Eleanor Of Aquitaine (36 page)

When he had settled his affairs in Anjou, Henry crossed early in 1188 to do likewise in Britain. On both sides of the Channel he levied income and personal property taxes that drew cries of anguish from Jews and Christians, lay and clerical.
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However, the treasure realized in the Saladin tithe assured a formidable campaign against the Moslem foe and one in which all the other princes of the West would of necessity be auxiliary.

Henry's preparations were proceeding prosperously when, with the impact of a thunderclap, reports reached him in June that his ally, Philip Augustus, in contravention of his pilgrim's vow to observe the Truce of God, had struck into Berry, which belonged, by Angevin reckonings, to Queen Eleanor's estates, but by Capetian divinations, to the dower of the unhappy Alais. Philip had taken Châteauroux and other castles and had finally been held up in his raid only by the strong fortress of Loches on the Loire.

It now began to appear more or less confusedly to Henry's contemporaries that a shift in Capet-Plantagenet relations was taking place. Had Henry at last passed the frontier of disaster toward which, especially since his alienation from the Countess of Poitou, he had been tending? Chroniclers, accustomed for three decades to see the initiative with the Angevins, were perplexed as it passed by degrees to the Capets; they were slow to envisage Henry, the arbiter of Europe, with powerful allies in Germany, Sicily, Castile, the king to whom, as it was believed, had been offered the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, the keys of Jerusalem, in a defensive role. The
preux chevaliers
, as they mustered their contingents for crusade, were filled with misgivings by evidences of change. They withheld their counsels and drew back to lines of expediency.

Since the apparently gratuitous attack from his fellow crusader was very surprising to Henry, he at once sent Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury and other prelates to learn why the King of France had broken the Truce of God, and to demand a restoration of his strongholds. When these ambassadors returned without satisfaction, Henry sent John to the French king. It was then learned that the acts of Philip were neither more nor less than reprisals for the aggressions of Richard, former Count of Poitou, in Toulouse, whose count was Philip's vassal.

Richard, leaving the great assembly addressed by the Archbishop of Tyre, had accompanied his father to Le Mans and had then gone southward to impose the Truce of God in Poitou, where the old enemies of the ducal house were, as usual, in revolt. Thence he had indeed proceeded to Toulouse to take vengeance for alleged attacks upon certain Poitevin merchants and pilgrims passing through that county on their return from Galicia. In this business he had gone to the length of taking eighteen castles and the town of Cahors from the Count of Toulouse. Count Raymond had thereupon appealed to his overlord, the French king, and Philip had taken Châteauroux to avenge his vassal.

It was obvious that this outbreak must not only seriously disturb the preparations for crusade, but rekindle all the enmities the crusade was intended to avert. Henry hastily levied recruits in England and Wales and in July crossed from Portsea to Barfleur to take a firm stand. His last stage before embarking was Salisbury, which may have been the stronghold to which the queen was remanded after her ungrateful performance at Windsor. If in the customary pandemonium of his departure, he found time to bid Eleanor farewell, his words were the last she heard from his lips. He was setting out for Jerusalem. This time she would not be one of the vast concourse below the Towers of David and of Tancred, nor hear the trampling of the horses, the clash of arms, the shouts of "Saint George." "Dix nous aide." "Monjoie." "Saint Denis," nor to see the marshaling of the thousand banners, to had her Lord or one of her sons to the throne of King David and King Foulques in that new Jerusalem she had seen rising white and glistening in the mid century She would not be there. In a fortress of Britain she would be as remote from all that stir of the new generation as Louis, asleep in his sequestered tomb by the Seine.

WHEN HENRY LEFT ENGLAND for crusade he was fifty-five, tending toward obesity, his ruddy hair close cropped and somewhat gray. One of his legs, which were bandy from life in the saddle, was lame from a horse's kick sustained some years before. His gray choleric eyes still flashed fire, his angers rose as hot as ever. He was still quick, urgent, indefatigable. But his face bore the inscription of malaise, of disappointment, hopes deferred, blows parried, of dogged resolution and endurance against heavy odds. The chroniclers say he was aged beyond his years, worn with his ceaseless exertions.
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His clothes were rich and befitting, but carelessly worn. His hands moved restlessly. On his rough hairy finger the precious ring of Henry Beauclerc which had gone as token to the young king was replaced by a signet engraved with the Plantagenet leopard, which he sometimes made shift to use as a seal.

A favorable wind furrowed the Channel as he set sail, but before noon a fierce gale arose, bringing a violent thunderstorm and a shower of hailstones "the size of doves' eggs."
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In storm he had come with Eleanor from Barfleur to take England from the house of Blois. In storm he had brought to harbor the captive queen and the ladies of her famous court. In a tempest he had set forth to suppress the rebellion of his sons. And now in a tumult the island faded from his wake, blotted out in a fury of wind and rain. His whole life had been like the crossings, a struggle with the intractable elements of gale and tide.

Henry had resolved to put an end to those recurrent skirmishes at Gisors by which Philip Augustus contrived at untimely moments to stir up disaffection. God's Eyes! If Philip could not keep the peace with his vassal, the Duke of Normandy, then let him face war with his peer, the King of England! Feeling himself at the moment the hero of the church and the elect champion of the Christian world, Henry was arrogant. In August the Kings of England and France again drew up their cohorts on the banks of the Epte near Gisors. The elm, now in full leaf, spread its vaulted tent of shade over the place of parley. Henry's retinue occupied the cool side, while Philip's forces, advancing to their rendezvous, were exposed to the withering summer glare in the open fields. The King of England, ensconced in the shade, awaited the explanations of the culprit who had broken the Truce of God. But Philip had not journeyed to Gisors in the August heat to explain anything to his vassal. Instead he demanded the retrocession of the Vexm and the marriage of the unfortunate Alais. Only when these demands had been met, he affirmed, would he enter on the matter of Châteauroux. The King of England rejected all these claims severally and
in toto
and waited in the shade for other proposals.

The comfortable repose of the English under the elm exasperated the French, who were sweltering in the open. The situation passed to taunts. French wags challenged some elderly worthies of Henry's following to settle differences in single combat with elect champions of France. They made fun of Henry's Welsh contingent, whereupon one of those savage fellows let fly an arrow at the French. At this violation of immunity for parley, the French rushed headlong upon the English with such frenzy that the latter took shelter behind the barbicans of the nearby castle of Gisors. When the French found the English out of reach, they turned with fury on the elm spreading its shade over the ancient meeting place of the Kings of France and the Dukes of Normandy. With ax and sword they fell upon its monstrous trunk.
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An end to parley between the Capets and the Plantagenets. An end to treachery. An end to ignominious chafferings. The knights of Philip's retinue who had taken the cross, awestruck, saw the gigantic land mark of the Vexm crash to the ground, and they took it for an evil omen. Philip of Flanders and Thibault of Blois ungirt their swords and vowed never to use them again against Christians until they should have returned from Palestine.

In the midst of these untoward events, as if in judgment on the impious bickerings of Christian kings, came fresh news of sacrliege in Jerusalem. Henry received a letter from the Master of the Temple in the ravaged city with a report as straight as words could make it of the catastrophes.

To his most beloved Lord Henry . . Health in Him who gives health to kings. Be it known to you that Jerusalem, with the Tower of David, has been surrendered to the enemies of Christ. Thereupon Saladm ordered the cross to be taken down from the Temple of our Lord and had it carried about the city for two days in public view and beaten with sticks. After this he ordered the Temple of our Lord to be cleaned inside and out with rose water from top to bottom, and his laws in regard to it to be promulgated in four different places with wondrous acclamations
^.5

At the fall of the tree, Henry, who had always been careful to violate no feudal rights, renounced his vassal's allegiance to the King of France and challenged Philip to war. He entered the French domain and ravaged the royal city of Mantes and the region round about. By the Splendors of God. He would have something even more precious than the Vexm to barter for the return of Châteauroux. These gestures brought Philip to a conciliatory mood, but nothing was accomplished to heal the breach when the kings met at Châtillon in October. After this encounter Henry observed with alarm that some of his
rentiers
melted away at promise of a higher wage. The impossibility of trusting his continental vassals had obliged him to hire mercenaries at heavy cost. His treasure touched bottom, for the Saladin tithe, by this time in the hands of the Templars, had dried the source of revenue.

In November the kings met again at Bonmoulins, still farther from the mutilated stump of Gisors, farther within the frontiers of Normandy. A considerable escort on both sides gathered in a wide circle about the place of parley, the knights of the kings' banners and their bishops pressing as closely as they could to see and hear. It was soon evident that Philip had made progress with his diplomacy since the impasse at Châtillon a month before. To Henry's dismay, Richard arrived at this conference in company with the King of France. One of those sudden suspicions to which the Angevins were subject leapt to Henry's mind. However, he concealed his anxiety and spoke casually.

"Where do you come from, Richard?"

"Beau Sire, I happened to fall in with the King of France upon the road," replied the heir of England "It seemed too pointed, since I was so near, to avoid him. It is in the interests of peace to treat him with courtesy."

"Very well," returned the king, "but be careful that it so turns out."

This time Philip launched the parley. He renewed his moldy demands for the return of the Vexin, for the speedy marriage of his sister Alais. But this time there was a great deal more. The daughter of Louis Capet should marry no undistinguished vagrant nourished on promises and contingencies. Philip demanded that Henry at once cede to the whilom Count of Poitou his former estates, together with Tourame, Maine, and Anjou, and that the vassals of these provinces should at once do homage to the Duke of Normandy and heir of England.

Suddenly Henry saw himself again in the old entanglement in which he had been involved with the young king.

"So this is what you bespeak from me," he said. "Indeed, I perceive that you are interested in my son's preferment; but you ask what I am not prepared to yield."

An impassable chasin yawned between the kings who had vowed to unite upon crusade. Perusing the inalterable refusal written in Henry's every lineament, Richard stood forth in the midst of the astonished crowd as one driven by desperation to an unnatural act.

"I now see as plain as day," he said, "what heretofore has been to me incredible."

Thereupon he ungirt his sword and, throwing himself upon his knees before the French king, he openly, in the presence of the king his father and the lords and bishops of his realm and the nobles of France, did homage to Philip Augustus for all the continental domains to which he claimed inheritance, by this act assuming the vassalage Henry had recently renounced at Gisors; and Philip received him as his liege man for all these possessions.

The bystanders were astounded. Those who desired war were elated; those who desired peace deeply downcast. Among them it was said, in explanation of Richard's perfidy, that Henry had plotted to disinherit him altogether and make John his heir, and it was for this the English king had obtained Philip's consent under the elm to marry Alais to whichever son he, Henry, might elect. Others said that Philip had seduced the heir of England with false promises; others still that the old unquenchable Poitevin rebellion had broken out again. "From the devil they came; to the devil they will go." Henry's vassals
murmured. Had they staked their fortunes wisely on the king? The great circle of witnesses dissolved in a babel of conjecture and prediction.

The French king and his liege man, the Count of Poitou, left Bonmoulins together, the latter slipping away softly to avoid detention.

"Alas," groaned Henry when he learned that Richard had escaped, "I might have expected it. My sons will never give me peace. They will ruin both me and themselves. They have always injured me."

He was reenacting, he saw swiftly, the very episodes of the drama of the young king. He remembered the latter's flight from Alencon in 1173, in the same fever of madness, to the same sanctuary. And again this time he could not keep his son's pace in flight. He dispatched Guillaume le Maréchal in pursuit. It was noon when Guillaume reached Amboise, where Richard had lodged the previous night and whence, the marshal learned, he had sent out two hundred letters summoning to his banners the king's vassals, Normans, Angevins, and Poitevins.

Turning back from a fruitless pursuit, Guillaume rejoined Henry in Tours, and there the king learned the full measure of his son's revolt. He turned southward in a desperate effort to invoke a parley with the renegade. But he was too ill to endure that furious course in the saddle. He turned back, weary and depressed, to Saumur for the feast of the Nativity. The court was somber and depleted; a few bishops, a very few
fideles;
of his family, only John. A great part of his baronage held aloof, uncertain where their interests lay. Many had plainly defected.

In the meantime Henry learned that in Paris Philip Augustus and Richard held a joint Christmas court with unusual cheer. They were closer than brothers. In high spirits they rode together in public as elect crusaders, dined in the palace from the same dish, slept in the same bed, shared all their counsels, were locked like David and Jonathan in indissoluble amity. They no longer, out of pride or shame, withheld their mutual confidences in the affair of Alais. The Capet princess was the paramour of the English king, and she had superseded both the incomparable Clifford and the Countess of Poitou. If the child of this impious union had lived, the king would have disinherited his rightful heirs for a new brood. Now doubtless he plotted to wed Alais to John and raise them to the throne. It was for this he had contrived at Gisors. Such scandals were rife in Paris.

Through Lent the king lay sick of an old wound in his native city of Le Mans.
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Toward the feast of Saint John, which marked the beginning of the open season for war, he sent an embassy to Philip Augustus and did indeed secure a renewal of conference at La Ferté-Bernard in Normandy. But the issues were no longer negotiable. The question of Alais was not even discussed. And why should Richard chaffer for what he already held? The King of France and the Count of Poitou played upon the theme of John. The King of England, they affirmed, meant to aggrandize him. John, they held, must go upon crusade.

The church with her maternal eye upon the afflictions of Jerusalem could only view the schisin in the ranks of her defenders with fearful agitation. While her Christian princes rent each other for their local concerns, the "patrimony of Christ" was swallowed by the infidel. Pope Urban, as well as Lucius, had died from shock over the fate of Jerusalem. Clement, who had girt on the sword of Saint Peter, dispatched his cardinal legate to enforce a peace between the kings vowed to rescue the holy places. At La Ferté Bernard, John of Agnani charged Philip and Richard, on pain of excommunication, to abate their demands upon the King of England. The King of France and the Count of Poitou were contumacious. Richard jostled the cardinal rudely. Philip advised him to stick to his own concerns, which were certainly not interfering between a vassal and his overlord. He charged the cardinal of having "smelt the sterling" of the English king.

It was plain that the young men who flaunted the Pope of Rome and the puissant King of England sought not peace but war. Henry was conscious, as he fell back on Le Mans, that his adversaries no longer feared him. They saw that life had battered him; that the old energy with which he met challenge to his will had begun to ebb. As all hope for appeal to filial ties vanished, he drew back to the foyer of the Angevins, to the city of his nativity, the home of his father, Geoffrey the Fair. No doubt he recalled, as he passed over the familiar sun drenched countryside, his exultant ride down from Paris in 1151, when "full of engin," he and the Duke of Normandy had plotted the Angevin alliance with the unhappy Queen of France; when they had laughed at the evil predictions of the withered little Abbé of Clairvaux, when Geoffrey, having laved the hot dust of the road from his body in the cold streams of the Loir, turned in at a wayside castle, and there, in the prime of his life, sickened and died.

Henry's barons no longer gave him counsel. They too were uneasy with misgivings. Their number had dwindled notably. With the king, as he journeyed to Maine, went Geoffrey the Chancellor, his eldest natural son, and John, the youngest of the Plantagenets — all those between, dead or alive, were false — and Guillaume le Maréchal . They had not proceeded far when their progress became a retreat. Philip and Richard, following hard upon his rear, possessed themselves of Henry's strongholds, one after another, as soon as he had passed them by:
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La Ferté Bernard, Montfort, Beaumont, Ballin, and the lesser castles of Trôo, Montoire, Château-du-Loir. It became plain that the renegades were hunting down the person of the king. Quickening his pace, Henry drew into Le Mans, which, through the quiet weeks of Lent, he had strengthened against attack. The church of Saint Julian being rebuilt after a recent fire,
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the gray castle of his forebears, familiar from his childhood, rose reassuringly on the mount. Under his orders his men razed certain suburbs, cleared the moats, closed the bridges and the gates.