Eleanor Of Aquitaine (35 page)

He renewed the historical argument on the Vexin, but declared himself willing to compensate the Franks for its loss by endowing Marguerite with £2750 in money of Anjou, to be paid annually in Paris during her life. As for the Angevin dower of the young queen, he declared himself unable, by reason of a legal obstacle, to comply with the French demands. He had, he said — and could prove it in court — bestowed the "honors" of Marguerite upon Queen Eleanor in lieu of the latter's dower when she had relinquished her provinces to Richard in 1179. In fact, to give substance to his claims, he summoned the queen from her sequestration in England to make a six months' progress in company with reliable Matilda through the lands of the Angevin dower.

When they came to the matter of Alais, Henry promised that, if she were not forthwith wedded to the Count of Poitou, she should shortly be married to John. The intrusion of lack-land John into these negotiations bred lively suspicions in the war of nerves Did this mean that John was designated by this alliance as heir of England, or of Poitou, or of both? Richard's alarm was increased when Henry proffered his own homage to Philip for all the continental domains of the Plantagenets.
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It was said that Henry had absented himself from Philip's coronation because, as king himself, and more than peer of the Capetian king, he had not wished to give homage to his stripling overlord. But in offering that homage now, he publicly revoked into his own hands all the provinces he had long ago assigned to his sons. At last he had wiped out the last vestiges of that fatal treaty of Montmirail. He was master again in his own house. His sons, like fractious horses recovered from the field, were stabled again in the royal mews, dependent upon the royal bounty.

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Above the darkening destiny of the Angevin house in Europe there presently loomed the more pervasive shadow of its eclipse in the Orient.
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While the royal dynasty in Jerusalem, revived for two generations by the infusion of western blood and valor, had again been crumbling to decay, the Moslems had been rallying their forces. Powerful new leaders had arisen among them, and the final collapse of the Latin Kingdom threatened. Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, own cousin of Henry Fitz Empress, was smitten with leprosy,
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and in 1183 was forced by reason of his blindness to resign the throne to his nephew, Baldwin V, a child of five. Since the boy king of Jerusalem was Henry's kinsinan, a scion of the same root in Anjou, sole legatee of King Foulques, what was more inevitable than an appeal to Henry for the leadership, the men, the revenue, to recoup the fortunes of that noble lineage in the East? It seemed clear in Jerusalem that Henry himself, or at the very least one of his sons, should lay aside all earthly concerns and take up the unavoidable burden of warfare in Palestine. In the spring of 1185, Herachus, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, to whom even the King of the Holy City owed homage, himself undertook the embassy to the West to lay the whole matter in Henry's hands, to offer him the Kingdom of Jerusalem, with the keys to the city, to bid him bring quickly men and arms and treasure to salvage the Latin Kingdom overseas from the imminent vengeance of the infidel. Herachus could not conceive a more urgent mission for a Christian king than the rescue of the holy places from the doom that menaced them.

Henry was in the north of England when the arrival of Herachus was announced. Leaving his own concerns, he bore southward and met the Patriarch near Reading, whither magnates had flocked from all quarters to lay eyes on the keeper of the holy places. The king heard gravely of the disasters of the house of Anjou overseas and of the impending calamities of his fellow Christians in the East. But this was not the first time he had parried entreaties for the relief of Jerusalem. He had more than once withstood the obvious appeals to conscience and responsibility by equipping proxies for crusade and subsidizing the orders protecting the holy shrines. As for himself, he had gradually divined something chimerical in the movement to reverse history in Palestine, gaining his convictions from the eyewitness testimony of many a battered paladin returning from beyond the seas, from Louis his overlord and Eleanor his queen, from Henry the Lion and the Counts of Flanders and Champagne, as well as from many lesser but equally credible deponents. He had by no means forgotten that Louis had lost not merely his armies, his queen and her provinces overseas, but had come within an ell of losing his kingdom at home by going forth to battle with the paynim; nor that Conrad had suffered irreparable loss of men and treasure in the same enterprise; nor that the astute Philip of Flanders, after inspecting the situation on the spot more recently, had declined the glory of remaining abroad to buttress the throne of Jerusalem. To Henry crusading had never seemed a business to exchange for the solid certainties of forging an empire in the West. In the course of time he had evolved a repertory of excuses for not going on crusade proof against legatine missions and the representations of the Pope himself. But never before had any solicitation been so direct, so urgent, as this.

To the crusading generation the Patriarch of Jerusalem was hardly less august than the Pope of Rome, and it was a wonderful sight to behold him on his knees, with tears and lamentations, before the Angevin, who seemed clearly marked by heaven to uphold the tents of Christendom. The patriarch moved the assembly to groans and tears. He brought in his hands as gifts to Henry memorials of Christ's birth, passion, resurrection; keys of the Tower of David and of the Holy Sepulcher; and the banner of the Holy Cross. Heraclius laid the whole weight of saving the holy shrines on the king's shoulders. The magnates, who were certain to bear the heat and burden of the day, pressed about to hear the king's words. But from the proffered keys of Jerusalem and the banner of the Holy Cross, Henry drew back.
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He was inexpressibly honored, gravely concerned. He would certainly engage to find subsidies for the holy war; and champions to engage the paynim. But as for himself, he could not set out for Jerusalem, leaving his own realm to its fate.
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He had things to say about the depredations that the most Christian King of the Franks could be expected to commit on his continental possessions, if he were to journey to the Orient.

The patriarch, accustomed to the homage of temporal kings, was profoundly amazed by these paltry evasions. He turned speedily from entreaty to admonition.

"You will accomplish nothing, O King, by this decision, for you will neither win your own salvation nor save the heritage of Christ. What we seek is a leader rather than resource."

If anyone could have saved Henry from his errors and his vices, Giraldus Cambrensis would have been his rescuer. On the first occasion he could find, that excellent young man put forth his influence for the patriarch. Addressing Henry apart, he said,

"Sire, you should feel honored that you have been chosen above all kings of earth by the patriarch."

Henry's reply was so sharp that Giraldus did not mistake his mood as one of veiled jocularity, nor hope any longer for his conversion.

"If the patriarch or any others come to us, they seek their own advantage rather than ours… The clergy may well call us to arms and peril, since they will parry no blows on the battlefield, nor take on themselves any burdens they can avoid."

When he could in no wise move the king, Heraclius begged that Henry would send one of his sons at least, so that the Angevin race should not perish in the East and all the toils and martyrdoms of three generations should not be forfeit to the infidel. John threw himself at his father's feet and begged to be sent upon that brilliant mission. But Henry was obdurate.

He would send treasure, but no scion of his race.
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Finding no succor for his beleaguered state, Herachus sped back to Jerusalem and there shortly died, as it was said, of chagrin at the incredible failure of his embassy.
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Again in 1187 the most appalling tidings of disaster in Palestine reached the Christian courts of Europe. The worst predictions of Herachus were now realized.
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Not only had most of the Christian citadels been lost, the flower of chivalry been slain, the Templars and Hospitallers made captive, but the very cross of redemption had fallen into the hands of the "infidel dogs" and it was doubtful whether the tomb of Christ could be defended from the resurgent Saracens.

A consternation greater than that which followed the fall of Edessa in the mid-century spread over Europe. Pope Lucius collapsed on learning of these things and closed his eyes upon a calamitous world, and Pope Urban shortly followed him. King William of Sicily, the husband of Joanna Plantagenet, put on sackcloth and, withdrawing from mankind, mourned for days without respite. Cardinals everywhere vowed to eschew all luxury and go forth on foot as mendicants preaching a new crusade in the highways and byways of the western world. A fast of Lenten severity was imposed on Christians every Friday for five years, with abstinence from meat on Wednesdays and Saturdays as well.
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New missions from the Orient hastened to Europe. To bring the urgency of action to kings and prelates, the Archbishop of Tyre crossed the Mediterranean and the Alps.

Just as this dignitary arrived with his devastating reports,
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Henry and Philip Augustus were again drawing up their cohorts under the Gisors elm to treat of their ancient grievances — the custody of the Vexin and the still unwedded Alais. The archbishop had not come, like Herachus, with proffers of honors to the house of Anjou. He had come to summon universal Christendom to Armageddon. Hearing of the forgathering of Christian princes on the frontiers of France, Normandy, and Flanders, he hastened to Gisors to make use of that convocation for the spreading of his tidings, and he was there most honorably received by the potentates of Gaul. Benedict of Peterborough records that he presented the situation of the holy places so vividly and preached the word of God with such remarkable ardor that the conversion of all the congregated princes was achieved within a week. This was clearly seen to be a miracle. Those who had arrived as enemies parted as allies. To the astonishment of many, Henry and Philip sank their differences,
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which now seemed puny and unworthy, in the Truce of God, and gave and received the kiss of peace. Philip and Richard, the Counts of Flanders and of Blois, and all the valiant young men in their prime talked of nothing but preparations for a new movement to the East. Decisions were taken and oaths exchanged. Red crosses were bestowed upon the Franks, white upon the English, green among the Flemings. Henry himself, Philip, Richard, the Count of Flanders, and the most noble bishops and barons took the ensign upon their shoulders.
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Thereupon an image of the cross was seen to hover in the fair spring sky above the Gisors elm,
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and the vast concourse was seized with an inexpressible transport of joy. A wooden rood was planted on the place of dedication, and the spot was named Holy Field (Saint Champ). It appeared that the ardors of Urban at Clermont, of Bernard of Clairvaux at Vézelay, had been surpassed and heaven and earth were joined in one wide resolution.

Henry's sudden espousal of a general crusade for the recovery and defense of the holy places was a public astonishment, for it reversed the considered policy of his whole career. Was he overborne by the universal
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at Gisors, as long before the sober Emperor Conrad had been overborne by the fervors of Bernard of Clairvaux and the popular clamor these evoked at Speyer? There are other possibilities. A crusade in 1187 might have turned to the advantage of the Angevin. A common cause outside the scope of dynastic wars, embraced with zeal by all the princes of Europe, a common cause which should moreover redound to the glory of the house of Anjou, might well allay the internecine strife and the disaffection spreading broadcast from the Channel to the Pyrenees; might engage for a restoring interval the restless energies and displace the rancors of Henry's headstrong, now foot-loose, heir; would put off those infernal reckonings under the Gisors elm. If no conspirators were left behind in Europe, a grand crusade would retard, and might deflect, the forces of sedition besetting the king on every hand.

As a matter of fact, in spite of the enthusiasin, the bare prospect of crusade, as now forecast, was not one to enlist the whole heart and soul of Philip Augustus. Though desirous of sharing a campaign in the East, he had a particular objection to leading the Franks on an expedition under the inevitable leadership of the English king, his vassal, to obtain for Henry or one of his sons the overlordship of Jerusalem. In the face of this objection, the plight of the holy places moved him only very slightly.

Meantime the portionless Richard, former Count of Poitou, heir apparent to the throne of England, pretender to Normandy, was looking for the likeliest place to hang his bonnet, plumed with the gorgeous but inexpensive roadside broom. Would this be Rouen or Paris? Which of his frugal overlords should he prefer? Like that other gentleman adventurer, his brother Henry, he had taken the cross (before the convocation at Gisors) without consulting the king his father.
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While waiting to choose his course more clearly as events unfolded, he cast about for a high commission in the campaign overseas.

From the negotiations at Gisors these three went about their separate businesses, the issues that had brought them together still unresolved. Henry adjourned to Le Mans with a strong ecclesiastical following ardent for crusade. He and his prelates arranged for levies of men and treasure and drew up a prospectus for the ordering of the campaign obviously designed to avert from it the catastrophes into which the guileless reasoning of Abbé Bernard had betrayed the second crusade. For instance, the new expedition was not to be regarded as the penance of any particular king, nor as an incidental means of delivering Europe from every species of malefactor and the gross overpopulation in the mendicant orders of society. Indeed, no tatterdemalion recruits were to be admitted for the sake of their own salvation; every man's array must be whole and seemly. It was further enacted that no one pledged to crusade should swear profanely or play at dice, though later by amendment princes and the higher orders of the clergy were freed from these restrictions. After the ensuing Easter no one was to wear gris, beaver, sable, or scarlet, or indulge in more than two dishes at table. There were positively to be no Amazons. No one was to take any woman with him, unless haply some laundress, who, following on foot, should give no occasion for suspicion.
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Says Ambrose, "Forgotten were the dances, the singing of lays and ballads, sweet converse, and every earthly joy."