Charlie Fenton > Recent Status Updates

‘20 August 1191, the Lionheart marched out on to the plains of Acre, leading some 2,700 prisoners - the bulk of the city’s Muslim garrison - all bound in ropes. There, beneath the waning summer sun, he ordered his troops to butcher them to a man in cold blood, and then returned to the port, leaving the ground littered with mutilated corpses. Of all Richard’s deeds, this massacre is perhaps the most controversial’

‘Anne Boleyn had been taken back from the French court to marry James Butler. It had been a brilliant solution to the disputed Ormond inheritance, dreamed up by the cardinal. James’s father, the male heir and the choice of the Ormond family in Ireland, had the right to it according to Irish law. Sir Thomas Boleyn, father of this Anne, the king’s ambassador, and grandson of the former earl, had under English law’

‘All told, Richard’s efforts to increase royal revenue proved remarkably successful. In the first accounting year of the Lionheart’s reign, the frown amassed more than £31,000 - double the income recorded from the preceding twelve months. This reservoir of wealth enabled Richard to dominate and direct the Third Crusade, in part because his financial resources far surpassed those possessed by Philip of France.’

‘One startling fact looms over Richard I’s career: though among the most renowned of all England’s monarchs, the Lionheart spent barely six months on English soil. With such a small proportion of his decade-long reign seemingly dedicated to the care of the realm, it is perhaps little wonder that some sought to criticise Richard’s conduct.’

‘Richard was not raised to become King of England, nor was he expected to inherit the vast Angevin realm. Indeed, for the first twenty-five years of his life, he was eclipsed by his elder brother, the glamorous Henry the Young King (crowned as co-ruler of England alongside his father in 1179). Richard’s own formative years were spent not in England, but in Anjou and Aquitaine.’

‘The years of struggle, the suffering, the uncertainty, the battle and ultimate triumph of attaining for my son all he deserved, now lie behind me. Those years that seemed harsh as I lived them, now gleam like a lost pearl. I would go back and live it all again for the blessing of the short years I enjoyed with Henry; for the all-encompassing joy of his existence.’

‘Henry would die at his hunting lodge of Lyons-la-Forêt, eighteen miles from Rouen. He had been taken ill soon after his arrival there, of a violent intestinal disorder, which would popularly be reported as brought on by ‘a surfeit of lampreys’. He lay ill for a week and died during the night of 1 December 1135, fortified bu the rites of the Church, which were administered by his old friend, the Archbishop of Rouen.’

‘The first necessity was to arrange for his daughter’s remarriage. Her chosen husband, a match to which she was initially reluctant to agree, was Geoffrey, the son of the Count of Anjou. The empress was a shrewd observer of politics and events in Flanders may have persuaded her that this match was a political necessity. The couple were betrothed in the cathedral at Rouen in May 1127’

‘One of the vessels in the convoy, the White Ship, had foundered... They stuck a rock, the craft fell apart, and all but a couple of the two hundred and more souls on board perished. William, the king’s son and heir, was one of them, along with two other of the king’s children, Richard and Matilda, Countess of the Perche... The loss of the White Ship would become a defining image of the reign’

‘England in Henry’s reign might well have appeared as one vast building site. Some of the work was done for the king himself. He kept his own castles in good repair. These were business expenses, for the castles in the county towns were his branch offices. There was a general movement from timber to stone. His own new castles included Corfe in Dorset, to strength the defences of the south coast’

‘There will be no more sons now. I am doubtful Elizabeth will bear more children. She is exhausted, tortured with grief, her body dragged down by the sorry state of her mind and she is growing old, well past her prime. We have only Prince Henry and he must be preserved at all costs. I concur with the king’s decision that Henry must be kept from danger, screened from contagion.’

‘Now I am the King’s Mother people say I am proud and overbearing but I have earned my place. I have fought hard and long and have every right to be gratified by my achievement. My family are now perfectly preserved against ill fortune and neither I nor my offspring shall ever bow the knee again. I am the mother and grandmother of kings and princes.‘

‘Nothing now stands between an alliance with Spain but still Ferdinand and Isabella continue to stall. What more can they want? The king has triumphed over all rival claimants to his throne. Warbeck, a proven traitor and imposter is locked up, never to emerge from the Tower again. The royal nursery is replete with children, three sons is more than any king can reasonably ask.’

‘He sits alone in his chamber, his sorrow channelled into planning the most elaborate funeral that he can. No cost is to be spared. His infant daughter must have everything he can provide, every extravagance she would have enjoyed had she lived to adulthood. Dry eyed but torn, he orders the Princess Elizabeth be brought from Eltham to Westminster Abbey in a chariot drawn by six horses.’

‘Henry enjoys no longer being the baby of the nursery and gladly plays the part of a concerned older brother. His relationship with his sisters is curious; he often wrangles with Margaret who is as argumentative as he, but he is gentle and considerate toward his more pliable little sister. As the pair run away toward the outer edges of the enclosure their voices drift in the warm sunshine and I am almost happy.’

‘“Margaret - Margaret Tudor” - the name echoes in my mind as I visualise her growing up. Our shared name will surely create a bond between us. Margaret and I shall become friends, allies. I shall speak up for her when she falls foul of her father’s favour. I shall spoil her with pretty gowns and fine books, coach her in herb lore and healing. Little Margaret shall become a mirror image of myself’

‘The couple’s first child, Matilda, was born in February 1102. Then, in late summer 1103, Henry had his longingly awaited son and heir, William. These two royal children were named after his parents. The royal couple had no more children. The queen did not want any more, so it was said.‘

How very strange and unusual for a royal couple!

‘Matilda of Scots married Henry on 11 November 1100 in Westminster Abbey, and was crowned alongside him at the Christmas court. His bride was of royal and of English descent. Both were crucial to him. Matilda, as we have noted, was the daughter of Malcom III, King of Scots, and of (St) Margaret, the granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, King of England.’

‘A stray arrow caught the king in the chest, piercing his heart, and he died almost immediately... He moved quickly. The following day, at Winchester, Rufus was buried in the New Minster, with proper but not protracted ceremonial, and Henry took control of the royal treasury... Henry was crowned King of England, on Westminster Abbey, on 5 August 1100, just three days after William Rufus had died.’

‘The boy, Simnel, does not take his terrified eyes from the king’s face. I feel a twinge of pity for him. Henry is right. Poor young foul, his only crime is in the shade of his hair, and possibly the taint of bastard Plantagenet parentage. Perhaps it would be kinder to throw him in gaol as I suggested than condemn him to a life of mockery, but Henry is king. His will is mine.’

‘As I am prepared for bed I begin to recall aspects of Elizabeth’s behaviour over the past weeks that should have alerted me to her condition. Her usually rosy cheeks have been pallid lately, her appetite reduced to that of a sparrow. I had assigned her megrim to anxiety about her forth-coming marriage, supposing some delicacy over her approaching wedding night. I never once suspected she was already debauched.’

“I will not campaign for a position that is only God’s to give. I will not make promises and bargains to achieve the highest office on earth. One lesson I learned from my late cousin is that you should never attempt to steal power that rightly belongs to God alone.”

‘there is no doubt that Suger was right. Rufus waged war with money. He took care to maintain a strong and stable coinage, so that men who took the king’s silver penny knew what they were getting. He used his cash to buy allegiances, as in his takeover of eastern Normandy in 1090-91. He did so again in 1098-9 in the Vexin’

‘in the end so few were willing to risk life and limb in open rebellion shows that Mowbray had miscalculated badly, but just what he har calculated is less clear. Had he thought that in his Northumbrian fastness, territory beyond the reach of Domesday Book, he was unassailable? According to John of Worcester, he planned to kill or depose Rufus and replace him with Stephen of Aumale, son of Count Odo of Holderness.’

‘To a king of England, Wales was a much more intractable problem than Scotland. The Highlands were far beyond his reach and most of what is now southern Scotland was ruled by a single king. Wales, on the contrary, was dangerously close to prosperous English regions and composed of a fluctuating number of small kingdoms - the most substantial being Gwynedd, Powys, Deheubarth, Morgannwg and Gwent’

‘Against this display of power Robert could do little but give Rufus what he wanted: formal recognition of his lordship over those parts of Normandy which in practice he already controlled, plus the ports of Cherbourg and Fécamp. In return Rufus promised to restore their lands in England to 1088 revolt. The two brothers promised to help each other recover and retain their paternal inheritance’

‘So far as is known - which is not far at all - Rufus had no children. Certainly he never married. But kings’ sons, unless pushed into marriage at a young age by their fathers, commonly delayed it until facing a political crisis in which a wife could be useful. The first of the sons of the Conqueror to marry was Robert. He did so in 1100 when he was in his late forties and on his way back from crusade’

‘that Rufus was perceived as protecting sodomites. But for Rufus to thwart Anselm by seeing no need to ban sodomy is one thing; for him to be an active homosexual himself quite another. His personal life remains a closed book. The author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, writing after Rufus’s death, was deeply critical of the king’s violence, avarice and oppression of the Church, but said nothing about his sex life.’

‘Geoffrey had given the evidence that had led to the deaths of their brother and mother, as well as Henry Courtenay and Edward Neville. The repercussions upon wives and families was immeasurable. It was good for him to seek forgiveness... Maybe, once it was given, Reginald could fully forgive him as well.’