Deaths in a French prison and a Sicilian dungeon

On July 27, 1214 a highly significant battle occurred, the battle of Bouvines, which had severe consequences for King John and Otto, the Holy Roman Emperor. Otto was John and Richard’s nephew and was very close to his uncle Richard, as readers of Ransom may remember. John was not present at the battle; his brother William Longsword was taken prisoner and John was eventually able to ransom him. Renaud de Dammartin was not as fortunate. He was a minor character in Devil’s Brood and Here be Dragons, Count of Boulogne because he’d abducted the heiress and forced her to marry him. Philippe considered him a traitor and not only refused to ransom him, he had Renaud chained to a log in his dungeon cell and held him there till he died.
It was never wise to get on the bad side of a vengeful king, as Simon de Montfort’s son Guy was later to learn, too. Edward I understandably bore him a grudge for the murder of his cousin Hal in Viterbo, which was dramatized in The Reckoning. That shocking killing—in a church during Mass like the murder this week of an elderly French priest as he said Mass in his church before it was invaded by evil---created a great scandal throughout Europe. It would destroy Guy’s brother Bran, who was already a lost soul, blaming himself for the deaths of his father and eldest brother at Evesham. But Guy was luckier and because he’d inherited some of Simon’s battlefield brilliance, he continued to prosper, for a good general can be forgiven much. He owed a debt, though, for Viterbo, and the day would come when he’d pay it in a Sicilian dungeon after being captured in a sea battle in 1187. His friends tried to ransom him, but the offers were always refused, and it was generally believed that this was Edward’s doing. You all know Edward is not one of my favorite kings, but I do understand his determination to see Guy punished for his crime. Of course Edward had contributed to the bitterness that led Guy to commit that murder by mutilating Simon’s body at Evesham. When we read of the cruelties people inflicted upon one another throughout history and then when we read about the horrors happening today, it is all too obvious that human nature has not changed much down through the centuries.