Eleanor of Aquitaine: The Mother Queen (17 page)

Richard was obsessed by his expedition to the Holy Land. His officials combed the English ports for ships. As his father’s treasure — valued at 100,000 marks (£33,000) — was insufficient, everything was up for sale, ‘castles, towns and manors’ according to Roger of Howden. The king later joked, ‘I would have sold London itself if I could have found a buyer’. Geoffrey had to pay £3000 for his archbishopric. Richard was too impatient to wait for tax receipts to come in and literally auctioned not only lands but offices, honours and privileges of every kind; even William Longchamp had to pay something for his chancellorship. For 10,000 marks, king William the Lion of Scotland was allowed to buy back the castles of Berwick and Roxburgh, which strategically were of vital importance, besides purchasing other concessions including the renunciation of all homage. Using papal letters, Richard extorted considerable sums of money from men who had sworn to go on crusade but changed their minds. Sherriffs were removed so that their offices could be offered for sale, and certain officials who had grown rich under Henry II found themselves facing crippling fines. Richard also hoped to plunder the Jews, but a false rumour spread that he had ordered a full-scale massacre, and his subjects forestalled him by slaughtering every Jew they could find, burning their bonds and stealing their property. To do him justice, the king deeply regretted the massacre; not only did it lose him a great deal of money, but the Jews had been under his personal protection and their murder was therefore an insult to the king.

So quickly did he amass funds that Richard’s expedition was ready to sail by the spring of 1190. It is said that he had hired or requisitioned a fleet of one hundred vessels, from the Cinque Ports and other southern English harbours, and from Poitou and Normandy; among them was the
Esnecca,
the royal vessel that may have carried his mother to captivity fifteen years before. It has been estimated that the fleet provided transport for approximately 8000 men. The king himself preceded his armada, sailing from Dover on 11 December; he was ill and feverish, so that before he had even left England men said he would never return.

Almost as soon as Richard crossed to France, trouble broke out between the justiciar Hugh Puiset and the chancellor William Longchamp, each claiming to be the other’s superior. The king held a council at Rouen on 2 February 1190 and later decided to make William Longchamp chief justiciar south of the Humber, while the north was to be under Hugh Puiset. Unfortunately, although their powers had been defined a little more clearly, there was still considerable ambiguity in their respective positions. Further unrest was inevitable.

In February the king’s council was joined by that indispensable adviser, the queen mother. She brought with her poor Alice of France, Richard’s betrothed, whom Eleanor was determined he should never marry. It was now that she unwisely persuaded Richard to release John from his oath to stay out of England. As was customary, she endowed many abbeys and convents to pray for the success of the crusade and for her son’s safe return. Among the beneficiaries were the Knights Hospitallers of the priory of France, who received the entire seaport of Le Perrot near La Rochelle, and her beloved nuns at Fontevrault. She took up residence at Chinon, where she had last been as her husband’s prisoner: she was magnanimous enough to make a special endowment at Fontevrault for prayers ‘for the repose of Henry’s soul’.

Early in the summer of 1190 king Richard and king Philip met at Gisors to discuss the final details of their joint crusade. Philip insisted on discussing the position of his half-sister Alice, demanding that Richard should marry her before setting out on an expedition from which he might possibly never return. The English king stalled. He refused to surrender either Alice or her dowry, but argued that as women were not allowed to ride with their husbands on this crusade, the marriage must wait until he came home. Accordingly Alice remained in confinement at Rouen.

After saying goodbye to Eleanor at Chinon, Richard went to Tours, and finally set out on his crusade on 24 June 1190. The departure was not altogether happy, the crusaders weeping as they parted from their tearful families. There had been an ominous incident; when the English king received the insignia of a pilgrim — a staff and a flask — the staff broke in his hands. Nevertheless Richard went on to Vézelay (where half a century ago Louis and Eleanor had listened to St Bernard preaching the second crusade) and joined Philip. The joint armies marched at last on 3 July. Philip sailed from Genoa and Richard from Marseilles. The main English fleet had already left England, intending to join the king en route, but had been delayed by storms in the Bay of Biscay. He himself proceeded on a leisurely voyage down the west coast of Italy. When he reached Sicily he found his fleet waiting for him at Messina.

Richard was forced to stay longer in Sicily than he had expected. His brother-in-law William II had died in 1189, the last legitimate male of the royal house of Hauteville, and the throne had been seized by William’s illegitimate cousin, count Tancred of Lecce. The latter’s position was extremely insecure, as the legal heir was the formidable Henry of Hohenstaufen, the future emperor Henry VI, who had married an Hauteville princess. Tancred needed all his resources to maintain himself against this menacing claimant, so he refused to hand over to his predecessor’s queen, Joanna, either her dowry or her legacy, and placed her in close confinement at Palermo. Richard was hardly the man to let his sister be treated in such a way. He immediately demanded her release, whereupon Tancred grew alarmed and sent her to him at Messina with some money, but still kept both the dowry and the legacy. The English king thereupon stormed one of Tancred’s castles, which he gave to his sister to use as a dower house. Tancred was popular with his subjects, and fighting broke out between the English and the townsmen of Messina, which Richard then seized ‘more quickly than a priest can say his matins’; he allowed his soldiers to sack the town thoroughly, announcing that he was going to keep it as a surety.

During this time Eleanor had not been idle, although she was now nearly seventy. By way of Bordeaux, she had ridden over the Pyrenees to Pamplona, the capital of king Sancho the Wise of Navarre. Here, on behalf of her son, she asked for the hand of Sancho’s daughter Berengaria. Richard of Devizes tells us that Richard had met Berengaria during a tournament at Pamplona and infers that the king had been strongly attracted by her intellect. This may well mean that she had a taste for the
gai saber
and troubadours, in which case she was a princess after Eleanor’s own heart. The chronicler also tells us ungallantly that Berengaria was more accomplished than beautiful. However, the match was probably Eleanor’s idea. She wished to make sure that her son would never marry Alice of France. One can only guess at the reasons why the queen mother hated Alice so much: was it because she was her supplanter’s daughter, or because she had been Henry’s mistress, or did Eleanor fear a strong will that might threaten her own power?

Meanwhile Philip, who had now arrived in Sicily, was quarrelling once more with Richard about Alice. The French king pretended that he was angered at not having been given a half share of Messina, but the real reason was his half-sister; soon he and Richard were refusing to speak to each other. It was six months before Tancred gave way, paying Richard the vast sum of 40,000 bezants in gold, and betrothing his daughter to Richard’s nephew and heir presumptive, the young Arthur, duke of Brittany, with a dowry of equal value. Richard mollified Philip by presenting him with a large part of the treasure that he had extorted from Tancred. The two monarchs wintered pleasantly in Sicily, though the Capetian chafed at both the delay and the expense. He sailed for the Holy Land as soon as possible, on 30 March 1191, and thus missed the arrival in Sicily of the English queen mother.

Eleanor and Berengaria had ridden over the Alps and all the way down the Italian peninsula to Brindisi. It was another daunting journey for such an old woman, yet she had undertaken it for the most statesman-like reason: she wanted to see that her favourite son not only repudiated Alice, but would marry a biddable princess and beget an heir. Richard himself may not have been over-interested. During his stay in Sicily he had knelt at a church door in Messina, bareheaded and naked save for his breeches, and publicly begged for absolution from his vices; four years later a saintly hermit was to reprove the king to his face for the sin of Sodom, to such effect that when he fell ill shortly afterwards he again did penance and recalled his wife to his side. Whatever his private feelings about marriage, however, Richard was too fond of his mother to go against her wishes. He sent a Sicilian ship to collect the two women, and rode across the island to meet them at Reggio. They reached Messina on the very day that Philip of France set sail.

Eleanor’s reunion with Richard — and also with Joanna, a child when she had last seen her, but now twenty-five — was a short one. As it was Lent, Berengaria’s marriage could not be celebrated, but the king assured Eleanor that he would marry the princess as soon as possible, and the queen mother entrusted her future daughter-in-law to Joanna’s care. Mother and son seem to have discussed problems of state: no doubt the distressing news that the English magnates were already quarrelling with the chancellor William Longchamp. Then on 2 April 1191, having spent only four days at Messina, Eleanor set off on the long journey home. A few days later Richard, accompanied by Joanna and Berengaria, sailed for Acre. His mother was not to see him again for nearly three years.

Escorted by the archbishop of Rouen (Walter of Coutances) and other great lords, Eleanor crossed the straits of Messina and rode up to Rome. She arrived there on Easter Sunday in the midst of the festivities for the coronation of the agreeably named Hyacinth Bobo (Giacinto Bobone) as pope Celestine III. The octogenarian pontiff was an old friend with whom she had been on good terms since he was in France in the early days of her first marriage, and also from a later period when he had benefited by her second husband’s patronage. She had little difficulty in obtaining a legateship for the archbishop of Rouen, which if necessary she could use to bring William Longchamp to heel. She also extracted papal confirmation of the appointment of Geoffrey Plantagenet as archbishop of York, despite the opposition of William Longchamp and the English clergy. This was not generosity but shrewd politics: as archbishop he would finally abandon any thoughts of the crown, and he might prove a useful ally. Her only other business in Rome was to drive a hard bargain with the Roman moneylenders over her travelling expenses. She left the Eternal City as quickly as possible, crossing the Alps and passing through Bourges on her way to take up residence at Rouen. It was almost exactly the same journey that she had made with Louis nearly forty-two years earlier.

In the meantime Richard’s fleet was scattered by a storm off Cyprus. Some vessels were driven ashore and wrecked; they were plundered by the Cypriots, who imprisoned the survivors. The Cypriots also refused to allow Joanna and Berengaria’s ship to shelter in Limassol harbour. Infuriated, Richard landed with his troops and in a matter of days had seized the entire island, together with its ruler, the self-styled ‘emperor’ Isaac Comnenus, whom he personally knocked off his horse and had placed in silver fetters (he had given his word not to put him in irons). He took the opportunity to marry Berengaria on 12 May in the Orthodox cathedral at Limassol, with much pomp. We do not know what Berengaria wore, but Richard appeared in a tunic of rose samite and a cape sewn with gold crescents and silver sunbursts, a scarlet cap decorated with gold beasts and birds, and cloth of gold buskins with gold spurs. The festivities lasted for three days.

Richard then left Cyprus (which he later sold to the Knights Templars), and reached Acre with his fleet on 8 June 1191. The crusaders besieging the great Palestinian seaport were saved from a disaster in the nick of time.

13 The Regent

‘Eleanor, by the wrath of God, queen of the English.’

Eleanor’s letter to pope Celestine III

‘And who could be so savage or so cruel that this woman could not bend him to her wishes?’

Richard of Devizes on queen Eleanor

The next years show Eleanor at her most statesman-like. She had to defend Richard’s possessions from the ruthless greed of his brother John and also against Philip of France, both of whom were determined to take full advantage of the king’s absence, which proved unexpectedly long. But, in compensation, the queen mother possessed all the power she could desire, even if she was to know little peace.

Count John — so called from his county of Mortain in Normandy — knew very well that Arthur of Brittany was his brother’s heir presumptive. He was therefore anxious to establish as strong a claim to the succession as possible, either to part of the Angevin empire or to the whole. Moreover he soon convinced himself that Richard would never return from the east, and he hoped to convince the people of England as well. Richard of Devizes informs us that the count travelled throughout the realm, ‘making himself known, as Richard had never made himself’, to people of all classes, installed his own garrisons in the royal castles, and circulated a rumour that Richard would never come back and that John was his heir.