Louis: The French Prince Who Invaded England (31 page)

Some indication of the confidence, indeed bullishness, of the atmosphere of Louis’s early kingship can be found in the writings of William the Breton. His
Deeds of Philip Augustus
, as we have seen, terminates with the old king’s death, but in 1224 William penned an addendum to his
Philippide
, known as the
Conclusion and Exhortation to the New King Louis
, in which he anticipates some rather ambitious aims:

[Poets] will sing of the brilliant start to your reign, and will tell of the transports of joy and the applause with which France welcomed her new king … you will be a subject worthy of their songs … you will suffer no longer to reign in peace this new king who dares to bear the English sceptre which, taken from his father by just sentence, belongs only to you, is reserved only for you through the rights of your wife, and which was conferred on you by the unanimous election of the clergy, the people and the nobles of England. This enterprise calls you, and you will prepare for it after Easter following the expiration of the truce which John begged from your father. Therefore, joyfully taking up arms under favourable omens … start to re-establish the rights of your kingdom, and add a kingdom to a kingdom, giving the signal for combat … take no rest until the child of England, vanquished by your armies, has resigned into your hands the sceptre to which he has no right, so that you may at last reign over both realms.

Louis did not renew the truce, a decision which was formally announced on 5 May 1224. Then he rolled up his sleeves and got started on his long-term plan, turning his attention to Poitou, a region of Aquitaine. Aquitaine had once been subject to the overlordship of the king of France, but it had passed into the control of Henry II of England when he married Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was duchess in her own right. By 1224 ‘duke of Aquitaine’ was one of the titles of Henry III. During May Louis scored a masterstroke in advance of the campaign when he agreed terms with Hugh X de Lusignan. Hugh wielded great influence in the region as he was both count of La Marche (having succeeded his father, Hugh IX, in 1219) and count of Angoulême via his marriage to Isabelle, widow of King John and heiress to that county as her father’s only child. The fact that his wife was the king of England’s mother did not seem to bother Hugh as he responded readily to Louis’s overtures. Hugh had long coveted the Isle of Oleron, off the French Atlantic coast just south of the major port of La Rochelle; it would have been part of the dowry of Joan, Henry III’s sister, when she was betrothed to Hugh, but had not formed part of his marriage settlement with Isabelle. Louis agreed that if he could use Hugh’s lands in Poitou as a base for his attack against the remaining English territory in the region, then control of Oleron would pass to Hugh as soon as they captured it. Hugh agreed, so Louis was able to move forward with his plans.

Now that he was king, Louis had the resources of the French crown at his disposal, and so was much better equipped for this campaign than he had been for his invasion of England. Not only could he summon all royal vassals to join him, but he also benefited from the frugality which Philip Augustus had exhibited with his annual income: during his reign Philip had doubled his revenues, quadrupled the size of the royal domain, and in his later years spent only around two-thirds of his income each year, so he had built up a significant store of treasure which Louis could call on.

Louis mustered his army at Tours on 24 June 1224: the
Life of Louis VIII
says that ‘he assembled a great company of bishops and prelates, and a large host of barons, knights and sergeants’. Nicholas de Bray adds the detail that the host included combatants from Brittany, Normandy, Flanders and Champagne – local differences put aside, almost the whole realm was represented. Nicholas attributes a very flowery speech to Peter de Dreux, duke of Brittany, saying that he and his companions would be loyal to Louis forever, and that they would follow him whatever the dangers; although it is possible that the real Peter did not make
quite
so many classical allusions to Scylla, Charybdis, Cerberus and so on, the enthusiasm strikes a plausible note. These men had been with Louis since their boyhoods; they were his companions in arms, they were now the great peers of France, and he was the king. Adventure and glory awaited.

Among those in the host were Guérin, the chancellor; Philip Hurepel, Louis’s younger half-brother; Robert, count of Dreux; Guy, count of St Pol; and Theobald, count of Champagne. Also included was John de Brienne, the king of Jerusalem, who had attended the coronation the previous year. A French nobleman by birth (the second son of the count of Brienne, a fiefdom in Champagne), he had gained the throne by marriage to Maria de Montferrat, the heiress of Jerusalem. At the conclusion of the unsuccessful Fifth Crusade he had arrived in western Europe and was now on a tour there trying to find more help for his kingdom. Possibly he thought that fighting for Louis at this point would do his cause good, but he was to wander through France, England, Italy and the Holy Roman Empire before finally finding practical support in León in the shape of an alliance with Alfonso IX and a marriage to Alfonso’s daughter Berengaria, who was Queen Blanche’s niece. But that was still in the future: for now John was an experienced knight with forty years of tournaments and fights behind him who would be a useful addition to the host.

Notable by his absence on the march was Peter, duke of Brittany, but this was because he had been assigned a different role to play: perhaps suspicious of Hugh de Lusignan’s new-found loyalty (his family did, after all, have a conspicuous history as vacillators), Louis had inserted a clause in his agreement with Hugh that he would turn his castle of Lusignan – some 15 miles (24 km) south-west of Poitiers – over to the duke of Brittany for the duration of the campaign. Thus Peter was ensuring peace and stability behind the main advance. Possibly he chafed at the relative inaction, but he obeyed his orders nonetheless.

This gave Louis a safe space to the rear of his army as he advanced. First he marched on Montreuil-Bellay and secured a truce with the viscount of Thouars; then he turned south-west through Poitou with the eventual aim of reaching La Rochelle. The town of Niort, with a garrison commanded by the English seneschal of Poitou, Savari de Mauléon, surrendered after a short siege from 3 to 5 July; Savari and his men were permitted to retreat to La Rochelle with their lives and weapons. Next in Louis’s path was St Jean d’Angély, but the inhabitants there surrendered without a fight: the
Life of Louis VIII
tells us that ‘when those in the town heard of the approach of the king they doubted themselves and took counsel … they gave themselves up and received the king and his people honourably in the town’. Louis was treated to a reception as lavish as St Jean d’Angély could provide, and he could plan his next and biggest move: the assault on La Rochelle.

La Rochelle was of pivotal importance. It was the major port on that part of the Atlantic coast; the nearest alternatives of similar size were Bordeaux, 120 miles (190 km) south, or the inland port of Nantes some 85 miles (135 km) north. La Rochelle was the place where English kings landed when they came to visit their territories in France, as it was big enough both to disembark troops and to take refuge in if defeat threatened. The town’s wealth was built on trade, principally the wine trade with England, upon which it depended for much of its prosperity. The sympathies of its people could therefore be expected to lie with England; moreover, it was defended by an English garrison. Matthew Paris, recognising its importance, notes that ‘if [the king of France] can in any way subdue the town of La Rochelle, thenceforth he will easily possess the rest of the land of Poitou’.

As Louis rode with his army, he encountered some familiar issues with his nobles and the terms of their feudal service. The campaign had so far lasted for some twenty days, so some of the lords, Theobald of Champagne the most vocal among them, thought that starting the siege of a well-fortified city would take them beyond their statutory forty days’ service and should therefore not be attempted. Louis, predictably, was not in agreement, and he was supported by the churchmen present, including the chancellor Guérin, who thought that the campaign must be pushed to its end now they had got this far. The nobles were persuaded and the host moved on to La Rochelle.

Louis began the siege on 15 July 1224. The siege engines, the pieces of which had been rumbling along behind the host on carts, were unloaded, and the army began making ominous preparations, as Nicholas de Bray describes:

Here a knight polishes his helmet to remove traces of rust. Shields are made ready; swords are sharpened so that their steel points can inundate the earth with blood and turn the green grass red … footsoldiers make ready their catapults, and a mass of lead is converted into balls; machines are constructed which are destined to break down the walls and to cast blocks of stone to destroy towers and houses, to kill enemies … hands are full of darts and javelins, quivers are filled with arrows … they are not short of bows, heavy blades, cruel axes or falchions; each also arms himself with a sharp steel sword.

The bombardment began.

At first the garrison (augmented by Savari de Mauléon and his men from Niort) were in buoyant mood, having been warned of the royal army’s approach and having stocked up on barrels of grain, meat, fish and wine; they erected engines of their own and returned missile for missile for the first week and a half. However, if La Rochelle was to survive then it needed reinforcements and supplies sent across the Channel, and (in a neat reversal of Louis’s experiences in England) these were not forthcoming. Ralph of Coggeshall, documenting the situation from his point of view in England, tells us that the citizens ‘despaired of help from King Henry, who was meanwhile besieging the castle of Bedford’; Hubert de Burgh, the royal forces and a huge amount of resource were embroiled in a struggle there as they sought to wrest control of the castle from William de Bréauté, who was holding it in the name of his brother Falkes and keeping captive Henry de Braybrooke (whom we last saw defending Mountsorrel Castle in 1217), a royal judge who was hearing cases against Falkes which could lead to his downfall. After an eight-week siege Bedford would eventually fall, resulting in the hanging of the eighty-man garrison as well as William de Bréauté, but by then it was too late for La Rochelle.

By the beginning of August the garrison and the citizens there were not yet at their last extremity, but, knowing that no help would be forthcoming, they saw that there was no point in fighting on: the outcome was inevitable. They did not have enough troops to mount a sortie to try and break the siege; all they could do was sit tight and endure the bombardment until the walls gave way and the royal army came pouring in. It would be better for the inhabitants to accept the inescapable, in the hope of securing a settlement. La Rochelle surrendered to Louis on 3 August, and after a triumphal and peaceful entry into the town, the king allowed the garrison to leave with their lives and their arms; the burgesses swore fealty ten days later. The
Life of Louis VIII
is in jubilant mood as the English sail away: ‘they gave up the town, saving their lives, and fled to England. And in this way the English, who had long been lurking in this part of Aquitaine, left either voluntarily or under duress the kingdom of France.’ The icing on the cake came when the Isle of Oleron submitted to Louis without a fight; he kept his word and handed it over to Hugh de Lusignan. On French soil Henry III now had control only of Gascony, and could land only by sailing as far south as Bordeaux.

The king was victorious, and he was in a confident mood. When Hubert de Burgh knew that Louis was advancing on La Rochelle and that he would not be able to provide any military support, he had written to the pope, sending envoys to Rome with his message. This resulted in a letter from Pope Honorius to Louis dated 3 August 1224 (the very day on which La Rochelle had fallen), expressing his regret at the non-renewal of the truce with England and his shock that Louis should have resorted to war at a time when he could have been instead supporting the needs of the Holy Land. Louis was ‘asked
and begged
’ (note the wording) to stop attacking the lands of the king of England. By the time Louis received this letter the campaign was done and dusted, so he replied in vigorous fashion that King John had been justly sentenced to forfeiture, that England was a papal fief and that yet its resources were being used to oppose him in Poitou. Was this happening with the pope’s knowledge and consent? If so, he was ‘asked
and required
’ to ensure this was stopped. Louis’s envoys reached Rome with this letter in December 1224 and wasted no time in circulating rumours that Louis might just mount a second invasion of England if the pope did anything against his interests, and that the English barons might just be prepared to hand the crown over to him.

While various envoys were en route, Louis stationed garrisons in the towns of Poitou and successfully convinced the inhabitants that they would be safer and more prosperous under his rule than Henry’s. He then withdrew to Poitiers and thence to Paris.

Once in his capital he laid down his sword for a while and set about consolidating his conquests on parchment by making deals with nobles and by issuing charters to towns in Poitou which confirmed their privileges. It was in their best interests to stay loyal to him rather than rebelling on behalf of the absent (and unlikely to return in the near future) ‘duke of Aquitaine’, and the charters were accepted without challenge or complaint. Meanwhile, Savari de Mauléon had travelled back to England to explain what was under the circumstances an entirely justifiable surrender, but he was badly received, his explanations ignored and his motives suspected. Threatened with a charge of treason, he sailed back to France and threw in his lot with Louis, offering the king his sword in mid-December 1224. On submitting his castles as security, he was entrusted with the command of the new garrison of La Rochelle and the guard of the coast.