William Marshal Guardian of England- The Complete Series

by Richard Woodman

William felt the blow go home in the darkness, accompanied by the cry of pain. He straightened up, threw down the branch and went in search of the destrier, making a low crooning noise. The entire street was awake now and bellows of annoyance flew about his head as others from Count Theobald’s feast caught up with the affray. By the time William had his horse by the reins his companions had the thief by the hair and had dragged him out into the convenient candle-lit doorway of an offended citizen, who stood complaining at the disturbance. He was, he declared, a merchant of some importance in Épernon, and would make his protest at the ribaldry to Count Theobald in due course.

  ‘Messire,’ someone explained politely, ‘ ’Tis William the Marshal who recovers a stolen destrier, not a parcel of drunks…’

  ‘My God! The Marshal is here?’ the man said, touched by William’s celebrity.

  ‘Aye fellow, and we have apprehended a thief who will, I think trouble no man again.’

  The wretched fellow was dragged into the parallelogram of light and the merchant looked upon a face covered in blood, and saw one eye hanging down on the thief’s cheek. Then, as the man lifted his eyes from the horror, there was a new presence, a tall man leading a great horse who regarded his night’s handiwork with a mixture of disgust and pity.

  ‘My Lord Marshal…?’ the merchant said in an awed tone, ‘will you come in and take wine?’

  William shook his head and thanked the merchant. ‘I thank you, but I have wine enough at my Lord Theobald’s board.’ Smiling the great man made off, surrounded by his dinner companions, two of whom had haltered the thief and led him, stumbling and whimpering in their wake.

  Returning to the hall and recounting the incident, Theobald called for a hanging in the morning. Épernon was under his governance but William pleaded for mercy.

  ‘He has lost an eye and will not forget this night. Brand him the better that he may serve as an example to others.’

  While such an incident added to William’s growing reputation for chivalry, his successes in the tournament enabled him to accrue wealth. He, Robert de Salignac and a Flemish knight named Roger de Jouy, all formidable warriors, formed a syndicate to fight together. They perfected techniques of horsemanship, weapon-skill, speed and strength which were almost guaranteed to catch the unwary at a disadvantage, at the same time deterring most of those who had experience of fighting them from attempting it again. In this way they unseated, fought, captured and ransomed over one hundred opponents one spring. To ensure the Young King benefitted from their valour, they employed Wigain, Clerk to the Kitchen of the Young King to act as a disinterested tally-clerk, to keep their accounts and render to Henry’s treasury their Lord’s rake-off.

  Matters did not always go William’s way. In a moment of inattention at another tournament fought over the familiar ground between Anet and Sorel, William was cornered by a determined group of six knights who separated him from his companions-in-arms and, in a simultaneous onslaught, unhorsed him. Satisfied with the capture of his destrier they rode off bellowing with triumph, leaving William dismounted and in a foul temper. At the end of the day he accosted Pierre de Leschans who, on behalf of the six knights, sought a ransom of forty pounds for the destrier, claiming they might have had the Marshal himself but that they wished to spare him the humiliation.

  William gave way to a rare temper, a display of ruthless and pressing cunning rather than an Angevin rage. The temperamental outburst drew admiration from many, particularly the Young Henry, who looked on with some pride as his friend verbally fought his way out of the corner. De Leschans’s uncle, Guillaume des Barres, a knight with a reputation as formidable as William’s and an old contestant in the tourney at Anet was scathing at William’s conduct. He was not the only one; even De Salignac was ambiguous about his friend’s behaviour, though Roger de Jouy openly encouraged the mitigation of the syndicate’s loss.

  Relentlessly brow-beating De Leschans, William wore down the ransom demand from forty pounds first to twenty and then to ten in a gruelling negotiation lasting hours and depriving both men from attending that night’s feasting. In this way De Leschans was also denied the accolade of the day for assisting in the unhorsing of the Marshal. In the end William shook hands on a mere seven pounds, his manner conveying the impression that he had done De Leschans a great favour.

  ‘I could not lose that horse,’ he growled at De Salignac afterwards.

  ‘You did not have to, Will. A mere forty pounds…’

  ‘You have not known poverty, my friend,’ William said firmly, closing the conversation.

  But De Salignac had seen D’Yquebeuf commiserating with young De Leschans and could have sworn he read from D’Yquebeuf’s lips the words ‘grown arrogant…’ The incident troubled De Salignac. William had no need to worry about money; besides his own swelling coffers, the Young King now maintained his mesnie with a degree of largesse that contributed to his own reputation. The days of being laughed into the lists had long passed; now their appearance was greeted with apprehension, even fear at what might be lost in ransom money, harness, weapons or horses. As time passed the Young Henry gathered about him one of the grandest mesnies in Europe, success attracting the successful. Thanks to the bankers of Bruges and his father’s generous allowance, Young Henry made provision for every want of his following, gaining for himself great renown.

  Cheated of his ambition to rule a part of the Kingdom that would be his in due course, the Young King gained power and influence by means of the tournament. Opposed to tourneying in England, the Old King restored land and revenues to him, almost revelling in the reflected glory his son brought him throughout Europe, an achievement in contrast to the dark days of filial rebellion and of the obloquy following the martyrdom of Becket. Such was the diplomatic impact of his heir’s glory that in the spring of 1179 the Old King invited the Young Henry to attend his Easter Court at Winchester.

  It seemed a complete reconciliation. The twin monarchs splendid in their accord, their glittering households united to mark at this Holy and Blessed time the extent and magnificence of the Angevin Empire. The Old King, Henry Curtmantle, grizzled yet striking, brim-full still of energy, careless of his appearance as only the truly powerful could be among the rapacious Anglo-Norman barons, was complemented by the Young Henry whose almost angelically handsome features and bedazzling person seemed to embody the emerging virtues enshrined in the notion of chivalry. He was likened to Iskander the Great, or by the English knights who had increasingly flocked to his standard to tourney in the Vexin, as a reincarnation of the legendary Arthur.

  And all the while at his side rode a man of near equal stature and mighty prowess, a man whose name had become almost as well-known, for all that he wore his master’s coat-of-arms - William Marshal.

  CHAPTER TEN: THE FALL FROM GRACE 1179 - 1182

  King Louis VII lay on his death-bed. Ever since the star of Henry Curtmantle had seemed to wax, that of Louis Capet had waned. It was as if Divine Providence, having held out the promise of his seizing the lands of his great rival and enlarging the Domain of France, had withdrawn its favour. A further shaking of King Louis’ faith quickly followed. That summer his young heir, Philippe, had fallen sick after having been lost for hours during a boar-hunt. The youth had contracted a fever and become so ill that his life was feared for.

  The already ailing Louis had taken the unprecedented step of crossing the Channel and making a pilgrimage to the tomb of the martyred Becket at Canterbury. And although he thereby saved his son’s life, on his return to Paris Louis had been taken by a seizure of such violence that it left him almost immobile. For the most part Louis lay, half paralysed, a drooling wreck, surrounded by the priests and monks whose company he had long ago left to become a King. To ensure the succession, and prevent the meddling of Henry of England and Normandy, it was essential that Louis’ heir, Philippe, was crowned for a second time without delay in the ancient and royal city of Rheims, lying in the Champagne country north-east of Paris between the Riv
ers Aisne and Marne.

  Here, on 1 November 1179, gathered all the chivalry of Christendom to witness the anointing of Philippe II of France. As the greatest vassal present, the Young Henry bore the French crown ahead of Philippe in the procession as it entered the cathedral for the coronation. And after this great and magnificent solemnization, came an equally great feasting and tourneying.

  But there was more than the valour to be entered into in all this; there was now that of diplomacy as Hugh of Burgundy, Philippe of Flanders, Theobald of Blois and the Young Henry vied for political influence over the new and youthful King Philippe of France.

  The assembly of knights, great and small, at Lagny-sur-Marne was unprecedented in its magnificence. The mesnies and their supporting entourages made a great and colourful throng, spread out in their encampments across the countryside, banners a-flutter, cooking fires and forges a-glow and a roistering company laying wagers, feasting and drinking.

  Young Henry attended with eighty knights, fifteen of whom were knights banneret, each with his separate mesnie of a dozen knights, heralds and men-at-arms and each with his distinctive device and banner. Such additions to his own mesnie privée added to the Young King’s prestige and he had included William among his knights banneret. For William, still a landless knight, despite the money he had accrued in the tourney, it was an especial honour. For the first time William bore his own device: a lion rampant, blood red as the Old King had charged him and as God – not the Devil - had marked him at birth. He was by now certain of this, able to entirely throw off the dark shadows of his boyhood. Nicholas de Sarum had been right to put his trust in God; so too had Angharad ap Gwyn, for there was something of the Old Ways in this predestination that filled William with a strong sense of both humility and pride. At Lagny-sur-Marne he glimpsed what he might yet achieve, a sense that he was favoured by God but that he could – and must – assume and maintain a proper modesty.

  And yet it was difficult. As William rode into the lists at Lagny, his ensanguined lion upon a ground vertically divided: half green, for the colour of the lance pennons of his first opponents in the tourney, and half yellow, pale gold for the patron under whose colours he had triumphed, old Roger de Vaux, he felt a surge of pride at the men who rode in his train: his train. With him rode Robert de Salignac, now the chief knight in William’s mesnie and his closest friend, who showed no sign of the jealousy that disfigured the countenances of others, men like D’Yquebeuf who also rode as a knight banneret but who could not forget that William FitzMarshal was a landless Englishman with a coiled tail in his breeches who stood higher in the esteem of the mighty than he did himself. Nor did it help that William had acquired a bumptious herald named Henry, a man who claimed to be half English and whom William had engaged on a whim. This fellow, known to the mesnie as Harry the Northman had a habit of blowing his master’s trumpet both metaphorically and literally, adding fuel to the fire of his rivals’ resentments.

  Besides the envious Adam d’Yquebeuf, among William’s fellow knights banneret rode Simon de Marisco, Thomas de Coulonces and Robert de Tresgoz, and Baldwin de Béthune, a man with whom William had developed a friendship. They were but a fraction of the three thousand men said to have flung themselves into the fray in the great mêlée at Lagny-sur-Marne; a chaotic, whirling business of a short autumn day’s duration in which the Young Henry came close to being bested.

  Surrounded by opponents eager to seize him for a prodigious ransom, Henry fought valiantly, lost his helm in the struggle and had to be rescued by a gallant charge by William and his own mesnie. As they charged to the relief of the hard-pressed King, William’s knights raised the battle-cry of ‘God for the Marshal!’

  Despite this timely intervention, there were many who afterwards held that such a rousing call to the deity was, in displacing Henry’s name, a treasonable act. William had not ordered the battle-cry, though he gloried in it, not least, for its spontaneity. But if the day was adjudged something of a ‘great confusion,’ William’s part only added to his reputation. However, his moment of crowning glory at the tourney was marred by God’s warning to humble himself before pride consumed him: young Odo was mortally wounded by an unfortunate lance thrust that – intended to unhorse him and compel William to come to his aid – slid over Odo’s shoulder between his coat of mail and his chain coif. His carotid artery pumped blood for a quarter of an hour before he gave up the ghost and it was only that November evening, when the smoke of the bivouacs was sharp in William’s nostrils and the invigorations of the day elevated his spirits with a glorious exhilaration, that he saw his squire’s body brought in from the field of combat.

  *

  Within months of this spectacle Louis of France was dead, young Philippe was on the throne and at his side, wielding influence, stood his namesake, the Count of Flanders, seeking a new sphere of influence. The new French monarch promised little: a sickly creature who lent upon the unscrupulous and ambitious Flemish nobleman which precipitated a short but vicious campaign in which the Young Henry took the field against men who had hitherto been friends and no more hostile than rivals in the lists. The result of the swift chevauchée recommended by William Marshal against Philippe of Flanders and Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, was their outwitting. This was followed by a quickly concluded peace.

  Thereafter the Young Henry forsook William’s advice and, hand-in-hand with Marguerite, rode into Paris, though it took two unhappy years for him to make up his mind to do so. If the Young King’s appearance at Lagny-sur-Marne had been a manifestation of the Old King’s indulgence, and his swift victory over Hugh of Burgundy and Philippe of Flanders earned him the Old King’s full forgiveness and even admiration, his conduct in Paris threatened everything. At Lagny the Young Henry bestrode Europe like a titan; in the short but brilliant campaign that followed he seemed to strike with the speed and blaze of a meteor. In Paris, by contrast to his sickly host, he was every inch the superior, titular heir to a vast empire that put the domain of France to shame. In his greeting to his feudal lord, the Young Henry was almost condescending in his vassal status to Philippe.

  But that was the rub; he was but a vassal and as long as his father lived, a vassal inferior to even his younger brothers who held fiefdoms in their hands, not like a promissory note! Richard in particular was hacking out a formidable reputation as a warrior and a ruling Duke of ruthless competence. Men called him ‘Richard Yea-or-Nay’ and half-admired and half-hated him as he suppressed successive rebellions that his cruelty and wickedness stirred up. In Richard’s eyes no man might stand against him and he subjected his fiefdoms to an iron fist of his governance. Should they have the temerity to rise against him, he fell upon them with a terrible savagery, seizing their lands, castle, tenants and villeins and abducting and raping their women, even casting their ravished wives to his soldiery.

  Envious of his sibling’s reputation for feared savagery, admirable in their father’s eyes, but full too of the pride and the splendour of his own achievements, the Young Henry was persuaded that, faced with the pallid boy-king in Paris, he might over-awe the youth and renew his plea for the Duchy of Normandy from his father. He could not fall from such a summit as he had achieved: men called him the ‘Father of Chivalry,’ the ‘Glory of Christendom.’ Great things were expected of him – now, not later. What should he do? For two years the Young Henry writhed upon the horns of his dilemma as the glory of the tourney palled and the supply of money coming from England ebbed away. What alternative had he but to take his French-born Queen, sister to Philippe, to her brother’s Court and first weaken his father’s hold on Normandy?

  Beneath this act of over-weening pride lay an appalling economic truth. The Old King’s indulgence of his eldest son had bled his treasury almost dry. England groaned under taxation frittered away in the marcher lands of the Vexin between the French Île de France and Normandy as those two more years of tourneying leached vast sums in expenditure. Whispers of the Young King’s excessive extravagance, of the unwa
rrantable demands of his expectant mesnie circulated the Old King’s Court, while a slow desperation for revenue gripped the exchequer of his son’s. That he might stand upon his own two feet, maintain his state, his household, his mesnie and his entourage, the Young King demanded of his father a province able to support him. Once again the Old King turned him down, though he increased taxation throughout England, raising the number of Young Henry’s mesnie to one hundred and increased his allowance.

  ‘He puts me off with baubles!’ the Young King exclaimed, grinding his teeth in anger and in this renewed hostility with his father, men other than William Marshal increasingly gained Young Henry’s ear. Some, like Adam D’Yquebeuf, did so by a direct discrediting of William as the chief among the Young King’s counsellors, maintaining that the Marshal had out-grown his place, that the battle-cry of ‘God for the Marshal!’ was evidence of a dangerous ambition. It was a subtle enough ploy, for it played into the Young King’s own paranoid anxieties, and while William brushed aside the intrigue, Robert de Salignac constantly warned him of the increasing danger he was in.

  ‘What have I to fear from D’Yquebeuf?’ William had asked one night as they lingered in William’s chamber over wine, unwilling to confront the problem.

  De Salignac was incredulous. ‘Why everything, William! It is true you now have wealth, but you have no land and do you not see the influence of Duke Richard? Knowing his father’s good opinion rested only upon the Young King’s good showing as his surrogate – exactly the part the Old King cast him in – our Henry fears that upon his father’s death he will lose Aquitaine to Richard…’

  ‘But he gave fiefs to Henry…’

  ‘Paltry stuff, you have to admit; chewed bones to a bitch, nothing more. Richard is stamping what he calls order across the whole of Aquitaine, Geoffrey does likewise in Brittany, Normandy is under Old Henry’s thumb, as is what is, nominally at least, young John’s. D’Yquebeuf fosters a growing resentment in Young Henry that will find him close to this pathetic creature on the throne in Paris. Who will benefit from such an unholy alliance I shudder to think but it will not, most assuredly, be Young Henry or, God have mercy on you, you yourself.’