William Marshal Guardian of England- The Complete Series

by Richard Woodman

  In obedience to the King’s order William was obliged to ride to London to negotiate the loan from the Templars. Here he saw Langton for the last time as the Prelate prepared to leave England; as for William’s meeting with the English Master of the Temple, only his friendship with Aimery St Maur, his personal pledges and the high esteem in which St Maur held him, secured what John wanted.

  Before he left, on a sacred plea, William was privately admitted into the Order as a lay-brother. Long troubled by the imperilment of his soul in John’s service, the Interdict laid upon him by Ailbe of Ferns and aware that his age and uncertainties of the coming months gave urgency to such matters, he had sought the spiritual advice of both Langton and St Maur. Keeping vigil before the high altar of the New Temple church, he made the most solemn oaths upon his knighthood that he strove to do always what was right.

  As he parted company from St Maur, the Templar said, ‘my Lord, I have issued a laissez passer for your son William. I hope that you will find him at Caversham.’

  William looked down from his horse. ‘Upon what business?’ he asked, knowing how dangerous it was for it to be known that the two of them were in any kind of communication.

  ‘He will explain.’

  Although William returned to Caversham to find William, restlessly awaiting his father’s return from London, his Countess had already gone. He would have much liked to see her familiar face; instead he stared at its pale image, reflected in the visage of his son and heir.

  ‘What do you do here?’ William asked, ‘adding, ‘right glad though I am to see you.’

  ‘I came to warn you of the danger that lies in the west. Our party,’ the younger man explained, flushing at the use of the expression that differentiated him from his father. ‘Our party have raised the Welsh Princes and I come only to warn you of the possible losses our family may suffer as a consequence.’

  William grunted, then asked, ‘Your mother has gone to Chepstow?’

  ‘Aye, father.’

  ‘And have you more to impart.’

  The young William seemed to be wrestling with some inner conflict before he blurted out, ‘Aye, and I should not speak of such things to the King’s confidant but that they touch us…’

  ‘As a family?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, go on.’

  ‘It is the intention of my party to offer the throne of England to Prince Louis, Dauphin of France. They,’ he paused, then corrected himself, ‘we invoke the sixty-first clause of the Magna Carta and, by a Council of Twenty-Five, have already ruled John an unfit person to rule England.’ William stared at his son, thinking fast, but the younger man took it for a reproach, adding anxiously: ‘You would have heard of this soon enough, but it must not be known that I told you, or that I came hither to speak with you…’ he paused. ‘If I have acted improperly, father…’

  ‘No, no,’ William responded, putting out his hand to reassure his heir. ‘Irrespective of my loyalty to the King’s party,’ he said quietly, with just a hint of irony, ‘I must hold Wales and Leinster, if I can. But, Will, mark my words with care: whichever way matters fall out, you or Richard must have clear title to my Norman lands which I fear I shall never see again. However, hear also that as long as I live I shall, I must, cleave to John, for it is to him that I owe all my puissance and you your patrimony in England, even though I must needs die in harness to his House…’

  ‘Speak not of death, father…’

  William smiled, looking his son full in the face. ‘I do, Will. I am an old man. It cannot be far-off now. All my old comrades are dead and the world belongs to men like you. I am sorry for your being held hostage but you were far older than I was when my father, God rest his soul, sent me into the camp of King Stephen and left me there for so long that I would almost have forgotten what your grandfather looked like had he not borne the scars of terrible burns and been thus made memorable…’ William’s voice trailed off, then he bethought himself of his duties as a host. ‘Come, you will dine with me before you go, I will send for wine…’

  ‘No father! I must go now. I have men not far away and I would not give them over-much to chew on.’ Young William knelt. ‘But I would have your blessing father, before we both surrender our persons as hostages to fortune.’

  ‘You have a golden tongue, Will, like your mother, God bless you.’

  William crossed himself and laid his right hand upon his son’s head. The hair was soft and warm, like Isabelle’s, and he felt a wrenching of his gut as he muttered the Latin blessing he had learned by rote. ‘And now farewell,’ he said, his voice catching as he raised Will up and clasped him in his arms. ‘We are both in God’s hands now.’

  Then the lad was gone, leaving his father standing alone, and lonely, in the hall of the manor-house, lit by the lancing beams of a setting sun in which the dust-motes danced as if in mockery of the ambitions of men. William looked about him and unconsciously emitted a long sigh, touched by the wings of time.

  *

  Two days later William was again in the King’s presence where all was a-bustle. His visit to London had confirmed what John had told him, that bands of Flemish mercenaries had been arriving in the Channel ports, at first in small numbers, but in a gradual accrual that suggested even the funds William had negotiated with Aimery St Maur would be inadequate to cover their employment. John, nevertheless, was again in high good humour and had summoned William only to discuss the coming campaign. Demonstrating his strategic competence as much as his political nous when it was required, a sober and cunning John played William like a fish.

  ‘Well, my Lord of Pembroke,’ he said with a smile, ‘here is warm work for the two of us.’

  ‘My Liege?’

  ‘The Welsh, my Lord Earl, have had the impudence to come out of their fastnesses in Ceredigion and push their power into the southern March. Ranulph of Chester shall deal with them from the north, but I imagine you will be pleased to clear them out of your domain, and when you have done so, you will advance into England and hold it in my name. Meanwhile, I shall to Dover, where I have a force mustering and thence north, to drive the rebellious bastards before me.’ John smiled triumphantly. ‘We have at last Papal approval and an Interdict laid upon our enemy instead, just as I promised. We both now march under God’s banner, my Lord Earl, and already fear for their immortal souls has encouraged a score or so of the rebels to seek my pardon for fear of losing their temporal lands along with their immortal souls.’

  There was a malign gleefulness in John’s features which both reminded William of his lineage and recalled the excesses of his life. William remembered too, the stories of the King’s Devil-worship. He also thought of Langton and that, though John basked in the Pope’s approval, Langton’s adherence to the Magna Carta kept him absent from his episcopal throne in Canterbury.

  *

  It was two weeks before William, at the head of his personal escort, followed Isabelle west arriving at the great donjon above the River Wye where he learned more of the combination of the Welsh Princes. Taking advantage of the King’s distraction and led by Maelgwyn ap Rhys and Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, the Welsh rebels had driven deep into the Southern March. It was as well William had bethought of his soul while in London, for the late summer, autumn and winter of that dreadful year were uniformly bad for his fortunes. He lost land to the Welsh incursion along the boundary of the entire north-western March, from Pembroke to Carmarthen, the rebel Princes striking as far south as the Gower. All William and his castellans could do was hold fast to their fortresses and watch the distant smoke rise above villages that were, nominally at least, under their protection but whose overlord could do nothing to defend.

  For some weeks William lay in ignorance of the King’s whereabouts, though he sent Edgar and an escort into England to maintain communications with Gloucester. There was talk of a siege at Rochester, but no certainty of an outcome. Meanwhile William despatched strong parties of knights to keep up a show of force throughout G
lamorgan and some, at least, of Pembrokeshire. These were too powerful to attract attack by the Welsh but even so, the occasional messenger rode desperately into Chepstow from the west with news of dropping food-stocks in William’s castles, urgent requests for relief and tales of rapine beyond the immediate fastnesses of their ramparts. Meanwhile, an ominous silence from across the twin barriers of the Wye and Severn had its own connotations.

  For all his desire to enjoy an old man’s simple pleasures at the side of his Countess with his younger children, William cursed his enforced inactivity. From time-to-time he himself rode out at the head of a column, leading his household knights, mounted men-at-arms, archers and foot-soldiers, on an intimidating sally, but such bold measures, if they achieved anything at all, only demonstrated his weakness as a Marcher Lord. For the most part it was necessary to direct others and his strategy could be nothing other than cautious, reactive and piece-meal. He relieved only a handful of his and the King’s loyal fortresses, and only those closest to Chepstow; in doing so his quartering of so large a following upon the countryside only turned the villeins against him and the King’s party. It was, William realised, a return to the dark days of ‘the Anarchy’ which he had witnessed as a child-hostage of King Stephen. Besides, first the autumnal rains were upon them, and then winter’s snow.

  But as the weeks passed news filtered into Chepstow, news speaking of the King’s successes, though even this was tinged with darkness. John’s achievements came at the expense of ransacking whole towns, the seizure of money and the unnecessary brutality of putting women and children to the sword in a reign of terror across England. Having mustered a powerful army of foreign mercenaries at Dover, John had crossed the River Medway and that September conducted a patient and successful siege of Rochester Castle. The fortress had been held in the name of Archbishop Langton, now considered among the rebels for his adherence to the clauses of the Magna Carta. During the siege John’s troops had fought-off a relieving column sent by the rebel Barons and, once Rochester had fallen to his arms, the King had marched north. Deliberately skirting London he had made for St Alban’s, his ill-disciplined army gaining a reputation for cruelty that increased with every mile it advanced.

  The Barons’ forces had quailed before this assault and withdrew northwards whilst, in the north of England, the northern Barony had invited King Alexander of Scotland to support them. The young warrior-king had occupied the northern counties of Westmoreland, Cumberland and Northumberland. By the late autumn the Scots army lay in its siege lines before Norham castle. In response John had continued to advanced northwards, spending Christmas at Nottingham while thick snow covered the country.

  For William, Christmas 1215 was as miserable and wretched as had been Christ’s natal day ten years earlier, after John had retreated from Normandy having lost his hereditary Angevin lands to Philippe Augustus. But for John, it looked as though the military tide had turned in his favour, though the King’s jubilation was cut short when he learned that the increasingly desperate Barons had sent an embassy to Paris. Shortly afterwards the King sent an escorted messenger to Chepstow, appraising William of the situation. The Dauphin had been invited to assume the title of King of England and that Saer de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, had bowed the knee at the Court of Philippe Capet and offered his son the English Crown.

  It was the culmination of William’s fears and he was warned by the King to prepare to defend the south of England. Meanwhile, the King continued his advance north, laying waste every town through which he passed. Bereft of money he told his rapacious soldiery to seek their pay and their pleasure among his subjects so that, as Alexander fell back towards the border, John followed, his army plundering, raping and burning their way through Morpeth, Alnwick, Mitford, Roxburgh, Berwick, Haddington and Dunbar. Only on the approach to Edinburgh, where a sizeable Scots force had been drawn up to drive the English south of the Tweed, did John run out of energy. By now he had no money at all, and had so ravaged the terrain that his policy of sustaining his mercenaries by ordering them to live off the country at such a season was unsustainable. With over-extended lines of communication and what had become a rabble of robbers and rapists at his back, the determined show of force under Alexander could only have one effect upon John’s character: his pusillanimity caused him to retreat as fast as possible.

  Meanwhile across the south of England, a lesser war had been waged, a war with less burning and rapine, consisting largely of the traditional changing-of-hands of towns and castles. As he came south again, John resolved to send an embassy to Paris to plead with King Philippe not to intervene in the affairs of another’s Kingdom. William and Peter des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester, were appointed to attend the French King and word came to William, then briefly at Gloucester in February, the same month that French ships entered the Thames with an advanced guard of Philippe’s forces. It brought De Quincy and FitzWalter the news that Prince Louis would arrive by Easter.

  The easy access the French had had to London infuriated John and he wished he had burned the city, but it was too late for such regrets. As soon as the Equinoctial gales had eased towards the end of March, William once more crossed the Channel and bowed his knee before Philippe of France.

  It was an uncomfortable experience and William endured Philippe’s snide observations about his divided loyalties. The King reminded William that he owed the Crown of France fealty for his lands in Normandy. William brushed aside the King’s guying, claiming he came not on his own account but ‘in the name of his Lord King, John of England,’ who, William insisted, ‘had the blessing of Pope Innocent III, in subduing a rebellion against his, John’s, right to rule England.’ He also pointed out that Prince Louis’ claim to the Crown of England through marriage to Henry Curtmantle’s grand-daughter was feeble, arguments that were backed-up by legal argument presented by the Bishop of Winchester.

  Beyond his sneering remarks Philippe barely listened, turning aside and seemingly chatting to the Archbishop of Paris and Louis, the Dauphin. Only when De Roches had completed his plea did Philippe turn his attention to the English delegation, as though curious as to why a droning noise had ceased on a hot summer’s day.

  Well aware that their embassy was in vain, William had all the while been studying the Dauphin. Louis had something of the appearance of his namesake and grandfather, his long fair hair giving him a luck-lustre look, but he turned his attention back to the father as Philippe Augustus dismissed them.

  ‘My Lord Bishop, and you my Lord of Pembroke, may return to our cousin and liegeman John and inform him that he had forfeit that slight claim to the throne of England that he pretends, that his Council of Twenty-five have ruled his reign tyrannous and that our son,’ and here Philippe held out his right hand and drew the Dauphin closely to his side, ‘shall shortly come over the sea into England.’ The King paused, then waved his left hand in dismissal. William barely bowed, turned on his heel and left the King’s presence.

  He and Des Roches found King John at Winchester in a lather of expectation. Unusually, John was not slumped at the head of his board, slobbering over a cup of wine, but pacing up and down in a manner reminiscent of his father, Henry Curtmantle, and had been thus occupied since William’s imminent arrival had been signalled from the city’s walls.

  William strode into the chamber and dropped to one knee, De Roches following. ‘Well?’ asked the King and William looked up to see in John’s eyes that he already knew the answer. He shook his head.

  ‘Nothing, my Liege. He barely acknowledged our presence and threatens immediate invasion by an army led by the Dauphin.’

  ‘Shit!’ snarled John, his face distorted by his fury, turning away and going to a lancet window where he thumped his fist into the stone sill, looked up into the cloudy sky and howled like a wounded dog. Then he turned back to face all those in attendance and, addressing William asked: ‘What now?’

  William had remained on his knees and said simply,’ It is for Your Grace to com
mand…’

  ‘I ask for your advice,’ John said, the words emanating imperfectly from teeth clenched to suppress anger. The answer was, of course, obvious, if John was to hold onto his throne and William saw the King’s reasoning: he was, once again, testing William’s loyalty.

  ‘We must to arms, my Liege,’ William said simply.

  John stared round the chamber and suddenly his self-control snapped. He stepped forward, pressed his right hand on William’s shoulder and roared: ‘Get out! All of you! Await my decision without!’

  As the members of John’s Court withdrew, the still kneeling William once again felt the King’s wrath transmitted to his own body. Only when the last man had gone did John release his grip on the older man’s person, offering his hand to raise William to his feet.

  William looked down at the King. John was several inches shorter than the Earl and, again William observed the ravages of drink and excess in John’s blood-shot eyes and the broken blood-vessels that wormed their way under his skin. Premature ageing made his once handsome features sag and his hair, much reduced in quantity, was even less well dressed that the Dauphin’s had been. William had an instant sinking feeling in his gut, he was tied to this pitiful remnant of a once powerful house whose future lay in John’s heir a boy as young as had been Prince Arthur whom John had disposed-of so cruelly and callously; if John fell, all his own life’s work would be in jeopardy, reliant only upon what young Will could salvage with the help of his powerful mother. It was not enough for William, he must not leave this life a failure…

  ‘What counsel can you offer me, William?’ the King asked, his voice low, his hand trembling, reaching for the stoop of wine that stood, half-full upon the board. ‘The mercenaries I hired are restless for want of pay and have too close an affinity to my cousin of France to be reliable in such a situation as we now find ourselves, though I would fain meet these bastard rebels in the field.’