Assassination: The Royal Family's 1000-Year Curse (9 page)

With one problem solved, another arrived. When he was twelve years old, Richard had been betrothed to Alys, the sister of King Philip II, the man who had helped Richard to be appointed heir to the English throne. Now Richard refused to go through with the marriage. A few days later, Richard’s mother, aware of the rumour that Alys had been the mistress of her husband, Richard’s father, landed in Sicily with a more acceptable bride, Berengaria of Navarre. The irate Philip promptly left for the Holy Land with his forces.

4 In 2004, the remains of 11 children and 6 adults were found at the bottom of a medieval well in Norwich. Examination results dated the remains to the twelfth century and suggested that the victims had been thrown into the well; and DNA testing showed that the individuals were related to one another and that they were Jews.
5 Also an epithet: Salah ad-Din – Righteousness of the faith. His real name was Yusuf.

Richard decided to follow him. During the voyage, three of Richard’s ships, including the one carrying Joan and Berengaria, were caught in a storm, and they ran ashore near Limassol on the coast of Cyprus. The survivors were taken prisoner by King Isaac Comnenus, who also seized Joan’s gold. Not one to take such an insult quietly, Richard sailed back and conquered Cyprus, slaughtering a large number of the inhabitants.

While still in Cyprus, Richard married Berengaria. There would be no children as he was not particularly interested in relationships with women, perhaps more interested in men; that being confirmed when he later did penance for sodomy.

Having dealt with Cyprus, Richard set sail for Acre in the Holy Land, where he joined the forces of Philip and of Duke Leopold V of Austria in besieging the town. After a month, Acre was taken. The victory turned sour with a row about the division of spoils, and Richard had his soldiers tear down Leopold’s standard from the town walls and throw it in a ditch, Richard telling Leopold that such honours were only for kings. Now Richard had fallen out with Philip and Leopold. Both of them had had enough, and they returned to Europe.
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The terms of the surrender of Acre included a payment by Saladin and the release of Christian prisoners in return for the lives of the citizens. Saladin paid the required amount and handed over Christian prisoners. Richard was not satisfied, claiming that Saladin had not handed over all the Christian prisoners. He ordered the massacre of the 2,700 captives he had taken, together with their wives and children. Richard looked on from a balcony as each of them was beheaded and disembowelled.

6 There is a story that the French crusaders took home with them vines from the Jerusalem Hills together with some of the wine produced there. Coming from near the gates of Jerusalem, the wine was called
Porte de Dieu
– Gate of God, or in Hebrew:
sha’har-adonay
.

With no one left to kill in Acre, Richard marched to Arsuf, where he won a notable victory. Then he discovered that the route inland was blocked by Saladin’s forces. Realising that it was unlikely that he could take Jerusalem, Richard agreed a three-year truce.

After 16 months of crusading, it was time for Richard to return to England, all the more urgently because of information he had received about mischief by his brother John, who was trying to depose Richard’s Justiciar (chief minister). On his return voyage, Richard’s ship was detached from the fleet during a storm and forced to seek shelter in Corfu. Fearing that he might be taken prisoner, Richard and four companions dressed as Templar Knights and took passage on a pirate ship bound for the north Adriatic. In another storm the pirate ship was driven ashore to the east of Venice. Unwilling to risk another sea voyage, Richard decided to travel overland in disguise. Within days he was recognised when he aroused suspicion by spending money too lavishly at an inn near Vienna, in the lands of the same Duke Leopold whom Richard had publicly insulted in Acre.

Richard was seized by Leopold’s soldiers. On learning of Richard’s capture, Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI ordered Leopold to hand over his captive, promising Leopold part of the ransom. Then Richard’s brother John and King Philip of France offered money to the Emperor if he would keep Richard in prison. The offer was rejected. Instead, after a year and a half of fairly comfortable confinement, Richard was freed on swearing an oath of vassaldom and paying a ransom of 150,000 silver marks, which had been collected by dowager Queen Eleanor, partly by pawning the crown jewels. It was a massive payment, impoverishing the English treasury and the heavily-taxed English, especially after similar depletions had been caused by the need to finance Richard’s crusade. A term of Richard’s release demanded by Duke Leopold was the release of Leopold’s second cousin Isaac Comnenus, who had been locked up in silver chains as Richard had promised not to put him in irons.

Anyhow, Richard was now free. He reached England in March 1194, when he was once more crowned. The reason for the second crowning was that Richard feared that his oath of vassaldom to the Emperor implied subservience, so he might have forfeited his status of king. Being crowned again gave him a fresh start.

Within two months, Richard had left for France in an effort to recover castles lost by his brother John during Richard’s absence. This brought Richard’s total time spent in England during his reign to six months. It was more than Queen Berengaria, who did not set foot in England while she was queen. Richard reclaimed the lost castles, and for five years he continued the war against Philip, generally with success.

In what seemed to be a trivial diversion, in early 1199 a peasant discovered a hoard of Roman treasure whilst ploughing a field near Chalus in the Limousin. The peasant dutifully took the treasure to his lord, Achard of Chalus. News of the find soon reached Richard’s ears. Richard was the overlord of Achard, and he considered that just as the peasant was required to surrender the treasure to Achard, so Achard was required to surrender the treasure to him. Achard refused. It was not a clever move.

As was to be expected, Richard rode out with a large force and besieged Chalus Castle. There were some minor skirmishes, and the time for an assault was approaching. Realising that his situation was hopeless, Achard offered to surrender if he and his men were allowed to leave with their arms. A deal was of no interest to Richard. He swore that he would take Chalus by storm and hang any survivors.

That evening, Richard decided to ride around the castle so that he could select the best point of attack. He set out, but dark as it was, it was not dark enough to prevent Richard from being spotted from the castle walls. An archer, Bertrand de Gourdon, took careful aim with his crossbow and let fly with a bolt. Richard was hit in the left shoulder. Defying the searing pain, Richard made light of the wound, and he rode back to his camp where he gave the order to attack. The assault on Chalus began as an attempt was made to extract the bolt from Richard’s shoulder; but the shaft of the projectile broke whilst it was being pulled out, leaving the iron bolt deep in Richard’s flesh.

Chalus Castle with its twenty or so defenders soon fell, and the survivors were taken prisoner. All but the archer were hanged.

A ‘surgeon’ was summoned. He dug into Richard’s shoulder with primitive instruments, removing the bolt, but leaving a gaping hole in its place. Within hours, gangrene had set in. It was obvious that death was approaching. Eleven days after receiving the wound, Richard died.

The archer had been brought to Richard shortly before his death. According to legend, Richard ordered that the man should be set free with a reward of 100 shillings. As usual with the Lionheart, the facts are less endearing than the legend. One version is that the archer was sent to Richard’s sister, Joan, who had him flayed and then torn apart by wild horses; another that one of Richard’s senior knights had the archer whipped and then hanged; another that he was skinned alive and then hanged. This may not have been at Richard’s direction, although it would have been true to character.

Either way it was a brutal execution, even for a man who had killed the King.

 

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JOHN
6 April 1199 – 19 October 1216

 

The youngest of the eight legitimate children of Henry II, throughout his youth there was no reason to believe that John would ever become king. So, although he was his father’s favourite, little was done to provide him with wealth or land. He therefore became known as John Lackland.

Yet he would become king; and even before that he was, with Richard’s Justiciar, the joint-ruler of England while his brother was on crusade. Richard must have had an inkling of what might happen if John was left to his own devices, because before departing for the Holy Land, Richard had ordered John to leave England for three years. Their mother, Queen Eleanor, talked Richard into revoking the decree.

He should not have given in. Throughout Richard’s absence on crusade, and then during Richard’s imprisonment, John was scheming with Philip of France, stirring up rebellion in England while Philip seized Richard’s lands on the Continent.

Once Richard was back in England, although he stripped John of most of his possessions, Richard forgave his brother; and John fought loyally alongside Richard in the quest to regain the continental lands. So much so, that the childless Richard nominated John as his heir. That nomination was followed in England and Normandy on Richard’s death, despite Arthur, the son of John’s deceased older brother Geoffrey, having a better right to the crown according to the rules of heredity. However, John’s claim was rejected in Anjou, Maine and Touraine, where the 12-year-old Arthur was recognised as ruler. So John paid King Philip a large bribe, and he helped John to oust Arthur.

Having arranged for his marriage to Isabel of Gloucester to be annulled by the Pope on the grounds that John and Isabel were half second cousins, John married the 12-year-old Isabella of Angoulême. His new bride brought John vast estates, but her fiancé, Hugh of Lusignan, was not happy to have lost Isabella, and he complained to King Philip. For some time Philip ignored the complaints of the Lusignans, but after they received further mistreatment from John, Philip took their side and seized two of John’s castles in Normandy.

Naturally, John went on the attack, and at first he was successful. He captured his nephew, Arthur, who was imprisoned and then murdered, possibly by John’s own hand. Then the fighting went badly, and John returned to England having lost nearly all his continental lands, most significantly Normandy.

John spent years preparing to recover his inheritance. His first need was money, and that meant higher taxes. It led to resentment and the threat of rebellion, which John struggled to restrain. Next, John fell out with the Pope over the choice of the new Archbishop of Canterbury. The Pope rejected the nominees of the King and of the monks, and instead put forward Stephen Langton. John refused to accept the Pope’s nomination. As a result, the Pope excommunicated John and placed England under an interdict prohibiting all church services other than baptisms and confessions of the dying. John did not care, because now he could confiscate church estates and accumulate more money.

It was not quite that easy. Excommunication had consequences; one was that it released John’s subjects from their oaths of allegiance, and that encouraged the barons to rebel. Eventually, John made peace with the Pope, and on making promises and payments, the interdict was lifted and the excommunication was rescinded. However, the rumblings of rebellion had started, and they would not be halted.

Ignoring the problems at home, John went to war against France in an effort to regain the lost territories. John won several victories; then, at the Battle of Bouvines an English/German/ Flemish army was decisively beaten, so ending John’s hopes of recovering Normandy. In October 1214, John returned to England, and he returned to an unsettled country, with many of the barons on the brink of warfare. They resented having to bear the cost of John’s peace with the Pope, they were furious at having had to pay for the unsuccessful war with Philip, and now John wanted to increase taxes.

Both sides gathered their forces, and the barons presented John with a list of demands, which he immediately rejected. John retaliated by seizing the estates of the rebel barons. Civil war was now inevitable. The rebels took Bedford, about 50 miles north of London, and then they marched south. When they reached London, the gates were opened to them, and they settled there and held the city.

In an attempt at compromise, or perhaps it was merely to buy time, John agreed to a meeting at Runnymede, a meadow on the south bank of the River Thames not far from London. After some negotiation, the terms of a charter (later called Magna Carta) were agreed. This document curtailed royal power and set out in detail the rights of all subjects, including their entitlement to trial by jury.

Happy with their success, most of the barons returned to their castles. They had celebrated too soon, because once they had left, John decided that he did not need to keep promises to rebels. He appealed to the Pope to annul the charter.