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Holy Land.
Saladin, defeated on the battlefield, nevertheless held the trump card throughout - Time. Of which he had more than Richard, as he made abundantly clear in repeated messages suggesting that the English go home.
And at last, Richard did so.
1. Mitchell, Berengaria, p.64.
2. Chronicles of the Crusades, pp.180-1.
3. Richard de Templo, p.71.
4. Ibid., p.78. cf Grousset, The Epic of the Crusades, p.187. Ambroise, p.233.
5. Ibid., p.278.
6. The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, p.212-3.
7. Pernoud, pp.195-7.
8. Roger of Wendover, The Flowers of History J.A. Giles (trans.) two vols. (Bohn, London, 1849, Vol. II, p. 116.
Chapter 30:
"A Bag of Skin and Bones"
By 1192, the Plantagenet empire was stretched to its uttermost limit. Richard was exhausting his incredible energy fighting mirages. At home, Eleanor was presiding over chaos, as the English prelates and barons fought amongst themselves for the available loot, left by a king whom they might well never see again to say them nay.
John was Eleanor's youngest son, known to his contemporaries as Lackland, because he came last in line, and received only those scraps he was strong enough to steal from the family table. Alas, whatever he did take, he consistently proved incapable of holding. Yet he was a Plantagenet, and he had the ferocity of spirit that enabled him to cause bloodshed and strife, even if he lacked the strength of spirit and body to keep his prey.1
From the moment Richard's back was turned, Lackland began to cause trouble. One of his earliest important achievements came in 1191 when he and his gang of barons drove the foolish, venal and universally hated chancellor William of Ely out of the kingdom.
This was in no small part due to a particular woman who had played a major part in allowing John to gain a foothold in the kingdom. Richard of Devizes says that during the latter part of 1191 letters were secretly sent around the kingdom amongst the clergy and the barons requesting their support for John against the chancellor. At last, the chancellor learned that Gerard of Camville had done homage to John for Lincoln Castle. The castle had come to Gerard through the inheritance of his wife, Nicholaa. The allegiance of the guardian of castle was in theory directly to the king - it was illegal to give custody of it to an intervening party such as John.
The chancellor therefore collected an army and set out to reclaim the castle for the crown. His forces, however, attacked a number of other castles held by the rebel barons, before finally concentrating on Lincoln. In so doing, the chancellor succeeded in driving out of the kingdom Roger Mortimer, in whose train was Gerard, husband of Nicholaa. This redoubtable lady "whose heart was not that of a woman" (Richard of Devizes), was thus left to herself, and defended the castle "manfully".
The chancellor's attention was thus wholly occupied around Lincoln while John slipped north to occupy Nottingham and Tickhill castles. From these strongholds, he issued threats and edicts to the chancellor, ordering him amongst other things to lift the siege of Lincoln.
In th event, this was the start of John's short term asacendancy, in no small part due to the lady Nicholaa.2 Eventually, John was able to make William flee to the Continent.
According to several sources, including Roger de Hoveden, William disguised himself as a woman to make his escape to France.
This scurrilous tale holds that the disguise was discovered at Dover when a sailor took liberties with the "maiden". Roger of Wendover says that the discovery was actually made by a group of women who overheard the sailor's amazement at a woman wearing breeches. They went up to the "woman" and asked her about the cloth she was
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