitaine against Richard’ and that these magnates now wished to declare him as the new duke. This was a public declaration of war against his brother, the Lionheart. Young Henry had summoned the courage to force a confrontation, backing the Old King into a corner from which he would have to choose which of his sons to support. The Young King must have hoped that this gambit might not only force his father to confirm Young Henry’s status as Angevin overlord, but also bring him actual territory of his own, either won through arms in Aquitaine or earned through his father’s concession of Normandy. But Young Henry was playing a dangerous, unpredictable game.

  At first, a frustrated Henry II made desperate efforts to hold the family together, compelling his quarrelling sons to accept a new pact at another assembly at Angers, but this was little more than a facade. The Old King’s position was incredibly finely balanced. Should he support his eldest son and primary heir, the renowned paragon of chivalry; or back Richard, the hardened warrior with a proven track record of wielding power in the real world? Our ability to judge Henry II’s intentions is impaired by vague or contradictory evidence at this point. Contemporaries seem to have been confused and uncertain of the Old King’s position, quite probably because he kept his cards close to his chest. As one of the most experienced, subtle and canny politicians of the age, Henry was moving with care and caution. According to the English chronicler Ralph of Diss, the Old King did reveal his tacit approval of Henry’s cause, after Richard ‘exploded with anger’, refusing any further talk of peace. ‘[Falling] into a rage’, Henry was said to have ‘threatened difficulties for Richard’ – suggesting that the Young King ‘was going to tame Richard’s pride’ – and urged Geoffrey to ‘stand faithfully by his brother as his liege lord’.

  In fact, it may be that the Old King had simply resigned himself to the fact that his two eldest sons were going to come to blows and that, in some sense, the contest for Aquitaine would serve as a test of their skill and ambition, and he planned to support whoever emerged victorious. In public, at least, Henry II announced yet another assembly – to be held, this time, just north of Poitiers – the notional plan being for the Aquitanian aristocracy to air their grievances against Richard. But none of his sons was interested in further negotiation. Geoffrey travelled to the Limousin, supposedly to arrange a truce, but immediately declared his support for the Aquitanian cause and sided with the local baron, Viscount Aimery of Limoges.

  The Young King followed in February 1183, and it was at this point that his wife, Queen Marguerite, was sent to Paris. Some eight months earlier, Young Henry had made a point of visiting Limoges and offering his patronage to its famous abbey dedicated to St Martial. Now the city became the rallying point for his forces. Little remains of the heart of medieval Limoges in the modern city (barring some recently unearthed remnants of the crypt of St Martial’s), but in 1183 the area was dominated by the great abbey and the viscount’s neighbouring citadel. This latter structure had been largely demolished on Richard’s orders in 1181, so work now began apace to rebuild its walls using wood, earth and scavenged masonry.

  With the battle lines being drawn, other local magnates started to offer Young Henry their support, including Geoffrey of Lusignan – the man who had attacked Earl Patrick of Salisbury’s entourage in 1168. Viscount Aimery also summoned mercenary forces from Gascony. It is difficult to know who had the Young King’s ear during this critical period, as the conflict that he had engineered gathered pace. Denied the counsel of his old friend and retainer William Marshal, he must have turned to the remaining intimates within his household and perhaps also to his younger brother, Duke Geoffrey of Brittany. If so, he was in grave peril of being led astray.

  Now in his mid-twenties, Geoffrey was a devious, scheming sycophant. In the words of one contemporary, he was ‘smooth as oil’ and ‘a hypocrite in everything’; his ‘syrupy and persuasive eloquence’ gave him the ‘power of dissolving the apparently indissoluble’; indeed, he was a man who could ‘corrupt two kingdoms with his tongue’. This unsavoury character had given every impression of acquiescence at Le Mans on 1 January, but he must surely have been angling for his advantage; judging that by backing Young Henry, for now at least, he might gain future advantage. Geoffrey could draw on the martial resources of Brittany, and he instructed Breton mercenaries to cross into Aquitaine and threaten Poitiers, but he was not to be trusted.

  A family at war

  By early February it was obvious to Richard that his brothers were about to mount an offensive. Fuming at his father’s inaction, the Lionheart left for Poitiers to prepare for a direct military confrontation. Richard was not a man who played at war, but a brutal, efficient and relentless commander, already tried and tested through years of campaigning. In short order he crushed the Breton mercenary force, executing all prisoners, and then on 10 February he led his troops out of Poitiers on a forced march south-east. For two days and two nights they rode incessantly, covering seventy-five miles, to reach the outpost of Gorre, only twelve miles west of Limoges. There, Richard made short work of a party of the Gascon mercenaries serving Young Henry’s faction: most were slain, the rest taken captive. Having made his lightning strike, the Lionheart retreated a short distance down the Vienne river valley to the fortress of Aixe. There his prisoners were either drowned, put to the sword or blinded. The statement w
as clear. This was the manner in which Richard would wage war, should his brothers be foolish enough to persist in their aggression.

  In mid-February King Henry II finally came south to intervene. He must have already begun summoning military forces from across Anjou and Normandy, but was as yet supported by only a small contingent of knights. The Old King arrived at Limoges intending to speak with Henry, apparently still undecided as to whose cause he would support. But as his party rode up to the makeshift citadel, arrows were suddenly loosed from within. One struck and wounded a knight standing close to the king; another flew directly towards Henry II’s chest. At the last second his horse reared up and the missile struck the beast in the head. The Old King had been inches away from severe injury, quite possibly even death. In the ensuing chaos, the royal household hustled Henry II to safety and he travelled directly to Richard’s castle at Aixe. His choice had been made for him – he would now back the Lionheart.