The Magnificent Century (31 page)

The earl and his wife left Westminster by river boat. They were sick at heart over this sudden turn in their fortunes. Eleanor was finding it impossible to reconcile the royal attitude with the affection and extreme kindness her brother had always shown her. They had as yet no conception of the lengths to which he could go when thoroughly angry, but they had convincing evidence on reaching the water steps of Winchester House. Here they found the lock set
against them. Henry had sent messengers galloping ahead to see that they were not allowed to enter.

Simon and Eleanor, as angry now as the King, collected their evicted servants and their possessions and found quarters in a London inn. This translation from the glory of an episcopal palace to the acrid smokiness and the cramped rooms of a tavern was sufficient to rouse their feelings to fighting pitch. As soon as they had seen their people settled the indignant pair rode back to Westminster to demand an explanation.

Henry met them with a still more astonishing blast. In the presence of members of his court he declared that they would not be allowed to attend the churching of the Queen. When a reason was demanded he left his chair and strode over to face the earl at close range.

“You seduced my sister!” he charged. The habit of losing all restraint and permitting himself to say anything that came into his head had been growing with the years. Perhaps not fully aware of the effect his statement would have, but certainly not concerned, he proceeded at once to enlarge on it. “To avoid scandal I gave my consent to the marriage, in my own despite. You went to Rome and corrupted the Curia most wrongfully in my name.”

Having thus with a few furious words tarnished beyond any repair the good name of the sister who had always been his favorite, the vitriolic King went on to demonstrate that anger over the matter of the Mauclerc debt was at the bottom of his outburst. Simon, he said, had cited him as security without telling him of it. That he might be held responsible for the debt had caused him to lash out thus with the accusation which would be the most harmful.

The contemporary chronicles say that Simon de Montfort blushed and betook himself from the royal presence, a highly unperceptive reading of the character of this passionately proud man. If Simon de Montfort’s face registered the emotion stirred in him by the insult thus publicly offered his wife it would be with the pallor of an anger too great for words. It is recorded that he said nothing and withdrew at once from the court, and this may be accepted as the truth.

The King, his anger mounting to still greater heights, hurried off orders to the commune of London to have the pair lodged in the Tower. As usual, however, Richard of Cornwall was there to prevent his brother from letting his temper carry him too far. Richard saw to it that the order was rescinded and then sent word to his sister
that it would be wise for her to leave the city at once. As soon as night fell the Earl of Leicester and his wife, accompanied by a small party of their people, took boat again on the Thames and made off quietly down the river. They went to France and took up residence there.

Was there any truth in the charge of incontinence which Henry had made against his sister? It was widely believed at the time, if for no other reason than because the King himself had made it. It has been given little belief since. The date of the birth of Eleanor’s first child seems to be the only proof needed that it was a libel. A sorry impression is left of the character of the King when his statement is brushed aside. He had idly and falsely, in a moment of petty passion, laid this shame on a sister who had been a lifetime favorite.

The Earl and Countess of Leicester lived in France for seven months. Henry remained antagonistic and did many things to show his spleen, and then suddenly veered in his feelings and invited them to return. Eleanor could not leave because she was expecting another child, but Simon arrived in England in response. He was welcomed by the King as though no rift had occurred between them. The court, taking its cue from the weathercock King, greeted him with a semblance of friendliness. Soon after his arrival Eleanor gave birth to their second child, a son who was named Simon.

Henry undoubtedly was quite sincere in extending the hand of friendship to the man he had injured so deeply, having forgotten by this time the sense of wrong which had led to his outburst. While accepting his protestations of regard, Simon felt no inner response. The insult had been of a nature no man could forget or forgive, particularly one of such fiery pride as the Earl of Leicester. It had been impossible for him to take the customary steps to protect his honor, and now he was obliged to bow and accept the proffer of renewed friendship. But Simon de Montfort neither forgot nor forgave.

Richard of Cornwall was organizing a party of English knights to go to the Crusades, and Simon was pledged to take the cross with him. His return to England had been partly for the purpose of making the necessary arrangements. It was a very expensive matter to go crusading. A knight required many horses for himself and his followers
and a corresponding amount of arms and equipment. He needed also a substantial supply of gold because he paid his way both going and returning. Simon, who found the costs of peacetime living too much for him, encountered a great deal of difficulty in raising funds. He did not leave with Richard of Cornwall but went first to get Eleanor, who was insisting on accompanying him as far as possible. They traveled together to Brindisi, where the German Emperor, perhaps on prompting from his consort, who was Eleanor’s older sister, had loaned for her use a huge, echoing stone palace overlooking the sea. Here she stayed with her small staff of servants, her mind filled with the dangers her husband was encountering in the East.

The Crusade proved to be a fruitless effort because a truce had been arranged before they arrived. That Simon found some way of distinguishing himself is evident, however, from the fact that the “barons, knights, and citizens of the kingdom of Jerusalem” wrote to Frederick of Germany requesting that he make Simon their governor pending the time when Conrad, the Emperor’s son, would attain his majority and be capable of assuming the reins. Nothing came of it, but the incident makes it clear that the young earl had displayed some of the qualities of leadership which were to be so magnificently proven in later years.

N
OTHING
remained to Henry of the great Angevin possessions in France save Gascony, the southwest corner. Gascony was a land of hot sunshine, sloping down from the purple Pyrenees to the marshy lands along the Bay of Biscay. In the dunes the Gascons walked on stilts, and everywhere else they strutted with an equal stiff-leggedness through sheer pride, a canny and clever race who obtained a little more distinction than they perhaps deserved when a member of their clan, one M. d’Artagnan, was borrowed, a few centuries later, for the pages of a great adventure story. They were not particularly happy at remaining under English rule. From the year 1057 they had been governed by the dukes of Aquitaine and they had been kicked like a football between England and France after Eleanor, a lovely and self-willed young woman, became their duchess and married first Louis of France and then Henry II of England. They still cherished memories of the beautiful Eleanor, but this was a slender chain to hold their allegiance to the land where her descendants still reigned.

Gascony, in fact, wanted above everything to be independent, having no more love for the French than for the English, but independence was not easily obtainable for a small and poor province surrounded by strong and avaricious neighbors. The proud men of Bordeaux and Béarn and Bigorre felt eyes on their backs all the time, the eyes of the Count of Toulouse and the kings of Navarre and Castile, each of whom aspired to the mastery of Gascony; and,
more than all, the orbs of the King of France, the likeliest of the feudal tomcats to swallow the Gascon mouse.

Unfortunately for their aspirations, the Gascons had never been able to establish any unity among themselves. Their counts and viscounts were a bitterly contentious lot, always fighting among themselves and burning towns and ravaging countrysides. The nobles were, for the most part, anti-English. There were a number of strong cities such as Bordeaux, Bayonne, Dax, and Bazas which thrived on the wine trade and were inclined in consequence to be pro-English. If the people of the cities had been able to live at peace among themselves they would have been strong enough to keep the rampaging nobles in order. They in turn, however, were split into two factions, the wine merchants against the less fortunate ones who lacked a share in that profitable business.

The cleavage in Bordeaux was particularly marked. This beautiful city lying on the west bank of the Garonne, with the great vineyards of Médoc behind it, was torn by a rivalry which suggests the struggles in Italy between rich and dynastic families. The Coloms were wine sellers, wealthy, aggressive, and notably pro-English. The Solers, whose interests centered in land, were not quite as rich as their rivals but had been holding the whip hand because of a special aptitude for political activities. The city had the right to select its own mayor and to fill the council or jurade, and because the Solers had a wily leader in one Rustengo de Soler, they had been monopolizing these offices. Rustengo had been in the wine trade at an early stage of his career, as witness an occasion during the reign of John when a cargo of his had been confiscated. Retiring with a considerable degree of wealth, he had become a landowner and was inclined to look down on those who still engaged in his earlier occupation. He lived in the city in a stone house which was large enough to accommodate some of his sons and their families as well as a great many servants and armed adherents. The house of old Rustengo had become the center of all Soler activities, and from it he craftily directed the government of the city with the dignity of a Montague or a Capulet and with more than a hint of the fine trappings of a doge of Venice.

Henry had appointed a succession of seneschals to represent him in Gascony, with conditions growing progressively worse all the time. The province had been brought close to the point of chaos
by the bitter clashing of factions and the incapacity of the men the King had sent to govern the country.

On May 1, 1248, Henry appointed Simon de Montfort seneschal of Gascony. There was general approval of the move and a feeling that at last the right man had been found to curb the contentious Gascons and establish order in the land. At first Simon held back from accepting, knowing perhaps how much he would be hampered by the vacillation and the interference of the King. He demanded an absolutely free hand for seven years, a grant of two thousand marks a year, and the military support of fifty knights. Henry, unwilling to allow a subject so much authority, gave in with reluctance and agreed grumblingly to all the conditions. He kept none of them, of course, after the first few months.

Simon went about his task with great energy and foresight. Blanche of Castile had resumed the regency of France when Louis set off for the Crusades again, and the new seneschal went to her first. They agreed to a truce for two months. He then traveled on to Gascony, arriving in considerable state with his train of fifty knights and proceeding at once to let the robber barons and the quarreling citizens know that he intended to be master. That he made mistakes at first is only too clear, particularly in the severity of the methods he adopted. From the first moment, however, that the hoofs of his weary steed raised Gascon dust from the hot white roads he demonstrated something which would later make him the great benefactor of the English. His policy was to break the power of the nobility. The reason for this was partly one of sound policy. Only among the commercial classes in the cities and towns was a pro-English sentiment to be found, and it was the part of wisdom to work with them. The reason went much deeper, however. Simon de Montfort, scion of a distinguished line, bred to feudal traditions, had ideas stirring about in his head which would have shocked his equals and outraged the king who employed him, and which perhaps were a puzzle to himself. He had an awareness of something wrong in the world and a slowly awakening willingness to assist in setting things right.

He found that much of the dissension in Gascony stemmed from the activities of one of the most powerful counts, Gaston of Béarn.
Gaston was a cantankerous and selfish schemer and an unpleasant fellow personally for whom Simon had a great dislike. Inasmuch, however, as the mother of this rancid individual, Grasenda, had been the first wife of Raimund Berenger, he was a half brother once removed of Queen Eleanor. There was never any way of being sure how far the Queen’s sympathies would carry her in anything having to do with a relative of hers, and this made it necessary to deal carefully with Master Gaston. Simon accordingly concluded a truce with him before turning his attention to the other troublemakers. The Viscount of Gramont, one of the most persistent, was taken prisoner and thrown into a dungeon at Le Réole without the formality of a trial. A storm of protest resulted, but there must have been good reasons for dealing with him in such a summary manner. The viscount was left in his cell for seven years, long after Simon de Montfort gave up his post in Gascony. The next victim of Simon’s vigorous methods was the Viscount of Soule. Frightened, no doubt, by the fate of his fellow viscount, he refused to appear when summoned to court. Simon reached out promptly and captured him at Mauléon and made him pay a fine of ten thousand molas. The most important step taken was in connection with the King of Navarre, who was persuaded to an arbitration of his differences with the English Crown.