|
patricidal brother John, crossed into England on the ides of August. Here, John was rewarded for his loyalty with vast domains, including the earldoms of Mortaigne, Cornwall, Dorset, Somerset, Nottingham, Derby, Lancaster and Gloucester.
An appurtenance that came with the latter domain was the late earl of Gloucester's daughter, a marriage ordained by Richard but forbidden by the archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin, on the grounds of a relationship of blood in the fourth degree. 5
Richard's bastard brother Geoffrey ( second of that name) was compensated by the offer of the Archbishopric of York, second in the kingdom.
In keeping with his times, Richard further rewarded his faithful adherents with a string of rich marriages.
To Andrew de Chauvigny Richard gave the daughter of Raoul de Dol (she having been formerly the wife of Baldwin, Earl of Rivers). The marriage was performed at Salisbury, in the presence of the lady Eleanor, the first time the surviving members of the family were able to gather in many years. The ceremony thus marked a fortunate and happy reunion of mother and children, so long separated by the guile and tyranny of the late Henry. The old man had known what a formidable combination his family made: he had not kept the individual members of his clan on opposite sides of the Channel for so long without reason.
That ancient and most famous of knights, William Marshal - loyal to King Henry through thick and thin, now loyal to Richard because he was king - was given the plum marriage of the heiress to the lands of Striguil, Isabel Countess of Pembroke.
The story of William's marriage with the heiress is a typical entanglement of medieval romanticism and brutality. The old king, Henry, had originally promised his loyal knight William a minor heiress, Helvis of Lancaster. He later changed his mind and gave William the young Isabel of Striguil. This marked an elevation in the ranking of William: his first promised bride had been worth one knight's fee to him. The latter brought with her 65 and a half fiefs. The difference was between a very comfortable existence and being filthy rich.
Unfortunately for William, he had chosen Henry's side against Richard, to the extent of killing Richard's horse under him and consigning Richard to the Devil. At Henry's death, the Marshal might have expected to have had Henry's marriage gift rescinded. Richard, however, in an unusually forgiving mood at the beginning of his reign reconfirmed the offer.
Legend has it that when Richard appeared at his father's funeral procession, which was being led by William, he drew the old knight aside. Richard then forgave the humiliation that William had visited upon the proudest prince in Christendom. In the next breath, Richard was reminded of the heiress. He responded magnanimously, saying that his father had merely promised her: he, Richard, gave her freely.
William did not stay to count his blessings. He crossed western France in two days, and he and his band of men literally leapt aboard a ship as it set sail for England. The deck collapsed beneath the men, breaking the arms of the Marshal's companion, and spraining William's leg.
Undaunted, William made his way to Winchester, visiting Eleanor. He at last reached London, and overruled the guardian of the young woman, who was attempting to protect the bride to be. She was barely of marriageable age - perhaps 17. William himself was fifty.
Not waiting to bear her off to her ancestral lands, he begged the attendants at the wedding for a bed. One was provided at nearby Stoke, where he carried the bride and completed the marriage contract. The Pipe Rolls record her trousseau as worthy of her estate, at 9 pounds 12 shillings and 1 penny.
According to the poetical biography of William, L'Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal:
"When the wedding had been well made,
And everything was richly appointed,
The lady was taken
To the home of Sir Engerrand D'Abernon
At Stoke, a most peaceful,
Comfortable and delightful place..."
Thus ensued the first recorded honeymoon in England.6
The marriage was to prove stronger than one might anticipate under the circumstances: the couple lived as husband and wife until the Marshal's death 30 years later. In the interval, he exploited his wife's lands, as was his prerogative, and sired ten children upon her, some of whom were to become famous in their own rights.7
These and many other matters busied the king on his whirlwind tour of his new province, culminating in his coronation by the Archbishop at Westminster on September 6.
It was a glittering occasion, and Eleanor as the Queen Mother would have revelled in the ceremony and the subsequent banquet, the culmination and justification of her years of torment. This was what she had plotted throughout most of her tormented marriage to Henry - to see her son, Richard, on Henry's throne.
Unfortunately, the banquet that followed afterwards was marred by an attack on some Jews by London citizens, which forced Richard to begin his reign by executing some of his most (misguidedly) fervent subjects.
Other disputes followed quickly, as the churchmen in especial wrangled over who got to keep what from the sharing out of prizes resulting from the new reign.
But at last, with ponderous and irresistible force, Richard and his army turned eastwards. On December 11 he crossed into the continent with his prelates and his army.
He left the kingdom, as might be expected, in the charge of the Church and trusted nobles: Hugh, bishop of Durham, William, bishop of Ely - the chief justiciars - together with Hugh Bardolph, William Marshal, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter and William Bruyere. The king's seal was delivered to his chancellor, William Bishop of Ely. No mention is made of the role to be taken by Eleanor, nor of the rebellious young brother John. Apparently, the queen was to be satisfied with her role as Dowager, and the brother with his new lands.8
The wake of Richard's ships had barely disappeared from the sea, when the bishops of Durham and Ely began to quarrel as to who had pride of place: so, comments Roger de Hoveden, the first walls were steeped in a brother's blood.9
William Longchamp, bishop of Ely, chancellor and justiciar, is a character from the pages of romantic fiction. Dwarfed, hunchbacked, as ugly as an ape, his sexuality beyond the bounds of contemporary morality, he combined immense political clumsiness with a peasant lineage. Any or all of these failings made him fair game for members of the
|
|