William Marshal Guardian of England- The Complete Series

by Richard Woodman

  ‘You could have been ambushed here, Your Grace,’ he said halting his horse alongside that of the Young King’s. ‘See how the woodland crowds the track as it comes down from Hampstead Hill yonder. Mark this as a lesson, no knight intent upon profit from the tournament, nor any King embattled, should misread the lie of the land. ’Tis as much a part of mock-war, or war itself, that you should see this and understand it.’

  Henry looked at him with a dawning comprehension. ‘As my falcon does?’

  ‘As best you can, my Lord, as best you can.’

  ‘But you well know we cannot prosecute the tourney here; my father has proscribed it in England and I am left here whilst he is in Normandy settling affairs with King Louis and Becket.’

  ‘All the more reason to use such ventures as today’s to learn the craft.’

  Henry reached across and patted William’s. ‘You are a wise man, my Lord Marshal.’ Henry grinned at William who smiled back.

  ‘And now your falcon, my Lord King. See, she has not wasted the day…’ William pointed upwards.

  Henry looked up and watched with pleasure as his peregrine came stooping out of the grey sky like a thunderbolt, its wings half-closed. It struck the wood-pigeon in an explosion of down and feathers. With a shout of exaltation Henry set spurs to his gelding as the broken body of the bird, wings awry, fell to earth and the falcon, still plummeting in the stoop, dipped beneath, jigged, rolled on its back and caught it in a flash of yellow legs and steely talons.

  *

  ‘The news of the King is not good,’ announced Ranulf FitzStephen, coming in from the outer bailey where the squires were clearing up after the morning’s exercise. They had all seen the messenger ride into the Tower bailey, his horse in a lather and word quickly spread that he had come directly from Southampton. ‘His Grace is brought to bed of a raging fever at Domfront…’

  Later the senior knights of the Young King’s mesnie learned more. Having made his peace both with King Louis and Archbishop Becket, King Henry was not expected to live. He had signed his will, confirming the succession provisions of Montmirail, and the priests now gathered about him, interceding for his soul. The loss of his physician Roger de Beaumont in the March gale in the Channel earlier that year was now widely held to be evidence of God’s disapproval of King Henry’s adulteries, his setting aside of Queen Eleanor in favour of Rosamund de Clifford, his disobedience to Pope Alexander and Archbishop Becket, and his bad faith with his sovereign overlord, Louis VII of France. It was, men whispered, the moment when God wrought his divine vengeance even upon a mighty Prince such as Henry, King of England and Lord of Normandy Aquitaine and Anjou.

  This was confirmed when, at the beginning of September, it was learned from the master of a merchantman lately arrived from Havre de Grâce that King Henry II was dead. The Young King ordered a Mass to be sung for his father’s soul and waited impatiently for the formal messengers to arrive, bearing the King’s seal. He dare not move prematurely, though he feared the intervention of brother Richard in particular, and gave up his daily exercises as he considered himself no longer the ‘Young’ King but the actual monarch, Lord of the Angevin lands extending from the border with Scotland in the north, to that with Navarre and the Pyrenees in the south.

  For several weeks, as the Channel was wracked by the Equinoctial gales of autumn, matters remained in a state of suspense. Once again William recalled the words of Fitzhubert of Guent. The old man’s prophecies looked awry: Henry would come into his inheritance sooner that FitzHubert had suspected. But when, towards the end of September, the bad weather subsided and intelligence arrived from Domfront, it created mixed feelings.

  King Henry II lived: shaken by his experience, he was on his way to Rocamadour, deep in southern Aquitaine on the border between the Limousin and the French county of Quercy, to prostrate himself before the Black Virgin in gratitude for his deliverance. The Young King ordered church bells to be rung and Masses said and Te Deums sung, privately grinding his teeth that he remained as far from ruling as before the crisis. FitzHubert’s remarks now took on a different hue, William mused, as Henry went into a sulk, praising God one moment and cursing his ill fortune the next.

  In private William, now high among his counsellors, cautioned patience and gratitude.

  ‘The Lord King bears many burdens, Sire,’ he said to the younger man. ‘Do not wish yourself in his place before you have mastered the arts of war and policy.’

  As always when he made some such statement, the Young Henry regarded William with an immature irritation before deflating. Somehow William’s trustworthiness seemed the only rock to which he could cling in his uncertainty. Besides, Ranulf FitzStephen, Hugh de Gundeville and his confessor echoed his military mentor, adding that news had also arrived that Thomas Becket, the exiled Archbishop, was returning to the See of Canterbury.

  ‘Little good will come of it,’ FitzStephen pointed out, ‘and Your Grace may have your hands full here in England…’

  ‘Such matters may test your mettle, Sire,’ De Gundeville added, ‘for which we must be prepared.’

  *

  And little good did come of Becket’s return. Converted from devoted servant and close advisor of King Henry II, to faithful servant of Almighty God by his elevation to his Archbishopric, Becket repudiated the Constitutions of Clarendon, took issue with the prelates that had officiated at the Young King’s coronation and set himself against the Old King’s will. At his Christmas Court in Normandy, the latter’s injudicious and off-handed aside regarding his desire for someone to release him from so troublesome a priest was taken literally by four knights. Having crossed the Channel they confronted Becket in his cathedral at Canterbury at Vespers five days after Christmas 1170, demanding he lift the orders of excommunication. Becket piously refused, pleading he served God above all others, infuriating Reginald FitzUrse who was the first to strike at him before the altar. Defended by only one of his monks, Edward Grim, who received a severe wound for his pains, Becket was otherwise deserted. As Becket fell, the top of his skull struck off by FitzUrse’s blow, Richard de Briton, William de Tracy and Hugh de Morville struck at the prostrate man in an orgy of bloodshed that left the Archbishop dead in his own gore.

  The act outraged Europe, reducing Henry II’s prestige at the first sword-stroke. Becket became an instant martyr and led to him being asked to intercede with God by the faithful, making him almost instantly a saint in the popular imagination. When, soon afterwards, miracles were attributed to him, Holy Church followed and canonised him. Mortified, taking to sack-cloth and falling into a profound depression, Henry confined himself, seeking expiation. For six long weeks he remained thus, shut away from the world, and when he did emerge he cried out for God to be his witness that he had not sought the death of a man who had once been his intimate friend and counsellor. He sent emissaries to Pope Alexander and although the Pontiff kept him on tenterhooks, in the end he accepted Henry’s contrition and excommunicated only the four knights guilty of the bloody crime.

  But the Old King made no attempt to eject the four murderers from their fastness within Knaresborough Castle in Yorkshire and, evoking the authority of the previous Pope, Adrian IV, ordered his war host to Ireland to conquer the island for Christ, closing the ports in his rear in case Alexander III changed his mind.

  By his absence in Ireland, Henry temporarily conceded powers to the Young King to rule England in his stead, to Geoffrey and the fifteen year old Richard to hold sway in his ancestral lands in France, and to Eleanor in her own domain. But with rumours of miraculous cures emanating from the shrine raised over the tomb of Becket, all of which would lead to the dead Archbishop’s rapid canonisation, the Old King strove to show an absolute humility from his Court at Dublin. This eased the tensions across Europe and it was clear that Henry’s diplomacy was aimed at a return to Normandy as soon as the storm arising from Becket’s martyrdom subsided.

  Accordingly the Young Henry, enjoying the profligate pleasures of his
illusory kingship, maintained himself and his Court in an increasingly lavish manner. Privately he resolved that when displaced by the inevitable return of his father, he would set himself the seductive task of becoming a champion at the tournament. If his father would snatch back the authority he had been obliged to grant his heir, such a policy would win him prestige and wealth, and set him in a fair way to out-shining his father and over-awing his ambitious younger brothers.

  These events further transformed William’s status for, while he remained a close companion-at-arms as the Young Henry continued his military exercises, these grew in scope and scale. Under his delegated powers and with his eye upon his future ambitions, the Young King now gathered about him as the closest members of his mesnie privée, a number of distinguished knights. Besides William Marshal and Adam d’Yquebeuf, from Tancarville, and FitzStephen and De Gundeville, these included Simon de Marisco, Gerard Talbot, Robert de Tresgoz, Hasculf St Hilaire, Judhael de Mayenne, Jean de Préaux, and Robert de Salignac. He was joined too by Robert, Count of Meulan, a great Norman vassal and cousin to King Louis, and Baldwin de Béthune who was destined to become Count of Aumale, along with literate scholars and clerks such as Robert, Advocate of Arras, Henry Norris, Richard Barre, the Young King’s Chancellor and the Keeper of his Seal, and William Blund, his Steward.

  All were ambitious men, eager for the favours expected of a feudal overlord and rumours of those among them inclined to plot and intrigue, encouraging the Young King to assume powers that his father was reluctant to delegate, eventually and inevitably reached the Old King’s ear. To the Young King’s fury, he had Hasculf St Hilaire dismissed, insisting upon an absolute loyalty from the Young Henry, simultaneously recovering powers from his other sons as he came out of his self-imposed isolation in Ireland.

  ‘God’s blood!’ the Young Henry bawled, flying into a fury at his father’s interference in his affairs when told to send Hasculf and others among his own knights away. ‘Would he seek to keep a young hawk hungry?’ he raged, pacing up and down his chamber and kicking over a chair that he had lately sat upon. Spittle flew from his lips and his face was empurpled. ‘Would he snatch its meat to compel its obedience?’ Those present drew back as Henry thrust these unanswerable questions in their faces.

  ‘Calm yourself, my Lord,’ said William sternly so that the Young King turned on him.

  ‘Do not you brook me, Marshal,’ Henry snarled, though it was clear that William’s intervention had made him aware of the figure he was cutting. Nevertheless, he remained stationary before William, his eyes glaring. ‘He forgets it might turn upon him for his pains.’

  William stood his ground and a heavy silence fell so that all could hear the Young King’s heavy breathing. For a long moment nobody moved and then, with one last savage kick at the upset chair, Henry withdrew and in the hiatus his courtiers turned away, avoiding each other’s eyes. All except William, who exchanged glances with Robert de Salignac, both recalling the grand insolence of the Young King towards his father on the evening of his coronation. Slowly the chamber emptied and after Robert had ordered the attendant clerks out, the two men were left alone.

  ‘Matters do not augur well, my Lord Marshal,’ Robert remarked with that courtesy he afforded William out of a deep respect for the younger man’s abilities.

  ‘No, my Lord,’ William replied, ‘but can we expect better?’

  ‘You are not used to intrigue, William,’ Robert said with a wry smile, as though stating a fact.

  ‘I always hope to avoid it.’

  Robert blew out his cheeks with a hollow laugh. ‘Would that one could. But I fear such intemperance can lead to only one conclusion.’

  ‘Open rebellion…?’ William hazarded.

  ‘It is more than likely, I fear.’

  ‘That will not play well.’

  ‘I fear not.’

  William looked at the older man. He was perhaps two or three summers his senior. ‘My Lord,’ he asked directly, ‘was it not you who was behind the removal of Hasculf St Hilaire?’

  ‘Me?’ De Salignac’s astonishment was unfeigned. ‘Upon my oath, no!’ he retorted, ‘though I mislike the man and deplored St Hilaire’s influence well enough.’

  ‘Then where lies your own fealty?’

  De Salignac might have taken affront but he coolly returned William’s gaze, ‘I have no love for Henry of Anjou,’ he said, referring to the Old King, ‘and he hath no love for me, for my father was suspected of treason and I doubt his death was the accident all present claimed it was. I am, like you, the Queen’s man and, like you charged with our young Lord’s welfare.’

  ‘Then you are no agent of King Louis?’

  ‘Your persistence would do you no favours elsewhere, sir,’ De Salignac said, a hint of steel in his tone.

  ‘I know,’ William responded, ‘but my bluntness arises from my own experience. I do you the honour of believing your word, should you confide in me.’

  ‘Then you may take it that I am the Young Henry’s man and not Louis’.’

  ‘God’s praise for that. At the Coronation feast in Westminster I took you for a man of French loyalties.

  ‘Then you took me ill, FitzMarshal, and I am sorry for it. I thought you my friend.’

  ‘Forgive me, Sir, I am perhaps a little too cautious.’

  De Salignac smiled disarmingly. ‘I understand, FitzMarshal, and caution is no bad thing. As for forgiveness, there is nothing to forgive.’

  William smiled with relief.

  *

  On 27 August the Young King was united properly for the first time with Marguerite of France. Alongside his wife, he was crowned and anointed for a second time in Winchester Cathedral, the Bishop of Evreux travelling from Normandy to officiate, the See of Canterbury remaining vacant after Becket’s martyrdom. Archbishop Roger of York and the Bishops of London and Salisbury had all been forbidden to attend. To William’s eyes the ceremony lacked some of the splendour of Henry’s first coronation but, he thought ruefully, much had changed since then. He was less of an ingénue and the gloss of the occasion was diminished by the emerging character of the chief participant, and the absence of his father.

  Perhaps too, it was the person of the Queen that altered his perception, for Marguerite was lissom and composed, bore herself with the grace expected of the daughter of a regal house but seemed to William unsuited to a union with the Henry he now knew better than ever. He felt a pity for her, for she seemed to be no Eleanor.

  The ceremony at Winchester had been at the insistence of King Louis and it was to Paris that the Young King, his newly crowned Queen, and his Court travelled next. For all his intemperate rages, Henry of Anjou was every inch a King compared with Louis VII of France. Though tall and not ill-favoured, if one set aside his prominent nose, Louis’ long yellow hair had a lank and listless quality and he carried with him the mark of the cloister for which he had been intended had his older brother not been killed by falling from his horse. Notwithstanding this, the French King was courteous and capable of displaying considerable charm, but there was, withal, an almost infantile simplicity that he brought from his early years of devotion and this sat uneasily upon the shoulders of a King. Or so it seemed to William.

  However, there was a vein of deep cunning in Louis and he had invited his daughter and son-in-law to visit him that November in pursuit of a devious policy ultimately aimed at increasing the bounds of the domain of the French crown and the dismembering of King Henry’s. Thanks to Robert de Salignac, who had it from both Ranulf FitzStephen and Adam d’Yquebeuf, William soon learned that their host was lending a sympathetic ear to the Young King’s petulant complaints about his increasing frustration, of his sense of being held impotent within a golden cage and his growing hatred of his father, not least for his interference in the removal of Hasculf St Hilaire.

  ‘This is a most unsatisfactory situation, William,’ deplored De Salignac confidentially. ‘We cannot let this work upon our Lord King. Between ourselves Lor
d Richard, having the Queen for a friend, is likely to throw over his oaths of fealty and, should he do so, his jealous sibling will follow suit of only for fear of losing much to his brother. Such turmoil can only lead to rebellion…’

  ‘I see your meaning if not your purpose, Robert,’ agreed William anxiously, the spectre of open warfare with the Old King looming like a dark cloud.

  ‘What might we do?’

  William looked at De Salignac. ‘Why ask me? I am only…’

  ‘This is no time for modesty, William. You know you alone might persuade the Young King to temper his discourse. You have his heart more than I, who have only his ear and he is surrounded by hotheads like De Marisco, D’Yquebeuf and the others.’

  ‘If it is as you say it is, then are we not too late?’ William asked, his brow furrowing.

  ‘If we are, we are compromised, you and I…’

  ‘How then do we draw the poison? Might we not carry a message to the Old King? Your confidential clerk, is he man enough to ride a horse into Normandy?’

  ‘Your man Norris would be the better…’

  William considered the proposition a moment. ‘He would be willing to ingratiate himself, to be sure, though I uncertain of his discretion…’

  ‘What would you have such a letter say?’

  ‘That it would be seemly for His Grace to spend Christmas with his own father rather than tarry longer in the Court of his father-in-law.’

  It was De Salignac’s turn to ponder and then he nodded. ‘Would you agree that the letter should come from us both? It would make our own joint position clear.’

  William felt uneasy about Norris and quickly changed his mind. ‘Let us send Norris with a verbal message…’

  ‘Easier to repudiate…’

  ‘Aye, and have it passed him by your confessor, an act to find a place in both our hearts…’

  Robert de Salignac smiled warmly. ‘You learn to dissemble, William.’