Chapter V: The Angevin Empire (3)

The strife thus begun for the mastery in Septimania was continued at intervals between the houses of Toulouse and Aragon for many years to come. The overlord of Toulouse, however, seems to have taken no part in it as yet; and indeed, it had scarcely more than begun when Richard was summoned away to meet his father in Normandy. Three times in the course of that spring and summer had King Henry collected his host in England for the purpose of going over sea to the help of his sons; twice had he remanded it,[992] for the sake, as it seems, of continuing his legal and administrative work in England. By midsummer however the tidings from Gaul were such that he dared not further prolong his absence. Geoffrey wanted his help in Britanny; Richard wanted it almost as much in Aquitaine; the young king’s unaccountable lack of vigour in their support, and in the prosecution of the war in Berry, was justly raising suspicions of his loyalty to the family cause; and the treaty made with Louis of France at the close of the last war was proving, as such treaties too often did prove, only a source of fresh disputes. Henry summoned Louis to fulfil his part of the agreement by handing over the Vexin to the young king and the viscounty of Bourges to Richard, according to his promise, as the dowries of their brides;[993] Louis insisted that Henry should first complete his share of the engagement by allowing Adela, who had been in his custody ever since the treaty was signed, to be wedded to her promised bridegroom, Richard. At last, in July, he succeeded in bringing the matter to a crisis by extorting from a papal legate who had been sent to deal with a heresy that had arisen in southern Gaul a threat of laying all Henry’s dominions under interdict unless Richard and Adela were married at once.[994] The English bishops appealed against the threat;[995] while Henry hurried over to Normandy,[996] met first his two elder sons,[997] then the legate,[998] then the French king,[999] and once again contrived to stave off the threatening peril. At Nonancourt, on September 25, the two kings made a treaty containing not one word of marriages or dowries, but consisting of an agreement to bury all their differences under the cross. They pledged themselves to go on crusade together, to submit to arbitration the questions in dispute between them about Auvergne and Berry, and to lay aside all their other quarrels at once and for ever.[1000] Such a treaty was in reality a mere temporary expedient; but it served Henry’s purpose by securing him against French interference while he marched against the rebels in Berry. As usual, he carried all before him; Châteauroux surrendered without a struggle; the lord of La Châtre, who had stolen the little heiress of Déols and was keeping her fast in his own castle, hurried to make his peace and give up his prize.[1001] Henry used his opportunity to advance into the Limousin and exert his authority in punishing its turbulent barons;[1002] soon after Martinmas he and Louis met at Graçay and made another ineffectual attempt to settle the vexed question of Auvergne;[1003] a month later he was again in Aquitaine, purchasing the direct ownership of one of its under-fiefs, the county of La Marche, from the childless Count Adalbert who was purposing to end his days in Holy Land;[1004] and at Christmas he was back at Angers, where he kept the feast with his three elder sons amid such a gathering of knights as had never been seen at his court except at his own crowning or that of the young king.[1005]

[992] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 138, 160, 167, 168.

[993] _Ib._ p. 168.

[994] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 180, 181. Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 143. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 271.

[995] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 181.

[996] In the night of August 17–18. _Gesta Hen._ as above, p.
190. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 421.

[997] Rob. Torigni, a. 1177.

[998] On September 11. _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 190.

[999] September 21. _Ibid._ Cf. Rog. Howden and Gerv. Cant. as
above.

[1000] _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 191–194. Rog. Howden (Stubbs),
vol. ii. pp. 144–146; Gerv. Cant. as above, pp. 272–274;
shorter in R. Diceto as above, pp. 421, 422. The place and date
are from this last authority.

[1001] _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 195, 196. Cf. R. Diceto as
above, p. 425.

[1002] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 196.

[1003] The proceedings on this occasion are worth notice.
Henry, it seems, tried to substitute for the arbitration of
three prelates and three laymen on each side (which had been
agreed upon at Nonancourt) his own favourite plan of sworn
inquest. He called together the barons of Auvergne, and
required them to certify what rights his predecessors the dukes
of Aquitaine had enjoyed in their country. They answered that
by ancient right all Auvergne pertained to the ducal dominions,
except the bishopric (Clermont), which was dependent on the
French Crown. To this definition Louis would not agree; so
they fell back upon the former scheme of arbitration--which,
however, seems never to have got any further. _Gesta Hen._
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 196. This was apparently the last meeting
(except the one in England; see below, p. 216) between Henry
and Louis, and must therefore be the one of which a curious
account is given by Gir. Cambr. _De Instr. Princ._, dist. iii.
c. 1 (Angl. Christ. Soc., pp. 85, 86).

[1004] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 197. Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 147, 148. Rob. Torigni, a. 1177. R.
Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 425, under a wrong year. Geoff.
Vigeois, l. i. c. 70 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._, vol. ii. p.
324). Henry received the homage of the under-tenants of La
Marche (_Gesta Hen._ as above); but he did not really get what
he paid for, as will be seen later.

[1005] Rob. Torigni, a. 1178.

For six months there was peace, and in July the king ventured to return to England.[1006] He knighted his son Geoffrey at Woodstock on August 6,[1007] and when the lad hurried over sea, eager to flesh his maiden sword and emulate the prowess of his brothers, he could find no more serious field in which to exercise his warlike energies than a succession of tournaments on the borders of France and Normandy.[1008] Richard however was again busy with more earnest fighting. The rivalry between the houses of Aragon and Toulouse had stirred up the petty chieftains of southern Gascony, whom the king of Aragon was seeking to enlist in his service; and Richard was obliged to undertake a campaign against the count of Bigorre in particular, which seems to have occupied him till the end of the year. The defiant attitude of the nobles of Saintonge and the Angoumois, and especially of a powerful baron, Geoffrey of Rancogne, called him back at Christmas to Saintes; as soon as the feast was over he laid siege to Geoffrey’s castle of Pons; after spending more than three months before the place, he left his constables to continue the blockade while he himself went to attack the other rebel castles. Five of them were taken and razed between Easter and Rogation-tide,[1009] and then Richard gathered up all his forces to assault Geoffrey of Rancogne’s mightiest stronghold, Taillebourg. It stood a few miles north of Saintes, on the crest of a lofty rock, three of whose sides were so steep as to defy any attempt to scale them, while the fourth was guarded by a triple ditch and rampart. Three lines of wall, built of hewn stone and strengthened with towers and battlements, encircled the keep, which was stored with provisions and arms offensive and defensive, and crowded with picked men-at-arms who laughed to scorn the rashness of the young duke in attempting to besiege a fortress which all his predecessors had looked upon as well-nigh unapproachable. But he cleared its approaches with a ruthless energy such as they little expected, cutting down vineyards, burning houses, levelling every obstacle before him, till he pitched his tents close to the castle walls under the eyes of the astonished townsfolk. A sally of the latter only resulted in making a way for Richard’s entrance into the town; three days later the castle surrendered, and Geoffrey himself with it.[1010] Ten days’ more fighting brought all the rebels to submission and reduced Vulgrin of Angoulême himself to give up his capital city and his castle of Montignac in Périgord;[1011] and at Whitsuntide Richard went to report his success with his own lips to his delighted father in England.[1012]

[1006] _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 206, 207. R. Diceto as above,
p. 426.

[1007] R. Diceto as above.

[1008] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 207.

[1009] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 212, 213.

[1010] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 431, 432. Cf. _Gesta
Hen._ as above, p. 213, and Rob. Torigni, a. 1179.

[1011] _Gesta Hen._ as above.

[1012] _Ibid._ R. Diceto as above, p. 432.

He returned shortly before Michaelmas,[1013] to witness the opening of a new phase in the relations between the Angevin house and the French Crown. Philip of France, the only son of Louis VII., was now fourteen years old, and his father was desirous to have him crowned king. Before the appointed day arrived, however, he fell sick almost to death.[1014] Louis, half wild with anxiety, dreamed that the martyr of Canterbury required him to visit his shrine as a condition of the boy’s recovery.[1015] He hurried across the Channel; Henry met him at Dover and conducted him to Canterbury, where they both spent three days in fasting and prayer before the shrine; and on the fourth day after his landing Louis re-entered his own country, to find that his prayers were answered.[1016] His brief visit was long remembered in England, where no king of France had ever been seen before,[1017] or was ever seen again save when John the Good was brought there as a prisoner in the days of Edward III. Scarcely, however, had Philip recovered when Louis himself was stricken down by paralysis.[1018] This calamity made him all the more anxious for his son’s coronation, which took place at Reims on All Saints’ day. The archbishop of the province--a brother of Queen Adela--performed the rite, assisted by nearly all the bishops of Gaul; all the great vassals of the kingdom were present, among them the young King Henry, who in his capacity of duke of Normandy carried the crown before his youthful overlord in the procession to and from the cathedral church, as Count Philip of Flanders carried the sword of state.[1019] Like the crowning of young Henry himself, the crowning of Philip Augustus proved to be a beginning of troubles. His father’s helpless condition left the boy-king to fall under the influence of whatever counsellor could first get at his ear. That one happened to be his godfather, Philip of Flanders; and the policy of Flanders was to get the boy entirely under his own control by setting him against all his father’s old friends,[1020] and even against his mother, whom he tried to rob of her dower-lands and persecuted to such a degree that she was compelled to leave his domains and fly to her brothers for the protection which her husband was powerless to give her.[1021] The united forces of Flanders and of the Crown--for the latter were now wholly at Philip’s command[1022]--were, however, more than a match for those of Champagne and Blois; and the house of Blois was driven to seek help of the only power which seemed capable of giving it--the power of their old rivals of Anjou.[1023]

[1013] So it appears from an entry in the Pipe Roll of 1179;
Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 227.

[1014] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 240. According to Rob.
Torigni, a. 1179, Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._,
vol. v. p. 5), and Will. Armor., _Philippis_, l. i. (_ib._ pp.
99, 100), the boy’s sickness was the effect of a fright caused
by an adventure in the forest of Compiègne, very like that of
Geoffrey Plantagenet at Loches.

[1015] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 240–241. Cf. Rog.
Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 192.

[1016] _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 241, 242; Rog. Howden, as
above, pp. 192, 193; Will. Armor., _Philipp._, l. i. (Duchesne,
_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.) pp. 100, 101. R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 432, 433, relates the pilgrimage without
any mention of its motive; while Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), p. 293,
seems to think Louis came for the benefit of his own health,
not his son’s.

[1017] R. Diceto, as above, p. 433.

[1018] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 243.

[1019] _Ib._ p. 242. Rog. Howden as above, pp. 193, 194. R.
Diceto as above, p. 438. It is Roger who says that Henry
bore the crown officially--“de jure ducatûs Normanniæ.”
Ralf explains away the matter as a mere act of courtesy and
friendship.

[1020] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 244. Rog. Howden as above, p.
196.

[1021] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 196. R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 6. Cf. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p.
294.

[1022] He had stolen his father’s royal seal, to prevent all
further exercise of authority on the part of Louis. R. Diceto,
as above.

[1023] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 244. Rog. Howden as
above.

The days were long gone by when it had been a chief part of the Angevin interest and policy to set the French king and the house of Blois at variance with each other. If Henry had needed any proof that the rivalry of Blois was no longer to be feared, he would have found it in the appeal for succour thus sent to him by Queen Adela and her brothers, and supported by his own eldest son, who at Mid-Lent 1180 went over to England purposely to consult with him on the state of affairs in France. Before Easter father and son both returned to Normandy, and there held a personal meeting with the French queen, her brothers Theobald of Blois and Stephen of Sancerre, and several other victims of young Philip’s tyranny. Pledges of good faith were exchanged, and summons were issued for a general levy of all Henry’s forces, on both sides of the sea, ready to attack Philip after Easter.[1024] Before the attack could be made, however, Philip had got himself into such difficulties as to render it needless. As soon as Lent was over he went into Flanders and there married a niece of its count, Elizabeth, daughter of the count of Hainaut.[1025] He then summoned all the princes of his realm to meet him at Sens on Whit-Sunday for the coronation of himself and his queen. The marriage had, however, given such offence that Philip of Flanders, in dread of opposition to his niece’s crowning, persuaded the young king to anticipate the ceremony and have her crowned together with himself at S. Denis, early in the morning of Ascension-day, by the archbishop of Sens.[1026] The wrath of the great vassals knew no bounds; and the wrath of the archbishop of Reims was almost more formidable still, for the exclusive right to crown the king of France was a special prerogative of his see, and he at once forwarded to Rome an indignant protest against the outrage done to him by his royal nephew.[1027] Philip of France and Guy of Sens had in fact put themselves into a position which might easily have become almost as full of peril as that into which Henry of England and Roger of York had put themselves by a somewhat similar proceeding ten years before. As, however, William of Reims was not a Thomas of Canterbury, the consequences were less tragic; and Henry himself must have been tempted to smile at the turning of the tables which suddenly placed in his hands the task of shielding Philip from the consequences of his rashness, and reconciling him to the outraged Church and the offended people.

[1024] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 245. Rog. Howden as above.

[1025] _Ibid._ R. Diceto as above, p. 5. Gerv. Cant. as above.
Rob. Torigni, a. 1181 (a year too late). The bride is called
Elizabeth by her husband’s panegyrist, Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist.
Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v. p. 7), and Isabel by another of his
biographers (_ib._ p. 258). R. Diceto calls her Margaret.

[1026] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 245, 246. Rog. Howden
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 197. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p.
5. Rob. Torigni, a. 1181. This last writer, whose chronology
has now become extremely confused, puts the event a year too
late. So does Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._,
vol. v.), p. 7. Rigord indeed gives an account of the matter
so different from that of the English writers--_e.g._ he
represents it as taking place publicly, amid a great concourse
of spectators--that one might almost suppose he was relating a
second coronation, performed in the following year. But there
seems no other record of any such thing; and there are some
details in his story which point to a different conclusion.
Not only does he, too, name the archbishop of Sens as the
consecrator--an outrage upon Reims which could not possibly
have been repeated--but he betrays his own confusion by giving
the date as June 1, 1181, and then describing the day as
Ascension-day, which in 1181 fell on May 14, but which really
was the day of the crowning in 1180 (May 29). The truth is
that the panegyrists of Philip Augustus are obliged to slur
over this first disgraceful year of his reign as rapidly and
confusedly as they can.

[1027] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 246. Rog. Howden as above.

There was a story that young Henry of Anjou, standing close behind his brother-in-law Philip on his first coronation-day in Reims cathedral, had bent forward to hold the crown upon the boy’s head, and thus relieve him of its weight and keep it safely in its place.[1028] The little act of brotherly kindness and protecting care may be taken as typical of the political attitude which Henry’s father actually assumed towards the boy-king of the French, and which he faithfully maintained until Philip himself rendered its maintenance impossible. It was in truth no new thing for a count of Anjou to act as the protector of a king of France. But we may fairly question whether this traditional function of the Angevin house had ever been fulfilled so honestly and unselfishly as it was by Henry during the first two years of Philip’s reign. It was Henry alone who, by his personal influence and tact, brought Philip himself to reason and the count of Flanders to submission.[1029] Next year, when Philip had been left sole king of France by the death of Louis VII.,[1030] it was Henry whose mediation checked an attempt of the Flemish count to avenge by force of arms the loss of his influence at court;[1031] and when a few months later the house of Blois, with characteristic inconstancy, made common cause with Flanders against France, it was the prompt and vigorous action of Henry’s sons which alone saved the royal domain from invasion on all sides at once, and enabled their young sovereign to hold out against his assailants till Henry himself came over to patch up another settlement in the spring of 1182.[1032]

[1028] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 439. Rigord (Duchesne,
_Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 5, tells the same story
more briefly, and it is amusing to see how differently he
colours it.

[1029] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 246, 247. R. Diceto
(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 6.

[1030] September 18, 1180; _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 250;
R. Diceto as above, p. 7; Will. Armor., _Gesta Phil. Aug._
(Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 72. Rigord
(_ib._), p. 7, makes a confusion about the year.

[1031] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 277. Rog. Howden (Stubbs),
vol. ii. p. 260.

[1032] _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 284–286. R. Diceto as above,
pp. 9–11. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 297, 300. Gir.
Cambr., _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. cc. 15, 16 (Angl. Christ.
Soc., pp. 42–47). Rob. Torigni, a. 1182.

Other needs, however, than those of the French Crown were once more calling for Henry’s presence in Gaul. The condition of Aquitaine only grew more unsatisfactory, in spite or in consequence of Richard’s efforts to improve it. Henry’s bargain with Adalbert of La Marche had failed to secure him the possession of that county; the brother-lords of Lusignan claimed it as next-of-kin to Adalbert as soon as the king’s back was turned, and made good their claim by forcible occupation.[1033] The Limousin was again threatening revolt; the town-walls of Limoges were razed by Richard’s order at midsummer 1181.[1034] Almost at the same moment the death of Count Vulgrin of Angoulême opened a fresh source of strife; his two brothers laid claim to his inheritance against his only daughter, whom Richard of course took into wardship as a feudal heiress, and on Richard’s refusal to admit their claims they made common cause with Ademar of Limoges.[1035] The mischief however did not end here. Richard’s unbending resolve to bridle Aquitaine had gradually stirred up against him the bitter hatred of the whole people--a hatred for which his stern rule is quite sufficient to account, without admitting the blacker charges brought against him by the reckless tongues of the south.[1036] The voice of Bertrand de Born had once more given the signal for a general rising. A _sirvente_ which went forth from Hautefort in 1181 rang like a trumpet-call in the ears of the lords of Ventadour and Comborn and Périgord and Dax, of Angoulême and Pons and Taillebourg.[1037] But even this was not all. Years before, it seems, there had flashed through the troubadour’s quick brain a possibility of stirring up strife in higher quarters than among the petty princes of his native land. Now he distinctly saw the possibility of finding for the Aquitanian resistance to Richard a rallying-point and a leader in Richard’s own brother.

[1033] Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 70 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._,
vol. ii. p. 324).

[1034] _Ib._ c. 72 (p. 326).

[1035] _Ibid._ He was their half-brother, the only son of their
mother’s first marriage.

[1036] Cf. _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 292, with Gerv.
Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 303, and Gir. Cambr., _De Instr.
Princ._, dist. iii. c. 8 (Angl. Christ. Soc., p. 105).

[1037] Clédat, _Bert. de Born_, pp. 44, 45.

One of the most puzzling figures in the history of the time is that of the younger Henry of Anjou--the “young king,” as he is usually called. From the day of his crowning to that of his death not one deed is recorded of him save deeds of the meanest ingratitude, selfishness, cowardliness and treachery. Yet this undutiful, rebellious son, this corrupter and betrayer of his younger brothers, this weak and faithless ally, was loved and admired by all men while he lived, and lamented by all men after he was gone.[1038] The attraction exercised by him over a man so far his superior as William the Marshal[1039] is indeed well-nigh incomprehensible. But the panegyrics of the historians, unaccountable as they look at first glance, do throw some light on the secret of young Henry’s gift of general fascination. It was a gift which indeed, in varying degrees, formed part of the hereditary endowments of the Angevin house. But the character which it took in Fulk Nerra or Henry Fitz-Empress was very different from that which it assumed in Henry’s eldest son. The essence of the young king’s nature was not Angevin. He had little either of the higher talents or of the stronger and sterner qualities of the Angevin race; he had still less of the characteristics of the Norman. It is by studying his portrait as drawn in contrast to that of Richard by a hand equally favourable to both that we can best see what he really was. “The first was admired for his mildness and liberality; the second was esteemed for his seriousness and firmness. One was commendable for graciousness, the other for stateliness. One gained praise for his courtesy, the other for his constancy. One was conspicuous for mercy, the other for justice. One was the refuge and the shield of vagabonds and evil-doers, the other was their scourge. One was devoted to the sports of war, the other to war itself; one was gracious to strangers, the other to his own friends--one to all men, the other only to good men.”[1040] Henry in fact was at bottom what Richard never was but on the surface--a careless, pleasure-loving, capricious, but withal most gracious and winning child of the south. The most philosophic English historian of the day was reduced to account for the young king’s popularity by the simple and comprehensive explanation that “the number of fools is infinite.”[1041] But it was not folly, it was a shrewd perception of their own interest, which led the Aquitanians writhing under Richard’s iron rule to see in his elder brother a prince after their own hearts.[1042]

[1038] Except the ever-independent William of Newburgh; see his
l. iii. c. 7 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 233, 234).

[1039] See Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 279.

[1040] Gir. Cambr., _De Instr. Princ._, dist. iii. c. 8 (Angl.
Christ. Soc. p. 106).

[1041] “Quia ut scriptum est, Stultorum infinitus est numerus.”
Will. Newb., l. iii. c. 7 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 234). The
quotation is from the Vulgate version of Ecclesiastes i. 15;
the English A. V. conveys a wholly different idea.

[1042] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 303. See also Gerald’s
other account of young Henry, _De Instr. Princ._, dist. ii. c.
9 (Angl. Christ. Soc., pp. 31, 32).

It was not the first time that Bertrand de Born had sought to kindle in the young king’s mind the sparks of jealousy and discontent which were always latent there.[1043] Now, he fed the flames with an unsparing hand. In words of bitter satire he ridicules the position of the young king, who bears the titles of a great sovereign, but has no authority in his own land, and cannot even claim the tolls upon the traffic along its roads: “Barons of Aquitaine, are we not all of us better than a carter who leaves his cart to go as it may, and counts his dues, if he counts any at all, with trembling fingers?” “I prize a tiny tract of land with honour above a great empire with disgrace!”[1044] Richard, meanwhile, was playing into his enemies’s hands by an encroachment upon territory which in name at least belonged to his brother. He had built a castle at Clairvaux, between Loudun and Poitiers, but on the Angevin side of the frontier. If the thought of resentment did not occur to Henry, Bertrand took care to suggest it: “Between Poitiers and Ile-Bouchard and Mirebeau and Loudun and Chinon some one has dared to rear, at Clairvaux, a fair castle in the midst of the plain. I would not have the young king see it or know of it, for it would not be to his taste; but its walls are so white, I doubt he will catch sight of their gleam from Mateflon!”[1045] The troubadour’s shafts were well aimed, and they rankled. When King Henry returned to Normandy in the spring of 1182 the Aquitanian rising was in full career; as soon as he had composed matters in France he hurried to the help of Richard, who was fighting the rebels in the Limousin; at Whitsuntide the counts of Angoulême and Périgord and the viscount of Limoges came to confer with him at Grandmont, but nothing came of the negotiations; Henry then went to attack Pierre-Buffière, while Richard returned to the siege of Excideuil. At midsummer the king was back at Grandmont, and Geoffrey of Britanny with him; thence they went to rejoin Richard, who was now busy with the siege of Périgueux.[1046] Matters were in this stage when the young king at last made up his mind to advance into Aquitaine. He was joyfully welcomed at Limoges on the festival of its patron S. Martial--the last day of June. On the morrow, however, he joined his father and brothers before Périgueux, and within a week peace was made; Périgueux surrendered, its count and the viscount of Limoges submitted to Richard, and only the brother-counts of Angoulême still remained in arms against him.[1047]

[1043] See Clédat, _Bert. de Born_, p. 36.

[1044] _Ib._ p. 44.

[1045] _Ibid._

[1046] Strictly, of its suburb Puy-St.-Front.

[1047] Geoff. Vigeois, l. ii. cc. 1, 2 (Labbe, _Nova
Biblioth._, vol. ii. pp. 330, 331).

Peace, however, never lasted long either in Aquitaine or in King Henry’s family. His eldest son now again grew importunate for a definite and immediate share in the family heritage. When this was refused, he fled to the court of France, and was only recalled by a promise of an increased pecuniary allowance for himself and his queen.[1048] Aquitaine, as soon as Henry had left it, drifted into a state of anarchy more frightful than any that had ever been known there before; the sudden conclusion of the war had let loose all over the country a crowd of mercenaries--commonly known as “Brabantines,” but really the off-scouring of every land from Flanders to Aragon--who wrought, as a local writer says, such havoc as had never been seen since the days of the heathen northmen.[1049] The evil in some measure brought its own remedy with it, for it drove the common people to take into their own hands the maintenance of peace and order. A poor Auvergnat carpenter, urged by a vision of the Blessed Virgin, set forth under the protection of the diocesan bishop to preach the cause of peace in his native district of Le Puy. Those who were like-minded with him, no matter what their rank or calling, enrolled themselves in a society bound together by solemn pledges for mutual support in adherence to right and resistance to wrong in every shape; and in a few years these “_Caputii_,” as they were called from the linen capes or hoods which they always wore in fight, proved more than a match for the Brabantines.[1050]

[1048] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 289, 291. Cf. Rog.
Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 266, 267.

[1049] Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 73 (as above, p. 328).

[1050] Geoff. Vigeois, l. ii. c. 22 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._,
vol. ii. p. 339). Rob. Torigni, a. 1183. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs),
vol. i. pp. 300, 301. Rigord (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._, vol. v.), pp. 11, 12.

Meanwhile, however, the warlike barons of Aquitaine were exasperated at the failure of their league against Richard; and their anger reached its height when at the conclusion of the Christmas festivities held by King Henry and his sons at Caen, the young king of his own accord renewed his oath of allegiance to his father, confessed his secret alliance with Richard’s enemies, and offered to abandon it and make peace with his brother if his father would but insist upon the surrender of Clairvaux. Richard, after some hesitation, gave up to his father the fortress in dispute.[1051] The incident apparently opened Henry’s eyes to the necessity of clearly defining his sons’ political relations with each other; and while Bertrand de Born was giving a voice to the wrath of his fellow-barons at the young king’s desertion of their cause,[1052] Henry led his three sons back to Angers, made them all take an oath of obedience to him and peace with each other,[1053] and then called upon the two younger to do homage to the eldest for their fiefs.[1054] Geoffrey obeyed;[1055] Richard indignantly refused, declaring it was utterly unreasonable that there should be any distinction of rank between children of the same parents, and that if the father’s heritage belonged of right to the eldest son, the mother’s was equally due to the second.[1056] The young king, on the other hand, was on account of his entanglements with the Aquitanian barons almost as unwilling to receive the homage as Richard was to perform it.[1057] The end of the discussion was that Richard quitted the court, “leaving behind him nothing but threats and insults,” and hurried into Poitou to prepare for defence and defiance.[1058]

[1051] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 291, 294, 295.

[1052] Clédat, _Bert. de Born_, p. 47.

[1053] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 295. Cf. R. Diceto (Stubbs),
vol. ii. p. 18.

[1054] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 291. Rog. Howden (Stubbs),
vol. ii. p. 273.

[1055] _Ibid._ R. Diceto as above.

[1056] R. Diceto (as above), pp. 18, 19. _Gesta Hen._ (as
above), p. 292. Cf. Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 303.

[1057] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 18. _Gesta Hen._
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 292. The two accounts do not exactly
agree, Ralf placing at this point the young king’s confession
of his dealings in Aquitaine; while the story in the _Gesta_ is
extremely confused, because it is told twice over, in different
forms (pp. 291, 292 and 294, 295).

[1058] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 292.

In the first burst of his anger Henry bade the other two brothers go and “subdue Richard’s pride” by force of arms.[1059] Immediately afterwards, however, he summoned all three, together with the aggrieved barons of Aquitaine, to meet him in conference at Mirebeau.[1060] But the young king had already marched into Poitou and received a warm welcome there;[1061] Geoffrey, to whom his father had intrusted his summons to the barons, led a motley force of Bretons, Brabantines and mercenaries of all kinds to Limoges;[1062] soon afterwards young Henry joined him; with the viscount’s help they threw themselves into the citadel,[1063] and set to work to raise the whole country against Richard. He, in his extremity, appealed to his father;[1064] and Henry at once hurried to the rescue. For six weeks he laid siege to the citadel of Limoges;[1065] twice he was personally shot at, and narrowly escaped with his life; twice the young king came to him with offers of submission, and each time he was welcomed with open arms, but each time the submission was a mere feint, designed to keep Henry quiet and give the barons time to wreak their vengeance upon Richard.[1066] By Easter matters were so far advanced that Bertrand de Born was openly calling for aid upon Flanders, France and Normandy;[1067] and the dread of a rising in this last-named quarter prompted Henry to send orders for the arrest of those barons, both in Normandy and England, who had been most conspicuous in the rebellion of 1173.[1068]

[1059] R. Diceto as above, p. 19.

[1060] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 295.

[1061] _Ib._ p. 292.

[1062] _Ib._ pp. 293, 295. Geoff. Vigeois, l. ii. c. 6 (Labbe,
_Nova Biblioth._, vol. ii. p. 332).

[1063] _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 293, 296. Geoff. Vigeois as
above. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 304.

[1064] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 274.

[1065] From Shrove Tuesday--March 1--to Easter. Geoff. Vigeois,
l. ii. cc. 12, 16 (as above, pp. 334, 336).

[1066] _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 296–298. Cf. Geoff. Vigeois,
l. ii. c. 7 (as above, pp. 332, 333).

[1067] Clédat, _Bert. de Born_, p. 52.

[1068] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 294.

The young king at the same time quitted Limoges to make a diversion at Angoulême. On his return, however, he found it impossible to re-enter Limoges; its townsfolk had by this time so fully awakened to his real character and to their own best interests that they drove him from their walls with a volley of stones, shouting “We will not have this man to reign over us!”[1069] He had already robbed them of their wealth and stripped the shrine of their patron saint to provide wages for his Brabantines;[1070] and the insult goaded him to yet more unsparing plunder and yet more reckless sacrilege. From the castle of Aixe, which he took on the Monday in Rogation-week, he advanced to Grandmont, a religious house whose inmates enjoyed, amid the now general decay of monastic sanctity, an almost unique reputation for piety and virtue, and were known to be held by his father in especial reverence and esteem. He wrung from them all the treasure they possessed, and forcibly carried off a golden pyx, his father’s gift, from the high altar itself. He then proceeded to Uzerches, where the duke of Burgundy and the count of Toulouse met him with reinforcements on Ascension-day; from Uzerches he moved southward to Donzenac and Martel, and thence to Rocamadour.[1071] Rocamadour was the most famous of the holy places of Aquitaine; besides the tomb of the hermit from whom its name was derived, it boasted of a statue of the Virgin which attracted as many pilgrims as the shrine of S. James at Compostella; and among the treasures of its church, which was said to have been founded by Zacchæus the publican, was a sword traditionally believed to be the famous “Durandal”--the sword of the Paladin Roland, devoted by him to the Blessed Virgin on the eve of his last campaign, and carried to her shrine at Rocamadour after the disaster of Roncevaux. Heedless alike of paladins and of saints, the young king stripped the shrine of S. Amadour[1072] as he had stripped that of S. Martial; and local tradition declares that he also carried off the hallowed sword, leaving his own dishonoured brand in its place.

[1069] Geoff. Vigeois, l. ii. c. 16 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._,
vol. ii. p. 336). _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 299.

[1070] Geoff. Vigeois, l. ii. cc. 13, 14 (pp. 335, 336).

[1071] _Ib._ c. 16 (p. 336).

[1072] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 278.

He had been ailing ever since he left Uzerches;[1073] now, on his return to Martel, his baffled rage threw him into a fever, to which other complications were soon added.[1074] Conscience awoke as death drew near. From the blacksmith’s cottage[1075] where he lay awaiting his end he sent a message to Limoges, imploring his father to come and speak with him once more.[1076] Henry would have gone, but his friends, in their natural dread of another trick, prevented him;[1077] he sent, however, a bishop charged with a message of love and pardon,[1078] and as a token of the genuineness of the commission, a precious ring, said to be an heirloom from Henry I.[1079] The messenger was only just in time. On the Tuesday in Whitsun-week the young king called together the bishops and religious men who had gathered round him at the tidings of his sickness, confessed his sins first privately, then publicly, before all his followers, was absolved and received the Holy Communion.[1080] For three more days he lingered, long enough to receive his father’s message of forgiveness and to dictate a letter to him, pleading that the same clemency might be extended to his mother the captive Queen Eleanor, to his own young Queen Margaret, and to all his servants, friends, adherents and allies;[1081] beseeching also that his father would make atonement in his stead for the sacrileges which he had committed against the holy places of Aquitaine, and would cause his body to be buried at Rouen in the cathedral church of our Lady.[1082] In the early twilight of S. Barnabas’s day he repeated his confession, after which he begged to be wrapped once more in his cloak, marked with the cross which he had taken at Limoges in petulance rather than in piety. Now, however, he was in earnest, and when the sacred symbol had rested for a moment on his shoulder he gave it to his best-beloved knight, William the Marshal, charging him to bear it to the Holy Sepulchre and thus fulfil his vow in his stead.[1083] He then caused his attendants to strip him of his soft raiment, clothe him in a hair-shirt and put a rope round his neck; with this he bade the assembled clergy drag him out of bed and lay him on a bed of ashes strewed for the purpose. There, lying as if already in his grave, with a stone at his head and another at his feet, he received the last sacraments;[1084] and there, an hour after nones,[1085] kissing his father’s ring he died.[1086]

[1073] Geoff. Vigeois, l. ii. c. 16 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._,
vol. ii. p. 336).

[1074] _Ibid._ _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 300. Will.
Newb., l. iii. c. 7 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 233, 234).

[1075] “In domo Stephani cognomine Fabri.” Geoff. Vigeois, l.
ii. c. 19 (as above, p. 337). Is this to be taken literally,
or can it be merely a punning nickname applied to the lord of
_Martel_?

[1076] _Gesta Hen._ as above. Will. Newb. as above (p. 234).

[1077] Will. Newb. as above. Geoff. Vigeois, l. ii. c. 17 (as
above, p. 337).

[1078] _Gesta Hen._ as above.

[1079] “Annulum preciosum ... qui Henrici munifici Regis
olim extitisse narratur.” Geoff. Vigeois as above. Cf. Will.
Newb. as above, and Th. Agnellus, _De Morte Hen. Reg. jun._
(Stevenson, _R. Coggeshall_), pp. 265, 266.

[1080] Geoff. Vigeois as above.

[1081] Geoff. Vigeois, l. ii. c. 24 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._,
vol. ii. p. 339). _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 300, 301.

[1082] Geoff. Vigeois as above.

[1083] _Ib._ c. 17 (p. 337). Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p.
279. On young Henry’s vow of crusade see _Gesta Hen._ as above,
pp. 297, 298.

[1084] Rog. Howden as above.

[1085] Geoff. Vigeois, l. ii. c. 19 (as above, p. 338).

[1086] Will. Newb., l. iii. c. 7 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 234).