William Marshal Guardian of England- The Complete Series

by Richard Woodman

  ‘’Tis but a warming up of old chestnuts,’ FitzPeter had confided in him the night before, ‘and is likely to produce the same answer.’

  William, dreaming over his wine of Outremer, had asked rhetorically, ‘Are we never to have peace?’

  FitzPeter had scoffed. ‘What would such men do with peace, William? They thrive on war, as long as it enriches them.’

  ‘But it is bleeding them white,’ William had responded, sitting up and taking the conversation seriously.

  ‘And even then it will not stop them.’

  ‘If they must fight, there is a greater war to be fought in Outremer,’ William had said after a pause.

  FitzPeter had shrugged and the two had sunk into a depressively contemplative silence. Recalling the conversation with FitzPeter, William watched as, within half an hour, the conference reached its inevitable conclusion. Fatally for any hope of peace, Henry, who could neither sit nor stand in comfort, was - in such a condition - in no mood for compromise. He was rumoured to be suffering from open ulcers and the pain further shortened his fiery temper. Even at a discreet distance William heard him roar: ‘Never! You have my son in your breeches and if I confirm him my heir I give all to you. Normandy, Anjou, the Vexin are mine! Mine!’

  Then, to a stirring of the French nobles, Philippe strode away, followed by his entourage.

  The following day, as the encampments broke-up, William received a visitor.

  ‘Robert! In the name of God ’tis good to see you!’ The two men clasped their hands and forearms in friendship then William drew back and looked into De Salignac’s eyes. ‘You are troubled?’

  ‘Aye, William. I am but late arrived, summoned by Count Richard who tells me there will be war if your master does not give ground.’

  ‘Why does he not marry the Lady Alice?’

  De Salignac shrugged. ‘God alone knows, but he will do nothing until Henry pledges to renounce the Vexin.’

  ‘Which he will not do,’ William added, ‘for he knows that Philippe’s design is upon Henry’s ancestral lands through Richard. Surely we should be advancing our force towards the Holy Land,’ he said despairingly.

  ‘Aye, if our masters sought forgiveness and did God’s will,’ De Salignac responded, crossing himself. ‘But should we go to war here, you and I shall find ourselves upon opposing sides, my lands being in fief from Philippe.’

  William nodded. ‘Let us pray it does not come to that.’

  ‘God damn the six peers of France who thought it a good idea to elect the Duke of France to Kingship,’ Robert growled darkly.

  ‘Should it come to blows between us, Robert, I should not raise my arm against you so wear your device conspicuously as I shall mine.’

  ‘God help us, William, and may He go with us both.’

  And upon that unhappy note the two men parted again, William withdrawing with the King’s entourage towards the western Vexin, while De Salignac re-joined Philippe and Richard as they fell back towards the River Oise. Two days later a courier caught-up with Henry’s slow-moving column. It moved sluggishly across the country for out of his opponents’ eyes the King was carried in a litter. The messenger brought news that, upon the orders of the King of France, the ancient elm of Gisors - the traditional meeting-place of the Capetian Kings and their powerful vassal Dukes of Normandy - had been felled.

  ‘Christ have mercy,’ FitzPeter murmured when he heard of it. Crossing himself he turned to William with whose mesnie he rode. ‘We are at war again.’

  ***

  And so it proved. Calling his Norman nobles to their duty, Henry ordered his household to arms and summoned Welsh mercenaries from England. With Richard’s loyalty uncertain, Henry determined to stop Philippe in his tracks.

  To William fell the task of organising the King’s army and he was in daily conference with the King, amazed at Henry’s recovery as he summoned his vassals to Rouen. Whatever salves had been recently applied to his open ulcers they had so far eased his pain that he seemed to be the old Henry, brim-full of energy and spoiling for a fight.

  ‘But I need time, Marshal, time for the ships to arrive from Southampton. Go you with Archbishop Walter de Coutances and buy me time.’

  ‘But your forces, Your Grace…’

  ‘Can do without you for a week and when you return the Welsh will be here. Buy me just a week, ten days. You have already proved yourself a diplomat in regard to my son. Go! Go!’

  The embassy bought Henry his week, and although the Archbishop of Rouen pleaded the case for a more general and long lasting peace he added demands: the restoration of fortresses, reparations, the evacuation of Berri. Philippe spurned all such notions, demanding instead that Henry relinquished all claims to the Norman Vexin.

  William and Archbishop Walter rode back to Rouen empty-handed, but secure in the knowledge that the Welsh troops had arrived in great numbers, news with which Henry greeted them as they made their report to the King. Henry swept the news aside and turned to William, a gleam in his eyes all too rarely seen of late.

  ‘Well, Marshal, while they think we lick our wounded pride we shall attack. Where lies their weakness?’

  ‘My Lord, perhaps a strike south of the Vexin? Philippe will expect you to hold your lands there but a chevauchée into King Philippe’s…’

  ‘By God’s eyes! Truly you have the matter to heart. Two columns and raid in depth…’

  ‘Taking tar from the ships in the port, my Lord King,’ suggested William, ‘the more readily to burn and destroy.’

  ‘Give orders to that effect.’ The King called for wine, rubbing his hands with satisfaction and that August the Angevin war host, moving up the line of the River Eure, crossed into French territory near Ivry and began to lay waste King Philippe’s lands between the Eure and the Seine, sacking Bréval and taking great amounts of booty.

  Then, as the King fell back into his own lands, he detached William with the second column to strike south, away from pursuing French forces, towards Montmirail before retiring himself into Touraine.

  ‘Leave nothing behind you, William,’ the King ordered. ‘Nothing so much as a rat could live on.’

  Leaving only a light rear-guard, William broke up his column under his chief knights and, sending out parties of scouts, detached marauding groups of incendiaries who burnt crops, villages, vineyards and harried the peasantry off their lands, spreading terror wherever his men went.’

  ‘By God, but these Welshmen know their business,’ William remarked to John de Earley, feeling the satisfaction of war as they sat their horses and watched a village burn. It had been long deserted by its population who had fled at the news of the approach of the enemies of their King. ‘This is how Richard wages war and by Heaven ’twill wound Philippe!’

  But it was Henry who was most wounded when the fighting petered-out with the onset of winter and, once again, a conference was called in mid-November at Bonsmoulins. Despite the rape of his ancestral lands, attacks that were said to have entirely shaken Philippe and disrupted his own military plans, he rode to the rendezvous in full state, accompanied by Count Richard. The two men were in high good spirits and on obvious terms of great intimacy, so-much-so that, almost within sight of King Henry and the Angevin nobles, Richard went down upon his knees to do homage to Philippe for Normandy, Anjou, Aquitaine, Maine, Touraine and Berri.

  ‘He has no right..!’ Henry raged tempestuously, giving orders to withdraw. A few days later Henry received news that Richard, again a firm ally of the tendentious Philippe, had ridden into Poitou to raise an army. Again the King gave way to his furious temper while William, hearing the intelligence, thought of Robert de Salignac and the pledge they had made between them.

  Later that day, by which time the King had exhausted himself of his anger, Henry called William to his side.

  The physical deterioration of the King was increasingly obvious. His difficulty in sitting and the foul stench from his undergarments could no longer be ignored. He received William standin
g, leaning against a window place as if in contemplation of the view but William could see all too well his pallor and the beads of sweat that stood out on his forehead like rain-drops.

  ‘Marshal,’ the King ordered abruptly, ‘ride to the Count of Poitou at Amboise and use all your skills to end this madness. Pray him to come hither that we might settle our differences…’ Then Henry waved William out as an expression of agony passed over his features. Calling upon Geoffrey FitzRobert and William Waleran to ready the mesnie, William had John de Earley saddle-up and the small column of armed knights and their squires rode south and west, ready to defend themselves if attacked. Reaching Amboise, William was ushered into the Count’s presence.

  Richard sat before a fire while about him clerks busily scribbled to his dictation. He had been at it for hours and made no attempt to conceal his actions from William, keeping him standing idly by until he had completed his business which was, quite obviously, the organisation of his military train.

  ‘You are wasting your breath, FitzMarshal,’ Richard replied when William had pleaded his master’s cause. ‘You see how I am placed here,’ he gestured round as messengers came in and the clerks passed them the Count’s orders.

  ‘My Lord, the King your father is in ill-health…’

  ‘The King my father has been in ill-health for some time,’ Richard responded laconically, picking a fig from a silver salver and peeling it.

  ‘This time is different,’ William ventured, dropping his voice. ‘There are good reasons why your Lordship would be wise…’

  ‘You are not the man to teach me my business, FitzMarshal,’ Richard responded sharply, staring at William who lowered his head.

  ‘I speak as an emissary and counsellor of the King, my Lord.’

  For some moments a silence hung in the air and then Richard replied. ‘Get you gone back to the old man, FitzMarshal. Had you an inheritance you would fight for it.’ He turned away.

  Masking his fury at the insult and mindful of Henry’s injunction, William refused to budge, so that Richard looked up again. ‘I said begone!’ Richard roared.

  ‘My Lord the King exhorted me to use my best endeavours…’

  ‘Then you have failed!’

  ‘Perhaps, my Lord, but I have yet one more thing to say.’ William’s tone was such as to brook no abrupt dismissal. Richard stared at him in silence which William broke. ‘Your Lordship has taken the cross by a solemn oath, yet you remain here. The Holy places are in the hands of the infidel. Do you not think that as the foremost warrior in Christendom…’

  ‘You are bold, sir! I will not tolerate such false flattery, FitzMarshal,’ Richard snarled, gesturing the clerks to leave their presence. ‘I am not fool enough to know that the minute I have left for the Holy Land my Father will settle the succession on Count John, Papal injunction or not! You are one of the King’s counsellors; for all I know you are party to such a plot…’ William was stung a second time and just for a moment thought to interject intemperately but as Richard went on an idea struck him. ‘Mayhap,’ Richard was saying, ‘you placed it in the mind of the King, though God knows he needs not you to poison him against me.’

  ‘Do not dishonour me, my Lord,’ William said with slow and deliberate menace, throwing the words in Richard’s face. ‘I may have no land, but as counsellor to His Grace I am but one of several and hold my trust as sacred.’

  The two men stood glaring at one another. It was as well that William’s physique matched Richard’s and while he was but a landless knight, his own reputation for prowess combined with his age and sincerity to compel Richard’s grudging respect.

  Richard grunted. ‘You know well that if I leave for Outremer and my father dies, John, who has made no move to take the cross, will succeed…’

  ‘No, my Lord, I do not.’ William said firmly, then dropped to one knee. ‘I for one should uphold your claim as better than your brother’s.’

  For some moments Richard stood stock-still, staring at the kneeling William who held his gaze, then Richard asked: ‘On the bones of Christ?’

  William swallowed. ‘I am the King’s man until he departs this life,’ he said with slow deliberation. ‘Thereafter I am yours.’

  ‘Get up!’ Richard commanded and turned to stare into the fire. William rose and waited, his heart thumping in his breast, intuitively aware that he had just done some great and consequential thing in his life, though whether for better or worse it was impossible to tell with this devil’s brood. Then, without looking at William, Richard remarked, ‘You have been to the Holy Land upon my late brother’s command.’

  ‘Aye, I have.’

  ‘And would you go again?’

  ‘As you remind me, my Lord, I have no land to hold me here and unless some great matter stayed my inclination, as at present it does, I should return thither.’

  Richard continued to stare into the fire before, at last, turning back to William. He nodded. ‘Very well. I shall think upon your words, FitzMarshal, but God and His angels have mercy upon you should you break your word to me.’

  ***

  ‘Well?’ The King was a-bed, propped up on wolf-skins with a priest and two clerks in attendance when William returned from Amboise. He wore a night-shirt agape at the neck where a crucifix rose and fell upon his breast.

  William made his obeisance. ‘I had discourse with my Lord Richard, Your Grace. At first he was unwilling to entertain hearing any message but I prevailed upon him to hear me.’ Here William faltered, well aware that he had far exceeded his diplomatic brief by promising Richard his fealty in the event of the death of the formidable man before him. Ill though he was, Henry was far from being a man to cross.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘He remains of the opinion that John is favoured, Your Grace, and although he promised to give my words his further consideration, I am not hopeful.’

  Henry swore and turned away. ‘Shit!’ William heard him growl as he clenched his right fist with his supressed anger. Then the King turned again to William. ‘My son can see no further than the nose upon his face,’ he said. ‘Philippe has entrapped him and will use him to his own ends.’

  ‘My Lord King I did everything in my power to persuade him to make his peace with you,’ William added, suddenly sorry for the old man whose life’s work was unravelling before his dying eyes.

  The King lay back with a sigh and nodded. ‘You have done your best Marshal and I thank you for it.’

  ‘Your Grace.’ William began to back away and had reached the door to the King’s chamber when Henry called him back. Motioning him to kneel so that only William could hear his words, Henry whispered, ‘promise me this William, that you will serve my House to the end of your days…’ Henry’s right hand rose to his breast and he fumbled with the crucifix on its plain leather thong, holding it out to William to kiss. ‘Give me your oath,’ the King commanded and William, moved almost to tears, did as he was bid.

  ‘Good,’ the King murmured as William rose. ‘You may go.’

  CHAPTER THREE: THE BROKEN LANCE 1188 - 1189

  Isolated and increasingly bed-ridden, Henry held his Christmas Court at Saumur where the absence of several of his senior vassals was an ominous augury of the future. There followed a restless progress through the heartland of the King’s ancestral domain of Anjou, from Saumur to Chinon. By Easter he lay at Angers, prostrated again by his illness, attended by his son John, a diminishing number of his nobles and William Marshal. At the end of Lent he summoned a number of his courtiers and knights to his bedside, William among them. It seemed that Henry was close to death and that he was attempting to secure the position of his successor by binding to his line a number of powerful nobles and to this end he requested that William relinquish his ward-ship of Heloise of Kendal in order for the King to bestow it upon another. Disappointed, William grimly acceded, witnessing the charter that partially wounded him.

  ‘You shall retain Cartmel,’ Henry said, his voice weak. ‘It is time that you married,
Marshal. You lack sufficient land. A man without land is nothing.’ William bit his tongue, thinking to have stood higher in the King’s esteem. ‘But you spurned the Lady of Kendal…’

  William was about to protest but Henry was smiling wanly.

  ‘But I have a match for you Marshal, a great heiress, the Lady Isabelle, daughter of Richard de Clare, Lord of Striguil on the southern Welsh march, astride the River Wye. She should better please you.’

  The King held out his hand and William knelt and kissed the great ring, murmuring his gratitude.

  ‘’Tis but a promise,’ William muttered when that evening FitzPeter congratulated him upon the ward-ship. ‘And, moreover, that of a dying King. Let us see…’

  ‘But Isabelle de Clare, William, daughter of Richard Strongbow, now there is a match. Do not neglect it, I beg you. It is more than a promise, for the Clerks have been ordered to draw up the charter in your favour, William,’ FitzPeter said with the authority of a lawyer, but William merely grunted. The prevailing gloom of the Court could not be denied and an English marriage seemed at that moment to be as elusive as catching moonbeams.

  ‘There is nothing remaining of even that little certainty that prevailed formerly,’ William growled as he called for wine and greeted Geoffrey FitzRobert and William Waleran who had joined him for their evening meal which they took in their lodgings now that the King was a-bed with his distemper. And it was of that upon which the conversation now turned.

  ‘At least a-bed he smells less of shit,’ remarked Waleran. ‘His women being handy to keep him clean.’

  ‘D’you know what ails him, my Lord?’

  William shrugged. ‘They say he is covered in ulcers and hath a great growth in his bowels…’

  ‘He has an anal fistula,’ put in FitzPeter knowledgably. ‘They say it will poison the blood in due course…’

  ‘A what?’ asked Waleran, a man of rough manners.

  ‘A fistula,’ responded FitzPeter, adding for the better information of the ignorant, ‘a hole in his arse.’

  ‘Well, we all have that,’ snapped Waleran, looking about him uncomprehending.