The Conquering Family (27 page)

Longchamp lost no time in demonstrating that his theories on the raising of money were practical. Everything in the possession of the Crown which could be sold went under the hammer. The King of Scotland, who had sworn homage to Henry after his capture, was permitted to buy back his independence for a large sum; and thus at one stroke of the pen the top of the Angevin empire was lopped off. Every officer of the Crown, every high official of the Church, had to purchase his appointment. The new chancellor set the example by paying three thousand pounds for the chancellery seals (although a higher bid had been put in by one Reginald the Italian) and a thousand marks as chief justiciar of the south. Hugh de Puiset, who was made Earl of Northumberland at the same time, paid two thousand marks for that honor and a thousand more as chief justiciar of the north. Richard was asked why he had taken money from such a close relative and, being of a jocular turn like William Rufus, he replied that he considered the price small for the miracle he had wrought by turning an old bishop into a young earl. As for the general policy of selling appointments instead of giving them to the men most capable of filling them well, the new King was completely frank. He needed the money for the Crusade. Did it matter how it was obtained? Did anything matter, even the welfare of the kingdom, as long as the infidels were driven out of the Holy Land and the cross was recovered?

Longchamp was thorough in his methods. Attended by an imposing train of men-at-arms and clerks, he made a procession of the country.
He held court in every city and town and in every castle and turned the proceedings into an open auction. Every post, even the most humble, was put up for bids. Decrees in equity and patents were sold. Lawsuits were settled in favor of the party offering the largest bribe. Royal manor houses and lands and forests were knocked down to the highest bidder.

It was an open scandal. When advisers of good intent approached the King and protested, Richard laughed. “By God’s feet!” he cried. “Find me a purchaser and I’ll sell London itself!”

England had become the milch cow of the Third Crusade. Every penny which could be taxed out of the pockets of the unfortunate people, or tithed or extracted by threat or promise, was being accumulated for one purpose only, to provide Richard Coeur de Lion with the most powerful and best-equipped army which had ever carried the cross. England could wallow in debt and suffer the most venal government. That was of no consequence.

He hurried to France as soon as he saw that in Longchamp he had a man who would do what he wanted, who would sell
his
everlasting soul in the service of a master he understood.

With the King gone, the new chancellor began to find posts for all his family. His brothers Henry and Osbert were put in charge of the royal forces at home. Mathew de Cleres, who had married Longchamp’s sister Richenda, was made constable of Dover, which was tantamount to putting the key to England’s front door in his pocket. Deals were made with men in authority and power and with certain high officers of the Church. A new order was being established, with new men at the head, and a new conception of government; a conception which left everyone else, baron and chapman and socman alike, gasping with astonishment and dismay. As soon as he was solidly entrenched and had back of him a party of officeholders whose tenure depended on his favor, the spider which had taken possession of the Tower began to spin a web for the undoing of Hugh de Puiset.

Richard had established himself in the ducal palace at Rouen, eating his meals in the Great Hall and giving audiences there at the same time, devoting no thought to the certainty that the hall would not witness now the consummation of his father’s grandiose schemes. He did not care about that kind of glory. He had decided, quite wisely, not to march overland as the men of the First and Second Crusades had done, knowing this would result as before in half of his men dying on the way. Instead he had made up his mind to take the army direct to Palestine by water, and this meant finding a fleet of ships and planning accommodation for
the thousands of horses which would be taken and accumulating supplies. He was the busiest man in all Christendom, He consulted Philip in some matters, and it was decided between them that the two armies would meet at Vézelay and then separate, the English sailing from Marseilles, the French from Genoa. The English were to wear the white cross, the French red, and the Flemings green.

The English King was seen to considerable advantage at this stage. He was so concerned with his preparations that he gave little thought to anything else. Even his need of a wife seemed to mean less to him than the proper method of stabling the horses on the voyage. He was thorough and painstaking about every conceivable detail. He drew up a special code to enforce good conduct during the time when his troops would be confined on board ship. As might be expected, he was unnecessarily severe in the matter of penalties. A soldier convicted of slaying another on board ship was to be cast into the sea, lashed to the body of his victim. If the killing occurred on shore, the offender was to be buried alive with the body. The loss of a hand was the penalty for drawing knife on a comrade. Striking with the fist but not drawing blood was to be punished by dipping the offender in the sea three times. A thief was to be shaved on the top of his head and boiling pitch poured on the bared poll, after which a feather pillow would be shaken over it. Richard, as will be recognized, was a disciplinarian.

Much to the surprise of the harried monarch, William Longchamp put in an appearance at Rouen. As Hugh de Puiset was with the court at the time, England had been left without either of the heads Richard had appointed. The visit of the misshapen chancellor was not due, however, to any trouble at home.

He became angry because Hugh de Puiset sat close to the King while he, Longchamp, was seated a very short distance above the salt. To watch his rival talking to the King with the ease of complete intimacy while he, Longchamp, dipped his fingers in the dishes of meat so far away that he could not hear a single syllable of what was being said disturbed the spleen of the lowborn minister and ruined his appetite. He was realizing that Richard would make use of him but would never overlook his vulgarity of origin.

After the meal, while Hugh de Puiset lingered over the wine with his friends, the King summoned Longchamp to the royal apartments. Here was another distinction which the King would always draw between his two lieutenants and which should have eased the mind of the jealous chancellor. When affairs of state were to be settled, he would be summoned to share the royal confidence. Hugh de Puiset would be allowed to stay at table and enjoy his wine.

Longchamp had two matters on his mind. First, he saw a way of using the York massacre in raising funds, a very great deal of money. Second,
he was disturbed by the fact that England was to be left without a church head, since Archbishop Baldwin was going on the Crusade and Geoffrey of York was barred from his native shores. Note the order in which the two matters were introduced to the attention of the King. The scheme to make money out of bloodstained York was explained first and won the royal approval. While the mind of the warrior King was still filled with the pleasant prospect of a further fattening of the war chest, the wily chancellor proposed his solution of the church problem. Apply to the Pope for legatine powers for him, Longchamp, so that he could act when necessary in lieu of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Not realizing that this would place Hugh de Puiset under the thumb of Longchamp, or not caring, Richard agreed to the plan and promised that the request would be sent to the Vatican at once.

And then the chancellor came to the crucial point. He explained first that York was in the northern half of the kingdom, over which the Bishop of Durham had jurisdiction. The good bishop might not agree to the proposal. Even if he agreed, he would hardly be thorough enough in carrying it out. He, Longchamp, was the only one—if his royal master would forgive him for thus tootling his own horn—who could extract the last ounce of gold out of the already bleeding veins of the northern capital. How, then, could the plan be put into operation?

Bowing his head over his shrunken chest and nervously twining and untwining his fingers, this man of low degree who aspired to rule all England by himself began to explain what was in his mind. Perhaps he would be accorded the royal permission to return at once—that very night, in fact—to set the wheels turning. If, on the other hand, the King in his wisdom saw fit to detain Hugh de Puiset for several weeks more, the draining of York could be attended to in his absence. The worthy bishop would undoubtedly be disturbed when he realized what had happened, but even the anger of so great a man could not undo a
fait accompli
.

Richard nodded his head in assent. Longchamp had obtained everything he had crossed the Channel for, and he lost no time in starting back.

The dwarfish chancellor was missed at the royal table the next day. Hugh de Puiset, a man of decency and honor, was probably not disturbed at all. He would have no suspicions of the devious reasons which had brought his co-administrator to Normandy so unexpectedly and had then taken him back so suddenly. Certainly he was pleased when Richard said he wanted him to stay for several weeks more. Was this not an evidence of kingly esteem and confidence?

In the meantime Longchamp reached London, where he hastily assembled a considerable force under the command of his two precious brothers. A march to York followed. His mission, he announced on arriving,
was to inquire into the massacre and take such steps then as the facts would seem to make necessary.

His first move was to depose the royal officers, all of whom were appointees of the bishop, and to put in his own men. His brother Osbert was made sheriff. The clergy were bludgeoned into a stunned silence when he announced himself papal legate, although he did not produce his letters patent.

Having thus seized complete control, this skillful ferret began to follow out the plan he had proposed to the King. He imposed fines right and left, giving consideration only to the size of a man’s purse and none at all to his share, if any, in the riots. The last penny which could be squeezed from the citizens was taken in these levies. The lands of the barons who had assisted in the massacre of the Jews were confiscated to the Crown. Up to this point Longchamp had done nothing which might not have occurred to any equally unscrupulous administrator, but he now proceeded to display his genius for despoliation. He announced that the Crown was the heir of the slaughtered Jews. To protect the interests of the King, therefore, he had a search made for the ledgers of the victims and found legal evidence here and there of large sums which had been owed to them. These debts were rigorously collected. Those who had taken a hand in the riots to escape payment of money they owed found that they had spilled innocent blood to no avail. Flambard himself had never thought of a more ingenious scheme than this.

The relatives of the dead
ockerers
, as moneylenders were called in the north, were not allowed a penny of what was collected on these debts.

Again the indispensable Longchamp had demonstrated that the schemes he hatched in his oversized head could be carried out. Not only had he scooped up more money than he had dared to estimate, but he had successfully checkmated his rival. When word of what had happened reached Normandy, Hugh de Puiset asked at once that he be allowed to return to investigate. Richard was graciously pleased to consent. It did not matter now. The money was in the royal coffers, and there was nothing the good bishop could do about it.

It would have been better for the well-intentioned but not very aggressive Bishop of Durham if he had not returned to England at this point. He met Longchamp on the latter’s invitation at the royal castle of Tickhill in Yorkshire. The bishop had a letter from the King which had seemed, when handed to him, to establish his authority clearly enough. When he came face to face with Longchamp, however, he began to doubt if it would suffice. The venomous little man said, “It is now my turn to talk.” He had papers also; a commission, in fact, to represent the King with full power in all England. The commission carried the Great Seal.

The bishop, puzzled and reluctant, had to give in. He was told he must
relinquish everything, his properties as well as his offices. On pain of his life he must not take any further part in state affairs.

Longchamp’s flag was hoisted over the keep at Windsor.

Power thrust into new hands is almost certain to go to the head. Never in all history has there been a more spectacular demonstration of this than in the case of Richard’s upstart deputy. The one-time clerk at the chancellery began to behave as though he thought himself King of England. He imposed his will in everything, he assumed all the trappings of royalty, he tossed men out of office to make room for his own relatives and creatures. Even harder to bear was the way the little man conducted himself. He strutted, he threw out his puny chest, he stormed, he glowered, he snarled. He attired his meager body in the handsomest of clothes and rode on a magnificent charger, looking like one of the monkeys Thomas à Becket chained to the saddles of his horses on his famous ride to Paris.

He pursued his beaten rival with a peculiar degree of malignance. Hugh de Puiset had done him no harm, but he was punished by being sent to a small monastery at Howden. Here he remained in seclusion as long as Longchamp’s power lasted.

With no one to stand in his way, Longchamp proceeded to rule like a king, and a very absolute and arbitrary king. He issued dooms and writs, signed with his own signet ring instead of the Great Seal of England. Governing from Windsor Castle, he had a corps of guards of his own who wore a special uniform. Anyone seeking audience of the haughty manikin had to pass through many files of these guards, who questioned them sternly, before they reached a magnificent apartment where Longchamp sat in all his glory. When he made a journey he was accompanied by fifteen hundred armed men, most of them mercenaries from abroad. He would quarter himself in a castle or monastery and demand the best of everything and the utmost deference. He summoned the nobility of the district to attend him. There were expensive jeweled rings on his skinny fingers when he dined in state, and the sons of the local baronage fetched and carried for him as pages.