Eleanor of Aquitaine (39 page)

Longchamp, meanwhile, made his way to Rouen, demanding as chancellor of England-- an office of which only King Richard could deprive him-- and as papal legate to see the Queen and lay his grievances before her. This put Eleanor in a dilemma: she fully approved of his dismissal-- Longchamp had been nothing but a troublemaker-- and had nothing to say to him, yet she did not want him going to Paris to stir up trouble with the French. Nevertheless, that was what he did, bribing some citizens to afford him the welcome merited by his high office. 45

In Paris he met two cardinals from Rome, Jordan and Octavian, who had been sent by the Pope to heal the rift between Longchamp and Walter of Coutances 46 and who were prepared to lay Longchamp's grievances before Queen Eleanor at Rouen. The Queen, however, refused to see them, declaring herself satisfied that justice had been done. Secretly she feared that the cardinals had come on Philip's behalf, since Alys was still a prisoner at Rouen, 47 and Eleanor had received no instructions from Richard for her release. When the cardinals tried to cross the Norman border at Gisors, the Seneschal of Normandy raised the drawbridge against them and informed them that they could not pass without the Queens safe-conduct. 48

The cardinals "swelled with rage" on being denied entry, but Eleanor refused to be intimidated by their threats of excommunication, and in the end they were obliged to depart, muttering that it was "meet for the servants of the Lord to suffer contumely for His adversaries." As a parting shot, they excommunicated the seneschal and placed Normandy under an interdict, although Eleanor was specifically excluded from the ban. 49

It was the season of anathemas. Longchamp excommunicated every member of the regency council except John, and in retaliation the bishops excommunicated Longchamp and placed his diocese of Ely under an interdict. This brought great misery to the people living there, who spent the winter cut off from the comfort of the Church's sacraments.50

On 2 November, Geoffrey was solemnly enthroned as Archbishop in a magnificent ceremony in York Minster. A jealous Hugh de Puiset failed to attend, however, and when he ignored Geoffrey's summons to explain his absence, the Archbishop excommunicated him. This angered those canons of York who had voted against Geoffrey's election and would have preferred Bishop Hugh, and when the Archbishop highhandedly refused to heed their protests, a major row developed, which rapidly reached a stalemate.

By October, Richard had been joined in Jaffa by his wife and his sister, who remained in residence in the city after the King, having dragged himself from his sickbed, had pressed on towards Jerusalem. What he did not know was that, during his illness, his allies had concluded a truce with Saladin's brother Safadin, and that if any assault was to be made on the Holy City, it would be made by him alone.

Richard himself now tried to bargain with Saladin, offering his sister Joanna as a bride for the Emir's brother Safadin, with a view to their jointly ruling the Holy Land as King and Queen of Jerusalem, on condition that Christians be granted access to the holy places, but this plan was scuppered by an offended Joanna, who stoutly, and very publicly, refused to marry a Moslem.

In Normandy, around this time, the Queen appointed the talented Peter of Blois as her chancellor and Latin secretary. Now fifty-six, this Breton aristocrat had been educated in the schools of Paris and had for a time been attached to the court of Sicily. Such was his reputation as a scholar that Henry II had invited him to England and conferred upon him several court offices, including that of secretary to the King. Later, Peter had served Archbishop Baldwin in the same capacity. A brilliant writer, he peppered his letters with sharp, acerbic wit and perspicacious observation; Henry II had been so impressed by them that he had amassed a collection. Peter was, however, a difficult man to work with, being vain, pedantic, and eternally dissatisfied with his position in life, complaining constantly that he never received the preferment his talents deserved. Nevertheless, he stayed with Eleanor for some years and served her well.

In the Holy Land, winter fell. In December, Richard reached Beit-Nuba, only twelve miles from Jerusalem, but severe seasonal rains precluded any assault on the Holy City. He spent Christmas at Latrun, west of Jerusalem, in the company of Berengaria, Joanna, and King Guy of Jerusalem. When he discovered how he had been deserted by his allies, his rage was terrible indeed.

Eleanor spent the Christmas of 1191 holding court either at Bures or at Bonneville-sur-Touques (near modern Deauville) in Normandy. While there, she learned of Philip's return to a hero's welcome in France, and also learned that, in order to retrieve his own reputation, he was now imputing his sudden abandonment of the crusade to Richard's insolence, pride, and treachery, s1 He was even uttering dark hints that he had been poisoned, although his symptoms were merely those of severe malaria and dysentery. Aware that Philip's accusations were all ploys to enable him to ignore the Truce of God and have his revenge on Richard for abandoning Alys,52 and receiving the alarming intelligence that he was planning to invade Normandy,53 Eleanor immediately realised that it would be up to her to maintain the peace in the Angevin domains, since the French King would be sure to take advantage of any disputes. Above all, John's ambition must be contained.

In the middle of the winter of 1191-1192, determined to thwart Philip's treacherous designs, Eleanor commanded the seneschals of all castles guarding the Angevin borders to repair and strengthen their fortifications and ensure their garrisons were fully manned. When, in the third week of January, Philip launched an assault on Gisors, it failed. 54 That same month, the French King demanded the return of his sister Alys, but Eleanor, who had no mandate for this, refused. Then came news of John's perfidy.

Philip had wasted no time in wooing John with false promises. Early in 1192, after his own barons had refused to break the Truce of God and invade Normandy, he offered John all Richard's continental domains in return for John's undertaking to marry Alys and surrender Gisors to Philip. Notwithstanding the fact that he already had a wife, John eagerly agreed and prepared to cross the Channel with an army of mercenaries in order to pay homage to Philip for the promised lands and lay Normandy wide open to him.

Fortunately, warnings about his activities reached Eleanor in Normandy.55 "Fearing that the light-minded youth might be going to attempt something, by the counsels of the French, against his lord and brother,"56 and knowing that no one but herself had the power to restrain him, "with an anxious mind" 57 she made haste to England. On 11 February she arrived in Portsmouth-- -just in time to prevent John from sailing from Southampton.58

With her usual energy, the Queen "tried in every way" to make John abandon his treasonous schemes. "Remembering the fate of her two elder sons, how both had died young before their time because of their many sins, her heart was sad and wounded. She was therefore determined, with every fibre of her being, to ensure that faith would be kept between her younger sons, so that their mother might die more happily than had their father." 59

She was also resolved to remind the lords of England of their vows of allegiance to the King, and summoned four meetings of the Great Council, which were held in turn at Windsor, Oxford, London, and Winchester.60 She publicly proclaimed her loyalty to the absent Richard and made every English magnate swear a new oath of fealty to him. Then, with the backing of those magnates, and the staunch support of Walter of Coutances, she threatened to confiscate all John's castles and estates if he defied her and crossed the Channel.61 Eventually, "through her own tears and the prayers of the nobles, she was with difficulty able to obtain a promise that John would not cross over for the time being."62 After this, John retired in dudgeon to Wallingford, another royal castle he had appropriated.

The neutralisation of John effectively put paid for the present to Philip's plans to invade Normandy. The French barons were still refusing to violate the Truce of God by attacking the lands of an absent crusader, so their King's hands were effectively tied. Nevertheless, the Queen and the regency council were taking no chances. Even in England, castles and towns were manned against an invasion.63

During her visit to England, Eleanor claimed her share of queen-gold on the aid levied on the tenants-in-chief of the crown for the King's marriage. She granted her damsel Amicia, sister of Hugh Pantulf, the manor of Wintreslewe (which cannot now be identified) as a reward for faithful service, whereupon, with Eleanor's blessing, Amicia donated half of the estate to the nuns of Amesbury Abbey, a cell of Fontevrault, "for the weal of her lady, Eleanor, Queen of England."64

The Queen made a tour of some of her properties, among them several manors in William Longchamp's diocese of Ely, which still lay under an interdict. The consequences of the Church's ban were brought vividly home to the Queen, who could see for herself how badly the people's lives had been affected by it:

That matron, worthy of being mentioned so many times, Queen Eleanor, was visiting some cottages that were part of her dower. There came before her, from all the villages and hamlets, wherever she passed, men, women and children, not all of the lowest orders; a people weeping and pitiful, their feet bare, their clothes unwashed, their hair unshorn. They spoke by their tears, for their grief was so great that they could not speak.65

Patiently Eleanor listened as her suffering tenants told her of the miseries they had endured through being deprived of the sacraments. What appalled her most was that "human bodies lay unburied here and there in the fields because their bishop had deprived them of burial. When she learned the cause of such suffering, the Queen took pity on the misery of the living because of the dead, for she was very merciful. Immediately dropping her own affairs and looking after the concerns of others, she went to London,"66 where she prevailed upon Walter of Coutances to revoke the interdict and allow Longchamp to return to England and resume his pastoral duties.

Longchamp had already been in touch with John and offered him a huge bribe if he would help him return to England. Now he found himself invited back, and in March he landed at Dover, armed with a renewed legateship.67 His arrival was courteously announced to the Queen in council by two papal nuncios who had accompanied him, but it provoked deep concern among the magnates, and it was made clear to Longchamp-- and to John-- that he was only welcome in his capacity as bishop of Ely, and not as chancellor. In March he turned up at a council meeting, but the magnates would have nothing to do with him. Only Eleanor spoke up for him, and although there was gossip that he had bribed her to do so, this was highly unlikely, since her prime concern was that he attend to the suffering souls in his diocese.

In London, Eleanor spoke with Hugh de Puiset, the excommunicated Bishop of Durham, and asked him to go to France to persuade the Roman cardinals to lift their interdict on Normandy. The Bishop refused to leave England, however, until the Archbishop of York had lifted the ban on him.

Eleanor was thus prompted to effect a reconciliation between the two warring prelates, and she summoned them to appear before her on 15 March in the round church of the Knights Templar in London to account for their conduct and submit to her mediation. They obeyed, but Geoffrey foolishly attempted to overawe Eleanor by having himself preceded into the church by a solemn procession of clergy with his archiepiscopal cross borne ceremonially before him, which strictly speaking was permitted him only in his own diocese. He compounded his error by blatantly refusing to cooperate in resolving his differences with de Puiset. When an irate Eleanor threatened the sequestration of all the estates of the See of York if he did not comply with her wishes, Geoffrey made a pretence of patching up the quarrel, but to little effect, since it dragged on until the King's return.

At Walter of Coutances's insistence, Hugh de Puiset now went to France on the Queen's behalf and requested the cardinals to remove their interdict on Normandy. They proved stubborn, yet it was eventually lifted after the Queen made a personal appeal to the Pope.68

Still determined to be rid of Longchamp, the councillors turned to John for support and waited on him at Wallingford. He agreed to help them, but only in return for a bribe equal to or exceeding that which Longchamp had offered him.69

"You see, I am in need of money," he told them shamelessly. "To the wise, a word is sufficient."70 In desperation, the lords agreed that it was "expedient" to withdraw the required sum from the Treasury. Not only did they need John's help, but they dared not antagonise him.

For John had not lain quiescent for long. He had soon gone off again on his perambulations of the realm, exacting oaths of loyalty to himself from various barons and appropriating funds from the exchequer. In April an alarmed Eleanor, not knowing what else she could do to curb John's ambition, sent an embassy headed by John of Alençon, Archdeacon of Lisieux, to Richard, informing him of Philip's attempt to lead John into treachery, warning him of John's subversive activities and urging him to come home.

Even Eleanor now realised that Longchamp's presence in England would only cause further problems. She, John, and the barons all wrote to the chancellor, and "all with one voice admonish him to bolt, and to cross the Channel without delay-- unless he has a mind to take his meals under the custody of an armed guard."71 On 3 April, bowing to this intense pressure, Longchamp again fled the realm. His departure brought a kind of peace to the troubled kingdom. Even John gave no trouble, but remained on his estates, attending to private business.

Philip of France had, however, succeeded in undermining the loyalty of some of Richard's southern vassals, notably Count Elie of Perigord and the Viscount of Brosse. But Elie de la Celle, the King's faithful seneschal of Gascony, aided by Berengaria's brother Sancho, held firm and crushed the rebels. The empire was still safe for Richard.