The King of Thieves: (2 page)

There can be few such events in history quite so incompetently handled as the diplomatic mission in 1325 to France of the
Earl of Chester.

Never actually created a Prince, the Earl was nonetheless in receipt of every gift a grateful father could bestow. He became
an Earl only a few days after his birth, whereas his father, King Edward II, and grandfather were both in their mid-teens.
Edward, so it would appear, doted on his little son. However, all that was to change. As King Edward grew in authority after
the dreadful Battle of Boroughbridge – following which he systematically hunted down and executed most of the ‘rebels’ – so
he also grew to rely ever more on the judgement of Sir Hugh le Despenser – a judgement which was invariably skewed to the
advantage of Despenser himself.

It would be tedious to recite all the crimes of Despenser here. Suffice it to say that the man was entirely ruthless, particularly
violent, and peculiarly avaricious in an age when violence was normal and greed not viewed as an especially vile sin. Despenser
was notable for his extremes. His behaviour does appear to be deplorable, seen from the safe perspective of seven hundred
years.

But after the short war of Saint-Sardos in 1324, all the English territories were at threat. The French had overrun them,
with little defence put up by the English – partly because they were starved of funds and men by Despenser.

The result was a protracted negotiation intended to save English suzerainty. But the French King was not hoping for that –
he wanted the English off his territories entirely. So it suited his purposes to raise the stakes. He demanded that the English
King should travel to Paris to pay homage, as any vassal should to his liege-lord. However, because Edward dared not leave
England, he hurriedly created his son Duke of Aquitaine, and sent him instead, under the watchful eye of Bishop Walter II
of Exeter.

And thus begins our tale.

The Hundred Years War began only a few years after the events depicted here. Most readers will have heard of the great battles
of Agincourt, Crécy and Poitiers, and may find it hard to understand why the English should have been so nervous about losing
Aquitaine. There are a number of reasons.

First, was the very real damage that would have been done to the economy. Medieval kings may not have been especially fiscally
aware, but they employed a great many men who were – Bishop Walter was one such.

Even in medieval times, accounting was considered a serious business. It is fortunate for us that this is so, because it is
often the old rolls of accounts which give us an accurate feel for the period. Be that as it may, the simple fact is that
the Duchy of Aquitaine, the rich lands of Gascony, provided more money to the English Crown than the whole of the British
Isles. And with a small, loyal population, the Gascons were less troublesome to rule!

The second point, though, is much more important. The English were a small nation, viewed as incredibly truculent, and the
King had a hard time trying to keep his subjects under control. If he wanted to send a force to Guyenne, for example, he would
need the support of the barons in Parliament.
Without their approval, he could not raise the necessary funds. This kind of dependence other rulers in Europe looked at with
incomprehension.

For an English King to propose war against the French, he would have to have a number of exceedingly good arguments and a
strong plan of campaign. Not only because of the funding, but also because of the extreme disparity in forces.

At no time in English medieval history did the English King have more than about two and a half thousand knights. There was
simply not the population for more. Men-at-arms and warriors on foot would add some thousands, but not many more. Compare
that with the French hosts, and the sad disparity becomes obvious. Some ten thousand knights, with tens of thousands of footsoldiers,
hired mercenaries from Genoa and Venice, freebooters from German states, all provided the French with the greatest forces
in the whole of Christendom.

And they had morale, too. The whole world knew that the French had the best warriors, the largest number of fighters, the
most effective armour … it was all in their favour. If an English King wanted to fight, he could count on facing forces
of five, six or more times his own. It was inconceivable that an English King could equip, transport, feed and field enough
men to contest any lands the French sought to take. The only defence was legal. And the English did not have much faith in
a legal system which was entirely populated by French lawyers.

There has been a great deal of help in writing this book. I cannot help but mention the excellent books by Ian Mortimer,
The Greatest Traitor
and
The Perfect King
(Jonathan Cape); also
King Edward II
by Roy Martin Haines (McGill-Queen’s University Press);
Politics, Finance and the Church in the
Reign of King Edward II
by Mark Buck (Cambridge University Press) among others. Many books have been consulted, and any errors are sadly entirely
my own.

One error which I should mention to those who have followed the sequence of the books with enthusiasm, relates to the marriage
of King Charles of France to his third wife.

In some cases of history, there are problems. I once spent a month trying to validate a story which I intended to base around
an ancient fair, only to discover after four entire weeks of research, that the fair did not exist. It was a Victorian creation.

However, one can usually check on some aspects of life with ease. One such, so I would have believed, would be the wedding
day of a King. ‘Aha!’ I hear you cry. ‘Any fool could confirm that …’

Well, not this fool. My last two books were leading up to the glorious day of the wedding of King Charles to his wife Jeanne.
I had anticipated that wedding occurring in this book. In fact, the wedding scene was to be a significant section of the story
– and so it had been planned for over a year when I first embarked on this section of my series.

Alas. ‘The best laid schemes gang aft a-gley,’ as Rabbie Burns put it so well.

I grew a little perturbed to find that, when I looked through my research material, only one book mentioned the wedding in
1325, and I could not for the life of me find any decent confirmed date. Now, I am a fiction writer, but it is deeply ingrained
in me never to put into a book a fact which is historically untrue; I had to check it. Knowing (as I felt sure I did) the
year of the marriage, I was confident that the day and date would not be impossible to find. So I searched. I looked at websites.
I even looked at Wikipedia (usually a proof of
utter despair on my part) and I checked with a number of French sites, working on the basis that they should have the most
accurate records of their own Kings’ wedding dates.

Not so! I have erased my memory of the total number of alternatives which were given to me. I don’t know if someone at some
stage has grabbed a handful of dates, thrown them into the air and seen which landed uppermost, or whether it’s just Murphy’s
Law at work (‘If it can go wrong, it will’; often corrected by Paddy’s Corollary: ‘Murphy was an optimist’), but I spent what
felt like an age staring at alternatives. So in the end, I went to the Oracle. I spoke to Ian Mortimer.

Those of you who have periodically glanced at my
Notes
will know that Ian is a particular hero of mine. Still, I have to confess that I had not anticipated such glorious and inspiring
assistance. After my two weeks of fiddling, Ian was able to bring me an answer in less than one day.

I was out by two years: it was July 1324 (probably).

So if you, gentle reader, feel hard done by in that you have missed the glories of the wedding day of Charles, all I can say
is, I did my best!

For those who wish to learn more about this, please refer to Joan A. Holladay’s
The Education of Jeanne d’Évreux: Role Models and Behavioural Prescriptions in Her Book of Hours at the Cloisters
(shortly to be printed).

Michael Jecks

North Dartmoor

April 2008

Paris, 1325

Saturday, Nativitas, Blessed Virgin Mary, eighteenth year of the reign of King Philip IV of France
^*

Path outside Anagni, south-east of Rome

God’s blood, but he hated them. All of them. The religious ones; the
pious
ones. And today he would win some sort of satisfaction for the way they’d treated him.

It was a hot day, and Guillaume de Nogaret wiped his brow with his sleeve as he sat on the horse, waiting for the signal from
the man at the top of the rise. September in this benighted land here, only a few leagues from Rome, was always hot. He was
used to heat, but not to this overwhelming dryness. He was baking inside the heavy tunic he had bought in Paris.

Some two-and-thirty or so years old, Guillaume had been born in the lovely countryside near St Félix-en-Caraman, but it was
not long before he had been captured – when he was orphaned.

The men who had taken him were all the same. Men of the Church who prostrated themselves before the Cross and begged forgiveness
for their sins. Well they might! Their hypocrisy and venality were unequalled. Thieves and gluttons, lustful, degenerate,
evil
. They would declare their love for boys like the little Guillaume, asking him to participate in their
unnatural
practices, and then beat him with rods when he refused them.

Beatings, whippings … all was punishment in their world: children like little Guillaume were there to be educated and
shown the right path to take, they said. That was why they must thrash him regularly, they said. There were times he had returned
to his cot with his back and buttocks so raw, so severely lacerated, that he could not lie on his back for days. Sleep in
those times came hard. He would weep, silently, for making noise in the dorter would lead to another thrashing, crying red-hot
tears of misery at the loss of his darling parents. God should not have taken them from him. But God didn’t. Men did.

His parents had been good, kind, hard-working folk. Their name came from the small property his father had inherited, a peasant’s
home at Nogaret, but his father had been better off than that. He had lived in Toulouse; made a fair living, too. Young Guillaume
could remember both parents. In the long, lonely hours of the night, he was sure he could sometimes smell faint traces of
lavender, the scent he associated with his mother. And sometimes, when he was about to doze off, he could feel the touch of
her lips upon his forehead. Those were happy moments. She had doted upon him. He knew that. And he missed her so.

Theirs was a close family. All his father had wanted was for his ‘Petit Guillaume’ to take over his work and make a good life
for himself. Simple desires, the desires of a peasant – but good, sensible ones, the kind that would wash through the veins
of any man who had the earth baked into his soul from the first moment of birth. And Guillaume was one such man.

Yes, the boy hated the so-called men of God, who sought to conceal their true natures beneath calm smiles and soft manners.
Yet he knew them. They had raised him; they had
shown him their weaknesses. And he would exploit them, all of them.

At last! The signal.

Sieur Guillaume de Nogaret nodded to his servant, then spurred his mount. Behind him, the standard-bearer’s flag flapped and
crackled as the wind whipped around in little gusts. Perhaps that was why he was feeling reflective, Guillaume told himself.
This area was like the hills about Carcassone and up to Montaillou. It reminded him of his old home.

But home was miles away, just as his arse was telling him now. Since the great meeting at the Louvre six months ago, Guillaume
felt as though he had been travelling constantly, riding hurriedly to do the King’s will. Paying out money without worry,
hiring men as he may, and recruiting those who had as much hatred as he.

As his horse clattered up the stony path, he had to concentrate on keeping his seat, so when he reached the summit of the
little rise, and could gaze about him, the scene was a fresh one.

A thousand – no, fifteen hundred – warriors were waiting in a small valley. They had ridden hard, too, all the way from Florence,
where he had paid for them, and they were resting their horses and seeing to their equipment.

‘My friend. I hope I find you well?’

Their leader was a tall, elegant, grizzled man of about the same age. He looked over Guillaume’s clothing with a quizzical
eye.

‘I am well, Giacomo,’ Guillaume said softly. Giacomo Colonna was the fiercest general in that warlike family. The Colonnas
were the second great clan of Rome, and detested their enemies with a passion that was equalled only by Guillaume’s. Any opportunity
would be seized by them to hit back at the Gaetani family – especially the head.

There was nothing more to say. Giacomo, known as ‘Sciarra’, the Quarreller, because of his bellicose habits, was a man who
believed more in actions than polite conversation, and particularly at a time like this, when he could almost smell the defeat
and despair of his enemy. There was a gleeful spring to his step as he rallied his force and pushed and kicked recalcitrant
men back on to their horses. In only a short while they were all remounted and then, with a raised arm, Sciarra Colonna set
off, with the King of France’s man at his side.

Within the hour, they had captured the man they both despised: Benedetto Gaetani, the leader of the great Roman clan, and
now known as Pope Boniface VIII, who had overturned the Colonna and driven them from their great homes and palaces. He had
all but ruined them. And not content with that, now he had excommunicated the French King, and was threatening to put the
whole of France under anathema. There would be no churches opening for any man. No burial services, no church weddings, no
baptisms – nothing. That would be intolerable. The French could not allow it.

It was hard to command obedience from a Pope, but King Philip IV would not tolerate any more truculence. That was why his
most trusted lawyer and adviser was here.

To kidnap the Pope.

Anagni

Toscanello di Accompagnato looked about him with astonishment as they entered the palace, struggling, and failing, to keep
his mouth closed as he took in the rich paintings, the carvings and statuary. He had never seen such proof of wealth, not
even in Florence. The Pope was truly a man to be honoured if he could possess such treasures. God must have showered these
gifts upon him for a reason.

Yes, he told himself, the Pope was chosen by God. So he must go and confess this crime as soon as he could.

And it
was
a crime – there was little doubt about that. All over the place, there were men being held, while a few figures lay in the
dirt, their blood leaching into the soil about them.

There had been little resistance. The men here had known that they couldn’t win, and even the demands of loyalty to their
master were insufficient to make a man fight when it was clear that the battle was already lost. So Guillaume’s and Sciarra’s
troops had found their way eased considerably. They entered the papal palace and the great building swallowed them all. Somewhere
inside, Toscanello knew, the Pope was being questioned by Guillaume. And soon he would appear, ready to be carried off to
France.

Others were looting the place, but Toscanello could only stand and carry on gawping.

He was nineteen this year. Finding a living was hard in his little town, and he had decided to travel to Florence to try his
fortune – but with little success. He was still forced to live on the streets, and there were times when he had been compelled
to steal in order to eat. So far, he had not been caught, but he knew it was only a matter of time. Then he would have to
flee, and eke out some sort of living in the outskirts – or stoop to joining one of the bandit gangs which plagued the lands
all about.

But then there had come this proposal. He had been loitering outside a wine shop when he had seen a man whom he knew to be
a servant of Sciarra Colonna; the man, noticing him, asked him whether he could ride and wield a sword. ‘If you can, and you
serve my lord,’ he told Toscanello, ‘you will be paid in gold.’

That had been a week ago. Now, here he was, in a foreign
land south of Rome, with over a thousand others, robbing the Pope himself.

Some of the men had declared themselves unwilling to attack when they learned who the target would be, but it only took one
man being beaten to the ground by Sciarra Colonna for the rest to realise that they were happy to rob even Pope Boniface VIII.

In truth, most were anyway. They were all aware of the corruption of the Pope’s rule. He had succeeded to the Papal throne
because his predecessor, poor Celestine V, had been so wildly unsuitable. Everyone knew the story. When Pope Nicholas IV had
died, no one could agree who should replace him. As usual, the Cardinals had been locked in their room to make the choice,
with God guiding their way for them, but with clans like the Colonna and Orsini unwilling to give way and lose influence by
choosing someone not of their blood, the process dragged on for eighteen months.

It was Pietro of Morrone who broke the deadlock. The old hermit, highly respected by all because he lived a life so austere
it was a miracle he lived at all, wrote to the Cardinals threatening them with God’s severe vengeance, should they not hurry
and make a decision. To Pietro’s horror, they did. They picked
him
.

There was a need for intense persuasion and diplomacy. Pietro was happier in his cave with his whips, so he might flagellate
himself without interruption. He needed little food, and existed in a quiet manner, rarely speaking except to praise God and
pray. Yet even he could not argue with the will of God, so he agreed, and two years after the death of Nicholas, at last there
was a new Pope: Celestine V. He lasted four months.

A simple man, he wanted nothing for himself. His first command, on entering the new Papal palace at Naples, was
that a wooden cell be built, in which he could sleep. He was entirely unprepared for the magnificence of his new position
– nor for the deviousness and acquisitiveness of his Cardinals.

Unused to the grandeur of his new life, he was entirely overwhelmed. He wanted to be efficient, and signed all the papers
thrust before him. Unknowingly, he approved benefices and appointments to the greedy. Some even had him sign blank sheets
which they could later sell on for huge profits. The corruption of the Church rose to unthought-of levels. And Celestine grew
sickened as he realised how ineffectual he really was.

The fiasco lasted four months. At the end of that time, the poor old man had had enough. He knew that he was no Pope. All
he wanted was to leave the debauchery and avarice behind, to go back to his little cave and the simplicity of his past life.
He told his Cardinals that he must abdicate. And that was when Benedetto Gaetani became Boniface VIII.

But people muttered that no man could merely resign from a position which God had granted. God’s vicar on earth was installed
by God, and no human, not even the Pope himself, could resist His will. So they looked on Boniface as being a usurper. The
real Pope was still Celestine.

It was worrying enough to make Boniface send to have Celestine arrested, and although it took five months to track him down,
at last Celestine was discovered at the coast, desperately seeking a ship to take him over the Adriatic. Brought back to Rome
and thrown into the Papal prison, Fumone, there he languished until Boniface ordered his death. The old man could hardly have
put up much of a struggle as a pillow was placed over his face and he was gradually suffocated.

So, now people looked upon Boniface as both an imposter
and
a murderer. He had stolen all the wealth he could from the
Papacy, and even made the astonishing claim that, as God’s vicar, he held authority over all – even secular Lords and Kings.
All must accept his lordship as a condition of their soul’s salvation.

Not all agreed. Kings were given their crowns and thrones in the same manner as the Pope: they were given them by God. The
King of France in particular was unimpressed. Confrontation was inevitable. And when Philip the Fair decided to take action,
his enemies would do well to fly.

It was because of him that they were all here today, Toscanello knew. It was the French King’s money which had paid for them
all, and it was his servant, Sieur Guillaume de Nogaret, who was directing them. All in order to capture the Pope and bring
him back to France.

Toscanello didn’t care, though. All he knew was that he’d been given food and wine, and his purse stood to be heavier when
they returned. For the moment his belly wasn’t complaining, and life was good.

There was a shout from one little shed, and Toscanello saw a figure dart from it and bolt across the court. He looked around,
but no one else appeared to have seen the fellow, so he gripped his sword in his hand and pelted along in pursuit.

The other man must have been the winner of the clerk’s hundred-yard dash, from the speed he went at. In fact, for all his
clerical garb, Toscanello reckoned he must be a lay brother in the Pope’s service, for he had never seen a clerk run so fast
before – up one narrow alley, then vaulting a low wall which Toscanello himself found challenging, before springing over a
series of barrels behind the brewery, and hurling himself bodily at a door nearby. It slammed open, showering dust like a
small explosion of gunpowder, and crashed shut again as Toscanello reached it. Unheeding of any possible danger, he kicked
at it without slowing, and the door was flung wide.
Under this second assault, a timber cracked, and the whole frame sagged, hitting the ground and remaining still as Toscanello
ran on inside.

It was a large storage vault, he saw. There were barrels lined up, some massive ones for fermenting wines, while further away
he saw bales of goods imported from all over Christendom. And beyond them, a shadow, and the patter of sandalled feet.