The Bastard's Son

by H A CULLEY

  Guillaume owned a manor to the south of the city and that’s where they headed to spend the night. Robert smiled at Simon’s evident wonderment at their surroundings. The squire had never been anywhere larger than Nottingham, which was a fraction of the size of London. Neither had he, but at least he was mature enough to hide his wonder whereas Simon gawped open mouthed. . Both were even more astonished by the bridge over the Thames. This was crammed full of houses and shops built out over the water and restricting the width of the lane for traffic to less than six feet. Because of carts trying to cross this meant that the mounted men had to move into single file and even then they had to beat people out of their way with the flat of their swords and the butts of the spears carried by the serjeants who formed their escort.

  Finally they passed through Southwark and left the city behind them. Robert reflected that it would probably be even worse when they tried to get back to Westminster the next day and suggested to Guillaume that they should leave as early as possible. The baron nodded in agreement. He had been vexed by the press of people hindering their progress and reckoned that the loss of an hour or two in bed would be worth it if they had an easier return journey.

  -X-

  ‘Do you agree with William seizing the throne like this?’ Odo whispered in Guillaume’s ear as they stood in the abbey church waiting for the new king’s grand entrance.

  Odo was the late king’s half-brother and therefore the uncle of both Robert Curthose and William Rufus. As Earl of Kent in England and Bishop of Bayeux in Normandy he was a very powerful man so Guillaume thought carefully about how best to respond. He didn’t like the man but, more importantly, he didn’t trust him. Both men knew that he was in reality Guillaume’s uncle by blood, though the younger man’s paternity had never been formally acknowledged. The late king had been conscious of the favour he owed to Guillaume’s supposed father by marrying his mistress and giving his bastard son a name. In return he promised never compromise Viscount Peverel by acknowledging the boy as his. For his part Guillaume had been only too happy to keep clear of the dangerous intrigue that surrounded the throne.

  Guillaume regarded Odo carefully. He knew that he had to tread softly. Both contenders for the throne were his half-brothers. He wasn’t legitimate and they were so he wasn’t really a threat - though King William the First had also been a bastard - but Guillaume could be a very useful ally to one or the other.

  ‘William has done what he has done, so what I may or may not think is irrelevant,’ he replied tactfully.

  Odo snorted. ‘God’s teeth, Peverel. I thought you were a soldier, not a bloody diplomat.’

  ‘I’m content to abide by your late brother’s will, my lord.’

  Odo gave him a contemptuous look and stalked off to find another baron to sound out. Hugo, who had overheard the whispered conversation, moved closer so that he could speak to his friend without being overheard.

  ‘Be careful Guillaume, Odo’s a dangerous man and he’s trying to stir up a revolt to put Curthose on the throne in William’s place. If he fails, blood will be spilt. Rufus may forgive when it suits him, but he’s just as likely to kill or incarcerate his enemies.’

  Guillaume was about to reply that he wasn’t a fool when a fanfare announced the arrival of the new king at the door of the abbey church. William was wearing a long robe of scarlet embroidered with the lions of Normandy with a jewel encrusted belt around his waist from which hung a dagger in a gold sheath. He was preceded by Hugh d'Avranches, Earl of Chester, the most important noble in the north of England, and two pages bearing a bible and a candle. If d’Avranches was supporting him, Hugo mused, then the north would follow. Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, brought up the rear of the little procession with his chaplain. Apart from Odo, who hardly counted as a churchman, Hugo noted that few other bishops were present.

  The service was interminable and everyone, except perhaps the archbishop, was glad when it was over. King William had been displaying increasing signs of impatience over the last hour and Hugo had a feeling that he would have simply walked out if it had gone on for much longer. William, now wearing his crown stomped up the aisle followed in haste by the Earl of Chester, the archbishop and his chaplain whilst the two young pages looked on in dismay, not knowing what to do. The exit from the church was meant to be at a slow dignified pace with the king bringing up the rear. Robert had to stifle a giggle, then he caught Simon’s eye and the two had to exercise all their self-restraint to contain their merriment; not so Hugo and Guillaume. They laughed loudly at the comical spectacle, as did most of the other nobles present. The few churchmen looked shocked at such sacrilege. To them laughter in a place of worship was anathema. It was not a good start to the reign.

  -X-

  Hugo groaned at Simon’s feeble attempts to wake him after the long night of roistering following the coronation. He flapped his hands ineffectually at the squire’s hand on his shoulder and muttered ‘piss off.’ Simon looked at him helplessly. A messenger had come in the early morning summoning all nobles and others present at the Coronation who were not normally entitled to attend a Great Council to the great hall of Westminster Palace at noon. That was in an hour’s time.

  Guillaume, being the owner of the house, had a bedchamber all to himself apart, that is, from Robert who slept on a truckle bed across the door. This was an ancient practice intended to wake the squire if anyone intent on mischief tried to steal into the room at night. Hugo, on the other hand, had to share one of the guest chambers with two more of Guillaume’s tenants: a knight from Buckinghamshire and another knight who held several scattered manors from Guillaume.

  Hugo was in the unusual position of holding the manor of Burneham, where his late wife Rowena had come from, direct from the king and his four manors in the High Peak from Guillaume. He was therefore both a tenant-in-chief and a tenant. Neither normally allowed him to attend and he was both apprehensive as to the reason for his summons on this occasion and curious about the proceedings.

  Robert hadn’t been so gentle when he had woken Guillaume, determined to get his master up, his face washed, and dressed in time for him to break his fast before they had to leave for Westminster. The other two occupants of Hugo’s room weren’t obliged to attend so they could snore on but Hugo needed to get moving. Robert took one look at Simon’s feeble attempts to get his father moving and went and fetched a pail of cold water and a cloth. He proceeded to wash his father’s face whilst the latter spluttered and cursed. Once he was satisfied he was awake Robert handed the cloth to Simon.

  ‘That’s how it’s done. Now, don’t stand any nonsense. It’s your job to make sure that my father is ready to leave here when Lord Peverel is. You’re his squire but he won’t thank you if he’s late because you’re too scared to be firm when needed.

  ‘He’s right, Simon.’ Hugo looked at the boy blearily. ‘I’m off for a quick dip in the horse trough. Have my clothes laid out for when I get back and get me some bread and cheese to eat on the way.’

  With that Sir Hugo de Cuille staggered out of the room, cannoning into the door jamb on his way out.

  Most assumed that the Great Council would be just a formal swearing of feudal oaths of loyalty to the king and perhaps one or two changes in the appointment of sheriffs and so on. It wasn’t.

  The nobles had taken their squires along to look after their horses outside the great hall. The courtyard was full but you couldn’t miss the arrival of Yves de Vesci. He arrived mud splattered with a large escort of knights and serjeants. Robert beamed with pleasure when he spotted his brother, Tristan, as he dismounted to hold de Vesci’s horse. The escort turned and clattered out of the cobbled courtyard again and Robert gave his horse and Guillaume’s to Simon to hold whilst he made his way through the press of youths and horseflesh to his twin’s side.

  ‘Tristan, you made it then?’

  ‘Robert! Well met. I wondered whether you’d be here.’

  They embraced, slapping each other on the back
. They had seen each other only half a dozen times over the past nine years and, unlike some brothers, they had got on extremely well together as young boys, despite their different characters – or perhaps because of it. They looked alike enough for each to pass as the other but in character and temperament they were quite different. Whereas Robert was more like his father, careful and serious, Tristan was adventurous and, at times, foolhardy and reckless.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be? Derbyshire is a damn sight nearer than Northumberland.’

  Tristan lowered his voice. ‘Maybe, but a lot of the nobles who should be here aren’t, nor are most of the bishops. Yves suspects that they’re going to side with Robert Curthose. Then we’ll have some fun,’ he said with a grin and a twinkle in his eye.

  ‘That’ll mean civil war then,’ Robert replied sotto voce, appalled at the prospect.

  ‘With any luck. At least it’s a relief that our masters appear to be on the same side. Everyone says that William is a much better soldier than Robert Curthose.’

  Robert nodded. Just then he spotted Simon looking for him, hampered by having to lead four horses.

  ‘Simon, over here! Tristan this is father’s new squire, Simon. You could bathe in the water behind his ears but he’s a good lad and he’ll learn.’

  ‘Hallo,’ Simon greeted Tristan shyly, looking from one twin to the other and trying to spot the differences in their appearances. Eventually he decided he couldn’t tell them apart, except for the badges of their lords which they wore sewn onto their gambesons.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Wet behind the ears? I think it means that babies can’t dry themselves properly and have to get someone else to do it for them.’

  ‘Oh, am I really that bad?’

  ‘No, Simon, you’re just new. Learn from your mistakes and don’t make the same ones twice.’

  ‘Robert and I had a pretty rough time of it when we started as pages and we had no-one looking out for us. I don’t know about Robert, but there were times when I could have happily killed some of my fellow squires. Just be grateful that Robert’s looking out for you, but don’t rely on him. You’ll be going back to Castle Peverel and he’ll be going to Nottingham when this is all over.’

  Simon nodded. Just at that moment the sounds of uproar erupted from the great hall which even the stout timber doors couldn’t muffle.

  -X-

  Hugo was bored. He passed the time by studying the massive stone built great hall of Westminster Place with its impressive hammer beam roof. Although there was a large fireplace at each end of the chamber roaring way, they did little enough to heat the vast space. The temperature outside was warm for a day in early autumn but the cold stone seemed to suck the heat out of the bodies of the men crowded onto the benches in front of the raised platform with a throne for the king, a chair for the presiding Lord Chancellor and a long table for the king’s commissioners and the scribes who kept a record of proceedings and provided information for the Lord Chancellor as required.

  He was seated towards the rear of the hall. The seating was arranged in order of status with the earls, bishops and abbots in front, the major barons, like Guillaume Peverel, behind them, then the lesser barons and finally the rest of the tenants-in-chief, like Hugo.

  The Great Council had started normally enough with the earls and barons coming forward to place their hands between those of the king before swearing to serve him loyally in return for their lands. Then the announcement of changes in sheriffs were made. There were three vacancies which were filled, but then the Chancellor, who presided over the Great Council, announced that Richard Fitz Götze had been selected to take over as Sheriff of Nottinghamshire.

  Guillaume was outraged. He had been sheriff since 1068 and he had built Nottingham Castle as the seat of the sheriff. Now it appeared that he would have to hand it over to Fitz Götze. Thankfully he still had Derbyshire and the Royal Forest of the High Peak but it seemed that King William was trying to reduce his power and influence.

  Hugo was equally thunderstruck. Apart from the insult to his friend, Guillaume would have to move into Castle Peverel on a permanent basis. He would still need a constable but that would be the captain of his, Guillaume’s, mesnie and Adeline would become the chatelaine instead of Edith. He was well aware that he had a choice of manors to move to, but it would mean evicting whichever bailiff lived in the hall at present or, if he chose Edale, to ask Herbert to leave. Besides, all the halls were fairly basic and made of timber with a central hearth; not like the stone keep of the castle with its fireplaces in the walls of the great hall and the solar. Only Hathersage had a proper solar; the rest just had a curtained off area of the hall to serve as the private quarters.

  Guillaume had risen from the bench on which he sat to protest but Hugo, sitting beside him put a restraining hand on his arm. It would do no good and, given the king’s volatile temper, Guillaume might end up losing more than Nottinghamshire.

  Other changes to sheriffs of several other counties followed. In every case prominent barons were replaced by lesser men, all friends and supporters of the king. The murmur of protest in the hall grew louder and when the redistribution of manors started the murmur changed to howls of dissent.

  Throughout the proceedings William had sat on his throne watching but saying nothing. Now he got to his feet, his face suffused with rage.

  ‘Silence! Silence, I say! You seem to have forgotten that all land in England belongs to the king. You are my tenants, not the owners of the manors and estates you benefit from. It is my prerogative to decide who shall be the tenants of my land, just as it is yours to decide who you appoint as your tenants. If anyone protests again they will lose all their lands. Now shut up and let the Chancellor finish.’

  When William sat down again the murmurs died away but the mood in the hall was ugly. The Chancellor started with the transfers of single manors. Hugo wondered at the detail of it all; William must have been working on this long before his father was killed. Then he sat up with a jolt when he heard his own name mentioned.

  ‘Hugo de Cuille shall surrender the manor of Burneham to Walter Giffard and shall instead be awarded the manors of Wark, Akeld, Kirknewton, Redesdale, Otterburn and Harbottle in Northumberland.’

  Hugo sat there stunned. Burneham was his favourite manor. It had been Rowena’s childhood home and her brother Oswin was the constable of the motte and bailey castle he had built there. He knew every man, woman and child who worked and lived on the manor and had always treated them fairly. Now he was expected to hand them over to Giffard, one of the new king’s favourites.

  The manors that he had been awarded in the north of Northumberland had already been granted to him by the king’s father but the area had then been under the rule of the King of the Scots and he had been unable to occupy them. Instead the king had cancelled the gift and rewarded him in coin instead. Things had changed now and the Scots had been driven back across the Tweed. Perhaps his friend Gilbert, who was one of the king’s commissioners who had drawn up the Doomsday Book and his steward’s father, had remembered the original deed of gift and had told the king when he heard that Rufus was going to deprive him of Burneham.

  The rest of the changes went unheard by Hugo who sat there too numbed to do anything but seethe with rage. One or two of the barons who had lost lands got up and stormed out of the hall. The king’s sentry on the door tried to stop the first man but he had made a mistake. Bishop Odo gripped the mace which he wore hanging from his belt instead of a sword and swung it down on the poor man’s helmet. The man-at-arms collapsed, his helmet badly dented and his skull shattered. No-one else tried to stop Odo from leaving.

  ‘Of course, it’s a clever move on William’s part, granting you extensive lands in Northern Northumberland. It’s a wild area which is always being fought over by the Angles and Danes who inhabit it and the Scots, of course,’ Guillaume told him later as they sat drowning their sorrows back in the Guillaume’s hall south of the city. ‘The P
rince-Bishop of Durham is the landlord of the enclave that stretches from Lindisfarne along the south bank of the Tweed,’ he went on, ‘but he doesn’t do much to keep the Scots out. Robert de Mowbray is Earl of Northumbria but his lands run along the Tyne and Tees so he ignores the north of his domain, as does Yves de Vesci at Alnwick. The people in the lands that you’ve been granted, and those of Roger de Muschamp to the east of yours, acknowledge no man formally as lord now. As I say, it’s a clever move on William’s part. If you want to take up his offer of those six manors you’re going to have to seize them by force. William gets to strengthen his border with Scotland and, at the same, time he’s able to reward Giffard with Burneham at no cost to him.’

  He paused, his face grim.

  ‘Mind you, the rest of his re-distributions weren’t so clever. Odo and a few others already favoured Robert Curthose; now he’s driven them openly into Duke Robert’s camp. There’ll be an uprising soon, you mark my words.’

  Hugo had a great deal to think about on his way back to Derbyshire. Like Guillaume, he didn’t like Odo and he didn’t think that the man was clever enough to beat William Rufus, so he’d decided to stay loyal, but he had begun to hate the king. However, hatred wouldn’t put coins in his purse. If he wanted to replace the revenues he’d lost from Burneham he’d have to venture north with a strong enough force to establish his rule over his new manors in the Cheviot Hills. Then he thought of Roger de Muschamp. He’d be faced with the same problem. He had asked around in London and was told that he was the seneschal to the Earl of Lincoln, so perhaps his first move should be to travel to Lincoln to see him.

  Chapter Two – The Calm before the Storm