The Plantagenets (22 page)

Either way, in 1196 Philip established a relationship with Arthur that would prove problematic for many years to come. The boy spent several months at the French court, and was acquainted with Philip’s young son Louis, who was about the same age as Arthur. Philip had
discovered another useful wedge to drive into the Plantagenets when the time was right.

But this was a short spell in the sun for Philip. By the summer of 1197, Richard’s fortunes had risen once more. His policy of buying the loyalty of Philip’s neighbours was proving highly successful, and the war turned in the English king’s favour. Arthur was returned to Brittany following Richard’s withdrawal, and Constance began to involve her son in the government of the duchy. Richard undermined a dangerous alliance between Philip and Baldwin count of Flanders by imposing a strict embargo on valuable Anglo–Flemish commerce. The English king survived being wounded in the knee by a crossbow bolt during a siege of the French Vexin castle of Gaillon. And construction was under way on a new Plantagenet forward base in Normandy: the vast, luxurious palace, town and castle at Les Andelys known as Château Gaillard.

Château Gaillard – the ‘saucy castle’ – was Richard’s greatest pride, and the town of Les Andelys fast became his favourite residence. Towering high on the rock of Andelys, just five miles from the French stronghold of Gaillon, it was a statement of defiance: a stake driven into the ground deep inside the Vexin; a monument to Richard’s martial legacy. This huge, round castle perched hundreds of feet above a fully realized town and palace, which included a river-port, a system of bridges and luxurious quarters in which the Plantagenet king could hold court. Incredibly, it took just two years to build (Henry II’s reconstruction of Dover castle had taken more than a decade), and it drained more money from Anglo-Norman coffers than every other castle-building project of Richard’s reign. It was said that while Château Gaillard was being built, blood rained from the skies. That the cost was astronomical would have surprised no one, for Richard based his kingship on the principle that he knew how to raise and spend money better than any other European ruler.

Château Gaillard formed one end of a defensive line that ran from the new military base at Portsmouth, through Rouen to Les Andelys. It allowed joined-up government in a literal sense – communications could run safely from Normandy to England, allowing English sovereignty to run smoothly even with the king entrenched in the Vexin.

With Château Gaillard flying up, the war effort continued to move in Richard’s favour. In July 1197 he finally prised Baldwin of Flanders away from Philip, and by the autumn the tilt in power had led Philip to sue for a year’s peace. While the truce was in effect, yet another boon fell Richard’s way. The contacts he had made with the German princes during his imprisonment bore fruit when the Emperor Henry VI died. In February 1198 the imperial electors were persuaded to appoint Richard’s nephew Otto – son of his sister Matilda and Henry the Lion of Saxony – to the throne. This was a significant advantage for Richard: Otto had been brought up at the Plantagenet court, and as count of Poitou he was closely tied to the duchy of Aquitaine. He could be counted on for support. With the tide tugging so definitively in Richard’s direction, Philip began to haemorrhage allies to the east and west alike. Noblemen all across France judged that the Plantagenet empire was once again in the military ascendance. As quickly as they had abandoned Richard during his years in captivity, they now scorned Philip.

Richard turned the screw. Baldwin of Flanders attacked Philip in Artois, opening a second front of war. Richard harried the French troops as they moved around the Vexin. At Gisors in September, he launched a surprise attack against Philip’s army. According to William Marshal, Richard led the attack personally, bellowing ‘God is with us!’ as he ‘rode at them just as a ravening lion, starved of food, runs at its prey’. As the French scattered, a bridge collapsed under the weight of the knights trying to cross it, and Philip was fortunate to be pulled alive from a ford. ‘When they had pulled the king out of the water – he had been very frightened for his life – he declined to stay at Gisors … for he feared his enemies very much,’ wrote Marshal, cheerfully.

The Plantagenets were now almost totally dominant throughout the Vexin. Philip held little more than Gisors – and this former Norman stronghold was now overshadowed by the new fortress at Les Andelys. It was clear that the time had come to settle with Richard. As soon as Christmas was over, on 13 January 1199, Philip and Richard met to make a long-term truce. The papal legate Peter of Capua initially arbitrated the negotiations, hoping to reconcile the
two kings and expedite the launch of a new crusade under a new pope, Innocent III. But it was clear during the bad-tempered discussions that Richard bore a great fury against the Church for abandoning him during his imprisonment, and for sitting by while Philip threatened his absent lands. Richard sought from Philip a peace that would return every single possession that had been taken from him. Philip was prepared to agree, saving the return of the castle of Gisors, which he hoped to secure by a marriage alliance. Negotiations dragged on into March.

At the end of March, although it was Lent and war-making was technically forbidden, Richard went to the Limousin to lead a company of men in attacking a castle at Châlus-Chabrol. A revolt led by the count of Angoulême and the viscount of Limoges had broken out in the south. Richard went unhesitatingly to put it down.

Châlus-Chabrol was not a large castle. There were only forty men and women inside it, of whom just two men were trained knights. They were barely equipped for either battle or siege, lacking both numbers and armour. As he examined its defences, Richard would no doubt have considered that a short siege would be enough to break the defenders’ resistance.

The land around Châlus-Chabrol was scorched. Richard’s army brought all the usual terrors: men with swords and crossbows galloped through the countryside, burning what they found before laying siege to the castle proper. Engineers dug tunnels, under the cover of crossbow fire, which fizzed at the battlements of the castle, keeping defenders pinned down, unable to disrupt the sapping of the walls on which they stood. The rumble of masonry occasionally imperilled those working closest to the walls. But they kept digging, weakening the will of the besieged as surely as they undermined the strength of the stone defences.

For three days they dug and fired. For three days, the small garrison resisted. For three days, Richard camped near his men, watching over them, directing, drawing on all of his experience to bring the castle quickly to submission. In the gloom of the evening of 26 March, he left his tent to inspect the state of the defences. He was armed with a
crossbow, an oblong shield and an iron helmet, but he wore no other armour. The battlements of the castle were all but deserted in the gathering dusk.

But not entirely. As Richard looked up, he saw a flicker of movement. A lone body popped up above the ramparts. It was a man later identified by Ralph de Diceto as one Peter Basilius. He was carrying a crossbow in one hand and a frying pan from the castle’s kitchens in the other, as a makeshift shield.

Brave in the face of unbeatable odds, the hapless defender loosed off a single bolt in the direction of Richard’s party.

Richard was used to being in the line of fire. From Jaffa to Gaillon, he had stood before hostile forces, trusting in his training, his reactions, and the professionalism of the men around him. He had led men from the front many times before, and dodged countless arrows and bolts. He lived for the thrill of battle, and took deep pleasure in the noble pursuit of combat. Pathetic as his enemy was here, Richard was filled with admiration for the makeshift courage he saw above him. Characteristically confident under attack, he took time to applaud the indomitable defender before ducking out of the way of his bolt. But the delay was fatal. Whether Richard’s reactions were slowing fractionally, or whether pride finally conspired against him, he failed to move in time. The bolt struck him in his left shoulder and sank to a depth of around six inches.

Richard did not cry out. He was a king and a leader. He could not afford to offer succour to the castle’s defenders, or to worry the men around him. With a wooden shaft sticking out from his shoulder, he simply returned to the royal tent.

When he arrived, it was dark. Richard would have been in considerable pain. The bolt had not severed a major blood vessel, and had missed his heart, but it was deep in his body nevertheless. Richard tried to yank the bolt from his shoulder, but as he did so the wooden shaft snapped, leaving the barbed point buried deep inside his body.

Professional help was required. A surgeon was summoned. Great care was taken to keep the king’s injury a secret. By firelight the surgeon tried to take out the wicked shard of metal from the royal
shoulder. He dug deep into flesh, widening the wound, searching for the embedded barb. Eventually the bolt was removed, and the wound bandaged up.

But a darkened medieval battlefield was no place to perform surgery. Soon the wound festered and during the days that followed, gangrene set in.

The infection began to spread throughout Richard’s upper body. It was clear what lay ahead. Medieval soldiers did not recover from infected wounds so close to their heart. And Richard was a soldier to the last.

He remained in his tent, where his condition was kept secret. One of the few people to be told about the severity of the king’s sickness was Eleanor of Aquitaine. As Châlus-Chabrol fell to Richard’s besieging army, a messenger was dispatched to Fontevraud to tell the ageing duchess that her favourite son was gravely ill. She rode hard to his side, and was at the camp when, on 6 April 1199, ten days after he had been injured, Richard the Lionheart forgave the brave defender with the frying pan and crossbow and died. His heart was taken to Rouen, to be interred next to his brother Henry the Young King’s. His body was taken back to Fontevraud, along with the crown and the splendid costume that Richard had been so impatient about wearing at his coronation. He was buried at his father’s feet: the exact spot where his journey as a king had begun.

Lackland Supreme

The darkness of a spring night was settling in on Saturday 10 April 1199. Hubert Walter, archbishop of Canterbury, was in Rouen, preparing himself for bed. The next day was Palm Sunday, the celebration of Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem. It would have been a contemplative night for Walter. He was England’s primate, a hero of the Holy Land, and a man who had come close to the city of Jerusalem himself.

It was late when a visitor was announced. William Marshal had arrived from his lodgings. He wanted urgently to see Walter. It was a visit that the archbishop had been dreading for days.

The two men were party to secret information. They, along with a tiny handful of trusted Plantagenet servants, knew that King Richard had been badly injured at Châlus-Chabrol. They had been waiting for news of his condition, hoping against the worst, but preparing for it too. Walter knew that for Marshal to visit in person at such an hour could not bode well. Marshal’s biography records the words they exchanged that evening.

‘Come now,’ said Walter as Marshal approached. ‘Give me your news!’ But his face must have betrayed extreme misgiving.

‘I can tell you it’s not good, my dear lord,’ said Marshal.

King Richard was dead. It was disastrous news for both men. As news leaked across the Continent of the shock death of the 41-year-old king, the political map of Europe would begin rapidly to change. So much of the Plantagenet resurgence of the late 1190s was owed directly to Richard’s personality, his leadership and his mastery over
Philip II of France. Richard had dragged the Plantagenet cause from disarray into triumph. His burning mission, to fight until Philip was put out of every quarter of Plantagenet France, was the cornerstone of his kingship, and the thread that bound all those who followed him. The truce between the houses of Plantagenet and Capet was as much a personal settlement between the two kings as a political settlement between two great powers. With Richard gone, all this was thrown into jeopardy.

Or, as Archbishop Walter put it that night, as he sat with William Marshal to chew over the consequences of the dramatic news: ‘All prowess is extinguished.’

The two men talked together as the night grew late. Richard’s death made no sense. Had he been punished for greed? For lust? Was God angry? It was impossible to know. Walter and Marshal could only now consider the options for the future.

Richard had died without legitimate children, having been virtually estranged from his wife Berengaria for several years at the time of his death. He had made no clear provision for the succession during his lifetime. No son had been born to be crowned junior king. No daughter lived to be married to a suitable heir. Everything ran by Richard’s command. Unlike his father, Richard had inherited the Plantagenet lands en masse. It looked more now like one large imperial patrimony than it had in the 1180s, when Aquitaine, Anjou and the Anglo-Norman realm might have been split up between different claimants.

It had long been realized – since 1190 and Richard’s crusading days – that if this Plantagenet empire was going to be inherited by one man, then there were two possible candidates: his brother John and Arthur of Brittany, his twelve-year-old nephew, who was learning to govern his duchy under the guidance of his mother, Constance. Early in his kingship, Richard had favoured Arthur as heir, but on his death-bed he had named John as his successor.

Marshal, who saw himself as a feudal statesman of indissoluble loyalty to the Plantagenets, argued in favour of the older man. Walter disagreed. Speaking against Arthur’s candidacy, Marshal told Walter
that Arthur lacked good advice. He called him ‘unapproachable and overbearing’. ‘If we call him to our side, he will do us harm and damage,’ said Marshal. ‘He does not like those in our realm. My advice is that he should never be king. Instead, consider the claim of John: he seems to be the nearest in line to claim the land of his father as well as that of his brother.’