Blood Cries Afar (25 page)

John had earned for himself the label of a loser; ‘Softsword’ had rarely seemed so appropriate as a sobriquet. The successes that John had achieved in the military sphere, and which some historians view favourably for his record, were all temporary and could never balance out the disasters of 1204 and 1214. David Carpenter has succinctly summarised the impact of the latter, following the massive defeat at Bouvines: ‘In Germany it undermined Otto and set up Frederick II. In Normandy it ended the chance of an Angevin recovery. In Europe it made King Philip supreme. In England it shattered John’s authority and paved the way for Magna Carta.’
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The contrast with the enhancement of Philip Augustus’s reputation could not have been clearer. Philip’s panegyrist, William the Breton, pretty much concludes both his books on the King with the Bouvines climax, even though Philip was to reign for another decade. This purposeful neglect can be explained largely by how unexciting the rest of the reign was in comparison prior to Bouvines: overwhelming military success had brought France relative peace and security, as the theatre of war moved to England itself. Richard I’s policy of fighting his wars abroad was, as suggested in the first chapter, a highly effective and successful one; criticising him for his military absence is a misunderstanding of fundamental defensive strategy. Now Philip benefited from the same luxury: he had all but finished the war on his home territory, and he could now take it to England.

John’s inability to show anything concrete for his vast outlay of national treasure inevitably led to the sensible conclusion that his squeezing the country for money to fight more wars was tantamount to throwing good money after bad. Finances lay at the root of John’s problems, just at it lay at the heart of politics; above all, money was needed for war. Baronial reluctance to fund John’s overseas campaigns arose from resentment at expectations of scutage and military service, which itself was of course extremely costly, as John was told in no uncertain terms in 1212 and especially 1213. The refusal of the northern barons to heed the summons in 1213 resulted in John attempting a military display of power in the north before Archbishop Langton stopped him. This resentment went back to the 1205 scutage: Robert Fitzwalter and Roger Bigod were resolutely against the King from this point. John’s habit of imposing a scutage and then abandoning the expedition funded by it did nothing to foster mutual trust. 1214 saw the scutage rate hit a record high; Peter des Roches failed miserably to reach his tax targets since May and on his return in October John demanded three marks per fee from those who had not, in his mind, fulfilled their obligations to him in Poitou. This increased anger especially in East Anglia and the north. Henry II had levied eight scutages in 34 years; John levied eleven in just sixteen. The tactless, indeed, aggressive manner of John’s financial exactions antagonised his subjects further. The sale, exploitation and manipulation of justice but failing to deliver it fairly in the courts; pressurising the Jews who in turn pressurised their baronial debtors; the instatement of over-eager royal officials seeking income for the crown such as the ruthless Brian de Lisle in the north and the promotion of insensitive foreigners such as Engelard de Cigogné as sheriffs; the use of hostages as coercion; the seizure of land by will; and always tax, tax, tax, like the onerous aid of 1207: the pressure on the barons was severe and unrelenting.
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And John never had anything to show for it.

It was the increasingly arbitrary nature of exactions and rule that caused the most unsettlement. A particularly personal and unpleasant tactic of John was the use of amercements. These were ostensibly a system of penalties for those convicted for offences against the King’s peace; in reality they were a means by which barons bought the King’s goodwill. Robert de Ros, Sheriff of Cumberland, failed to keep some prisoners in custody and was fined 300 marks. Thomas de St Valéry sought the King’s goodwill in 1209 probably for no other reason than he was the brother-in-law to William de Braose who had fallen from favour with John. In 1210, Robert de Vaux, another northerner, offered John 750 marks and five top quality horses so that, according to the official pipe roll, the King ‘would keep quiet about the wife of Henry Pinel’.
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Amercements could be extortionate: William of Cornborough died in gaol because he was unable to pay his. As Ralph Turner says of John, he ‘became master at enmeshing those who had lost their favour in administrative difficulties that could result in financial ruin. John made the most of his ability to entangle his subjects in debt.’
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A substantial element of John’s financial policy might therefore be described as part extortion and part blackmail for political ends. He might have found sympathy and help a better way to ensure loyalty; no wonder men such as Robert de Ros joined with the rebels in 1215. Debtors like Gilbert de Gant and Henry d’Oilly were also well represented among the rebel ranks; James Holt has identified the upheaval of 1215 as, in part, ‘a rebellion of the King’s debtors’.
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We can perceive in all this the distinctly unpleasant nature of John’s vindictive character. This is best exemplified by his notorious treatment of Willaim de Braose and his family, ‘one of the defining events of the reign’.
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John’s actions were part of his suspicion of powerful nobles and his desire to cut them down to size; Ranulf of Chester was on the receiving end of this trait in 1203–4, as were William Marshal and de Braose in 1205–7. It was the latter who suffered the full brunt of John’s animosity. De Braose, a close advisor of the king’s, had done well out of John; many barons had benefited from the king’s patronage and largesse, thus delaying a united front against him for far longer than might otherwise have been expected. De Braose was Lord of Bamber and Barnstaple and a Marcher Lord in South Wales with land around the Gower. In 1201 he had been offered the honour of Limerick in Ireland by John, for which the baron promised to pay £666 annually for five years. Six years later he had managed only £468. This lack of payment, coupled with de Braose’s affiliation with William Marshal and, more seriously, possible involvement with the Welsh, served to heighten John’s anger and mistrust. He ordered his justiciar in Ireland to raid the baron’s land and seized his lands in Wales. De Braose attempted military action to regain three of his castles in Wales but failed; he burned some of Leominster and killed some of John’s crossbowmen and sergeants before taking refuge in Ireland. As seen above, John even marched to Scotland in 1209 to ensure no help was received in Ireland from that quarter before making for Ireland in 1210. De Braose attempted to make his peace with the King, but John seemed hell-bent on destroying him, proclaiming him a traitor, and demanded an impossible 40,000 marks payment from him. De Braose’s wife, Matilda, and son were taken hostage and imprisoned in Windsor Castle. The baron could not find the money for their release and, ignobly or pragmatically, fled to France. In 1210, John had Matilda and her son starved to death in a dungeon. This shocking news spread like wildfire across the country, made all the more horrible by lurid details of the position in which their bodies were supposedly found: she slumped between her son’s legs with her head lying on his chest, having gnawed at his cheeks for food.

John sent out a carefully detailed public letter explaining the financial and political reasons for his actions, revealing an awareness that his actions were causing grave disquiet. It has been reasonably argued that John had to pursue his course ruthlessly: once one baron was indulged with non-payment of debt, all would try for the same treatment. But another convincing argument could be made that in fact William was not his target after all – Matilda was. Perhaps money was only the excuse John put forward for such extreme action and another reason is needed to explain why John was so implacable and vicious. This other reason may be the de Braoses’ knowledge of John’s involvement in the death of Count Arthur of Brittany. De Braose had in fact captured Arthur at Mirebeau and was around John at the suspected time of Arthur’s death. Interestingly, de Braose was the patron of Margam Abbey the annals of which offer a unique insight into the young Count’s murder, laying the blame squarely on John during a drunken rage.
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It is worth asking whether de Braose felt that his position of influence combined with his knowledge of John’s dark secret led him to believe that he could be relaxed about the payment of his debt to the King. If so, he was playing a dangerous game that backfired tragically. A key moment in the affair came when, as was John’s custom, he demanded the de Braoses’ sons as hostages. Wendover has Matilda paling at the prospect, explosively declaring in front of John’s officers: ‘I will not hand over my boys to your master King John, who wickedly murdered his nephew Arthur, whose custody had been honourably granted.’ Just as revealing is William’s measured response; upbraiding his wife for her foolish (that is, dangerous) words, he said: ‘If I have offended him [John] in anyway, I am and shall be ready to give my lord satisfaction, without hostages, according to the decision of his court and of my fellow barons.’
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The ‘without hostages’ provision might easily be taken as damning, for hostages were habitually surrendered to John by barons, even by those deeply antagonistic towards him. John was ‘enraged’ and from this point on did not relent until Matilda’s death.

It may be wrong to look at this whole, terrible affair from just one angle, either financial or personal; both would have been important and both had serious political implications. Why this case is so significant, and why it has been afforded so much space here, is because it shows the alienating combination of John’s greed, inept management of people and his arbitrary viciousness that did so much damage to him. All of England quickly came to know about these events; the barons now felt more vulnerable and edgy than ever: if John could treat one of his leading nobles in this capricious and disgraceful way, who among them could be sure of their own safety and that of their families? Historians have rightly and consistently made much of the consequences of John’s fatally flawed and paranoid character. In 1961 Warren wrote that ‘the king’s ability to cripple his vassals was all the more disturbing in John because he was capable of using it for no very good reason – a caprice of his twisted suspicions, his dislike of men simply because they were great and powerful’. He adds, ‘Even if the barons accepted John’s explanation, they could only have been more alarmed, and felt more dreadfully insecure, at this terrible illustration of the king’s interpretations of his rights. Even the mightiest among them could be crumpled if they lost the king’s “goodwill”, and the goodwill of a king, moreover, who was so suspicious and mistrustful.’
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In 2010, David Crouch, in the most recent assessment of the Braose case, says that it reveals the king’s ‘irrational capacity for abrupt, extravagant, and uncontrolled resentment that put John outside the courtly world. He was unpredictable and unreliable.’ Sidney Painter has called the Braose affair ‘the greatest mistake John made during his reign’.
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John delighted in adding insult to injury, and rumours abounded of his licentious behaviour at court. Such stories may have been added after rebellion had broken out as a form of justification for taking action against the monarch. Certainly, William the Breton did not hesitate to lay into the Angevin enemy by claiming that John took advantage of his half brother Earl William of Salisbury’s captivity in France after Bouvines to seduce his wife. Two of the rebel leaders both accused John of adultery, not with commoners and servants, but with women in their families: Eustace de Vescy claimed John attempted sex with his wife, while Robert Fitzwalter accused John of having forced himself upon his daughter. Clearly there was great rallying, anti-John propaganda to be made here, and again the effective warning was sent out that if the wives and daughters of great nobles were vulnerable to John’s advances, then no one’s family was safe, no matter how elevated they were. These stories are likely to have been more than merely malicious gossip. It could not have been easy for such proud nobles as Fitzwalter and Vescy to admit to such stories. The Anonymous of Béthune – not a monastic chronicler, remember – condemns John because ‘he lusted after beautiful women and because of this he shamed the high men of the land, for which reason he was greatly hated.’
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Even government records make a knowing nod towards this, probably with dark humour: the chancery rolls record that ‘the wife of Hugh de Neville gives the lord King 200 chickens that she might lie one night with her lord, Hugh de Neville.’
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Other kings had been serial adulterers, not least John’s father, Henry II, whose ‘adultery was conducted on a truly regal scale’; he was able ‘to make free with the women even of his greater barons’. That John’s ‘crimes against women’ were not tolerated in the same way says something not only about their nature, but also about his personal stature, authority and the character of his misrule.
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So there were plenty of reasons to take up arms against the King: political, patronage, personal (often deeply personal) and financial. John was overwhelmingly responsible for this state of affairs: his crass incompetence in dealing with his magnates, his erratic behaviour and his spiteful, almost sadistic violence, this displayed in destabilising, arbitrary and unchivalrous kingship marred by persistent military failure, all fused into a programme of opposition to John and a
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in the autumn of 1214. This amalgamation of grievances did not help in settling upon a single, rallying cry of rebellion. This makes it harder to identify the rebels as a homogenous group, a task made all the harder, as we have seen in France, by the fluctuating allegiances of knights and barons. Individual bones of contention might more easily be settled by mutual self-interest than a raft of demands; some would show allegiance to the side that most threatened their own land. With the crisis of 1212, John had shown that he could be flexible and pragmatic when the occasion – and pressure – warranted, the Barnwell chronicler noting that suddenly the King ‘began to conduct himself more civilly to his people and the country subsided’.
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It was then that, crucially, John healed his differences with William Marshal to get him back on side. However, John seemed inherently incapable of sustaining such judicious and measured behaviour for any length of time and the baronial party formed into a recognisable movement.