‘Specifically, yes, though many common soldiers fell into our hands…’
‘And what of them?’
‘Many have been put to the sword, or otherwise disposed of.’ Henry had nodded his satisfaction. ‘But the Barons will be ransomed by their captors, and likely ruined thereby, though you may have the heads of FitzWalter and Quincy de Saur, or whomsoever else that pleases you should you wish it. The Comte de la Perche’s was rolling down Lincoln High Street the last time I saw it,’ William had said, with a grim smile and the King had laughed delightedly.
‘So how long will you allow for this throwing of bones to my loyal dogs, for it would seem to me that a delay might prove fatal to our fortune. The Dauphin has only to obtain reinforcements from his father…’ The King had broken off, non-plussed.
‘Not long, Sire. I purpose to march south and arrange a great rendezvous at Chertsey, just south of the Thames, where I may cover the west and isolate the rebel garrisons in the west-country before striking east.’
‘And London, my Lord, what of London, my capital and seat of my power? I would fain come thither.’
‘Give me a little time, my Liege, and London will come to you.’
As they rode back toward Lincoln John D’Earley smiled to himself. He knew well that few of the rebel Barons had actually died at Lincoln. William, with Longsword, had already laid a claim to the domains of the dead Comte de la Perche, citing their tenuous relationship with the man. As for the others, the survivors, their lands would now be forfeit and he, D’Earley could expect to profit by grants of manors and markets now in William’s gift.
FitzWalter had pleaded for clemency, claiming that, although one of the Council of Twenty-five, his hatred of King John had been engendered by the late King’s seduction of his daughter Matilda. Declaring he intended to go on crusade to the Holy Land would doubtless secure him his life, D’Earley mused, for William was not an overly vindictive man and was capable of a certain disingenuity where matters of state were concerned, whatever words he used to the young King. Besides, the Papal Legate would probably permit such an act of contrition on FitzWalter’s part.
*
In prospect of great rewards and riches himself, William had answered the Loyalist Barons’ expectations and thrown the dogs their bones, arranging Chertsey as the place of rendezvous after they had secured their prisoners and made known the conditions for their ransom and release. Ranulph of Chester rode off to Mountsorrel to raze that pestilential fortress to the ground while John Marshal gleefully dealt with his seven hostages, to his great advantage.
For his own part William called Thomas to his side and dictated a long letter to Isabelle, detailing the outcome, for the brief cessation of hostilities was as much for William’s benefit as his Loyalist ‘dogs’.
With Longsword, William carved up De la Perche’s English lands, including Royal Manors which the Comte’s family had held at the Royal pleasure. Ironically, William secured Newbury, where, more than half a century earlier, he had been a child-hostage of King Stephen. As for his mesnie, all received rewards consistent with their rank and service, further cementing their loyalty to his person.
These arrangements being either concluded or well set in train, William ordered the army to march south. Besides his preoccupations with securing as much advantage from his victory as he could, William had not entirely neglected the business of war. By the time he left Lincoln he knew that Louis had returned to batter the ramparts of Dover Castle with his massive trébuchet, and that the Cinque Port men were active in the Strait intercepting the reinforcements sent by Philippe to his son’s aid.
As the Loyalist army moved south they came across evidence of the fate of those who had escaped Lincoln, for in their desperation the Anglo-French fugitives had sought sustenance from the towns and villages through which they fled. What they received was death and mutilation, a payment for their own northwards advance of rapine and plunder, so that fewer than ten score reached London with news of the disaster at Lincoln.
When the news of the battle reached Louis on the 25th May the Dauphin had raised the siege of Dover and retired to London, arriving on 1 June. Five days later William encamped at Chertsey where he was not only rejoined by the Barons and knights who had fought at Lincoln, but by others who, seeing the way the wind blew and disaffected by the French attitude towards the English, were deserting the Anglo-French cause in increasing numbers.
Regarding several of these defectors, D’Earley heard William growl to himself: ‘So now we have a better prospect: to fight the French alone…’
This was to prove something of a simplification, but D’Earley grasped the Marshal’s strategic vision, for it was clear that the Dauphin’s position was one of growing isolation. Word filtered across the Strait of Dover that King Philippe was preoccupied with having the Papal Interdiction against him and his son’s cause lifted, so-much-so that he had grievously neglected the matter of reinforcing Louis. This task had been taken up by the Dauphin’s wife, Blanche of Castile, though in truth it yielded little. The English seemed to be masters of the Strait and there was little money to raise troops and none to pay the French seamen who might be induced to convey them to Sandwich or London.
However, within a week of quartering his army along the banks of the Thames, William received a delegation of churchmen, abbots chiefly, but led by the Archbishop of Tyre. Meanwhile, London was in ferment, its citizens havering between declaring for Henry and ejecting Louis, or standing by the French Prince to whom they had collectively declared their loyalty. That they did not abandon the invaders, who were far from welcome, rested entirely on two factors, the presence among them of an armed force of occupation and the fate of Lincoln’s citizens.
These circumstances led to a stalemate which in turn resulted in a change of fortune and a dispersal of the Loyalist forces. Although many had come into the Loyalists’ camp, most of the great magnates unaffected by Lincoln, aware of what might happen to them should they find themselves the objects of Royal vengeance, remained loyal to Louis. There were some exceptions, among them the Earl de Warenne.
Ever mindful of the limits of the Royal Treasury, William, unable to pay the growing army and perceiving all his gains at Lincoln to be in jeopardy, allowed it to disperse, retiring himself to Oxford, whither came the King and Guala di Bicchieri. He was greatly influenced by a stirring in the west, where the Welsh Princes under Llewelyn had again raided as far south as the Gower and besieged William’s own castle at Haverfordwest.
Once more he climbed into the saddle and made a sweep to Chepstow and Goodrich, but could spare neither time not thought for a proper raid deeper into the disputed territory. The young King’s plea on leaving Oxford rang in his ears: ‘My Lord Marshal, you promised me my Kingdom…’
That both sides were now almost equally weakened was cold consolation; there seemed to William no way of executing a fatal wound upon Louis. Lincoln had taught him in fact what he already knew, that desultory war, sieges and exchanges of castles, essentially altered nothing. He had ordered the revised Magna Carta promulgated throughout the land, including all those parts that had, after Lincoln, fallen under the notional government of Henry, and this had had some effect upon those who had arrived at Chertsey, but such a demarché did not constitute anything more than a statement of intent. Without routing Louis and the rebel Barons, war would sputter on and on, and William was growing old and tired of it.
He found Chepstow bleak without Isabelle, for by mutual consent she and the younger children had withdrawn to Leinster where, whatever befell England, she remained an Irish Princess.
But it was at Chepstow, on the eve of his return to the King’s side at Oxford, that he conceived the strategy by which he might – just might – finally turn the tables on Philippe Augustus’s plan to establish his son on the throne of England, and it was John D’Earley, loyal, grinning John, who among all of William’s considerable and noble following unwittingly put the notion into William’s head.
They sat late at board, unwilling, it seemed, to return to the world of English politics. True, the chevauchée into the Welsh March had been limited and unsatisfactory, settling nothing more than showing some menace to the Welsh, but it had smacked of the old days. As is the way of such things it had revived memories of what now seemed a happier, more care-free time, when the Marshal and his mesnie, in all their vigour, had campaigned west, through Carmarthen, ‘in the pouring bloody rain,’ someone reminded them all. The reminiscence failed to dull the glitter of the memory.
Over their wine the senior knights of William’s mesnie grew loud in their recollections, dwelling chiefly on the mishaps that had occurred, but had passed off well in the end. D’Earley had jested that when William had crossed over into Ireland to lay claim to the hand of the Lady Isabelle the ship had been so rotten that a portion of the deck had given way, causing the Marshal to fall and gash his leg. William’s torrent of oaths had shocked even the Master of the vessel, who had wrung his hands with apologies and claimed he knew nothing of the state of the deck-timbers when William threatened to hang him.
This had led to several other anecdotes of the vagaries of sea passages and while his companions roared with laughter over stories of vomiting, falling over, breaking arms and banging heads, followed by more serious and tragic recollections of fine destriers breaking their legs in the holds of ships working in heavy seas, William was uncomfortably reminded of the last news from the Cinque Ports to reach him at Oxford. That the English vessels had fought a series of actions against the French had seemed to him at the time but a providential interruption of the efforts of Blanche of Castile to assist her husband. Now, however, something struck him and he rose suddenly from his seat and, head-down and ignoring all those at board, he began pacing the chamber. Gradually, one-by-one, the half-drunk company fell silent, watching and waiting, like unmasked hawks.
After some moments William stopped pacing and turned to the expectant faces of his trusted companions. With collective relief they saw that he was smiling.
‘I cannot think why I have not seen this before,’ he said in a low voice, ‘but surely the method of war we should now pursue is not one on land, but on the sea…’
A murmur of interest rose among the men in the great hall of Chepstow as they looked at each other and waited for what was coming.
‘Formerly,’ William said with mounting enthusiasm, ‘we have besieged castles, exchanged territory as the sway of fortune allowed. At sea war is different, for it is just advantage that sways this way and that. First we lost ground because the men of the Cinque Ports defected to the rebels, then, when they regained their senses, our cause prospered awhile. Louis’ luck during his long and imperfect siege of De Burgh at Dover rose and fell according to the presence of French or English ships of war lying off that place and now, as we have so recently learned, such reinforcements as Blanche of Castile would throw across the water may be compromised by lack of ships, or seamen, or money, or all three together, but can most certainly be stopped by English vessels.
‘My Lords and Gentlemen, Louis needs command of the Strait to accomplish anything. He has the Thames, true, but the Thames lies beyond the Strait. The Strait, it seems to me, is a battle-ground we have not yet fully exploited, for it is Louis’ weak-point, not ours.
‘Is it not therefore politic that we should invest our hopes in our ships and mariners, who may carry our chivalry to dispute this place to our advantage?’
William looked round at the upturned faces. ‘Come, my Lords and Gentlemen, what do you say?’
‘These are not circumstances we well understand, my Lord,’ said the younger Marshal. ‘The enemy have Eustace the Monk to direct their fleet, and all men know that black demon of a man knows more of the sea than any man alive…’
‘More than the mariners of the Cinque Ports?’ riposted William. ‘I daresay he knows as much, and that noble blood flows in his veins, but I will wager that we may find men among the mariners of Dover and Winchelsea and Rye and the other places who, should we repose our confidence in them, may bring our cause to its desired haven.’
‘I my Lord, I think you are right,’ said Philip d’Aubigny decisively.
‘So do I,’ added John Marshal.
These forceful endorsements entirely overset young Will’s misgivings and, in the uproar of enthusiasm that followed, William called for quiet.
‘Very well. We shall ride to Oxford tomorrow as planned and send out orders for a muster – of both men and ships.’
*
‘My Liege, with your permission, I would appoint Philip d’Aubigny and my nephew John Marshal the chief captains of this most Royal muster of your ships.’
‘Think you this will fare better than the muster at Chertsey, my Lord Marshal?’ squeaked the King acidly.
‘Nothing is more certain in war than that it is an uncertain business, Sire,’ William replied. ‘It demands constant shifts and changes; what seemed possible in the morning may be ruined by a torrent of rain in the afternoon. I think only that it offers a chance, no, more than a chance. But we should have embraced such a strategy earlier, notwithstanding that it costs a great deal of money. However, if you will give to the mariners some inducement such as is enjoyed by knights in the field…’
‘But they are commoners, villeins, my Lord; no, no, such a thing is not possible…’
‘They are masters of their craft, my Liege,’ William explained patiently. ‘Just as Your Grace, out of a prospect of good governance yielded certain concessions in the Magna Carta but lately issued in your name, you will purchase some regard by so doing.’
The young man frowned uneasily and William perceived signs of his heritage; here was a John unwilling to shift his thinking for fear of the consequences. And then a thought occurred to him.
‘You may buy men’s love, Sire, very easily by such acts. Your noble father gained much among these men by his going amongst them in his hour of need.’
The young man looked up. ‘He did?’
‘Indeed he did.’
‘Then why did they turn against him?’
‘Because, my Liege, he was inconstant. Great men cannot afford to be inconstant. It was something your father never learned.’
Henry looked sharply at William. ‘Is not that lésé majesté, my Lord?’
‘Not if it is the truth.’
‘You rebuke me, my Lord.’
‘I seek to instruct you, Sire,’ William responded firmly. ‘It is my privilege.’
*
William had not sought the King’s commission for his nephew and Philip d’Aubigny simply because they had been the first to endorse his maritime strategy, for he had offered command first to Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester. Des Roches was still smarting from wrongs, real and imagined, he perceived done to him during the attack on Lincoln, arguing that William had exceeded his authority and treated his advice with contempt, that William’s profits from the battle exceeded his own, notwithstanding that acquisition of the Preceptor’s silver marks. Unwilling to make an enemy of Des Roches, William had sought to restore good relations, but upon being offered this opportunity, De Roches had scoffed.
‘I am no seaman, nor a pirate, nor a fisherman,’ he retorted, adding by way of Parthian shot, ‘go yourself and die!’
With a sigh of disappointment William had turned upon his heel, the breach between them fatal.
With the King in his train, William left Oxford at the head of a considerable military following and headed first for Reading. By mid-August he was at Farnham Castle, returned to Royalist hands. From here he rode on to Lewes, from where he sent Henry to Canterbury. William reached the coast at Romney on the 19th.
All along the road William had been greeted by townsfolk who regarded him as a conqueror, a circumstance which greatly embarrassed him, and this sense of inadequacy increased once he arrived within sight of the Channel, sparkling in the August sunshine. Summoning the chief men of the Cinque Ports t
o a colloquy he learned that morale amongst them was low. Despite the arguments he had made in their favour to the King, many still resented the impositions of King John and, worse still, they had in the preceding few days received a severe defeat by the French in an action off Calais in which many had abandoned their vessels under full sail and escaped in their ships’ shallops. It did not augur well, but William urged that every sea-captain and mariner of worth and note be called to hear what he had to say and, two days later he addressed upwards of a hundred of these grizzled, wind-blown men.
In his many crossings of both the English Channel and St George’s Channel, to say nothing of his voyage to the Holy Land, William had made the acquaintance of many seafarers, both mariners and common seamen. Most were, like himself, unlettered, but he had learned that among the mariners, those who commanded and directed the movements of ships, there were those who possessed a vast body of knowledge relating to tides, the presence of sandbanks and shoals and the predicting of the weather. That they were not infrequently overwhelmed and lost their lives was a testament not to their incompetence, but to their environment and its uncertainties. As to their weaknesses, they were common enough: drink and women, and, of course money. But then what man was not moved by these several springs? The only difference between the Cinque Port men and other seafarers was, William knew, they regarded themselves as England’s prime mariners, men whose ancient role had been debased and under appreciated by John.
Armed with such insights and flanked by Philip d’Aubigny and John Marshal, he rose to speak. It was instantly clear that the presence of so great a magnate among them as William Marshal commanded something like respect.
‘I will not trouble you with any courtly preamble, good-men all, but I come in the King’s name to make you an offer upon which you have my own word, that to you shall be restored to you all your privileges and franchises taken from you by our late King, and that without asking anything further of you. I know you to be high in the King’s regard, and in my own, as being the chief mariners in the Kingdom.
William Marshal Guardian of England- The Complete Series Page 67