The Demon's Brood (4 page)

At first, the new king ingratiated himself by his friendliness, sitting down to eat with all comers, regardless of rank.
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Yet he turned out to be a disaster – ‘a mild, good humoured, easygoing man, who never punished anybody', says
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
,
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and let his Flemish, Breton and Basque mercenaries plunder to their hearts' content. Squandering the treasure left by the Norman kings (including gold vases filled with rubies, emeralds and sapphires), he ran out of money and debased the coinage. The Archdeacon of Huntingdon writes, ‘there was no peace in the realm [of England] but all was destroyed by murder, burning and rapine, with the sounds of war, wailing and terror everywhere'.
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The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
tells the same story: ‘In the days of this king there was nothing but strife, evil and robbery.'
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He confiscated castles from barons he disliked and upset bishops by questioning their privileges.

Then Stephen made the mistake of quarrelling with Robert of Gloucester, who invited Matilda to take the king's place; her supporters, meanwhile, were rebelling all over England. The ‘Lady of the English' (an old Anglo-Saxon title) as she styled herself, landed at Arundel in 1139. Two years later, the king was defeated and captured at Lincoln, and imprisoned at Bristol while Matilda occupied London. Walter Map says she was partly good, but mostly evil. Her haughtiness upset the Londoners and, instead of granting their petition for lower taxes, she ordered them to pay more. Just as the Lady of the English was sitting down to dinner at Westminster soon after her arrival, an armed mob marched on the palace and chased her out of London.

Behind King Stephen stood another fearsome virago, his queen (also called Matilda), who was determined he should keep the crown and hand it on to their son Eustace – who had recently married Louis VII's sister. After Stephen was taken
prisoner at Lincoln, angered by the Lady's refusal to let Eustace inherit even his father's original patrimony on the other side of the Channel, the queen gathered a new royal army to fight for the king's restoration.

The Lady of the English had re-established her court at Winchester, the old royal capital, but, in the wake of these events, was driven out in September 1141, riding astride like a man. Terrified, she continued her flight in a litter hung between two horses, looking like a corpse – some said she hid inside a coffin. Robert of Gloucester was captured and exchanged for King Stephen, who returned to his capital. But Matilda regained her nerve. In December 1142, while besieged at Oxford, she muffled herself in white during a blizzard and was let down by ropes at night on to the frozen moat. With three white-clad knights as escort, she slipped through the enemy lines, walking through the snow to Abingdon, where they found horses and made good their escape.

Stalemate ensued. A time-server with ‘the mouth of a lion and the heart of a rabbit' (in King Stephen's view),
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Robert stayed on the defensive in his city of Bristol, while the Lady sulked in her castle at Devizes which, although Henry of Huntingdon thought it the most splendid in Europe,
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was scarcely a capital. The king kept only the south-east and some isolated outposts. His opponents ruled the West, the Welsh border and East Anglia, while the Scots occupied Northumberland, Cumbria and northern Lancashire.

Central government had collapsed, replaced by warlords whose mercenaries operated from ‘castles' – stockades with wooden watchtowers on top of mounds or Iron Age hill forts. The chronicles are full of atrocities committed by ‘castle-men', who left people eating dogs and horses. ‘Never did a country endure more misery,' wrote a Peterborough monk in the final pages of
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
. ‘If the ground was tilled the earth bore no corn, for the land was ruined by such doings; and men said openly that Christ and his saints slept.'
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The painting shows an eagle with four of its young perching on it, one on each wing with a third on its back, tearing the parent with beaks and talons, while a fourth just as big as the others stands on its neck, waiting for a chance to peck out its eyes

Gerald of Wales
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In spring 1147, just after his fourteenth birthday, a red-headed, freckle-faced boy landed at Wareham in Dorset, to wage war on the king who had stolen his heritage. His troops were young cronies and a few mercenaries – he must have been very eloquent for them to risk their lives on a perilous adventure when he could offer only promises in lieu of pay.

Marching inland, he attacked two Wiltshire castles, Cricklade and Purton, whose garrisons were threatening his mother at Devizes. However, Cricklade easily repulsed his scratch force,
as did Purton. Unpaid, his men began to desert. Henry rushed to Devizes, begging his mother for money, but she was penniless. His uncle, Robert of Gloucester, refused to help. Finally, he wrote and asked the king for funds. Hoping to get rid of the boy, Stephen paid him to go home to France, instead of trying to catch a rival who, despite his youth, was already dangerous. By the end of May 1147 Henry was back in Normandy.

If his expedition was a mere teenage adventure, to his adherents he became a king over the water. Yet no other English monarch had to fight harder for his inheritance than Henry fitz-Empress. And, after he succeeded, his achievement was nearly destroyed by his rebellious sons, the young eagles who were depicted in a mural at Winchester.

Henry was born at Le Mans on 5 March 1133. His first visit to England began in November 1142 when he was brought over from France by his Uncle Robert. Landing at Wareham, they fought their way ashore, recapturing the port from Stephen's supporters before marching to Bristol. There the boy saw plenty of military activity, the Earl Robert's troops regularly raiding areas controlled by the king. Henry stayed at the castle, tutored by a Master Matthew and the canons of the local abbey, before returning to Anjou towards the end of 1143. He then received an education of a sort given to few laymen, learning to read, write and speak Latin. Throughout his life he remained fond of books, fluent Latin helping him to understand the law and communicate on equal terms with bureaucrats.

Meanwhile, having overthrown Stephen's regime in Normandy and been formally accepted as duke by right of his wife, Geoffrey Plantagenet ruled Normandy ruthlessly. (When the canons of Séez elected as bishop a certain Arnulf, of whom Geoffrey disapproved, he had him castrated, making the chapter process through the city carrying Arnulf's severed member
in a basin – to show he was a eunuch and could not function as a bishop – then blandly denied any involvement.
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) But in England, despite hopes raised by Henry's foray, Matilda's cause seemed lost when Earl Robert died. Early in 1148 the ‘Lady of the English' went to Normandy where she remained in pious retirement until her death in 1167.

King Stephen was never secure, as a result of his own sheer ineptitude. One example of this was his clumsy persecution of prelates whom he suspected of supporting the empress – when he banished Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, the archbishop simply moved to Norfolk, an area outside royal control.
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Moreover, Geoffrey's conquest of Normandy put the English barons in a quandary. If they remained loyal to Stephen their Norman estates would be forfeit, but if they supported Geoffrey they would lose their lands in England.

During spring 1149 Henry fitz-Empress returned to England, to Carlisle where he was knighted by his great-uncle, David I, King of Scots. Several English magnates joined them, planning to attack York, but scattered when Stephen appeared with an army. The king set up roadblocks along the main roads to catch Henry, fleeing south from Lancashire; however, he avoided capture by using byways under cover of darkness. Learning Henry was on his way to Bristol, Stephen's son Eustace marched through the night in pursuit, mounting three ambushes, but, somehow, Henry reached Bristol. When he moved to Dorset, where he harried royal supporters, the king marched westward, hoping that the boy would give battle. Wisely, Henry's advisers persuaded him to go back to Normandy.

Soon after, Count Geoffrey gave Henry the duchy of Normandy, and Henry was duly invested as duke at Rouen Cathedral, with the ducal lance, sword and coronet. Louis VII initially refused to recognize the investiture, summoning Eustace to help him evict the new duke, but their campaign failed dismally. Louis finally accepted the situation and in the summer Henry went to Paris, where he did homage to the king for the
duchy. Geoffrey then announced that he would invade England. However, he died in September, aged only thirty-nine, leaving Anjou, Maine and Touraine to Henry, save for a handful of castles he bequeathed to his second son. Henry erected a tomb to his father in the cathedral at Le Mans, surmounted by his effigy on a superb enamel plaque. But Geoffrey's best monument is his name – ‘Plantagenet'.

In 1152 Stephen attempted to have Eustace crowned king, to ensure his succession. ‘Open-handed wherever he went, he enjoyed being generous,' the
Gesta Stephani
says of Eustace. ‘Because he took after his father, he treated men as equals.'
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But the same writer admits that Eustace had a vicious streak, ordering his troops ‘to show the ferocity of wild beasts'. An evil man is how
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
sees him: ‘Wherever he went he did more evil than good – he robbed the land, levying heavy taxes.'
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Whatever the truth of the matter, Pope Eugenius forbade the English bishops to crown Eustace.

Henry's position grew stronger when Eleanor of Aquitaine became his wife in 1152. Her marriage to Louis VII had recently been annulled, on grounds of consanguinity, although in reality because she had failed to produce a son. Lurid rumours surrounded her, such as her having slept with her new husband's father – credited by Walter Map, who thought that in marrying Henry she was committing incest and brought a curse on their children. None the less, ‘incomparable' is how the monk Richard of Devizes describes Eleanor. ‘Beautiful but gracious, strong but kind, unpretentious but wise, an unusual mixture in a woman.'
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Her assets outweighed her bad name as Aquitaine stretched from Poitou to the Pyrenees, meaning that Henry now ruled more of France than King Louis. Within a month he was at Barfleur, preparing to invade England.

Suddenly, however, joined by Eustace, Louis struck at Normandy, while Henry's brother, another Geoffrey, rose in Anjou. ‘Nearly all the Normans thought Duke Henry would lose everything,' wrote the Abbot of Mont Saint-Michel.
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They were mistaken. Reacting so fast that some of his men's horses dropped dead, Henry laid waste Louis's lands across the Norman border with such savagery that the French king asked for a truce; Henry then swung south and crushed Geoffrey.

In the meantime, Stephen was trying to eliminate Plantagenet strongholds before the invasion, tightening his blockade of Wallingford Castle in north Berkshire, whose garrison implored Henry to send a relief force or let them surrender. His response was to come in person, landing on Epiphany 1153 with 140 knights and 3,000 foot soldiers. Entering a church for Mass, the first words he heard were Psalm 71, ‘Give to the king thy judgment, O God: and to the king's son thy justice', which he took as a good omen. He then attacked Malmesbury in Wiltshire, one of Stephen's own strongpoints, laying siege to the castle. This forced the king and Eustace (who had hurried back from France) to leave Wallingford and confront Henry.

Beneath a freezing downpour the two armies faced each other across the swollen River Avon, rain blowing into the faces of Stephen's troops, whose hands became so cold that they could scarcely grip swords dripping with water. The king lost his nerve, retreating to London, aware that his barons had reached secret agreements with the duke, who was threatening their Norman estates. A truce was negotiated, leaving Wallingford in peace for six months and letting the Malmesbury garrison march out in safety.

Henry then marched through the Midlands, capturing fortresses and being joined by more and more barons. In July he began demolishing the enemy's siege works at Wallingford, until the king and Eustace arrived with a bigger army. But Stephen's barons refused to fight. Like the
Gesta Stephani
's author, even those who supported the king saw Henry as the lawful heir to the throne. Reluctantly, Stephen agreed to open negotiations for a lasting peace.

Infuriated, Eustace ravaged East Anglia, trying to provoke Henry into fighting. In August he arrived at Bury St Edmunds,
wrecking the abbey's lands when it refused to lend him money, after which he dined in its refectory – and choked to death. Queen Matilda was dead and, although he had other sons, Stephen gave up. All he wanted was to die on the throne. In November he met the duke at Winchester, agreeing that Henry should succeed him and that stolen lands should be restored to those who had held them in 1135.