9
While William Marshal defended the king’s realm in England, Richard I had assumed overall command of the Third Crusade in the late summer of 1191. Over the next year, he waged a holy war against the Muslim Sultan Saladin; striving to recover the sacred city of Jerusalem, but ever conscious of the damage that Philip Augustus might inflict on the Angevin Empire once he returned to France. Through these long months of campaigning, the Lionheart refined his mastery of the art of war. He also proved himself to be an immensely charismatic leader, earning the adoration and loyalty of his men – many of them friends and colleagues of William Marshal. It was in this year, perhaps more than any other, that Richard’s legend was forged.
The Lionheart achieved some startling military successes in the course of the expedition. In late August and early September 1191, he led some 15,000 Christian warriors on one of the most impressive fighting marches of the Middle Ages: advancing along the coast of Palestine and resisting Saladin’s every attempt to halt his progress. Inspired by Richard’s own bravery and sheer bloody-minded force of will, the crusaders withstood days of incessant Muslim arrow showers and skirmishing attacks – holding their tightly packed formation and trusting to the protection afforded by their armour. King Richard won the only full-scale pitched battle of his career at Arsuf on 7 September, leading his forces in a frontal assault on Saladin’s position and driving the Muslim armies from the field. The following summer he spearheaded a fearless counter-attack against the Muslim army besieging the port of Jaffa. Despite being heavily outnumbered in this engagement, Richard prevailed, earning praise from Christian and Islamic chroniclers alike.
Some of William Marshal’s peers lost their lives in the course of this holy war, others earned renown. One of the few Latin casualties at the battle of Arsuf was William’s old acquaintance, James of Avesnes. This famed knight was isolated from his fellow crusaders when his horse was killed under him. Forced to make a desperate last stand, James felled fifteen of the enemy before being cut down, and was later found circled by Muslim dead. Another of Marshal’s friends, William of Préaux, (formerly a member of Young King Henry’s retinue), saved King Richard from disaster during an ill-fated reconnaissance mission in September 1191. Riding inland from Jaffa with a small party of knights, the Lionheart’s force was intercepted and overrun by a Muslim patrol. Only William of Préaux’s quick-thinking gallantry saved the day. Loudly declaring himself to be the king, he attracted the enemy’s attention, giving Richard time to escape. William himself spent the next year in captivity before eventually being ransomed.
In spite of his undoubted martial genius, the Lionheart failed to achieve overall victory in the war for the Holy Land. In the course of the campaign, he twice led the Third Crusade to within twelve miles of Jerusalem, yet proved unable to conquer the city itself. Conscious of the desperate vulnerability of his own Angevin Empire, Richard resigned himself to returning home. The holy war thus ended in stalemate, with a thin strip of coastal territory retaken, but the Holy City left in Saladin’s hands. The Lionheart agreed a three-year truce in September 1192, yet vowed to return and complete the unfinished work of conquest. The crusaders were permitted to visit Jerusalem as pilgrims, and William des Roches and Peter of Préaux were designated to organise the journey, though Richard declined to visit the city he had been unable to recapture. The king thus left the Near East – the domain of his Muslim opponents – unharmed. His problems – and the crisis that subsequently affected William Marshal in England – only began once he set foot back in Western Christendom.
King Richard set sail from the Holy Land on 9 October 1192. He deliberately avoided familiar ports like Marseille, being only too aware that Philip Augustus might seek to interfere with his journey back to Europe. Instead, the Lionheart made his way up the Adriatic – probably hoping to reach the lands of his German brother-in-law, Henry the Lion. However, when his ship was wrecked by a storm near Venice, the king was forced to continue his homeward journey over land, and this brought him into the orbit of Duke Leopold V of Austria – a veteran of the recent crusade, who had developed an abiding hatred of Richard. When Acre fell to the crusaders in July 1191, Leopold had tried to stake a claim to a portion of the city by raising his banner from its walls. However, Richard and Philip of France had already agreed to divide Acre between them, so the Lionheart simply ripped down Leopold’s banner and, according to one chronicler, ‘had it thrown down into the mud and trampled upon’ as punishment for the duke’s presumption. Leopold was left seething with anger. In the late autumn of 1192, the duke had a chance to achieve a measure of revenge.
Rumours of King Richard’s whereabouts were circulating, so Leopold ordered a search to be conducted throughout his lands. The Lionheart did his best to avoid detection, travelling with only a handful of trusted knights, including Baldwin of Béthune, and posing as a simple pilgrim. But the noose tightened, and the king was eventually identified and captured in Vienna, having given himself away, according to one story, by forgetting to remove a fabulously bejewelled ring. In spite of the papal protection afforded to him as a crusader, Richard was locked away in the Austrian castle of Dürnstein, perched above the River Danube. News of the king’s imprisonment reached England and France in early 1193. The tidings caused dismay across the Angevin realm, though the Historyobserved that the reports ‘did not grieve [Richard’s] brother’ John. Not surprisingly, Philip of France was overjoyed and did everything in his power to influence and obstruct the negotiations for the Lionheart’s release, hoping to prolong his rival’s time in captivity. With Richard tucked away in prison, the Capetian was free to wreak havoc in France.
TREACHERY UNFOLDS
The system of governance and defence constructed by Richard I to protect the Angevin realm in his absence had proved remarkably successful. William Marshal, Eleanor and the other justiciars, had retained control over England and, in spite of the strains caused by William Longchamp’s deposition, John’s incessant manoeuvring and King Philip’s duplicity, no territory had been lost. Pressure had certainly been steadily mounting through 1192, ever since Philip Augustus returned, but had the Lionheart evaded capture that autumn, he would have returned to find his empire intact.
His imprisonment changed everything. With Richard plucked from the board, doomed to potentially indefinite incarceration, his rivals and enemies were free to act; and the full extent of their treachery was soon laid bare. When news of the Lionheart’s internment reached England in January 1193, Count John immediately made cause with the Capetians. This time neither Queen Eleanor nor William Marshal could stop him. Crossing to Paris, John submitted to King Philip, paying homage to the French crown for all of the Angevins’ Continental lands (including Normandy and Anjou) and, rumour had it, for the kingdom of England itself. John also agreed to marry Alice of France and cede the Norman Vexin, with the fortress of Gisors, to Philip. In return for these scandalous concessions, the Capetian monarch would help John snatch the English crown. With the allegiance of Boulogne, Philip now had access to the Channel and could thus mount a full-scale invasion of England. A fleet was assembled at Wissant and the Capetian armies were readied for war. John was about to welcome the Angevins’ enemy on to his shores and turn his kingdom into a client state, all in pursuit of his own power.
John returned to England and immediately began fomenting an uprising, hoping to stir up popular support for his rule. Declaring his brother, King Richard, to be dead, the count seized the major castles of Windsor, Nottingham and Wallingford, and looked around him for potent allies. A moment of decision had arrived for William Marshal. He had shown a degree of allegiance to John in the summer of 1191 safeguarding his own interests in the Welsh Marches and Ireland. The count may well have hoped that William’s loyalties could be bent to his own advantage. Other members of the Marshal family certainly appear to have been drawn to John’s cause. Though William’s biographer tried to conceal it, John Marshal seems to have declared for the count in 1193, holding Marlborough Castle in his name. Eyewitness testimony makes it clear that Count John was able to rally a significant degree of support in England, with one chronicler observing that ‘multitudes went over to him’.
Hoping to press his case, John called Archbishop Walter, William Marshal and the other justiciars to a council in London, demanding ‘the kingdom and the fealty of its subjects’, and repeating his claim that the Lionheart had died. By this time, however, Walter of Rouen had received a letter confirming that King Richard was still alive and in captivity, and he staunchly refused the count’s requests. With John’s blatant duplicity exposed, Geoffrey FitzPeter followed the chief-justiciar’s lead, and so too did Marshal. William proved to have no stomach for open rebellion in 1193. He could countenance a degree of circumspect scheming, but John had crossed the line into treason. When the choice lay before him, Marshal remained a committed servant of the crown.
Together with Queen Eleanor and his fellow justiciars, William moved to quell the insurrection, garrisoning the remaining ‘royalist’ castles and strengthening the coastal defences against a possible Capetian invasion. Windsor Castle was besieged on 29 March by forces loyal to the Lionheart, and Marshal later reinforced the investment with troops brought from the Welsh Marches, receiving a ‘joyous welcome’ from Queen Eleanor. Intensive efforts to negotiate Richard I’s release also began. Philip Augustus called off his cross-Channel assault in light of the stalemate in England, and instead launched a major incursion into Normandy, showing scant regard for the oath he had sworn at Acre. Still doubtful of the Lionheart’s return, a succession of Marcher lords transferred their allegiance to the Capetian monarch, and on 12 April 1193 the mighty castle of Gisors itself surrendered. Philip went on to seize the border fortresses of Pacy and Ivry, though his attempt to lay siege to the ducal capital Rouen faltered in the face of stern resistance.
By early summer, the persistent diplomacy of Eleanor, Walter of Rouen and the newly appointed archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter, bore fruit. An astronomical ransom of 150,000 silver marks was agreed, and although it would be many months before King Richard was actually liberated, it now became apparent that his safe return was all but guaranteed. On hearing this news, King Philip was said to have sent a message to John, warning: ‘Look to yourself; the devil is loose.’ When two of Count John’s major strongholds in England, Windsor and Wallingford, surrendered to Queen Eleanor in November, the tide finally seemed to be turning.
Terrified by the prospect of his brother’s impending release, John took increasingly desperate steps to secure Philip Augustus’ protection. In January 1194, the count signed away possession of all of Normandy east of the River Seine save Rouen, thus giving the Capetians rights to the likes of Neufchâtel and the port of Dieppe, as well as William Marshal’s estate at Longueville. To the south and south-west of the ducal capital, John likewise ceded ownership of Verneuil, Vaudreuil and Évreux – bastions of Normandy’s defensive integrity – while in the Touraine he gave up Loches and Tours. This was an act of appallingly short-sighted folly. With Normandy and the Angevin heartlands vulnerable to attack, the balance of power in northern France would shift decisively in King Philip’s favour. John had frittered away the security of the realm with reckless abandon, all in the vain hope that his supposed Capetian ally would somehow shelter him from the Lionheart’s wrath. Even the French king himself seems to have been shocked by the count’s lack of good sense and apparently ‘thought him a fool’. Philip would do little or nothing to save John’s skin, but he hurriedly began snatching up the fortresses he had been granted, seeking to maximise his gains before Richard returned.
In February 1194, after the payment of 100,000 marks and the provision of hostages as surety for the remaining 50,000, King Richard was finally released into Eleanor’s care at Würzburg. He had spent nearly fourteen months in captivity. Travelling via the Low Countries, the Lionheart was able to sail for Sandwich in Kent, and made landfall on 14 March. For the first time in more than four years, the king set foot on English soil and immediately began the long task of securing his realm, hoping to repair the grievous damage wrought by his perfidious brother. This monumental task would become the central focus of his remaining years, causing him to rely to an ever-greater degree on the support and counsel of William Marshal.
RECOVERY
Having recently seized Bristol Castle in the king’s name, William Marshal was at Striguil when he heard that Richard had returned at last. The tidings arrived at a difficult moment, because William had just been informed of the death of his brother, John Marshal. The History played on the emotional turmoil caused by this jarring confluence of events, noting that, at the ‘bitter news’ of John’s demise, William ‘almost died of grief’, but adding that his spirits were cheered by the fact that the Lionheart had ‘arrived [back] in his own land’. Indeed, without any hint of irony, the biography stated that ‘even if he had been given 10,000 marks, [William] would not have been so relieved of the sorrow that weighed on his heart’.
In reality, the History appears to have recorded only part of the story. It is quite likely that John Marshal – having sided with Count John – had been seriously injured when ‘royalist’ forces recaptured Marlborough Castle in either late 1193 or early 1194, and died as a result of his wounds. TheHistory avoided any suggestion that John Marshal had been party to the rebellion, but also gave no explanation for his sudden demise. If it was the case that John had ended his life as a traitor to the crown, then William would have found himself in a dilemma: required by social custom to mourn his brother, yet anxious that King Richard might start to doubt his own loyalty.
This probably explains why Marshal dealt with his late brother’s funeral arrangements with such speed and apparent detachment. A group of household knights were sent to fetch John’s body from Marlborough, so that he might be carried to the family mausoleum at Bradenstoke Priory. The funeral cortège detoured north towards Cirencester to meet William and, although his biographer was at pains to emphasise that Marshal ‘showed signs of deep grief [and] very nearly fainted’, he also had to admit that William then rushed off to find the king, missing John’s burial. His elder brother had been marked as a turncoat and Marshal was not willing to tarnish his own name by association.
William was reunited with the king to the north of London, at Huntingdon, and was said to have been warmly received, though he must have been disturbed to discover that William Longchamp retained the king’s goodwill and was also back in England. That evening, after a royal feast, Marshal and the other leading barons in attendance were summoned to the king’s private chamber. Everyone was said to have been ‘full of good spirits’ and William was broadly praised for his fidelity and service. Though Marshal supposedly protested that he had only done his duty, he must have been deeply relieved by this public show of royal favour. His family’s good name had been salvaged. But in spite of the appearance of familiarity, William was in an unusual position. He had spent more than four years faithfully defending England for Richard, yet had had virtually no time to establish a close personal bond with his monarch. It was obvious, even on that first evening, that the Lionheart had forged intimate friendships with those men who had followed him on crusade to the Holy Land – he made a point of stating that Baldwin of Béthune had been of ‘greater service’ to him ‘than any man in this world’. For now, Marshal stood just outside this circle of comradeship, but in the protracted war to come he would have ample opportunity to demonstrate his worth and to earn his monarch’s enduring affection. With John Marshal’s death, William also formally inherited the ceremonial office of royal master-marshal.
Richard’s experiences in the Near East had deepened his already formidable grasp of military science. Now in his mid-thirties, the Lionheart was at the height of his martial powers, both as a warrior and as a general, and had matured into an exceptionally well-rounded commander. As a meticulous logician and a cool-headed, visionary strategist, he could out-think his enemy, but he also loved front-line combat, and possessed an exuberant and inspirational self-confidence. These qualities were tempered by a grim, but arguably necessary, streak of ruthless brutality. All in all he was a fearsome opponent, unrivalled among the crown monarchs of Europe, and certainly more than a match for King Philip and John. Ten years Richard’s senior, William Marshal had lost some of the vigour of youth, but as a hardened veteran, well versed in the wily arts of war, he remained a trusted lieutenant and leading field commander. Together, Marshal and his king would dedicate the next five years to reconstructing the Angevin realm, and with John having fled to Normandy, their first task was to crush the count’s last outpost in England: Nottingham Castle.
William had never fought a campaign under Richard’s command, but once the siege of Nottingham began on 25 March 1194, the Lion heart’s qualities were immediately apparent. As an isolated outpost, Nottingham’s garrison had no real hope of victory, but the king orchestrated their defeat with chilling efficiency. He arrived at the head of a sizeable military force, and had the tools to crack the castle’s defences, having summoned siege machines and trebuchets from Leicester, twenty-two carpenters from Northampton, and his master engineer, Urric, from London. The garrison offered stern resistance, but on the first day of fighting the outer battlements fell. As had become his custom, Richard threw himself into the fray wearing only a ‘light hauberk [and] an iron cap’, but was protected from heavy crossbow fire by a number of ‘strong, thick and broad’ shields, borne by his bodyguards. By evening, many of the defenders were left ‘wounded and crushed’, which was, the History noted, ‘a source of great pleasure to those outside’, while a number of prisoners were also taken.
Having made a clear statement of intent, the Lionheart sent messengers to the garrison in the morning, instructing them to capitulate to their rightful king. At first they refused, apparently unconvinced that the long-absent Richard had indeed returned. In response, the Lionheart deployed his trebuchets, then ordered gibbets to be raised and hanged a number of his captives in full sight of the fortress. Surrender followed shortly thereafter. According to Marshal’s biographer, the soldiers within were spared by the ‘compassionate’ king because he was ‘so gentle and full of mercy’. Other sources make it clear that at least two of John’s hated lackeys met their deaths soon after: one being imprisoned and starved, the other flayed alive.
With this pocket of resistance overwhelmed, Richard was able to dedicate the next month to the more refined business of royal administration, reasserting crown authority within the realm. The Lionheart was eager to direct his attention towards the Continent, but with Eleanor’s encouragement, he made time for a public crown-wearing ceremony at Winchester on 17 April. After long years of absence, in which his English subjects had bankrolled his crusade and ransom, the Queen Mother rightly judged this ritual affirmation of sovereign power to be a politic move. With the kingdom returned to order, Richard appointed Archbishop Hubert Walter as his new justiciar, and empowered Geoffrey FitzPeter to serve as his deputy.
William Marshal’s days as a ‘co-justiciar’ were over. The king needed all of his leading commanders for the coming war with the French, so William left the care of his English estates in the hands of Isabel and his household officers. In mid-May 1194, Richard I set sail for Normandy with a large fleet of a hundred ships ‘laden with warriors, horses and arms’. In the course of his reign, the great warrior-king had so far spent no more than six months in England. He would never return.
THE BATTLE FOR NORMANDY
With the Capetians on the rampage, King Richard found his Continental lands in disarray. As one chronicler observed, Philip Augustus had now ‘stolen the greatest and best part of Normandy’, seizing Gisors and the Norman Vexin, occupying much of the duchy north-east of the Seine and threatening Rouen itself. Count John had been placed in command of the major fortress at Évreux (though his Norman county of Mortain, in the south-west, now refused to acknowledge his authority). In Touraine, Tours had declared its allegiance to the French crown and the fortress of Loches had been lost, while to the south, in Aquitaine, the counts of Angoulême and Périgord had thrown off Angevin rule.
King Philip was busying himself with the siege of Verneuil – the formidable fortress south of Rouen – that was one of the strategic lynchpins of Normandy. Its populace had been brazen in their resistance. At one point they threw open their main gates and challenged the French monarch to lead a direct attack into the castle, but he refused to take the bait. As a veteran of the great crusader investment of Acre, Philip had gained a more acute understanding of siege-craft. He brought powerful siege-machines and stone-throwing trebuchets to bear, and deployed sappers to tunnel underneath Verneuil’s walls, undermining their foundations. As a result, a section of battlements collapsed and the castle looked to be on the brink of defeat.
Upon his arrival at the Norman port of Barfleur, the Lionheart was greeted by a ‘great, dense, overpowering crowd of joyous folk’. Heartened by the sight of their famed crusader king, the throng was said to have chanted: ‘Good has come with all his might, now the French king will go away.’ The mob may have wanted to believe that Richard’s return presaged victory, but he was not so easily fooled. The monumental scale of the challenge now set before him would have paralysed many men. Even the Lionheart was not immune. William Marshal remained at the king’s side throughout this turbulent period and evidently recalled Richard’s disquiet, because the History noted that the monarch’s mind was ‘tormented’, and added that he ‘had not had a wink of untroubled sleep’ for days. Nonetheless, the king recognised that Normandy’s security had to be prioritised and so made haste to relieve Verneuil, travelling with Marshal and the rest of his forces through Bayeux and Caen, and on to Liseux. It was there that his brother John found him.
The Lionheart’s arrival in Normandy shook John to his core. He had betrayed Richard’s trust and brought ruin to the Angevin realm; now a pariah, shunned in Normandy, defeated in England, the count had nowhere to turn. His ‘ally’ King Philip expected him to hold Évreux, but John realised that with his brother’s return, resistance was now all but futile. Rather than be captured, he abandoned his post and rode to Liseux. ‘Trembling with fear’, he threw himself at Richard’s feet and begged for clemency. According to theHistory: ‘The King lifted up by the hand his natural born brother and kissed him, saying: “John have no fear. You are a child and you had bad men looking after you. Those who thought to give you bad advice will get their just desserts!”’ At twenty-seven, John was hardly a ‘child’, but the Lionheart pardoned John’s indiscretions nonetheless, showing a remarkable lack of malice. The count was neither tried as a traitor, nor incarcerated, and though stripped of his lands and castles, he was allowed to serve in his brother’s army.*
With John back in the fold, the king drove his troops on to relieve Verneuil. Once within striking distance, he readily outwitted his Capetian foe. Rather than commit his full strength to a frontal assault, risking heavy casualties, Richard cut Philip’s siege off at the legs. A heavily armed detachment of knights, infantry and crossbowmen were sent to break through French lines and reinforce Verneuil’s garrison; meanwhile, a second force circled east and broke the Capetians’ lines of supply. Isolated and exposed, Philip had little choice but to call off his investment on 28 May, prompting one English chronicler to proclaim that the French preferred ‘to flee rather than fight, [to their] eternal shame’. A few days later, Richard and William entered Verneuil amid uproarious celebration. The king reputedly was said to have kissed each member of the garrison in turn, one by one, in recognition of the steadfast defence they had mounted.
Through speed of action and deft strategy, the Lionheart had scored an early and memorable victory. With a renewed sense of hope in the air, a massive Angevin army – reportedly numbering around 20,000 men – assembled at Verneuil in the weeks that followed, ready to march under Richard’s banner. The war was far from over, but at least the tide was beginning to turn. Around the same time, another success was achieved, though by questionable means. Count John had been instructed to recover Évreux for the Angevins. He had left it in the hands of a French garrison when he fled to Liseux, and they remained in control of the fortress when he returned barely a week later. According to one version of events, John launched a swingeing assault, broke into the castle and promptly had the same troops he had himself so recently commanded, rounded up and decapitated. Their heads were then paraded on spikes. This was characterised as a ‘shameful’ deed, because it transgressed the norms of war. A Breton chronicler offered an even more damaging explanation for Évreux’s capture. He asserted that, because the garrison remained unaware of John’s reconciliation with Richard, the count was able to enter the castle in peace. Still posing as a Capetian ally, John sat down to feast with the troops, and only then had his own soldiers butcher the unsuspecting French. Both accounts convey the clear sense that the count was desperate to prove his military worth, bringing his brother a victory by any means, in the hope that he might recover some favour.
In the years to come, John did slowly regain a measure of Richard’s trust, though some within the French and Angevin camps remained suspicious of his intentions and concerned by his apparent lack of judgement and integrity. Chroniclers would brand John ‘a very bad man’, and the Historycontinued to criticise him at every turn, declaring that ‘from the heart of a bad man no good can come’. But much of this condemnation was informed by later events. Perhaps the clearest view of John’s rejuvenation towards the end of the 1190s was provided by the chronicler William of Newburgh, who died around 1198 and thus knew nothing of the count’s subsequent career. New burgh wrote that after 1194, John ‘served Richard faithfully and valiantly in the war against the king of France, thus expiating his former errors [and] completely recovering the love of his brother’.
John remained a duplicitous schemer, but the same could be said of both his parents, and all of his brothers. Perhaps he was more prone to cruelty and casual barbarism, but the real problem was his lack of political sense and military skill. Whatever his failings, he remained the Lionheart’s primary heir. After three years, Richard’s marriage to Berengaria of Navarre showed no prospect of producing any issue, male or female, not least because the couple were rarely, if ever, together. Other than the boy, Arthur of Brittany, John was the king’s only possible male successor.
William Marshal seems to have been deeply conscious of this fact. With John pardoned by Richard, William began, once again, to manoeuvre cautiously around the count, adopting the appearance of ‘courtly’ neutrality and detachment. In fact, Marshal had taken a rather slippery approach to the issue of Ireland even before John’s absolution at Liseux. While still in England, Richard had asked Marshal to swear fealty to him for the Irish lordship of Leinster. But William refused, stating that because he had already paid homage to Count John for those lands, he would be ‘marked by treachery’ if he transferred allegiance. From one perspective Marshal was holding to the letter of custom, but that did not stop William Longchamp from openly accusing him of ‘planting vines’ – that is, preparing the ground for future reward.
RECLAIMING THE ANGEVIN REALM
Much of 1194 passed in a blur of fast-paced, ceaseless campaigning, as King Richard ranged through western France reclaiming Angevin territory. Like most of those serving in the Lionheart’s army, William Marshal had never conducted a campaign of this scale and merciless intensity, yet in spite of his advancing years he held his own. Richard’s valuable alliance with Navarre helped to secure the south, with Berengaria’s brother, Sancho, leading ‘a large army, including 150 crossbowmen’ into Aquitaine to defend Angevin interests. This left the Lionheart free to focus on the north. The powerful host assembled at Verneuil was spilt in two, with one force sent to recover the key fortress of Montmirail, on the eastern border of Maine, while Marshal and the bulk of the army marched with Richard on Touraine. There the burghers of Tours – who had recently accepted Capetian overlordship – quickly reassessed their position, welcomed the Lionheart and offered up a payment of 2,000 silver marks by way of apology for their disloyalty. Moving south-east, Richard launched a blistering frontal assault against the castle of Loches on 13 June, seizing the fortress in just three hours and taking 220 prisoners.
By this point, Philip Augustus had regrouped and looked set to invade Maine, so as to claim the border town of Vendôme – one of those ceded by John in January 1194 – from where he would be well-placed to threaten the whole of the Loire Valley. In response Richard and William marched north into the region in early July. Vendôme itself was not fortified, so the Angevins threw up a defensive camp in front of the town. The two armies, seemingly well matched in numerical terms, were now separated by only a matter of miles. The Lionheart had gained hard-won experience of precisely this type of tense stand-off in the Holy Land, and understood the realities of military incursions and troop movements far better than his Capetian rival. In the days that followed, the extent of Richard’s martial genius and the trust that he placed in William Marshal would become clear.
Philip Augustus did not realise it at first, but from the moment that the Lionheart established his defensive position before Vendôme, the Capetians were in a deadly trap. If Philip wanted to hazard a direct confrontation, he would have to march south-west along the road to Vendôme and assault the Angevin encampment – a risky proposition that would also leave him exposed to the same flanking and encircling manoeuvres that Richard had used at Verneuil. On the other hand, should the French monarch seek to cut his losses by pulling back from the front line, his retreating armies might fall prey to ravaging attacks, and be easily overrun in the relatively open landscape of this region.
King Philip thought initially to scare Richard off on 3 July, sending an envoy to declare that he was about to launch an offensive. But the Lionheart happily responded that he would await the Capetians’ arrival, adding that ‘should they not appear, he would pay them a visit in the morning’. Disconcerted by this brash response, Philip hesitated. When the Angevin army took to the field the following day, the French king panicked and ordered an immediate retreat back north-east, along the road to Fréteval (twelve miles from Vendôme). Richard was eager to inflict the maximum possible damage on his fleeing enemy, but he also recognised the inherent danger of a headlong pursuit. Should things go badly, his own troops might easily become disordered and prone to a counter-attack. What the Lionheart needed was a disciplined reserve force that could shadow his own advance, yet hold back from the hunt itself and thus be ready to counter any lingering Capetian resistance. The king appointed William Marshal to fulfil this challenging role, and around midday on 4 July the chase began.
Towards dusk, Richard caught up with the French rearguard and wagon train near Fréteval, and as the Angevins fell on the broken Capetian ranks, hundreds of enemy troops were slain or taken prisoner. With Philip’s retreat turning into a rout, Marshal held an iron-grip over his reserve battalion as they ‘rode in close formation over the countryside’. Around them they could see their compatriots seizing all manner of plunder, from ‘pavilions . . . tents, cloth of scarlet and silk, plate and coin’ to ‘horses, palfreys, pack-horses, sumptuous garments and money’, yet they kept to the task at hand. Drawing upon his long years of experience from the tournament circuit, William understood the value of this discipline and was able to command the respect and obedience of his troops.
That evening Philip Augustus suffered a desperately humiliating defeat. Much of his supply-train was lost, including many of his own possessions, and even the royal seal and a section of the Capetian royal archives; and a significant portion of his army was either captured or put to the sword. The Lionheart hunted the fleeing French king through the night, using a string of horses to speed his pursuit, but when Philip pulled off the road to hide in a small church, Richard rode by and missed his quarry. It was a shockingly narrow escape for the Capetian. The Angevins returned to Vendôme near midnight, laden with booty and leading a long line of prisoners, and William received a special commendation from his king.
The long war beside the Lionheart
King Richard made considerable gains in 1194, saving Normandy and the Angevin heartlands from full-scale French invasion. The Capetians had been bloodied and shamed. But Philip Augustus still held north-eastern Normandy and, more importantly, controlled Gisors and the Norman Vexin, which left Rouen vulnerable and the French in the ascendant. The Lionheart dedicated the next four years of his reign to a grinding war in northern France, campaigning to recover and counteract these losses; determined to reset the balance of power in the Angevin’s favour. In 1196 he forged a new alliance with the count of Toulouse (through his marriage to Richard’s younger sister Joanne), thus ending decades of rivalry in the south, and leaving the Lionheart free to focus on Normandy and the north. It is also notable that, after 1194, the king finally overturned the long-established ban on knightly tournaments in England, introducing a number of crown-sponsored contests – an acknowledgement of the invaluable preparation for war offered by these events.
For the vast majority of this protracted conflict, William Marshal either fought at the Lionheart’s side, or served as one of his leading military commanders. Marshal can only be placed back in England on a few occasions – in the autumn of 1194, the spring of 1196 and the autumn of 1198. For the rest of the time, he had to rely on his wife and members of his household, like Master Joscelin, to oversee his English estates. Isabel does appear to have visited her husband in Normandy, outside of the summer fighting season, and she continued to conceive and bear their children (with a second son, Richard, and daughter, Matilda, being born early in this period). Some members of William’s military retinue can also be placed with him in Normandy. John of Earley, who had now been knighted, probably remained with Marshal throughout; others, like Nicholas Avenel and William Waleran, may have rotated between England and service on the front line. Marshal’s ‘nephew’, John Marshal – the bastard son of his late elder brother – had also joined the household by this point, and enjoyed considerable favour.
It was in the years following the defence of Vendôme that William developed an intimate bond of familiarity and friendship with King Richard. Marshal may have missed the Third Crusade, but in the course of the northern-French campaigns, he and the Lionheart became comrades in arms, William earning his monarch’s abiding trust. In the past, Marshal had served as an envoy and ambassador for King Henry II and, in the summer of 1197, he was empowered to perform the same role for Richard: leading a delegation that also included Peter of Préaux, and his own nephew John Marshal, to the new count of Flanders, Baldwin IX. William was charged with persuading the count to break with his predecessor’s policy of supporting Philip Augustus; he was also given more than £1,000 to cover expenses – a sign of the luxury and largesse that would be used to win Baldwin over. William had a vested interest in the deal, given that his former claim to the revenues of St Omer (a town previously held by the count of Flanders) must have been rescinded when King Philip took over Artois in 1193. If Flanders realigned itself with the Angevins, then the French might well be shouldered out of St Omer, and Marshal’s valuable stake in the town reasserted. The lavish embassy proved fruitful, and later that summer Count Baldwin formally ‘abandoned the king of France’ and allied himself with Richard in return for a payment of 5,000 silver marks – a significant blow to Capetian interests in northern France.
William’s increasingly close acquaintance with Richard meant that he was one of the few men with unfettered access to the king and able to treat with him in relatively frank terms. This intimacy was glimpsed after the Lionheart emerged, boiling with rage, from a meeting with the papal legate, Peter of Capua. Peter had travelled to Normandy in the hope of engineering a peace between the Angevin and Capetian dynasties, so that a new crusade could be launched. Richard was understandably indignant at the prospect of Rome’s intervention; the papacy had, after all, failed to lift a finger when Philip Augustus invaded Angevin territory in 1193, even though, as a returning crusader, the Lionheart’s land should have been under Rome’s protection. The pope had been similarly unforthcoming during Richard’s imprisonment. The History was utterly scathing on the issue of papal corruption, noting that any envoy to Rome needed to come bearing the relics of St Gold and St Silver, those ‘worthy martyrs in the eyes of Rome’. Peter of Capua was also branded untrustworthy; said to be ‘incredibly adept in the arts of trickery and subterfuge’, with a face ‘more yellow than a kite’s claw’. After dismissing the legate from his presence, King Richard was apparently ‘so furious that he was unable to utter a word; instead he huffed and puffed in anger . . . like a wild boar wounded by the huntsman’. Peter hurried away, not even pausing to collect his cross, apparently convinced that ‘he would lose his genitals if he did’. Retiring to his rooms, the Lionheart ‘ordered the doors to be closed’, but William was allowed to enter and eventually calmed Richard’s rage, persuading him that any peace agreed at this point would actually be more damaging to the French.
By this time, Marshal was in his fifties, yet was still to be found in the front line of battle – commanding contingents, sometimes even jumping into the fray. Having recovered a section of Upper Normandy and much of the duchy’s frontier, the Angevins were, in 1197, in a position to cross the border zone and threaten French-held territory in the region of Beauvais. In May, William was sent to capture the fortress of Milly-sur-Thérain (some five miles north-west of Beauvais). The History’s account of this engagement was somewhat misleading, because it indicated that Richard I actually attended the assault, while other sources make it clear that it was actually John who fought alongside Marshal that May – as ever, William’s biographer seems to have been determined to gloss over any hints of association with the count.
The castle at Milly was well defended, with a dry moat, stout walls and a steely willed garrison. Nonetheless, William and John ordered a frontal assault, relying on the quick deployment of scaling ladders and sheer weight of numbers to overwhelm Capetian resistance. As the first wave of knights rushed in, the French showered them with an ‘incessant rain of arrows’; then, once the Angevins reached the battlements and began trying to ascend, the defenders unleashed volleys of crossbow bolts, dropped ‘huge blocks of wood’ on their enemy and used ‘great forks and flails’ to swipe them off the walls. Even so, the onslaught continued apace. Marshal’s contingent looked to be making good progress, surging up a pair of ladders, when a number of French warriors atop the parapet managed to shove one heavily laden ladder back off the wall. As it crashed to the ground, many knights were badly injured, and the Welshman Walter Scudamore broke his leg. Looking up, William realised that another knight from Flanders, Guy of la Bruyère, had crested the battlements only to find himself dangerously isolated, and when the French closed in, Guy was pinned down with ‘spiked pikes’.
Marshal leapt forward and, charging at speed into the dry moat, he rushed ‘full armed as he was, sword in hand, up the other side’. William mounted the remaining ladder, heaved himself over the wall and began laying about him, dealing ‘so many blows right and left with the sword [that] those inside fell back’. This was a valorous act, and the sight of Marshal battling on the parapet seems to have inspired the Angevin and Flemish forces to renew their assault, but William had placed himself in a precarious position. At that moment, one of the leading members of the garrison, William of Monceaux, rushed forward, running ‘straight at the Marshal with the intention of doing all within his power to do him harm’. Marshal’s ageing frame was feeling the strain – the hurried climb in armour having left him ‘somewhat out of breath’ – but he was able to muster one mighty sword blow to Monceaux’s head. The strike cut straight through the Frenchman’s helm and the mail coif below, ‘piercing his flesh’ and stopping him in his tracks. ‘Battered and stunned’, he collapsed. Now more than a little unsteady on his feet, Marshal promptly ‘sat on [Monceaux] to hold him firm’ while Angevin troops surged around him to seize the fortress.
The History gave the whole incident a heroic spin and William’s exploits on the day certainly seem to have been burned into the memory of his household knights – stirred by the sight of their veteran lord outlined atop the walls, still felling his enemies. Even so, Marshal’s reckless bravura was more than a little foolhardy, and the episode could easily have ended in his capture or injury. The biographer admitted that King Richard later chided William for his impulsive behaviour, pointing out that ‘a man of such eminence’ ought not to be in the thick of the fighting, preventing other, younger men from earning renown.
Towards victory
By the end of 1198, after years of relentless campaigning and deft diplomacy, Richard had restored much of his Angevin realm’s former strength. One critical step in this recovery had been the contest for control of the Vexin – the border zone seized by Philip Augustus in early 1194. Gisors had long been regarded as the key to this entire region, and the Lionheart’s problem was that this fearsome stronghold could not be taken. This was not to say that the castle was somehow impervious to assault, massively imposing though its fortifications were. In truth, no medieval fortress – regardless of its size or technological sophistication – was truly invulnerable. With sufficient time, resources and determination, a besieging force would always prevail: either breaking through the lines of walls and towers, or more often, simply starving the garrison into submission.
All castles in the Middle Ages relied on the support of allied field armies, and were designed to withstand assault just long enough for a relieving force to arrive. With a doughty outer wall and looming central keep, Gisors was more than capable of holding out for a week. According to the simple mathematics of medieval war, that made it impregnable in practical terms, because Gisors could expect to be relieved by French troops in a matter of days. If Richard attempted a siege he would soon find himself confronted by Philip’s army and facing a desperately risky battle on two fronts.
The Lionheart adopted a masterful, two-fold solution to this seemingly intractable problem. First, he constructed a huge new military complex on the Seine at Les Andelys, on the Vexin’s western edge, boasting a fortified island, a dock that made this site accessible to shipping from England and a hugely imposing fortress that was christened ‘Château Gaillard’ – the ‘Castle of Impudence’. Built in just two years, between 1196 and 1198, the project cost an eye-watering £12,000; more than Richard spent on all the castles in England during his entire reign. This installation protected the approaches to Rouen, but perhaps more importantly, it also served as an offensive staging post for raiding attacks into the Vexin.
Richard and William Marshal then developed a novel strategy, based around the complex at Château Gaillard, to neutralise Gisors and reclaim effective control of the Vexin. The new fortifications at Les Andelys meant that, for the first time, large numbers of Angevin troops could be billeted on the fringe of the Vexin with impunity, and then deployed to police the region at will. Using Gaillard as a base, the Lionheart’s forces proceeded to dominate the surrounding area and though the French retained a number of strongholds in the Vexin, including Gisors, their emasculated garrisons were virtually unable to step out of their gates. The History of William Marshal proudly declared that the Capetians were so pinned down ‘in the castles that they could not take anything outside them’, and the French in Gisors were not even able to draw water from the nearby spring at Beaudemont.
By these steps, King Richard reasserted Angevin dominance in northern France, shifting the balance of power back in his favour. It had taken a monumental effort, but the ruinous damage wrought by John’s folly had finally been repaired. Both sides were now ready for a pause in hostilities, and the young, energetic new pope, Innocent III, was trying to orchestrate another crusade. Handing over the justiciarship of England to Geoffrey FitzPeter, Archbishop Hubert Walter crossed over to Normandy to assist in the negotiations. In January 1199, a five-year truce was duly agreed and, though its exact terms are unknown, Richard looks to have been confirmed in possession of all the territories he had re-conquered. Nobody expected the peace to last; it served merely to formalise a lull in fighting, during which both sides could regroup ahead of the summer and the new fighting season. It also gave Richard a chance to deal with a fresh outbreak of unrest in Aquitaine.
THE CATASTROPHE AT CHÂLUS
King Richard left William Marshal to watch over Normandy and travelled south through Maine and Anjou to reach the Limousin in mid-March 1199. By this time, Viscount Aimery of Limoges – Young King Henry’s old ally – had made cause with Philip Augustus, and the Lionheart was planning a short, sharp, punitive campaign to bludgeon Aimery into submission. Richard marched into the region around Limoges, where sixteen years earlier he had battled against his elder brother, and ‘devastated the viscount’s land with fire and sword’. In late March he moved on to besiege the small, relatively insignificant, castle of Châlus.
The investment proceeded at a good pace. Richard sent in sappers to undermine the stronghold’s walls, while the paltry garrison was kept at bay by the Lionheart’s crossbowmen. After three days, Châlus was close to collapse; only one lone defender, Peter Basilius, was perched on the battlements, popping up to take an occasional potshot at the Angevin forces below. Around dusk on 26 March, Richard left his tent having finished his supper and strode out to survey the siege. As was so often the case, he was virtually un-armoured – wearing an iron headpiece, but no mail hauberk – yet enjoyed the protection of a heavy shield, borne by one of his knights. In the half-light, Peter Basilius took aim and loosed a bolt in the king’s direction and, against all expectations, the quarrel struck its mark, thumping into Richard’s left shoulder. Some would later claim that this bolt had been poisoned, so that ‘death was the inescapable outcome’, but this does not seem to have been the case. The closest evidence indicates that a surgeon successfully removed the quarrel that same night, but the resulting wound then turned gangrenous and, from that point, there was no chance of recovery.
While still in possession of his wits, Richard dispatched a letter to Normandy, instructing William Marshal to take control of Rouen. He also sent for his mother, Queen Eleanor, then residing at Fontevraud, and she rushed south to attend his deathbed. It was said that the Lionheart pardoned the crossbowman, Peter Basilius, and declared John to be his lawful successor before he died on 6 April 1199. After his death, Richard’s brain and entrails were quickly buried at a nearby abbey. His heart would later be interred at Rouen Cathedral. But his body was carried north to Fontevraud, where he was laid to rest ‘at the feet of his father’ Henry II, two rivals, both now consigned to the grave.
King Richard’s unheralded demise seemed to contemporaries, as it still does today, a shocking and senseless waste. There had been no great feat of bravery or daring at the end; no final struggle against his nemesis, Philip. One of the greatest warrior-kings of the Middle Ages was cut down at the age of forty-one by a single crossbow bolt. Writing nearly thirty years later, William Marshal’s biographer described this terrible moment as ‘a source of grief to all’, adding that ‘everyone still mourns [Richard’s] death’. The Lionheart had been, the History declared, a man ‘who would have won all the renown in the world’ had he lived. Other chroniclers were equally effusive, with one proclaiming: ‘O death! Do you realise who you have snatched from us? . . . The lord of warriors, the glory of kings.’
It was perhaps Roger of Howden – a man who had followed Richard on crusade and chronicled the reigns of both the Lionheart and his father – who offered the most poignant insight into his complex character. In Howden’s estimation, the king had been driven by a mixture of ‘valour, avarice . . . unscrupulous pride and blind desire’; and his demise had proven that ‘death was mightier than Hector’. ‘Men might conquer cities’, Roger declared, but ‘death took men’. The Lionheart has sometimes been criticised for neglecting the kingdom of England, but such attacks ignore his far wider responsibility to govern and defend the vast Angevin Empire. In the course of his reign, this realm had almost been brought to its knees by Capetian aggression and the treachery of his brother John, yet Richard had dedicated the last five years of his life to its restoration, and through tireless effort, could bequeath a newly rejuvenated domain to his successor. The question was who that successor might be?
The choice before William Marshal
King Richard’s letter describing his injury, and the expectation of his death, reached William Marshal in the Norman castle of Vaudreuil on 7 April. It had been borne in secret and, in spite of his shock and sorrow, it was essential that Marshal moved quickly to take possession of the citadel in Rouen before news spread of the terrible events at Châlus. It was there, in the great keep of the ducal city, that William received the fateful news of Richard’s demise. The message arrived late at night on 10 April, when ‘the Marshal was on the point of retiring and was having his boots removed’, and its contents ‘struck him to the quick’, leaving him, in the words of the History, consumed with ‘violent grief’.
William crossed the Seine that same night, bringing the news to Hubert Walter at the royal palace of Le Pré. Marshal had now outlived three anointed kings. One he had watched die in agony as a young man; another had had power stripped from his failing grasp. William had only been able to mourn their passing. But now, as a man of power and position, he might have some part to play in shaping the future, and seeing the Lionheart’s legacy protected. No news of Richard’s final wishes regarding the succession had yet circulated, so Marshal and Hubert debated their next step into the small hours. There were now two candidates for the crown: Count John and the twelve-year-old Arthur of Brittany. The archbishop argued in favour of the latter’s claim. As the son of John’s late elder brother, Geoffrey of Brittany, Arthur had the best claim by precepts of primogeniture, though it was far from clear that this principal was in any way binding across the Angevin world. The History admitted that William counselled against this choice, supposedly cautioning that ‘Arthur has treacherous advisors about him and he is unapproachable and overbearing’. Instead, Marshal supported John, arguing that he was ‘the nearest in line to claim the land of [the Angevins]’. Hubert eventually agreed, but was said to have warned William: ‘You will never come to regret anything you did as much as what you are doing now.’
Marshal’s decision was undoubtedly driven by a measure of self-interest. A man in his position could expect to reap rich rewards in return for championing John’s claim. William already had a degree of association with the count through his Irish lands, and had moved with caution in his dealings with John whenever possible, though he had opposed him without reservation during the attempted coup of 1193. But Marshal’s hand was also forced by the desperate predicament now facing the Angevin Empire. Having only just re-established the balance of power with France, the realm was sure to face a scouring new wave of Capetian aggression once the news of Richard’s death spread. Under these conditions, the choice between an unproven boy and a fully grown man, with experience of war, was no choice at all.