Louis: The French Prince Who Invaded England (18 page)

God permitted a war in England … the father strove to confound the son, the brother his brother, the citizen his co-citizen and the relative his relative, by seizing, exterminating, burning, despoiling, disinheriting, torturing and destroying. Not even the Church was strong enough to protect those fleeing to her. The religious were trodden underfoot more than anyone and became a prey for warmongers.

Later he notes the indiscriminate nature of the destruction, with commoners being at the mercy of both sides: ‘The war got worse … first the barons who supported [Louis], and then the royalists, extorted sums of money on every side … everything lay open to arson and everyone to slaughter, arrest, incarceration and being clapped into irons.’

In Winchester the wooden buildings with their thatched roofs caught light all too easily after John’s order, and the fire spread rapidly; by the time Louis arrived almost half the city was a smoking ruin. Still standing, however, were Winchester’s two castles: the larger royal stronghold and a smaller one belonging to the bishop of Winchester, which was currently in the hands of a young man named Oliver Fitzroy, one of John’s illegitimate sons. The castles could not be left behind with enemy garrisons inside while Louis pursued John. Equally, it would not be a good idea to besiege just one of them, as the men in the other could sally forth and attack the host from the rear. Therefore Louis divided his forces once more: Robert de Béthune would take some of the army and attack the smaller castle, while Louis would deal with the larger, royal one. His army occupied what was left of the city, the inhabitants presumably too shell-shocked and worried about their own lives and livelihoods to put up much resistance.

It is tempting to think of thirteenth-century armies as being made up of knights and squires, but in reality these were the minority in any host. Louis also had with him many footsoldiers, known as sergeants – more useful than mounted combatants in a city or in a siege situation – and engineers. These men built and set up siege machinery around the castle: the
History of the Dukes
mentions two types of stone-throwing machine called petraries (which worked by balance and traction, with men pulling down on ropes on one side of a large lever in order to throw missiles from the end which was forced upwards) and mangonels, which used the torsion of twisted ropes to produce the same ballistic effect. These machines bombarded the royal castle every day for two weeks, causing fear, danger and an unknown number of deaths and injuries to those inside. The garrison was allowed to send a message to John asking for aid, but when it became clear that none would be forthcoming the defenders surrendered, as did those inside the bishop’s castle. Louis allowed all the men from both strongholds to withdraw unharmed, and he replaced them with his own followers, giving the royal castle to Hervé de Donzy, the count of Nevers, to hold in his name. He now had Winchester fully under control and could pursue John again.

* * *

John, meanwhile, was still on the defensive, moving from Corfe even further into the West Country. He had with him a commander named Falkes de Bréauté, a rare example at this time of a man from lower down the social scale risen to a high position, who would play an important part later in the war. His origins are obscure but it was probable that he was the illegitimate son of a Norman knight; he was originally not well off but on entering John’s service he performed loyally, was knighted and rose to prominence. The
History of the Dukes
tells us that ‘this Falkes had been a poor sergeant; he was the son of a knight from Normandy, but he served the king so well and knew his business so well that he became one of the richest men in England’. Together with Falkes and his other remaining supporters John set about doing really the only thing which he could: refortifying and supplying those castles which were left to him. The south-west was still mainly under his control: he laid in good supplies of knights, provisions and arms in the castles of Wallingford, Corfe, Wareham, Bristol and Devizes. The south-east and much of the Midlands had already fallen into Louis’s hands, although there were some small pockets of resistance on John’s behalf. Hubert de Burgh was still safely at Dover; Windsor Castle held for John, and in Sussex, Roger of Wendover tells us, there was

A young man named William, [who] refusing to make his fealty to Louis, collected a company of a thousand bowmen, and taking to the woods and forests with which that part of the country abounded, he continued to harass the French during the whole war, and slew many thousands of them.

It has been suggested that this William of Kensham, or ‘Willikin of the Weald’ as he became known, lurking in the forests with his bowmen and waging a guerrilla-style war, may be the origin of Robin Hood stories.

But other than these isolated examples of support things looked bleak indeed for John. William earl Warenne, who had given a hint of his intentions when he chose not to defend Reigate against the coalition of invaders and barons, submitted to Louis, as did two other earls who had previously seemed staunch supporters of John: William d’Aubigny, earl of Arundel, and William de Forz, earl of Aumale. Each brought with him not only the prestige of their rank, but also many hundreds of knights and men and a number of important castles. A major coup was scored by Louis soon afterwards when John’s own half-brother William Longsword, earl of Salisbury, also defected. Salisbury had become increasingly disillusioned with John following the latter’s apparently deliberate delaying of a ransom payment following Salisbury’s capture at the battle of Bouvines two years previously; according to William the Breton, a rumour was even circulating that John had procrastinated so he could seduce Salisbury’s young wife in his absence. Whether this was true or not, his brother’s change of allegiance must have seemed to John like the last straw. Of those of the highest rank in England the only men to remain loyal to him were William Marshal, earl of Pembroke; Ranulf de Blundeville, earl of Chester; William de Ferrers, earl of Derby; and Hubert de Burgh the justiciar.

* * *

Louis, never resting, continued to expand his domain by pushing his campaign further along the south coast. He took Portchester, again confiding it to the count of Nevers, the father of his son’s intended bride, before moving inland and encountering unexpectedly stiff resistance at the small and not terribly defensible castle of Odiham. The garrison there held off and held up his army for a whole week before agreeing to surrender … at which point just thirteen men marched out, three knights and ten soldiers. In honour of their bravery they were permitted not only to leave unharmed, but also to take their horses and armour with them, an unusual concession. And if there was a lesson to be learned about how a very few men could have a disproportionate effect on a campaign as long as they were behind castle walls, Louis learned it.

It was while Louis was at Odiham that the castellan of Marlborough, who had previously held out for John, came to him and offered him the castle and the town. Louis accepted and gave them into the keeping of Robert de Dreux, although this was disputed by William Marshal the younger, who felt that they should have gone to him; he had also previously complained about being overlooked for the position of marshal of Louis’s army. This foreshadowed what would become a growing problem for Louis: there would effectively be two claimants for every stronghold, town or piece of land that he captured. He would have to tread a fine line to balance the wishes and ambitions of those who had volunteered to come with him from France – and who must therefore be rewarded for their loyalty and service – with those of the English barons who had invited him over and who did not expect to end up being disinherited. Fortunately Louis had plenty of practical experience of compromise, and in this particular case Marshal junior was offered Worcester instead, after the sheriff there offered to surrender, so he rode off to occupy the town. However, Worcester was just a step too far westwards and out of Louis’s safe zone, and it was shortly retaken by forces loyal to John, under the command of Ranulf, earl of Chester, and Falkes de Bréauté, who was fast becoming John’s enforcer of choice.

Realising that chasing the fugitive ex-king deeper and deeper into the west was proving fruitless, and that he needed to consolidate before stretching his forces further, Louis turned and headed back to London, reaching the capital later in July to be greeted by news both religious and military. Word had sped to English shores from Rome, but it did not concern Louis’s excommunication: instead he heard that Innocent III was dead. This was news of significance for all Christendom: Innocent had been one of the most powerful and influential popes of the Middle Ages, ascending the throne while still in his thirties and reigning for eighteen years during which he had lobbied unceasingly for crusades to recover the Holy Land, fought against heresy in Italy and southern France, presided over the fourth Lateran Council which reformed many aspects of the Church, and established and extended papal power in secular affairs – as witnessed by his unhesitating willingness to excommunicate kings and impose Interdict on their realms. Following his death, fears of a schism and of heretical advances led to a very swift election, and the new pope had already been named as Honorius III. He was known to be a less severe and forceful man than Innocent, so Louis is likely to have considered his election as good news.

The military reports were also good: the force which Louis had sent to the eastern counties under the command of Robert Fitzwalter was having success in Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. The great city of Norwich had been occupied; Lynn was attacked and many inhabitants taken prisoner for ransom in order to raise money for the campaign. Things were also going well further north: Gilbert de Gant, another baronial adherent of Louis, had taken control of the city and county of Lincoln, although the castle, with its separate defences, was holding out. It was held by an elderly lady, Nicola de la Haye, who had bought a truce; de Gant was therefore able to return to Louis with more money for his campaign and with the captured ceremonial sword of Lincoln. As a reward he was named earl of Lincoln.

Further north still, Eustace de Vesci had been killed at the siege of Barnard’s Castle, but Louis’s allies had made inroads into Yorkshire and had taken the all-important city of York, while King Alexander of Scotland was still besieging Carlisle and ravaging Northumbria. ‘All these provinces’, says Roger of Wendover, ‘were subdued and swore allegiance to Louis.’

Now that he had large swathes of territory under his control, Louis’s next task was to crush the pockets of resistance in the south that were still causing trouble, which meant that he had to turn his attention to the great castles holding out against him. Once again the best idea was to split his forces in order to make a simultaneous attack, so he sent Robert de Dreux and Hervé the count of Nevers to Windsor while he rode for the great fortress of Dover.

Louis arrived in front of Dover Castle on 25 July 1216. It was an impressive sight and a daunting prospect: huge and well fortified, it had been much enlarged and improved by Henry II and now comprised a stone keep – 100 feet (30 metres) square and with walls up to 20 feet (6 metres) thick – in its own compound, surrounded by curtain walls broken only by a great twin-towered gatehouse at the north-western tip of the castle enclosure, which was itself protected by a wooden barbican, an additional defensible structure erected in front of it. Inside, Hubert de Burgh had some 140 knights (many of them Flemish or Poitevin), a greater number of sergeants, plenty of weapons and an ample store of supplies. The castle was set high on a hill overlooking the town, which gave the defenders even more of an advantage. To capture it would take a huge investment of time, troops and resources.

Thanks to a remarkably detailed and almost certainly eyewitness account in the
History of the Dukes
, we are very well informed about the progress of the siege of Dover. When Louis arrived he spent several days with his army billeted in or camping around the town, reconnoitring and planning. Louis accommodated himself in a priory rather than in the tented encampment; he needed a campaign headquarters, and he no doubt thought that he might as well lodge in some comfort as nobody was going anywhere for a while. Then he divided his forces, one part remaining in the town to one side of the fortress and the other moving to the hill in front of the castle gatehouse, which gave him the advantage of higher ground and from where he was able to direct siege operations. Petraries and mangonels were set up to bombard the walls and the gate, but the machines which had succeeded at Winchester and Odiham would be insufficient at Dover.

Before he had set off for the coast Louis had sent a messenger back to France to ask his father for help, and this help duly arrived in the shape of large-scale siege machinery. Philip sent over a device known as
Malvoisin
or ‘Evil Neighbour’, which was probably the first appearance of a trebuchet on English soil. A trebuchet acted in a similar way to a petrary, in that it used balance in order to throw stones. However, instead of using traction – men pulling down on ropes in order to fling the other arm of the lever in the air – it used a counterweight. A long wooden beam was pivoted near to one end; the longer side of the beam ended in a sling, in which the projectile was placed, and the shorter end held a large weight, generally a container filled with earth or rocks. A team of men would haul down the sling end in order to lift the counterweight into the air, at which point the beam was fixed and held in place. A stone or other missile was loaded into the sling, and then the beam was released: the counterweight came crashing down and the missile was flung into the air. The advantage of the heavy counterweight was that the trebuchet could throw much bigger stones over a much greater distance than either traction or torsion machines.