Eleanor of Aquitaine (30 page)

Hostilities broke out in May when the Young King, Duke Richard, and the Count of Flanders attacked Pacy in Normandy, and King Louis, assisted by Geoffrey of Brittany, bore down on the Vexin; on 29 June, the castle of Aumale fell to them, followed soon afterwards by that of Driencourt. As Louis invested Arques, with Rouen as his ultimate goal, Philip of Flanders laid siege to Henry's massive border fortress of Verneuil, withdrawing at the end of July only when his brother, the Count of Boulogne, died of wounds inflicted by a mercenary's crossbow bolt.20 In order to secure his succession in Flanders, Philip was obliged to withdraw from the conflict. Louis attempted to take Verneuil in his stead, but, hearing that Henry was advancing vengefully upon him "like a bear whose cubs have been stolen, decided that the best course of action was flight. Mounting a swift horse, he retreated with all speed into France."21

During the course of the rebellion there was little open warfare, although many castles were besieged and numerous villages and towns plundered and burned. "Everywhere there was plotting, plundering and burning,"22 with Henry's sons "laying waste their father's lands on every side, with fire, sword and rapine." This scorched-earth policy was endorsed by most of the leaders, including the Count of Flanders, who declared: "First destroy the land, and then one's foe."

Although Normandy was the main theatre of revolt, there were risings in other parts of the Angevin empire. In Anjou and Maine Henry's vassals openly renounced their loyalty to him. In September Count William of Angouleme, the brothers Guy and Geoffrey de Lusignan, and some of the lords of Poitou and the Angoumois-- among them Geoffrey de Rancon-- erupted in indignation at the King's high-handed oppression and his treatment of their duchess, and expelled his officials. Henry responded by invading Poitou with a large army of Brabantine mercenaries, who destroyed or captured castles in the region between Tours and Poitiers, burned vineyards, and uprooted crops.23 To the east, the rebellion in Brittany was speedily put down by Henry's Braban-tines. Having capitulated, the Breton rebels were imprisoned in the castle of Dol.

Throughout the summer of 1173 the King fought hard to suppress the rebels. He enlisted the support of the Church by filling vacant sees with his own supporters, and despite the Young King's appeals to a sympathetic Pope for redress against his father's policies, the Church remained loyal to Henry, as did the justiciar, Richard de Lucy; the judiciary; the departments of state; and the merchant classes who had prospered under his rule. Most people in England were on his side and, according to Ralph of Diceto, were so fearful of the rising spreading or the risk of invasion that they dispatched everything except the Tower of London across the Channel to implore the King to come to the rescue of his kingdom. Thanks to all this support, he achieved significant success.

The Young King was too inexperienced to coordinate the various opposing armies, so it was King Louis who took command. Yet he too proved inept at organising the rebels into a cohesive force; nor was he able to prevent the divisions that arose among them. Nevertheless, Henry was hard-pressed to vanquish his enemies: as soon as one group of rebels was overcome, his attention was at once diverted to another. Only by skill, swiftness-- in July he marched 140 miles from Rouen to Dol in a day 24-- and a cool strategic appraisal of each situation did the King retain control.

Seeing Henry emerging victorious, his enemies began suing for peace. On 25 September he met his sons and King Louis for a parley at Gisors underneath the branches of an ancient elm tree, a traditional meeting place of the kings of England and France. Henry offered his sons castles and allowances-- Richard was promised half the revenues of Aquitaine-- but made no mention of delegating any authority to them. On the advice of Louis, who was still set upon crushing Henry's power, the princes rejected his terms.25

Meanwhile, England had been invaded from the north by the opportunist William the Lyon, King of Scots, who was not only sympathetic towards the Young King but also desirous of regaining Northumbria, which Henry had taken from him in 1157 and which the Young King had promised to return to him. The Scottish forces proceeded to lay waste the north of England, "setting fire to barns, taking plunder and women, and tearing children half alive from their mothers' wombs."26 An army commanded by English lords marched north and, having driven the Scots back across the border, devastated the whole of Lothian with fire and sword. In the end, King William was forced to sue for a truce until January 1174.

A simultaneous invasion of England was launched from Flanders, on Michaelmas Day 1173, by the treacherous Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester, the son of Henry's loyal justiciar, who had died in 1168. Earl Robert came at the head of a Flemish army;27 having landed at "Walton in Suffolk, he marched for Leicester, but in October, at Farnham, just north of Bury St. Edmunds, his force was mercilessly annihilated by a peasant host wielding scythes and clubs, commanded by Humphrey de Bohun, the constable of England, and the justiciar, Richard de Lucy. Earl Robert and his formidable wife Petronilla were taken prisoner, deprived of their estates, and sent to Falaise Castle, where other rebels were being held. The Earl's ally, Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, who was now seventy-eight and had spent his life switching his allegiance to serve his own interests, sued for peace, which brought the rising in East Anglia to an end. That left only pockets of rebellion in the north and the midlands.

The month of November found Henry and his Brabantine mercenaries south of Chinon, bearing down on Raoul de Faye's castle at Faye-le-Vineuse, which they took after a short siege. Raoul, however, evaded Henry, being still in Paris. At the same time, Duke Richard made an unsuccessful attack on the port of La Rochelle in Poitou.

The onset of winter forced both sides to negotiate a truce, but in the spring of 1174 the fighting broke out again on all fronts, and for a time Henry was busy subduing Anjou and Poitou. "With the rebels in these domains virtually quiescent, he prepared to depart for Normandy, but on 12 May, "Whit Sunday, he first visited Poitiers where he dismissed Eleanor's servants and dismantled her court.28 "When he left, he took with him his daughter Joanna, Marguerite and Alys of France, Emma of Anjou, Constance of Brittany, and Alice of Maurienne, as well as valuables from the ducal palace.29

Back in Normandy, in June, Henry received alarming news from England. The King of Scots had crossed the border again and was laying siege to Carlisle, the north and midlands were seething with revolt, the castle of Nottingham had fallen, and the Young King and Philip of Flanders were planning another invasion from the continent. They had already sent a force under Ralph de la Haie to join Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, who on 18 June took the city of Norwich. The justiciar and other royal officials began once more bombarding the King with appeals for help.

A superstitious man, Henry saw these new misfortunes as divine punishment for his failure to do proper penance for the murder of Becket, 30 and decided that this must be his priority before he attempted to deal with the insurgents.

At midday on 8 July 1174, Henry took ship for England from Barfleur. "With him were the Lord John, the Lady Joanna, Marguerite and Alys of France, Constance of Brittany, Emma of Anjou, Alice of Maurienne, and Eleanor: this is the first reference to the Queen by the chroniclers for over a year.31 Many other ladies were in the party, probably to wait upon this host of royal females.

"A considerable number of ships had been assembled against the King's arrival,"32 and it required forty of them to transport the royal family and their personal servants, the King's household and court, and his army of Brabantine mercenaries to England. Nor was it an easy voyage:

As they put out to sea, the waves started to look rough. The wind rose and fell hourly and made the sailors hesitant about the crossing. They put on subdued expressions in front of the King, their faces betraying signs of doubt. When the King learned that the wind was blowing directly against them, and that the strong gusts were steadily growing worse, he lifted his eyes to the sky and said, in front of everyone, "If the Lord of the Heavens has ordained that peace will be restored when I arrive, then in His mercy may He grant me a safe landing. But if He is hostile to me, if He has decided to visit the kingdom with a rod, may it never be my fortune to reach the shores of my country."33

God was indeed merciful, but Henry less so. As soon as they had all disembarked at dusk at Southampton and "eaten a simple meal of bread and water,"34 Eleanor was taken away under guard, either to Winchester Castle or to Sarum Castle near Salisbury,35 and there confined.

Queen Marguerite was sent, with her sister Alys and Constance of Brittany, to the castle of Devizes, and there kept securely until such time as her husband could be brought to heel. Alice of Maurienne may have been with them, but she died soon after arriving in England. Emma of Anjou was given that year in marriage to Dafydd ap Owen, prince of eastern Gwynedd, who had offered loyal service to the King.36

Having disposed of his womenfolk and "postponed dealing with every matter of state," Henry rode on to Canterbury "with a penitent heart" to perform his long-awaited penance for his part in the murder of St. Thomas.37 Dismounting near the city on Saturday, 12 June, he laid aside the insignia of kingship and, "clad in a woollen smock" as befitted a pilgrim, walked barefoot to the cathedral.38 Prostrating himself before Becket's tomb, he remained long in prayer, while Bishop Foliot explained, in a sermon delivered to the watching crowds, that the King "had neither commanded, nor wished, nor by any device contrived the death of the blessed martyr, which had been perpetrated in consequence of his murderers having misinterpreted the words which the King had hastily pronounced."39 Henry then "requested absolution from the bishops present and, baring his back, received from three to five lashes from every one of the numerous body of ecclesiastics who were assembled."40 It is estimated that at least seventy monks participated in the flogging.

Afterwards Henry remained lying before the tomb, "constant in prayer, all that day and night. He neither took food nor went out to relieve nature, and would not permit a rug or anything of that kind to be provided for him." At dawn on Sunday he heard mass, drank water from a well dedicated to St. Thomas, and was given a phial of blood, perhaps that of the martyr. "So he departed from Canterbury rejoicing, reaching London on the Sunday."41

That night, sore and exhausted from flagellation and fasting, Henry summoned his physician for a bloodletting, then fell into a much-needed sleep, with his head resting on his elbow and a servant rubbing his feet,42 which had been badly cut by hard stones on the walk to Canterbury.43 Suddenly, there was a banging on the door.

"Who's there?" cried the keeper. "Begone! Come in the morning, the King is asleep."

But Henry was awake.

"Open the door!" he shouted, and in came a messenger, one Abraham, with marvellous news: an army led by Geoffrey, the King's bastard son, and the stoutly loyal Ranulf Glanville, Sheriff of Yorkshire, had achieved a decisive victory at Alnwick, and the King of Scots had been captured and was being held at Richmond Castle. Henry was so jubilant that he immediately rewarded Abraham with an estate in Norfolk, then raced off to tell his barons the good news and order all the bells in London to be rung. He had not expected to receive such a signal sign of divine forgiveness so soon.

"God be thanked for it, and St. Thomas the Martyr!" he said fervently.44 Others also saw the hand of a forgiving God at work on Henry's behalf, and believed the victory had come about through the intercession of the martyred Becket; in a devout age, it was felt that, with such allies on the King's side, his enemies must surely fail.

The taking of William the Lyon was indeed catastrophic for the English rebels, and, led by Hugh Bigod, they sued for peace. On 26 July, Bigod was reconciled to the King and renewed his allegiance.45 With Henry's permission, Ralph de la Haie's army quietly left the country.

Learning that the rebellion in England had collapsed, Louis ordered the Young King and the Count of Flanders to call off their invasion, and joined with them in an attack on Rouen, which was from the first doomed to failure. The truth was that Henry's enemies had lost their confidence and knew they were fighting a losing cause.

By the end of July England was finally at peace, and on 8 August, Henry returned to Barfleur with his Brabantine mercenaries and some Welsh troops. When this formidable force advanced on Rouen, Louis "was reduced to a state of utter bewilderment" and on 14 August scuttled back to Paris with the Young King. He and the Angevin princes were now forced to concede defeat and accept the bitter truth that Henry was once more lord of all their destinies. His masterful victory against such overwhelming odds had also served to restore his reputation, which had been so shamefully tarnished by Becket's death.

Now the King seemed more invincible than ever. He was received in Rouen with such a ringing of bells as had never been heard there before.46 In Falaise, William the Lyon was forced to sign a treaty surrendering Scotland to Henry as an absolute fief, paying homage to him as his overlord and promising that the lords of Scodand would follow suit. He was also obliged to surrender to the King the castles of Edinburgh, Stirling, Roxburgh, Jedburgh, and Berwick.47

"Looking out for their own peace and quiet," Louis and Philip of Flanders "did all they could to heal the breach between the King of England and his sons."48 The Young King and his brothers had no choice but to sue for peace, offering to submit to their father. Henry realised "that the unusual humility" of his former enemies "and their desire to make peace proceeded only from their inability to resist him," but he was willing to negotiate a peace, "foreseeing the possibility of recalling his sons, whom almost everyone thought had gone seriously astray, to the fruits of a better life-- his sons whom he loved so much, whom he had unceasingly tried to raise to the heights of honour."49