William Marshal Guardian of England- The Complete Series

by Richard Woodman

  Duke Richard was the first to take the field again. Mindful perhaps of his discussion with William Marshal, he rode off into the west at the head of a strong force to lay siege to the Biscay port of La Rochelle, in an attempt to cut off one source of his father’s supplies. The Young King and his forces rode north-east, into Flanders where at considerable expense a fleet had been made ready on the River Schelde with the intention of embarking to Leicester’s support.

  ‘If I cannot find victory in Normandy, Aquitaine or Anjou,’ Young Henry told his Council, ‘I shall seek it in the country where I am anointed King!’

  It was brave talk and hot air. Though William strove to move up the necessary men and supplies, they wasted away as the wind remained stubbornly foul for the crossing to the English coast and Orwell Haven.

  Nor was it long before the fortunes of war showed their caprice. William the Lion was driven back into Scotland, his pursuers, led by the English barons, sparing nothing in their path and forcing the Scots to sue for a truce. Leicester’s small force was checked near Bury St Edmunds and cut to pieces by a large muster of peasants carrying scythes and led by Humphrey de Bohun, Constable of England, forcing Hugh Bigod to sue for peace. Meanwhile Richard’s attack on La Rochelle failed while the Old King took the castle of Faye-le-Vineuse. With that hostilities subsided with the onset of winter.

  William spent a miserable Christmas in Paris in the train of his master. There was little joy in the Holy Days despite the piety of the French Court, to whom they were all beholden. William found himself oddly concerned about Queen Marquerite, and vaguely ashamed that he had found her separation by her father-in-law from her husband amusing, even though it had been the latter’s situation that had chiefly amused him and Robert de Salignac. He felt the stain of dishonour, just as he questioned the ill-fortune that had led him into the service of the Young King which, he had come to learn, was all obligation and no reward. Not that he expected much, but it seemed to William in his bleakest moments that he was no longer tutor to Young Henry, but merely the means by which the Young King made war. The young man showed little real interest in the detail of campaigning, unlike his father, whose hand might be detected in every movement of his extensive forces.

  Young Henry had fallen under King Louis’ cloak and, finding it both warm and comfortable, saw no very good reason to alter matters. Meanwhile his faithful Marshal, with the assistance of his clerks and the members of the Young King’s Council, saw to his horses and his mesnie, from their pay to their pennons. It was not long before William received orders to prepare for a renewed attempt to invade England.

  With the onset of better weather in the spring of 1174 the campaigning season opened. All parties had taken stock and by mid-summer the Old King had first subdued trouble in Anjou and Poitou. In Poitiers he broke-up what remained of Queen Eleanor’s Court, looted the ducal palace and took as hostage all the great ladies who had congregated there. These included the Young King’s Queen Marguerite and Alice of Maurienne, the lady promised to young John. He then hastened north to Normandy where he learned that the Young King and Philippe of Flanders were about to embark and join a vanguard sent to join Hugh Bigod with such success that by mid-June Norwich was in his hands.

  Open rebellion had flared up again across the English Midlands, Nottingham had fallen to the rebel barons and William the Lion had broken the truce, come south again and invested Carlisle. The Young King was jubilant and eager to take ship, suddenly transformed into an active participant in the preparations that would, at a stroke, deprive his father of his greatest asset: England. But, once again the wind blew day after day, and day after day they waited until one of Count Philippe’s knights rode into Bruges with bad news. In defiance of the weather the Old King had embarked and sailed from Barfleur with a fleet of forty ships. He had carried with him his hostages, the young John and Queen Eleanor.

  They continued to wait at Bruges for several weeks, hoping for a shift in the wind, or news from England that suggested that God favoured them. It was widely believed and even preached that Henry’s atonement for Thomas Becket’s murder had been insincere or inadequate, while his bad-faith in holding hostage so many ladies was the act of an unprincipled man. William spent these weeks in a state of weary resignation, longing for the freedom and opportunity of the tournament, worn-out by the changing demands of the Young King who vacillated between throwing up the notion of invading England in favour of moving on Normandy in his father’s absence.

  In the end he chose the latter. The Old King had mewed up Queen Eleanor, shifting her from one castle to another in southern England as he had in Normandy. Marguerite, Alice of Maurienne and several other ladies had been confined to Devizes Castle, Alice soon afterwards expiring. The Old King had then undertaken a full act of penance and contrition before the tomb of his former friend and counsellor, Thomas Becket, at Canterbury. Bare-foot, divested of his robes and flogged by seventy monks he had remained prone for many hours. Having then made a bequest to keep a perpetual light burning over the tomb, Henry was granted absolution and it was preached that he was in no way guilty of inciting the murder of Becket except by the malicious misunderstanding of the four mischievous knights.

  As if God now smiled upon him, the news arrived at Canterbury that Ranulf Glanville, Sheriff of Yorkshire had defeated and captured the person of William the Lion. When the Young King learned of all this he flew into a rage which no-one seemed able to suppress. All attempts at conciliation failed and King Louis sent word that the matter of England was closed. Already the Old King was turning the rebels’ coats: the Flemish advance guard was allowed to leave the country under terms of a truce, the fox Hugh Bigod had forsworn the Young King’s cause and submitted to the Old King with a renewal of his oaths of fealty. Everywhere the Old King appeared triumphant as support for the rebels fell away.

  All except the burning ambition of King Louis to destroy Angevin power seemed lost and it was this that now led to the final act. Rousing the Young King and Count Philippe, Louis ordered a muster prior to the invasion of Normandy from the French Vexin.

  *

  Rouen: William regarded the city as he had done every morning for weeks now, searching for any change in those sturdy walls and the bastions towards which the sappers and miners had been working in mud and filth behind their shields of gabions. Did any yet sag, showing the first signs of their falling to provide the breach through which the waiting allied army might pour? No. He watched as the siege-engines began their daily toil, their weary crews winding, loading and loosing their projectiles and thought, briefly as he did every morning, of sitting in the mangonel before the wooden walls of Newbury in boyish innocence. He heard the dull thud as an arm, released from its pawl, struck against its rest, saw the arc of the projectile as it hurtled its way through the sticky, warm summer air. Caen stone, brought from the northern quarry on William’s orders which had been seized on William’s initiative, ready ammunition anticipated for one of the Old King’s castles, but now used to bring him down.

  Another engine loosed its own missile; not a block of stone but a fire-ball, soused straw looted from the unfortunate peasantry now set to fire the houses huddling hugger-mugger behind those stubborn walls. But would it? Beyond the ramparts rose a myriad of thin coils of smoke from the citizens’ cooking fires but as yet no conflagration. But why should there be? On the occasions when the besiegers had seen the sudden, gratifying leap of flames and smoke, the River Seine had provided the ready means with which to extinguish them. Ah, yes, the Seine, that great artery that ran from deep inland, through Paris and Rouen to the sea, a means of resupply from Havre de Grâce – and possibly the way by which Rouen might be relieved. He could trace its passage through the countryside by the low mist that lay along its course, already burning off as the fierce summer sun rose in the north-eastern sky.

  William sighed, sure that in that miasma lay the hidden source of the sickness now infesting the lines of the allied army. The trench sickness was
carrying off men far and away faster than any action of the near motionless enemy. Not for the first time he felt gripped by a sense of deep frustration, a now physical feeling that uncoiled in his belly like that moment of fear in the waiting before battle, when action made of it high exhilaration. Then it was just a passing phase, a moment in the process of transcendence, now it gnawed at him: time was running out. Time for success, time for the Young King’s arms, time for King Louis’ ambition and, God forgive him, time for his own.

  They had to take Rouen, yet Rouen was impossible to besiege effectively. It was no castle and presented too large a sprawl for even the mighty war-host of the allies to encompass properly. But without Rouen, the heart of Henry Curtmantle’s power, their chances of achieving anything against the Old King faded away. They simply had to take this city for in William’s imagination Henry had become like the many-headed dragon in one of Angharad ap Gwyn’s old tales. One hefted one’s mightiest sword and cut off one head, only to be confronted with another and then one found the lost head had regrown and one had achieved nothing. They had tried taking England, but Henry had retaken England, they had fomented trouble in Aquitaine, but Henry had seized the suzeraine of Aquitaine and held her in an English fortress while Duke Richard had failed to take La Rochelle. But if only they could take Normandy and then, perhaps Brittany, they might divide Henry’s realms and bring him to terms favourable to Louis who was sure to dispossess him of some of his continental domains.

  William knew they had had a chance. Henry Curtmantle had been occupied all year in England where he had acted with his characteristic energetic ruthlessness. William had heard the tales of Henry’s humble and public mortification of his body, of God’s forgiveness, of the immediate and almost miraculous capture of William the Lion. Henry had then turned defeat into victory as they had found their own endeavours confounded at every turn. Where they had baulked at the contrary gales, Henry had seized them and made the perilous Channel crossing; if only with a small following it had been a remarkable act of faith. Was Henry Curtmantle’s anointing pre-eminent in the eyes of God, William wondered? It certainly seemed so.

  ‘FitzMarshal!’ William’s increasingly anxious reverie was interrupted. He turned to see the Young Henry striding towards him followed by a knot of armed knights.

  ‘Good morrow, my Lord King,’ William made his obeisance.

  ‘I see the day’s work has begun, and I crave God’s blessing upon it.’ All present crossed themselves as the Young King went on, a smile on his handsome face, evidence of high good humour. ‘I should give you ten marks for your thoughts. What think you? Shall we shatter their curtain first, or bring down a bastion?’

  ‘I see no sign of either, Sire…yet…’

  ‘Then how long must we wait?’

  ‘I wish I could say, Sire…’

  Henry looked at the city’s walls. ‘I am growing tired of this,’ he said, his tone suddenly petulant before he turned again to William. ‘But is there nothing we can do to expedite this matter? I saw you musing and ventured to think you might have divined a solution. King Louis has ordered a Mass sung for our success…’

  William had lost count of the Masses Louis had ordered sung or said to ensure the triumph of his cause. So many it was enough to shake one’s faith, William thought privately.

  ‘Well,’ Young Henry persisted, ‘what think you?’

  ‘My Lord, it will not please you, but I was thinking of your father and that were I in his place I should send, or bring a force into Normandy before this place falls to us…’

  It did not please the Young King at all, on grounds of lese-majestie as much as presumption of defeat or in prospect of disloyalty to himself, and William knew it. As he watched the Young King’s brow cloud and darken he added soothingly.

  ‘ ’Tis as well to consider the mind of one’s enemy, Sire, for we make little progress here and should your father come in force, we would do well to be prepared.’

  The Young Henry was now trembling with rage, his face brick red. William was aware that the rapid change of mood had been noticed by his knights, several of whom moved a step closer, one with his right hand on his sword hilt in anticipation of drawing it against William in defence of the King.

  ‘I do not say this lightly, my Lord King, but if this place be not impregnable, then we do not possess the arms to invest it properly and thus render it so.’

  ‘What should we do then? Raise the siege? Admit defeat?’

  ‘Sire, there is great sickness in the army…’

  ‘Pah! ’Tis but river fever, nothing more. A man shits for a week then cleans himself and resumes his duty.’

  ‘Or dies. I see the muster rolls daily…’

  ‘But they will be dying in equal numbers within the city.’

  ‘I doubt it, Sire. They are accustomed to the river’s gleets and miasmas…’

  Out of the corner of his eye William noted the King’s retinue had relaxed with the mollifying of Henry’s mood. When he spoke again after a moment’s consideration, the King’s voice was low, normal and confidential. ‘Then what counsel have you for me, FitzMarshal?’

  ‘That we leave a force necessary to protect the siege-engines and withdraw the bulk of the army to the north where we may recruit our health and strength and lay athwart the route of any relief your father might send.

  ‘But suppose he sends it by way of the Seine?’ the Young King queried with an air of the grand strategist out-witting his old mentor.

  ‘Then we shall hear of it and may make our dispositions accordingly.’

  Henry considered this for a few moments, his head bent, his hand on his beard, the very image of his father. Then he raised his eyes and regarded William. ‘You may be right, FitzMarshal, but Louis will never hear of such a thing!’ And with that Henry turned about and William watched him stride away, followed by his knights. One or two looked back and smirked, sensing William had been discomforted, D’Yquebeuf among them. It seemed like Tancarville all over again, but it troubled William less and less.

  *

  Whether or not the Young Henry suggested a withdrawal to either Count Philippe of Flanders or King Louis, William never knew, though he suspected not. It was curious, he afterwards mused, that men like them could contemplate the withering of their troops with complete indifference. Possessed of vast lands and command over many lives, the supply of men guaranteed to be available under arms never troubled them. As for himself, his small mesnie and its reliance upon the Young King’s bounty, made him careful, and this concern, by extension, made him uncommonly mindful of that greater charge, the supply of the army itself which, by default, had come down to him.

  All through July they maintained the siege, and on into August, increasingly certain of the delusion of success promised them daily by the sappers. Until, that is, a courier rode into camp from the Channel and word ran through the allied lines like wind through dried grass: Henry the Old King had landed at Barfleur and was marching on Rouen. Others followed: he had passed St Vlaast; he was through Caen, cutting of their supply of stone missiles; he had left Lisieux; he was at Elbeuf, not a few miles beyond the far bank of the Seine!

  ‘What manner of force does he lead?’ Count Philippe asked of a party of knights William had led out to reconnoitre. ‘Brabantine mercenaries, my Lord, many of them, and what I take to be Welsh men, many of them too…’

  ‘Welshmen?’ queried Philippe, ‘I thought they were in rebellion…’

  ‘Not since my father married Emma of Anjou to that brigand David…’ what is his name, FitzMarshal?’

  ‘Dafydd ap Owain, my Lord King, Prince of Gwynedd,’ William responded, catching the lilt of his old nurse with a twinge of nostalgia.

  ‘Quite so,’ said Young Henry as the attendant nobles stared at William’s familiarity with a foreign tongue. It reminded those about the Young King that the Marshal was an Englishman and one likely with a tail in his breeches.

  It was enough. That day Louis gave orders to r
aise the siege and Count Philippe commanded that the siege-engines be burned, an irony not lost on William. The following morning, the 14th, the once mighty war-host of France, Flanders and the Angevin rebels, turned tail for Paris. Not man among the throng doubted but that the war had been lost.

  *

  Once again it became a time of heralds. The war-host melted away under its many feudal lords and two of the Angevin leopard cubs, the Young Henry and Count Geoffrey of Brittany, met at Evreux to hear their father’s will. They made a brave showing as their cavalcade moved south, through Maine and into Touraine to humble themselves before Henry Curtmantle at Tours on the Loire whither he had gone after securing Rouen. Only Duke Richard remained stubbornly at large.

  The year had turned and once again the glories of autumn fell upon the countryside that the column rode through. Already the patient and long-suffering peasantry had striven to repair the ravages of insurrection, making the progress of the column smooth as it took what it required in the way of sustenance by off-hand rapine. Indeed, one might have taken the combined mesnies of Young Henry and Count Geoffrey for a victorious procession, so gay were they with the new-fangled creations of heraldry, so strong did they seem in the numbers of armed knights in its train, and so light-heartedly did they help themselves to whatever took their fancy. And if their principals were nervous they did not show it; there was much bravado in their carriage as they discussed their grievances and made their case for defiance.

  William commanded the vanguard, armed with his well-known reputation for having an eye for ambush; but he knew - if the two brothers did not - that the Old King wanted nothing better than to lure his sons into his hands. And what of himself? Might not the Old King mete out the punishment deserved by the Young King to his closest warrior knight? Was William’s fate to be the whipping boy for the Young King, just as he had once been for his own father? Only the need for vigilance on the route kept his mind from dwelling on this, but at night, when he could not sleep for fleas and anxiety, he felt his vulnerability. The Old King could not strip him of his lands, for he had none, not would the forfeit of horses pay for high treason as it might have ransomed him in a tournament. If the Old King wished it, he could only pay with his life.