The Conquering Family (30 page)

The Robin Hood saga comes from gathering together tales of the woods into one colorful series of annals. Robin Hood himself is a combination of William of Cloudesley, Adam Bell, Clym o’ the Clough, and all other bold spirits of that ilk. The result is the favorite legend of all time, one which will live forever. It is of no importance that so little of it is true. Robin Hood, as the symbol of resistance, the Tyll Eulenspiegel of the English, has become a figure of historical greatness.

Robin Hood did not live in the time of Richard the Lion-hearted, but it was in this reign, at least, that the English mastery of the bow began to manifest itself. It is not known when the yeomen realized the lesson of Hastings and turned their attention to archery. It was probably a gradual process. Although the English became the supreme archers of the world, they did not themselves evolve the longbow. The credit for this must be given the men of Wales, who first discarded the crossbow or arbalest and began to use the longer weapon in their border warfare with the English. The advantages of this powerful bow were seen and, by the time Richard became King, it had come into general use. It was employed in Palestine and was a factor in some of the King’s greatest successes.

Though they did not conceive this mighty weapon, they soon demonstrated that they had been designed by nature to make the best use of it. The English eye seemed perfect for sending the arrow off truly from the nock; the English arm and back could best manipulate this lethal instrument. Making it their own, they studied it and experimented with it, bringing it gradually to the perfection of performance demonstrated at
Crécy. They made it still longer, and they worked over it lovingly, finding in time the right materials to use. They discovered that yew was the best wood for the bow and that hemp, rubbed with water glue, made the strongest string. Thus they had a weapon which would send an arrow through the strongest armor and was capable of launching three messengers of death while the crossbowman was sending one. It is no exaggeration to say that the longbow made the English armies invincible through most of the period of the Hundred Years’ War.

His bow became the chief pride of the Englishman. He was never parted from it. When he worked in the fields, he left it against the trunk of a tree within easy reach. When he visited a tavern, he kept it over his shoulder. It stood at the head of his bed when he went to sleep. They were inseparable, the Englishman and his mighty longbow, and it was no wonder that he became so skillful in the manipulation of it.

It may seem farfetched to claim that only the English eye and back and arm were capable of using this deadly instrument of war and chase to best advantage. The French tried it, however, with no success at all. During the Hundred Years’ War an effort was made by the rulers of France to train their foot soldiers in its use. A law was passed making practice mandatory, and rich rewards were offered for proofs of efficiency. The results were so meager that the French military authorities were compelled, most reluctantly, to conclude that in this one respect they could not compete with their island enemies. The French archer went back to the crossbow, and French armies continued to lose battles.

The longbow sent an arrow, tipped with the gray goosefeather of England, straight into the heart of chivalry. There was little left of that high-flown nonsense for the cannon to finish off later.

R
ICHARD
met Berengaria of Navarre through his friendship with her brother. Sancho the Strong, as the brother was called, was the son of Sancho the Wise, King of that picturesque little country on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. He was about Richard’s age, and they possessed many interests in common, a love of conflict and battle, of everything pertaining to the use of arms, of horses and dogs, of music and minstrelsy. Richard was being reared in Aquitaine and he was often in Gascony, which lies across the mountain range from Navarre. It was natural for these two fine young animals to get together as much as possible, to splinter lances, to exchange buffets, to ride and hunt and, in the evenings, to drink and troll a ballad together.

It was while attending a tournament in Pampeluna that Richard first saw Berengaria. He was a guest at the royal palace and took an immediate interest in the young princess, who could not conceal the very great interest she took in him. The information available about Berengaria is quite meager, but it seems that she was small and dark. She had dusky hair which she parted in the middle so that it lay smoothly on her head, and her eyes were full of intelligence as well as gentleness. She read poetry and was more likely to be found alone in one of the palace gardens than gossiping with the young ladies of the court. The impression left of her is of a slender figure flitting about quickly and unobtrusively. She was diffident and even perhaps a trifle fey; the very opposite of the earthy and magnificent Richard, although they shared one interest in common, a love of music.

He saw little of her at the royal table, but sometimes he would see her briefly during the day, standing on a stair far above him and looking down, or strolling in the gardens with a book, and seeming lonesome and perhaps a little pathetic. She must always have worn a rapt look when the stringed instruments were brought in after supper and Richard took his turn with a vigorous ballad of his own composition, rolling it out in his fine baritone voice.

No reports have come down of this particular tournament, but only one assumption is possible about it: that Richard was the winner and it became his privilege, therefore, to select the Queen of Love; and further, that it was to Berengaria he raised the chaplet of gold on the tip of his lance, and that she involuntarily clapped her hands once with delight before taking the crown and placing it on the smooth dark strands of her hair. No other result is thinkable in view of what came about later.

It is almost certain that he saw her once only. He did not correspond with her, not being a scholar, and being committed, moreover, to marry Princess Alice of France. But clearly he had taken away the impression that, as it was his duty to marry the daughter of some royal family, he would find this reserved and oddly pretty little creature less objectionable than any other. Berengaria had fallen deeply in love with her brother’s friend. She was so much in love with him that, as the years rolled by and Richard remained unmarried while his reputation as a wielder of sword and battle-ax became greater all the time, she refused to consider a match with anyone else. How she managed to stand out against the pressure which is continuously exerted to rush princesses into matrimony is a mystery. Perhaps Sancho the Wise was an affectionate as well as a wise father.

When Richard became King of England he was in a position to choose his own wife. He would not marry Alice, having no desire to make his father’s mistress Queen of England, even if he had to go to war with Philip because of his refusal. His mind kept turning back to the girl he had seen so many years before, that little sister of his great good friend Sancho. She had not married; he had been sufficiently interested to know that. Berengaria! A lovely name, well suited to a queen. Seeing that now he must take a wife and beget a son to succeed him, he knew that he would prefer her to anyone else. The outcome was that his mother, with an imposing train of knights and ladies in waiting and servants by the score, set out for Navarre. She was not only to ask the hand of the Navarrese princess in marriage but was to bring her back without delay. Richard liked to get things done in a hurry.

Berengaria was agreeable, of course. This was what she had waited for, longed for, prayed for, all these years. Sancho the Wise was equally amenable, as he might very well be, for Richard was the greatest catch in the world, the new ruler of the powerful Angevin empire, the most famous of knights, and a friend of the heir of Navarre. It was in every respect a most desirable alliance.

No princess was ever made ready for marriage in quicker time. The seamstresses of the kingdom were called upon, and all over Navarre needles began to fly. The oriental influence which was showing itself in feminine dress as a result of the Crusades was, of course, reflected in the clothes made for Berengaria, but not as much as if she had been French
or Italian or English. Navarre was a quiet little kingdom and lay far from the great roads which bound civilization together. However, her dresses were properly long and flowing in line, elaborately embroidered with pearls and thread of gold, and made of the marvelous materials which reached even Navarre behind the Pyrenees, the heavy golden samite and rich baudekin. She had cloaks which were held together with cords at the neck, and all manner of headdresses and veils which showed the unmistakable influence of the East. All her shoes were of the softest leather, fitting the feet closely, and without heels.

And no princess was ever wedded under more unusual circumstances. Eleanor would have been glad to see the marriage solemnized and be finished herself with all this fatiguing travel. The English fleet had left Marseilles, however, when they reached that port, and there was no alternative but to continue overland. They climbed the steep trails of Maurienne into Italy and finally came to Naples, where further embarrassment met them. Richard felt he must be declared free of his undertaking to marry Princess Alice before he could wed Berengaria. It would not be seemly for them to meet, in fact, until this trouble out of the past had been settled. Certainly he was not playing the part of an impetuous lover, and a shadow began to grow in the eyes of the bride who had come all the way from her native land.

Eleanor’s gentle daughter Joanna met them at Naples. She had married the Norman King of Sicily and was now a widow and dispossessed by Tancred, the successor to the throne. The three ladies went to Brindisi, where they spent the balance of the winter and part of the next spring. It was fortunate that Joanna took an instant liking to Berengaria. They became, in fact, the closest of friends and continued so through all the stormy times ahead of them. Berengaria was in great need of friendship and comforting. She had not yet laid eyes on her lover and prospective husband, and she was growing more and more disturbed as the warm days passed and she had nothing to do but sit by the shore and wait and hope. As Piers Langtoft says in his rhyming chronicle,

She had every reason to feel concerned. At Messina, Richard and Philip were holding bitter disputes about the matter of the déclassée Alice and finding it impossible to agree. If the French King remained obdurate and refused to free Richard from his obligation, what would happen to her, the bride the English King had summoned with one imperious gesture? Would she have to return home and spend the rest of her days in a nunnery, hiding her shame and her face from the world?

As Richard and Philip did not seem to be making any headway, the old Queen decided she would not wait to see the culmination of the romance. Perhaps she was finding the Italian ports too reminiscent of the days so long before when she herself had ridden to the Crusades, with her own corps of guards, and had been known as the
Golden-booted Dame
. Perhaps she felt that the course of events in England needed watching at closer range. At any rate, she said to her daughter, “Take this damsel for me to the King, your brother, and tell him to espouse her speedily!” Eleanor also had become fond of her charge. Without waiting further, however, the Queen started on her long ride homeward.

Having failed to reach an understanding with Philip, the English King decided he must proceed with his plans in disregard of his difficult colleague. Philip set sail for the East in high dudgeon, and Richard at last allowed himself the privilege of greeting his bride. Where or when the meeting occurred, history does not deign to tell. It is unfortunate that the doggerel chronicles of the period were so concerned with the bickering between Richard and Tancred over the return of Joanna’s dowry that nothing else seemed to matter. They speak with meticulous care of the golden table twelve feet long, the silk tent, the twenty-four golden cups and twenty-four golden plates, the sixty thousand mules’ burden of corn and barley and wine, which Richard insisted must be returned, and how he contented himself finally with forty thousand ounces of gold. But never a word do they tell of the scene when the little princess from Navarre found herself at last in the presence of the tanned giant for whom she had waited so long.

Richard’s attitude to his wedding, and to Berengaria, was one of complete detachment. Strangely enough, he was not of a romantic disposition, not the impetuous knight-errant to fight his way through fire and water and a storm of steel to win his bride. He was completely bound up in the great task ahead and in the responsibilities weighing on him. The plan he had evolved for a new order to be called the Knights of the Blue Thong, because they would wear bands of blue leather on their left legs, concerned him more than love passages with Berengaria. He was always the great captain, never the great lover. Berengaria would be his Queen but not the passion of his life.

He even saw reason for postponing the marriage until after Lent, a curious excuse for one as little religious as he showed himself on many occasions. Off he went in his great ship
Trenc-la-Mer
, leading his fleet of more than two hundred vessels with an immense lantern on the poop deck which was lighted up at night to show the way. Berengaria, puzzled and more worried than ever, followed in one of the others.

Richard must have been pleased with the lady of his choice, however, for he made up his mind when he reached Cyprus that this state of affairs could not continue any longer. Accordingly on Sunday, May 12, which
was the feast day of no fewer than three saints, Nereus, Achilles, and Pancras, and a beautiful day to boot, King Richard arrayed himself in a rose-colored tunic of satin and over that a mantle of striped silver tissue covered with half-moons, and placing on his head a scarlet bonnet embroidered in gold (looking so handsome, without a doubt, that poor little Berengaria’s heart turned over when she saw him), he led her before Bishop Bernard of Bayonne, and the wedding vows were sworn and a choir sang over them. What the bride wore was not considered important enough to set down.