Crusade (24 page)

To his relief, Robert was granted the Duchy of Normandy. But, to his horror, the Kingdom of England was bestowed on William Rufus. His father did not give reasons – he did not have to. He had left his legacy, and that was the end of it. Henry Beauclerc, the youngest of the three siblings, was granted no titles but the sum of 5,000 pounds of silver, enough money to make him one of the richest men in Europe and thus very dangerous.

William Rufus grabbed the parchments attesting his kingship of England and struck north for the Channel within an hour of his father stamping his seal on them. He was at Canterbury within three days, ready to have his sovereignty confirmed by Lanfranc, the Archbishop of all England.

Henry summoned his father’s chancellor immediately, so that preparations could begin for the extraction of the 5,000 pounds of sterling for his windfall. So vast was Henry’s inheritance that the carts lined up outside the treasuries at Rouen and Caen resembled the caravan of wagons used to carry the legendary dowries of Babylonian princesses.

Robert immediately travelled to see King Philip at Melun. Now that he was to be confirmed as Duke of Normandy, he was keen to heal whatever rift had been created by his father’s brutal behaviour at Mantes.

The result of the rapid departure of the three sons was
to prove disastrous. The old King died suddenly, early on the morning of the 9th of September 1087. Before his death, he ordered that all his political prisoners be released and begged forgiveness for his many excesses. He apparently hesitated about the release of his half-brother, Odo, but then relented. Morcar, the former Earl of Northumbria and survivor of Ely, was released – but, sadly, Rufus immediately ordered his re-arrest. William’s regalia was sent to his parish church and his cloak to the foundation he had established at Senlac Ridge.

Chaos soon reigned in Rouen; rumours spread that the three sons had gone to raise armies and that Normandy was about to descend into civil war. All the nobles and bishops at William’s deathbed dispersed to their homes to secure them against the expected mayhem, leaving the King alone. His chamber and body were plundered by servants and outsiders, and his corpse abandoned on the floor.

It was left to a minor local landowner from St Gervais to rescue the body and prepare it. A barge was ordered and the royal remains were floated down the Seine for burial in Caen, where more ignominy befell the greatest ruler of his era.

There were many clergy present for the funeral, but only Henry of the immediate family; neither Robert nor Rufus made the journey. Very few of his magnates were in attendance; they were too busy plotting how to maximize their position under the new regime. Would they support Rufus, be Robert’s men, or back neither and ally themselves with one of William’s many enemies?

I was given a formal invitation as a prince of the household and was able to secure positions close to the altar for the four of us.

The senior member of the family who was present, William’s aged first cousin, Abbot Nicolas of St-Ouen, son of Duke Richard III, presided over the funeral in Caen Abbey. As the Bishop of Évreux rose to give the address, a local man, Ascelin, son of Arthur of Caen, stepped forward and demanded that William not be interred in the abbey because the land it stood on had been stolen from him by the Duke many years earlier. Most of the local congregation agreed with the heckler and pandemonium ensued. Calm was restored only when Count Henry agreed to pay compensation out of the funds his father had just left him.

The incident reflected all that was true about William’s tenure. The sense of dread he embodied, which had guaranteed subservience, was only superficial – now that his presence was no more than a haunch of flesh, the aura had been dissolved. Those once cowed were emboldened to speak their mind.

Greater indignity was to follow. When the casket was brought forward for the body to be lowered into it, it was too small. With everyone turning away in embarrassment, the funeral attendants tried to force the issue by attempting to prise the King’s quart-sized frame into a pint-pot of a coffin. At this point, the bungling of the embalmers proved to have been as monumentally inept as that of the coffin-makers.

Still rotting on the inside, the bloated corpse burst open like the putrid carcass of an animal, splattering those nearby
with its rancid contents. The smell was so unbearable that the abbey emptied within minutes. The only saving grace for those lowly clerics left to clear up the mess was that the suddenly deflated corpse could now be squeezed into its resting place, allowing the task to be hurriedly completed and the coffin sealed.

The era of William, Duke of Normandy, conqueror of England, was over.

Like so many others, I was not sorry to see him go. His ambitions had brought death to tens of thousands and pain and suffering to many more. He had killed the noble Harold and destroyed the mighty English army at Senlac Ridge; he had cut down the Brotherhood of St Etheldreda – the bravest of the brave – at the Siege of Ely and taken Hereward from us. In doing all of that, he had denied me the throne that would, one day, have been mine. I no longer resented that, but I did feel bitter about all the other things he had done.

Adela spoke for the others over dinner that night, a meal that was much more like a celebration than a wake.

‘A lot of people will rest easier in their beds now that he’s gone. Good riddance to the bastard!’

While I shared her sentiments about his passing, I feared that her prediction about people sleeping more comfortably in the future would prove to be wrong. William had changed all our lives for ever. I pondered how profoundly our lives would yet be changed in the lengthening shadow of his legacy.

18. The Anointing

William Rufus became William II of England in a grand ceremony in Westminster Abbey on the 26th of September 1087. He had required my attendance to kiss his ring at the appointed time, thus adding authority to his succession, and Robert was happy to give his blessing for me to travel to England with my small band of brothers-in-arms.

The saintly King Edward’s most celebrated building was crowded with the great nobles of the realm, dressed in their heraldic finery, their ladies in fine silks and jewels. Horns saluted, drums beat the rhythm of the procession and the monks chanted in homage as Rufus became King of England.

Perversely, there were not many Englishmen there; I guessed that not more than one in ten was a native of our island. I performed my role and knelt before our new lord and kissed his ring, thus anointing him on behalf of my kith and kin. It was a strange sensation, not helped by the contemptuous smirk which met my eyes as I looked up at him. I had a lingering sense of betrayal, a sin I could have redeemed there and then by plunging my seax deep into his chest. But it would have been merely a gesture, and a futile one at that; there were legions of Normans to take his place.

After his crowning, Rufus dutifully carried out his father’s wishes and distributed money to all the churches
of England. He freed Bishop Odo, but had Earl Morcar re-arrested. However, he was moderately well treated in a manner befitting an earl of the realm. The people of England appeared to grudgingly accept Rufus as the legitimate heir to the throne, although resentment at the Norman lordship still ran deep.

The plots that had been hatching within the Norman hierarchy regarding the successions – both in England and in Normandy – soon began to unfold.

Odo was at the centre of it all and had recruited the powerful Robert of Mortain to the cause. By Christmas, they had been joined by Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, and his nephew, the Earl of Northumbria, as well as by Roger, Earl of Shrewsbury, and Count Eustace of Boulogne. By March 1088, they were strong enough to make their move.

We had returned to Rouen earlier in the year, where a messenger arrived just after Easter summoning me to Rochester to meet Odo and his co-conspirators. I told Duke Robert about the summons.

He agreed that I should go, but warned me to be extremely careful.

‘Odo is ruthless and ambitious and will do anything to further his own cause. He is not my father’s half-brother for nothing.’

‘I presume he thinks that by usurping Rufus and offering you the throne, he can become your regent in England.’

‘Exactly! He still wants the throne of Rome – and de facto rule of England from Westminster would go a long way to securing that. He would have the money and the
influence to buy himself the papacy. But don’t worry, Edgar, you are just the messenger.’

‘Thank you for that reassuring crumb of comfort. I suppose I have done worse things in life.’

I decided it was wise to travel with Edwin and Adela and leave Sweyn behind, given that he had already crossed swords with Odo six years earlier when he arrested him at Rochester. We arrived at our clandestine rendezvous in Upchurch, a small settlement near the Medway, one of Odo’s many manors in Kent. With guards all around and the local peasants dismissed to their fields, we met in a small barn, hardly big enough and certainly not grand enough for the elite of the Norman aristocracy.

The Bishop was in his pomp, clearly overjoyed at playing the role of kingmaker. His entourage – big, burly men who could easily have been mistaken for housecarls had they not been wearing their fine armour and gleaming weapons – stood around him in a brooding arc that made the three of us seem like a tiny morsel about to be snapped up in the jaws of a huge beast.

Odo wasted no time in telling us of his intent.

‘Your loyalty to Duke Robert is well known. Carry this message to him. We will raise a rebellion here in England to install him as King. The only condition is that during his reign he rules from Rouen, where he will continue as Duke of Normandy. He will come here for only four crown-wearings every year – at York, Winchester, Gloucester and Westminster.’

‘My Lord Bishop, do you expect him to accept that?’

‘I expect you to carry my message.’

With that I was dismissed like a pageboy.

Our journey to England had been uneventful – not so the return to Rouen.

It was May and the weather had been mild but, in mid-Channel, our ship suddenly hit a wall of heavy mist. Our captain, one of Robert’s most experienced sailors, tried to stay calm, but I could see that he was concerned. From the helmsman’s position it was only just possible to see the curve of the prow; beyond it was a void.

The captain ordered our sail to be lowered, a torch lit and our horn sounded, but it was too late. We heard the wash of the other ship before we saw it, only seconds before it hit us. I saw the serpent prow first, high above my head. Seconds later, it rammed us amidships. A large Norman merchantman, fully laden, low in the water in full sail, she split us almost in half.

We were all in the water in an instant. Thankfully, spring had warmed the sea sufficiently so that our lives were not under imminent threat, but it was vital that we look for something to cling to and then try to retrieve our armour and weapons.

We were carrying little cargo so, although badly holed, we did not sink immediately. Two of the captain’s crew were killed in the impact and Edwin seemed badly dazed. With our captain’s help Adela and I managed to pull him on to the merchantman, which, apart from some sprung timbers along her prow, seemed seaworthy.

Adela then jumped into the water again and swam back to our ship, now sitting very low in the water. The captain of the merchantman steered his ship alongside our stricken vessel and Adela started to throw our armour, weapons and anything else she could find on to its deck. But I soon
became alarmed as our ship began to list to port and rapidly take on water.

‘Adela, get off the ship! She’s going down – you must swim for it!’

‘Not without my seax!’

She dived beneath the waves just as the ship slipped quietly beneath the surface. I immediately dived in after her, knowing that she could easily become entangled in the rigging or be enveloped by the sail. The sea was calm but I was not a strong swimmer and, still wearing my leather jerkin and heavy boots, I soon began to flounder.

I swallowed water and was fighting for air when I saw Adela’s shiny seax within inches of my face. Its blade was catching the light of a torch that had been lit to help search for us. Adela had found her weapon at the last moment and was now holding it in her teeth as she pulled me towards the safety of the merchantman.

Once aboard, she turned to me. ‘You can’t swim, can you?’

Somewhat embarrassed, I had to confess that it had been many years since I had tried to swim – and that was only in a shallow pond in Hungary.

‘Then you are very brave. Thank you for trying to help me. You nearly drowned!’

‘It should be me thanking you. I would have drowned had you not appeared from the depths!’

Adela smiled at me before marching purposefully towards the captain of the merchantman. When she arrived within a foot of him, despite the fact that he towered over her, she threw a prodigious punch with her right hand, catching the captain square on his jaw. The leather glove of
her hand was still sopping wet with seawater, so the impact of the punch produced a plume of spray that followed the captain’s descent to the deck of the ship, splashing over him moments after he landed.

He lay there, dazed for a moment, before rousing himself and reaching for his battle-axe. As he did so, he felt that Adela already had the point of her seax under his chin. The angry face of our own captain was glaring down at him.

‘I should let this knight kill you – I know she’d like to. It’s what you deserve! How can you have been in full sail in these conditions? You had no beacon and sounded no horn.’

Realizing that he was in no position to argue, the prostrate man relented.

‘I am sorry, the mist comes and goes. I thought we would soon be clear.’

I then intervened, partly to make our progress to Normandy as swift as possible and partly to save the beleaguered captain from being filleted alive by Adela’s blade.

‘We are on Duke Robert’s business. This ship is requisitioned until we reach the coast. After that, I will leave it to you and our captain to decide how you settle your differences.’