|
forced him to revoke his sentence. Thus, through Eleanor's firm mediation, the open enmity of the warring parties was laid to rest, although the subterranean hatreds ran as deeply as ever.8
She also had to hold John in check while simultaneously running the kingdom and freeing Richard.
Eleanor tried to temper John's every move, beginning by trying to restrain him from going to France to join up with Philip. Richard of Devizes pictures her at this moment fearing what this "lightminded youth" might do. Her motherly heart, he says, was pained when she reflected on the early deaths of her older sons - a sentiment echoed in the letters she had sent at this time to Celestine. She strove with all her being to bring some accord between her younger sons, so that she might die more happily than had their father. She thus took action to shore up support for her regency in 1192, by calling a council at Windsor, Oxford and London, at which she required all the nobles to renew their pledge of fealty to Richard, a pledge that most of them were to uphold.9
At first she was successful in keeping John on a tight leash, but at last he went to France when the news of Richard's capture broke, and there did homage to Philip and promised to marry the long suffering Alys. He immediately tried to return to England to claim the English throne.
Eleanor placed herself at the head of the kingdom, and called out the fyrd, the English militia. Throughout Easter, they guarded the coast on the lookout for John's mercenary army.
When it arrived, most of John's army was arrested.10
But John himself slipped past the watch and hired Welsh mercenaries. These limited forces took refuge at Windsor and Wallingford, where the queen's armies besieged them.
Meanwhile, on April 19 1193, Richard had written begging his "dearest mother Eleanor" and his justiciars and all the faithful men in England to raise a ransom, and informing her that he had exchanged the kiss of peace with the emperor. She began to try to raise the money in April 1193. But it was not easy: the country's purses had been emptied several times over to pay for the Crusade.
Calling a council, she appointed new officers to raise the ransom and issued new taxes. The Cistercian monks, the Gilbertine canons and other sheep ranchers had to give a year's wool clip: every man of whatever rank had to pay a quarter of his yearly income, and each knight twenty shillings. All the gold and silver plate from every church was seized.11
The wealth of England and the other parts of the empire was shipped and dragged to St Paul's, where it was placed in chests under the seal of the queen mother and the chief justiciar.
But the people had had enough, many of them evading the taxes, so that two more collections had to be made. As well, John exploited the confusion by putting taxes in his own coffers.
At the same time, Eleanor had been active internationally, having her secretary Peter of Blois draft thundering letters that she sent to the pope. In these, she denounced the conspirators who had seized her son against the "Truce of God" that protected the lives and properties of Crusaders, criticising the pope for not acting, and bemoaning the death of her two older sons, Henry and Geoffrey, who slept forever while "their unhappy mother lives on, tortured by their memory."
She threatened to bring down Christendom itself if her son was not freed, and signed herself "Eleanor, by the wrath of God, queen of the English."
She had indeed been styling herself pre-eminent queen for some time, despite the existence of Berengaria, and there was no doubt whose hand was keeping the empire from total collapse.
Oddly, the complex ransom negotiations were directly handled by the disgraced William Longchamps, with whom the English nobles all but refused to deal, having once driven him from their shores. He had to swear that he came as a simple bishop, not as a state official, and still the nobles refused to hand over the 200 required hostages to him saying they could not trust their sons to such a man.
But at last the loot - 35 tons in all - and the hostages were assembled at ports in Suffolk.
From there, Eleanor herself sailed with the fleet in December 1193. On the continent, she voyaged by road across country and up the Rhine by boat, to be reunited with her favourite son at Speier.
There was to be one last frustrating delay.
The release was set for January 6, but John and Phillip offered more money if Richard could be kept in prison.
Emperor Henry, however, realised that international opinion was turning against him, but he wanted something from Richard. At Eleanor's advice, the final payment was given: Richard publicly doffed his leather hat and placed it in the hands of the emperor as a sign of vassalage. Hence, Richard was the man of the emperor, who was no doubt flattered by this meaningless gesture. Henry was now the feudal overlord of the greatest man of his time.
And so, at last, on February 14, Eleanor embraced her son once more, in an assembly of nobles, many of whom wept at the spectacle. As she described herself, Eleanor was worn to a mere bag of skin and bone, the blood gone from her veins, and she was unable to cry from eyes that had wept too long.12
She brought her son home to England, where the pair shone in triumph, disposing of the last of John's forces and setting things to rights, including dealing with the sheriff of Nottingham and picnicking in Sherwood forest.
Despite their ransacking of the empire's treasury, the ultimate disappointment of the Crusade, the foolishness of their politicking, their enmity with the empire, and the failing health of themselves, they were, together, god like. They had created a legendary aura about themselves that shone through that dark age like the most refined gold, and which has shown no sign of dimming with the centuries.
Eleanor announced in England that Richard would officially don the crown of England for the second time, a kind of coronation anew, and this happened in her presence at St Swithin's Winchester on April 27 amidst scenes of unparalleled splendour. Eleanor sat with her maids of honour on the northern side of the church, opposite the king on his throne.
For Berengaria, however, there was to be no reunion.
|
|