Blood Cries Afar (33 page)

Only the case of forfeiture based on baronial discontent following John’s breaking of promises carried any real weight. Guala, as the Papacy’s diplomat, understandably would hear none of this. He held to the position of John being a vassal of Rome and furthermore, having taken the vow of a crusader, John was protected from action against him for four years. Louis’s man countered this last point by saying that the fact John had continued to wage war himself exempted him from this protection. Guala then played his strongest hand and threatened all those taking part in any expedition with excommunication. This had little effect on Louis, who professed to this father that he would rather undergo this from a misguided pontiff than break his word to the barons in England. The Prince reassured his vassals that he would protect them from any material damage caused by excommunication. He also reminded his father that Philip actually had no authority over him outside his French fiefs. It is unlikely that Philip needed any persuasion.

For his part the French King, anxious to avoid the same spiritual opprobrium that awaited his son, made a strong pretence of not condoning the planned invasion, and of wishing to maintain his truce with John. With cynical hypocrisy, he distanced himself from Louis and, according to William the Breton, even imposed sanctions upon him by confiscating some of his lands and those of his followers.
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Such actions fit in with Philip’s polished Machiavellianism (in both its more accurate and its more pejorative meanings). Innocent III was dubious about Philip’s role, but he was dying and little came of it. Later, the Papacy acknowledged that the French King’s high-profile denunciation was genuine, probably because it suited the political situation at the time to do so.There is some debate over Philip’s genuine attitude to Louis’s campaign after the Melun meeting, but the overwhelming likelihood was that Philip was supportive; it was just politic not to let this be widely known.
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The well sourced Anonymous of Béthune gives the clearest indication of this: when, at the baronial meeting at Melun, ‘Louis heard their words, he sought advice from his counsellors and those of his father, who encouraged him to carry out the affair. His father, however, publicly made it appear as though he did not want to be involved because of the truce he had granted; but privately, it was believed that he had advised him.’
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Had he wished to, Philip could easily have prevented Louis’s expedition. As it was, the campaign provided the Capetians with the greatest of opportunities, holding out the possibility of enormous rewards – the final removal of the Angevin foe and England falling under Capetian rule – for little personal risk. The invasion was on.

Guala’s mission had failed, as, indeed, had John’s own extensive measures. It should be remembered that John’s submission to the Papacy was motivated first and foremost by the threat of invasion and the need for papal condemnation of the enterprise. For all the money John had obtained from the interdict, and for all the accolades of his submission as a political masterstroke, John had failed to achieve his primary objective.

The legate’s next step was to make for England and to confirm John’s worst fears. To facilitate this as swiftly as possible, he asked Philip for the diplomatic courtesy of safe conduct to the Channel. The French King’s response was not to his liking: ‘I will gladly grant you safe conduct though my lands, but don’t blame me if by chance you fall into the hands of Eustace the Monk or any of Louis’s men who guard the sea and evil befalls you.’
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Guala left the French court in a rage. Nicholas Vincent’s study of the legate indicates that Guala followed a circuitous route to England, taking nearly a month to arrive at his destination, such was his anxiety to avoid Louis’s forces.
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The position of legate was no guarantee against maltreatment.

Meanwhile, in England, John was a blur of activity in the south-east. In the days immediately before the council of Melun, John had moved from Windsor, through Surrey and back to Rochester. When the council was in progress he was at Canterbury ordering his troops at Rochester to follow him immediately ‘wherever he might be’; the following day he was at the key stronghold of Dover. His itinerary then shows his movements for the next three weeks ‘flitting up and down along the coast of Kent’, waiting in anticipation for Guala and in dread for Louis.
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Just as he had seen to the provisioning of castles, so he had also ensured his fleet was in a state of readiness and on constant alert. The Cinque ports fulfilled their central role in his planning, their function being to provide the core of the ships and crews in the royal fighting fleet. They reinforced their support for John by oaths and the handing over of hostages. Despite the name, there were more than five coastal towns in this military confederation (there were more than 20 ports in the confederation by 1226): to the original Hastings, Dover, Hythe, Sandwich and Romney had been added with similar privileges Winchelsea, Rye and others; the chronicles report that Dunwich, Yarmouth and Lynn were just some of the other ports that sent their ships to Dover for the muster.

John was intent on the eminently sensible and traditional strategy of maritime defence. It had served him well at Damme and now he hoped to replicate that success under even more critical circumstances. In a precursor to the Royal Navy’s blockading strategy in the Napoleonic Wars, John planned to sail to Calais and its neighbouring ports with all his fleet and contain Louis’s huge expeditionary force there in the harbours. He placed his confidence in England’s acknowledged naval superiority: the Anonymous of Béthune writes that John knew ‘the little vessels of Louis could not defend themselves against his ships, which were so large; one of his was worth four of Louis’s.’ But John was undone by the weather: just as Louis’s men were on the point of embarkation, a huge storm broke out in the Channel on 18 May. John’s ships had to fly to safer havens or face destruction. The following day the battered ships were either too unseaworthy or ‘they were so widely dispersed the King could not gather them altogether again’.
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Louis seized the chance: on 20 May he ordered his troops on board their ships and made ready to sail.

A remarkably detailed breakdown of Louis’s expeditionary force comes from the quill of the Anonymous of Béthune. He provides precise figures of leading knights and their contingents, not hesitating to admit that for some forces ‘I do not know the number of men.’ In all he estimates that Louis’s army comprised 1200 knights. The scale of the army can also be gauged by the number of ships needed to transport it across the Channel: ‘a good eight hundred’. Wendover offers a figure not too far off this one, giving a total of 680. The scale of the expedition meant that Calais itself was insufficient to accommodate the army numbers: Boulogne, Gravelines and Wissant were also embarkation points. The money invested in such an enterprise was enormous, requiring the taxation of royal provinces, tellingly ‘in the name of the king’ in some places. Great barons who refused to contribute were coerced into forced loans: Duke Eudes of Burgundy had to come up with 1000 marks. When Blanche, Countess of Champagne, made excuses not to pay, soldiers broke in as she was dining and exacted payment from her.

To these ports came many of France’s great lords along with their knightly retinues and soldiers: Robert de Dreux, Etienne de Sancerre, Gérard la Truie, Enguerrand de Couci, Robert de Courtenay, Jean de Montmirail, Guillaume des Roches, the Viscount of Melun, and the loyal Capetian stalwart and veteran commander, Guillaume des Barres. These were highly experienced and respected soldiers, representing some of France’s finest fighting men. Many had performed with distinction on the battlefield at Bouvines. The calibre of this distinguished army was such that had Philip himself been leading the expedition, it would not have been very different in its make up. This is an indication of two factors: one, that Philip’s position on the throne was now so secure he could afford to spare his kingdom these men; and two, despite his protestations, his will was behind the invasion. Amongst the army was the shady Hervé de Donzy, Count of Nevers, ‘an arrogant and vicious man’ according to William Marshal’s biographer, with a dazzling retinue of 100 knights. Nor were there just French knights; Flemish lords were well represented such as Raoul de Nesle and the Count of Guines. And more French lords were to come: in late summer the chivalrous Count of Perche and Pierre Mauclerc, Count of Brittany, added their weight to Louis’s army, the latter laying claim to the county of Richmond. All were about to begin their great adventure in search of new lands, rich wives and booty, echoing the aspirations of William the Conqueror’s invasion force exactly 150 years earlier.
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The admiral in charge of the fleet and responsible for its preparation was the infamous Eustace the Monk, one of our story’s most colourful characters and one of the most inappropriately named.
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Eustace came from a noble family living in the Boulonnias region of northern France. At the time of the invasion he was probably in his mid-forties. He trained as a knight and gained experience of seamanship from his early travels. It is curious as to why he ever contemplated being a monk in the first instance: his storyteller depicts him as a completely disruptive character in the cloisters, causing mayhem and encouraging such unmonkish habits as cursing.
The Romance of Eustace the Monk
portrays this ribald character as a foul-mouthed, irredeemably dishonest trickster, fond of four-letter words and farting (blaming the latter on his horse’s saddle); but in his favour we are told that he was not a sodomite (the
Romance
uses a far more colloquial term) and only dressed as a woman to deceive a knight. Unsurprisingly, he renounced his holy orders. He entered the service of Count Renaud de Boulogne, rising rapidly to become his seneschal, before falling out with him on the Count’s suspicion of Eustace’s likely financial irregularities. Eustace took to the woods and began his career of notoriety, this short little man becoming one of the most feared and infamous figures of the day: ‘His name was enough at one time to strike terror into the hearts of Channel seamen.’
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His feud with the Count of Boulogne soon involved Eustace in many actions, including capture and escape, after which he offered his services to King John in 1205. We are told that John hailed Eustace as ‘brave and bold’ and recognised in him a kindred spirit: ‘You know a great deal about guile and cunning and do not need any cat’s grease to help you.’
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Eustace deployed his naval skills to good effect by raiding the French seaboard until 1211 – something that profited him personally as well as his master – and was rewarded by John with lands in Norfolk. There appears to be some truth to the legend that he captured Sark and used it as his pirates’ base. His antagonistic opportunism led him into conflict with the coastal ports of southern England, to such an extent he required safe-conducts to visit England. Eustace’s reputation grew alongside daring tales in
The Romance of Eustace the Monk
, written shortly after his death, of (a temporary) recovery of the Channel Islands, raids up the Seine and of victorious encounters against Philip Augustus’s leading mercenary commander, Cadoc. The
Romance
tells of how John rewarded Eustace with a large palace in London.

That two such unpleasant and self-serving figures as John and Eustace should fall out seems inevitable with hindsight. The break came between late 1212 and November 1214; the causes were familiar to those that had alienated many of the country’s great barons. When Eustace failed to pay off a debt of 20 marks, John had his lands in Norfolk seized for a time; the Anonymous of Béthune also reports that his wife was taken hostage by the King. His daughter had already been handed over as a hostage. One can speculate on how they were treated by John; the
Romance
says that later John had the daughter burned, disfigured and killed, another revealing condemnation of John from a non-clerical source. There thus seems to have been growing animosity between the two over this time, exacerbated by Eustace’s seemingly growing independence. It is worth considering that the ever-opportunistic Eustace may have been manoeuvring himself in light of John’s defeat at Bouvines and the Capetian ascendancy, and that this was what made John uneasy about Eustace. When Eustace’s old enemy the Count of Boulogne joined forces with John in 1212 it may well have motivated him to change his own allegiance. John ordered Philip d’Albini to lead a successful raid against Eustace on Sark: many of the pirate’s men were captured, including family members who were incarcerated in Portchester Castle; but Eustace won these areas back during 1215–16 and in 1215 he had supplied the rebel barons with siege machines. Over the next eighteen months Eustace was to continue playing a central role in the French war effort in England right up to its bloody climactic battle.

It was on Eustace’s flagship ship that Prince Louis embarked on the evening of Friday 20 May. With him were Stephen Langton’s brother, Simon, the chamberlain Ours de la Chapelle and the Viscount of Melun. The winds were still high but for Louis this was an opportunity, even though some of his men waited until the seas had calmed before setting off. To deal with the winds an oblique course was charted. At 9pm the trumpets sounded their fanfare across the port of Calais to signal the departure of the invasion fleet. Louis set sail for England.
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One day ahead of him was the legate Guala. He had landed at Romney on the night or early morning of 20/21 May. John, anxious to exchange valuable information with him, rode out from Canterbury to meet him on the road. Guala was resplendent in his scarlet cardinal’s attire riding on a white horse. With Stephen Langton suspended and in exile in Rome, Guala was the foremost ecclesiastical figure in England and now ‘the uncontested guardian of the English church’.
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He and John dismounted and embraced. The King, having received intelligence from the coast, told him that Louis’s ships had been sighted; the legate immediately renewed the excommunication of John’s enemies and the two went to Canterbury. Guala did not tarry here long; fearing a successful French landing, he moved quickly farther inland to avoid capture.
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