Assassination: The Royal Family's 1000-Year Curse (10 page)

The Pope agreed, and he ordered the excommunication of many of the rebel barons, placing an interdict on their lands. However, Archbishop Langton refused to enforce the Pope’s decree, and the Pope suspended from office the very man whose appointment he had worked so hard to secure. Ignoring Langton, the bishops applied the Pope’s orders, the charter was annulled and the civil war began once again.

Winning significant victories, John subdued the north and east of England, the principal territories of the rebel barons. Their last stronghold was London, and John prepared to attack. In desperation, the barons invited Louis, son of King Philip of France, to take the crown of England. Now John had to deal with the expected invasion. Unfortunately, John’s fleet was destroyed in a storm, and Louis was able to land in the southeast at Thanet and then move on to London.

John retreated northwards, but when he reached Kings Lynn he was laid low with dysentery. In a reduced state, John set out for Lincolnshire in October 1216, travelling around the bay known as the Wash by way of Wisbech, while his baggage train took the more direct but hazardous route across the fourmile-wide estuary where the Wellstream River flowed into the Wash. It certainly was hazardous. Those in the baggage train who were not swallowed by quicksand were swept away by the incoming tide. All John’s treasure and all England’s crown jewels were lost; not a single man in the baggage train survived.

Having taken the safer route, John struggled on and arrived at Swineshead Abbey to the west of Boston. Here his condition deteriorated. It was blamed on a meal of peaches and fresh cider. The next morning John set out with his entourage. He got as far as Newark, where he died a few days later.

There is an alternative version of John’s death. It tells of how the Pope wanted to end the conflict between England and France. He believed that there was no way to accomplish this while John lived, for although John and the Pope were now reconciled, John had always caused trouble. So the Pope instructed a monk to travel to England and poison John.

Having crossed the Channel, the monk caught up with John’s party as they reached Swineshead Abbey. Once there, the monk produced a letter from the Pope, and was invited to enter. He offered his services in the preparation and serving of the King’s meal. Now he was ready to strike.

Alone in the wine cellar, the monk carefully poured some of the poison into a carafe of wine. He carried the carafe into the dining room and offered the wine to the King. John instructed the monk to drink some first. The monk drank a little, believing that a small amount would not be lethal. He did not realise that the poison was lethal even in small quantities, although slow-acting. As a result, the monk was initially unaffected, so John took a glass and drank his fill. John’s life lingered on as his condition deteriorated on the journey to Newark, where he died. Still in Swineshead Abbey, the poisoner monk, the murderer of the King, also died.

The poisoning story was rumoured at the time and was revived in the sixteenth century, when it was taken up by Shakespeare in
The Life and Death of King John
. The story may have been inspired by Tudor anti-papalism. On the other hand, for an English king to die of ‘natural causes’ was rare, and peaches and cider were unlikely killers.

In all probability another King of England was murdered.

 

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CHILDREN OF KING JOHN CHILDREN OF KING JOHN

 

HENRY III
19 October 1216 – 16 November 1272

 

King John had married a girl aged twelve, so he had no legitimate children for seven years after the wedding. It meant that when John died, his first son was only nine years old. Henry succeeded his father in the weakest position of any new English monarch. Not only was he a young child, but London and most of the south-east were in the hands of Louis, the Dauphin
⁷
, and the north of the country was controlled by rebel barons. On top of this, the crown jewels and the royal treasury had been lost.

Yet all these problems were overcome by the wisdom of the men who governed England during Henry’s minority. For a start, the death of John took away much of the rebels’ cause and support. Victories for Henry’s forces on land at Lincoln and at sea off Sandwich led to a deal. All the rebels were granted an amnesty, and a bribe ensured that the Dauphin returned to France.

Finally, in 1227, at the age of nineteen, Henry took over from the men who had safeguarded the kingdom for him.

 

7 The heir to the French throne, meaning ‘a dolphin’ – the creature on the heir’s flag.

 

When Henry signed a reduced version of Magna Carta, there appeared to be nothing to prevent an untroubled reign.

Then Henry appointed Peter des Roches, the Poitevin Bishop of Winchester, as his principal adviser. Wasting no time, des Roches granted positions and privileges to dozens of his kinsmen who had made their way to England. The barons were furious at this foreign invasion, and they forced Henry to replace des Roches and to send his countrymen back to Poitou. For several years Henry avoided further trouble; but it was weakness rather than wisdom that sustained him, and the barons grew ever more powerful.

In 1236, Henry married Eleanor of Provence, the younger sister of the Queen of France. Now came the first attempt on Henry’s life. The unsubstantiated story is that in 1238, in the dead of night, an assassin managed to get into Woodstock Palace. He crept along the corridors, moving from room to room until he reached Henry’s quarters. Drawing his dagger, the assassin advanced to the side of Henry’s bed. To his disappointment, Henry was not there. In what was a rare occurrence for a king in those days, Henry was spending the night in his wife’s bedroom. The would-be murderer escaped, as did Henry.

Following in the footsteps of des Roches, Queen Eleanor saw to it that many of her family and countrymen came to England to populate the court and move on to positions of power. They were joined by the King’s half-brothers, because Henry’s mother, who was only 28 years old when King John died, had married Hugh X of Lusignan, the son of Hugh IX of Lusignan from whom she had been stolen by John so many years earlier. Catching up on lost time, she bore Hugh nine children; and they all wanted positions at their half-brother’s court.

Not surprisingly, the barons were even more enraged. The situation was aggravated by high taxation imposed by Henry to pay for an unsuccessful attempt to regain continental lands, for a crusade that never took place, and for a failed adventure to gain the crown of Sicily for his second son, Edmund.

In 1258, the threat of rebellion and a shortage of money forced Henry to sign the Provisions of Oxford under which he agreed to the formation of a Council, with half of the members to be selected by the King and half to be selected by the barons. Henry swore that he would follow the advice of this Council. He also agreed to the meeting three times a year of a parliament made up of magnates, bishops and the King’s legal advisers.

Like his father after Runnymede, Henry did not keep his word. He continued to rule autocratically. However, there was one person who was not content to sit and look on as Henry ignored his obligations. A young man named Simon de Montfort had arrived from France in 1230 to make a claim to the earldom of Leicester. As the younger son of the nephew of the fourth earl, his case was doubtful to say the least, yet by force of personality and determination he succeeded to the title. In 1238, he married Henry’s widowed sister, Eleanor. Now Simon had influence at court as the King’s brother-in-law and in the Council as one of its most powerful members. Simon’s authority increased as many of the barons and much of the populace gave him their support in the quest to restrict foreign influence at court and to force Henry to keep the promises he had made in the Provisions of Oxford.

Henry agreed to resolve the dispute by arbitration. The arbitrator, King Louis IX of France, was horrified at the proposition that royal power should be restricted, and he ordered the annulment of the Provisions. It was asking for trouble. Open warfare broke out in 1264, with Simon leading the rebels as the champion of Parliament and enemy of the foreigners. Extraordinary, because Simon had clearly been a fortune-hunting foreigner himself.

The rebels’ main strongholds were Northampton, Leicester, Nottingham and London. Within days, Henry had taken three of those cities. Only London remained, and it was the key to power.

Rather than making for the capital, where victory would have ended the war, Henry marched around the city to the royalist stronghold of Rochester, intent on relieving it from a besieging force. Even after routing the besiegers of Rochester, Henry might have marched to London. Instead he decided to capture Tonbridge, and then he proceeded to secure the towns on the south-east coast. That done, he turned inland and made for Lewes in Sussex, having left behind substantial forces to hold the coastal towns.

Simon set out with his army, and they made camp four miles from Lewes. Although he knew that Simon’s army was approaching, Henry posted a party of only four men on the ridge overlooking the town to keep a look-out. Three of those men returned to the town to eat and drink, and the remaining soldier fell asleep. That allowed Simon to position his army, totally unseen and unhindered, less than two miles from the King’s forces.

In the morning, with knights to the front and infantry behind, Simon’s men advanced. Despite being taken by surprise, the royal army managed to form its line just in time. The rebel army was divided into three divisions abreast, with a fourth commanded by Simon himself to the rear. Henry’s army was also divided into three divisions abreast, but without a fourth division behind. The men who might have formed such a reserve had been left to garrison the coastal towns.

The engagement took place across all three divisions, with Simon’s left (made up of Londoners) meeting the King’s right, commanded by Henry’s son, Prince Edward, first. The rebels’ assault was unsuccessful as Prince Edward and his men rebuffed the attack, forcing their opponents to flee in disorder. If Edward had then used his troops to reinforce the centre and left of his father’s army, there is little doubt that Simon’s army would have been defeated.

Instead, Edward’s emotions took over. He wanted revenge on the Londoners for insulting his mother when they had pelted her with rotten vegetables and eggs as she sailed down the Thames. Edward led his men (the elite of Henry’s army) in pursuit of the fleeing remnants of the rebel division, chasing them from the battlefield, killing as many as possible until there were no more to kill. When it was over, he found himself over three miles from Lewes and out of sight of the battle. On the way back, Edward stumbled upon Simon’s baggage train. Never one to miss an opportunity for easy killing, Edward and his forces attacked the baggage train, not stopping the slaughter until they had mistakenly killed the royalist prisoners being held by Simon.

Meanwhile, the real battle had been continuing. After vicious hand-to-hand fighting, the rebel right division broke the royalist line, and then Simon advanced with his reserves to support the centre. They quickly began to overpower the royalists. Undaunted, Henry and those around him fought on in the hope that Prince Edward’s forces might shortly return.

Here came the opportunity to end the battle and the war. Simon’s knights rode forward, each seeking his own target. One of them made for the King, the knight’s lance pointing at Henry’s chest. At the critical moment something happened. Perhaps the attacker’s horse stumbled, perhaps the King managed to turn away. As the lance was thrust forward with murderous intent, it narrowly missed Henry, instead sinking deep into the body of his horse. Henry fell to the ground; but the moment had passed, the opportunity lost. The attempted killing of the King had failed. Soldiers rushed to Henry’s side, and they dragged the heavily-armoured monarch to a nearby priory.

Victory was completed, with Henry’s soldiers and knights retreating into marshland around the River Ouse, half-covered by water now that it was full tide. Many of them drowned as the mud sucked them and their horses down.