formidable to Richard; it was the knowledge that, side by side with
the process of consolidation in France, there had been and still was
going on in the Angevin dominions a process of disintegration which
his father had been unable to check, and against which he himself
was well-nigh helpless. The French monarchy was built up around one
definite centre, a centre round which all the subordinate parts of the
structure grouped themselves unquestioningly as a matter of course.
Paris and its king, even when his practical authority was at the
lowest ebb, had always been in theory the accepted rallying-point of
the whole kingdom, the acknowledged head of the body politic, none of
whose members had ever dreamed of establishing any other in its place.
But the empire of Richard Cœur-de-Lion had no centre; or rather, it
had three or four rival ones. In Angevin eyes its centre was Angers;
in Norman eyes it was Rouen; to the men of the south, it was Poitiers.
Even Henry Fitz-Empress had felt at times the difficulty of fulfilling
two such opposite parts as those of duke of Normandy and count of
Anjou without rousing the jealous resentment of either country against
himself as the representative of the other; while as for Britanny
and Aquitaine, he had only been able to keep an uncertain hold over
them by sheer force, until Britanny was appeased by the marriage of
Constance, and Aquitaine subdued by the vigour of Richard. But for
Richard in his father’s place the difficulty was far greater. Chafe
as they might against the yoke which bound them together--dispute as
they might over their respective shares in their common ruler and their
respective claims upon him--neither Angevin nor Norman could fail to
recognize his own natural sovereign and national representative in
the son of Geoffrey and Matilda. But the chances of this recognition
being extended to the next generation expired with the young king.
If the two Henrys were strangers in Britanny and in Aquitaine, yet
on the banks of the Seine, the Loire and the Mayenne they were felt
to be at home. But Richard was at home nowhere, though he was master
everywhere, from the Solway to the Pyrenees. His Aquitanian subjects
for the most part, if they counted him as a fellow-countryman, counted
him none the less as an enemy; his subjects north of Loire counted him
as a southern stranger. Normans and Angevins still saw in him, as they
had been taught to see in him for the first twenty-six years of his
life, the representative not of Hrolf and William or of Fulk the Red
and Geoffrey Martel, but simply of his mother’s Poitevin ancestors.
The Bretons saw in him the son of their conqueror, asserting his
supremacy over them and their young native prince only by the right
of the stronger. As Suger had laid it down as an axiom, more than
half a century ago, that “Englishmen ought not to rule over Frenchmen
nor French over English,” so now we begin to discern growing up in
Richard’s continental dominions a feeling that Normans should not rule
over Angevins, nor Angevins over Normans, nor either over Bretons and
Poitevins, nor Poitevins over any of the rest; and that if one and all
must needs submit to the loss of their ancient independence, it would
be more natural and less humiliating to lay it down at the feet of the
prince who had always been acknowledged in theory as the superior of
all alike, the king of the French.
This feeling, however, had scarcely come into existence, much less
risen to the surface of politics, when Philip Augustus came home from
the Crusade at Christmas 1191. It is scarcely probable that any plan
of actual conquest had as yet taken shape in Philip’s mind. But the
very audacity of the demand which he made upon the credulity of the
Norman constables when in the following spring he asked them to believe
that Richard had ceded to him not only the whole Vexin, but also the
counties of Aumale and Eu--a cession for which there was not a shadow
of reason either in past history or in present circumstances, and which
if carried into effect would have cut off the Norman communications
with Ponthieu and Flanders, and given him at once a foothold upon
the Channel and an invaluable coign of vantage for an attempt upon
Rouen--seems to indicate that he was already forming some more definite
design against the Angevins’ power than the simple system of lying
in wait to steal from them any territorial or political advantage
that could be stolen with impunity, with which he, like his father,
had hitherto been content. The terms of his treaty with John in the
following year point still more strongly in the same direction. As the
price of John’s investiture with the rest of his brother’s dominions,
Philip reserved to himself the whole Norman territory on the right bank
of the Seine, except the city of Rouen; on the left bank, nearly half
the viscounty of Evreux, including the castles of Vaudreuil, Verneuil
and Ivry; and from the older Angevin patrimony, all that was most
worth having in Touraine--Tours itself, Azay, Montbazon, Montrichard,
Amboise and Loches--besides the transfer of the Angevin fiefs in
the Vendômois from the count of Anjou to the count of Blois.[1807]
Owing to the disorganized state of Richard’s dominions caused by his
captivity, Philip’s endeavours to carry this bargain into effect by
conquering Normandy in John’s interest and his own met for a while
with considerable success. His first attempt at invasion was indeed
repulsed by the Norman barons under the leadership of Earl Robert of
Leicester;[1808] but a few weeks later treason opened to him the gates
of Gisors and Neaufle; the rest of the Vexin was easily won,[1809] and
secured thus against attack in his rear, he marched northward to the
capture of Aumale and Eu.[1810] Thence he turned back to besiege Rouen,
but soon retreated again into his own territories,[1811] taking Pacy
and Ivry on his way.[1812] In July, finding that, according to his own
phrase, the Angevin demon was after all to be let loose upon him once
more, he thought it advisable to accept Richard’s overtures of peace;
and Richard on his part--being still in prison--deemed it wise for the
moment to sanction the French king’s recent conquests in Normandy and
the liberation of Ademar of Angoulême, and also to let Philip have
temporary possession of Loches, Châtillon-sur-Indre, Driencourt and
Arques, as pledges for the payment of twenty thousand marks, due within
two years of his own release.[1813]
[1807] Treaty in Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 57.
[1808] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 205.
[1809] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 206. Will. Newb., l.
iv. c. 34 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 389, 390). Rigord (Duchesne,
_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 36. Will. Armor. _Gesta
Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 77.
[1810] Will. Newb. as above (p. 390).
[1811] _Ibid._ Rog. Howden, as above. Cf. Chron. Rothom., a.
1193 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._, vol. i. p. 369).
[1812] Will. Newb. as above.
[1813] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 217–220. These were apparently
the twenty thousand marks promised in 1189 and not yet paid.
Whether he intended to keep or to break these engagements is
practically no matter; for, if he meant to break them, Philip took care
to anticipate him. Seven months after the treaty was signed he again
crossed the Norman border, took Evreux,[1814] which he handed over to
John’s custody,[1815] and marched up by way of Neubourg and Vaudreuil,
both of which he captured, to besiege Rouen. Thence, however, he again
retired--scared, it may be, by tidings of Richard’s approach--and
hurrying back to the southern border laid siege to Verneuil on May
10.[1816] Two days later Richard landed at Barfleur,[1817] and by the
end of another fortnight he was encamped at L’Aigle,[1818] within a
few miles of Verneuil. His presence there, coupled with the defection
of John who had contrived to join him on the road,[1819] and the
surprise and slaughter of the French garrison of Evreux by a body
of Norman troops,[1820] alarmed Philip so much that on Whitsun Eve,
May 28, he again fled into his own dominions.[1821] Richard was busy
strengthening the walls of Verneuil when tidings came to him that “the
Angevins and Cenomannians” were besieging Montmirail,[1822] a castle
on the borders of Perche and Maine, famous as the scene of a stormy
conference between Henry II. and S. Thomas. Who the besiegers actually
were, or what was the ground of their hostility either to William
of Montmirail[1823] or to his overlord King Richard, must remain
undecided. It is plain, however, that in Richard’s ears the tidings
sounded as a warning of disaffection in his patrimonial dominions.
He hurried to the relief of Montmirail, but found it levelled with
the ground.[1824] He wasted no time in pursuit of its destroyers, but
pushed on direct to Tours, took up his quarters in Châteauneuf,[1825]
and shewed his suspicions concerning the origin of the new mischief by
driving the canons of S. Martin out of the abbey where they dwelt under
the special protection of the French king.[1826] The burghers, on the
other hand, made proof of their loyalty by a free-will offering of two
thousand marks.[1827] Determined now to redeem his pledges to Philip
not with gold but with steel, Richard marched on to Beaulieu,[1828] to
join a body of Navarrese and Brabantines, sent by his brother-in-law
Sancho of Navarre, in blockading the castle of Loches;[1829] a few
days after his arrival, on June 13, it was surrendered by its French
garrison.[1830] He was however standing between two fires. Bertrand de
Born was again stirring up the south, singing and fighting ostensibly
in Richard’s interest against his disaffected neighbours in the
Limousin, but in reality kindling into a fresh blaze all the reckless
passions and endless feuds which had been smouldering too long for the
warrior-poet’s pleasure.[1831] Philip meanwhile was again threatening
Rouen;[1832] the Norman archbishop and seneschal attempted to negotiate
with him in Richard’s name, but without result;[1833] and at the end of
the month he marched southward to meet Richard himself. On July 4 the
two kings were within a few miles of each other--Richard at Vendôme,
Philip at Fréteval.[1834] What followed is told so diversely by the
English and French historians of the time that it seems impossible
to reconcile the rival accounts or to decide between them. All that
we know for certain is that Philip suddenly struck his tents and
withdrew into the territories of the count of Blois; that Richard set
off in pursuit, missed Philip himself, but fell at unawares upon the
troops who were convoying his baggage towards Blois, routed them, and
captured all the French king’s most precious possessions, including
his royal seal and the treasury-rolls of the whole kingdom, besides
a number of valuable horses, an immense quantity of money and plate,
and--what would be scarcely less useful to Richard for political
purposes--the charters of agreement between Philip and all the Norman,
Angevin and Poitevin rebels who had plotted treason with him and John
against their lord.[1835]
[1814] Will. Newb. as above, c. 40 (p. 403). Rigord (as above),
p. 37. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ as above; _Philipp._, l.
iv. (_ibid._) p. 143.
[1815] Will. Armor. _Philipp._ as above.
[1816] Rigord as above. Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ as
above. Cf. _Philipp._ as above; Rog. Howden (as above), pp.
251, 252; R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 114, 115; and Will.
Newb., l. v. c. 2 (Howlett, vol. ii. p. 418). The date of the
siege of Verneuil comes from Rog. Howden.
[1817] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 251. R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 114.
[1818] Will. Newb., l. v. c. 2 (Howlett, vol. ii. p. 418).
[1819] Rog. Howden (as above), p. 252. R. Diceto, as above,
says they met “apud Bruis.”
[1820] This is all that Rigord says about the disaster
(Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. p. 37). In the
hands of the poet William of Armorica it becomes a horrible
romance, wherein John, as commandant of Evreux, invites the
unsuspecting Frenchmen to a banquet, and then brings in his
“armed Englishmen” to massacre them (_Philipp._, l. iv.,
_ib._ p. 143; _Gesta Phil. Aug._, _ib._ p. 77). John has so
many undoubted crimes to answer for that it probably seemed
a mere trifle to add one more to the list, but for that very
reason one cannot admit it on the sole testimony of the
poet-historiographer. The English writers say nothing of the
whole matter.
[1821] Rog. Howden and Will. Newb. as above. R. Diceto (as
above), p. 115. Cf. Rigord and Will. Armor. as above.
[1822] “Andegavenses et Cenomannenses” says Rog. Howden as
above. R. Diceto (as above), p. 116, has “Andegavenses” only;
the Chron. S. Albin. a. 1192 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 49), has
“Andegavenses et alii.”
[1823] William “Gohet” as R. Diceto calls him; _i.e._ (see
Bishop Stubbs’s note, _ibid._), “William of Perche Gouet,
Goeth, or le petit Perche.”
[1824] Rog. Howden as above. R. Diceto as above, p. 117. Cf.
Chron. S. Albin. a. 1192 (as above).
[1825] R. Diceto as above.
[1826] Rigord (Duchesne), _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. p.
38.
[1827] “Dono spontaneo,” Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p.
252; “nullâ coactione præmissâ,” R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii.
p. 117. The “burgenses” in question, as appears from R. Diceto,
were those of Châteauneuf, not the _cives_ of Tours proper.
[1828] R. Diceto as above.
[1829] Rog. Howden (as above), pp. 252, 253.
[1830] _Ib._ p. 253 (with the date). R. Diceto as above. Cf.
Chron. S. Albin. a. 1192 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 49).
[1831] Clédat, _Bert. de Born_, pp. 83, 84.
[1832] Rog. Howden as above, p. 253. R. Diceto, p. 116.
[1833] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 253–255.
[1834] R. Diceto as above.
[1835] Cf. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 255, 256; R.
Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 117, 118; Will. Newb., l. v.
c. 2 (Howlett, vol. ii. p. 419); Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist.
Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 38; Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil.
Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 77; _Philipp._, l. iv. (_ibid._), p. 144;
and Chron. S. Albin. a. 1192 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 49).
Rog. Howden alone mentions the charters, and Will. Armor. the
treasury-rolls and seal.
The repairing of this disaster gave Philip sufficient occupation
for the rest of the year, and Richard was free to march upon the
Aquitanian rebels. Sancho of Navarre was already wasting the lands of
the ringleaders, Geoffrey of Rancogne and Ademar of Angoulême;[1836]
and by July 22 Richard was able to report to his justiciar in England
that he was master of all the castles of the Angoumois and all the
lands of Geoffrey.[1837] From Angoulême he marched northward again,
took measures for the security of Anjou and Maine,[1838] and then
returned to Normandy, where he found that his representatives, headed
by the chancellor, had just concluded a truce with the French king
to last till All Saints’ day[1839]--a proceeding which served him
as the pretext for that withdrawal of the seal from William and
repudiation of all engagements made under it, which has been mentioned
already.[1840] No further movement was however made by either party
until the spring. Then the wearisome story of fruitless negotiations
alternating with indecisive warfare begins again, and goes on
unceasingly for the next four years. Save for an occasional attempt to
make a diversion in Berry, the actual fighting between the two kings
was confined to the Norman border.[1841] Normandy was the chief object
of Philip’s attack, partly no doubt because, owing to its geographical
position, he could invade it with more ease and less risk than any
other part of Richard’s dominions, but also because it was the key
to all the rest. A French conquest of Normandy would sever Richard’s
communications not only with Flanders and Germany, but also with
England; and the strength of the Angevins in Gaul now rested chiefly
upon the support of their island-realm. Neither assailant nor defender,
however, was able to gain any decisive advantage in the field. The
armed struggle between them was in fact of less importance than the
diplomatic rivalry which they carried on side by side with it; and in
this, strangely enough, Richard, who had hitherto shewn so little of
the far-sighted statecraft and political tact of his race, proved more
than a match for his wily antagonist.
[1836] R. Diceto as above, p. 117. Will. Newb. as above.
[1837] Letter of Richard to Hubert Walter (date, Angoulême,
July 22) in Rog. Howden as above, pp. 256, 257. Cf. R. Diceto
as above, pp. 118, 119. Will. Newb. as above (p. 420).
[1838] “Rediit in Andegaviam, et redemit omnes baillivos suos,
id est, ad redemptionem coegit. Similiter fecit in Cenomanniâ.”
Rog. Howden as above, p. 267. At Le Mans “convocavit magnates
omnes suæ jurisdictioni subpositos,” and apparently tried to
shame them into more active loyalty--or more liberal gifts--by
eulogy of their English brethren: “ubi fidem Anglorum in
adversitate suâ semper sibi gratiosam, integram et probabilem
plurimum commendavit.” R. Diceto as above, p. 119.
[1839] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 257–260. Cf. R. Diceto as
above, p. 120, and Will. Newb., l. v. c. 3 (as above). This
last gives a wrong date; that of the document in Rog. Howden is
July 23.
[1840] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 267. See above, p.
343.
[1841] It may be followed in Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii.
pp. 301–305, vol. iv. pp. 3–7, 14, 16, 19–21, 24, 54–61, 68,
78–81; Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), pp.
38–40, 42; Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), pp. 78,
79; _Philipp._, l. v. (_ib._), pp. 146–154.
That the foes in Richard’s own household should league themselves
against him with Philip, as he had done in earlier days against his
own father, was, so far as Richard himself is concerned, no more than
retributive justice. Philip’s alliance with John had proved a failure;
but it was not long before he saw a chance of securing a more useful
tool in the person of little Arthur of Britanny. English historians
tell us that when Richard and Philip made their treaty at Messina in
March 1191 Richard obtained a formal acknowledgement of his rights,
as duke of Normandy, to the overlordship of Britanny and the liege
homage of its duke.[1842] The text of the treaty of Messina, however,
contains not a word on this subject; the agreement, if made at all,
must have been drawn up in a separate form; and it seems to have
remained a dead letter, like another agreement made at the same place a
few months earlier--the treaty with Tancred whereby Richard had engaged
to recognize Arthur of Britanny as his successor in default of direct
heirs. Although after five years of marriage Queen Berengaria was
still childless, no such recognition had yet been made. Richard on his
return to Europe probably perceived that Arthur’s succession would be
impossible in England, and in Gaul would be fatal to the independence
of the Angevin house. Accordingly, he was once more doing all in
his power to win the attachment of John; and John, having at length
discovered that his own interests could be better served by supporting
his brother than by intriguing against him, proved an active and useful
ally in the war against Philip.[1843] On the other hand, Richard seems
never to have received Arthur’s homage for Britanny; and those who had
the control of political affairs in that country were determined that
he never should. The dispute between Henry and Philip for the wardship
of the two children of Geoffrey and Constance had apparently ended in
a compromise. Eleanor, the elder child, was now under the care of her
uncle Richard;[1844] but Constance seems to have succeeded in keeping
her infant boy out of the reach of both his would-be guardians, and,
moreover, in governing her duchy without any reference to either of
them, for nearly seven years after the death of her father-in-law King
Henry. She had been given in marriage by him, when scarcely twelve
months a widow, to Earl Ralf of Chester,[1845] son and successor of
Earl Hugh who had been one of the leaders in the revolt of 1173. As
the earls of Chester were hereditary viscounts of the Avranchin--the
border-district of Normandy and Britanny--this marriage would have
furnished an excellent means of securing the Norman hold upon the
Breton duchy, if only Ralf himself could have secured a hold upon his
wife. In this however he completely failed. Safe in her hereditary
dominions, with her boy at her side, and strong in the support of
her people rejoicing in their newly-regained independence, Constance
apparently set Ralf, Richard and Philip all alike at defiance, till in
1196 Richard summoned her to a conference with himself in Normandy,
and she set out to obey the summons. Scarcely had she touched the soil
of the Avranchin at Pontorson when she was caught by her husband and
imprisoned in his castle of S. James-de-Beuvron.[1846] It is hard not
to suspect that Richard and Ralf had plotted the capture between them;
for Richard, instead of insisting upon her release, at once renewed
his claim to the wardship of Arthur, and prepared to enforce it at
the sword’s point. The Bretons first hurried their young duke away to
the innermost fastnesses of their wild and desolate country under the
care of the bishop of Vannes,[1847] and then, after a vain attempt to
liberate his mother, intrusted him to the protection of the king of
France,[1848] who of course received him with open arms, and sent him
to be educated with his own son.[1849]
[1842] _Gesta Ric._ (Stubbs), p. 161. Rog. Howden (Stubbs),
vol. iii. pp. 99, 100.
[1843] See _e.g._ Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 5, 16, 60;
Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 38;
Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._), p. 77.
[1844] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. pp. 275, 278.
[1845] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 29.
[1846] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 7.
[1847] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. v. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 149. Will. Newb., l. v. c. 18 (Howlett,
vol. ii. pp. 463, 464).
[1848] Rog. Howden as above.
[1849] Will. Armor. as above.
Philip had now got the old Angevin patrimony between two fires; but
the Bretons were so little accustomed to act in concert even among
themselves, far less with any other power, that he found it impossible
to make any real use of them as allies either for military or political
purposes. The independent warfare which they carried on with Richard
across the south-western border of Normandy[1850] had little effect
upon that which Richard and Philip were carrying on along its eastern
border; and upon the Angevin lands which lay directly between Britanny
and France the Breton revolt had no effect at all. To the end of
Richard’s life, we hear of no further troubles in Maine or Anjou.
Nay more, we hear of no further troubles in Aquitaine. If Philip
had in some sense turned Richard’s flank in the west, Richard had
turned Philip’s flank far more effectually in the south. The unwonted
tranquillity there may indeed have been partly due to the fact that
one of the chief sources of disturbance was removed in 1196 by the
withdrawal of Bertrand de Born into a monastery;[1851] but it was also
in great measure owing to Richard’s quickness in seizing an opportunity
which presented itself, in that same eventful year, of forming a
lasting alliance with the house of Toulouse. His old enemy Count
Raymond V. was dead;[1852] he now offered the hand of his own favourite
sister, the still young and handsome Queen Jane of Sicily, to the new
Count Raymond VI.;[1853] and thenceforth the eastern frontier of his
Aquitanian duchy was as secure under the protection of his sister’s
husband as its southern frontier under that of his wife’s brother, the
king of Navarre.
[1850] Will. Newb. as above, c. 30 (p. 491). Rog. Howden as
above.
[1851] Clédat, _Bert. de Born_, p. 92.
[1852] In 1194, according to Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 38.
[1853] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 13. Will. Newb., l. v.
c. 30 (Howlett, vol. ii. p. 491). R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p.
70.
Nor were Richard’s alliances confined within the boundaries of Gaul.
His year of captivity in Germany had not been all wasted time. When
he parted from his imperial jailor in the spring of 1194, they were,
at any rate in outward semblance, close political allies; and at the
same time Richard had succeeded in gaining over his bitterest foe,
Leopold of Austria, by an offer of his niece Eleanor of Britanny as
wife to Leopold’s son.[1854] The marriage-contract was however not
yet executed when the Austrian duke met with a fatal accident and
died in agony, owning with his last breath that his miserable end was
a just retribution for his conduct towards the English king.[1855]
The impression made by this event deepened the feeling of respect and
awe which the captive lion had already contrived to inspire in the
princes of the Empire. Meanwhile Henry VI. had made himself master
of Sicily;[1856] and now the old dream by which the German Emperors
never quite ceased to be haunted, the dream of re-asserting their
imperial supremacy over Gaul, was beginning to shape itself anew in
his brain. In the summer of 1195 he sent to Richard a golden crown
and a message charging him, on his plighted faith to the Emperor and
on the very lives of his hostages, to invade the French kingdom at
once, and promising him the support and co-operation of the imperial
forces. Richard, suspecting a trap, despatched William of Longchamp
to inquire into the exact nature, extent and security of Henry’s
promised assistance; Philip vainly tried to intercept the envoy as he
passed through the royal domains;[1857] and the negotiations proved
so far effectual that Henry remitted seventeen thousand marks out of
the ransom, as a contribution to Richard’s expenses in his struggle
with Philip.[1858] When, on Michaelmas Eve 1197, Henry VI. died,[1859]
the use of that homage on Richard’s part which his English subjects
had resented so bitterly was made apparent to them at last. While the
English king was holding his Christmas court at Rouen there came to him
an embassy from the princes of Germany, summoning him, as chief among
the lay members of the Empire[1860] by virtue of his investiture with
the kingdom of Arles, to take part with them in the election of a new
Emperor at Cöln on February 22.[1861] Richard himself could not venture
to leave Gaul; but the issue proved that his presence at Cöln was not
needed to secure his interests there. He wished that the imperial crown
should be given to his nephew Duke Henry of Saxony, eldest son and
successor of Henry the Lion. This scheme, however, when laid before the
other electors by the envoys whom he sent to represent him at Cöln,
was rejected on account of the duke’s absence in Holy Land.[1862] The
representatives of the English king then proposed Henry’s brother
Otto, for whom Richard had long been vainly endeavouring to find
satisfactory provision on either side of the sea,[1863] and who seems
really to have been his favourite nephew. The result was that, on the
appointed day, Otto was elected Emperor of the Romans,[1864] and on
July 12 he was crowned king of the Germans at Aachen by the archbishop
of Cöln.[1865]
[1854] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 273. See above, p.
325.
[1855] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 276, 277. R. Diceto (Stubbs),
vol. ii. p. 124. Will. Newb. as above, c. 8 (pp. 431–434). R.
Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 65, 66.
[1856] In the autumn of 1194. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii.
pp. 268–270. Cf. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 123, 124.
[1857] Rog. Howden (as above), pp. 300, 301.
[1858] _Ib._ pp. 303, 304.
[1859] _Ib._ vol. iv. p. 31.
[1860] “Sicut præcipuum membrum imperii.” _Ib._ p. 37.
[1861] _Ibid._
[1862] _Ib._ pp. 37, 38.
[1863] He appointed him earl of York in 1190, but as the grant
was made after the king left England, some of the Yorkshire
folk doubted its genuineness, and Otto never succeeded in
obtaining possession. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 86.
The elaborate scheme for his endowment in the north, projected
in 1195, has already been mentioned (above, p. 341). This
having also failed, Richard in 1196 gave him the investiture
of Poitou. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 7; cf. _ib._ vol.
iii. p. 86, and R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 70.
[1864] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 37–39. R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 163.
[1865] R. Diceto as above.
For a moment, at the mere prospect of beholding a grandson of Henry
Fitz-Empress seated upon the imperial throne of the west, there had
flashed across the mind of at least one friend of the Angevin house
a fancy that the world-wide dominion which seemed to be passing away
from the heirs of Fulk the Good was to be renewed for yet one more
generation.[1866] There was indeed an opposition party in Germany,
who set up a rival Emperor in the person of Philip of Suabia, a
brother of Henry VI.;[1867] and he at once made common cause with
his French namesake.[1868] This Suabian alliance, however, and the
support of the count of Ponthieu--purchased two years before with the
hand of the unhappy Adela, whom Richard had at last restored to her
brother[1869]--could not much avail Philip Augustus against such a
league as was now gathering around the English king. The vast sums
which Hubert Walter had been sending, year after year, to his royal
master over sea were bringing a goodly interest at last. Flanders,
Britanny, Champagne, had all been secretly detached from the French
alliance and bought over to the service of Richard;[1870] the Flemish
count had already drawn Philip into a war in which he narrowly escaped
being made prisoner;[1871] and in the summer of 1198, when the imperial
election was over, not only Baldwin of Flanders, Reginald of Boulogne,
Baldwin of Guines, Henry of Louvain, Everard of Brienne, Geoffrey of
Perche and Raymond of Toulouse, but even the young count Louis of
Blois and the boy-duke Arthur of Britanny himself, one and all leagued
themselves in an offensive and defensive alliance with Richard against
the French king.[1872] The immediate consequence was that Philip
begged Hubert Walter, who being just released from his justiciarship
had rejoined his sovereign in Normandy, to make peace for him with
Richard; and he even went so far as to offer the surrender of all
the Norman castles which he had won, except Gisors. Richard however
would listen to no terms in which his allies were not included.[1873]
At last, in November, a truce was made, to last till the usual term,
S. Hilary’s day.[1874] When it expired the two kings held a colloquy
on the Seine between Vernon and Les Andelys, Richard in a boat on
the river, Philip on horseback on the shore;[1875] this meeting was
followed by another, where, by the mediation of a cardinal-legate,
Peter of Capua, who had lately arrived in Gaul, they were persuaded to
prolong their truce for five years.[1876]
[Illustration: Plan VII.
LES ANDELYS AND CHATEAU-GAILLARD.
(From Deville, “Histoire du Château-Gaillard”)
Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic. London, Macmillan & Co.
]
[1866] R. Diceto tells the story of the prophecy made to Fulk
the Good in two places; in the _Abbreviationes Historiarum_
(Stubbs, vol. i. p. 149) and in the _Opuscula_ (vol. ii. pp.
267, 268). In the latter place he adds: “Quod quondam probavit
regnum Jerosolimitanum; quod adhuc ostendit regnum Anglorum;
quod suo tempore declarabit Romanum imperium.” This, as Bishop
Stubbs notes, “looks like an anticipation of the election
of Otto IV. to the empire.... As Bishop Longchamp died in
1197, before which date we must suppose MS. R to have been
written” [the MS. from which the _Opuscula_ are printed, and
which begins with a dedication to William of Longchamp], “it
can scarcely be a prophecy after the event.” As William of
Longchamp died January 31, 1197 (R. Diceto, vol. ii. p. 150;
February 1 according to Gerv. Cant., Stubbs, vol. i. p. 543),
it seems indeed to shew that the possibility of one or other
of Richard’s nephews becoming Emperor at the next vacancy was
already in contemplation more than eight months before the
death of Henry VI. Or was Ralf dreaming rather of a transfer of
the imperial crown to Richard himself? for it is to be observed
that Otto can be included within the “nine generations” only
by excluding from them Fulk the Good himself; but this mode of
computing would fail if applied to the eastern branch of the
Angevin house, where it would give only eight generations, so
that we can hardly suppose it to have been adopted by Ralf.
According to R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 88, and Gerv. Cant.
as above, p. 545, a party among the electors actually did
choose Richard, and--much more strangely--another party chose
Philip of France.
[1867] Rog. Howden as above, p. 39.
[1868] Treaty in Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 70; date,
June 29 [1197].
[1869] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iii. p. 303. Rigord
(Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 38. Will.
Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (_ibid._) p. 77.
[1870] Cf. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 19, R. Coggeshall
(Stevenson), p. 77, and Will. Newb., l. v. c. 32 (Howlett, vol.
ii. p. 495). Richard’s treaty with Flanders is in R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 152, 153, and Rymer, as above, pp. 67,
68; it has no date, but as R. Diceto (as above, p. 158) tells
us that it was drawn up by Hubert Walter, and also that Hubert
was in Gaul from September 14 (or 28, according to Gerv. Cant.,
Stubbs, vol. i. p. 574) to November 8 [1197], it must fall in
that interval.
[1871] Rog. Howden as above, pp. 20, 21. Will. Newb. as above.
R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), pp. 77, 78.
[1872] Rog. Howden as above, p. 54.
[1873] _Ib._ p. 61.
[1874] _Ib._ p. 68.
[1875] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 79, 80.
[1876] _Ib._ p. 80. Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._,
vol. v.), p. 42.
Yet all the while, there lurked in Richard’s heart a misgiving that,
in the last resort, his diplomacy would prove to have been in vain;
that, strive as he might to turn away the tide of war from his own
borders by stirring up north and east and south to overwhelm the Crown
of France, still, after all, the day must come when the Angevins would
have to stake their political existence solely upon their own military
resources, and to stand at bay, unaided, unsupported, alone, behind
whatever bulwark they might be able to devise by their own military
genius. It was the genius and the foresight of Richard himself which
insured that when the crisis came, the bulwark was ready, even though
it were doomed to prove unavailing in the end. The last and mightiest
of the many mighty fortresses reared by Angevin hands since the first
great builder of the race had begun his castle-building in the Loire
valley was the Château-Gaillard, the “saucy castle” of Richard the
Lion-heart. He “fixed its site where the Seine bends suddenly at
Gaillon in a great semicircle to the north, and where the valley of
Les Andelys breaks the line of the chalk cliffs along its banks. Blue
masses of woodland crown the distant hills; within the river curve
lies a dull reach of flat meadow, round which the Seine, broken with
green islets and dappled with the grey and blue of the sky, flashes
like a silver bow on its way to Rouen.”[1877] Some three-quarters of a
league from the right bank of the river, in a valley opening upon it
from the eastward and watered by the little stream of Gambon, stood
the town of Andely. Between the town and the river stretched a lake,
or rather perhaps a marsh,[1878] through which the Gambon and another
lesser rivulet descending from the hills to the north of Andely found
their way by two separate issues into the Seine, nearly opposite two
islets, of which the larger and more northerly was known as the Isle
of Andely.[1879] The space enclosed between the three rivers and the
marsh seems to have been a tract of waste land, occupied only by a
toll-house for the collection of dues from the vessels passing up and
down the Seine[1880]--dues which formed one of the most important items
in the revenue of the archbishop of Rouen, to whom Andely and its
neighbourhood belonged.[1881] Over against this spot, on the southern
bank of the Gambon, in the angle formed by its junction with the Seine,
a mass of limestone crag rose abruptly to the height of three hundred
feet. Its western side, almost perpendicular, looked down upon the
great river, the northern, scarcely less steep, over the Gambon and
the lake beyond; to the north-east and south-west its rocky slopes
died down into deep ravines, and only a narrow neck of land at its
south-eastern extremity connected it with the lofty plateau covered
with a dense woodland known as the Forest of Andely, which stretches
along the eastern side of the Seine valley between Andely and Gaillon.
One glance at the site was enough to rivet a soldier’s gaze. If,
instead of the metropolitan church of Normandy, a lay baron had owned
the soil of Andely, we may be sure that long ago that lofty brow would
have received its fitting crown; if the power of Fulk the Builder had
reached to the banks of the Seine, we may doubt whether the anathemas
of the Norman primate would not have availed as little to wrest such a
spot from his grasp as those of the archbishop of Tours had availed to
wrest from him the site of Montrichard. But a greater castle-builder
than Fulk Nerra himself was the architect of Château-Gaillard.
[1877] I copy Mr. Green’s picture, _Hist. of the English
People_, vol. i. p. 187.
[1878] Now dried up. See Deville, _Hist. du Château-Gaillard_,
pp. 27, 28.
[1879] “Est locus Andelii qui nunc habet insula nomen.” Will.
Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. v. 29 (Deville, _Château-Gaillard_,
p. 126; Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. p. 169).
[1880] See a charter of Archbishop Malger (11th century) and
one of Pope Eugene III., a. 1148, quoted in Deville as above,
p. 26, note 2.
[1881] The archbishops seem to have looked upon Andely as
their most profitable territorial possession; Rotrou called it
his “unicum vivendi subsidium” (Rotr. Ep. xxiv., _Rer. Gall.
Scriptt._, vol. xvi. p. 632); Walter called it “patrimonium
ecclesiæ solum et unicum” (R. Diceto, Stubbs, vol. ii. p. 148).
Richard’s historical connexion with the “rock of Andely” has its
ill-omened beginning in a ghastly story of the fate of three French
prisoners whom he flung from its summit into the ravine below, in
vengeance for the slaughter of some Welsh auxiliaries who had been
surprised and cut to pieces by the French king’s troops in the
neighbouring valley.[1882] By the opening of 1196, however, he had
devised for it a more honourable use. In a treaty with Philip, drawn
up in January of that year, the fief of Andely was made the subject of
special provisions whereby it was reserved as a sort of neutral zone
between the territories of the two kings, and a significant clause was
added: “Andely shall not be fortified.”[1883] As by the same treaty the
older bulwarks of Normandy--Nonancourt, Ivry, Pacy, Vernon, Gaillon,
Neufmarché, Gisors--were resigned into Philip’s hands, this clause,
if strictly fulfilled, would have left the Seine without a barrier
and Rouen at the mercy of the French king. The agreement in short,
like all those which bore the signatures of Philip and Richard, was
made only to be broken; both parties broke it without delay; and while
Philip was forming his league with the Bretons for the ruin of Anjou,
Richard was tracing out in the valley of the Gambon and on the rock of
Andely the plan of a line of fortifications which were to interpose
an insurmountable barrier between his Norman capital and the French
invader. His first act was to seize the Isle of Andely.[1884] Here he
built a lofty octagonal tower, encircled by a ditch and rampart, and
threw a bridge over the river from each side of the island, linking it
thus to either shore.[1885] On the right, beyond the eastern bridge, he
traced out the walls of a new town, which took the name of the New or
the Lesser Andely,[1886] a secure stronghold whose artificial defences
of ramparts and towers were surrounded by the further protection of the
lake on its eastern side, the Seine on the west, and the two lesser
rivers to north and south, a bridge spanning each of these two little
streams forming the sole means of access from the mainland.[1887]
The southern bridge, that over the Gambon, linked this New Andely
with the foot of the rock which was to be crowned with the mightiest
work of all. Richard began by digging out to a yet greater depth the
ravines which parted this rock from the surrounding heights, so as to
make it wholly inaccessible save by the one connecting isthmus at its
south-eastern extremity. On its summit, which formed a plateau some six
hundred feet in length and two hundred in breadth at the widest part,
he reared a triple fortress. The outer ward consisted of a triangular
enclosure; its apex, facing the isthmus already mentioned, was crowned
by a large round tower,[1888] with walls ten feet in thickness; the
extremities of its base were strengthened by similar towers, and two
smaller ones broke the line of the connecting curtain-wall. This
was surrounded by a ditch dug in the rock to a depth of more than
forty feet, and having a perpendicular counterscarp. Fronting the
base of this outer fortress across the ditch on its north-western
side was a rampart surmounted by a wall ninety feet long and eight
feet thick, also flanked by two round towers; from these a similar
wall ran all round the edges of the plateau, where the steep sides
of the rock itself took the place of rampart and ditch. The wall on
the south-west side--the river-front--was broken by another tower,
cylindrical without, octagonal within; and its northern extremity
was protected by two mighty rectangular bastions. Close against one
of these stood a round tower, which served as the base of a third
enclosure, the heart and citadel of the whole fortress. Two-thirds
of its elliptical outline, on the east and south, were formed by a
succession of semicircular bastions, or segments of towers, seventeen
in number, each parted from its neighbour by scarcely more than
two feet of curtain-wall--an arrangement apparently imitated from the
fortress of Cherbourg, which was accounted the greatest marvel of
military architecture in Normandy, until its fame was eclipsed by that
of Richard’s work.[1889] This portion of the enclosure was built upon
a rampart formed by the excavation of a ditch about fifteen to twenty
feet in width; the counterscarp, like that of the outer ditches, was
perpendicular; and a series of casemates cut in the rock ran along on
this side for a distance of about eighty feet. On the western side of
the citadel stood the keep, a mighty circular tower, with walls of
the thickness of twelve feet, terminating at an angle of twenty feet
in depth where it projected into the enclosure; it had two or perhaps
three stages,[1890] and was lighted by two great arched windows, whence
the eye could range at will over the wooded hills and dales of the
Vexin, or the winding course of the river broadening onward to Rouen.
Behind the keep was placed the principal dwelling-house, and under this
a staircase cut out of the rock gave access to an underground passage
leading to some outworks and a tower near the foot of the hill, whence
a wall was carried down to the river-bank, just beyond the northern
extremity of a long narrow island known as the “isle of the Three
Kings”--doubtless from some one of the many meetings held in this
district by Louis VII. or Philip Augustus and the two Henrys.[1891] The
river itself was barred by a double stockade, crossing its bed from
shore to shore.[1892]
[Illustration: Plan VIII.
CHATEAU-GAILLARD
(From Deville, “Histoire du Château-Gaillard”).
Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic. London, Macmillan & Co.
]
[1882] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. v. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 151.
[1883] Treaty in Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 66. For date see
Rigord (Duchesne as above), p. 39.
[1884] Letter of Walter of Rouen (a. 1196), R. Diceto (Stubbs),
vol. ii. pp. 148, 149. Cf. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p.
14, and Will. Newb., l. v. c. 34 (Howlett, vol. ii. p. 499).
[1885] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 29–43 (Deville,
_Château-Gaillard_, p. 126; Duchesne as above, p. 169).
[1886] A poet of the thirteenth century, William Guiart, calls
it “le Nouvel-Andeli.” It is known now as “le Petit-Andely.”
Deville as above, p. 26.
[1887] Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 81. Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, p. 27.
[1888] Now known as “tour de la Monnaie.” Deville as above, p.
30, note 1.
[1889] See Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, p. 34, and the passage
there quoted from _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes
d’Anjou_, p. 300).
[1890] See Deville as above, p. 38, note 2.
[1891] _Ib._ p. 36. The island is now joined to the mainland;
_ib._ note 1.
[1892] For description see Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._
(Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 81;
_Philipp._, l. vii. vv. 48–85 (_ib._ pp. 169, 170; Deville as
above, pp. 126, 127), and Deville as above, pp. 25–40.
All this work was accomplished within a single year.[1893] Richard,
who had watched over its progress with unremitting care, broke into
an ecstasy of delight at its completion; he called his barons to see
“how fair a child was his, this child but a twelvemonth old”;[1894]
he called it his “saucy castle,” “Château-Gaillard,”[1895] and the
name which he thus gave it in jest soon replaced in popular speech
its more formal title of “the Castle on the Rock of Andely.”[1896]
The hardness of the rock out of which the fortifications were hewn
was not the sole obstacle against which the royal builder had had to
contend. Richard had no more thought than Fulk Nerra would have had of
asking the primate’s leave before beginning to build upon his land;
the work therefore was no sooner begun than Archbishop Walter lifted
up his protest against it; obtaining no redress, he laid Normandy
under interdict and carried his complaint in person to the Pope.[1897]
Richard at once sent envoys to appeal against the interdict and make
arrangements for the settlement of the dispute.[1898] Meanwhile,
however, he pushed on the building without delay. Like Fulk of old,
the seeming wrath of Heaven moved him as little as that of its earthly
representatives; a rain of blood which fell upon the workmen and
the king himself, though it scared all beside, failed to shake his
determination; “if an angel had come down out of the sky to bid him
stay his hand, he would have got no answer but a curse.”[1899] He
had now, however, made his peace with the Church; in the spring of
1197 he offered to the archbishop an exchange of land on terms highly
advantageous to the metropolitan see; and on this condition the Pope
raised the interdict in May of the same year.[1900] The exchange was
carried through on October 16,[1901] and ratified by John in a separate
charter, a step which seems to indicate that John was now recognized as
his brother’s heir.[1902]
[1893] That is, the castle on the rock, built 1197–1198. See
the story of the rain of blood in May 1198 (R. Diceto, Stubbs,
vol. ii. p. 162), which fixes its completion after that date.
The tower on the island and the Nouvel-Andely were the work of
the previous year, 1196–1197.
[1894] “Ecce quam pulcra filia unius anni!” J. Bromton,
Twysden, _X. Scriptt._, col. 1276.
[1895] “Totamque munitionem illam vocavit Gaillardum, quod
sonat in Gallico petulantiam.” Will. Armor. _Gesta Phil. Aug._
(Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 81.
[1896] “Castrum” or “castellum de Rupe Andeleii” or
“Andeliaci,” it is called in the charters of Richard and John.
The first document in which it appears as “Château-Gaillard” is
a charter of S. Louis, “actum in Castro nostro Gaillard,” A.D.
1261; Deville, _Château-Gaillard_, p. 40. Will. Armor. however
uses the name, and other writers soon begin to copy him.
[1897] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 14. Cf. Will. Newb.,
l. v. c. 28 (Howlett, vol. ii. pp. 487, 488), R. Coggeshall
(Stevenson), p. 70, and Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 544.
[1898] The envoys were William of Longchamp, William bishop of
Lisieux and Philip elect of Durham; Rog. Howden (as above), pp.
16, 17. They must have started early in 1197, for William of
Longchamp died on the journey, at Poitiers, on January 31 or
February 1; see above, p. 373, note 4{1866}.
[1899] Will. Newb., l. v. c. 34 (as above, p. 500). This is
William’s last sentence. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 162,
also tells of the portent, and gives its date, May 8, 1198.
[1900] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. pp. 17–19. Will. Newb.,
l. v. c. 34 (Howlett, vol. ii. pp. 499, 500).
[1901] Richard’s charter, of which Deville gives a fac-simile
in his _Château-Gaillard_, p. 18, and a printed copy in his
“pièces justificatives,” _ib._ pp. 113–118, is also in R.
Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 154–156. According to this last
writer (_ib._ pp. 158, 159), and Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs, vol. i.
p. 544), the settlement was due to the mediation of Archbishop
Hubert.
[1902] See Deville, as above, pp. 21, 22. John’s charter is in
the “pièces justificatives,” _ib._ pp. 119–123.
It was probably about the same time that the treaty with Flanders, the
corner-stone of the league which Richard was forming against the king
of France, was signed within the walls of the new fortress.[1903] Yet,
as has been already seen, the coalition was not fully organized till
late in the following summer; and even then the complicated weapon hung
fire. Want of money seems to have been Richard’s chief difficulty, now
as ever--a difficulty which after Hubert Walter’s defeat in the council
at Oxford and his resignation in the following July must have seemed
well-nigh insurmountable. At last, however, in the spring of 1199, a
ray of hope came from a quarter where it was wholly unexpected. Richard
was leading his mercenaries through Poitou to check the viscount of
Limoges and the count of Angoulême in a renewal of their treasonable
designs[1904] when he was met by rumours of a marvellous discovery
at Châlus in the Limousin. A peasant working on the land of Achard,
the lord of Châlus, was said to have turned up with his plough a
treasure[1905] which popular imagination pictured as nothing less than
“an emperor with his wife, sons and daughters, all of pure gold, and
seated round a golden table.”[1906] In vain did Achard seek to keep
his secret and his prize to himself. Treasure-trove was a right of the
overlord, and it seems to have been at once claimed by the viscount
Ademar of Limoges, as Achard’s immediate superior. His claim, however,
had to give way to that of his own overlord, King Richard; but when
he sent to the king the share which he had himself wrung from Achard,
Richard indignantly rejected it, vowing that he would have all. This
Achard and Ademar both refused, and the king laid siege to Châlus.[1907]
[1903] R. Diceto (as above), p. 153.
[1904] Rog. Howden as above, p. 80, says merely that Richard
was on his way to Poitou. R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 94,
says he was marching against the viscount of Limoges, to
punish him for a treasonable alliance with the French king.
The writer of the _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), p. 280, says
“expeditionem direxerat adversus comitem Engolismensem”; and
that Angoulême had some share in the matter appears also from
the confused story of Gerv. Cant. (as above), pp. 592, 593, who
makes Richard receive his death-wound while besieging “castrum
comitis Engolismi, quod Nantrum erat appellatum.” A joint
rebellion of the lords of Limoges and Angoulême would be very
natural, for they were half-brothers. On the other hand, the
two men were very likely to be confounded by historians, for
they both bore the same name, Ademar. See above, p. 220 and
note 3{1035}.
[1905] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. v. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 155. Rigord (_ib._ p. 42) describes the
finder as a soldier.
[1906] “Qui posteris, quo tempore fuerant, certam dabant
memoriam,” adds Rigord (as above), p. 43. Is it possible that
the thing can have been a real relic of some of the old Gothic
kings of Aquitania?
[1907] This seems to be the only way of reconciling the
different accounts in Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 82,
Rigord (as above), p. 42, Will. Armor. as above, and R.
Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 94.
This place, not far from the western border of the Limousin, is now
represented by two villages, known conjointly as Châlus-Chabrol, and
built upon the summits of two low hills, at whose foot winds the
little stream of Tardoire. Each hill is crowned by a round tower of
late twelfth-century work; the lower one is traditionally said to be
the keep of the fortress besieged by Richard with all his forces at
Mid-Lent 1199.[1908] In vain did Achard, who was utterly unprepared
to stand a siege, protest his innocence and offer to submit to the
judgement of the French king’s court, as supreme alike over the duke
of Aquitaine and over his vassals; in vain did he beg for a truce
till the holy season should be past; in vain, when the outworks were
almost wholly destroyed and the keep itself undermined,[1909] did he
ask leave to surrender with the honours of war for himself and his men.
Richard was inexorable; he swore that he would hang them all.[1910]
With the courage that is born of despair, Achard, accompanied by six
knights and nine serving-men, retired into the keep, determined to hold
it until death.[1911] All that day--Friday, March 26[1912]--Richard
and his lieutenant Mercadier, the captain of his mercenaries,[1913]
prowled vainly round the walls, seeking for a point at which they
could assault them with safety.[1914] Their sappers were all the while
undermining the tower.[1915] Its defenders, finding themselves short
of missiles, began throwing down beams of wood and fragments of the
broken battlements at the miners’ heads.[1916] They were equally short
of defensive arms; one of the little band stood for more than half the
day upon a turret, with nothing but a frying-pan for a shield against
the bolts which flew whistling all around him, yet failed to drive him
from his post.[1917] At last the moment came for which he had been
waiting so long and so bravely. Just as Richard, unarmed save for his
iron head-piece, paused within bow-shot of the turret, this man caught
sight of an arrow which had been shot at himself from the besieging
ranks--seemingly, indeed, by Richard’s own hand--and had stuck
harmlessly in a crevice of the wall within his reach. He snatched it
out, fitted it to his cross-bow, and aimed at the king.[1918] Richard
saw the movement and greeted it with a shout of defiant applause; he
failed to shelter himself under his buckler; the arrow struck him on
the left shoulder, just below the joint of the neck, and glancing
downwards penetrated deep into his side.[1919] He made light of the
wound,[1920] gave strict orders to Mercadier to press the assault with
redoubled vigour,[1921] and rode back to his tent as if nothing was
amiss.[1922] There he rashly tried to pull out the arrow with his own
hand.[1923] The wood broke off, the iron barb remained fixed in the
wound; a surgeon attached to the staff of Mercadier was sent for, and
endeavoured to cut it out; unluckily, Richard was fat like his father,
and the iron, buried deep in his flesh, was so difficult to reach that
the injuries caused by the operator’s knife proved more dangerous
than that which had been inflicted by the shaft of the hostile
crossbow-man.[1924] The wounded side grew more swollen and inflamed day
by day; the patient’s constitutional restlessness, aggravated as it
was by pain, made matters worse;[1925] and at last mortification set
in.[1926]
[1908] Will. Armor. (as above) says the treasure was discovered
_after_ Mid-Lent. But Rog. Howden (as above, p. 84), Gerv.
Cant. (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 593), R. Coggeshall (Stevenson,
p. 95), and the Ann. of Margam, Winton. and Waverl. a. 1199
(Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. i. p. 24, vol. ii. pp. 71, 251),
all tell us that Richard received his death-wound on March
26--Friday, the morrow of Mid-Lent--and R. Coggeshall adds that
this was the third day of the siege, which must therefore have
begun on Wednesday, March 24.
[1909] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. v. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 155.
[1910] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 82. Cf. Gerv. Cant.
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 593.
[1911] Will. Armor. as above.
[1912] See above, p. 382, note 4{1908}.
[1913] On this man’s history see an article by H.
Géraud--“Mercadier; les Routiers au xiiiᵉ siècle”--in
_Bibl. de l’Ecole des Chartes_, ser. i. vol. iii. pp. 417
_et seq._ The writers of his own time call him “Marcadeus,”
“Mercaderius,” in every possible variety of spelling; in a
charter of his own, printed by Géraud (as above, p. 444),
his style is “ego Merchaderius”; it seems best therefore
to adopt the form “Mercadier,” which Géraud uses. He was a
Provençal by birth (Mat. Paris, _Chron. Maj._, Luard, vol. ii.
p. 421). He makes his first historical appearance in 1183,
in Richard’s service, amid the disorders in Aquitaine after
the death of the young king (Geoff. Vigeois, l. ii. c. 25,
Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._, vol. ii. p. 340). He reappears by
Richard’s side at Vendôme in 1194 (Rog. Howden, Stubbs, vol.
iii. p. 256); about this time Richard endowed him with the
lands of Bainac in Périgord (see his own charter, a. 1195, as
referred to above, and Géraud’s comments, _ib._ pp. 423–427).
He played a considerable part in Richard’s wars with Philip
(see authorities collected by Géraud, as above, pp. 428–431),
remained, as we shall see, with Richard till his death, and
afterwards helped Eleanor to regain Anjou for John. He was
slain at Bordeaux in April 1200 (Rog. Howden, Stubbs, vol. iv.
p. 114).
[1914] Rog. Howden (as above), p. 82.
[1915] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 94.
[1916] _Ibid._ Will. Armor. as above.
[1917] R. Coggeshall, p. 95.
[1918] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. v. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 156. Cf. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv.
p. 82.
[1919] “Percussitque regem super humerum sinistrum juxta colli
spondilia, sicque arcuato vulnere telum dilapsum est deorsum
ac lateri sinistro immersum.” R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p.
95. See also the briefer accounts of the scene and the wound
in Rog. Howden and Will. Armor. as above, and Gerv. Cant.
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 593.
[1920] R. Coggeshall as above.
[1921] Rog. Howden as above.
[1922] _Ibid._ R. Coggeshall as above.
[1923] R. Coggeshall as above. Rog. Howden (as above), p. 83,
lays the blame of this unskilful operation upon the doctor.
[1924] Rog. Howden and R. Coggeshall as above.
[1925] The English writers--Rog. Howden and R. Coggeshall--try
to shift the blame of their king’s death as much as possible
upon the foreign surgeon. Will. Armor. (as above) attributes
it wholly to Richard’s disregard of the doctor’s orders; and
even R. Coggeshall (Stevenson, p. 96) is obliged to add at
last “rege ... præcepta medicorum non curante.” Rog. Wendover.
(Coxe), vol. iii. p. 135, says the arrow was poisoned, but this
seems to be only an inference from the result.
[1926] R. Coggeshall as above.
Then Richard, face to face with death, came to his better self once
more, and prepared calmly and bravely for his end. Until then he had
suffered no one to enter the chamber where he lay save four barons
whom he specially trusted, lest the report of his sickness should be
bruited about,[1927] to discourage his friends or to rejoice his foes.
Now, he summoned all of his followers who were within reach to witness
his solemn bequest of all his dominions to his brother John, and made
them swear fealty to John as his successor.[1928] He wrote to his
mother, who was at Fontevraud, requesting her to come to him;[1929] he
bequeathed his jewels to his nephew King Otto, and a fourth part of
his treasures to be distributed among his servants and the poor.[1930]
By this time Châlus was taken and its garrison hung, according to
his earlier orders--all save the man who had shot him, and who had
apparently been reserved for his special judgement. Richard ordered the
man to be brought before him. “What have I done to thee,” he asked him,
“that thou shouldest slay me?” “Thou hast slain my father and two of my
brothers with thine own hand, and thou wouldst fain have killed me too.
Avenge thyself upon me as thou wilt; I will gladly endure the greatest
torments which thou canst devise, since I have seen thee upon thy
death-bed.” “I forgive thee,” answered Richard, and he bade the guards
loose him and let him go free with a gift of a hundred shillings.[1931]
The story went that Richard had not communicated for nearly seven
years, because he could not put himself in charity with Philip.[1932]
Now, on the eleventh day after his wound--April 6, the Tuesday in
Passion-week[1933]--he made his confession to one of his chaplains,
and received the Holy Communion. His soul being thus at peace, he gave
directions for the disposal of his body. It was to be embalmed; the
brain and some of the internal organs were to be buried in the ancient
Poitevin abbey of Charroux; the heart was to be deposited in the
Norman capital, where it had always found a loyal response; the corpse
itself was to be laid, in token of penitence, at his father’s feet
in the abbey-church of Fontevraud.[1934] Lastly, he received extreme
unction; and then, “as the day drew to its close, his day of life also
came to its end.”[1935] His friends buried him as he had wished. S.
Hugh of Lincoln, now at Angers on his way to protest against a fresh
spoliation of his episcopal property, came to seal his forgiveness
by performing the last rites of the Church over this second grave
at Fontevraud,[1936] where another Angevin king was thus “shrouded
among the shrouded women”--his own mother, doubtless, in their
midst.[1937] He was laid to sleep in the robes which he had worn on his
last crowning-day in England, five years before.[1938] His heart was
enclosed in a gold and silver casket, carried to Rouen, and solemnly
deposited by the clergy among the holy relics in their cathedral
church;[1939] and men saw in its unusual size[1940] a fit token of the
mighty spirit of him whom Normandy never ceased to venerate as Richard
Cœur-de-Lion.
[1927] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 96.
[1928] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 83. And this, although
he and John had parted on bad terms shortly before. R.
Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 99. _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), p.
287.
[1929] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 96.
[1930] Rog. Howden as above.
[1931] _Ibid._ Cf. the different account of the captive’s
demeanour in Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 593. It seems
impossible to make out who this man really was. R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 166, the Ann. Margam, a. 1199 (Luard,
_Ann. Monast._, vol. i. p. 24), the anonymous continuator of
Geoff. Vigeois (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._, vol. ii. p. 342) and
Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol. iii. p. 135, call him Peter Basilius or
Basilii. Gervase calls him John Sabraz; Rog. Howden, Bertrand
de Gourdon; and Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. v. (Duchesne,
_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. p. 156), Guy, without any
surname at all. But as Géraud proves (art. “Mercadier,” in
_Bibl. de l’Ecole des Chartes_, ser. i. vol. iii. pp. 433, 434,
442), it cannot have been Bertrand de Gourdon; for the only man
who is known to have borne that name was still living in 1231,
while Rog. Howden himself tells us that Richard’s pardon did
not avail to save the life of his slayer. Mercadier detained
the man till the king was dead, and then had him flayed and
hanged; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. iv. p. 84;--or, according to
another account, he sent him to Jane, and it was she who took
this horrible vengeance for her brother’s death. Ann. Winton.
a. 1199 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p. 71).
[1932] R. Coggeshall (Stevenson), p. 96. This must be, at any
rate, an exaggeration; for Richard had certainly communicated
upon at least one occasion within the last five years--at his
crowning at Winchester in April 1194. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs),
vol. i. p. 526.
[1933] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 166; Gerv. Cant. (as
above), p. 593; Rog. Howden as above; Rog. Wend. (Coxe), vol.
iii. p. 136; Ann. Winton. and Waverl. a. 1199 (Luard as above,
pp. 71, 251); Geoff. Vigeois Contin. (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._,
vol. ii.), p. 342. R. Coggeshall as above, and the Chron. S.
Flor. Salm. a. 1199 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 194), make it
April 7; on the part of R. Coggeshall, however, this is clearly
a mere slip, for he rightly places the death on the eleventh
day after the wound. Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._,
vol. v.), p. 42, and the Chron. S. Serg. a. 1199 (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, p. 151), date it April 8, and the Ann. Margam, a.
1199 (Luard, as above, vol. i. p. 24), April 10.
[1934] Rog. Howden as above. Cf. Rog. Wend. as above.
[1935] “Cum jam dies clauderetur, diem clausit extremum.” R.
Coggeshall as above.
[1936] _Mag. Vita S. Hug._ (Dimock), p. 286. The funeral was on
Palm Sunday; _ibid._
[1937] She seems not to have got his letter in time to see him
alive. Berengaria was at Beaufort in Anjou, whither S. Hugh
turned aside to visit and comfort her on his way from Angers to
Fontevraud; and the state of intense grief in which he found
her supplies another proof of Richard’s capacity for winning
love which he did not altogether deserve. _Mag. Vita S. Hug._
(Dimock), p. 286.
[1938] Ann. Winton. a. 1199 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p.
71).
[1939] Will. Armor. _Philipp._, l. v. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 157.
[1940] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 593. According to the
Ann. Winton. as above, it was “paulo majus pomo pini.”