Indeed, several young knights agreed to take the cross and join the expedition. It was a strange experience for me; these Celts were noted for their ferocity and intransigence, especially towards the English, but the Lionheart had drawn their sting and soothed their savage hearts.
I was immensely proud to be at the Lionheart’s side. I was reminded of stories that my father used to tell me of exploits of years ago: of King Harold when he was Earl of Wessex, when he rode into Wales to challenge the fierce Celtic princes with just the housecarls of his personal hearthtroop; or of Hereward, Thegn of Bourne, and his band of followers; or of King Arthur challenging the Danelaw. They were childish thoughts of hero worship, but very real all the same.
With four knights of Powys keen to take the cross, distinctive in their deep-red Celtic leines and carrying their massive shields and long pikes, we traversed almost the entire breadth of the domain, to reach Canterbury. There we welcomed William, King of the Scots, also called ‘Lion’ for his powerful build and red hair. As he had charmed the Welsh dragons, so the Lionheart charmed the Scottish lion. After much horse trading, brokered by Abbot Alun, he framed the agreement in which, in exchange for 10,000 marks, King Richard agreed to return Berwick and Roxburgh to the Scots, which his father had forced them to surrender, and acknowledged Scotland’s independence from Westminster.
The Lionheart knew it was a momentous agreement, so he had the arrangement widely heralded and enshrined as the ‘Quitclaim of Canterbury’, written in Abbot Alun’s own hand in his impeccable blackletter script and sent to be stored with the King’s Pipe Rolls at Winchester. Abbot Alun said it was his greatest achievement.
It caused consternation among the English earls, who were astonished that their King had relinquished sovereignty to a land that their fathers and grandfathers had fought so hard to seize. But it was greeted with euphoria north of the border, where Richard’s reputation knew no bounds. And there was the rub; as Abbot Alun was quick to point out, in less than a month, the Lionheart had won over two nations which had been implacable enemies of England for centuries.
The new King was also generous to his brother, John. Although not entirely altruistic, as he needed his sibling’s loyalty while he was away, he plied him with new titles and granted him the lordships of six English counties, including Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, and approved his marriage to Isabel of Gloucester, whose inheritance included Bristol, Glamorgan and Newport. In a symbolism that was not lost on a grateful brother, the lands he gave John were almost an exact match to the realm held by his grandmother, the Empress Matilda, in her civil war against Stephen of Blois in the 1140s.
In just four months, the Lionheart had transformed the hierarchy in England and brought a calm sense of goodwill that had not been felt in living memory. And he had appeased and charmed our Celtic cousins in a way that had not been experienced before.
On the road to Dover, getting ready for our departure to Normandy, Abbot Alun remarked on Richard’s achievements to me.
‘Our young lion is no longer the ferocious beast; he has the sagacity of a ruler twice his age. Hildegard would be proud of him.’
Over the next few months, Richard also proved to be a master of military preparation and quartermastering. He decided to sail the materiel for his army to the Mediterranean, rather than carry it on a baggage train, and began the process of commissioning the ships and the men to sail them. The Cinque Ports alone had to provide thirty ships. Henry of Cornhill, one of London’s sheriffs and a fanatic for detail, was made responsible for building the navy and recruiting its crew. He offered 2d a day for sailors and 4d for steersmen. He also took charge of finding the materiel for the voyage. The task was immense: 2,000 horses, 200 farriers, 400 grooms and 50,000 horseshoes from the ironworks in the Forest of Dean.
Arrows and quarrels came in long convoys of carts from all over England. Carpenters, shipwrights and cordwainers, as well as blacksmiths, weaponsmiths and armourers, had to be recruited. Feeding the army was one of the biggest challenges. Every large house in the realm had to train new kitchen staff so that its cooks could be enlisted. Their utensils had to be commissioned, providing a windfall for every cutler, tinker, tinsmith and pewterer in the Empire. They flocked to Smithfield, just beyond London’s walls, where Henry of Cornhill was assembling his arsenal and storehouses.
Salt in huge barrels and sacks of herbs and spices were brought from the warehouses by the Thames, and the infirmarers prepared their pennyroyal potions and other remedies to ward off the putrid fever and bloody flux that had devastated previous crusades. Siege engineers from Aquitaine arrived with their tools: grappling hooks, winches, pulleys and ropes, and their sulphur and lime for their notorious incendiaries. Nothing like it had ever been seen in London before, and crowds flocked through the postern at Aldersgate to gawp at the preparations, which stretched as far as the eye could see.
By March 1190, the third leader of the Great Crusade, the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, was already on his way down the Danube. Kings Richard and Philip, not wanting the German legend to steal all the glory, set the date of departure of their armies for 24 June.
In the meantime, we travelled south, to the Pyrenees, so that the King could make a point to Raymond, Count of Toulouse, who was the only major Latin prince not to take the cross. There was no doubting what the Count’s intentions would be once we had left for the Holy Land, so the King wanted to exert his authority and remind the Count of the consequences of any infringements into Plantagenet territory while he was away.
The excursion was an overt demonstration of pomp and power. We journeyed with a body of men sufficient to reflect the scale of the Plantagenet Empire and a courtly retinue appropriately resplendent in their regalia and finery. Behaving impeccably and smiling profusely, we went from lord to lord. The King enjoyed their hospitality and in return dispensed expensive gifts or parcels of new land, and arbitrated over disputes. It was all very civilized on the surface, but each of our hosts knew the King’s real, if unspoken, purpose: While I am away fighting for Christ’s holy realm in Palestine, remember who your temporal master is here in Aquitaine, especially if the Count of Toulouse comes to woo you.
There was just one unsavoury incident. Bernard IV, Lord of Bigorre, a minor Gascon fiefdom in the Pyrenees, was a notorious warlord in an area noted for recalcitrant rulers and endemic lawlessness. We had crossed swords with his family before, a dozen years earlier, when the young Lionheart was dealing with the rebellion in Aquitaine against his father.
Numerous plaintiffs complained to the King about the Lord of Bigorre’s behaviour. Not only was he filling his treasury by stealing the precious possessions of pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela, but he was also humiliating, beating, torturing and murdering them if they tried to resist his thieving. The King despised bullies and was intent on teaching this one a lesson.
When we approached his fortification at Bagneres, he was nowhere to be found. His family and garrison were also gone, and his treasury was bare. But it was not difficult to track him down. The townsfolk of Bagneres, who had suffered his cruelty for many years, were only too willing to reveal to us that their lord had sent his family to Bayonne with his treasury and half his garrison. However, he had taken the rest of his men and hidden in the high Pyrenean forests at the headwaters of the Adour River.
The King organized a small troop of light cavalry and with that gleam in his eye that always signalled his love of the chase, we rode up the valley of the Adour in deadly earnest.
Only three hours later, we saw the smoke from Bigorre’s camp. There were perhaps fifteen of them, a posse of cut-throats posing as a local militia. We numbered six knights, their men-at-arms and one of our elite conrois of cavalry. It was hardly a contest. Within moments of the Gascons seeing the Lionheart’s standard at the head of our galloping column, they scattered into the trees like startled sheep.
Bernard of Bigorre attempted to do the same, but his considerable girth made that impossible. His groom had also deserted him, and his horse was nowhere to be seen. He did have one companion, a sobbing young girl – perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old – who, judging by her peasant clothing, was his current plaything.
The Lionheart dismounted with his usual athleticism and strode towards the Gascon. Even though the rotund lord had drawn his sword, the King kept his in its scabbard, knowing that he did not need a weapon; his presence was enough to make his opponent buckle. The girl continued to sob, but the King walked over to her, turning his back on the fat Gascon, and held out his hand. Reluctant at first, she was won over by the Lionheart’s warm smile. He led her to Godric and asked him to give her some food and water.
As soon as the King turned back to face his quarry and fixed him with an awesome stare, Bernard of Bigorre
