Chapter III: The Legation of Pandulf (2)

At this juncture a new complication arose. Queen Isabel had in 1218 returned to her own county of Angoulême, received in its capital city the homage of its barons, and taken its government into her own hands.[626] She had some trouble at the outset with Reginald of Pons, the ex-seneschal of Poitou, who seems to have owned some castles in the Angoumois, and for some unexplained reason held them against her, but was soon overcome by her superior forces.[627] A matter of more consequence was her quarrel with Bartholomew of Puy. In the early part of John’s reign Bartholomew had been provost, or mayor, of the city of Angoulême;[628] from July, 1214,[629] if not earlier, he was seneschal of the county for John, and after John’s death for Henry. Isabel was minded to govern for herself; rightly or wrongly, she asserted that Bartholomew was plotting mischief against her with some of the Poitevin barons, especially Ralf de Lusignan the count of Eu, and also with the King of France; she therefore deprived him of his office and all his possessions, and made him give her his two sons as hostages. Bartholomew, apparently, appealed to the English government and the new seneschal of Aquitaine, and fled for shelter to Hugh de Lusignan.[630] Just then {1219} Hugh and the seneschal had suddenly become friends. Geoffrey wanted to go to England, but he was so absolutely penniless that on reaching La Rochelle he found it impossible to proceed any further, or even to leave the city,[631] till a loan of a hundred and sixty marks from some local merchants was negotiated for him by Hugh de Lusignan, who offered himself as surety for its repayment by the English government. This simple but timely stroke of policy made Hugh master of the situation in Aquitaine. The letters in which he and Geoffrey notified the transaction to King and Council were carried to England by Bartholomew of Puy. Geoffrey excused his acceptance of Hugh’s help on the plea that “the trouble in your land is so great that ruin would have followed if I had withdrawn”; Hugh modestly remarked that “your land of Poitou was greatly disturbed, but by God’s grace we have put it into a better state.” Both requested that the money should be given to Bartholomew in the presence of Ralf of Saint-Samson, who accompanied him, and who “knew that these things were true”; and Geoffrey added a warning--“If it be not paid, and if Sir Hugh should be compelled to pay it for me, you will never again find anybody who will make any loan to your order or to you.”[632]

[Sidenote: 1219]

The Council perceived that the only thing to do with Sir Hugh was to make a friend of him, if possible, by enlisting him as a sort of unofficial colleague to the luckless seneschal. In July Bartholomew of Puy came back, in the character of “the King’s messenger.”[633] He seems to have brought letters from the King and Council to Isabel, directing her to reinstate him in his property. Almost at the same time negotiations were set on foot in the King’s name for a loan of a thousand marks from the mayor and citizens of La Rochelle, and another thousand from those of Bordeaux, “to be used and expended by the hands of our very dear brother, Hugh of Lusignan, in defence of our land, if it should be needful.”[634] The possible danger against which it was thought that defence might be needed was an attack from Louis of France. He had been for some months past in the county of Toulouse, fighting against the Albigensians, and some of Henry’s subjects in Aquitaine feared that the French host, when its work at Toulouse was done, might be used against their sovereign and themselves.[635] These suspicions of Louis were, however, without justification. There is not the least indication that Louis ever thought of using, or allowing his followers to use, the opportunity which certainly lay within his reach for intervening at this time in the troubles of Poitou and Gascony. The truce between France and England, however, was now within nine months of its term;[636] and Pandulf was growing very anxious to secure its prolongation. In September a month’s safe-conduct was given to some envoys from the King of France to come over and discuss this matter.[637] In January, 1220, the Legate wrote urgently from the west of England, where he was detained by his negotiations with Llywelyn, to the Bishop of Winchester and the Justiciar, begging them to send some trusty messenger, “secretly, privately, and without delay,” to ask Philip for a renewal of the truce; he himself drafted for them a letter such as he deemed advisable for the envoy to convey; and he impressed upon his colleagues the importance of taking the matter in hand at once and insisting upon a decisive answer from the French King.[638] Three envoys were accordingly despatched on 26th January;[639] and on 3rd March the truce was renewed for four years from the ensuing Easter.[640]

[Sidenote: 1220]

Hugh of Lusignan meanwhile {1219} had thrown himself at once into his new part, posing as the zealous protector of the interests and loyal executor of the mandates of his little “brother,” even in opposition to the Queen-mother, who complained bitterly to Pandulf of the “maintenance” which Hugh and Geoffrey de Neville, acting under instructions from the royal Council, afforded to Bartholomew of Puy against her.[641] In August, 1219, the countess of Eu went to England, to claim her share of her late husband’s possessions there. As she was a kinswoman of the Earl of Warren and a niece of the Justiciar, a conflict between her claims and those of her husband’s brother bade fair to stir up a good deal of trouble.[642] By the middle of November Bartholomew of Puy seems to have been in England again;[643] and before that time Geoffrey de Neville was there also.[644] Geoffrey appears to have left Poitou and Gascony under the charge of a knight named William Gauler, who presently wrote a pathetic letter to Hubert de Burgh, complaining that he had been left without any revenues save those of the ports, which were only worth fifty pounds, “for all the affairs of the Poitevins and of Bordeaux”; moreover, his friends were telling him that the King had ordered him to be arrested, he knew not why. With strong protestations of loyalty William declared himself ready to settle his accounts, “willingly and truthfully,” with any one whom Hubert might send to Gascony as seneschal, “whether it were the chamberlain or some other man.” “Gascony,” he added, “is in a good condition up to the present; but I greatly fear it will quickly fall back into worse ways unless you send us good counsel and reinforcements.”[645]

[Sidenote: 1219–1220]

Meanwhile the towns were protesting their loyalty, and complaining of one another, and also of the intrigues of the French party and the lawless doings of the local barons.[646] About this last grievance they grew more clamorous than ever in the winter of 1219–1220. “The King’s burghers” of La Rochelle, Niort, and S. Jean d’Angély lived in perpetual terror of the lord of Parthenay, William Larchevêque, who with the lord of Rancon “and with the consent of others whom we will not at present name,” persecuted them “daily and unceasingly.” “He seizes your burghers and holds them to ransom; he carries off their beasts of burden,” wrote the mayor and commune of Niort. “He has put out the eyes of the bearer of this letter, and those of two other men, without any offence or fault of theirs, and though they were not even on his land when he captured them. And all this evil he does to us, so he declares, because of a hundred marks of silver which the late King promised him, and on account of a certain traitor whom you, Sir Hubert de Burgh, hanged when you were our seneschal.” With one voice the towns entreated that an efficient governor might be sent into Poitou {1220 (_March_)}; and they gave it clearly to be understood that they did not want Geoffrey de Neville back again. “Our former governors have been somewhat slack in their dealings with your enemies.” “When Sir Geoffrey was here, he could not protect us; he was not sufficient for these things, nor for other things either. If he were here now, he would be of no use. Send us some one more useful, more competent to manage this country, and to provide for the welfare of its people and uphold the rights and interests of the Crown.”[647]

[Sidenote: 1220]

The task of selection devolved upon Hubert de Burgh. Pandulf, a total stranger to Aquitaine and its affairs, seems to have declined to take any part in the matter beyond promising to ratify Hubert’s choice, on whomsoever it might fall.[648] Hubert was the one man then in England who knew by experience what were the most essential qualifications for the vacant post. Before he could find a man to his mind, however, another sudden change occurred in the political situation. In February or March, 1220, tidings came from Damietta that the count of La Marche was dead;[649] and before the middle of May Isabel of Angoulême wrote a startling announcement to her son. “We do you to wit that the counts of La Marche and Eu[650] being both dead, Sir Hugh de Lusignan was left, as it were, alone and without an heir, and his friends would not allow him to marry our daughter on account of her tender age, but counselled him to make such a marriage that he might speedily have an heir; and it was proposed that he should take a wife in France; which if he should do, all your land in Poitou and Gascony, and ours too, would be lost. We therefore, seeing the great danger that might arise if such a marriage should take place, and getting no support from your counsellors, have taken the said Hugh count of La Marche to be our lord and husband.”[651]

This letter probably reached England shortly before the coronation; on 22nd May Henry wrote to his step-father, expressing his approval of the marriage.[652] At the same time he desired Hugh to escort Joan to La Rochelle and there deliver her to two persons (Ralph Gernon and Joldewin of Douai) who were charged to take care of her till they received further orders from England.[653] A new use for the little girl’s hand had already been devised by the royal Council; they offered it to the young King of Scots. He was invited to meet Henry at York on 10th June;[654] and there, on 15th June, the treaty of marriage was arranged. Henry pledged himself to give Joan to Alexander to be his wife, at the ensuing Michaelmas, “if he could get her”; if he could not, his second sister, Isabel, should be given to Alexander in her stead, within fifteen days of the time appointed. Henry also promised that he would either cause Alexander’s two sisters to be honourably married in England within a year from S. Denys’s day (9th October), or restore them to their brother within a month after that term should have expired.[655] All thought of a marriage between Margaret of Scotland and Henry himself had evidently been given up by mutual consent.

Henry’s doubts whether he could get his eldest sister back in time for her to be married at Michaelmas proved well founded. Queen Isabel, when she announced her own marriage, had assured him that she was ready to let Joan go home as soon as he liked to send for her. At the same time she had requested that her own dower-lands, and a sum of three thousand five hundred marks which she alleged had been bequeathed to her by John, should be handed over to Hugh;[656] and it soon became apparent that she and Hugh intended to hold Joan in pledge till this was done. The English Council, however, were equally determined not to give up the Queen’s dowry until that of Joan, and Joan herself, were safely restored. On 20th June letters were written in Henry’s name to the Pope, asking him to bid the bishops of Saintes and Limoges compel Hugh to restore Joan and her dowry and right the wrongs which he had done to Henry in other matters;[657] and also to the cardinals, requesting that they would bring their influence to bear upon the count of La Marche, who, “regardless of his plighted vow, having taken our mother to wife instead of our sister, now refuses to give our sister back to us, wishing by his detention of her to compel us to buy her back.”[658]

The union of La Marche and Angoulême, instead of making for the peace and safety of Aquitaine as Isabel had pretended, was in fact no sooner accomplished than it made matters worse than ever. Hugh openly threatened the towns and barons who opposed him with a renewal of hostilities, and so great was their terror that “all the bishops, very many of the barons, and other good men of the King’s towns of Bordeaux, Niort, La Rochelle, and S. Jean d’Angély went to him in a body at Angoulême, desiring him that before he made war upon them he should approach the King and the Council with reference to the matters in dispute between him and the King.” The joint efforts of the bishops and of the King’s envoys, who seem to have arrived in the midst of the colloquy, wrung from Hugh a promise to stay his hand for a while.[659] But his promises were worthless; and the complaints of the towns continued to pour in upon Henry’s guardians. To the town of Niort Hugh had granted a truce of seven weeks; “but,” wrote the mayor and commune, “as we had no security except his word, we put it to Sir William Maingo the younger whether he would keep us safe, so far as he and his men were concerned, and maintain the truce. He wrote back to us that if we would render to him one hundred marks a year, which King John had promised him, he would keep us in safety; otherwise we must guard ourselves against him and his men; and he has already done us some injury. We likewise sent letters to Sir William Larchevêque, that he might certify us whether he would keep the truce or not. And he wrote back that he would not keep the truce, but would do us all the evil and damage that he could; and he is oppressing us so that we dare not get our harvest in; and he sets traps for us daily, and so do many others”--Hugh’s own men-at-arms among the number.[660] “When the truce was begun between us and the count of La Marche,” they write again, “the count by one of his knights declared us deprived of all rights within his fiefs”; he and his men were guarding all the roads so that neither corn, nor wine, nor wood, nor any necessaries could be got into the city, “and what is your own property he declares to be of his fee.” Again “with tears” they implored Henry to send them such a governor as should extricate them and all Poitou from these perils.[661]

The men of Bordeaux on the other hand were urgent that Hugh should be appeased. “He has promised,” they wrote, “to maintain and defend the towns, from himself and his, and all other living men, faithfully to the utmost of his power, for your benefit and honour. And since his defence and maintenance is, above that of all others, most useful and necessary to your faithful men of Poitou, and molestation from him is equally perilous and injurious to them, we entreat your royal majesty, by every means we can, to take such counsel that a man of such importance, such a useful defender of your land, and so pious and humble a protector of peace and tranquillity, may not through any other’s fault withdraw from your service; for he has promised that so long as he lives he will, unless you give him cause to do otherwise, remain faithfully in your service against all men living. All these things,” they add, “have been communicated to us by the good men of La Rochelle.”[662] But meanwhile the good men of La Rochelle had learned something of the value of Hugh’s fine promises. Threatened by him with “all the harm that he could do” to them, surrounded by enemies who persecuted them for their loyalty, and without any protector save the Bishop of Saintes, they again pleaded--as did also the men of Bordeaux[663]--for the appointment of an efficient seneschal: “Send us quickly a strong man, who will bring back the barons to allegiance, and with their aid rout the enemies and restore the royal authority.”[664] A rumour that the King was about to make the viscount of Thouars seneschal of Poitou struck panic into Niort. “God forbid it! for the viscount is our mortal foe, and in your father’s time, with the counsel of the King of France, he did us all the evil that he could. As you love your land of Poitou, and us, and your own honour, we beseech you on no account to venture on making him seneschal; moreover, make not anyone from these parts seneschal of Poitou. If you do, they will take your land for their own advantage, as much as they can, as some did in your father’s time. And we and the other faithful men shall have to go out of your land, unless you take diligent care and good counsel in this business. May it therefore please your excellency to send some noble, discreet, wise, and powerful man from the parts of England, to be your seneschal--such a man as will know how to deal with your affairs in Poitou, and be able to hold your land.”[665] Another rumour--this time in England--as to the Council’s intentions with respect to the vacant office drew forth a trenchant protest from Earl William of Salisbury. “I am given to understand,” he writes to Pandulf, “that you, together with the King’s Council, proposed to send the count of Aumale into Poitou to keep the land. And as it seems to me that the count is less obedient than he should be to the King’s commands concerning the things which he holds in England, which are small, I doubt he would be less obedient still if he had the seneschalship and government of Poitou which is a great thing. And therefore I give notice to your holiness that you will in no wise commit the custody of that land to him by my counsel or assent.”[666]

Oddly enough, the man finally chosen by Hubert was Philip of Ulecote, who also had given the government some trouble about the restitution of a castle to its rightful owner.[667] When the choice was at last made, in August, some difficulty arose before it could be carried into effect; the sequel suggests that Philip’s state of health may have been the obstacle. “I never felt any confidence,” wrote Pandulf to Hubert on 25th August, “that Philip should go there; though you seemed mighty certain about the matter, rambling over seas and mountains in quest of things that are not to be had.” In a more serious strain he warned the Justiciar that some decision must be made at once. “You must provide for that country, which plainly appears to be perishing through the fault of the King’s Council. The matter has been already shamefully delayed, and I greatly fear lest grave damage should come of it.”[668] In the middle of September Philip of Ulecote was formally appointed seneschal of Poitou,[669] and went across the sea.

Pandulf and Peter des Roches, meanwhile, had enlisted the services of the Dean of Poitiers, who visited England in August, to negotiate with Hugh of La Marche for a truce.[670] A carucage “for our great needs, most urgent debts, and the preservation of our land of Poitou” had been agreed upon in a council at Oxford on 9th August.[671] Negotiations with the communes of La Rochelle and Bordeaux for a loan “for the safe keeping of Poitou and Gascony” were begun in September.[672] These two towns, with Niort and S. Jean d’Angély, had now resolved upon sending representatives to England to lay their complaints before the Council; the Preceptor of the Temple, Gerard Brochard, at their request undertook to accompany these envoys, and begged the Council to give him and them an audience in London in the week after Michaelmas, “to hear the proposals of the count of La Marche, and of others, on all sides.” Gerard, it is clear, was in the confidence of all parties, and he declared positively that if the Council would listen to him, the damsel Joan would be restored to them in honour and freedom; “she would have been delivered to me,” he said, “if I would have stood surety that the King would do to the count what he ought.”[673] Probably Gerard received in London, and thence transmitted to Hugh, a formal assurance that Henry would “do what he ought”--in other words, surrender his mother’s dowry. At the same time the Pope took up the matter; and a letter from him, on 20th September, threatening that if Hugh did not within fifteen days after its receipt deliver Joan, together with the city of Saintes and the Isle of Oléron (which had been pledged to him by John as security for her dowry) to Henry’s appointed representatives, he should be excommunicated and his lands placed under interdict,[674] was followed by Hugh’s submission, so far as the surrender of Joan herself was concerned. In obedience to an order from England issued on 6th October that he should either himself bring Joan to England, or deliver her at La Rochelle to certain persons appointed to receive her there,[675] he set out with the child; but he fell sick at Oléron, where the Dean of Poitiers and the new seneschal of Aquitaine, Philip of Ulecote, had been ordered to meet him. The Dean waited for the seneschal in vain, and at last learned that he was dead.[676] At the beginning of November Hugh, being too ill to proceed, delivered Joan to the commissioners--the Dean and two other envoys--who escorted her to La Rochelle.[677] The term fixed for her marriage was past, but at its expiration, on 13th October, Henry and Alexander had met again at York,[678] and Alexander had evidently consented to wait for her with patience; he waited in fact till the following Midsummer. Her stepfather, when he gave her up to Henry’s commissioners, assured them of his intention to go and perform his homage for La Marche and Angoulême as soon as his health should permit him.[679] Thus for a few months Aquitaine was--comparatively--at peace.

Meanwhile, however, the “concord and tranquillity” in England had not been altogether unbroken. At first glance the Pope’s selection of the spring of 1220 for the re-crowning of the young King appears unaccountable. Since the ceremony had not taken place immediately after the Primate’s return, two years ago, it would have seemed more natural to delay it for seventeen months longer, till the boy should have reached the completion of his fourteenth year, the earliest age which could, on any known principle, be reckoned as that of legal majority. A clue to the purpose for which the matter was hurried on may possibly be found in certain steps which were taken immediately after the coronation. On its morrow (18th May) “the barons who were present swore that they would resign their castles and wardenships at the will of the King, and would render at the Exchequer a faithful account of their ferms; and also that if any rebel should resist the King, and should not make satisfaction within forty days after being excommunicated by the Legate, they would make war upon him at the King’s bidding, that the rebel might be disinherited without the option of a fine.”[680] A week after this, on 26 May, the Pope wrote a letter to Pandulf. He began by expressing his distress at the reports that reached him of his royal ward’s extreme poverty; this, he said, was imputed chiefly to the archbishops, bishops, and other prelates in England, some of whom had usurped the King’s castles, manors, and other domains, and were detaining the same “on the frivolous pretext that they wish to keep them safe till the King should be of age; and so meanwhile the King must be a beggar, while they run riot, against his will, on what belongs to him.” The Pope therefore ordered that they should surrender all such castles and lands to the King, and make restitution of all the proceeds thence derived since the war, and bade Pandulf enforce their compliance with penalties both spiritual and temporal. In a second letter, written two days later, Honorius instructed the Legate not to suffer any man, howsoever faithful or closely attached he might be to the King, to hold in his custody more than two of the King’s castles, on pain of ecclesiastical censure without appeal.[681]

From the days of Henry II, if not from a yet earlier time, the Crown had found it a hard matter to preserve its authority over castles held in private ownership. Such ownership was limited by the King’s right in three ways. The owner was bound to allow his castle to be garrisoned by the King’s own men at the King’s will; to surrender it into the King’s hand if required; and not to make any addition to its fortifications without the King’s licence. Against the enforcement of these royal rights the owners of castles had struggled, with varying success, under Henry II, Richard, and John. The civil war, and the new conditions under which the powers of the Crown had to be exercised during the minority of John’s successor, had intensified their jealousy of all restriction upon their tenure of their fortresses; and a like spirit of independence began to show itself in some of the wardens of the King’s own castles, with regard to the fortresses under their charge. The only important case of this kind, until the latter part of the year 1219, was that of Count William of Aumale. But between August, 1219, and March, 1220, trouble began to threaten in connexion with two royal fortresses of not less consequence than Sauvey and Rockingham, and from two men of far greater political and personal weight than William de Fors.

The combined offices of sheriff of Lincolnshire and warden of Lincoln castle were hereditary in the family of Haye, represented at this time by the old Dame Nicolaa, whose capability, courage, and loyalty had never failed in the service of John and his heir throughout the last twenty years. Three days after the battle of Lincoln {24 May 1217} the city and county had been committed to the boy-King’s uncle, William Longsword Earl of Salisbury, to hold during the King’s pleasure.[682] This grant was probably made with the double purpose of rewarding Longsword for his share in the victory, and relieving Nicolaa of a burden which she had, nearly two years before, declared to be too great for her.[683] Five months later, however, when peace was made, the old lady asked to be reinstated in her hereditary functions. Her request was granted, and on 31st October the Earl was bidden to deliver the castle to her and give her seisin of the sheriffdom without delay; but the latter half of this order seems not to have been enforced;[684] and at the beginning of December the county “with all its appurtenances” was again committed to William to hold during the King’s pleasure.[685] This time, however, the castle did not go with the shrievalty; for from March, 1218, onwards we find the former once more, with the full sanction of the Crown, under the charge of its veteran castellan, Nicolaa.[686] No one seems to have ventured on molesting her till three months after the death of the old Earl Marshal. Then, on 23rd August, 1219, “the sheriff of Lincoln”--no doubt the Earl of Salisbury’s deputy--had to be sharply told that he was to “maintain, protect, and defend the lands, goods, and men of our trusty and well-beloved Nicolaa de Haye within his bailiwick, to cause her no molestation, injury or damage, nor to meddle in any way with her debts to the Crown, or in any matters concerning her, till he received orders to do so”; and next day “all the knights and good men” of the shire were informed that the King had assigned Falkes de Bréauté (who was sheriff of two shires contiguous to Lincolnshire, those of Northampton and Rutland) to Dame Nicolaa as her assistant in the defence of Lincoln castle, “and that they should all efficaciously counsel and assist Falkes in the King’s business which Falkes would explain to them, for the preservation of the peace of the realm.”[687] It seems that Falkes, with three of his knights (and no doubt some attendant men-at-arms), at once took up his abode in the castle and made it his headquarters for the next nine months.[688] From a temporary absence in January, 1220, when he went to meet the King at Northampton, he was recalled by an urgent message from Nicolaa; and a letter from Falkes himself to Hubert de Burgh makes it perfectly clear that the danger against which he was required to protect her was a persistent endeavour of the Earl of Salisbury, as sheriff of the county, to enter the castle. “But,” wrote Falkes, “God helping me, with the force at the Dame’s command I will take good care that he shall not get in.”[689]

William Longsword was a son of Henry II; illegitimate, but always acknowledged and treated as “the King’s brother” by both Richard and John, and by Henry as “our beloved uncle.” Richard had given him the earldom from which he took his title, together with the hand and the great possessions of Ela, heiress of an earlier line of Earls of Salisbury. He had done good service to John until the middle of 1216; then he had joined Louis, but early in 1217 he had returned to the side of little Henry, and had received back all his forfeited estates, to which in August of the same year were added the counties of Somerset and Devon.[690] His attempt to interfere with the rights of a castellan appointed by the King to the command of a royal castle certainly failed, and was probably abandoned without any open strife, for there is no sign of any breach in the friendly relations between the King and his “beloved Uncle William,” to whom the boy seems to have been really attached. But the mere making of such an attempt, by a man of such high rank and so closely connected with the King, was not without grave significance; and it coincided ominously with another incident of graver significance still.

[Sidenote: 1220]

The castle of Marlborough, like that of Lincoln, belonged to the Crown. When it fell into the hands of Louis in 1216 the younger William Marshal, then in arms on Louis’s side, claimed it as his by right. The chronicler who records this claim mentions also a claim put forth by William to act as Marshal for Louis in England;[691] possibly he may have claimed the wardenship of Marlborough castle as appertaining to the Marshalcy. The two offices may have been granted together to his grandfather John FitzGilbert, who was certainly Marshal under Henry I, and commandant at Marlborough after that King’s death. In 1175–1176 a part of the fine due to the Crown from the heirs of John FitzGilbert for entering upon their patrimony was remitted in reimbursement for repairs done to Marlborough castle.[692] At the coronation of Richard John FitzGilbert’s two elder surviving sons, John and William, shared between them the functions of Marshal, but the hereditary character of that office was not explicitly determined till ten years later. During the greater part of those ten years Marlborough was not a royal fortress; Richard had given it to his own brother John. John’s accession as King restored it to its old status; but no reference to its wardenship occurs in the charter whereby John granted the Marshalcy to William and his heirs for ever; and the great Earl never was, nor, so far as we can see, claimed to be custodian of Marlborough castle during John’s lifetime.[693] He certainly was so, however, from November, 1217, until his death, and his eldest son succeeded him in this wardenship.[694] In March, 1220, Hubert de Burgh informed Pandulf that Marlborough castle was being fortified--evidently without instructions from the Crown. Pandulf bade him despatch without delay “the most stringent letters from the King that could be drawn up,” ordering the Marshal to stop the work at once, and strictly forbidding all persons engaged in it, on pain of their bodies, goods, “and even their inheritance,” to do anything towards fortifying the castle without a special licence and order from the King.[695] No further letters on the subject appear to be extant; the information which Hubert had forwarded to Pandulf may have proved to be incorrect, or the Marshal may have given some satisfactory explanation. There is, however, an indication elsewhere that he took upon himself to exercise over the tenants of the castle of Marlborough more arbitrary authority than he was entitled to assume as custodian of that fortress for the King.[696] Moreover, there was another matter about which trouble with him must have been felt to be impending.

[Sidenote: 1217]

Immediately after the younger Marshal’s return to allegiance, in March, 1217, there had been granted to him, to hold during the King’s pleasure, the English lands of Earl David of Huntingdon.[697] The most important part of these lands was the honour of Huntingdon, which the Scot Kings had inherited from the English wife of King David of Scotland, which William the Lion had subenfeoffed to his brother David, and which, with the estates held by David direct of the English Crown, had now become forfeit to its English overlord because David and the reigning King of Scots--his nephew Alexander--had espoused the cause of Louis. A few months later they both submitted to Henry; Alexander, having performed his homage in December, was granted seisin of “the lands held of him in England by Earl David”;[698] and in the following March orders were issued for complete restitution to David himself of all his English possessions.[699] He seems to have regained them all except one castle: Fotheringay. In June, 1219, he died, leaving an heir under age. His fief being an English one, the right to its custody fell not to its immediate overlord the King of Scots, but to its lord paramount the King of England; in Henry’s name it was committed, during his pleasure, to the charge of three knights, and an order was issued that they should receive full seisin of “the manor of Fotheringay” from the constable of the castle[700]--that is, the younger Marshal (now Earl William the second of Pembroke and Striguil), or his lieutenant there. In October the custody of the honour was transferred to the King of Scots.[701] But twelve months later {1220} Fotheringay castle was still in the hands of the Earl Marshal; not because either Henry or Alexander had authorized him to retain it, but because he was, for some reason or other, unwilling to give it up, and to make him do so against his will was, as things then stood, practically impossible. He was the eldest son of the late regent. He was the most intimate friend of the Earl of Salisbury. On him, as Earl of Striguil, the security of the Welsh March chiefly depended; as heir of his mother, Isabel of Leinster, he was the mightiest baron of the English March in Ireland; and as heir to the lands which had belonged to his parents in Normandy, he could at any moment put himself in touch with Philip of France. In private life he seems to have been a man of high character; and since his return to allegiance, with his friend Salisbury, in 1217, he had, like Salisbury, acted as a valiant, useful, and faithful adherent of the King. If the Council had shrunk from taking extreme measures against Aumale, much less could they proceed to extremities with Salisbury and the Marshal. Yet the example set by these two men was certain to lead to further mischief unless some steps were taken to prevent it.

[Sidenote: 1220]

The Earl Marshal was certainly, the Earl of Salisbury and the count of Aumale were almost certainly, included among the nobles who were present at the coronation and who next day took the oath which has been mentioned already.[702] The coronation, the oath, the Pope’s letters, taken all together, suggest that in the spring of 1220 the Council had invoked the Pope’s assistance to enhance the authority of the Crown for the special purpose of strengthening the hands of its guardians in an effort to deal with the whole question of the English castles. It is, however, very difficult to guess what, or who, can have prompted the instructions issued to the Legate by the Pope on 26th and 28th May. The information on which the letter of 26th May purports to be written is shown by the records to be erroneous. No castle belonging to the King was in the custody of either of the archbishops; only three were in the custody of any other prelate. Those three were Porchester, Winchester, and Southampton, held by Peter des Roches together with the sheriffdom of the county in which they stood. There is also no indication that either Peter or any other prelate had ever attempted, or even been (in England) accused or suspected of attempting, to usurp castles or lands belonging to the Crown, or made difficulties about restoring any such lands which may have been temporarily entrusted to him for safe keeping during the war. The second letter is equally unaccountable; for while the enforcement of the order that no man should hold more than two royal castles at once would have deprived Peter of one such wardenship, it would have deprived Hubert de Burgh of four;[703] and it would have further involved a wholesale rearrangement not only of the wardenships, but also of the sheriffdoms, throughout south-eastern England and also in the Midlands, where a still greater number of royal castles were in the hands of Falkes de Bréauté as sheriff of seven shires. It is therefore not surprising that no use was made of these two papal mandates. As no mention of them occurs in the chronicles of the time, it is most probable that they were never published; Honorius may have sent with them private instructions authorizing Pandulf to publish or suppress them at his own discretion. By the time they reached England the King’s guardians were feeling their way in more wary fashion towards the end which they had in view.

The King’s journey to meet Alexander of Scotland furnished an opportunity for a royal progress through some of the castles which lay between London and York. “The King with his tutors,” says the Barnwell annalist, “perambulated his realm, to know whether those whom his father had made custodians of fortresses in England were minded to give up those fortresses quietly to himself as their lord.”[704] From York he went by way of Pontefract to Nottingham, thence to Leicester, and thence to Northampton. When he reached Rockingham, however, on 25th or 26th June,[705] the castle gates were shut against him.[706] William of Aumale had only ten days before been chosen as one of the King’s sureties for the treaty with Scotland.[707] He had clearly left the court since then; but he was not in Rockingham castle, though he was evidently known to be not far away, for two messengers who were immediately despatched to him with another royal command for the surrender of Rockingham and Sauvey were ordered to be back at the hour of prime next morning.[708] They seem to have returned with a request from Aumale for a safe-conduct to the court. Meanwhile a military force under Falkes, which had accompanied or followed the King from Northampton to Rockingham, invested the castle,[709] with the ready assistance of the people of the shire, who seem to have found Aumale a very overbearing and troublesome neighbour. On Sunday, 28th, the garrison “seeing that they were in a strait and had not power to resist, ignominiously went out and left free entrance to the King.”[710] A safe-conduct until prime on that Sunday morning had been issued to Aumale the day before;[711] he had used it, and had made formal surrender of both Rockingham and Sauvey into the King’s hand.[712] Next day a notice was issued in the King’s name, stating that Count William had resigned the custody of these two castles “of his own free will.” The King, on his side, quit-claimed to the count the ferm received by him from the manors and other royal demesnes, and the issues of the Forests, attached to the castles, from the time when the castles were given him in custody to the day on which he resigned them, and also undertook to obtain from the Legate permission for the count to postpone the fulfilment of “his vow.”[713]

The letters patent setting forth this agreement were issued on the joint motion of the Justiciar and the Bishop of Winchester; Pandulf was evidently absent from the court. There can be no doubt that Aumale’s vow here referred to was a vow of Crusade, enjoined by Pandulf as the condition of the count’s release from excommunication at the close of the preceding year; and we may see in it a reason for the extreme generosity with which the count was treated. A government whose head was a papal Legate might make a military demonstration, but could hardly use real force against a man who wore the Cross. There is, moreover, some probability that the Council, or some member of it, may have entertained a project of letting Count William commute his vow for an undertaking which might well be deemed a penance quite as severe as a crusade--the seneschalship of Poitou and Gascony. A report to that effect certainly reached the Earl of Salisbury at some date between December, 1219, and the end of June, 1220.[714] The report may have been false; but it is quite possible that the project may have really existed, and by no means clear that it deserved the scorn heaped upon it by the King’s uncle. The appointment of William de Fors as governor of Aquitaine would be an excellent expedient for getting him peaceably out of England; and though troublesome there, he was not without qualifications for the vacant post over sea. As the son of a Poitevin father he would be quicker to understand the character of the people, and perhaps more acceptable to some of them, than a man of pure English blood; at the same time, his stake in the country was too small[715] to involve him in personal rivalry with the Aquitanian barons; while as a great English noble he would be readily welcomed by the towns. In the weeks between the coronation and the treaty with Scotland the thoughts of Hubert de Burgh, “roaming over seas and mountains” in search of a governor for Aquitaine and at the same time haunted by the problem of the English castles, may well have turned--or may have been turned by Pandulf or Peter--to a possibility of ending the weary search and winning the resignation of Aumale’s English wardenships at one stroke; and the agreement with Aumale on S. Peter’s day may have been made on the basis of some previous negotiations whose completion the march on Rockingham was intended merely to precipitate. In the face of Longsword’s protest, however, the project of sending Aumale to Poitou, if ever seriously entertained, must have been abandoned; and we may see in its abandonment the reason why Aumale did not receive the licence which he desired for a further postponement of his crusade. Pandulf seems to have offered him instead the option of redeeming his vow altogether, doubtless in the usual way, by a payment of money; but Aumale neither paid nor went.[716]

The 29th of the ensuing December would be the fiftieth anniversary of the martyrdom of S. Thomas of Canterbury. For nearly two years Archbishop Stephen had been preparing to celebrate this jubilee by a translation of the martyr’s relics from their lowly resting-place in the crypt of his cathedral church to a chapel behind the high altar, where a magnificent shrine had been made ready to contain them. The actual anniversary was anticipated by nearly six months, and the translation took place on 7th July, amid an immense concourse of clergy and laity not only from all parts of England, but from lands beyond the sea. A temporary guest-house, on such a scale that an annalist of the time calls it a “palace” and declares that he does “not believe its like had been seen since the days of Solomon,” was erected by the Archbishop for his guests, and therein rich and poor, home-born and strangers, were entertained with a sumptuous hospitality which the same writer likens to the banquets of Ahasuerus.[717] “The barons of England,” also, “did an act of great courtesy; for they caused proclamation to be made, a great while before the holy body was to be removed, that no Englishman should lodge in the town, because they wished that those who came from other countries should find lodging there”; they themselves took up their quarters--camping out in the fields, it seems--outside the walls, all except the Earl Marshal, who lodged in the city that he might take care of the strangers and see that they came to no harm.[718] Over twenty prelates attended, including, besides the Legate, an Archbishop from Hungary, and the Archbishop of Reims with three of his suffragans.[719] With graceful tact Pandulf and Stephen concurred in giving to the French Primate the foremost place in the religious services of the occasion; it was he who, at their joint request, on the eve of the translation dedicated the altar before the shrine and sang the first vespers of the festival, and who also sang the high Mass on the great day itself.[720] Among the lay visitors from over sea were the widow of Cœur-de-Lion, the Count of Dreux, and many French nobles.[721] King Henry was of course present;[722] and all England shared in the glory of the most famous of English saints.

Early in August a great council was held at Oxford, mainly, it seems, for purposes of finance. A carucage of two shillings for every plough “as it was yoked on the morrow of S. John the Baptist last year, the fourth of our reign,” was granted to the King by the lay magnates “for his great needs, and for the preservation of his land of Poitou.” The collection of this impost was entrusted in every shire to the sheriff and two lawful men who were to be chosen “by the will and counsel of the whole shire, in full shire-court”; and it was to be paid into the Temple in London by 30th September.[723] The prelates made a similar grant on behalf of themselves and all the clergy, secular and regular, and their tenants; these contributions were to be paid direct to the Crown without the intervention of the sheriffs or other lay agents. On this point some confusion arose, and amended instructions were sent to the sheriffs on 7th September.[724] Another difficulty thwarted the endeavours of the sheriff of Yorkshire--Geoffrey de Neville--to collect the “gift” in his shire; at the shire-court held for that purpose on 14th September none of the magnates appeared, and their bailiffs all alike declared that “their lords knew nothing about the matter, the magnates of those parts having never been asked for it by the King either by word of mouth or by his letters.” Some of them suggested that if the King himself spoke to the magnates when he came to York (to meet the King of Scots on 13th October), the payments would probably be made without further trouble. Geoffrey reported the matter to the King’s Council, and asked whether he should take forcible measures to compel payment.[725] There is some reason to think that he did so, or tried to do so, and that some of the Yorkshire barons retaliated at the beginning of the next year by capturing him and keeping him prisoner for a time.[726] Unluckily we have no record showing how the dispute was settled; but it is clear that from Yorkshire, at least, the carucage cannot have been paid in by the morrow of Michaelmas. The same day was fixed for the returns of an inquest which the sheriffs were, at the time when the first letters about the carucage were issued (9th August), ordered to make into the extent and value of the royal demesnes and escheats in the several shires.[727] No doubt these returns were required for fiscal purposes. The agreement between the King and Geoffrey de Marsh, made in the same council at Oxford,[728] was followed on 18th September by a demand for an aid from Ireland.[729] With all this the Crown was still deep in debt, to the Pope, to Louis, to Queen Berengaria, to the Legate;[730] it was in fact only by means of frequent loans from Pandulf that its current expenses could be met at all.[731]

Two other matters came up for settlement at the Michaelmas session of the barons of the Exchequer and the justices at Westminster. One of these was a complaint of the Earl Marshal against the Prince of Wales. Llywelyn’s promise, or alleged promise, that the wrongs done by him to the Earl and the other Marcher-lords should be righted by Lammas Day[732] was not fulfilled; indeed, the truce made in May on the strength of that promise seems to have been broken as soon as Llywelyn returned from Shrewsbury to his own country. He asserted that the men of Pembroke refused to confirm the truce, called in help from Ireland against him, and harassed the Welsh to such a degree that at last he was obliged to bid his nephews and his other followers withdraw from the borders of Pembrokeshire to a safer place.[733] The Marshal, on the other hand, declared that the Welsh Prince “in no wise kept the terms of the peace, but brought the King’s dignity into contempt, spurning his own promises and acting quite contrary to them.” The Marshal complained to the King at Oxford, and was promised satisfaction--so far as the King could give it--in London on the morrow of S. Michael.[734] On 21st August the sheriffs of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcestershire were ordered to be in readiness to help, with all the forces of those three shires, whichever of the King’s liegemen they should find to be the object of an attack for which Llywelyn was reported to be collecting his forces.[735] It was, however, not against any place on the border, but against “the Flemings of Rhos and Pembroke” that Llywelyn, with “most of the princes of Wales” and “a vast army,” marched on 29th August. He took by assault and burned the castles of Arberth and Gwys, burned the town of Haverford “to the castle-gate”; “and thus he went round Rhos and Deugleddyv in five days, making vast slaughter of the people of the country. And after making a truce with the Flemings until the kalends of May, he returned back happy and joyful.”[736] The terms of this truce were humiliating in the extreme; the men of Pembroke promised that they would give Llywelyn a hundred pounds, that they would not restore the castles which he had destroyed, and that they would give him a portion of the Earl’s land “to keep as on behalf of the King.” All these conditions, however, were to be subject to confirmation by the King. They seem to have been in fact extorted by means of a false representation on Llywelyn’s part that his invasion of the Earl’s lands was sanctioned and supported by the authority of the English Crown.[737] For the honour of that authority itself, no less than for his own sake, the Marshal besought the King and his Council to quash the truce, disavow all complicity in Llywelyn’s raid, and give judgement in favour of himself, at the time previously appointed, on his former complaint against the Welsh prince.[738] The judgement was probably given accordingly; on 5th October the Welsh invasion of Pembroke was disavowed by the King, the truce quashed,[739] compensation claimed from Llywelyn for the Marshal and the other Marcher-barons whom he had injured,[740] and two commissioners despatched to receive from him a surrender of all lands occupied by the Welsh in England and the Marches.[741]