BOOK II
RICHARD’S CRUSADE
1189-1192
Ma fu di pensier nostri ultimo segno
Espugnar de Sion le nobil mura.
CHAPTER I
THE YEAR OF PREPARATION
1189-1190
Surgite, et ascendamus in Sion.
1189
The headquarters of Philip and Richard had been at Tours since their capture of that city on July 3;[353] it was probably there that Richard received, from a messenger despatched by William the Marshal,[354] the tidings of his father’s death at Chinon on the 6th and the intended burial at Fontevraud. The night-watch round the open coffin was beginning in the great abbey church when he reached it next evening.[355] All endeavours to guess at his feelings were baffled by the rigid stillness of his aspect and demeanour,[356] broken only by a momentary shudder when he saw the uncovered face.[357] For a long while he stood gazing 1189 at it in silence;[358] for a briefer space he knelt in silent prayer.[359] When at last he spoke, it was to call for two of his father’s most loyal adherents, William the Marshal and Maurice of 1189
July 7 Craon. They came forward, and at his command, followed him, with some others, out of the church. “So, fair Sir Marshal,” he began, “you were minded to slay me the other day! and slain I should have been of a surety had I not turned your lance aside by the strength of my arm. That would have been a bad day’s work!” The Marshal answered that his own strength of arm was great enough to drive a lance-thrust home to its aim in spite of interference, and the issue of the encounter was sufficient proof that he had sought only the life of the horse, not the rider. “Marshal, I will bear you no malice; you are forgiven,” was Richard’s reply.[360] The burial took place next morning. July 8 As soon as it was over Richard despatched the Marshal and another envoy[361] to England with orders for the release of his mother, and with a commission to her authorizing her to act as his representative until he could himself go over sea.[362] His choice of the Marshal for this errand was an indication of the spirit in which he took up the rights and duties of his new position. He showed himself gracious to all persons who had been faithful to Henry, and expressed his intention of confirming them in their several offices and rewarding their fidelity to the late king. He was asked to ratify a number of grants which Geoffrey the chancellor assured him Henry had recently made or promised to make, and he consented in every case save one, a grant of Châteauroux 1189 and its heiress to Baldwin of Béthune, which he said must be cancelled because he had himself, as duke of Aquitaine, granted the damsel and her fief to Andrew of Chauvigny; but he promised to compensate Baldwin.[363] One man only who had held high office under Henry fell under Richard’s displeasure: Stephen the seneschal of Anjou, who was not only deprived of the castles and the royal treasury which he had in custody for the late king, but was also chained hand and foot and put in prison. The cause of Stephen’s disgrace is unknown; his previous history is obscure;[364] but the disgrace was only temporary; within a few months he was once more free, and reinstated in the king’s confidence and favour. On the other hand, when three of the men who had deserted Henry and transferred their allegiance to Richard asked for restitution of their lands of which Henry had disseised them, Richard gave it, but disseised them again immediately, “saying that such was the due reward of traitors who in time of need forsake their lords and help others against them”; and he treated with coldness and aversion all, save one, who had thus acted. The exception was John, who when he presented 1189 himself before his brother was “received with honour”[365] and “kindly comforted.”[366]
July 8-20
Richard next proceeded into Normandy. At Séez the archbishops of Rouen and Canterbury met him, and (acting doubtless under a commission from the legate) absolved him from excommunication.[367] On July 20 he received the ducal sword and banner of Normandy at the high altar of Rouen cathedral, and immediately afterwards the fealty of the Norman clergy and people.[368] He then went to Gisors for a conference with the king of France. The French historiographer-royal notes that as “the count of Poitou” set foot in the great border-fortress about which he and his father had wrangled so long with Philip, fire broke out within it, and that next day as he rode forth the wooden bridge broke down under him and he and his horse fell into July 22 the ditch.[369] The conference took place on the 22nd, between Chaumont and Trie.[370] Philip began by renewing his original claim to Gisors, but waived it on receiving an intimation that Richard still purposed to marry Aloysia.[371] The French king seems to have further claimed a large share of the castles and towns which he had taken from Henry, including Châteauroux, Le Mans, and Tours. Submission to such a demand would unquestionably have brought upon Richard, as an English chronicler says, “shame and everlasting contempt”; indeed, he would have been within his feudal right in refusing it entirely, on the ground that no forfeiture on his father’s part could invalidate the grant of all these fiefs which had been made to himself by Philip in November 1188. He consented, however, to resign once for all his rights in Auvergne, and two little fiefs in Aquitanian Berry that lay close to the French Royal Domain—Graçay and Issoudun; and he bought off Philip’s other demands by a promise of four thousand marks in addition to the twenty thousand due from Henry under the convention of Colombières.[372] These terms Philip accepted. Richard renewed 1189 his homage to his overlord, and they agreed to set out on the Crusade together in Lent of the next year.[373]