‘Hearken all those of you who, by God’s Grace, are here in loyal attendance upon the person of our King. For God’s sake hearken to me, for what I have to say deserves a hearing. This day we bear the burden of arms to defend our fame, and for ourselves and our wives and children, and to keep our land in safety, and to win great honour, and for the peace of Holy Church, which these men, both rebels and invaders, have wronged and ill-used, and to gain remission and pardon of all our sins, for I tell you that the enemy is at the gates of Lincoln and if that city falls, much falls with it.
‘As for us, we stand between the two parts of our enemies’ forces and by one blow might rout and destroy all their hopes here in the north…’
‘Dost my Lord propose a pitched battle?’ asked Peter des Roches, rising and standing behind the young King. A perplexed Henry looked from his tutor to his guardian as the Bishop added cogently, ‘for if so, I would remind you of the fate of those who lost in one day at Bouvines all that they had striven for.’
William did not bother to agree that he was suggesting a pitched battle, dispensing with the tiresome and indecisive business of sieges and the taking of castles. It was, perhaps an old man’s wisdom that he realised the war could not be won, nor Louis driven from the Kingdom and it made safe for the boy sitting confused among them without something akin to a conclusive chevauchée, a bringing to battle the entire force of the enemy such as they had, in miniature, essayed to achieve in the tourneys of his youth in France. But this would be no hostage taking; this would be a fight to the death of one cause or the other.
He turned upon Des Roches, then rounded upon the Council, composed as it was chiefly of his own mesnie and the mesnies of his Knights Banneret.
‘For God’s sake, let us stake everything upon it! This is our moment, one which will not brook delay. Remember that if we gain the victory…’
‘If,’ interrupted Des Roches.
William ignored the Bishop. ‘If we gain the victory,’ William went on, ‘we shall increase our honour, and preserve for ourselves and our posterity the freedom which these dogs seek to take from us and, By Almighty God, we will keep it. God wills us to defend it! Therefore every man must bestir himself to the utmost of his power for the thing cannot be done else. There must be no gaps in our ranks; our advance upon the foe must be no mere threat; but we must fall upon them swiftly. Take heed then, that there be no back-sliders amongst us. God of His mercy has granted us this hour for vengeance upon those who are come hither to do us ill: let no man now draw back!’
A moment of silence followed William’s impassioned speech, then first John D’Earley and then John Marshal raised the cry ‘God for King Henry, the Marshal and England!’ This was taken up by all those assembled, except Des Roches, who turned aside.
‘My Lords… My Lords… My Lord and Gentlemen…’ the quavering falsetto could barely be heard in the general hubbub of enthusiasm among men who did not think deeply and lived for the hour and the glory of a fight. But when the King rose and said again, ‘My Lords and Gentlemen,’ both Des Roches and William called for silence.
‘My Lords and Gentlemen,’ said the King, turning to Des Roches, ‘my Lord Bishop of Winchester is, I thank God of his good Grace, tender in his feelings for me. I am grateful for his solicitude but these past weeks during which I have studied the business of war, incline me to think my father and his father would not have hesitated to do as my Lord of Pembroke suggests. My Kingdom is invaded, my cousin of France wishes to usurp my throne. How long must I tolerate being borne about in the train of an army without a victory? Hast thou not all sworn me fealty? Hast though not all proved your loyalty, and are you not weary of the lack of decision? When shall Louis not be smitten, if not now?’
And with that the boy-King sat down. Over his head William and Des Roches exchanged glances; Des Roches shrugged and William smiled gravely. The boy’s precocity was winning.
‘Good my Liege,’ he said, ‘I thank you. Our cause is just and the enemy overstretched. I am quite certain that we may achieve something both honourable and politic. Perhaps now is the moment for my Lord Bishop to bless our arms…’
William turned towards Des Roches and sank to his knees. With a rustle of surtouts the entire assembly did likewise, even the King bowed his head as he turned awkwardly in his chair. With a sigh of resignation, the Bishop of Winchester, raised the crucifix upon his breast and held it high in his left hand and with his right, made the sign of the cross, uttering a blessing upon the King’s arms in Latin. Each man crossed himself and cried ‘Amen, amen!’ before regaining his feet.
*
That May evening the sun set over middle England in a blaze of blood red, as it had done for several previous nights, tempting the credulous and the superstitious to see it as portentous, ominous even. As the glims were brought in William and Thomas toiled over their work, William dictating orders while John D’Earley summoned the messengers and junior knights to carry William’s summonses for a grand levée en masse at Newark a mere three days hence, on the 15th. In the meanwhile John Marshal and Oliver d’Anjou began preparing the troops then present in William’s train for a rapid march on Newark, whilst maintain a security cordon around the city, to prevent word of Royalist intentions reaching the enemy.
Shortly before nightfall Peter des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester, entered the chamber. William, abstracted, looked up briefly and motioned the Bishop to sit and take wine. Concluding his dictation he dismissed Thomas and turned to Des Roches.
‘Well, Peter, do I have your head or your heart in this affair, for I truly believe that he who hesitates is lost.’
‘You are right, William, and you may rest assured that you have both. It will be a gamble with monstrously high stakes but…’ Des Roches shrugged, ‘we have not sufficient money to play and endless game of siege and chevauchée.’
‘Exactly,’ agreed William, pleased that the Bishop, whose Holy calling did not dissuade him from donning armour and riding to war, had come round to his way of thinking. But what Des Roches said next, reassured William even further, so-much-so that, after the Bishop’s visit, he enjoyed a good night’s sleep that night, uninterrupted by even the nagging urge to piss that had come upon him of late.
‘I have something else to say, William, something closely touching our great endeavour.’
He caught William’s interest. ‘Go on.’
‘You may recall that I once held the office of Precentor at Lincoln Cathedral. I know the city and its defences…’
‘Would you have me like Gideon before the walls of Jericho?’ William asked with a wry smile.
Des Roches chuckled. ‘I do not say the ramparts will tumble at a blast of horns, but I know the best approach…’
CHAPTER EIGHT - LINCOLN May 1217
William woke in the darkness and, for a moment, could not recall where he was. Then, remembering he lay in a small chamber in Newark Castle, he wearily rose and searched for his piss-pot. It was the third time he had been compelled to urinate that spring night and he resented the loss of sleep, quietly bemoaning his fate, that at the age of seventy-two he had to do what a younger man would have found daunting. He quietly cursed the shade of King John, who had left his Kingdom in such a mess, and Philippe II who could not keep his greedy fingers out of English politics. But most of all he cursed Saur de Quincy, Earl of Essex, and Robert FitzWalter, Lord of Dunmow and Bayard’s Castle, for their disloyalty to the boy-King of England and their making of a compact with Louis, Dauphin of France.
‘Those twins from Hell,’ he muttered as he composed himself for sleep again.
But he could not sleep. Within half an hour he rose again to piss and this time it was his body he cursed, for he knew that a dreadful malady was upon him, and the spectre haunted him of Henry Curtmantle, dying of an anal fistula and lying in his own stinking ordure, his very bed-chamber ransacked by his servants, his once active body lying like that of a criminal, abandoned to the crows.
William cro
ssed himself and knelt in prayer. He was not afraid of dying; he was afraid of dying too soon, his task undone. Was that why he intended gambling the future of England upon this shaky throw to relieve Lincoln? And if it was, was this pure vanity? He rose and began to pace the chamber. The squire who slept at the foot of his bed snored the sleep of the young, but William, mindful of the need of rest for the lad, stilled his restlessness and went to the lancet and stared into the night. The night was dark and almost overcast; few stars could be seen, and them only fitfully between the drift of the clouds as the breeze blew them across the sky. A faint soughing of the wind came to him, like the sound of the wings of many small birds, as the air passed over the ramparts and out-works of the castle.
‘South-west,’ William murmured to himself, ‘towards Lincoln.’ Again he crossed himself. He was not a great believer in portents, but sometimes, in moments of personal bleakness such as this, he thought of Angharad ap Rhys, his Welsh nurse. She had taught him stranger things than Holy Mother Church. From the sky he dropped his eyes to the dark walls of the castle, its entire structure black as pitch. Beyond its bailiwick lay Newark-on-Trent, and beyond the town – England. And somewhere, out there in the shifting night lay Isabelle; was she restless? Did she sense something in the night air? She was, after all, an Irish Princess, a woman of great gifts, of a steadfast loyalty to match his own. William felt an old man’s tears start to his eyes and sniffed them away with a savagery that made the squire stir in his sleep and William turn from the lancet in sudden remorse.
Stealthily he crept across the chamber and stared down at the youth. He could barely make the fellow out, but the pale oval of his face lay open-mouthed, still snoring placidly. What William contemplated at Lincoln could result in this fellow’s untimely death; why was William worrying about that? Death had never worried him before; Cardinal Guala di Bicchieri would shrive the men’s souls before they left Newark and no man who fell in battle in defence of the divine right of Henry III to rule England would so without being in a State of Grace. He crossed himself again and returned to the lancet. He knew he would not sleep again so resolved to turn his mind to the problem of Lincoln, to what Peter des Roches had told him, and to the notion that, having the enemy’s main forces so neatly divided and Louis himself so far away, he must strike at the large battaille under FitzWalter and De la Perche, that lay outside the walls of Lincoln.
*
‘My Lord Marshal, I desire that I lead the army. I have right of precedence after you in all affairs regarding England, even over my Lord of Salisbury who was so recently among the rebels...’ Ranulph of Chester was angry. For all his unseemly display of righteous indignation, he had a point for, as he was not slow to point-out to the assembled Council of War in the great hall at Newark Castle - which still, it seemed, reeked of John’s dysenteric demise - he had been as loyal to the dead King as William.
Equally angry, Salisbury, with his royal blood, was ready to make a case of this point of honour. His hand flew to his sword hilt, until William stayed him.
‘For God’s sake, my Lords!’ William interposed himself and stood silent, until the mood had cooled.
Unfortunately, uncertain as to the timing of Earl Ranulph’s arrival, William’s preliminary Order of Battle had the forces mustered under Salisbury’s banner in the van, but everything hinged upon the absolute obedience of all these men, the battalion commanders who stood about him now in Newark’s great hall.
William looked up from the rough map that Thomas had found and had scrawled over. It showed the routes from Newark towards Lincoln. He was casting all upon a carefully devised strategy that was, withal, a wild gamble, so that this sort of nonsense over precedence was the last thing he wanted. He held his temper and declared the Council at an end, requesting only that Salisbury and Chester remained to take wine with him.
‘Go to your men,’ he commanded his other knights, ‘check on their equipment and harness, make everything ready, for we shall march tomorrow.’
Peter de Roches hesitated, as did the Papal Legate, but William insisted they left, the one to prepare his own troops, the other to pass word that the army was to proceed to confession.
‘Oh, and my Lords, do you ensure that our army is entirely equipped with the common device upon which we have agreed.’ Although the townsfolk of Newark had been obliged to quarter the Royalist army for only a few days, its women had also been ordered to both feed the soldiers and sew white crosses upon all surtouts, or produce white cloth in sufficient quantities to furnish distinguishing arm-bands for the common soldiery. Apart from assisting in the identification of friend from foe in the confusion of battle, such a measure gave each man the sense of belonging to something stronger than himself, a crusader against the wickedness of the enemy.
But the army William commanded was not large. He had hoped, however, that its lack of numbers would be made up by the steadfastness of its constituent parts, so to have Ranulph, Earl of Chester, declaring so publicly an animus against William, Earl of Salisbury, was a major threat to his attempts at unity.
When the hall had been cleared, William turned to Salisbury and Chester. ‘Now, my Lords, under the good providence of God this affair has been entrusted to me and I can have neither bickering nor rivalry. The outcome of our enterprise rests wholly upon God, and your good sense, as God’s agents upon this earth. Therefore I pray you not to jeopardise God’s works by unholy pride, resentment, or the evocation of past follies. We come together in love to work our miracle and, to satisfy our honour. The King will be generous when we prevail. I therefore offer you two alternatives: you submit to my order, or draw lots for the positions of your battalions. Thereafter I require your oaths on your obedience. Agreed? Longsword?’
William threw the first declaration at William, Earl of Salisbury, using his nick-name, to indicate that he, William, took no notice of Salisbury’s previous siding with the rebels.
Salisbury took the hint nodded and growled in the affirmative. ‘I am content, Marshal. Whichever best please my Lord of Chester,’ he added. William turned to Chester. ‘Well Ranulph?’
‘I’ll abide by chance.’
William drew a mark from his pouch, palmed it and held out two clenched fists. ‘Since you must either submit or hold your position, Longsword, you should choose first.’ Longsword chose the right; William revealed it was empty.
This piece of puerile nonsense over, both men seemed quite content to co-operate. Honour was satisfied and they gave undertakings to quarrel no further quite willingly as William reminded them that circumstances might change and with them their respective dispositions.
‘Now, my Lords, I do not think we can delay further,’ he went on. ‘Despite our placing this place under strict curfew, word of our approach is bound to reach the enemy, so I do not intend to take the direct route along the Fosse Way, but along the line of the Trent…’
After the two Earls had left him D’Earley came in, requesting to speak to William.
‘What is it, John?’
‘My Lord, as you asked, I have done my best to close the road to Lincoln. As far as I can tell, only the two couriers you sent thither to communicate to the Lady Nicola have passed into the city, but I cannot be certain.’
‘No, of course you cannot, that is why I have brooked any delay,’ William smiledwearily. ‘I am feeling my age, John. You know my intentions?’
‘Aye, my Lord.’
‘As do the battalion commanders. Should I fall, dost see to the matter.’
‘Aye, my Lord,’ D’Earley repeated, then seemed to hesitate as William turned away to dictate a letter for Isabelle to Thomas.
D’Earley coughed.
‘There is something else?’ William asked.
‘Aye, my Lord. If it please you, I would carry your banner.’
William was on the point of refusing, thinking that D’Earley should lead his own mesnie, but it formed part of William’s battalion and would be readily to hand. He smiled at D’Earley’s b
road, open and honest features. ‘That would give me great comfort John. I thank you.’ Strangely William found D’Earley’s grin of satisfaction filled his heart with a sudden confidence.
*
William nodded at D’Earley. ‘To horse!’
William settled in his saddle. It was early, not yet full daylight, on Saturday 20th May, less than four hours since midnight. Before they left Newark the previous day, Guala di Bicchieri had celebrated Mass and once again formally excommunicated Prince Louis, declaring the Loyalist army was truly that ‘of God’ as much as of King Henry. He promised them victory by Pentecost. As the army had marched out of the town, William had ridden up to the Cardinal, now on horseback, the young King Henry beside him, with an escort at their back to see them safely to Nottingham where they would await the outcome of events.
William had kicked his destrier forward, approached the Cardinal, genuflected and bowed his head. Beside him D’Earley had lowered the green and white banner with its red lion, rampant, as the Papal Legate had given him his blessing, making the sign of the cross over William and his standard. Then William had turned to the King.
‘My Liege,’ he had bowed again, his horse stirring uneasily under William’s tight bridling. The King had been riding a bay mare and she seemed to be in heat.
‘God go with you my Lord Marshal,’ the lad had said, ‘and bring success upon our arms.’
‘Amen to that,’ William had responded, then, as the King and Cardinal turned their horses south-west, towards Nottingham, William had ridden out in the opposite direction to review his army as they began the advance on Lincoln.
As each battalion passed him, William had traversed its length, exhorting his men. Under seventeen experienced loyal Barons, four hundred and six knights had mustered at Newark and had been divided between the four battalions that constituted the Royal army. According to their status, each had a mesnie which largely consisted of mounted sergeants and men-at-arms, the whole force being stiffened by three hundred cross-bowmen who had formed an advanced guard led by Falkes de Bréauté. These too were mounted and were stationed about a mile ahead of the main body, the van of which was commanded by Ranulph, Earl of Chester. William’s son and namesake, with William’s nephew, John Marshal, had led out the second battalion, making way for his father when William had completed his review. Salisbury’s men followed, with those of Peter des Roches bringing up the rear.
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