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Plantagenet family, who used him and raged at him, and then finally swallowed his life in their quest for individual power.
Other trouble was brewing.
King William of Sicily had died a month before, without issue. William's widow was Joanna, Richard's sister. She was captured in the ensuing war of succession by the usurper Tancred. A German army, sent by the emperor Henry, invaded Sicily to establish the German emperor's claim to the throne. The result was a stalemate, with the Lionheart's sister, Eleanor's daughter, still a prisoner of war.10
On December 25, 1190, Richard and Philip of France, by choice friends and by fate enemies, met at Saint Remy in Normandy to settle the details of their joint journey to the East, promising mutual aid and support. The message between the lines of the agreement, understood by everyone, was that they would betray each other at the first available opportunity to continue the interminable war between the Angevins and France.
JUGGLING WITH RAZORS
Soon afterward, Eleanor was summoned to her son's side, together with Prince John and the hierarchy of the English church. Here, after holding council, Richard appointed William of Ely chief justiciar of the whole of England. He also compelled his bastard brother Geoffrey - appointed by him archbishop of Canterbury - and John, now styled Earl of Mortaigne, "to make oath, touching the Holy Evangelists, that they would not enter England for the next three years, expect with his permission".
However, he immediately released his brother John from the oath he had made, and gave him permission to return to England, John afterwards swearing that he would faithfully serve the king.11
Richard was playing a game of politics that required him to juggle with razors while balanced on a knife's edge. He was leaving his realm too soon to be sure that it was completely loyal to him. He knew that Phillip would betray him at the first opportunity because the French and the Plantagenets were enemies and always had been.
He must also have been aware that he could not trust his brothers. This was, after all, a family which had founded its career on a lust for ultimate power, a greed that knew only the bounds of death. As long as they lived, his brothers would seek what he had - John perhaps moreso than Geoffrey, as Geoffrey was now in the church and so out of the race for the crown. Richard attempted to negate his siblings with gifts, with oaths, and with a show of mercy. But he knew that any loyalty they possessed would be momentary.
Where could he trust?
His mother's support was the rock on which his realm was built. But as a woman, and an old woman at that, she seemed to offer only comfort rather than military muscle and authority.
He trusted, instead, mainly in the church, and in so doing made a poor choice. He elevated William of Ely, and obtained a legateship for the bishop from the pope, conferring an absolute authority on his vice regency. Alas, his trust was misplaced:
"Accordingly, on the strength of his legateship, the said bishop of Ely, legate of the Apostolic See, chancellor of our lord the king, and justiciary of all England, oppressed the clergy and the people, confounding right and wrong, nor was there a person in the kingdom who dared to offer resistance to his authority, even in word."12
Richard was balancing on the knife edge - and he was showing every sign of falling.
England was in turmoil as the bishops of Ely and Durham fought for supremacy, while John lurked on the sidelines and Geoffrey squabbled with his new charges.
After reaching Sicily, Richard blundered again - he nearly upset his doubtful alliance with Phillip over the marriage with Alys, and he further angered the French king when they became embroiled in a civil war with Tancred over the rights of Richard's sister. Richard ceremonially spurned the long withheld marriage with Alys on the grounds, he claimed, that she was both his father's mistress and the mother of his step brother! Meanwhile, around the fortresses of Sicily, alarms and incursions continued while Richard demanded the restoration of his sister's rights from the stubborn and cunning Tancred. Richard and his men clashed almost daily with Sicilian forces, and the French were in danger of being drawn into the brawls. Richard's actions also upset Tancred's ally, the German emperor. The matter was not helped when Richard agreed as a settlement of the Sicilian dispute to have Tancred's daughter marry his heir presumptive, his nephew Arthur, the son of his full brother Geoffrey.13
Eleanor was meanwhile briefly rediscovering the heart of the Angevin empire that she had not seen in nearly two decades.
But in 1191, she tore herself from the new found pleasures of freedom to come to her son's aid. She was now nearly 69 years old. Undaunted by a burden of years, she crossed the Pyrenees into Navarre, where she secured Berengaria, the daughter of King Sancho, as a suitable wife for her son.
One of the earliest references to Berengaria in Spanish explained the reason why Eleanor chose this marriage. This was due, says the chronicle, to Richard having promised to marry Alys. He swore he would do so after his return from Crusade. This upset Eleanor, because of her hatred of the French. She therefore tried to work out a way of rescinding the contract, and enquired about a suitable wife for her son. She was told that the King of Navarre had two daughters, and she could probably get one of these for her son. She therefore proposed to Sancho that his daughter should marry Richard, which the king was very happy to do. Her choice of Berengaria was of a woman described by the chronicler Ambroise, who met her, as a prudent maid, a gentle lady, virtuous and fair, neither false nor double tongued.
The Spanish princess's background was impeccable - on her father's side she claimed descent from the great Cid himself. Her mother was Queen Sancha, daughter of Alfonso of Castile. Berengaria's parents were warmly attached to each other. When Sancha died in 1179, Sancho was broken hearted, and never remarried.
Berengaria was a cultivated lady, familiar with the rites of the courts of love, and of the cultivated atmosphere of those southern lands bordering the Mediterranean. She and Richard had met on several occasions before, first in 1172 when Eleanor and Henry had hosted her father at Limoges. Berengaria was only seven at the time, so she may not have remarked the tall, golden haired son of the King and Queen of England.
But the chroniclers have it that she lost her heart to Richard at their second meeting. In
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