by Sean McGlynn
Where crime constituted countless individual acts and tragedies, rebellion was an act of war that could easily concentrate divergent political discontent into a central and focused attack on the Crown. The monarch therefore did not hesitate to punish it publicly like other crimes, but in the most extreme form imaginable, as the grotesque spectacles of the deaths of Prince David and William Wallace demonstrate. In France, treason was also punishable by quartering, but here the favoured method was by four horses pulling the offender apart; in England and Germany, the blade was preferred (in Germany, the executioner struck the offender over his mouth with his disembowelled innards or heart). In early fourteenth-century France, Philip the Fair had his daughter-in-law’s lovers executed for treason: they were flayed alive, then quartered, beheaded and strung up. In 1330, King Charles of Hungary and his wife Elizabeth survived an assassination attempt by a baron called Felician. Elizabeth lost four fingers of her right hand, for which she became known as ‘Cripplehand’. Felician was killed on the spot, but his men and accomplices were dragged around the streets and squares until they died with the flesh stripped away from the bones; their remains were chopped up and scattered about the streets for dogs to eat (and thus denied Christian burial). As with Wallace, Felician’s head and limbs were displayed throughout the kingdom.
One of the most inventive and repulsive executions on record emerges from early twelfth-century Flanders. It occurs in the aftermath of the murder of Count Charles the Good. The fate of the rebels involved in the murder included hanging, decapitation and being bound to a wheel fixed to a tree. This last device was employed for one Burchard. He was ‘delivered over to the greedy appetite of ravens and winged creatures, a miserable death of a choice kind. His eyes were pecked out and his whole face torn to shreds by the birds from above, and his body was pierced a thousand times by arrows, lances, and javelins from below. He died a very vile death, and his remains were thrown into a sewer.’12
On 5 May 1127, twenty-eight rebels were hurled in their armour to their deaths from the tower at Bruges Castle. The chronicler Galbert of Bruges tells us that even with their hands tied behind their backs and despite the great height, some remained conscious for a while after striking the ground. Louis the Fat, who oversaw this precipitation, arranged the most shocking execution of all, reserved for a ringleader named Berthold. The death was devised to be as demeaning as possible. Berthold was strung up from a gallows but kept alive; a dog was suspended close by him. The dog was beaten repeatedly and turned its anger and fear on Berthold; when struck, it savaged Berthold, ‘eating up his whole face … It even befouled him with excrement.’13 Abbot Suger notes approvingly that it was a wretched death for a wretched man.
THE KING AS WARRIOR
Of all the king’s roles, the one of warrior was paramount. Very few medieval monarchs could combine a successful reign with poor military leadership or a poor military reputation. The strength of divine or legal right to power depended largely on the more practical ability to back that right with hard force, as recent studies have demonstrated. Kelly de Vries shows how military authority could displace political authority and how success in war could lead to success in politics. Citing the example of Harold Godwinson’s accession to the throne of England in 1066, he perceives the potential weakness in this might-is-right approach: there was ‘one problem with military legitimacy as the foundation for medieval rule: it could always succumb to one who proved to be more militarily legitimate’.14 A king with military charisma was in a much stronger and more secure position than one without. As Matthew Strickland has observed, ‘There can be no doubt that one of the king’s primary functions – arguably the primary function – remained as warleader, and that his virtus continued to be a vital ingredient in his military and political success, as it was still felt to be when Machiavelli wrote his Prince.’15 A study by Richard Abels has shown how the fortunes of the late Anglo-Saxon state waxed and waned with the military abilities of its kings; monarchs who performed badly on the battlefield or, like Ethelred, shunned it altogether, courted political failure.
Like all nobles, the king was raised and trained to fight. His ultimate role was defence of the realm, and so the kings who were the most competent at war were the ones who were most admired. This admiration has carried through to the present day: for England, William the Conqueror, Richard the Lionheart, Edward I, Edward III and Henry V conjure up glorious images of iconic national warleaders; the pictures we have of John, Henry III, Edward II, Richard II and Henry VI are altogether different and more derogatory. Success in war brought with it political capital; confidence in – and fear of – such kings led to increases in loyalty, royal revenue and order in the kingdom. Being the head of government meant more than being chief executive; all the kings of medieval England were directly involved in military activity in the field; and all but one or two fought in the thick of battle. Harold, Richard I and Richard III were killed in combat; Henry I, Stephen and Henry VI only narrowly avoided the same fate. Sir John Fortescue, the fifteenth-century commentator on English governance, wrote, ‘Lo! To fight and to judge are the office of a king.’16
A convincing display of royal martial ability conveyed reassurance to subjects as this indicated that the king was able to smite down not just political enemies but also the enemies of law, order and justice. The admiration for Edward IV in the thick of battle in this account of his return to England in 1471 is evident: ‘The king, trusting verily in God’s help, our blessed lady’s, and Saint George, took to him great hardness and courage … wherewith … he manly, vigorously, and valiantly assailed them; [and] with great violence, beat and bore down before him all that stood in his way.’17 The pressure to perform in war was therefore immense; it pushed kings to being ruthless so that they could be effective, and this need to be successful resulted in some extreme actions in warfare.
One way of examining a king’s military role and contemporary attitudes to this role is to compare and contrast two great royal enemies and their reputations: Richard the Lionheart (1189–99) and Philip Augustus of France (1180–1223). Of the two, Richard has by far the more illustrious reputation as a military leader, reflecting his fame as a legend during his own lifetime. The early thirteenth-century The History of William Marshal claims that although French knights were the most highly regarded in Europe, thirty English knights under Richard’s command would happily take on forty French ones. Medieval chronicles were almost unanimous in their praise of Richard: he was not only ‘the most victorious’ of kings, but also ‘pious, most merciful and wise’, ‘He did right to all and would not allow justice to be perverted’, ‘He had the valour of Hector, the magnanimity of Achilles; in courage he was the equal of Alexander and Roland.’ Even his Muslim enemies said of him that his ‘courage, shrewdness, energy and patience made him the most remarkable ruler of his times’.18 So elevated was his reputation that he appeared in visions to saints ascending into Heaven. Here was the epitome of chivalric kingship, a monarch who quite literally led from the front, who bested his enemies everywhere, who was brave and concerned for his men, who was in turn chivalrous and ruthless, and who led the Third Crusade to within sight of the walls of Jerusalem. For a long while Richard has been traduced by historians, especially those keen to eschew military history and instead measure a king’s greatness by his bureaucratic output and bookkeeping; but thanks mainly to the scholarship of John Gillingham, the view of most historians is now closer to that of contemporaries. (That great warrior king Edward III is currently undergoing a similar rehabilitation.)
Philip II of France, in contrast, suffers by comparison. Despite his martial appellations that denote his military success, ‘Augustus’ and ‘Conqueror’, his contemporaries were far more ambiguous in their views of him. Bertran de Born, the famous soldier and troubadour (and borderline psychotic belligerent), chides Philip as being ‘too soft … hunting sparrows and tiny birdies’ instead of engaging in the manly pursuit of war; he ‘looks like a lamb to me’, l
aments Bertran.19 English historians have been particularly scathing: Philip exhibited ‘unattractive traits, [he was] lustful, authoritarian, cynical, suspicious, and treacherous’; his ‘nervous disorder’ predisposed him to ‘underhand intrigue’, he was guilty of ‘cruelty’ and ‘treachery’; he was ‘timid’, ‘not a great soldier’, ‘not an outstanding warrior’. Philip quite manifestly lacked the military charisma exuded in abundance by Richard. Yet Philip was not only the greatest of the Capetian kings; he was one of the most important monarchs in French history. He earned his sobriquets by military means, vastly extending royal power throughout France, kicking the English out of Normandy, and defeating his imperial enemies at Bouvines in 1214, a victory that resounds through French history and memory. As if in compensation, some French historians have unconvincingly attempted to paint Philip in the same incandescent light as Richard, but even those that recognize his ‘talents as a soldier’ also acknowledge his unappealing personal traits as an ‘unscrupulous’ and ‘cautious, cynical and distrustful man’.
How can two hugely successful military kings leave such differing reputations to posterity? The explanation has already been alluded to in the quotes; the answer lies in image as seen through the lens of chivalry. The two kings were diametrically opposed in character and outlook: Richard was extrovert, gregarious, athletic, energetic, generous and colourful in the best traditions of a chivalrous warleader sharing bonhomie with his men; Philip was none of these things. The French king not only lacked these attributes of Richard, his physical presence did not promise heroic material; a pale, sickly child who grew into a fat, prematurely balding young man, Philip was not the stuff of chivalric legend. But the psychological perceptions were more debilitating for Philip’s standing; his grandfather Louis the Fat was also bald and so obese he could only mount his warhorse with help, and even then with difficulty, but he gloried in his deserved esteem as a bellicose king. The image of Richard as the open, honest and true soldier and Philip as the sly, masterful, manipulative Machiavellian, may be simplistic but it has much to recommend it. In the Middle Ages the former qualities were prized over the latter, less chivalrous ones, and so Philip’s propagandists made futile attempts to portray Philip in the same manner as Richard’s did the English king. The French royal biographers Rigord and William the Breton adorned Philip with the grandiose, imperialistic overtones of ‘Augustus’ and likened him to Alexander the Great, charging improbably into battle far ahead of his more timorous men. However, even their hyperbolic descriptions of Philip’s martial prowess could stretch the dictates of chivalric literature only so far and they could never make up the differences in personalities and deeds of the kings by quill and vellum. Ironically, it was these expected dictates of chivalry that forced Rigord and William to engage in a forlorn endeavour of contesting style over style rather than style over substance.
Philip’s esteem suffered heavily on the Third Crusade. Contrary to a popular view, this was not Richard the Lionheart’s crusade; he and Philip undertook joint leadership of this massive enterprise, which throws into relief the contrasting styles of military leadership of these two leaders of the Latin west and contemporary views of them in a combat setting. They led their forces together at the siege of Acre on the Mediterranean coast, the opening military engagement of the crusade; here an atrocity by Richard, to be discussed later in this book, occurred. By the summer of 1191, crusading forces had been besieging the vital seaport of Acre for nearly two years. Philip arrived first in April to a warm but low-key reception. The besieged Muslim garrison in Acre, dreading the arrival of the two most powerful Christian kings, were greatly relieved to see Philip sail into view with only a paltry six ships of men and provisions. However, it should be noted that the bulk of the French forces were already at the siege. Richard turned up six weeks later with twenty-five ships and many more following, arriving to a rapturous welcome. Philip had been complaining about Richard’s tardiness, tut-tutting Richard’s lack of commitment to this holy cause and delaying the essential task of taking Acre. Yes, Richard was a bit late, but he came up with some good excuses: in the short time between Philip’s arrival at Acre and his own, Richard had conquered a kingdom, sunk a huge supply vessel ferrying relief to the beleaguered Muslim garrison, and even got married! How typical of the man, enhancing his contemporary reputation for flair and brilliance. He brought with him men and materiel, morale-boosting news of recent victories, and a honeymoon bride. No wonder people were astonished by him and admired him in equal measure. How could the dull Philip compare with this? As ever, he was in Richard’s shadow.
And so contemporaries recognized. At Messina in Sicily, en route to the Holy Land, a sudden crisis prompted characteristically decisive action from Richard; donning his armour, he led his men to subjugate the city immediately, ‘more swiftly than any priest could sing Matins’ wrote one chronicler in praise.20 And Philip’s instinctive reaction to this unexpected outburst of violence? The same source relates that ‘The French, unsure of what their lord the king would do, were running about looking for him, when he rushed out of the conference place to take refuge in the palace’; no wonder ‘the king of France was jealous of the king of England’s success’.21 Even the Arabs perceived the difference between the two, one Arab chronicler of the siege writing: ‘The king of England was a very powerful man amongst the Franks, a man of great courage and spirit. He had fought great battles, and showed a burning passion for war. His kingdom and standing were inferior to those of the French king, but his wealth, reputation and valour were greater.’22 These were the perceptions of the time and they have passed down to the modern age. Now, as then, Philip is compared unfavourably to Richard, something which is bound to leave the French king’s military reputation lost somewhat murkily in the shade.
Opinions continued in this vein at Acre. Philip paid his knights three gold coins a month, so Richard paid his four. The result was, of course, that Philip lost men (and face) to Richard, diminishing his standing further. A fervently pro-Ricardian writer effused: ‘King Richard was universally extolled. It was declared that he surpassed everyone. “This is the man whose arrival we longed for,” they [the crusaders] said … “The most outstanding king in the world, more skilled in warfare than any other Christian, has come.” … Everyone’s hope hung on King Richard.’23
This must have been very galling for Philip who, as a master of poliorcetics (siegecraft), had assiduously participated in the siege operations. The sources confirm that Philip, immediately on reaching Acre, mounted a horse and rode amongst the host and around the city to see from which side he could best test the enemy’s defences. From thereon Philip oversaw the investment that included the building of belfries and artillery pieces, one of which was named ‘the Evil Neighbour’, moat-filling and the digging of a mine in preparation for storming. One French-led storm attempt pressed the Muslim garrison very hard, but it was the bombardment that was particularly effective. Muslim, French and English sources all attest to the efficacy of Philip’s barrage; the garrison was forced to fiercely defend breaches and lamented the ceaseless battering that caused walls to crumble and structures to collapse, all of which increased the defenders’ exhaustion. French sapping also played its part, allowing an assault (when Richard was incapacitated by illness) that came close to success.
Eventually the garrison, fearing being put to the sword in a successful storm that would surely follow the devastating bombardment, capitulated. The Continuator to William of Tyre’s chronicle summed up the operation succinctly: ‘The king of France’s siege engines had broken down the walls of the city so much that it was possible to get through and engage in hand-to-hand fighting, while the renown of the king of England and his deeds so terrified [the Muslims] that they despaired of their lives.’24 The success at Acre was therefore a joint effort, with Philip making a significant and telling contribution to the victory. The two kings were playing to their strengths. When Saladin’s relief force arrived to attack the besiegers from its
base on the heights above Acre, Richard rode out to tackle the Muslim army while Philip continued to batter the walls. Philip was never going to outshine the brilliant Richard, but Philip’s role as a successful crusading king at Acre should have left his reputation greatly enhanced amongst contemporaries. That it did not owes much, as indicated above, to the perceptions of chivalric behaviour and esteem.
Soon after taking the city (and his share of spoils), Philip abandoned the crusade and left for home. This sudden departure dismayed the crusaders. Contemporaries wrote of ‘contempt and hate’ and ‘immense opprobrium’, ‘how shameful and outrageous’ it was, and even of ‘frightened rabbits’. The departure was disastrous for Philip’s standing; for many, it negated his contribution to the fall of Acre. No longer had he been an asset but, according to Richard of Devizes, the English king was ‘burdened with the king of the French and held back by him, like a cat with a hammer nailed to its tail’.25 Even though he left the bulk of his forces at Acre, the eventual failure of the crusade to take Jerusalem was laid at Philip’s door.