‘In part, my Lord, but…’ William paused, the thoughts rushing into his head like a torrent as he scratched his beard. Never, in all his wildest dreams, had he expected to receive such a confidence from Henry Curtmantle, the most puissant Prince in Europe.
‘Come, speak your mind.’
‘I conceive the King of France a man of vaunting ambition…’
‘Huh! You are right there!’ exclaimed Henry with an almost light-headed acknowledgement of William’s perspicacity.
‘What if the choice must be made between Normandy and England, my Lord?’
The shrewdness of the question drew a sudden intake of breath and a darkening of Henry’s mood. Even in the feeble lamplight his blue eyes clouded. ‘Aye,’ said the King, nodding, ‘you see the future William and prove the sense of my entrusting these matter to you. Always hold Normandy in my memory; Normandy, Anjou and all my ancestral lands are where my heart must ever lie but,’ and here the King lent forward and placed his hand upon William’s shoulder. ‘But,’ he repeated, emphasising the conjunction with a second buff that reminded William of the rough punch of a knight’s dubbing, ‘ever hold England for the power of my Crown…and Richard’s,’ he added, almost as an afterthought, as if the very idea of relinquishing the Crown with the natural termination of his life was physically painful to him. The King sat back regarding William for a moment before saying, ‘I know you for a man of ambition, William, but I know you also for a man of moderation and good sense. You did not seize the hand of Heloise of Lancaster like a drowning man might have done, but bided your time. That was wise and, God grant that I live a little longer, you shall not be disappointed, though I would have you use the lady well.’
‘Of course, my Lord.’
‘Promise me then just one thing, that you will keep always the good of the English Crown before you? ’Tis the burden of a King that I lay upon your shoulders…’ Henry winced again as he moved uneasily. The audience had lasted too long for his comfort and William, for all the misgivings that tumbled about in his head, was unwilling to try the king’s patience beyond his enduring.
‘If it be in my power, my Lord King,’ William said firmly, rising and making his obeisance.
‘Shall I have you swear to this? I have FitzPeter waiting without?’ Henry asked, looking up at William.
‘If it pleases Your Grace, but you have my word…’
Henry sighed. ‘Aye, William and I have laid the matter to your immortal soul.’
It was then that the full import of Henry’s charge fell upon William: the duty laid upon him came from God’s anointed. As if to mark his realisation Henry thrust out his right hand; William kneeled and kissed the King’s great ring.
As he rose, the King’s tone changed. The moments of confidence were over; William was no more than a knight banneret in the mesnie of Henry Curtmantle.
‘Send FitzPeter to me. I have work for him this night,’ he commanded.
***
That night the clerks drew up the documents necessary to conclude the agreement between Duke Richard and King Philippe Augustus and the following noon, with sundry flourishes and the trumpeting of the heralds, the exchange of the copies of the treaty took place. The next day the two armies broke their respective camps and began to withdraw, Philippe’s north towards Orléans, Henry’s north-west towards Tours. It had rained hard all night and the going was hard, especially for William’s mesnie and the troops he commanded, for he had been assigned the rear-guard and the track was churned to a mire.
They had been one hour on the march when he was aware of a commotion in the column that snaked ahead, towards woodland. For a moment he feared some ambush and then he saw a large party of horsemen coming back from the head of the column led by the gonfalon of Richard. The Duke rode at its head and he drew rein briefly alongside William, who checked his horse accordingly. Richard waved his mesnie on, back the way they had come.
‘My Lord, what means this?’ William asked, frowning.
Richard was smiling, his golden beard catching the first sunshine since the night’s downpour. ‘You will have to make your mind up soon, Marshal,’ he said enigmatically.
‘Loyalty binds me,’ William responded sententiously, his mind still preoccupied by his audience with King Henry. ‘Whither does my Lord go?’ And then the thought struck him: ‘Surely not to join King Philippe?’
‘Philippe guarantees me Aquitaine, Marshal,’ Richard snarled, gathering up his reins, ‘which is more than my noble father ever did.’ The Duke drove his spurs into his mount’s flank and the great horse moved off at a gallop.
‘Aye, but for how long?’ William murmured to himself as he watched Richard ride off, clods of mud flying up from the hooves of his horse. Then he turned to Geoffrey FitzRobert and William Waleran, the two English knights whom he most favoured and trusted, turning over the command of the rear-guard to them. Waving John de Earley to follow with his own banner, William spurred his own palfrey towards the head of the column. A few minutes later he drew rein alongside the King who rode in a litter, such was the pain of riding on his charger.
‘My Lord, Duke Richard…’
‘So I have just been told,’ snarled the King, his teeth working on his lower lip with such vigour that William feared the onset of one of his terrible rages. ‘Stay close, FitzMarshal,’ he growled after a moment, then asked ‘who commands the rear?’
‘Waleran and FitzRobert, my Lord.’
Henry nodded and resumed chewing his lower lip. ‘God’s bones, but I thought a week or two of peace…’ he said to himself then, banging the side of the litter with such violence that the contraption rocked, roared: ‘by the Christ, can I trust no-one?’
‘My Lord!’ William responded, as if half reminding Henry of their conversation.
Henry looked at him sharply. ‘So soon?’
‘If not, when, my Lord?’
Henry beckoned William to draw close and William leaned from his saddle so that the King suddenly shot out his right hand and grabbed William’s surtout at the shoulder. ‘Bring the bastard back, William that I may put the jesses back on the dog’s turd.’
The King’s breath was hot and foul in William’s face and he shot in response, ‘perhaps ’twould be better to offer him Aquitaine,’ he said boldly.
For a moment he thought he had over-shot the mark, then Henry shook his surtout with such violence that William heard the seam tear.
‘Promise heaven itself but get the spawn of Satan back in my camp.’ The King thrust him away then called after him: ‘Wait! Take my herald and leopards and leave your banner with me.’
Thus William rode off on his first mission of diplomacy leaving John de Earley to stand surety for him. Clearly for all his fine words the King did not yet trust him, a situation that truly puzzled William until, an hour later, he bethought himself of what he would say when in the presence of Duke Richard.
Three hours later that June day he caught up with the marching column of the French army and, covered by Henry’s herald, was escorted to the head of the column where King Philippe Augustus of France and Duke Richard rode side-by-side, bosom friends.
‘And what,’ asked Philippe,’ does this fellow want?’
‘This is William FitzMarshal, my Lord,’ replied Richard. ‘A retainer of my father’s,’ he explained dismissively.
Philippe looked William up and down and was clearly unimpressed, though William’s stature more closely matched the magnificent physique of the Duke than the unprepossessing, lank-haired appearance of the King.
‘He wishes to persuade me to return thither, I have no doubt,’ remarked the King, his mouth curling into a smile. ‘Is that not so, FitzMarshal?’
Bare-headed, William bowed in the saddle. ‘Craving your pardon, Your Grace, but my embassage is for my Lord Richard.’
‘Naturally,’ replied Philippe, continuing to regard William with an expression of faint amusement but making no move to facilitate any exchange between Henry’s messenger a
nd his new ally. Then Philippe turned away and began to talk to Richard, leaving William looking a fool in front of Philippe’s immediate escort who chuckled merrily behind him at the discomfiture of Henry Curtmantle’s emissary. They rode thus for some minutes before a French herald rode alongside William and leaned forward and grasped William’s reins.
As was customary on the march, he was not riding either of his destriers and the palfrey did not react, but William did.
‘Your Grace!’ he shouted. Convention forbade him from striking a herald, but he could claim the protection of Henry’s. ‘Your Grace!’ he shouted again, Philippe having ignored his first remonstration. ‘I came here under the protection of King Henry of England.’
Without turning round Philippe held up his hand and the column came to an awkward halt. Then the French King beckoned and his herald led William forward until his horse was halted alongside the hind quarters of the King’s palfrey. Only Duke Richard turned, grinning from ear-to-ear.
Still with his back to William, Philippe threw his words back over his shoulder so that William stared at Duke Richard. ‘If, FitzMarshal, you claim to come hither under the protection of the King of England, pray tell me what the King of England does here? If you mean the Count of Anjou, kindly return to him and thank him for his duty in sending his heir as a hostage to me.’
William did not miss the flash of uncertainty that crossed Richard’s face, nor did he miss the reassuring hand that Philippe extended to Richard indicating that it was a jest. Meanwhile, the knights closest to this pretty farce all laughed at Philippe’s wit. After that second of misgiving Richard joined in, though his humour faltered when Philippe added, ‘And tell the Count of Anjou that I am his liege lord and he is mine to command.’
At this point Philippe swung his horse round and confronted William. ‘Go now FitzWilliam, back to the Count of Anjou and deliver my message.’
William bowed his head and looked from the King to Duke Richard. ‘Your Grace,’ he said respectfully, then raising his head he fixed Richard with his gaze and added, ‘with Your Grace’s permission I am charged with conveying my Lord’s felicitations to the Duke of Aquitaine.’ And here he bowed to Richard before turning his horse about.
It was late when he returned to the Angevin camp but, it not being long after mid-summer, there was yet some light as he reported to Henry all that had transpired. Henry listened in silence and held his peace for some moments after William had finished. William was acutely aware that he had not brought Richard back, but Henry was not foolish enough to think he could have done so and, looking up at William, nodded grimly.
‘You have done well, FitzMarshal. We may expect an emissary from the Duke in a day or so and he will return to the fold within the month.’
King Henry misjudged the matter by three weeks, but by the end of August Duke Richard had re-joined his father at Tours where the Angevin Court lay when the news from Outremer tore Christendom wide open.
CHAPTER TWO: AUDITA TREMENDI 1187 - 1188
It was at Tours that they first learned of the disaster in Outremer. Like hundreds of others, William was profoundly shocked by the news from the Holy Land. The Saracenic Turks had been revivified by a charismatic new leader. He was said to possess demonic powers, to be the anti-Christ and Satan’s arch-angel on earth. More to the point he was everywhere victorious and his name was soon upon the lips of every military man in the West. They called him ‘Saladin’.
This Saladin was an Ayubite Kurd and he had fought the forces of the Christian King of Jerusalem under the twin peaks known as the Horns of Hattin near the city of Tiberias and had thrown them into an utter rout. The King of Jerusalem, none other than Guy de Lusignan, had fallen a prisoner to Saladin who soon afterwards entered the Holy City of Jerusalem as a conqueror. How could any knight banneret, any preudhomme, any baptised gentleman in Christendom even begin to think of his own ambition when the most Holy territory in the world was occupied by the infidel?
The Court was filled with rumour and expectation. Robert de Tresgoz gave vent to the feelings of many when he punned that the Horns of Hattin had placed the Kingdoms, Duchies and Counties of the West on the horns of a dilemma, though few were amused by the sophistry. Most were more inclined to lend their ears to the Pope, Gregory VIII, who had issued a Bull, Audita Tremendi, preaching a new crusade to recapture the Holy Places and most of the young gallants and the more sober knights on the Angevin Court expected to be taking the cross within weeks. After his own experiences in the Holy Land William was powerfully drawn to the cause; Cartmel could wait, the Lady Heloise could wait, he was half obligated to the Order of the Temple and he had FitzPeter write on his behalf to De Salignac in the Dordogne for his opinion. All now waited upon the King’s sense of Christian duty.
But for all his dewy-eyed reverence for the pilgrim William Marshal and the disastrous news that followed hard on the heels of his return, Henry Curtmantle was absorbed playing his endless games with his rebellious elder son, Richard, taking from him what delegated powers he had enjoyed during the life of the Young Henry and, just as he had done with his first heir, denying Richard any taste of the government that must, William thought, fall to him in due course.
At first it seemed that Richard would himself neutralise the situation, for that November Richard had taken the cross and vowed to go on crusade to wrest the Holy Places from the infidel. But then Richard learned of a rumour that Henry intended cutting him out of the succession and passing the Crown of England and his lordships in France directly to his younger son John.
When William heard this he was aghast until FitzPeter quelled his anxiety.
‘’Tis a canard raised in Paris,’ the lawyer explained. ‘Trust it not.’
‘Philippe did not invent this,’ William said dismissively. ‘I am not that easily duped.’
‘No, you are not duped, but Philippe is cunning and fosters the wind of credulity hereabouts.’ FitzPeter waved his hand to encompass the Angevin Court.
‘You may be right, Geoffrey, but men believe what they wish to believe and my own eyes and ears tell me that something more than straw is in the wind.’
And indeed events seemed to lend credence to what had first circulated as mere gossip, for Henry increasingly gave every indication of favouring Prince John. Although his distemper was not known, Henry’s physical state was now of real concern. All knew he was ailing and his marks of preference for young John took on a sinister significance. The young man was handsome and, when he had a mind to be, personable enough. He had even proved himself in the field – once or twice, as Robert de Tresgoz was fond of remarking – but he lacked his older brother’s talent for ruthless war.
Matters rested for some months until the January following when Richard, still intent upon going on crusade but not until he had secured his succession, persuaded Henry to again meet his own ally, Philippe Augustus, in an attempt to settle their differences and underwrite the Papal guarantee that no advantages should be taken of any lord absent on crusade. Confirmation of this came from the Archbishop of Tyre who thereafter distracted both Henry and Philippe from their internecine wranglings by an account of the extent of the destruction of the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem by the Turks, under the charismatic Ayubite Emir Salah ed-Din.
‘This heathen devil,’ the Archbishop thundered, raising his Cross, ‘took Aleppo, laid siege to Krak des Chevaliers, captured Tiberias, defeated King Guy under the Horns of Hattin, thereafter taking Ascalon, Acre and then…’ The Archbishop threw his eyes up to heaven and brought them back to earth to glare at Philippe and Henry, lowering his voice to a menacing and reproachful growl, ‘he seized Jerusalem.’ He paused as the two Kings and their assembled lords, knights and gentlemen all but quailed under his withering glower, shifting uneasily upon their feet. ‘Put away your childish quibblings, my sons,’ the Archbishop cried, raising his voice. ‘God calls you to redemption! Take back the Holy Places! God places this charge in your hands for your glory! Let not Christendom s
tir without you, the great Kings of the West!’
William looked about him as the entire company stirred as one man to pledge their swords to the retaking of the Holy city of Jerusalem. Richard was chief among these, and even the King of England, ill and feeble as he was, joined the general enthusiasm. While William’s private desire was to himself go on crusade, he perceived in those about him an almost childish enthusiasm too febrile to last. He judged well; within days it had begun to falter, almost as soon as Geoffrey de Lusignan gave clear evidence of his own determined intention to sail east to liberate his brother, King Guy of Jerusalem. It was as though Geoffrey could stand surrogate, at least for the time being. In William’s eyes, the two Lusignans had so treacherously ambushed Queen Eleanor and killed William’s uncle, Patrick, Earl of Salisbury, that he felt no compulsion to join Geoffrey’s banner. Besides, his obligations were to await the pleasure of King Henry, in the meanwhile maintaining his mesnie for any forthcoming eventuality.
For months after the great meeting with the Archbishop an uneasy peace lay over the land. Desultory preparations were made for a crusade, money was raised by the enforcement of taxation but the mutual suspicions that underlay the relationship between Henry, Richard and his powerful ally, Philippe Augustus, prevented any firm orders for departure being given by any of the three principals involved. To force a rapprochement, that August Philippe sought another meeting under the great elm at Gisors.
Once again William found himself among the waiting nobles and knights attending the two Kings and their most powerful lords. All knew the agenda: Henry must renounce that portion of the Vexin – the march between Normandy and Philippe’s ancestral land of the Île de France – that lay within Normandy. Philippe would in turn relinquish his claims on Henry’s French lands if Henry recognised Richard as his heir and Richard married Philippe’s sister, the Lady Alice, as had long been proposed.
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