The Kingdom in the Sun (56 page)

To all Sicilians of Norman or English origin, such an alliance must have seemed even more attractive than the Byzantine proposal. Links between the two kingdoms had been forming ever since Roger's day. The English scholars, churchmen and administrators whose names have already appeared in these pages constitute only a small fraction of the total;
¹
and by the
116os
there were few important Norman families in either country who could not claim members in both.
²
Henry himself, whose French dominions alone covered considerably more territory than those of Louis VII, was beyond question the most powerful king in Europe. Moreover, though Joanna was still little more than a baby—she had been born in
1165
—he seemed genuinely keen for the match. There was, admittedly, the problem of Thomas Becket. Had Stephen du Perche remained in Sicily the obstacle would have been almost insuperable, but once he was out of the way it no longer seemed quite so serious. He and Thomas were known to have been on excellent terms, and some of his own unpopularity may have rubbed off on to his friend. Meanwhile Matthew of Ajello, now Vice-Chancellor of the Kingdom and at the height of his power,
³
was a constant champion of Henry's cause. It was almost certainly on his advice that, early in
11
70,
Count Robert of Loritello and Richard Palmer of Syracuse set off to discuss the whole question with the Pope at Anagni.

It was a curious choice of delegates. Robert, after years of rebellion

¹
Apart from Richard Palmer and Walter of the Mill, there were at least two other English prelates in the Kingdom during William IPs reign—Hubert of Middlesex, Archbishop of Conza in Campania, and Walter's brother Bartholomew who succeeded Gentile as Bishop of Agrigento. This latter see had in fact listed a certain John of Lincoln among its canons as early as 1
1
27, while the name of Richard of Hereford appears among those of Palermo in
1158.

²
In the contemporary
Lai des Deux Amants
by Marie de France, the Princess of Pitres on the Seine confides to her lover that
En Salerne ai une parente, Riche fern me, mut ad grant rente
to whom she sends him that he may build up his strength before returning to win her hand by carrying her bodily over a steep mountain.

³
After Stephen's departure the office of Chancellor had been allowed to lapse —just as that of Emir of Emirs had lapsed after the death of Maio.

which had on several occasions nearly cost him his life, had been recalled from exile only the year before, when his former fiefs had been restored to him. He was, however, a cousin of the King and his rank gave the mission a status it would otherwise have lacked. The name of Richard Palmer, at one time perhaps Becket's most trusted friend in Sicily, comes as still more of a surprise—just as it did to Thomas himself when he heard it. The archbishop's own explanation for what he considered a betrayal—that King Henry had won Palmer over to his side with the promise of the bishopric of Lincoln
¹
—somehow seems hard to accept. Richard had recently and at long last been consecrated at Syracuse, which had been declared a metropolitan see, under the direct authority of the Pope; he had received his
pallium
¹
shortly afterwards. There is no conceivable reason why he should have wished to exchange Syracuse for Lincoln at such a moment, and certainly he never did so. It is much more likely that, as an Anglo-Norman who had settled in Sicily, he favoured the proposed alliance and was simply anxious to smooth its path all he could; as far as the Becket issue was concerned, he probably saw himself more as a mediator than anything else.

Alexander raised no objection to the marriage, and after the news came of Henry's reconciliation with Thomas in the summer of
1170,
the last uncertainties must have been swept away. Then, at nightfall on 29 December, came the archbishop's murder. A dark pall hung over England. Henry's continental subjects were placed under an interdict; the King himself was forbidden to enter any church until such time as the Pope saw fit to absolve him. All Europe was horror-stricken; to the Sicilians, little Joanna suddenly seemed a less desirable bride. Negotiations were broken off abruptly and, once again, the hunt for a Queen began.

Three months later, in March
1171,
Manuel Comnenus offered William his daughter Maria for the second time. The princess no longer possessed quite the attractions of five years before; in the interim her stepmother had given birth to a son, Alexius, and the succession to the Byzantine throne was again assured. But she was still an Emperor's daughter, her dowry would be worthy of her

¹
                 
Confided in a letter to Humbald, Bishop of Ostia, in 1169.

²
                
See p.
149n.

rank and the marriage would, with any luck, put a stop to her father's eternal meddling in Italian affairs.
¹
The offer was accepted, and it was agreed that Maria should arrive in Apulia the following spring.

On the appointed day William, accompanied by his twelve-year-old brother Prince Henry of Capua, Walter of the Mill and Matthew of Ajello, was waiting at Taranto to greet his bride. She did not appear. On the next day there was still no sign of her, nor on the next. After a week of waiting, the King decided to make the pilgrimage to Monte Gargano and the cave of the Archangel Michael. That would take him another ten days at least; Maria would surely have arrived by the time he returned. But when on
12
May he was back on the coast at Barletta, it was to learn that there was still no news. Clearly the girl was not corning; the Greeks had deceived him. Angry and humiliated, he started for home. Still worse misfortunes were to come. The royal party had intended to pass through Capua, where young Henry was to be formally invested with his Principality; shortly before they reached the city, the boy came down with a raging fever. He was hurried to Salerno and thence by ship to Sicily; but when William followed a few weeks later, his brother was dead.
²

Why had Manuel changed his mind at the last moment, incurring the lasting bitterness of Sicily's young King ? He never, so far as we know, apologised or explained, and his motives remain a mystery. The most probable answer is that Frederick Barbarossa had begun bidding for Maria's hand on behalf of his own son; but to us the incident of the bride that never was is important for one reason only; it explains the resentment against Constantinople that was to smoulder in William's heart for the rest of his life—a resentment that was to cost both Sicily and Byzantium dear in the years to come.

What made this snub from Constantinople still more galling to the

¹
In the past three years or so Manuel had sent handsome contributions for the rebuilding of Milan, destroyed by Frederick in
1162;
poured, as one chronicler put it, 'a river of gold' into Ancona; and married his niece to one of the Frangipani to assure himself of support in Rome.

²
According to an old tradition, perpetuated by several of the more venerable historians of Sicily, Prince Henry at his death was betrothed to a daughter of King Malcolm of Scotland. There is no truth in this story. King Malcolm IV, who reigned from
11
53
to
11
65
, not only died unmarried and without issue, but was known during his lifetime as the Virgin King.

King of Sicily was the fact that he was already beginning to envisage an important role for himself in the eastern Mediterranean. Though without any personal appetite or aptitude for military activity, he cherished immense political ambitions which soared far beyond the existing boundaries of his realm. The mere thought of how his father had thrown away his North African possessions—almost without a struggle—was enough to rouse his anger; he preferred to look upon himself as a successor to his grandfather Roger and to Robert Guiscard, as a young scion of the Hautevilles whose destiny it was to win for Sicily a new and glorious overseas empire.

For the time being, at least, there could be no question of reconquering the territories along the North African coast. The Almohads were now supreme; thanks to their brilliant admiral Ahmed es-Sikeli (the Sicilian)—our old friend Caid Peter
¹
—they had built up a fleet of their own which, if not the equal of William's, might still prove a dangerous adversary. They were also in a position, if so inclined, to stir up trouble among the Sicilian Muslims, by no means all of whom had forgotten the terrors of recent years. Fortunately the Almohads remained well-disposed towards their northern neighbour; trade was flourishing, and their leader, Abu-Yakub Yusuf, was anxious to keep his hands free for his projected conquest of Spain—an enterprise which was ultimately to lead to his death. William, headstrong as he was, had no wish to make trouble in that quarter.
³

Ffis expansionist dreams would have to be directed elsewhere; and he was consequently more than a little intrigued to receive, some time during
1173,
a letter from Amalric, the Frankish King of Jerusalem. It appeared that the Fatimids of Egypt, incensed by the abolition of their Cairo Caliphate the previous year, had decided to rise in rebellion against their overlord Nur ed-Din, King of Syria, and his local vizier, Saladin. Knowing that the whole question of Christian survival in the Levant depended in the last resort on Muslim disunity, Amalric had undertaken to give the Egyptians all the help he could; he was now canvassing the princes of the West for support.

¹
See p. 256.

²
It was not until
1181,
however, that William was to conclude a formal treaty of peace with the Almohads—which he sealed, according to the historian Abdul-Wahid al-Marrakeshi, by sending Abu-Yakub a ruby the size and shape of a horseshoe.

It was just the kind of opening that William was looking for; an opportunity to make his name in the East, to show the rulers of Outremer—and Manuel Comnenus too, for that matter—that a new Christian leader, and one to be seriously reckoned with, had emerged on the Mediterranean stage.
¹
He responded with enthusiasm. Command of the expedition was given to his first cousin Tancred, Count of Lecce, bastard son of Duke Roger of Apulia, now long since forgiven for his part in the
coup
against William I in
1161
; and on an appointed day in the last week of July
11
74 a massive Sicilian fleet appeared off Alexandria—two hundred ships, if the Arab chroniclers can be believed, carrying a total of thirty thousand men, including fifteen hundred knights; another thirty-six vessels for the horses, forty for stores and provisions, and six for siege materials.

Had King Amalric seen this huge force, he would doubtless have been as impressed as William had hoped. But King Amalric was dead —of dysentery, just a fortnight before the Sicilians' arrival. And his death meant that there was no Frankish contingent from Jerusalem waiting to join forces with them. Nor was this the only unpleasant surprise in store. Saladin had already uncovered the plot against him and had crucified the ringleaders. There would be no revolt after all. Tancred and his men disembarked to find themselves on hostile territory, utterly unsupported. Almost at once the Alexandrians, who had previously retreated within their walls, burst out again, set fire to the Sicilian siege engines and followed up with a night attack that threw the invaders into total confusion. By now Saladin, apprised of the landings
by
carrier pigeon, was hurrying up from Cairo at the head of an army. He need not have troubled. Long before he arrived Tancred had given the order to re-embark and the Sicilian ships had disappeared over the horizon, leaving behind them three hundred knights whose retreat had been cut off and who, after heroic but hopeless resistence, were taken prisoner.