‘Every possible means of raising the sum demanded is in hand, my Lady. Hubert FitzWalter of Canterbury, and Richard FitzNeal are the custodians appointed to secure the sums in St Paul’s cathedral. Scutage and redemption at twenty shillings on a knight’s fee are being levied, there is a general tax on all chattels and revenues at one quarter thereof; the whole wool-crop of the Cistercian and Gilbertine abbeys has been sequestered, parish silver is to be surrendered…’
‘Enough,’ the Queen held up her hand. ‘Will this prove sufficient?’
William shook his head. ‘I do not think so, my Lady, for the sum is unprecedented…’
‘But it must be raised, FitzMarshal, for if we fail, Philippe will buy Richard and all will be lost.’
‘But there is more, Your Grace, I hear it said that to Duke Leopold’s demand of twenty-five thousand silver marks, the Emperor requires a further sum, a total of one hundred and fifty thousand marks.’
‘Philippe will never raise that much,’ Eleanor mused.
‘And his attempt to raise the French barons for a campaign into Normandy was rejected for fear of excommunication.’
‘Thank God for that, but he took Gisors,’ Eleanor pointed out, ‘and has since over-run the Vexin.’
‘But Robert of Leicester, holds Rouen yet, my Lady. The best that can be said is that we hear His Grace is not held in close durance. Duke Leopold has released him into the custody of the Emperor; he has sent for his hawks and several of his intimates have visited him. We have had report from William Briwerre, whom we sent to Worm to conduct negotiations that His Grace the King and the Emperor Heinrich are in amity.’
‘Perhaps something may be thereby rescued from this débâcle,’ Eleanor observed.
‘I fear mischief yet, Your Grace,’ William said solemnly.
‘John,’ responded the Queen shrewdly.
‘Aye, Madam. I fear so.’
Although he had no knowledge of it, besides the co-Justiciar Briwerre, another of Richard’s intimates visiting Richard at Worms, where he had held something of a Court, had been William Longchamp.
***
‘I had not thought I should live to see such a day,’ William growled to John de Earley as he rode the lines of the encampment. Although no longer William’s squire De Earley had assumed the role of William’s standard bearer when he had become Lord of Striguil, for the red lion rampant now no longer featured on the pennon of a knight banneret, but graced a gonfalon, halved green and pale gold.
‘Think these men a rabble or an army, my Lord?’ De Earley asked of William who, in full mail, rode a magnificent new destrier named Coeur de Lion in honour of the absent King Richard. Besides the batailles of mounted knights, the sergeants in their gambesons, the arbalestriers armed with their cross-bows and haubergon-clad foot-soldiers were numbers of common rustics armed with scythes and extemporised spears.
‘They will do well enough,’ William replied grimly.
The review to the east of London was the result of a great feudal levy, held in the wake of a huge mobilisation such as England had not seen since the Anarchy. It was but one part of a grand strategy to defeat the threatened invasion of King Philippe in support of Count John who had slipped back into England and ridden hard for Windsor where he had holed himself up in the castle there, claiming the English throne for himself. In the face of both rebellion within and invasion without, oaths of allegiance to Richard had been extracted wholesale. The London merchants and the Cinque Ports had provided ships to watch the Flemish ports where the enemy were assembled, ready to embark and within the kingdom, the aged Archbishop of Rouen, Walter des Coutances, had laid siege to John at Windsor. John’s garrison at Nottingham was likewise under siege while, further north, the even older Prince-Bishop of Durham, Hugh de Puiset, had dug-in before the Count’s stronghold at Tickhill. Marlborough, Lancaster and St Michael’s Mount were also invested or watched, pending besieging.
To substantiate his claim to the throne Count John had sent out heralds and messengers claiming that King Richard was dead. No-one on the Council of State believed the rumoured was true, not least because there were several inconsistent versions of it, but it gained ground elsewhere persuading those who owned fealty to Count John that it was Hubert FitzWalter and the co-Justiciars who had seized power.
More credible to the Councillors in the White Tower was the story that followed John out of France, for it rang with the truth of the Count’s duplicitous character; moreover, it was soon confirmed. Despite his betrothal to Isabelle of Gloucester, it was learned, that while fawning at Philippe’s Court, out of policy John had married the Lady Alice, only to renounce her the following day.
‘But he said himself she was no longer a virgin,’ an incredulous Bardolf had said.
‘What a purblind fool the man is,’ Des Coutances had remarked to everybody and no-one as the Council had broken-up and its members – with the exception of Bardolf - had departed London to implement the provisions they had decided upon. ‘He would throw all away by his intemperance.’
‘But this places him in King Philippe’s camp,’ persisted Bardolf in his dismay.
‘Aye, Alice’s bed is too close to Philippe’s, Master Hugh, you must watch your liege Lord for fear he shall drag you to hell.’
‘Or the devil in Richard catches you by your tail,’ William had added pointedly.
‘Well, messieurs,’ Des Coutances had put in, ‘pity the Lady Alice. She has been ill-used.’
‘So has England,’ William had growled as the orders were issued to rouse the country against Count John and those whom he had summoned to his cause. As a last resort the Council had despatched a herald with a heavy escort of knights from William’s mesnie to summon Count John from Windsor to appear before them in London but he had returned a defiant answer, hence the general demand for affirmations of oaths of allegiance to Richard.
They had excused Hugh Bardolf, dismissed him from their board and, with great firmness three of the four co-Justiciars announced the sequestration of all Count John’s English lands in the name of King Richard and took up arms against the Count.
Throwing off his cope, Des Coutances had belted on his sword and summoned his own knights as William had passed word for the great levy and drew up the plan of campaign, summoning those Barons known to be loyal to Richard and ignoring all those who, like Curtmantle’s uncertain and pusillanimous Norman vassals sitting on their fence at Alençon, awaited the outcome of events.
Largely ignorant of Richard’s diplomacy on the continent in which he sought and made alliances against Philippe, William’s actions in taking up arms against Count John represented a technical revolt against his liege-lord in Leinster but the imperative of securing England for Richard’s return over-bore all. Bardolf pleaded a more delicate conscience and, likewise owing allegiance to John, demurred and received his quittance. But if William and his fellow Justiciars were ignorant of the abasement of John who, prior to his return to England had secured an alliance with King Philippe, they were not insensible to its implications. If he was frustrated in damaging Richard, Philippe could destroy his presumed heir, ‘with a fatal and fraternal bear-hug,’ was how Des Coutances expressed it. In this way Philippe, having seized the Norman Vexin, now filched further Norman territory and, to the south, Touraine, thrusting ever westwards towards the Angevin heartland of Anjou.
But while John de Earley marvelled at the sight of the assembled war-host as William and his retinue rode down the lines, William was counting the cost. His many months of acting as co-Justiciar, added to his new role as Lord of Striguil and the stewardship of the lands he had by way of Isabelle de Clare, taxed him both mentally and financially. His personal clerks, men recommended by FitzPeter, even FitzPeter himself, assisted him in this complex and unfamiliar task, making up for his lack of literacy and numeracy. However, as well as the additions and improvements to his own castles, he had borne the brunt of ordering the immediate strengthening of no less than thirty-three castles
as a result of Count John’s opportunistic rebellion. The financial cost had been supervised by Archbishop FitzWalter, the co-commissioner for raising Richard’s ransom and a man Des Coutances now drew into the Council of State itself. William was wary of FitzWalter for he was in close touch with the ousted Longchamp who had been negotiating with the Emperor in Richard’s behalf and insidiously rehabilitating himself by proving indispensible to the absent King. As for Count John, the author of their present predicament, William could see only the slippery treachery and blind opportunism that so characterised the sons of Henry Curtmantle.
‘The bastard has earned whatever befalls,’ he had growled to FitzPeter as that worthy reluctantly donned mail to join William in the review of the great levy. No soldier but supported by others, FitzPeter was to assume nominal command of the force once William had completed his present duty.
William sighed, recalling himself to the present. It was beginning to rain and the war-host was as readied as it could be. He looked at the darkening sky; the rain was borne on a wind and the wind was from the west. Philippe’s ships and his Flemish mercenaries were unlikely to trouble them for some time yet, if at all. He turned in his saddle and nodded to the knights of his mesnie to disperse. ‘I thank you messieurs for your duty. I am confident,’ he said, raising his voice that his comment might be heard by others and thereby passed throughout the camp, ‘when he hears of our grande bataille, as he surely must, King Philippe will not come when it is Normandy and Anjou that he most wants.’
A murmur of assent ran through those closest to him, then John de Earley jinked his destrier forward and, standing in his stirrups, raised William’s gonfalon. ‘For King Richard and the Marshal!’ he bawled.
‘King Richard! The Marshal!’
They took up the cry and it spread through the ranks, reverberating back to the knot of horsemen forming William’s mesnie who echoed it, some flourishing drawn swords.
‘King Richard! The Marshal!’
Wheeling his charger De Earley returned to William’s side, his broad face split from ear to ear by a grin.
William’s expression was sardonic. ‘I thank you for the courtesy, John, but by God I know not how long we must maintain this war-host, nor what its cost will be in victuals.’
‘Thank God it is a feudal levy of true-born Englishmen, my Lord, and no mercenary horde,’ De Earley responded cheerfully.
***
‘My Lord is not pleased?’
William turned from the contemplation of his second son, whose wrinkled face had drawn from his the unhappiest of memories, and stared at Isabelle. She lay on the pillow, her beautiful auburn tresses spread about her face.
‘Forgive me, Isabelle, I am well pleased, well pleased. If I seemed distracted I was thinking…’
He had arrived at Chepstow Castle earlier that day, after a hard ride from Gloucester as he made his tour of the west.
‘I know this rebellion has much preoccupied you…’
‘’Twas not that of which I thought,’ William said with a sad smile, looking at his wife. ‘I was thinking of my own boyhood, being the second born and unwanted.’
Isabelle frowned. ‘Unwanted, William, how so?’ She patted the skins covering the bed and he sat and took her hand.
‘I have never told you.’
‘We spend so little time together…’
William chuckled in an attempt to lighten his mood. He did not wish to burden Isabelle with memories of his childhood and, rarely giving the matter any thought, had been surprised by the strength of the emotional tug on seeing his second born son for the first time. ‘We spend enough time together to beget sons,’ he jested.
‘Tell me,’ she persisted.
‘What, of my mother, or of Angharad ap Gwyn who was better than a mother to me?’
‘Of them both, of them all…’
And for an hour he sat on the bed and related the circumstances of his boyhood as the afternoon drew on and the sun westered, casting Isabelle’s chamber in the keep of Chepstow castle into deep shadow. When he had finished he seemed to return from a far distance, looking about him as though he had never seen the place before.
‘What is it William?’ Isabelle asked, seeing the shadow cross his face.
‘’Tis nothing, only that…’
‘Only that?’ she prompted.
‘Only that my mother, Sybil, sister to Patrick, Earl of Salisbury, gave birth to me in a chamber far inferior to this… Are you happy Isabelle?’
‘Why, my Lord, why should I not be?’
‘Because my mother was not happy and it was as much that she married my father as she bore me…’
‘The “Imp of Satan,” ’ Isabelle jested.
‘Aye,’ replied William solemnly, ‘the “Imp of Satan.” ’
‘No, I do not regret my marriage to you, my Lord,’ Isabelle said after a moment’s reflection. ‘Your mother may have been Sybil of Salisbury, but she was not Isabelle de Clare.’
‘Perhaps it is because you are Isabelle de Clare that I ask.’
‘Such questions, William.’ She dismissed his concern and asked, ‘What shall we call the boy. Methinks Richard; Richard, for the King. What think you of that husband?’
He smiled at her. ‘Richard, eh?’ He considered the matter a moment, then nodded. ‘Yes, Richard is fine.’
They were interrupted by a knock at the chamber door and Isabelle’s hand-maid Susannah announced the arrival of a courier. William rose from the bed and slowly withdrew his hand from his wife’s. ‘I am sorry we get so little time together,’ he said, smiling sadly down at her. She returned his smile and watched as, pausing to take a peek at the wrinkled boy in his cradle, he made to leave the chamber when Isabelle called after him.
‘William!’ He half-turned at the door. ‘He carries no birth-mark.’
‘Thanks be to God,’ said William nodding, leaving the door for the waiting Susannah to re-enter her mistress’s room.
William found the messenger in the hall below. He was not what he had expected, a courier from London, recalling William from the inspection of the improvement works of the castles in the west upon which he had been engaged by the Council. While the threat from Philippe had abated on the news that Richard had been released from captivity, that from an ever more desperate John had yet to be dealt with.
The man had a plain, rustic look about him, oddly familiar, yet somehow alien. William was wary. It was not beyond Count John to send such a man bent on murder of one of his enemies, for Count John had his back against the wall
‘My Lord Marshal,’ the man said, making his obeisance.
‘Aye. What conference would you have with me?’ William kept his distance, annoyed with himself for not even carrying a dagger. He thought of calling for De Earley, but the messenger, a sergeant-at-arms by his habiliments, quickly relieved him of his anxiety and replaced it with something akin to regret.
‘My Lord, I bring you news of your brother’s death.’
‘My brother? John?’
‘Aye, my Lord.’
‘I am sorry to hear of it. May God have mercy upon his soul.’ William crossed himself, asking, ‘where did he die?’
‘At Marlborough, my Lord, with the Lady Aline. It was she who directed me hither.’
William nodded. ‘I see.’
Marlborough Castle was one of John’s, and his brother had been close to Count John at one time, but there was no point in dwelling on that. Calling for his steward William had the man taken to the kitchen, fed and given a bed for the night. He withdrew himself to his small private chamber and knelt in prayer, but could summon little feelings of grief for brother John. John had always been his parents’ darling and in the spoiling of him had formed a man for which, even in adult life, William could find little love for. Odd that, not an hour since, he had been ruminating on his childhood. He wondered about John’s wife, the Lady Aline de Port. There had been no children and so, he realised slowly, after being cut-out of their father’s wi
ll and John having denied William anything, he had, in the end, inherited what remained of old John’s estates and title of the King’s Marshal. Not that the lack of it, like the lack of an Earldom upon his marriage to Isabelle de Clare, had either affected him or the mode by which he was addressed or known. The great levy in Essex had shown that, with John de Earley riding out like a moonstruck page-boy to raise cheers for Richard and the Marshal. But now, unless Richard deprived him of it, he was without doubt the Marshal of England and, instead of mourning his brother, he rose from his feet in lighter mood than when contemplating his second son’s birth.
For a moment he reproached himself, dropped to one knee and said a hurried Paternoster. Crossing himself again he rose to his feet. Then he sighed. ‘Tomorrow,’ he murmured to himself, his shoulders sagging with a sudden weariness, ‘tomorrow I must needs ride to Marlborough when I would rather watch my Lady Isabelle and the boy a-suckling.’
But William never rode to Marlborough, nor saw his elder brother buried, for hard on the heels of the messenger from the Lady Aline came three knights and a dozen sergeants-at-arms from London who clattered up to the half-built new gatehouse of Chepstow Castle and demanded entry in the name of King Richard. Brought before the Lord of Striguil they announced that, three days earlier, on the 3rd March 1194, King Richard had landed at Sandwich in Kent.
‘You are commanded to attend the King’s presence in London, my Lord,’ he handed William a small parchment, sealed with red and bearing – for by now William was familiar with the name – the sign manual of Archbishop Hubert FitzWalter.
‘The King is come home,’ he told Isabelle when he visited her that evening, ‘and tomorrow I must leave for London.’
‘What of your brother’s widow?’ his wife enquired.
‘I must send John de Earley thither. He will do what must be done.’
Isabelle extended her hand and he knelt at the bedside and kissed it. ‘You are worthy of Strongbow’s daughter, my William,’ she said, smiling tiredly. ‘The Earldom must follow when God wills it.’
William Marshal Guardian of England- The Complete Series Page 40