will tell you more when you are King. I will be long gone by then. He will also tell you more about England, and why it is so precious to all of us.’
As if he were administering a blessing, the old Earl stretched out his hand and gestured to Father Alun and myself to move closer.
‘We are all children of England; we all carry its precious blood. Remember that.’
His eyes filled with tears and his head sank even lower on to his shoulder. His steward, who had been hovering close by, stepped forward and summoned a couple of assistants.
‘My Lords, the Earl must rest now. Perhaps you can have a little more time with him after dinner.’
As his retainers began to lift Harold from his chair, the Lionheart grasped his hand and knelt at his feet.
‘I have heard many stories about how you helped my grandmother in the war against Stephen, and throughout the rest of her life…’ He paused to kiss the Earl’s ring. ‘Thank you.’
Earl Harold, tears now running down his pale, wrinkled cheeks, placed one hand on the Lionheart’s golden- red mane and the other against his face. A sudden ember of the strong and determined Harold of old blazed in his eyes and lit his face.
‘You must love England, as England will come to love you.’
Then, as he was carried away, the sharp look subsided and the Earl’s melancholy expression returned.
We stayed at St Cirq Lapopie only until the next afternoon. None of us wanted to linger as Earl Harold entered the last few days of his life. He had said what he needed to say, so we left him to depart in peace.
The death of Young Henry brought a brief period of calm to the Empire. King Philip took his army back to Paris, and Hugh of Burgundy and Raymond of Toulouse returned home. We were then able to deal with Aquitaine’s rebels with relative ease and all submitted to the King, albeit with their usual duplicity.
The King punished his wayward son Geoffrey by denying him access to any of his castles in Brittany, and the young man had to rely on the hospitality of his friends until his father’s anger subsided. All remained calm until the Christmas of 1183, when the King summoned his family to Caen once more.
The gathering would lead to yet another squabble between the Devil’s Brood.
Henry wanted a domain for his fourth and youngest son, John, who had just reached the knightly age of eighteen. Once again, he expected Richard to make way. As the Lionheart was now heir apparent to the entire Plantagenet Empire, the King wanted him to surrender the dukedom of Aquitaine to John in exchange for John’s oath of loyalty to him as his future liege.
The Duke hardly knew his youngest brother; John was disliked at court, and was said to be both spiteful and petulant. He was shorter and darker than the other Plantagenets and lacked both the presence and personality of the Lionheart. All in all, there was nothing appealing to Richard about his brother, and he had nothing to gain from agreeing to his father’s request.
Father Alun and I travelled to Caen with the Duke, but neither of us was privy to what was said when he met his father. However, when Richard returned from the meeting, he asked Father Alun to help him compose a letter to the King.
‘I bit my tongue when the King made his preposterous suggestion. I asked for time to think about it, then embraced my brother and left. Now, I’m going to respond in a formal letter. Abbess Hildegard would be proud of me.’
Father Alun smiled broadly.
‘Indeed, I believe she would, sire. Well done.’
It took some hours to craft the letter as the Duke wanted it, but eventually it was composed.
The Duke did not wait to witness the inevitable anger of his father; we left for Poitiers early the next morning. No doubt the King’s reaction was apoplectic, but we did not hear from him for several months.
Nor did we hear anything from either of Duke Richard’s younger brothers.
We spent most of 1184 training the army, relaxing on hunting expeditions or enjoying life at court in Poitiers. The Duke and Father Alun spent many hours discussing the diverse subjects raised by Abbess Hildegard, and the respect they held for one another grew.
The Grand Quintet made an appearance in June, which became a time of great revelry. They also brought some news.
Apparently, the King had been trying to negotiate a marriage for Richard – either by cementing an alliance with a daughter of the Emperor Barbarossa, or by confirming his long-standing betrothal to Alyse, the sister of Philip Augustus, King of France. Both notions had little chance of success. The Emperor’s daughter was a sickly child with no chance of producing children, while it was well known that when Alyse was under the King’s guardianship at Caen, as a girl, he had been unable to resist seducing her. As far as the Lionheart was concerned, diplomatic marriages were one thing, but marrying one of his own father’s conquests was completely out of the question.
The King then turned to what he thought would be a gambit that Richard would be unable to defend. Although it had much potential risk, and he did it reluctantly, he decided to release his wife from her confinement in England.
For the first time in eleven years, Eleanor of Aquitaine – the most powerful woman in Europe, and its most beautiful – was on the loose.
12. Return of the Duchess
The King’s gambit was the work of a master of chess. In May 1185, Queen Eleanor arrived in Normandy and the King immediately sent a message to Richard at Poitiers, asking him to travel to Caen once again to greet his mother and escort her back to Aquitaine. Once there, she would be reinvested as Duchess of Aquitaine.
It was a brilliant move.
Such was the esteem the Lionheart had for his mother, he ordered that we leave for Normandy the next day. In addition, he readily agreed to step aside and acknowledge Eleanor as Duchess of her domain. Richard’s agreement initially appeared to be a capitulation but was, in fact, far from it. He was his mother’s heir in Aquitaine, which significantly strengthened his claim. And he was also his father’s heir to the Empire. Even more importantly, his prodigiously capable mother was now free to become his most important ally.
Neither John nor Geoffrey was happy with their father’s elegant solution to the Aquitaine game. But there was little they could do to challenge the outcome. Among those who were inclined to manoeuvre against the Plantagenets and support rebellious offspring, Geoffrey did not command the respect that Young Henry had mustered and John was too young. With the King and his formidable wife allied in a pragmatic truce focused on Richard, a triumvirate had been created that was far too powerful to be challenged, even by Philip of France.
Richard’s position was strengthened even further during the following year. In August 1186, as was his wont, Geoffrey was competing in a chivalrous tournament in Paris. In a vicious encounter with a very tenacious and skilful knight from Saxony, he was thrown from his horse. Ominously, his right ankle remained caught in its
