The Conquering Family (28 page)

The hatred he created in the country was so great that he needed his guards about him at all times. No one, from the haughtiest baron to the meanest fripperer on the streets of London, could swallow the insult of his pre-eminence. Everyone seemed to be waiting for a signal, in readiness to spring to arms and deal with this treacherous ape in the guise of a man. Longchamp realized this and, being of some learning, he took a leaf from the book of the Roman emperors. To mask their tyranny, the
heads of the Roman state built amphitheaters and amused the people with spectacles and the death grapple of gladiators. Longchamp imported singers, jesters, and jugglers from France and sent them around the country to give the public free entertainment. He thought that, if these mummers were to sing his praises at the same time, the people would come to admire and love him.

At this point Queen Eleanor appears on the scene. The mother of the King had been watching things with eyes which had learned much in seventy years of living. She realized that her beloved son had made a great error and that all the glory he might win at the Crusades could be dimmed by the extraordinary behavior of this deputy he had left in England. Richard was still camped back of Marseilles, waiting to get his fleet assembled and his army loaded. Eleanor went to him and finally convinced him that he must curb the power of the malicious Longchamp. The King responded by instructing Walter of Coutances, Archbishop of Rouen, to visit England and study the situation, giving him sealed authority to take any steps he found necessary. In addition he appointed a committee of four barons to act as advisers to Longchamp. This did not satisfy the Queen. She felt that Geoffrey of York should be freed of the three-year prohibition which Richard had laid on him and allowed to return to England so that the Church would have proper leadership in Baldwin’s absence. This suggestion, coming from his mother, who had never felt anything but antagonism for the son of the Fair Rosamonde, surprised Richard. The King had a robust dislike for Geoffrey, and it took a great deal of persuasion to make him give in on this point. However, he finally agreed and signed a paper, releasing his half brother from the three-year arrangement. Eleanor then saw to it that Pope Clement sent the pall for Geoffrey’s consecration and that the ceremony was performed promptly by the Archbishop of Tours.

Content with what she had done, Eleanor set out for Navarre to arrange the marriage with Berengaria. It had been planned between them, mother and son, that she would bring the princess back with her so the wedding could take place before the ships sailed for the East. Failing this, the Queen and the princess would go by sea and join Richard at Messina. The mountainous road across the Pyrenees and on to Pampeluna, where Sancho the Wise, Berengaria’s father, held court, was a long and fatiguing one for a woman of her years, especially as the sea voyage to Sicily seemed the inevitable sequel. Eleanor set off without a moment’s hesitation, her back as straight and her spirits as high as when she herself had ridden to the Crusades some fifty years before. Nothing her golden son could need or desire was too much for the silver-haired woman who had been once the toast and the scandal of Europe.

Longchamp had his spy system, of course, and he learned that Geoffrey
of York was returning to England. He decided to prevent him from landing.

His sister Richenda, whose husband was constable of Dover, was the feminine counterpart of the chancellor, a small, dark, determined, and vituperative creature. Longchamp sent instructions to her, ignoring her easygoing husband, that the Archbishop of York was to be stopped at any cost. When Geoffrey arrived off Dover in an English smack, he was met by a boat filled with troops from the garrison.

“Deliver him up to us, Master Skipper,” shouted the officer in charge.

The captain of the smack knew what was meant and pointed out the archbishop. The latter demanded to know what this was about.

“It means that you go with us,” declared the officer. “Madame de Cleres will answer your questions.”

The recurrent appearances on the scene of the son of the Fair Rosamonde have made it clear that he was a man of courage and resolution. He now proceeded to demonstrate that he possessed these qualities in a high degree. On reaching shore, he sprang into the saddle of the horse on which he was to have been taken to Dover Castle and made a dash for the road to Folkestone. There was a loud hue and cry at once. When one of his pursuers drew up abreast of the fugitive, Geoffrey kicked his spurred heel into the flank of the man’s horse. It shied and then reared away from the road. The rest came thundering along after him, however, and he had no recourse but to turn into St. Martin’s Priory, where he could claim sanctuary. It was a close-run thing at that. As he sprang from his saddle the pursuing horsemen poured into the courtyard and he was compelled to race for the chapel. A service was being held, and he heard the monks chanting as he entered:

This sounded reassuring. The troops made it clear, however, that he would not be allowed to escape. A cordon was thrown around the priory while the officer in charge waited for instructions from the shrill little woman in Dover. They were not long in coming. Richenda demanded that they drag the archbishop out by force and bring him to the castle. She did not care what happened to him in the execution of these orders; bring him, dead or alive.

But the memory of the martyrdom of Thomas à Becket was still too vivid in people’s minds for orders like that to be followed out. The soldiers refused to obey the command. The best they could be made to do was to stand on guard outside.

There ensued a stormy exchange of messages between the indignant prelate and Longchamp’s termagant sister. He reminded her that his person was sacred and that, moreover, he was in sanctuary. To this she replied that others must be the judge of such matters. She insisted that
Geoffrey swear an oath of allegiance to the King and produce his papers to prove his right to enter the kingdom. The archbishop responded that he had already sworn allegiance to his brother, the King, and that the papers he carried were not for her eyes. Richenda’s final word was that, if her brother so ordered, she would burn down the castle of Dover and St. Martin’s Priory as well, and even the city of London.

Richenda, making good her threat, demanded that the archbishop be made a prisoner without any more delay. The soldiers poured into the chapel to carry out these instructions but retreated again in haste when they saw that the churchman had donned the alb and stole of his office and was holding a large cross of gold in his hand. The situation began to resemble too closely the tragedy of Canterbury, and they left the chapel as hurriedly as they had entered.

Two days passed, and then the determined Richenda sent some of her own servants to direct the capture. To their surprise they found that Geoffrey was still sitting at the altar and arrayed as before. His stern eyes dared them to come any closer. They turned and left. However, the cordon outside was maintained, and shrill messages still came from the castle, demanding action.

Two more days went by, while the cordon remained around the priory and the resolute archbishop sat at the altar in his consecration robes. On the night of the fourth day a large body of soldiers, who had been bribed and supplied with a great deal of drink, invaded the chapel. Seizing Geoffrey by the arms, they began to drag him down the aisle. He was a man of considerable strength and he resisted stoutly, beating his assailants with the gold cross. His resistance could not continue long against such numbers, however, and he was finally taken out of sanctuary and to Dover Castle, where the exultant Richenda ordered him placed in one of the dungeons.

Geoffrey was held prisoner in a dark cell for eight days, a long enough time for word of what had happened to spread over England. The storm which arose then decided Longchamp that he would have to give way. With many explanations and apologies, placing the blame on his sister, he had the prelate released. When Geoffrey rode into London, he received a tumultuous welcome. Men by the thousand came out to meet him, and the church bells rang as though for a great victory. Observing the warmth of the demonstration from his secure nook in the Tower, the not too courageous chancellor decided he would be better elsewhere. He departed hurriedly for Windsor, his guards galloping after him.

Shortly before this Coutances had arrived in England together with the four advisers the Bang had appointed. They presented their papers to the chancellor, but, insisting that their mandates were forgeries, Longchamp had dismissed them curtly. “I, and I alone,” he declared, “know the King’s
mind!” His audacity in taking this stand was due to the fact that the King had embarked at last and could no longer be reached.

This action had threatened to precipitate a national uprising and, with the imprisonment of the archbishop, Longchamp’s cup of iniquity ran over. John, who had been biding his time, summoned all right-thinking men to help him in driving the miscreant from office. Geoffrey joined the prince at Reading, and from there word was sent to Longchamp to meet them on a field near Windsor. Longchamp disregarded the summons. He saw now, however, that he had played for too high a stake and that he had lost. Leaving a lieutenant in command of the royal palace, he decamped and made his way back to London, where he hid himself in the Tower.

His only hope now was to gain the support of the citizens of London. He went out to harangue them on their duty, which was to close their gates and hold out for their rightful King. He had never thought it necessary to learn English and so his vehement speech was delivered in Norman French, which did not please a citizenry already bitterly opposed to him. They laughed, they told him to go back where he belonged, they shouted that the ill-treatment of English bishops was an affront which would never be forgiven a foreign monkey like himself. Longchamp beat a hasty retreat and immured himself again behind the thick and impregnable walls of the Tower. Soon thereafter he received terms from John. All power was to be taken from him, and all his property save three castles. He would have to give a brother and the husband of his scorpion of a sister as hostages. He assented, but his acceptance of defeat was accompanied by a vicious diatribe.

“I yield to force!” he shrilled. “You, being of great numbers, have overpowered me. I, the King’s chancellor and his chief justiciar, am condemned against all law and justice. I yield to force and nothing else!”

The final scene in this tragicomedy was enacted at Dover. The once overbearing minister arrived there, disguised as a female peddler, with voluminous skirts and a veil and carrying a bolt of cloth on one arm. He had been ordered to remain in the kingdom where an eye could be kept on him, but his one thought now was to get to Normandy, where he had a large supply of gold hidden.

When he visited the harbor to make arrangements for a ship to take him across the Channel, a group of fishwives saw him and expressed an interest in his wares. Again his lack of English stood him in bad stead. Saying nothing and struggling to get away from them, he aroused their suspicions, and one strong-armed female took hold of his neck while she tore off his veil. Some of them recognized him, and a great uproar was the result.

Knowing that Madame de Cleres was still in possession of the castle, the people of Dover whisked their prisoner out of sight quickly. He was
put in a cellar and kept there under strict guard while word was sent to London of his whereabouts.

The upshot was that he was given permission to leave the country, but the three castles were taken from him. He was in no position to refuse these terms and left Dover as soon as a boat could be found for him. And thus ended, or so it seemed at the time, the curious story of the hobgoblin chancellor.

T
HE
Britons which the knightly King was fleecing by such barefaced means numbered perhaps as much as four million. Their country had great agricultural wealth, although the inhabitants had not yet shown the genius for production and manufacture which was to manifest itself later. Most of the four million lived on the land—for the towns were neither numerous nor large—and thus they existed in small villages or scattered over manorial estates, tilling the soil with exactitude and raising the sheep which grew the much-sought-after wool. Before telling the story of Richard’s adventures in the Holy Land, it will be interesting to take a closer look at this green and fertile country which was providing the blood and bone as well as the gold he needed in his quest for glory.

First it must be said that Englishmen were not free. There were a certain number of native socmen with property of their own, but the great majority belonged to a much lower station. They were called villeins and, as writers of the day seemed pleased to point out, they owned nothing but their bellies and were compelled to pay for the use of land by a curious assortment of labors and obligations.

The nature of the life the villein lived can be most easily gathered from a description of a typical village, and the best glimpse of such a village was to be had on a day of rest—a Sunday or a saint’s day, but not one of the holidays when youths cut boughs of hawthorn before daybreak to decorate the Maypoles and the women wore flowers in their hair in readiness for the faddy-dancing.

It is a day in mid-August, without a rain cloud in the sky and the grain in the fields well headed up and beginning to turn yellow. The men, having tended their stock, stand about in small groups; a brawny lot, brown of face from life in the open, eyes friendly, mouths ready enough to grin at a good jape or a song. The women are still busy with household tasks, sticking their heads out of door or window occasionally to call a greeting. There is a festive air to the place, but actually the villagers are arrayed as usual, the women in kirtles which touch the ground and their hair in linen
wimples to prevent the wind from blowing their braids about, the men in banded tunics which do not reach the knees, and hose which fit the legs tightly enough to display their fine muscles. The hint of gaiety can be traced to the colors used. They stick to primary reds, blues, and yellows and to bright greens, and in the use of these they are not afraid. There is ease and comfort as well as a primitive beauty in the way they dress.