The crudity mollified Richard. His shoulders rose and fell with less frequency and William realised the root of his great and fearless courage in battle was rooted in his temper. Slowly Richard turned his head and recognised William.
‘Would that I had castrated him but in the withholding of my hand…’ William sensed Richard was marvelling at his own restraint as his words tailed off.
‘He was the Papal Legate, my Liege,’twould have done no good.’
‘It would have taught the bastard a lesson for he is adept at trickery.’
‘Aye, my Liege, but you left him with a face as yellow as a kite’s claw.’
‘Did I?’ Richard caught his breath and held up an arm for William to help him to his feet. ‘My God, Marshal, but I am surrounded by perfidy.’
‘Not quite surrounded, my Liege,’ William said, adding, ‘make peace with Philippe and buy time. It can only do your own cause good. The Pope’s plea will unseat Philippe more than Your Grace.’
The King stared at William for a moment then clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You are right, Marshal, you are right.’ Richard called for wine and as William made his obeisance, jested, ‘if you continue to be right I shall have to place a belt about you.’
‘As Your Grace pleases,’ William replied.
***
But there was little peace to be had. Richard sent the Bishop of Beauvais’s coat of mail, stained by blood, to Rome and went, once more, to war. In the months that followed Richard, with William at his side and his military engineers led by Uffric managing his petraries, trebuchets and mangonels, attempted to bring the war to a conclusion. The Norman Vexin still lay in Philippe’s hands and Richard, in concert with William and his senior Barons and Uffric, began a complex and hideously expensive strategic programme designed to secure for all time the Vexin. A wet-dock was dug out of the water meadows of the Seine at Les Anderlys and to protect it, high on a near-by rock work began on the building of a massive fortress christened Chateau Galliard, the ‘Castle of Impudence’. But although a master of siege warfare Richard did not neglect the chevauchée, sending out fast hit-and-run raiding parties aimed at rendering opposition to him null and void.
As the works at Les Anderlys and Chateau Galliard continued, in May 1197, the King’s forces made a raid deep into the Beauvaisis. Leaving the routier chief, Mercadier, to attack the city of Beauvais due east of Rouen, William, with Count John, assaulted the castle of Milli-sur-Thérain some six miles to the north-west. As the attackers escaladed the walls, the scaling ladders were hurled back, the defenders using flails, forks as well as knives and bows. Flung back, the ladders breaking under the strain, hurled men into the ditches below where they writhed in an agony of broken limbs. The assault had conspicuously failed and its repulse was accompanied by shouts and cries of glee and insult. Having been thrust back from the ramparts, one ladder remained near vertical, its base jammed in some rocks, shaking as it shed all its load but one, a Flemish knight who clung to its upper rungs, his body transfixed by a fork.
No more than a few feet from them and almost on a level, the Fleming now served as a target for a group of bowmen who shot at him repeatedly, though he clung on through some perverse reflex.
‘Come FitzMarshal,’ John said, watching with William from the far side of the ditch, ‘we can do no more.’
‘God’s blood!’ roared William, ‘I do not take a castle as you do,’ he leapt forward and leaving John open mouthed at the effrontery, calling for more scaling ladders and his household knights, William shouted, ‘follow me who will!’ and impetuously led the first ladder party forward. As the foot-soldiers placed the ladder in the bottom of the ditch, William leapt on it and as it reached the vertical he climbed as fast as his mail allowed. Towards the top his weight carried the ladder through its final arc with such rapidity that the upper end crashed against the ramparts with a shudder and William leapt down amid the enemy. Most were still distractedly taking pot-shots at their sitting duck who by now hung like St Sebastian, pierced by arrows, ‘like a hedgehog,’ as John de Earley afterwards observed. As they realised a large knight had suddenly appeared in their midst they turned on William who, kicking the nearest man aside, lugged out his sword.
With wide-sweeps of his weapon, William swiftly cut down the unarmoured and astonished bowmen. He was too quick and too close for them to use their bows and only a few had the opportunity to draw their knives so that, within a minute, William had cleared the vicinity of the head of the ladder and was receiving the support of his followers. De Earley and John Marshal were soon beside him as the castellan and a party of armed knights came running towards them and a furious mélêe took place. As William and his followers continued to keep the defenders at bay and a portion of the ramparts clear, other scaling ladders appeared and more and more of the Angevins were coming over the top of the stonework.
Now out of breath, William was confronted by an approaching knight running towards him. William hefted his sword and took a mighty swing at the knight’s head; he felt his sword blade bite as it cut through helm and the mail coif beneath. The man fell with a clatter and William looked about him. His men had almost cleared the ramparts and were already forcing their way down the steps leading up to them. Winded by the fury of his exertions, William sat down upon the body of the fallen knight who still lived and caught his belabouring breath. It was there that John de Earley found him ten minutes later.
‘The place is ours, my Lord,’ he said simply, bending to wipe the gore from the blade of his sword on the fallen Castellan’s surtout before sheathing it. With a tired gesture William held up his own weapon and a grinning De Earley did the same for his master.
‘I am grown too old for such adventures, John,’ he remarked.
‘It should have been Count John who led such a bold assault, my Lord Marshal.’
William chuckled, ‘I do not think he has it in him,’ he replied.
‘No,’ responded De Earley, laughing. ‘We had better open the gate that he may ride in like a conqueror.’
‘Aye,’ said William, getting to his feet with a groan. ‘Who is this fellow?’ he asked, looking down at his still breathing opponent.
‘He wears the device of Guillaume de Monceaux, my Lord, the Constable of this place,’ De Earley informed him.
‘Well, you shall have the ransoming of him John.’
When he heard of it, King Richard upbraided William for reviving the faltering assault on Milli-sur-Thérain. ‘A knight of such eminence and my field commander should not expose himself, my Lord Marshal. It deprives the younger men of an opportunity to gain prowess.’
‘The younger man who was your commander in the field,’ William said pointedly, ‘was for giving up, my Liege, as for my being a man of eminence, you speak of one who was an Earl, not a mere Banneret.’
Richard looked at him sharply, then smote his thigh and broke into a laugh. ‘We’ll see, Marshal, we’ll see…’
But Richard had other priorities, both for himself and William. Having secured the south by a marriage of his younger sister Joanne to the Count of Toulouse, Richard sought an alliance with Count Baldwin IX of Flanders, and sent William as part of the delegation to seek this. William had known the new Count’s father and had received fiefs at St Omer until they had been lost to Philippe, so he had an interest in suborning Baldwin from his traditional alliance with the French King. Accompanied by John Marshal, among others, and laden with gifts and the promise of money, William and his fellow negotiators succeeded in prising Baldwin from the French King’s side.
***
The campaigning of that year of 1197 sputtered out as the contending forces retired into winter quarters. Richard had almost completely recovered the lands lost by John, but from Rouen he eyed the portion of the Norman Vexin that remained in Philippe’s hands and urged on the works at Chateau Galliard and Les Anderlys. If the Vexin gnawed at the King’s bowels, the year ended with one distinct feather in Richard’s cap when he was released f
rom his oath of allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor by Heinrich as he lay upon his death-bed.
‘England is mine again,’ he confided to William, betraying the underlying anxiety he had borne, and of which he knew William had disapproved.
‘I am right glad to know that, my Liege.’
Both William and the King rode frequently along the banks of the Seine and the building of the new castle rose above its rock, pushing the construction through the winter months so that, by the opening of the campaigning season of the new year the place should be finished, though the cost at twelve thousand pounds was staggering. As the King inspected the building, William encouraged the small force of mounted knights and sergeants-at-arms who covered the rising ramparts from any raid by Philippe’s forces.
‘So, my Lord Marshal,’ Richard said, addressing the problem of the coming campaign as they returned to Rouen after one such review, ‘you know our problem well enough.’
‘Aye, my Liege, Gisors.’
Richard nodded. ‘Gisors. A mighty enough fortress, which would not trouble me other than that it is too easily relieved if we lay siege to it, so, we move all our might into the armed camp at Les Anderlys which will be admirably covered by Chateau Galliard and from there move small columns into the Norman Vexin gradually isolating all Philippe’s posts therein.’
‘A war of encroachment,’ William responded.
‘Aye, and if we prove successful then every minor fortress in the Vexin will be isolated and eventually capitulate, and if Philippe sends out a mighty chevauchée…’
‘We simply retire into the fastness at Les Anderlys and Galliard, then sally and strike at his over-extended lines and cut him off.’
Richard laughed. ‘We are of one mind.’
‘Why should we not be?’ William asked, smiling.
In the campaign which followed Richard’s war-host ravaged the land, terrified the peasantry and finally met Philippe in open battle near Gisors. Fought near a crossing of the River Epte the fighting was furious, Richard rode unattended into the mass of French chivalry and engaged, unseated and captured three knights. William was not present at the battle of Gisors, Richard having left him and his household at Chateau Galliard to cover his rear, but Philippe’s army was completely routed and flung back over the Epte, the bridge over which collapsed under the weight of fleeing and panic-stricken men. Afterwards Richard, having recovered the Vexin, boasted that he had made Philippe ‘drink the waters of the Epte,’ but complete though his victory over the French King was, the King was not left to enjoy his triumph.
The death of Pope Celestine III was followed by the installation of Innocent III who took up his predecessor’s plea for a new crusade. Archbishop Hubert FitzWalter crossed to Rouen, leaving the government of England in the hands of a sole Jusiticiar, William’s old friend Geoffrey FitzPeter.
FitzWalter negotiated yet another truce, ostensibly for five years, between Richard and Philippe but the confirmation of Richard as Lord of all his father’s lands was swiftly disrupted by news of a rebellion in the Limousin where Viscount Aimery of Limoges, having concluded a secret treaty with the ever devious Philippe, repudiated Richard as his overlord. The young nobleman had been stirred-up by Bertran de Born, ‘a vile treasonous troubadour who cloaks his intrigues in honey words and would kill his mother for her jewels,’ Richard complained.
‘I know him of old, My Liege. A treacherous bastard to be sure, and one whom I should have best sent to his death long since.
‘God’s strewth, Marshal,’ Richard snarled as he outlined his plan to deal with Aimery, ‘it seems I must put Aimery in his grave ere I can sit down to meat and drink, let alone set the Holy Places free of the infidel. I must and shall leave you here, in Normandy, for I do not trust that fox in Paris, while I, by the Holy Rood, despatch this insolent upstart and devastate the bastard and his land with sword and fire.’ Richard rose and William stood aside as he moved to leave his chamber. Then Richard turned and indicated the desk, full of parchments. ‘There are ducal pleas to be heard, here in Rouen and at Vaudreuil; do you watch my rear and see to them. The clerks will assist you.’
The following morning William watched Richard ride south before turning to the duties of justice and administration that the King had left him with. He was disappointed not to accompany Richard as his trusted companion-in-arms, but sensed that Richard felt the discomfiting of Aimery of Limoges was no great matter while compelling William – whom Richard knew was illiterate – to some sort of administrative and judicial test, preparing him for the honour of an Earldom.
***
After years of warfare William found the Ducal court at Vaudreuil dull. He had a fair grasp of the Common Law as established by Henry Curtmantle and Richard’s clerks did his reading for him, but the sheer volume of cases, many held over during the vacillations of open warfare endured by rich and poor alike, made his task a heavy one.
Heavy cloud-banks drew a curtain of premature darkness over the city one afternoon in late March 1199 as William sat in judgement in the great hall. Outside a rising wind presaged rain and the doors had been fast shut so that, although not late, candles had been lit and torches set in the sconces. The atmosphere had grown soporific, heated by the clerks setting out their cases and three hours had been spent on a land-dispute before William had the easier duty of condemning three men to death for stealing livestock. The preliminary arguments for the next case were in progress when the door to the great hall flew open and a gust of wind swept across the clerks’ tables, lifting documents and scattering them, to the scrambling consternation and indignation of the black-clad law-officers.
One had been whispering a brief of the plea into William’s ear when he looked up at the disturbance. Two knights, in both coifs and coats of mail, strode into the hall and advanced directly towards William on his elevated chair.
‘My Lord Marshal…’
The two men dropped on one knee and handed William a rolled and sealed document which he immediately passed to his confidential clerk and bid the two men to rise.
‘What means this intrusion?’ William asked.
‘The King, my Lord, is grievously wounded,’ one of the knights said, getting to his feet.
William was shocked. Ordering the court cleared and all cases and pleas suspended, William withdrew with the knights and his clerk, who bore the written message. When the four of them were alone, William asked: ‘How and where did this happen?’
‘At Chaluz, my Lord. The castle was within a day of falling to our arms and His Grace went out to reconnoitre prior to making a final assault when a cross-bowman spotted him…’
‘Was he armoured?’ William broke in.
‘No, my Lord, not beyond his light coat of mail and with but one companion…’
‘God’s blood,’ snarled William, grinding his teeth with fury at Richard’s stupidity.
‘It was dusk, my Lord,’ the knight explained, seeing William’s suppressed fury.
‘Go on,’ William growled.
The arbalestrier aimed his quarrel well and it drove deep into the King’s left shoulder. Though the head has been extracted, the wound is thought be poisoned and like to mortify…’
‘Christ Jesu,’ whispered William rising to his feet and going to the casement where he crossed himself, the thoughts tumbling about in his head. A heavy silence hung in the room then William asked of the clerk, ‘what does the letter say?’
The clerk cleared his throat. ‘That it is the King’s will that you return to Rouen and secure the city and his treasury there, My Lord.’
‘Aye, aye…’ said William nodding, thinking fast. Then turning to the two knights he asked, ‘the Queen Eleanor is at Fontevrault, has word been sent to her?’
‘Aye, my Lord. She is called to the King’s side.’
William nodded again. ‘Very well. You shall have meat and wine and a bed this night, then, upon the morrow, I would have you return to Chaluz and from there keep me informed.’ He turned to his cle
rk. ‘We ride for Rouen at once, round-up your fellows and send John de Earley to me.’
With his mesnie and household William was at Rouen the following night and here he told only Archbishop FitzWalter of the King’s plight. For days they waited, preserving to all outward appearances an air of normality, though their private discussions were all about the succession and the uncertainties and likely disaster that would befall the Angevins should Richard’s wound prove fatal. Day followed day then, one evening in mid-April, as William prepared to retire for the night, the news that he had most feared arrived by the hand of the same brace of knights whom he had seen at Vaudrueil.
‘The Lionheart is dead, my Lord.’
Crossing himself, William drew on his discarded leggings, put on his shoes and wrapped his cloak about him. Ten minutes later he was at the door of the Archbishop’s lodgings demanding to see FitzWalter. William’s face told the Archbishop all he needed to know and William handed the parchment brought by the knights to FitzWalter for him to read.
FitzWalter sat and scanned it in silence then set it down and called for wine, looking up at William. ‘Do you sit, my Lord Marshal. You do not know what is herein?’ William shook his head. ‘He named Count John his successor,’ FitzWalter said, shaking his head.
All the worst features of the two men’s arguments of the previous days now confronted them.
‘You were right in your supposition, William,’ FitzWalter said sorrowfully. ‘So shall you cleave to Richard’s instruction or do what seems better for the Kingdom?’
‘How say you, Geoffrey?’ William countered.
‘As I have repeatedly reasoned, the argument for Arthur as son of Count John’s older brother is strong…’
‘Maybe for Normandy, Aquitaine and the rest, but even so he is but a boy and will succumb to Philippe. As for England he will prove useless and an untrammelled, un-enfiefed England is to whence we must look. There lies your See, Walter, and all your influence and power.’
‘But you William could stand Guardian or Regent for the boy Arthur,’ FitzWalter suggested.
William Marshal Guardian of England- The Complete Series Page 44