Rolling in feathers

Adolf of Nassau, King of the Romans In the mid-1290s a series of wars raged all over Western Europe. Edward I's invasion of Scotland tends to hog the headlines - at least in the British Isles - but it was really part of a much wider interrelated conflict. 

The match that lit the powder that blew the keg was Philippe le Bel's invasion of Edward's duchy of Aquitaine two years previously: in the aftermath both kings began to feverishly recruit allies, apparently in an effort to encircle each other at the same time. Edward copied the strategy of his grandfather, King John, and focused on building up a confederation among the princes of the Low Countries and the Holy Roman Empire. In response Philip worked on enlisting allies in Burgundy, Norway and Scotland.

One of Edward's most important allies was Adolf of Nassau, King of the Romans and technically the Holy Roman Emperor (though he was never formally crowned by the pope). Adolf already had a grudge against Philippe, who had designs on certain outlying districts of the empire. A desultory war had been raging in eastern Burgundy, and in 1294 Adolf was all too happy to take Edward's money to fight the French.

The English paid over enormous sums. By October 1294 Adolf had received £20,000 of English sterling, with another instalment of the same amount paid over by Christmas. Edward was supposed to sail to the Continent in September, but was distracted by a major revolt in Wales. While his paymaster suppressed the Welsh, Adolf used Edward's money to launch an invasion of Thuringia in east-central Germany. 

Adolf's aim was to expand his power  base inside the empire. He had only been elected because he was relatively poor and weak, and could not prevent the powerful Electors from doing as he wished. By using English money to bring a significant chunk of the empire under his direct control, Adolf could aspire to be king in deed as well as in name. 

His invasion of Thuringia over the winter of 1294/5 was bloody and brutal, and did nothing to endear Adolf's subjects to their ruler. One German chronicle describes it in vivid terms:

"In the same year Adolf, king of the Romans, by mainforce entered into Thuringia in the month of September, carrying out there many evils, defiling virgins, laying waste to churches, robbing, oppressing and killing innocent and just men, and perpetrating several other things contrary to the rule of justice..."

Adolf's solders behaved with eccentric cruelty: apart from the atrocities listed above, they were said to have seized a couple of defenceless widows, smeared them in pitch mixed with grease, then rolled them in feathers. When informed of this, Adolf remarked that the women were guilty of no crime, but otherwise was indifferent to their fate. They returned home, the chronicler says, having 'gained no grace'. 

When the campaign was over, Adolf spent more of Edward's money on hiring support in Germany: a sum of £1000, for instance, was paid to Count Johann von Sponheim for his 'welcome services'. The German king then had the insouciance to write to Edward and inform him of his truimph in Thuringia, achieved thanks to English gold:

"...see now how we may bring joy to you, because, in entire fulfilment of our vows, and by the strength of the victorious army which we recently created, with the Lord of Hosts our helper, we have added the provinces of Thuringia, Osterland and Meissen to our dominion and empire..."

These glad tidings were unlikely to have brought Edward much joy, and Adolf had exaggerated his success. The people of Thuringia were not conquered, and in the autumn of 1295 Adolf was obliged to launch a second invasion of the province. Once again he used English money to do so, and by now Adolf's subjects were tired of his antics. One German chronicler, Ellenhard, accused the king of keeping the money to himself instead of distributing it among his nobles. Another, Mattias of Nuremburg, complained that Adolf did not use English money to buy armaments to fight the French, but to purchase Meissen. 

Adolf was on dangerous  ground. Not only had he knifed Edward in the back - not a good idea, as Prince Dafydd of Wales could have warned him - but his wars in Germany had alienated his subjects. A reckoning was on the horizon, in the shape of a Welsh assassin and a one-eyed Austrian duke.