Castles, Customs, and Kings: True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors (13 page)

Monarchy: The Normans
—
Stephen and Matilda

b
y Debra Brown

F
ollowing the early death of the only legitimate son of Henry I, William, few of the English and Norman barons were prepared to stand by their oath to him to support his daughter’s claim to the throne. Matilda was, after all, a woman, and was said to have been arrogant and unpopular. She was also married to the Count of Anjou. He was the ruler of Anjou—England and Normandy’s traditional enemy.

When Henry died in 1135, the barons met to choose a king. Despite Matilda’s having an infant son, they chose Count Theobald of Blois, the grandson of William the Conqueror by his daughter, Adela.

Negotiations were in progress when Stephen, Theobald’s younger brother, made himself King of England.

Stephen had been brought up by Henry I, who had loved him and made him one of the richest men in England. Stephen now pointed to this as evidence that Henry had been grooming him to become the next king, despite Henry’s having obtained Stephen’s oath to support Matilda.

As soon as Henry was dead, Stephen sailed for England. He obtained the support of his brother, whom Henry had created Bishop of Winchester, as well as the citizens of London. The Archbishop of Canterbury crowned him king on 22 December 1135.

Stephen was charming, courageous, and chivalrous. He became the first English king to allow jousting. He had humbly earned the people’s affection and was generous toward the church. Most of the barons and even Henry’s favorite illegitimate son, Earl Robert of Gloucester, swore allegiance to him.

Stephen was a brave soldier, but a failure as a king and commander. Because of it, Robert turned against him, and many followed. Matilda’s uncle, David I of Scotland, invaded England, and though Stephen defeated David, Matilda could see that Stephen’s support was bleeding away and that it was time for her to act.

In an attempt to weaken King Henry’s bureaucracy, which might support Matilda, Stephen arrested bishops and councilors, some of whom were his own family. This lost for him the vital support of the church.

He made strategic mistakes in battle defending his rule, not the least of which was to decide not to besiege Arundel, the castle where Matilda had taken up residence after arriving from France with Robert, and to allow her safe passage to join Robert in Bristol.

Chivalrous it was, but foolish, and the result was full-scale civil war. Barons built illegal castles and plundered. They sold their allegiance to the highest bidder and then changed sides at will. Anarchy existed and no one felt safe.

Finally, Stephen was a prisoner in chains at Bristol, and Matilda rode to London to claim her throne with the help of Stephen’s brother, the Bishop of Winchester. She was called Lady of the English by her supporters, but she had imposed high taxes and was still a woman, and the people would not have her. They drove her out of the city.

Stephen’s wife, also named Matilda for the sake of confusion, was rallying
his
forces. Robert was captured, and the Matildas made an exchange. Henry’s daughter was forced to release Stephen in exchange for her main supporter. The Bishop of Winchester had by now realigned himself with Stephen.

Matilda sent Robert to Anjou to request help from her husband. The count was, however, engaged in a successful invasion of Normandy and could not leave. Stephen had become reconciled to the clergy, and Matilda’s supporters were under threat of excommunication.

Stephen laid siege to Matilda in Oxford Castle.

On a frozen, snowy night Matilda and four knights dressed in white (she was in a nightgown) climbed down from a tower. They slipped through Stephen’s lines and ran to London. The war dragged on, but five years later Robert died and Matilda was forced to give up. She left for Anjou.

Since the Count of Anjou had taken over Normandy, some of the English barons who owned Norman estates felt their only hope of retaining their possessions across the Channel was to support Anjou in England. They threw their support to the son of Matilda, Henry, the heir to the house of Anjou. And the war dragged on.

Stephen attempted to secure the succession of his line by having his son and heir, Eustace, crowned during his own lifetime. The Archbishop of Canterbury, however, with the Pope’s backing, refused to perform the coronation.

Young Henry returned to England in 1153. He was now the most powerful feudal prince in Europe. Through inheritance and marriage, he was now Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine. He landed with a small army, and barons flocked to join him.

Fear of reprisals caused the barons to conclude a peace agreement, but Stephen remained adamant that his son should succeed. When Eustace died, however, in 1153, Stephen gave up interest in the succession. Peace through the Treaty of Westminster meant that Stephen would rule till his death and that Henry was acknowledged as his heir instead of his own second son, William. Stephen did not enjoy the peace for long—he died the next year.

Henry II was crowned in 1154. Matilda lived till 1167, long enough to know of her son’s succession, though she did not attend his coronation in Westminster Abbey, and she never returned to England.

Why I Love Eleanor of Aquitaine

by Christy English

I
love to wri
te about Eleanor of Aquitaine because she always surprises me. Even though she is an historical figure and the events of her life are set in stone, the character of Eleanor as she comes to life in my novels always teaches me something new.

On the pages of history books her life was dynamic enough—Duchess of Aquitaine at the age of fifteen, Eleanor finished brokering her own marriage to Louis VII of France.

Years later, Eleanor rode at her husband’s side on Crusade, and on her way home, sick of being married to Louis, she began working to annul her marriage. Only months after she earned her freedom, Eleanor married her second husband, Henry of Normandy, who became King of England two years later…and that is just the first half of her life. So you see what I mean when I say Eleanor of Aquitaine was a dynamic woman.

Nothing stopped Eleanor from achieving her goals. For decades, she wanted the County of Toulouse back under the control of her family. After sending both husbands out to reclaim it through warfare (and after both men failed), she simply arranged her daughter’s marriage to the Count of Toulouse, effectively putting her family in line to inherit that county and thus to take control of it once more.

Eleanor would wait for years for what she wanted. Tenacious and single minded, she was an amazing politician—much to both her husbands’ annoyance. Louis would have been perfectly happy if Eleanor had settled down to raise her princesses quietly, if she had left the political machinations of the day to him. Her second husband, King Henry II of England, married her for her brains and beauty as well as her land, but even he came to regret her brilliance as the years wore on. For after years of partnership, Eleanor began to want more power of her own.

In 1173, she reached out for that power, setting her sons against their father so that she might gain indirect control of the duchies of Brittany and Normandy, in addition to the duchy of Aquitaine.

Henry locked Eleanor away in 1174 to keep his crown and to keep his sons at bay. Henry always knew that if he set Eleanor free she would stop at nothing to take his Continental holdings from him. And she was the one person on earth who had a fighting chance of doing it, so he kept her locked away until his death.

Once Henry was dead, Eleanor ruled through her favorite son, Richard. Richard the Lionheart rode off to Crusade to seek the Holy Grail of Jerusalem, leaving the Continental holdings inherited from his father in Eleanor’s hands.

She was technically regent of England, too, while Richard was on Crusade, but she had spent more than enough time locked away in England during the last fifteen years of Henry II’s reign. She left that cold, rainy land to the tender mercies of her youngest son, John, for she finally had what she wanted—control over most of what is now modern France.

Eleanor was unstoppable. She was brave and beautiful and so full of fire that both her critics and her admirers agreed: she was stronger than any woman they had ever seen. She is the strongest woman I have ever had the pleasure to write about, and the most dynamic. She is a woman who would be renowned in any age. Which is why, over 800 years later, we still remember her.

Henry II and Thomas Becket

by Christy English

H
enry II of England and Th
omas Becket were two of the greatest rivals for power in English history. We remember them even today, over 850 years later. Their struggle for power ended as do so many battles when one of the protagonists is the ruling king, with death—in this case, with Thomas Becket slain in his own cathedral.

The king and Thomas Becket began as friends and allies. Becket served Henry well as his Chancellor and was trusted so deeply that he was given the guardianship of the king’s eldest son, young Prince Henry. This alliance was so strong, and so strongly based in personal friendship, that King Henry II was certain that Thomas Becket would be the answer to his troubles with the Church.

Though we associate the clash between Church and State in England with Henry VIII of the Tudor dynasty, the seeds had been sown much earlier, and this battle for power came to a head during Henry II’s reign. In 1154, Henry II reclaimed the throne of England from the usurper, Stephen of Blois, after decades of civil war which left the lands of England devastated.

Henry believed all his life that rule of law and the strength of the King’s Peace could extend protection to the common man. Of course, while this goal is lofty, it also served the political purpose of allowing the people to receive justice not just from their barons and local ruler, but from the king himself.

One aspect of extending the King’s Peace was to deal with the members of the lower clergy who broke the law. As things stood, if a clergyman or priest committed rape or murder, he would not be called on to stand trial as any other man would; rather, he would be given over to the Church for trial and punishment in the Church courts. The Church did little but chastise their brethren even for crimes as hideous as thievery, rape, and murder.

Since Henry II was working so hard to keep the peace in the land, this loophole was one he could not allow to continue. So he began trying lower clergymen in secular court, much to the Pope’s fury.

In 1162, Henry made Thomas, his friend and ally, the next Archbishop of Canterbury, certain that the man who had served him so well as Chancellor would continue to help him uphold the law of the land, and would allow the secular courts to punish those clergy who broke the law. This was not the case.

Once Thomas became archbishop, he did a complete turnaround in his attitude toward the law. As a prince of the Church, he served the Church first and Henry second. He fought Henry at every turn in an effort to protect his own power as well as the power of the Church in England.

By 1170, this conflict had become such a burden to Henry II that he made a snide remark in company at a Christmas feast—the famous line,
“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”

Four of Henry’s knights, Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy, Reginald Fitz Urse, and Richard le Bret, were among those who listened to Henry’s furious outburst. They took ship for England at once, and on December 29th, murdered Thomas Becket at the foot of the altar of Canterbury Cathedral.

Scholars are divided as to whether or not these men were acting on direct orders from the king. The king was stricken with grief when he heard the news of his old friend’s death, and Pope Alexander III later absolved him of involvement in this crime.

Though Thomas Becket lost his life, the Church retained its power through the sympathy gained by his death. In exchange for forgiveness and absolution of Thomas Becket’s murder, Henry II agreed that law-breaking clerics would continue to be tried by the Church courts.

Alais of France: Forgotten Princess

by Christy English

I
n my first novel,
The Queen
’s Pawn,
Princess Alais, a little known French princess from the 12th century, is my protagonist and the linchpin of the story. The historical Alais was the daughter of Louis VII of France and Constance of Castile, a pawn of politics and alliance, as most highborn women were during her lifetime. Born in 1160, Princess Alais was betrothed to Prince Richard of England (later Richard the Lionheart) in 1169.

Though she came to the court of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine as a child, her marriage to Richard never took place, and she returned to France years later at the age of thirty-five.

We do not know what Alais looked like, nor do we even know for certain the correct spelling of her name. She is mentioned by the chroniclers of the time as Alys, Alix, and Alais.

In the modern parlance, she is often called Alice, the young princess portrayed in the film
The Lion in Winter,
starring Peter O’Toole in the role of Henry II, Katherine Hepburn in the role of Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Anthony Hopkins as Prince Richard. This modern brush with fame was fleeting, because for the most part, no one remembers Princess Alais at all.

We know that she was held by her father’s enemies from the time she was nine years old. While she never married her intended, Prince Richard, Alais was said to have been one of Henry II’s many mistresses. Whether or not she actually became the mistress of the king has been questioned by modern historians, but I believe she did.

Different chroniclers speak of Alais only in relation to the men in her life, as the daughter of Louis VII, as the mistress of Henry II, and as the spurned betrothed of Richard I. Primary sources differ on the number of children that she and Henry might have had during their supposed liaison, but no one mentions the fate of these children. If they lived, their fate is forgotten, as so much of Princess Alais’ life has been.

We know for certain that Richard the Lionheart refused to marry Alais, though in every other instance, he always kept any oath he made. This alone is evidence to suggest that King Richard believed that Alais had been his father’s paramour.

Instead of marrying Alais upon his ascension to the throne, Richard arranged his own marriage to Berengaria of Navarre and went on Crusade with the hope of freeing Jerusalem from the Turks. While Richard was away, Princess Alais remained in the Norman city of Rouen, for though King Richard refused to honor their betrothal, he also did not send her home.

Alais languished in Rouen for almost five years until she was returned to her brother, King Philippe Auguste of France in 1195.

Her brother arranged a second marriage for Princess Alais to William, Count of Ponthieu. Once married to Philippe Auguste’s vassal, Alais disappeared from the historical record. It is unknown how many children she had with her husband or when she died. She was once again forgotten, as she was during most of the years she spent trapped at the courts of Henry II and Richard I, waiting to complete a political alliance which never took place.