Lionheart (18 page)

As so often, there was a way out of this maze: Richard now arranged the promotion of Hubert Walter to the see of Salisbury and rewarded Hugh of Le Puiset for withdrawing his objection to the rigged election by settling on his son the post of treasurer of York. No sooner were they out of that maze than Archbishop Geoffrey did a Becket and refused to accept the other recent appointments, for which Richard deprived him of all his lands, both secular and religious, on both sides of the Channel.
¹⁴
To frustrate permanently Geoffrey’s temporal ambitions, for which he would need to delay consecration, as he had done at Lincoln, Richard first despatched a posse of his household knights to suggest forcibly that it would be a good idea to accede to the king’s wishes. When that did not work, he sent a deputation of bishops and other clergy to Geoffrey’s manor at Southwell, with orders to consecrate him willy-nilly. The deed was duly done by Geoffrey’s own suffragan, Bishop John of Whithorn.
¹⁵

In Normandy too, Richard had problems with the Church, in the person of Cardinal John of Agnani, who had been Henry’s go-between with Philip Augustus, and who now wished to attend the coming coronation in England. That might seem harmless enough, but in the current expansion of papal power, it could later have been seen as creating a right for papal legates to attend future coronations or even, as in the Holy Roman Empire, to play a part in the selection of English monarchs. So, the worthy cardinal was firmly told that he was
persona non grata
in England.

After putting his continental possessions in order, on 13 August Richard stepped ashore in Portsmouth and looked out on the country where he had been born, but spent only two brief visits, at Easter 1176 and Christmas 1184. Within forty-eight hours of the landing, he was supervising the weighing of the state treasure, estimated to have a total value of £90,000.
¹⁶
From this he took 20,000 marks, or just under £14,000, to pay Philip Augustus’ costs in the recent war, settling the debt Henry had agreed to in their final meeting. To this, he added another 4,000 marks to be quit of any claim from Philip.
¹⁷
He then rode to Westminster to be reunited with the mother he had betrayed when playing the part of Henry’s puppet after the rebellion.

On 29 August he had Prince John married to Isabel of Gloucester, also known as Hawise, riding roughshod over the objections of the archbishop of Canterbury on the grounds of their consanguinity, the bride being a great-granddaughter of Henry I, who was also John’s great-grandfather. The couple’s estates were, however, immediately placed under interdict, pending a dispensation from Rome. To gain the support of the Church on another tack, Richard rescinded Henry’s ordinance that every monastery keep a string of horses ready to service his unpredictable and gruelling progresses throughout the realm. To gain that of the nobility, who resented the way that Henry I and Henry II had diluted their power by creating
novi homines
or new nobility and elevating their favourites through arranged marriages to heiresses of title, Richard declared all such marriages void.

The Welsh took advantage of the change of English monarch to invade the marches. It was Eleanor who had to curb her son’s impetuous instinct to ride out and drive them back across the border forthwith, riding instead with him to Westminster for the coronation on 3 September. In the absence of any consort – the unfortunate Princess Alais was still languishing in Winchester – Eleanor played the grand role of dowager queen surrounded by her own retinue of ladies- and maids-in-waiting. Led into the cathedral by William the Marshal bearing the gold sceptre beneath a silk canopy borne by four barons in the presence of nineteen archbishops and bishops, thirteen abbots, eleven earls and seventeen barons, Richard walked between bishop Reynald of Bath and Hugh of Le Puiset, the bishop of Durham who had disputed Geoffrey the Bastard’s appointment.

Before the high altar, he prostrated himself and swore the triple oath to keep the Peace of God, to enforce the laws of the realm and to exercise justice and mercy in his judgements. Physically, he was everything that a king should be: tall, bluff, well-built, with a clear gaze from those bright blue eyes. The assembled nobles agreed to accept him as king – they had no choice, but the formality had to be observed. Richard was then disrobed down to his drawers and shirt. The dean of London, Ralph of Diceto, handed to the archbishop of Canterbury the sanctified oil to anoint Richard on hands, chest, shoulders and arms. This done, the chrism – doubly sanctified oil – was used to anoint his head as a token of the sacrament of kingship. Richard was clad in a tunic and long dalmatic robe. He was then girded with the sword of state, two earls affixed golden spurs to his feet and he was crowned by the archbishop and two earls before being invested with the ring, the sceptre and the rod of state. At that point he was at last formally the king of England and, seated on the throne, he listened to the consecrational Mass.

N
OTES

1.
  The title of a bull was simply formed from its first words, in this case translated as ‘having heard the terrible news’.

2.
  Richard, A.,
Histoire
, Vol 2, p. 243.

3.
  A. de Sousa Pereira, ‘Silves no itinerário da terceira cruzada: um testemunho teutónico’,
Revista militar
, 62 (2010), pp. 77–88 at
www.revistamilitar.pt/artigopdf.php?art_id=538
.

4.
  Benedict of Peterborough,
Gesta Henrici II et Ricardi I Benedicti Abbati, known Commonly under the Name of Benedict of Peterborough
, ed. W. Stubbs (London: Longmans/HMSO, 1867), Vol 2, p. 50.

5.
  A. Hyland,
The Medieval Warhorse
(Consohocken, PA: Combined Books, 1994), p. 88.

6.
  Gerald of Wales,
De Principis Instructione Liber in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera
, ed. G.F. Warner (London: Eyre, 1894), p. 296.

7.
  
La Vie de Guillaume le Maréchal
, ed. P. Mayer (Paris, 1901), p. 327.

8.
  The events of 1188 and 1189 are covered in greater detail in Boyd,
Eleanor
, pp. 227–35.

9.
  Benedict of Peterborough,
Gesta Henrici
, Vol 2, p. 75.

10.
  Roger of Howden,
Chronica
, Vol 3, pp. 4, 6.

11.
  William of Newburgh,
Historia Rerum Anglicarum
, Vol 1, p. 293.

12.
  Benedict of Peterborough,
Gesta Henrici
, Vol 2, p. 100.

13.
  Stubbs,
Gervase of Canterbury
, Vol 1, p. 457.

14.
  Roger of Howden,
Chronica
, Vol 3, p. 17.

15.
  Benedict of Peterborough,
Gesta Henrici
, Vol 2, p. 88.

16.
  Pipe Roll 1 Richard I, p. 5.

17.
  Roger of Howden,
Chronica
, Vol 3, p. 8.

10

The Enemy Within

W
alking out of Westminster Abbey to the celebratory banquet in Westminster Hall, this was a king with no knowledge of, or interest in, the country or the people over whom he ruled, and whose native language he could not speak. The language of the court, the nobility and the growing merchant class was, of course, Anglo-French – a bastard tongue whose speakers sometimes felt they had to apologise to those freshly arrived from France for ‘not speaking proper French’.

One should never speculate what went on in the mind of a historical personage, but in Richard’s case there is no need to. His actions make it plain that the island realm was to him nothing more than a source of wealth to finance his achievement of the great enterprise in which his father had failed, and thus ensure that the name of King Richard I of England would not forever be overshadowed by that of Henry II. Having taken the Cross in November 1187, his overriding priority was to depart on crusade to the Holy Land as soon as the necessary funds could be raised and there make his reputation as the king who recaptured Jerusalem from the Saracen. Among many other factors in his reasoning was a personal tie to Guy de Lusignan, the king of Jerusalem who had so signally failed to out-general Saladin at Hattin. He came from a Poitevin family – troublesome vassals, but vassals nonetheless and therefore arguably under Richard’s feudal protection as count of Poitou.

Somewhere in Richard’s mind was also a repeat of the glad news from Rome – terrestrial source of all communications from God – that those who died on the crusade, not necessarily in battle against the Saracen, would gain a straight pass to heaven. In the case of a warrior like him, whose adult life oscillated between Christian devotions and callous bloodshed, and who had many deaths on his conscience, both in combat and in cold blood, that must have been a benison worth every sacrifice he would require of his subjects.

The coronation banquet at Westminster literally cost a fortune: out-of-pocket expenses included purchase of 900 cups, 1,770 pitchers and 5,050 plates and dishes. As to what was on those dishes and in those drinking vessels, there was a wide gulf between what the high nobility expected and what the common people ate. From a shared pot the latter spooned straight into their mouths a pottage made from anything that could be boiled up to make a stew or thickened soup: vegetables, herbs and some scraps of meat or fish if available, often from poaching, for which the penalties were savage, if caught. Their carbohydrates came in the form of bread usually made from the cheapest wheaten flour, but often rye flour and even pea flour when all else failed. Their vitamin needs were fulfilled by cabbages, turnips, onions and leeks with other home-grown vegetables, plus fruit either cultivated or foraged for in season. Some of their vegetables would have looked strange to modern eyes: carrots, for example, came in shades of white, yellow and purple and the potato had not yet been introduced to Europe.

Universally available and heavily used, if judged by modern tastes, the habitual seasoning for the tasteless staple diet included native mustard and evaporated sea salt, with sweetening by honey. To quench their thirst, the rural poor drank home-brewed ale made from malted barley. This had to be consumed fast as it ‘went off’ quickly, especially in hot weather, although some hops were already being imported from the continent and used in ale produced commercially in the cities, both to improve the flavour and impart their preservative properties to the brew. In town and country, cups and plates of the poor were of treen – turned wood that was more robust than pottery.

In contrast, the nobility and the moneyed urban classes also had sugar, known to be imported from the Mediterranean countries during Henry II’s reign. Imported spices, for those with the money to buy them, included very expensive pepper – one single shipload arriving in London weighed two tons – and mace, cloves, cumin, cardamom, nutmeg, saffron, cinnamon. Along the coasts, oysters, cockles, mussels and other shellfish were harvested, both for home consumption and for sale. Salt-water fish were often available far inland, kept fresh on the journey by being packed in wet grass. Salted fish was also a common item. Because of the considerable demand for fish in monasteries where meat was banned during Lent, on Fridays and other holy days, and for penitents who were denied meat as punishment, fish were farmed in specially constructed ponds in the grounds of many religious foundations and fishponds were to be found in most manors of reasonable size.

But all that had little directly to do with the coronation feast Richard was planning, with three or four courses and many different dishes in each course. The later coronation feast of Richard III listed three courses, totalling forty-eight dishes in all, presented to the table in no discernable order. The idea was to provide an eating binge with plentiful alcohol that everyone would remember as a sign of the new king’s wealth and generosity. German officer Ernst Jünger, who was posted to Paris during the occupation of the Second World War, noted in his diary that eating a copious dinner at a luxury restaurant in a city where most people went hungry, day after day, conferred an immense feeling of power on the diner.
¹
Certainly, all the guests at Richard I’s coronation feast enjoyed that feeling of power, riding away past the common folk after their dinner.