The Kingdom in the Sun (36 page)

News of the fall of Bari, coupled with a sudden spate of rumours of King William's death—he was indeed seriously ill—shattered the morale of the coastal towns. Trani yielded in its turn; then, despite the heroic efforts of its commander, Count Richard of Andria, the neighbouring port of Giovinazzo. Further south, resistance was still fierce; William of Tyre reports that when the Patriarch of Jerusalem arrived that autumn in Otranto on his way to visit the Pope, he found the entire region in such turmoil that he was forced to re-embark and make his way by sea up the coast as far as Ancona. But the Greeks and the rebels together continued to gain ground everywhere until, as the winter rains began, the whole of Apulia seemed on the point of collapse.

Now at last, at the beginning of September, Asclettin's royalist army, consisting of some two thousand knights and an unknown but apparently considerable force of infantry, appeared in the field. On their arrival they were joined by Richard of Andria with those of his men who had remained loyal, but the opposition was too strong for them. Hardly had they reached the coast before they found themselves surrounded at Barletta. In a desperate effort to increase his strength, Count Richard broke through the cordon with a body of knights and made a dash for his own territory of Andria, hotly pursued by Robert of Loritello and John Ducas, Michael Palaeologus's principal lieutenant. They caught up with him just as he arrived before the walls. Rather than face a siege, for which he knew that his town was unprepared, Richard turned and gave battle on the spot. At one moment it looked as if he might carry the day; the Greeks' line was broken, and they and their allies retired in disorder. Sheltering, however, behind the long walls of stones which were (and still are) a feature of the region, they managed to reform and return to the charge; and before long the royalists were in full retreat. Count Richard himself, unhorsed by a blow from a flying stone, was finished off by a priest of Trani who, we are told, ripped him open and tore out his entrails. Seeing their lord lying dead, the population of Andria surrendered to Ducas.

The first pitched battle of the new revolt had ended in disaster. For those still loyal to King William, the future looked grim.

From Tivoli first and later from Tusculum, Pope Adrian had followed these developments with satisfaction. Though he had no love for the Greeks, he greatly preferred them to the Sicilians; and it delighted him to see his arch-enemy William, having escaped the vengeance of Barbarossa, finally receiving his deserts. Barely three months before, riding south with Frederick from Sutri to Rome, the Pope had forsworn any separate diplomatic negotiations with Byzantium, but times had changed; now that the Emperor had defaulted on his own undertakings, Adrian felt once again free to act in whatever way he saw fit. When, therefore, he received a letter from Michael Palaeologus offering him military help against the King of Sicily together with a subsidy of five thousand gold pounds in return for the grant of three coastal towns in Apulia he was interested. He replied that he himself already had troops at his disposal and that he was ready forthwith to embark on the campaign as an ally. On 29 September
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5 5 he marched south.

It may seem surprising, just a century after the great schism between the Eastern and Western Churches, to find the Emperor of Byzantium putting himself forward as the patron and protector of the Pope of Rome, and the Pope accepting his overtures. It was in fact a policy which had been inaugurated, on the Byzantine side, by John Comnenus as early as
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; Manuel was merely continuing it and, seeing circumstances so favourable, increasing the pressure. Adrian doubtless recognised in the South Italian situation the opening up of an opportunity that might never recur. He was encouraged, too, by the exiled Apulian vassals who, faced with the possibility of regaining their old fiefs, joyfully agreed to recognise the Pope as their lawful suzerain in return for his support. Already on 9 October, at S. Germano, Prince Robert of Capua, Count Andrew of Rupe Canina and several other Norman barons were reinvested with their hereditary possessions, and before the end of the year all Campania and most of Northern Apulia was in Byzantine or papalist hands.

Michael Palaeologus, mopping up the few pockets of resistance that remained, could congratulate himself on a success greater than he could have dared to hope. In barely six months he had restored Greek power in the peninsula to a point almost equal to that of a hundred and fifty years previously, before the Normans set about the deliberate destruction of the Byzantine theme of Langobardia and seized it for themselves. News had recently been brought to him that his Emperor, encouraged by such rapid progress, was sending out a full-scale expeditionary force to consolidate the position. At this rate it might not be long before all South Italy acknowledged the dominion of Constantinople. William of Sicily would be crushed, his odious Kingdom liquidated. Pope Adrian, seeing the Greeks succeed where the Germans had failed, would be persuaded of the superiority of Byzantine armies and would adjust his policies accordingly; and the great dream of the Comneni—the reunification of the Roman Empire under the aegis of Constantinople—might be realised at last.

Over-confidence is always dangerous; but few impartial observers at the end of
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would have held out much hope for the future of the Sicilian monarchy. On the mainland the King's enemies were in control everywhere except in Calabria; and Calabria probably remained loyal only because it had not yet been attacked. It would never be able to resist a determined Byzantine onslaught; if it fell, the rebels and their Greek allies would be only a mile or two from Sicily itself.

And there, on the island, the situation was now equally menacing. From September to Christmas the King lay in Palermo, desperately ill; Maio of Bari, assisted by Archbishop Hugh of Palermo, assumed complete control of the Kingdom. The Emir of Emirs had never been popular, and succeeding reports of one defeat after another on the mainland gave his enemies among the Norman nobility the very opportunity they needed to stir up unrest. He, they murmured, and he alone was responsible for this collapse. It would never have occurred if the Emirate had been bestowed on one of their own number. To have entrusted the supreme executive power in the realm to a Lombard tradesman's son was an act of unpardonable folly. Such a man was bound to be ignored by the proud barons of the peninsula. Even now, with the Sicilian state falling in ruins about his head, he seemed to have no real understanding of the gravity of the situation. He had sent no military reinforcements to Asclettin; he did not even appear worried.

There was only one thing to be done. Maio must be removed. And if his removal should also entail the removal of William himself, then so much the better. The King was already ill; perhaps, with a little help from the right quarter, he might never recover— in which case it would be a relatively easy matter to put the blame on the Emir, the only one of his ministers with unrestricted access to the royal bedchamber. William had already showed himself unfit to govern; how much more satisfactory it would be if the crown were to pass to his three-year-old son. The rightful ruling class could then come into its own, and the Norman barons would regain the power—and the perquisites—to which their birth entitled them.

But the Emir of Emirs kept his nerve. Not even Falcandus, who detested him, can hold back a word of grudging admiration for the way in which, whatever the crisis, he remained cool and unruffled, his face never betraying any sign of his real emotions. This steady refusal to panic—merely to remain, thanks to his spies, always a jump ahead of any plots that might be hatched against him—saved him more than once during that winter. In the twilight world of intrigue and conspiracy, he seems to have been still quietly confident of being able to hold his own. And, before long, his enemies began to agree with him. By the first weeks of 1
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5 6 they abandoned their earlier tactics, and adopted instead those which had proved so successful to their fellow-vassals in Apulia. Withdrawing to Butera in the far south of the island, a group of barons under a certain Bartholomew of Garsiliato came out in open rebellion.

At first sight it did not seem a very serious uprising. The insurgents were few in number, their stronghold remote. Nevertheless, this was the first time since the original conquest nearly a century before that a group of Christian vassals on the island of Sicily itself had declared themselves publicly against their ruler; and Maio saw that the time had come for action. Experience on the mainland had shown just how rapidly such revolts could spread. The local population around Butera was largely Arab, and Muslim loyalties must be preserved at all costs. Moreover it looked as if the King, now almost recovered, would have some hard campaigning to do in Italy during the months to come. If so, it was essential that he should have his hands free.

William was still tired after his illness; and he had inherited in full measure his father's preference for diplomatic negotiation over armed force. Remaining himself in Palermo, he therefore sent an emissary to Butera in the person of Everard, Count of Squillace, to treat with the rebels and to ask them why they had taken so drastic a step. Within a few days Everard returned with the answer. They had acted, they claimed, not in defiance of their King but only against the Emir, who with his henchman the Archbishop was plotting to assassinate William and seize the throne for himself. All they asked was that the King should recognise the dangers that threatened him and rid himself of his evil counsellors before it was too late. They themselves would then lay down their arms and come to Palermo to implore his pardon.

William may have been lethargic, but he was not a fool; and he trusted Maio a great deal more than any Norman baron. He took no action, sent no acknowledgement to the rebels' message, and waited for their next move. He did not have to wait long. Towards the end of March, riots broke out in Palermo itself. That they were inspired and financed by the rebels was beyond a doubt; though the anger of the rioters was principally directed against Maio and Archbishop Hugh, there were also loud calls for the release from prison of Simon of Policastro, a young Count who had until recently been Asclettin's right-hand man in Campania but who had since been incarcerated by Maio without trial, on charges of suspected treason.

The appearance of the mob outside his royal palace roused William from his apathy. It was at last borne in on him that there could be no more peace, no more privacy, till the problem was settled. Now that his mind was made up, he moved quickly. To assuage the rioters, he gave orders for the immediate release of Simon of Policastro; then, with Maio at his side but accompanied also by Simon himself as mediator—for he still hoped to avoid bloodshed if possible—he led his army at top speed to Butera.

Perched on a high pinnacle of rock between two steep valleys, Butera was a perfect natural stronghold; and the insurgents were initially resolved to fight hard in its defence. That they did not do so was largely due to the generosity of William's terms and the persuasiveness of Count Simon. He convinced them that the King had no intention of dismissing his counsellors, in whom he had implicit trust, and one of whom was accompanying him at that moment; nevertheless he was disposed, in the circumstances, to show leniency to those who had taken up arms against him. Let them surrender at once; their lives and property would be spared, their liberty preserved; their only punishment would be exile from the Kingdom at the King's pleasure. The rebels accepted the offer. Butera was surrendered, and Sicily was at peace again.

'King William was a man,' wrote Hugo Falcandus, 'who found it hard ever to leave his palace; but once he was obliged to go forth, then—however disinclined to action he had been in the past—he would fling himself, not so much with courage as in a headstrong, even foolhardy spirit, in the face of all dangers.' As ever, Hugo's malice shows through; but it is still possible to detect some faint tinge of admiration in his words, as well as their underlying truth. Now that William had finally embarked on campaign and could look back on one victory already behind him, he had no intention of calling a halt. His health was restored, his blood was up. Spring had come, and spring was the season for campaigning. He was ready to tackle the mainland.

Army and navy met at Messina; this was to be a combined operation, in which the Greeks and their allies were to be attacked simultaneously from land and sea. To Messina also was summoned Asclettin, to explain his lamentable showing over the past months. Asclettin seems to have been an uninspired and somewhat colourless commander (not surprisingly, his previous post having been that of Archdeacon of Catania) and it may well be that other, more serious, charges had been laid against him. Certainly, at Messina, not a single voice was raised in his defence—not even that of Maio, whose creature he was and who had raised him to the Chancellorship in defiance of the King's own wishes. But whether traitor, coward or scapegoat, his goods were confiscated and he himself was cast into prison—where, several years later, he died.