Louis: The French Prince Who Invaded England (5 page)

Much of Louis’s life was dominated by the ongoing conflict between his dynasty in France, the Capetians (most recently represented by his grandfather Louis VII and his father, Philip II), and that of the Plantagenets – Henry II and his family – who at the time of Louis’s birth held not only England but also Normandy, Aquitaine and other territories on French soil. We should probably note that members of this family did not at the time refer to themselves by the name ‘Plantagenet’, although it had been the soubriquet of Henry II’s father (Henry generally called himself Henry FitzEmpress after his mother), but the name is now so well known that it seems sensible for us to use it in this book. A number of chronicles depict the hostilities between the rival dynasties, and specifically Louis’s invasion of England, and they were written by supporters of both sides.

In the Plantagenet camp are Roger of Wendover, Matthew Paris and the author of the
History of William Marshal
; the third ends his account in 1219 and the other two continue and cover some of the later periods of Louis’s life. Roger of Wendover was a monk at the large and influential abbey of St Albans, and his
Flowers of History
covers the period up to 1235; he died in 1236 and his work was continued by Matthew Paris, who was a monk at the same abbey. Roger is firm in his support of the Plantagenets against the Capetians and does not like Louis or his companions much; however, he is also in places critical of King John personally. His work has often been considered unreliable as there are demonstrable factual errors in places, and it is full of anecdotes and accounts of miracles which are meant to prove various points; however, the most reliable part of his chronicle is the section he was composing about contemporary events between 1202 and 1234, and he does provide a reasonably coherent account of the military encounters. He also, more unusually, includes a number of passages expressing sympathy with the common people caught up in a war not of their own making.

Matthew Paris (a slightly misleading surname as he was English) took up Roger’s work after his death and continued it, expanding it into his
Chronica Majora
, which is one of the finest works of historiography of the whole thirteenth century. As he was not writing until the late 1240s he had the benefit of hindsight, so he was able to portray Louis in a fairly negative light, safe in the knowledge that he was not around any longer. Matthew spices up Roger’s earlier text by adding comments, opinions and direct speech, and has some colourful prejudices. He also wrote a
Life of St Alban
, which has some snippets of interest to us, and numerous other works.

The
History of William Marshal
, as the name implies, is a biography of William Marshal, who was a knight and later an earl in the service of several generations of the Plantagenets. It was composed in the 1220s, based on the reminiscences of his squire John of Earley, and contains vivid descriptions of various events during Louis’s invasion of England, in which Marshal played a major role. However, the undisputed aim of the author of this work was to eulogise Marshal and to paint him in the most flattering light possible, so the author often twists his account to this end and can therefore be unreliable in places.

Siding with the Capetians in their depiction of the campaign were William the Breton, whom we met earlier, and Gerald of Wales. Gerald was a clergyman and, despite his Anglo-Gallic origins, was a firm supporter of the Capetians; possibly this had its origins in a snub from the Plantagenets when his bid to become the bishop of St David’s was rejected personally by Henry II. Gerald was later appointed a clerk in the royal household by Henry, but despite – or perhaps because of – knowing Henry and his sons personally, he presents the whole family as brutal representatives of a malicious dynasty, while comparing them unfavourably to the Capetians and to Louis in particular, whose invasion he positively welcomes. Gerald travelled widely and is the author of many works, but the one which will concern us most here is his
On the Instruction of a Prince
, which includes both a history of Henry II’s reign and a number of pointed reflections on how a king ought to behave.

With a foot in both camps is a writer known only as the Anonymous of Béthune. He was a cleric in the service of Robert of Béthune, who as a lord in Flanders was on different sides of the Plantagenet–Capetian conflict at different times. The Anonymous wrote both a
Chronicle of the Kings of France
and a
History of the Dukes of Normandy and the Kings of England
, which means that effectively he tells parts of the same story twice but from different points of view and without a particular axe to grind either way, which makes his work especially valuable. He was in England from 1215 to 1217, and his chronicles are hugely detailed, so we owe him a great debt for his exact descriptions of various sieges and other events. For clarity, we will refer to each of his works by title.

There are also some other contemporary writers who, although not having the campaign as the main focus of their work, touch upon events and are therefore of service to us. These were predominantly monks who were writing chronicles of or for their own abbeys, but who could not help including mentions of the war as it touched all of them in some way. We know the name of only one, Ralph of Coggeshall, who was the abbot of Coggeshall Abbey in Essex; the others are known simply as the Barnwell annalist (based in Cambridgeshire), the Waverley annalist (Surrey) and the Dunstable annalist (Bedfordshire). As their primary purpose was not documenting the war and they did not have strong affiliations one way or the other, their work is useful for its neutrality.

Both before and after his English campaign Louis was involved in the Albigensian crusade, the war which pitted the Catholic Church against the Cathar heretics in Languedoc, the southern region of France. Three great contemporary writers documented the crusade. William of Tudela started his
Song of the Cathar Wars
but died before it was complete, leaving it to be carried on by an anonymous continuer; what is particularly interesting about the work is that although their writings comprise a single text, William was a supporter of the French royalists fighting against the southerners, while the continuer is a southerner himself and virulently anti-crusade. Another writer recording the same war was Peter des Vaux-de-Cernay, with his
History of the Albigensian Crusade
; Peter also died before the conflict ended.

Taking up the story of the remainder of the Albigensian crusade and documenting Louis’s reign as king of France are Nicholas de Bray, with his
Deeds of King Louis VIII
, and the
Life of Louis VIII
written by an anonymous monk. In order to avoid confusion we will refer to Nicholas de Bray’s work by his name, and the other by its title. They could hardly be more of a contrast in style: the
Life of Louis VIII
is terse and factual, while Nicholas’s text is difficult to work with as he employs a high poetic style packed with hyperbole and confused references to ancient mythology, often while in the middle of describing a contemporary event. The result is chaotic, but occasionally he returns to earth long enough to include a more prosaic passage from which facts can be gleaned. Nicholas was an eyewitness to a number of the events he describes, which is helpful to us, and his work and the
Life of Louis VIII
can usefully be consulted in combination with each other. Louis’s reign is also mentioned by William of Puylaurens, another chronicler of the Albigensian crusade, and by another monastic text known only as the
Chronicle of Tours
; we will make passing reference to both of these works.

And finally, of assistance and of much entertainment value is the lively text known as the
Tales of a Minstrel of Reims
, dating from around 1260. In marked contrast to the mainly clerical and mostly sober chroniclers of the thirteenth century, the Minstrel of Reims was very much the ‘tabloid hack’ of his day, never afraid to exaggerate wildly or to stir up a scandal, and writing very much for the town and the street corner rather than the court. For this reason his work has generally been overlooked or dismissed as unreliable, but if used with caution it can give us a real idea of what the ordinary person on the street was thinking, even if some of the Minstrel’s character sketches might not have met with the approval of the nobility at court. He wrote some years after Louis’s death but his work covers almost a century so it is the only one which encompasses the entire span of Louis’s life.

* * *

The spelling and usage of names in the early thirteenth century can sometimes be inconsistent, so it is worth noting briefly here how we will approach this. Where a modern English version is available, French and German names have been anglicised: thus we have (among others) Philip, William, John and Peter rather than Philippe, Guillaume, Jean and Pierre; Henry and Frederick rather than Heinrich and Friedrich. More unusual names which do not have a standard modern English equivalent – such as Blanche, Falkes, Berengaria, Guala, Amaury and so on – have been rendered in the form used most commonly in modern English texts, rather than their Latinate forms such as Falcasius. Of the various spellings available to non-Welsh speakers such as myself, I have gone for Llewelyn and Gwladys for the prince and his daughter.

Where relevant, surnames retain their
de
, rather than being anglicised to ‘of’, for both French and English lords: thus Robert de Dreux, William des Roches, Saer de Quincy and so on. Where ‘of’ is used it refers either to a geographical place rather than a surname (Blanche of Castile, Raymond of Toulouse), or a title: William the earl of Salisbury, Thomas the count of Perche. Each French comital house tended to use a restricted range of first names, so where relevant I have included numbers as well as names (Hugh IX, Theobald IV, and so on) for clarity.

Although the English ‘earl’ and the French
comte
might be considered equivalent ranks I have used ‘earl’ for English titles and ‘count’ for French ones to avoid confusion. In France, not all counts were equal: the counts of Flanders, Champagne and Toulouse were among the six great lay peers of France (there were also six ecclesiastical peers), and were therefore the equal of the dukes of Burgundy, Normandy and Aquitaine and superior to the holders of the more minor counties. The word ‘prince’ did not, in the early thirteenth century, have the same meaning of ‘son of a king’ as it does now; at that time it was used more generally to mean ‘ruler’, and had been adopted in places as diverse as Wales and Antioch. However, its modern usage is now such common parlance that I have felt free to employ it in this way, and have on occasion referred to Louis and others as princes (or princesses) on account of their birth. Ecclesiastical ranks were the same across western Europe so standard terms such as bishop, archbishop, abbot, cardinal and so on have been used. Place names have been anglicised where a suitable form exists (Normandy, Castile), and left in the original (Mantes, Pacy-sur-Eure, La-Roche-aux-Moines) where not.

Those of us who were raised in the era of decimal currency might also appreciate a note on the money which was in circulation in the early thirteenth century. In both England and France there were twelve pennies (
deniers
) in a shilling (
sou
) and twenty shillings or 240 pennies in one pound (
livre
). However, a French pound (
livre parisis
) was worth slightly less than an English pound sterling so the amounts were not quite equivalent. A denomination also mentioned frequently in contemporary writings is the mark, which was 13s 4d (160 pennies) or two-thirds of a pound. Having said all that, we should note that other than a few gold pieces which had made their way over from the east, the only actual coins in circulation were the silver penny in England (which could be cut into halves or quarters if necessary), and the silver
denier
(1d) and
obol
(½d) in France. Transporting money therefore involved the inconvenience of carrying around large and heavy sacks or barrels of pennies.

I have made no attempt to give modern equivalents of thirteenth-century amounts of money as such conversions are inevitably approximate at best. Instead, I have made comparisons with contemporary daily wages, annual incomes or purchasing power, which should help to give a sense of perspective.

* * *

The structure of this book is chronological, following Louis from his birth to his death and concluding with an analysis of his life and reign. And so to begin, let us travel to Paris in the late summer of the year 1187 …

CHAPTER ONE