Henry II - A Medieval Soldier at War, 1147–1189

Henry II

History of Warfare Editor

Kelly DeVries Loyola College Founding editors

Theresa Vann Paul Chevedden

VOLUME 44

Henry II A Medieval Soldier at War, 1147–1189

by

John D. Hosler Assistant Professor at Morgan State University

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007

On the cover: [Upper part of folio] King Henry II seated on the throne, arguing with Thomas Becket. Author: Peter de Langtoft, Chronicle of England, f.7v (England; circa 1307–1327). © The British Library, BL ref. Royal 20 A. II, record no. c2205–06 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. record is available from the Library of Congress.

ISSN 1385-7827 ISBN 978 90 04 15724 8 © Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS List of Maps .............................................................................. Preface ........................................................................................ List of Abbreviations ..................................................................

vii ix xi

Introduction ................................................................................

1

Chapter One Historiography .................................................. Nature of the Military Evidence .......................................... Chronicle Sources .................................................................. Record Sources ...................................................................... Literary Sources ....................................................................

9 11 14 31 33

Chapter Two Henry’s Political and Military Career .......... Scotland and Wales .............................................................. The Continent ........................................................................ The Conquest of Ireland ...................................................... The End of Louis VII .......................................................... The Death of Henry the Younger ...................................... The Wars against Philip Augustus ...................................... The End of the Reign ..........................................................

37 51 56 66 76 82 88 98

Chapter Three Military Organization .................................. The Question of Obligation .................................................. The Matter of the Fyrd ........................................................ Mercenaries ............................................................................

103 104 113 119

Chapter Four Strategy Tactics, Logistics .............................. High Medieval Strategy and Henry II ................................ Battle as Strategy .................................................................. Vegetian-Style Campaigns .................................................... Transport and Logistics ........................................................

125 125 130 148 157

Chapter Five Castles and Siege Warfare .............................. Fortress Construction ............................................................ Castle Strategies ....................................................................

171 171 176

vi

contents Siege Warfare ........................................................................ Castles and Henry II: the 1160s ..........................................

182 188

Chapter Six The Great Revolt, 1173–1174 .......................... Main Rebel Attacks .............................................................. Henry II’s Responses ............................................................ The Second Year .................................................................. Endgame: the Great Revolt Fails ........................................

195 199 206 211 215

Chapter Seven Conclusion: Henry the Soldier ....................

221

Appendix 1: Henry Plantagenet’s Military Campaigns .......... Appendix 2: Laudabiliter .............................................................. Maps ............................................................................................

233 237 240

Bibliography ................................................................................ Index ..........................................................................................

245 263

LIST OF MAPS 1 Major Districts of England .................................................. 2 France and its Neighbors .................................................... 3 Henry II’s Continental Sieges, 1166–1168 ........................ 4 Major Engagements during the Great Revolt ..................

240 241 242 243

PREFACE The idea for this book arose in August 2001 while driving the thousand-odd miles from Iowa State University to the University of Delaware, my newly acquired doctoral program. In Ames, I had been steadily guided in historical research by Professor Kenneth Madison, who led my first graduate research seminar and introduced me to scholarly historical writing, the academy, and the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University. After arriving in Newark, Delaware, I proposed a dissertation topic to my new advisor Professor Daniel Callahan: eyebrows were raised, we hemmed and hawed, and in the end, he graciously approved. The product of the resulting labor of six years now sits before you. All of my work has benefited from encouragement and guidance generously given by others. Susan Yager and Ken Madison, my former advisors at Iowa State University, have remained faithfully supportive of my educational and professional development. Additional thanks go out to my former graduate classmates, including the erudite Edward Cox and Alex Pavuk, the reader of my preliminary dissertation materials. The fine support of my committee at Delaware, Professors Callahan, Lawrence Duggan, and John Montaño, confirmed my suspicion that coming east was the right career move. I am certain they would join me in thanking Patricia Orendorf for her limitless support on my behalf. I am also fortunate to have met the helpful and collegial members of De re militari, especially Professors Richard Abels, Charles Bowlus, John France, Clifford Rogers, Steven Isaac, and Stephen Morillo. For his kicking open of endless professional doors, I give particular thanks to Kelly DeVries, the editor of this series. Finally, I would like to thank my wife Holly, who sweetly tolerates my endless rants about medieval history, the inaccuracy of Hollywood films, and the continuing death of the past.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AHR ANS

American Historical Review. Anglo-Norman Studies (formerly Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies), eds. R. A. Brown (vols. 1–11), M. Chibnall (vols. 12–16), C. Harper-Bill (vols. 17–22), J. Gillingham (vols. 23–27), and C. P. Lewis (vol. 28). ANW Anglo-Norman Warfare, ed. M. Strickland (Woodbridge, 1992). ASC The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, ed. and trans. M. Swanton (London, 2000). Chronica Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. W. Stubbs, 4 vols. (RS 51, 1868–71). Descriptio Descriptio Kambriæ, ed. J. F. Dimock, in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, 8 vols. (RS 21, 1868), VI. EHD English Historical Documents, II: 1042–1189, eds. D. C. Douglas and G. W. Greenaway (London, 1953). EHR English Historical Review. Expugnatio Expugnatio Hibernica, ed. J. F. Dimock, in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, 8 vols. (RS 21, 1867), V. Fantosme Jordan Fantosme’s Chronicle, ed. R. C. Johnston (Oxford, 1981). Gervase The Chronicle of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, by Gervase, the Monk of Canterbury, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols. (RS 73, 1879–1880). Gesta Regis Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis, The Chronicle of the Reigns of Henry II and Richard I, known commonly under the name of Benedict of Peterborough, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols. (RS 49, 1867). Hergest Brut y Tywysogyon or the Chronicle of the Princes: Red Book of Hergest Version, ed. T. Jones (Cardiff, 1955). HSJ Haskins Society Journal: Studies in Medieval History. Itinerarium Itinerarium Kambriæ, ed. J. F. Dimock, in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, 8 vols. (RS 21, 1868), VI. JMH Journal of Medieval History. JMMH Journal of Medieval Military History. Mats. Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, eds. J. C. Robertson and J. B. Sheppard, 7 vols. (RS 67, 1875–1885).

xii Peniarth PR Regesta Regis

RS Torigini

list of abbreviations Brut y Tywysogyon or the Chronicle of the Princes: Peniarth MS. 20 Version, ed. T. Jones (Cardiff, 1952). Publications of the Pipe Roll Society, 38 vols. (Reprint, Vaduz, 1966). Regesta Regis Stephani ac Mathildis Imperatricis ac Gaufridi et Henrici Ducum Normannorum, 1135–1154, eds. H. A. Cronne and R. H. C. Davis, in Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1913–1969), III. Rolls Series (London, 1858–1896). The Chronicle of Robert of Torigini, ed. R. Howlett, in Chronicles of The Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, 4 vols. (RS 82, 1889), IV.

INTRODUCTION Anglo-Norman England has long been a fertile subject for the study of medieval military history. Its preeminence is due in large measure to the events of 14 October 1066, during which William, duke of Normandy, wrested control of England away from Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings. The result was a wave of changes that permanently altered the land of the Anglo-Saxons. Many of these changes directly influenced the methods by which the English crown conducted warfare, including the advent of a baronage and the importation of a feudal system of military obligation, both introduced after William’s coronation on Christmas 1066. William brought a policy of conquest and domination to England that defied comparison to the former Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The Old English kings fought primarily defensive battles to preserve the Heptarchy against Viking and Danish expansion from the ninth to the eleventh century. In these endeavors the Saxons were only partially successful; the strong West Saxon-Kentish state built by Alfred (879–899) grew to include lands in the uncertain regions of Northumbria and Mercia, but the advent of the Danelaw and the return of Viking invasions in the late tenth century eroded the stability of the country. By the eleventh century Edward the Confessor (1042–1066) and his earls were struggling to maintain England’s borders in the rebellious west and north. In the years after Hastings, William solidified his reign through military operations such as the 1070 ‘harrying of the north’ with the Scots, as well as diplomatic moves that gained him the fealty of Welsh princes in 1081. Furthermore, because William retained his ducal rights to Normandy, under his rule England’s interests were formally linked to the Continent. Following his death in 1087, the Anglo-Norman royal line would mirror the hereditary success of the French Capetians, and until the deposition of Richard II on 29 September 1399 England’s crown enjoyed, with only one exception,1

1 This was the reign of Stephen of Blois, the nephew of Henry I (1100–1135), who ruled during the ‘anarchy’ in which he struggled with Henry I’s daughter and co-claimant Matilda; her son, Henry fitz Empress, gained the crown in 1154 and restored the original line of succession, albeit through a female. There were also

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direct familial succession through its Anglo-Norman, Angevin, and Plantagenet kings. These and other achievements followed the Norman conquest of England. William the Conqueror’s victory at Hastings has captured the imaginations of student and soldier alike, for it was one out of a relatively small number of major, decisive battles fought during the Middle Ages. Harold’s defeat meant the loss of life and crown as well as the transfer of England to an already-powerful duke, and few moments in history were encapsulated in the course of such a singular event. William’s career in Normandy and Brittany before 1066 set the stage for England’s entrance into the context of continental warfare. The first proper encounter between the Anglo-Saxon infantry and the Norman bowmen and cavalry in 1066 has likewise been regarded as a case study for the conduct of eleventh-century warfare, and the tactics applied at Hastings have been the foci of Anglo-Norman military study for decades. William’s disputes with the Capetians and other local rulers in Brittany, Maine, and Normandy did not disappear after his coronation; king or not, he was still legally a vassal of Philip I of France (1060–1108), so the governance of these other provinces remained points of contention.2 Yet the English crown offered resources enough for William to improve his military footing and retain his holdings in Europe, and for the first time England became directly involved in continental politics. William’s sons William Rufus (1087–1100) and Henry I both intervened in continental lands with varying degrees of success, but the military nature of those struggles departed significantly from the decisive Battle of Hastings. Instead, long campaigns were settled bloodlessly in treaties, pitched battles were forsaken in favor of land-scourging tactics, and castles replaced armies as the effective measure of territorial control.3 These changes and others have encouraged the historical study of warfare during the remainder of the Anglo-Norman period and beyond. The present study addresses a portion of this timeframe

succession disputes between William Rufus and his brother Robert Curthose (1087), Robert and his other brother Henry I (1100), and between John and Arthur of Brittany (1199). 2 For his warfare pre-1066, see D. C. Douglas, William the Conqueror (Berkeley, 1964), 133–55; and J. Gillingham, “William the Bastard at War,” in ANW, 143–60. 3 S. Morillo, Warfare under the Anglo-Norman Kings, 1066–1135 (Woodbridge, 1994), 1–2.

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referred to as the Angevin period of English history, which is traced loosely from the coronation of Henry II in 1154 to the death of King John in 1216. The transition from Anglo-Norman to Angevin is something of a misnomer. King Stephen, the grandson of William the Conqueror through his mother Adela, died in 1154 and was succeeded by Henry fitz Empress, the grandson of Stephen’s predecessor Henry I (and thus great-grandson of William). Both kings were Norman through their mothers’ side, not their fathers’: Stephen’s father was the reluctant crusader Stephen, count of Blois (d. 1102), and Henry’s father was Geoffrey le Bel, count of Anjou and duke of Normandy (d. 1151). From the beginning Henry fitz Empress was groomed for the chores of governance and battle that surely lay in his future. The death of Henry I’s only legitimate son William Adelin in the White Ship disaster of 1120 prompted the king to accept a baronial oath in 1126 to the effect that, should his daughter Matilda (d. 1167) ever bear a son, they would pledge their commitment to that boy’s future, legitimate kingship.4 Fully expecting that her son would one day reign as king, Matilda gave birth to the young Henry in 1133 and procured for him an education befitting a future monarch. Henry’s schooling was never intended to be comprehensive, as a noble had little need for advanced education, and his instruction was therefore to be broad in scope but shallow in content. Before the age of seven the boy probably listened to epic stories such as Beowulf in his mother’s household. Such stories offered excellent models of bravery, loyalty, and eloquence and were commonly used in the instruction of the nobilitas. After seven he received basic instruction in letters and the basics of knighthood in his father’s household in Angers, as was the custom in the twelfth century.5 Henry’s first proper lessons were grammatical in nature, and his teacher Peter of Saintes may have been a sort of freelance instructor.6 From Peter he learned

4

Gesta Stephani, 10–13. M. Chibnall, The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother, and Lady of the English (Oxford, 1991), 144; N. Orme, From Childhood to Chivalry: the Education of the English Kings and Aristocracy 1066–1530 (London, 1984), 182. Knighthood training consisted of riding, hunting, swimming, fighting, and other skills; F. B. Artz, The Mind of the Middle Ages (Reprint, Chicago, 1980), 311. 6 As proposed by R. W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (Reprint, New Haven, 1973), 196; see also S. Reynolds, Medieval Reading: Grammar, Rhetoric, and the Classical Text (Cambridge, 1996), 61; and R. V. Turner, “The Miles Literatus in 5

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the rudiments of Latin and French, two languages in which he became proficient.7 His tutelage under Peter ended before the age of nine in the waning days of 1142. Matilda’s plans for her son were initially thwarted in 1135 when her father Henry I died suddenly after feasting on a plate of lampreys. Forgetting their 1126 oaths, the barons supported the coronation of Stephen, count of Blois, who claimed lineage through his mother Adela, the sister of the late king.8 England itself was split territorially as magnates chose the side seen as most beneficial to their own interests: The empress, or rather her protector the earl of Gloucester, held sway over a belt of territory in the west which varied greatly in extent from time to time, but of which the nucleus was formed by Somerset, Gloucestershire, the modern Monmouthshire, Herefordshire, and occasionally Worcestershire. Stephen ruled over a district which was roughly bounded, on the west by the Hampshire Avon and the Cotswolds, on the north and north-east by the Welland, the fens in the lower valley of the Ouse, and the river Waveney . . . But to the very end of the reign the territories of the rival factions interlaced and overlapped.9

The dispute over the succession transformed into outright civil war, sometimes called ‘the anarchy of Stephen’s reign’. In 1142 the young Henry actually traveled from Anjou to England with his uncle Robert, earl of Gloucester (d. 1147), a bastard child of the late Henry I, half-brother of Matilda, and an ally of the Angevin cause in the civil war.10 In the twelfth century noblemen such as Geoffrey of Anjou customarily turned their sons’ education over to a friendly and suitable lord, and in this regard Robert of Gloucester was an excellent choice.11 The earl was the most powerful noble in England after

Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century England: How Rare a Phenomenon?” AHR 83 (1978): 943. 7 Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium: Courtier’s Trifles, eds. M. R. James, C. N. L. Brooke, and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1983), 476–7. Henry would later add Italian to his repertoire. 8 For a recent synopsis of the lineage dispute, see C. W. Hollister, Henry I (New Haven, 2002), 308–13. 9 H. W. C. Davis, “The Anarchy of Stephen’s Reign,” EHR 18 (1903): 631–2. Use of the term “anarchy” has recently been questioned in J. Bradbury, Stephen and Matilda: the Civil War of 1139–53 (Stroud, 1996), 191–3. 10 Torigini, 139. 11 S. Painter, William Marshal: Knight-Errant, Baron, and Regent of England (Reprint, Toronto, 1997), 16.

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King Stephen, possessing several strong castles in the western counties as well as some territory on the Welsh March; moreover, Robert himself was well-educated and chose to school his own son Roger alongside Henry at Bristol.12 The boys were first drilled in grammar by Master Matthew, an obscure figure who may have later served as chancellor to Eleanor of Aquitaine.13 Henry’s second teacher at Bristol was Adelard of Bath (1080–1149), a former teacher at the court of Henry I and an astronomer who learned Arabic letters and mathematics in Greece and further east.14 Adelard instructed Henry in mathematics, astronomy, and perhaps a smattering of natural philosophy. 1142 was a tumultuous year for the Angevin forces. In September Matilda found herself besieged within Oxford Castle by Stephen’s army and only escaped by fleeing through a small window at night; shortly thereafter, Oxford fell to Stephen’s army.15 This might have been a fatal blow to the rebellion had not Gloucester arrived by the end of the year with his nephew Henry and an Angevin army in tow. The mere presence of Henry was symbolic and powerful, for his promised succession was a central reason for the war. But at such a young age Henry was hardly expected to join in the fighting, and sometime after 20 January 1144 Henry returned to the Continent, where his father Geoffrey had been waging a successful military campaign in Normandy.16 On the whole Geoffrey was a strong and successful leader and a good role model for his son to follow, and on 23 April Geoffrey was invested duke at Rouen.17 Henry continued 12 H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, The Governance of Mediaeval England from Conquest to Magna Carta (Edinburgh, 1963), 273. 13 Matthew is present in two charters, Regesta Regis, nos. 329 and 331; see also H. G. Richardson, “The Letters and Charters of Eleanor of Aquitaine,” EHR 74 (1959): 194; and N. Orme, Education and Society in Medieval and Renaissance England (London, 1989), 51. 14 R. L. Poole, The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1912), 52–3; Hollister, Henry I, 2; C. H. Haskins, “Adelard of Bath and Henry Plantagenet,” EHR 28 (1913): 516. 15 For the siege of Oxford, see Gesta Stephani, 71; Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. and trans. D. Greenway (Oxford, 1996), IV: 20; and William of Malmesbury, Historia Novella, ed. E. King (Oxford, 1998), 75. 16 A. L. Poole, “Henry Plantagenet’s Early Visits to England,” EHR 47 (1932): 450–1. Poole allows for a timeframe of up to 25 March 1144 for Henry’s departure; given that Robert of Torigini makes no mention of Henry at the siege of Rouen in January and February (an aberration in his customary attention to detail), I suspect Henry arrived in February or March; see Torigini, 147–8. 17 J. Bradbury, “Geoffrey V of Anjou, Count and Knight,” in The Ideals and

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his education there with the celebrated scholar William of Conches, a former teacher of John of Salisbury.18 Their relationship must have been a good one, for William dedicated his book Dragmaticon to Duke Geoffrey and may have dedicated De honesto et utili to the young Henry as well. His instruction under William lasted for three years initially, with a short break in 1147. It was during Henry’s short leave of absence from his studies in 1147 that he engaged in his first proper military adventure. The Gesta Stephani relates that Henry hired a troupe of knights and embarked upon an invasion of England, promising his men payment from the booty he expected to seize. Rumors flew that the young Angevin actually marched at the head of a force several thousand strong. Stephen and his men were easily able to defeat the small band at various locales including Crickdale. With a lack of booty hunger set in, and Henry was soon deserted by his mercenaries. His mother Matilda was unable to help him because of her own desperate straits, and his uncle Robert of Gloucester chose not to, so Henry was at length forced to appeal to the charity of Stephen himself. The king, “full of pity and compassion,” sent Henry the money he needed to return home. This was certainly an ignominious beginning of what would eventually become a fine military career.19 This study concerns itself with Henry’s military career between 1147 and 1189, the year of his death. My goal in the book is to provide a comprehensive, though not exhaustive, examination of the different facets of Henry II’s military experiences. The first chapter, inspired by C. Warren Hollister’s fine precedent in his posthumous biography Henry I, surveys the medieval evidence in detail.20 Chapter Two sketches a short narrative of his military and political exploits and problems. Chapters Three, Four, and Five examine the structure of his armies and the nature of his various military operations, while Chapter Six concentrates upon the military aspect of the Great

Practice of Medieval Knighthood III: Papers from the Fourth Strawberry Hill Conference, 1988, eds. C. Harper-Bill and R. Harvey (Woodbridge, 1990), 25–9. 18 Chibnall, Empress Matilda, 144. On William of Conches, see C. H. Haskins, The Rise of the Universities (Reprint, Ithaca, 1957), 41; and H. O. Taylor, The Mediaeval Mind: a History of the Development of Thought and Emotion in the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (London, 1938), II: 402–3. 19 Gesta Stephani, 206–209; Poole, “Early Visits to England,” 447–52. 20 Hollister, Henry I, 1–29.

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Revolt of 1173 and 1174. The concluding chapter then seeks to construct from these fresh analyses a fuller legacy of Henry, not only as a general but as a soldier of war. I like to think that Henry’s record speaks for itself, so I have tried to provide extensive documentation at every step. Whether or not his name stands along those of the greatest medieval generals is immaterial—I believe that in the final analysis he can be viewed as a sound and versatile commander who enjoyed massive success and suffered few setbacks. In any case, whatever our individual opinions, I think all can agree that his warfare is more than worthy of an extended inquiry.

CHAPTER ONE

HISTORIOGRAPHY Given the length and breadth of Henry II’s military career, one might expect that the subject would be a focal point for historical inquiry. In fact, it has been understudied and there is a relative scarcity of scholarly work on the warfare of his reign. Such has not been the case with other Anglo-Norman and Angevin monarchs, tangibly evidenced by books such as Jim Bradbury’s Stephen and Matilda: the Civil War of 1139–53, a military history of the anarchy, and John Gillingham’s Richard I, a text that concentrates heavily upon that king’s affairs in war. Though biographies of Henry abound, they rarely concentrate on his military campaigns outside their political ramifications, meaning that such issues as generalship, use of battle and siege tactics, or overall strategic plans are often glossed over or generalized.1 Apart from the biographies, there are in fact no booklength studies of Henry II’s military enterprises comparable to the works of Bradbury and Gillingham. Only two books have systematically studied Henry’s warfare, and both are limited in their objectives. John Beeler’s Warfare in England, 1066–1189 devotes 70 out of 300 pages exclusively to Henry’s campaigns in England, Scotland, and Wales and are of unquestionable value on the subjects of fortifications, military organization, and the development of battle tactics. As its title implies, however, there is no discussion of Henry’s warfare on the Continent. Beeler rarely digresses into scholarly debates over the details of particular conflicts, nor does he spend much time assessing the larger political implications of Henry’s campaigns. Michael Jones’ War of the Generations: the Revolt of 1173–74 centers on the middle portion of Henry’s reign, when his sons allied with Louis VII of France (1137–1180) and William the Lion of Scotland (1165– 1214) in a general uprising that lasted two years. This book is an

1 J. Gillingham, Richard I (New Haven, 1999). The best biographies on Henry II are W. L. Warren, Henry II (Berkeley, 1973), and R. Barber, Henry Plantagenet: a Biography (London, 1964), both of which largely supersede other texts listed in the bibliography.

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effective but predominantly political survey, not a military history; moreover, Jones at times sacrifices a systematic interrogation of his sources in order to construct a readable plotline.2 Aside from these two books, there are many other notable studies on Anglo-Norman and Angevin warfare that are of great value. Stephen Morillo’s Warfare under the Anglo-Norman Kings, 1066–1135 compares the warfare of William the Conqueror, William Rufus (1087–1100), and Henry I, but ends with the latter’s death. Michael Prestwich’s Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: the English Experience ranges further and comments on the whole of English history from Alfred the Great through the Wars of the Roses. His approach to English warfare follows topical, not chronological, lines and addresses such subjects as chivalry, naval combat, and siege techniques. This is undoubtedly useful, but the methodology employs wide-ranging examples and does not offer a coherent picture of any one general or period. In a similar vein follow Matthew Strickland’s War and Chivalry: the Conduct and Perception of War in England and Normandy, 1066–1217 and John France’s Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1100–1300. Both texts discuss a period which is immediately useful for the study of Henry II, especially Strickland’s because it addressed methods and mentalities of the mounted knights in the Angevin realms in particular. France considers the physical facets of Western warfare such as infantry, fortifications, and technology, as well as developments in tactics and a short look at those components in the Latin East. It will be noticed that neither of these books centers solely on our subject at hand, but offers instead valuable information regarding the different aspects of twelfth-century warfare.3 The remainder of essential secondary reading on Henry II’s military affairs appears in scholarly journals and is of a goodly number, but considering his long reign and the nature of military developments under his rule, they are only partially sufficient and hold not even a candle to the sheer mass of

2 J. Beeler, Warfare in England, 1066–1189 (Ithaca, 1966); M. Jones, War of the Generations: the Revolt of 1173–74 (Ann Arbor, 1980). 3 M. Prestwich, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: the English Experience (New Haven, 1996); M. Strickland, War and Chivalry: the Conduct and Perception of War in England and Normandy, 106–1217 (Cambridge, 1996); J. France, Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades (Ithaca, 1999). For an overview of these, see Anne Curry’s review article, “Medieval Warfare. England and her Continental Neighbors, Eleventh to the Fourteenth Centuries,” JMH 24 (1998): 81–102.

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research conducted on his person, relations with the Church, or his methods of governance. Following John Gillingham’s recent call for studies of whole military careers, an examination of Henry II’s story has much to offer our historical knowledge of both the king himself and medieval warfare in a greater context.4 Nature of the Military Evidence One problem perhaps lies in the fact that information regarding Henry II’s political and religious affairs is much more accessible than that on his warfare. More than one historian has pointed to his reign as the pinnacle of English historical writing in the Middle Ages, but these authors rarely couch such statements in military terms. Take, for example, W. L. Warren’s remark, “the material for Henry II in particular is so copious and from such varied sources, including some of the highest quality, that he can be seen in the round as a living, flesh-and-blood figure.”5 In a strictly biographical sense Warren is correct, and these sources are of great value for subjects of an ecclesiastical or political nature. Warren’s comments are not, however, applicable to the history of warfare during Henry’s reign; rather, much of the evidence from Henry’s reign has nothing to do with the conduct of military affairs. At its core, the problem of twelfth-century evidence is one of content, not supply: we have a lot of evidence that unhappily neglects the details required by military historians. Although interesting accounts of warfare from such writers as Froissart and Joinville are available for the later Middle Ages, there are few comparable texts for the Anglo-Norman period (excepting the detailed accounts of Hastings) and even fewer for the Angevin era. Surviving materials typically offer cursory accounts about the initiation of a hostile confrontation and then its outcome. Those accounts that do describe the actual progress of a battle are highly prized and tend to dictate the focus of historical study—the detailed battles are the ones examined in articles and book chapters. Many conflicts are so

4 J. Gillingham, “‘Up with Orthodoxy!’ In Defense of Vegetian Warfare,” JMMH 2 (2004): 150. 5 W. L. Warren, King John (Reprint, New Haven, 1997), 5. For another enduring affirmation, see C. H. Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1927), 224.

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vaguely depicted that we are at a loss to discern even their geographical location. In 2004 Helen Nicholson repeated a familiar criticism by wondering if the writers could even understand military terminology, much less battle tactics, at all.6 This vagueness is exemplified by the only passage in the Peterborough manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that speaks of Henry II’s military affairs, those he conducted as duke of Normandy in 1153: “Then he [Henry] travelled into England with a great army, and won castles, and the king [Stephen] travelled against him with a much greater army; and nevertheless they did not fight.”7 Here are useful bits of information that are quite lacking in description: we have two armies of varying sizes that did not engage in battle, and while Henry gains castles we remain ignorant of the where, why, and how. To supplement these two points we are fortunate to possess the chronicle Gesta Stephani, which, detailing the same events, notes: So the duke [Henry], collecting his forces, and with the barons flocking in eagerly to join him, made without delay for the castle of Malmesbury, which was subject to the king, and when a crowd of common people flew to the wall surrounding the town as though to defend it he ordered the infantry, men of the greatest cruelty, whom he had brought with him, some to assail the defenders with arrows and missiles, others to devote all their efforts to demolishing the wall. So when the town of Malmesbury, as has been indicated, was captured [. . .] behold, not long afterwards, the king [Stephen] arrived with a countless army collected from all his supporters everywhere, as though he meant to fight a pitched battle with the duke, and as the armies of both sides stood in array with a river dividing them it was arranged between them and carefully settled that they should demolish the castle, both because they could not join battle on account of the river and its very deep valley intervening and because it was a bitter winter with a severe famine in those parts.8

Much of the vagueness has now been dispelled and several avenues for inquiries of a military nature are opened. But the Gesta Stephani is one of only a handful of such descriptive narratives.

6 H. Nicholson, Medieval Warfare: Theory and Practice of War in Europe, 300–1500 (New York, 2004), 8. 7 ASC [E], 268. 8 Gesta Stephani, 230–33.

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Detailed corroboration in the written record is, despite the volume of historical materials that has survived, decidedly uncommon and even exceptional for Henry II’s reign as king of the English. This problem is noticeably acute in the accounts of authors who began writing in the years following King Stephen’s death in 1154. Henry emphasized economic and legal initiatives, so chroniclers responded by filling their books with transcripts of papal letters, law codes, and discussions of political relations between the rulers and nobles. The authors themselves were cloistered monks or stationary clerks who obtained their evidence from interviews, chance stories, or borrowed materials from other locales. Such geographical isolation stymied the flow of knowledge onto the written page, as Robert of Torigini aptly illustrates in his entry for the year 1168: “Besides these his exploits the king of England did many things in this war of which we have not been informed, or if we have heard of them we have forgotten them.”9 Those writers living outside of monastic settings, identified by Antonia Gransden as the “secular historians,” are sometimes more reliable, but with rare exceptions their accounts differ little in descriptiveness.10 Secular writers were, after all, still ecclesiastics—Henry of Huntingdon, for example, was an archdeacon, and Ralph Diceto was the dean of St. Paul’s—and so tended to address subjects relevant to their churches. In addition, while warfare could be important enough for posterity, the motivation to compose in the first place was usually devotional; as Ernst Breisach notes, “the recording of secular events was ultimately useless if it did not concentrate above all on demonstrating God’s grace and will, which alone are not transitory.”11 Therefore, when Bernard Bachrach speaks of “the illinformed comments of monkish chroniclers” as barriers to precise understandings of medieval warfare, he is referring to problems of perspective as well as evidence.12 Such difficulties hamper the military

9 Torigini, 239. Moreover, there is a general lack of good information for Normandy during the early year’s of Henry II’s reign; see the old but still poignant C. H. Haskins, “The Government of Normandy under Henry II,” AHR 20 (1914): 25–31. 10 See A. Gransden, Historical Writing in England c. 550 to c. 1307 (Ithaca, 1974), 219–68, for two chapters on the historians of Henry II’s reign. 11 E. Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, & Modern, 2nd ed. (Chicago, 1994), 131. 12 B. Bachrach, “Medieval Military Historiography,” in Companion to Historiography, ed. M. Bentley (London, 1997), 211.

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study of Henry II’s reign at every turn and are applicable, in addition to the Latin chronicles, to Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and AngloFrench histories. Yet this does not mean that chronicle accounts of warfare are wholly untrustworthy, only that they should be treated with care. There are, as Kelly DeVries points out, numerous historiographical factors to consider, including the location of the chronicler himself, his audience, nationality, vocation, education, and agenda, but such analysis is worthwhile because it can allow historians to recreate and explain military events from even the most extraordinary or hard-to-believe narrative sources.13 Chronicle Sources In 1878 William Stubbs delivered a delightful lecture at Oxford in which he depicted a visitor to twelfth-century England. Wandering around, the man could not help but notice authors hard at work— a virtual “paradise of clerks” across the countryside in towns both large and small.14 While the story is idealistic, Stubbs’ general point seems on target. Along with manuscripts that are recognizable as histories has survived a vast array of literary and documentary texts, and taken together they suggest a leap forward in composition across the Angevin Empire. The learning was communal because individual scholars traveled to other schools or monasteries and often shared materials by sending entire books cross-country. As a result, many chronicles contain transcribed stories from one another and their accounts must be untangled, often a difficult process. Noting the locations of each author and their respective times of composition is therefore quite useful for clarity’s sake. For the early years of Henry II’s life we posses only a few narrative accounts, none of which addresses him as its central subject. These are the chronicles from the reign of Stephen that end in or before 1154 and thus include the years in which Henry Plantagenet became involved in military affairs in England while a young man. There are several

13 K. DeVries, “The Use of Chronicles in Recreating Medieval Military History,” JMMH 2 (2004): 1–15, esp. 15. 14 W. Stubbs, “Learning and Literature at the Court of Henry II ( June 13, 1878),” in Seventeen Lectures on the Study of Medieval and Modern History (Oxford, 1886), 145–50.

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accounts of Stephen’s reign that include Henry’s early years: the anonymous Gesta Stephani, the final entries in the Peterborough manuscript, and the chronicles of John of Hexham, John of Worcester, Henry of Huntingdon, and Robert of Torigini. Of these, only Torigini continues his history past Henry II’s coronation in 1154. Many excellent historiographical discussions of these works preclude our being detained by such examination here; instead, our focus concentrates on how such evidence from Stephen’s reign characterizes warfare.15 Superior in reputation and quality among these varied sources is the Gesta Stephani, whose author, after centuries of anonymity, was identified as Robert, bishop of Bath (d. 1166), by R. H. C. Davis. Of the useful and detailed military accounts in the Gesta Stephani we have already spoken. Its historical reputation is based largely on its uniqueness, for it is the only history to cover the whole of King Stephen’s reign: William of Malmesbury had died in 1142, Orderic Vitalis in 1141, and John of Worcester in 1140. Henry of Huntingdon’s history though contemporary can hardly be called detailed, while Robert of Torigini’s information was confined in the main to Normandy, and John of Hexham’s to the extreme north of England. Almost all the information in the newly discovered portion of the GS [Gesta Stephani] (1148–54) is new.16

The first three men cited by Davis were all dead by the time young Henry Plantagenet was nine years of age. Along with the Gesta Stephani, Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum might be called the next best in a military sense. The tenth book of the Historia Anglorum, and Huntingdon’s sixth overall version, was begun in 1149 and concludes in 1154 at the coronation of Henry II.17 From 1135 onward Huntingdon ceased to rely upon other chronicles for his information and applied data of his own choosing; for Henry Plantagenet’s ducal years of 1149–1154, therefore, the Historia Anglorum is a contemporary, original, and valuable account. Henry’s attentiveness to the details of warfare has been acknowledged, and he is known for his stirring battle orations composed in the tradition of Thucydides.18

15

As an introduction see R. H. C. Davis, King Stephen (Berkeley, 1967), 146–50. Gesta Stephani, xv and xxxviii, for the identification of Robert of Bath. For a skeptical view see Gransden, Historical Writing in England, 189–90. 17 It was mostly composed after 1153; see Historia Anglorum, lxxvi. 18 Historia Anglorum, lix–lx. 16

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The monk Robert of Torigini met with Henry of Huntingdon in 1139 at Bec and was already an accomplished writer by that time. His continuation of the deeds of the dukes of Normandy ends during Stephen’s reign but before Henry became a pivotal figure.19 In his own separate chronicle, however, Torigini was very concerned with continental affairs after 1147. He is thus a good source for Henry II’s warfare in Normandy and Anjou, both before and following his coronation, and even received a personal visit from Henry in 1166 while composing at Mont-St. Michel.20 Although at times brief in his accounts, Torigini was remarkably well-informed on military activities, particularly in the realm of combat and siege tactics. He died in 1186, three years before Henry’s final defeat at LeMans.21 John of Hexham’s chronicle, a continuation of the chronicler Symeon of Durham, runs to 1153 and is of some value, but its late date of composition (1162 × 1170) renders it inferior to the contemporary accounts of Torigini, Huntingdon, and the Gesta Stephani.22 The aforementioned Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is far too limited to be usable in a military analysis of our subject. Better information survives for the regnal years of Henry II and includes a variety of continental documents. While anonymity is common in terms of authorship, their provenance is generally well known. Several extant chronicles of note were composed in the county of Anjou or adjacent provinces. The most valuable piece is perhaps the Historia Gaufredi ducis Normannorum, an extant history of the life of his father Geoffrey.23 The other Angevin chronicles generally offer brief 19 This continuation is The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert of Torigini, ed. and trans. E. M. C. Van Houts, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1995), II. On its value, see E. M. C. Van Houts, “Historical Writing,” in A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World, eds. C. Harper-Bill and E. M. C. Van Houts (Woodbridge, 2003), 118–20; Davis, King Stephen, 147. 20 Evidenced by internal references in his chronicle as well as a royal confirmation made to him as abbot of Mont-St. Michel; see Acta of Henry II and Richard I, Part Two, ed. N. Vincent, List & Index Society Special Series, vol. 27 (Richmond, 1996), no. 106. 21 E. M. C. Van Houts, “Le roi et son historien: Henri II Plantagenêt et Robert de Torigini, abbé de Mont-Saint-Michel,” Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale 37 (1994): 118. See also idem, “Robert of Torigini as Genealogist,” in Studies in Medieval History presented to R. Allen Brown, eds. C. Harper-Bill, C. J. Holdsworth, and J. L. Nelson (Woodbridge, 1989), 215–33, for Torigini’s accuracy regarding the noble families of Normandy and England. 22 See Historia Regum: Eadem Historia ad quantum et vicesimum Annum Continuata, per Joannem Hagulstadensem, ed. T. Arnold, vol. 2 (RS 75, 1885). 23 Historia Gaufredi ducis Normannorum et comitis Andegavorum, eds. L. Halphen and

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accounts that do not contribute much new information, for the bulk of it is concerned with Angevin events well before the rule of Count Henry. For his reign there are bits and pieces that usually relate to his birth and death, reception of titles, and his occasions of warfare. The Chronicon Sancti Sergii Andegavensis departs from this formula a little by recording the Becket Affair, demonstrating how that event was significant enough to gain the attention of monks further south.24 Reliable details in the Angevin documents are at a premium, as evidenced by the erroneous attribution of Henry’s coronation to 1155 in a surviving fragment of an anonymous chronicle.25 The longest and most detailed Angevin account of Henry’s reign is the Historia comitum Andegavensium, in which Thomas of Parcé, prior of Loches (and later, John of Marmoutier in a continuation) recorded events up to 1169. This chronicle constituted part of the official history of the family of Geoffrey le Bel.26 We have at our disposal four other significant continental records. The first two are the chronicles of the monk Rigord at St. Denis and the canon of Senlis, William the Breton. Both are accounts of Capetian history which suffer from a lack of critical analysis and a tentative approach to the successes and failures of the French kings.27 Rigord begins his chronicle in 1165 with the birth of Philip Augustus and thereafter concentrates on the adult years of Philip’s life, 1179–1208. His work was continued by William the Breton in the Gesta Philippi Augusti, which begins by running through Mediterranean history from Troy through the early

R. Puopardin, in Chroniques des comites d’Anjou et des Seigneurs D’Amboise (Paris, 1913), 172–231. 24 Chronicon Sancti Sergii Andegavensis, eds. P. Marchegay and É. Mabille, in Chroniques des Églises d’Anjou (Paris, 1869), 150. Also in Chroniques des Églises d’Anjou are the two accounts Vita beati Girardi monachi Sancti Albini Andegavenis and Breve Chronicon Sancti Florentii Salmurensis, 91–126 and 179–96, respectively. In addition, see Historia Abbreviata consulum Andegavorum, eds. P. Marchegay and A. Salmon, in Chroniques d’Anjou (Paris, 1856), 362–3. 25 Fragment de Chronique Angevine, in Chroniques des comites d’Anjou, 251; the fragment is also found in Chroniques d’Anjou, 367. 26 Chroniques d’Anjou, 338–47. On the chronicle’s historiography see Rodulfus Glaber, The Five Books of the Histories and the Life of St. William, eds. J. France and N. Bulst, trans. J. France and P. Reynolds (Oxford, 1989), cii; and Gransden, Historical Writing in England, 188. 27 R. Fawtier, The Capetian Kings of France: Monarchy and Nation, 987–1328, trans. L. Butler and R. J. Adam (New York, 1960), 3–4. On the other hand, Rigord is trustworthy because he rarely added details for which he did not have personal knowledge; see G. M. Spiegel, “Political Unity in Medieval Historiography: a Sketch,” History and Theory 14 (1975): 318.

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Capetians. Once William stops for breath in his record of 1183 the chronicle becomes somewhat more detailed and useful.28 The final chronicles are those of Gilbert of Mons in the north and Geoffrey of Vigeois in the south. Gilbert of Mons wrote between 1195 and 1196, and his chronicle largely concerns the northern French province of Hainaut and those French and Norman affairs that affected it, particularly Champagne.29 Geoffrey, prior of Vigeois, is our principle source for the history of the Loire valley and events in Aquitaine for the period. Writing at the monastery at St Martial, Geoffrey ends his work in 1182.30 In general, we may state with certainty that events north of the Loire are much better-documented in these chronicles, with Poitevin and Aquitanian history often given short shrift.31 The best sources of information for the reign of Henry II are generally understood to be those chronicles composed in England. Some are more local monastic accounts that speak only of the most important political events of the day, such as the Chronicle of Ramsey and the writings of Jocelin of Brakelond at Bury-St. Edmund’s.32 Then there are the major English chronicles, with which the monastic works generally concur and upon whom they are often wholly dependent. These are typically in Latin and have an assortment of good qualities: identifiable authors, some certainty of geographical provenance, and an evidentiary connection to royal court, and they are sometimes supplemented with eyewitness accounts. The most important historians of Henry’s reign are the chroniclers Roger of Howden and ‘Benedict of Peterborough,’ William of Newburgh, Ralph Diceto, and Gervase of Canterbury; the witty writers Walter Map and Gerald of Wales; the poet Jordan Fantosme; and John of Salisbury. Our consideration of their usefulness will again center on their treatment of military affairs. 28 Œuvres de Rigord et de Guillaume le Breton, Historiens de Philippe-Auguste, ed. H.-F. Delaborde (Paris, 1882). 29 Gilbert of Mons, Chronicle of Hainaut, trans. L. Napran (Woodbridge, 2005), xxviii. 30 Ex Chronico Gaufredi Cænobitæ Monasterii S. Martialis Lemovic, et Prioris Vosiensis, eds. L. Delisle and M. Bouquet, in Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, 33 vols. (Paris, 1877), XII: 421–51. 31 J. Gillingham, “Events and Opinions: Norman and English Views of Aquitaine, c. 1152–c. 1204,” in The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France between the Eleventh and Thirteenth Centuries, eds. M. Bull and C. Léglu (Woodbridge, 2005), 57–82. 32 Chronicon Abbatiae Ramesiensis, eds. W. H. Hart and P. A. Lyons, 3 vols. (RS 79, 1884–1893); The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond concerning the Acts of Sampson, Abbot of the Monastery of St. Edmund, ed. and trans. H. E. Butler (New York, 1949).

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The most prolific chronicler of the period was Roger of Howden, a clerk and sometime emissary from Yorkshire who spent several years traveling alongside Henry II.33 To him are attributed the major works the Chronica and the Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi. The latter text had formerly been attributed to one ‘Benedict of Peterborough,’ a monk at Peterborough thought to have written independently of others, but in 1953 he was identified as Roger of Howden.34 Howden was a parson who often traveled with Henry’s court, and he became an experienced and savvy diplomat during his lengthy service to the crown. For the period 1154–1169 he is largely original, save for some Scottish materials taken from the Chronicle of Melrose. He was an eye-witness to the rebellions of 1173 and 1174, and thereafter his chronicle is an amalgamation of his own experiences and outside materials. Given his close proximity to warfare, including a thirteenmonth stint with Richard the Lionheart on the Third Crusade, one might expect Howden’s descriptions of combat to be quite detailed, but instead he saved his extended discussions for diplomatic affairs.35 For example, regarding a siege conducted by Geoffrey Plantagenet (d. 1212), one of Henry’s illegitimate sons, Howden tells us Geoffrey “took the castle of Kinardeferie, and levelled it with the ground,” so we learn some important details but certainly not the whole story.36 One exception to Howden’s lack of descriptive detail is his very careful recording of treaties, assizes, and diplomatic arrangements, in all probability a result of his close connection to the court and his knowledge of state affairs.37

33

For a biographical discussion, see F. Barlow, “Roger of Howden,” EHR 65 (1950): 352–60. 34 For a discussion of the Benedict question, see D. M. Stenton, “Roger of Howden and Benedict,” EHR 68 (1953): 574–82; Gransden, Historical Writing in England, 222–30; D. Corner, “The Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi and Chronica of Roger, Parson of Howden,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 56 (1983): 126–44; and J. Gillingham, “The Travels of Roger of Howden and his Views of the Irish, Scots and Welsh,” in The English in the Twelfth Century: Imperialism, National Identity, and Political Values (Woodbridge, 2000), 69–72. 35 J. Gillingham, “Historians without Hindsight: Coggeshall, Diceto, and Howden on the Early Years of John’s Reign,” in King John: New Interpretations, ed. S. D. Church (Woodbridge, 1999), 21–2; Barlow, “Roger of Howden,” 357–8; J. Gillingham, “Roger of Howden on Crusade,” in Medieval Historical Writing in the Christian and Islamic Worlds, ed. D. O. Morgan (London, 1982), 65. 36 Chronica, II: 57. 37 Howden himself embarked on a diplomatic mission to Galloway in 1174; see Gillingham, “The Travels of Roger of Howden,” 71–2. On his preservation of

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William of Newburgh was an Augustinian canon, one of the period’s most engaging chroniclers, and certainly one of the more polished writers of his time. His Historia Rerum Anglicarum runs from 1066 to 1198, a timeframe that makes it an invaluable resource for the study of both Henry II and Richard I. It is important to note, however, that its provenance is between 1199 and 1201, a period of less than two years and well after the death of Henry at that. He has been applauded for his critical historical eye, his knowledge of Latin and contemporary theology, dramatic storytelling skills, and judicious impartiality.38 His location in York necessarily limited his information gathering; Newburgh was in a favorable position to learn of northern events such as the 1190 massacre of the Jews in York, but he was far removed from events in the south of England and on the Continent.39 Although his materials are replete with indications of a careful research process, with so late a date of composition we must treat his hindsight analysis with some trepidation.40 Compounding matters, Newburgh only finished one rough draft before his death, and in that time he leaned heavily upon the chronicles of Henry of Huntingdon, Roger of Howden, and Jordan Fantosme.41 He frequently gets sidetracked by tangential issues on which he is able to offer a Christian lesson.42 When he speaks of military affairs he typically

Henry II’s laws, see D. Corner, “The Texts of Henry II’s Assizes,” in Law-Making and Law-Makers in British History: Papers presented to the Edinburgh Legal History Conference, 1977, ed. A. Harding (London, 1980), 7–13. 38 B. Dickins, “A Yorkshire Chronicler,” Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society 5 (1934): 15–26; M. Otter, Inventiones: Fiction and Referentiality in Twelfth-Century English Historical Writing (Chapel Hill, 1996), 95–6; N. F. Partner, Serious Entertainments: the Writing of History in Twelfth Century England (Chicago, 1977), 62–6; Gransden, Historical Writing in England, 265. 39 William’s account of that event reveals much about his historical style; see in general R. B. Dobson, The Jews of Medieval York and the Massacre of March 1190 (York, 1974). 40 Richard Howlett once thought the date of composition to be 1196–1198, but this has been reconsidered; see William of Newburgh, Historia Rerum Anglicarum, ed. R. Howlett, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, 4 vols. (RS 82, 1884–5), I: x; and the correction in K. Norgate, “The Date of Composition of William of Newburgh’s History,” EHR 19 (1904): 295. For a brief survey of William’s life and writings see R. Jahncke, Guilelmus Neubrigensis: ein pragmatischer Geschichtsschreiber des zwölften Jahrhunderts (Bonn, 1912). 41 For William’s use of Howden in particular, see J. Gillingham, “Two Yorkshire Historians Compared: Roger of Howden and William of Newburgh,” HSJ 12 (2002): 20–25. 42 Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: xi; Partner, Serious Entertainments, 58.

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abbreviates materials gleaned from his sources into more fluid stories complete with plot lines and moral lessons at the finish; while quite illustrative and interesting, his tales may be as fabulously inventive as literary tropes in the Anglo-Norman chivalric romances. William of Newburgh’s only other major work is an exposition on the Canticle of Mary in the Gospel of Luke, which is useless to military historians.43 Ralph Diceto, archdeacon of Middlesex and by 1180 dean of St. Paul’s, received a classical education at Paris and was a competent historian, so much so that Stubbs chanced to remark that “in the roll of English Historians of the twelfth century no name stands higher.” Diceto is known to have been a favorite of Stubbs and his excellence is certainly up for debate.44 Among his thirteen known works of various lengths stand two histories useful for the study of Stephen and Henry II, the aptly-named Abbreviationes Chronicorum and the longer, more detailed Ymagines Historiarum. The former text ends in 1148 and borrowed primarily from Hugh of St. Victor’s Chronicon for its short entries, while the Ymagines, the relevant source for our present study, ends in 1202 during the reign of King John. Because Diceto probably died in either 1199 or 1200, Ymagines must have been finished by a different writer. Although the information up to 1171 is largely based on the chronicle of Robert of Torigini, its materials thereafter, and especially after 1180, are original and not to be found elsewhere.45 Accordingly, the first half of the Ymagines bounces quickly through brief accounts of military action, such as in Diceto’s record for 1159, in which he treats the Toulouse campaign, the largest of Henry II’s reign, in but a single paragraph.46 Later accounts of warfare increase in both size and quality, and the

43 William of Newburgh’s Explanatio Sacri Epithalamii in Matrem Sponsi, ed. J. C. Gorman (Fribourg, 1996). 44 Both documents are printed in Radulfi de Diceto decani Lundoniensis Opera Historica, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols. (RS 68, 1876); for Stubbs’ comment, see Ymagines Historiarum, I: 9. 45 G. A. Zinn, “The Influence of Hugh of St. Victor’s Chronicon on the Abbreviationes Chronicorum by Ralph of Diceto,” Speculum 52:1 (1977): 38–61; D. E. Greenway, “The Succession to Ralph de Diceto, Dean of St. Paul’s,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 39 (1966): 86–95; Gransden, Historical Writing in England, 231–2; C. Duggan and A. Duggan, “Ralph de Diceto, Henry II and Becket (with an appendix on decretal letters),” in Authority and Power: Studies on Medieval Law and Government presented to Walter Ullman on his Seventieth Birthday, eds. B. Tierney and P. Linehan (Cambridge, 1980), 63. 46 Ymagines Historiarum, I: 303.

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chronicle offers unique information on the rebellions of 1173 and 1174. Diceto had a large number of accessible sources both secular and ecclesiastical, and as Gransden notes, he possessed more contacts on the Continent than Roger of Howden, including such men as Thomas Brown and Walter of Coutances. Diceto was loyal to the English crown and had a personal relationship with Henry II, first meeting the king in 1162 and frequently thereafter, and his positive view of the king remained relatively unchanged even during the Becket Controversy. Diceto began preparing the final draft of the Ymagines after Henry’s death, but unlike writers such as Gerald of Wales, who, as we shall see, embarked on vitriolic criticisms, Diceto retained his praise of the king.47 Such steadfastness does not necessarily demonstrate historical objectivity, but it does make his authorial voice more consistent. Gervase of Canterbury was a monk at Christ Church whose historical work is characteristic of the typical monastic chronicle: an amalgamation of different source materials, including identifiable annals and histories, colored by frequent local references that are far more detailed than international topics. What highlights Gervase’s efforts as a monastic chronicler is the fact that we know his name, as well as a few biographical details. This allows for cross-referencing of his facts and thus sets him apart from other local monastic chroniclers. Born in Kent, he became a novice at Canterbury in 1163 and remained there until his death, an unknown date in the early thirteenth century.48 He was apparently an eye-witness to the fire that consumed the cathedral choir in 1174, of which he left a written account that has been routinely applauded and criticized by art and architectural historians for its use of detail.49 Gervase probably began writing history at an advanced age in 1188 and relied heavily on outside materials for his two principal historical works, the long Chronica Gervasii on the history of England and the shorter, more contemporary Gesta Regum, an unfinished chronicle of its kings. His sources include Henry of Huntingdon and Florence of Worcester for

47 Gransden, Historical Writing in England, 231 and 235; Duggan, “Ralph de Diceto, Henry II and Becket,” 64. 48 In 1199 he was still writing; see Gervase, I: xiv, xxvii, xxxii. 49 P. Kidson, “Gervase, Becket, and William of Sens,” Speculum 68 (1993): 969–91; see Gervase’s account of the fire in The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral, ed. R. Willis (Chicheley, 1972).

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the reign of King Stephen, and for the reign of Henry II he uses the Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi of Roger of Howden, several Lives of Thomas Becket that had been finished by the time he began writing, and perhaps the Historia Pontificalis of John of Salisbury.50 The late date of composition is problematic in Gervase’s works and he rarely wrote about military affairs. Henry II’s most notable campaign between 1163 and 1170, the 1165 expedition to Wales, for example, receives but one short sentence: “Illis vero valide resistentibus, parum vel nichil profecit; multos tamen ex suis tam milites quam pedites perdidit et reversus est.”51 Because of his reliance upon other books, as well as his hindsight method, Gervase’s authority on military matters is questionable. The poet Jordan Fantosme was probably a Norman clerk at Winchester between 1150 and 1180, but may have originally been from Poitou. He composed a lyrical chronicle of great importance to Henry II’s reign, La Chronique de Jordan Fantosme, not in Latin but Old French, which centers solely on the rebellions of 1173 and 1174. Matthew Strickland has rightly deemed this focused text “of primary importance for the study of war, diplomacy, and knighthood in the Anglo-Norman world.”52 Fantosme offers vivid descriptions of battles, sieges, individual combat, and even military organization, often relating where troops were found and mustered. The chronicle is also useful for examining the warrior mentality because it relates the anxieties and joys of the men as they march on campaign. Many of his observations indicate that he himself witnessed the events he describes. Eye-witness history was, however, a new type of writing in the twelfth century, and this is the primary difficulty in his poetry. Peter Damian-Grint has argued that Fantosme’s eyewitness status, along with his considerable education and literary skill, renders him a reliable source—he is depicted as a sort of medieval reporter who saw events himself or used trustworthy witnesses to his advantage.53

50

Gervase, I: xxi, xliii, xlv–xlvi. Gervase, I: 197. 52 M. Strickland, “Arms and the Men: War, Loyalty and Lordship in Jordan Fantosme’s Chronicle,” in Medieval Knighthood IV: Papers from the fifth Strawberry Hill Conference, eds. C. Harper-Brill and R. Harvey (Woodbridge, 1992), 220. 53 C. Hanley, War and Combat, 1150–1270: the Evidence from Old French Literature (Cambridge, 2003), 54–5; P. Damian-Grint, The New Historians of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance: Inventing Vernacular Authority (Woodbridge, 1999), 75–6. 51

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Given his location in Winchester, he may indeed have been an eyewitness to some events in Northumbria, or perhaps his informants traveled south to relate the news to him in his study. On the other hand, there is no evidence that he traveled with Henry II to the Continent, so his intricate descriptions of matters such as Matthew of Boulogne’s death in Normandy in 1173 cannot be considered authoritative. More troubling is Fantosme’s outright praise of Henry as a noble and rightful king that reveals his clear bias, “verses about the best king who ever lived”; so laudatory was his account that it was addressed to Henry himself and given to the king sometime before 1183.54 Fantosme’s sources remain a mystery and his enthusiastic data (such as 40,000 Scots arrayed against Carlisle in 1173)55 may often be construed as creative literary devices. Two other principal authors were the Welshmen Walter Map and Gerald of Wales. Neither were historians but both represent historiographical trends of some importance because they looked to the past for lessons, anecdotes, and to contextualize current events. Both were well educated and made frequent use of classical sources in conjunction with their own experiences to argue political points.56 The two were also good friends: they consulted one another frequently in speech and prose, and each commented upon the other’s work in his own. Walter Map earned his living as a clerk for Gilbert Foliot, bishop of London (d. 1187), and Henry II, later finishing his career as the archdeacon of Oxford. He won some praise as a poet, composing several pieces in French to much acclaim, but his crowning work was the De Nugis Curialium, an insightful and sometimes scathing view of the English court and its diplomatic relationships.57 Begun at some point in the 1180s, perhaps as early as 1181, the book survives in but a single manuscript and features several incomplete chapters and many grammatical errors, leading James Hinton to argue that it is essentially unfinished.58 The De Nugis Curialium is

54

Fantosme, xix-xx and 1 [numbers refer to Johnston’s verse divisions]; C. H. Haskins, “Henry II as a Patron of Literature,” in Essays in Medieval History presented to Thomas Frederick Tout, eds. A. G. Little and F. M. Powicke (Manchester, 1925), 75. 55 Fantosme, 71. 56 Gransden, Historical Writing in England, 221–2. 57 K. G. T. Webster, “Walter Map’s French Things,” Speculum 15 (1940): 272–9; De Nugis Curialium, xiii. 58 J. Hinton, “Walter Map’s de Nugis Curialium: its Plan and Composition,” PMLA 32 (1917): 124.

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a satirical piece at heart, “jotted down by snatches at the court of King Henry,” and is replete with stories ranging from the rise of the Hospitallers in England to the temperament of the Empress Matilda. Any information of a military nature to be gained from the book must be stripped out of the numerous anecdotes and digressions, although there are hidden gems in Map’s descriptions of Welsh ferociousness and frequent stories of individual courage in battle. One must wonder if his tales are true, given his lively quip: “I am but your huntsman. I bring you the game, it is for you to make dainty dishes out of it.”59 Gerald of Wales,60 on the other hand, was a more focused writer, dividing his subjects into a number of sizable volumes that are peppered with his own political opinions. He was born around 1146 into a family of some standing in Wales and traveled to Paris, where he studied theology, rhetoric, and canon law, and later taught as a master. He also worked in the employ of the Crown for a time, but hostilities arose over his failed bids for the bishopric of St. David’s, causing him to leave in 1193 to pursue a scholarly life.61 Before his death in 1223 he traveled throughout Wales and twice to Ireland, thereafter composing four books based on his knowledge of those areas: Itinerarium Kambriae, Descriptio Kambriae, Topographia Hibernica, and Expugnatio Hibernica. All of these are useful for the study of Henry II’s reign, especially the Expugnatio, which is a record of Henry’s conquest of Ireland. The remainder includes some of his military exploits in each country and the character of his foes, particularly the military tactics of Welsh infantry. Gerald’s other writings are useful as well, particularly De Principis Instructione Liber, a political tract that is highly critical of Henry’s governance.62 Such expressions of political intemperance make Gerald a difficult writer with whom to deal. His bias against both the Crown and the see of Canterbury is readily obvious in his work, although it fluctuated with his own circumstances:

59

De Nugis Curialium, 2 and 32. Alternatively called Gerald de Barri or Giraldus Cambrensis; for their different uses, see J. Gillingham, “The English Invasion of Ireland,” in The English in the Twelfth Century, 155. 61 M. Richter, Giraldus Cambrensis: the Growth of the Welsh Nation (Aberystwyth, 1972), 4–6; R. Bartlett, “Rewriting Saints’ Lives: the Case of Gerald of Wales,” Speculum 58 (1953): 599–601. 62 De Principis Instructione Liber, ed. G. F. Warner, in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, 8 vols. (RS 21, 1891), VIII. 60

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for over a decade he served the Angevin kings at court and praised them in his writings, but his attitude soured after he left John’s court in the wake of the unsuccessful rebellion of 1193–1194 and deteriorated further after his unsuccessful bid for the bishopric of St. David’s in 1199.63 Unlike Ralph Diceto, who remained an even-handed witness following Thomas Becket’s murder, Gerald hid not his scorn and frequently vented his frustrations.64 Even so, his works are ample evidence as to the condition of English, Welsh, and Irish church and state in the twelfth century. Like his friend Walter Map, Gerald is a witty and creative author whose descriptions of human nature are both entertaining and penetrating. Rounding out the list of notable contributors to English history is the most notable and enduring name from the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, John of Salisbury, clerk to archbishops Theobald and Thomas Becket of Canterbury (1154–1161 and 1163–1170) and later bishop of Chartres (1176–1180). Educated at Paris and Chartres under the instruction of such luminaries as Peter Abelard and William of Conches, John’s advanced learning places him in the upper echelons of the great minds of the Middle Ages. His expositions were not by themselves extraordinary or revolutionary, but he was, in the words of Etienne Gilson, “a good writer, a man of parts and a fine scholar” with “a mind more delicate than powerful.”65 Attributed to his hand are five significant works: Metalogicon, a treatise on the state of the trivium and one of the best extant surveys of medieval education; Policraticus, an exposition on the follies of courtiers and royal officials, as well as an instructional guide for good government; Vita Sancti Thomæ, a brief piece on the martyrdom of Thomas Becket; Entheticus, a short poetic discourse on philosophy; and Historia Pontificalis.66

63 R. Bartlett, Gerald of Wales, 1146–1223 (Oxford, 1982), 58. On his changing attitudes in general, see Y. Wada, “Gerald on Gerald: Self-Presentation by Giraldus Cambrensis,” ANS 20 (1997): 223–46. 64 I. Short, “Language and Literature,” in Companion to the Anglo-Norman World, 203–4. 65 R. L. Poole, ‘The Masters at the Schools of Paris and Chartres in John of Salisbury’s Time’, EHR 35 (1920): 321–42; idem, Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought and Learning (London, 1932), 177–81; E. Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York, 1955), 150–3. 66 The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury: a Twelfth-Century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivium, trans. D. D. McGarry (Berkeley, 1955). For Policraticus, see in Latin Policratici sive de Nugis Curialium et Vestigiis Philosophorum, ed. C. C. J. Webb (Oxford, 1909); and in English, Frivolities of Courtiers and Footprints of Philosophers, trans.

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The last is John’s only foray into the writing of history and is a continuation of Sigebert of Gembloux’s chronicle that picks up the story in 1148 and ends in 1152. The Historia Pontificalis was probably written in 1164, making it his last major product, for his other works were finished in draft form by 1159. It is a memoir of the papal court in which John had some sort of administrative role after 1149, so in one respect it is an eye-witness account, although Marjorie Chibnall has cautioned that he could not have personally seen everything of which he wrote.67 As such it is of little use for our subject who was not crowned until 1154, and the Historia’s focus is on papal politics in Italy, Germany, and France but not England. When John refers to English or Norman affairs before 1159, he does so in the Metalogicon and Policraticus; otherwise, his considerable letter collection, as noted below, extends his commentary until 1180, the year of his death. In addition to his thorough classical training in logic, grammar, and theology, John of Salisbury was also extraordinarily well-versed in theoretical military strategy, reading and owning copies of the military manuals De re militari by Flavius Vegetius Renatus and Strategemata by Julius Frontinus.68 John referred to both classical authors in the Metalogicon and Policraticus but chose to copy only those portions of the manuals instructing commanders about military training, the taking of oaths, and valor in combat. Doubtless John knew other military passages, but he appears to have been concerned mainly with the maintenance of an army and not the proper conduct of warfare: in Policraticus he states, “my purpose is not to teach this art of military affairs, which yet is the greatest and most indispensable of arts.” Other notable military passages in his works include heroic battle stories about Hannibal and the kings Harold Godwinson, William I, William Rufus, Henry I, Stephen, and Henry Plantagenet in battle as duke of Normandy.69 J. B. Pike (Minneapolis, 1938), The Statesman’s Book of John of Salisbury, trans. J. Dickinson (New York, 1963), or John of Salisbury: Policraticus, of the Frivolities of Courtiers and the Footprints of Philosophers, trans. C. J. Nederman (Cambridge, UK, 1990). The text of the Entheticus is printed in Pike, 415–25. For John’s Life of Becket, see Mats., II: 299–352. 67 The Historia Pontificalis of John of Salisbury, ed. and trans. M. Chibnall (Oxford, 1986), xxii–xxx. See also idem, “John of Salisbury as a Historian,” in The World of John of Salisbury, ed. M. Wilks (Oxford, 1984), 169–78. 68 C. R. Shrader, “The Ownership and Distribution of Manuscripts of the De re militari of Flavius Vegetius Renatus” (Ph.D. Diss., Columbia University, 1976), 67–9. 69 Policraticus, VI: 6, 18–19; VIII: 25; Metalogicon, 189–90 and 199–200.

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Vernacular chronicles offer different perspectives and information on Henry II’s reign that sometimes differ from the Latin records. We have already discussed the Old French chronicle of Jordan Fantosme. There are other prose and poetic accounts from Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, but because their authors were principally concerned with matters close to home, these sources are often sketchy in details when discussing affairs in England. For our purposes, their information becomes useful when the borders of the Angevin Empire erupted in warfare. There are thus several identifiable moments during the reign of Henry II for which their information is applicable: the Scottish accounts are pertinent during the rebellions of 1173 and 1174; the Welsh during Henry’s campaigns of 1157, 1163, and 1165; the Irish for the English invasion of 1171. Another characteristic unifying the vernacular chronicles is their anonymity: although guesses can be made as to authorship, no author chose to identify himself. In such a circumstance it is hard to prefer their interpretations of events over those of known English and Norman writers, men whose education and location have been determined. Nevertheless, vernacular accounts do form additional pieces of the puzzle and are at times to be preferred to their Latin counterparts. Unfortunately, each Welsh annals that has survived postdates Henry II’s reign by at least a century and is thus immediately problematic. The earliest account is the early-thirteenth century Annales Cambriae, which was probably based on older monastic records.70 The Annales Cambriae is generally an accurate, if bare-bones, record of events concerning Gwynedd, Powys, and Deheubarth, the northern and southern regions of Wales in which English intervention most often occurred. English involvement in Welsh affairs generally enters the story only when military conflict arose on the March, and these passages are light on detail and rather incomplete. More complete descriptions of these campaigns and battles appear in the vernacular Welsh chronicles, all of which employed Annales Cambriae as source material. Their historiographical debt to its Latin text has been soundly established along with their relative date (late-thirteenth century) and probable place of composition (the Cistercian monastery at Strata Florida).71

70

Annales Cambriae, ed. J. W. ab Ithel (RS 20, 1860). J. E. Lloyd, “The Welsh Chronicles,” Proceedings of the British Academy 14 (1928): 369–91; I. Jack, Medieval Wales (Ithaca, 1972), 24–33. 71

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Three manuscripts are extant: they are two versions of Brut y Tywysogyon, the Chronicle of the Princes, and Brenhinedd y Saesson, the Kings of the Saxons, a close parallel to the Brut.72 Due to the lack of additional evidence, historians have accepted these chronicles as the most reliable Welsh accounts of the twelfth century, despite the fact that they are not contemporary. Their usefulness for military studies varies enormously by document. The Bruts, for example, identify several Welsh soldiers and geographical aspects of March conflicts, but the Brenhinedd y Saesson often abbreviates those same passages or alters the content in subtle ways. Evidence from the rest of the Isles is not only scarce but limited in scope in regards to English affairs. However, because major events involving kings and wars tended to be noticed and jotted down Scottish and Irish chronicles and literary sources are useful for comparative study. The pertinent Scottish chronicles share a close association with each other that is akin to the Welsh evidence, and they are based heavily upon earlier English and Scottish sources and written in Latin. The two main texts are the chronicles of Holyrood and Melrose, which, following each entry for the year 1128, have highly similar texts that record virtually the same information, albeit in different manners and with a few exceptions. Besides royal charters, these are virtually the only Scottish sources from the reign of Henry II to have survived: John of Hexham’s chronicle ends at 1153. The English chroniclers of the next twenty years seldom notice Scottish events except those concerning the relations between the kings of Scotland and England. The Chronicle of Melrose is chiefly derived, for the period, from a source that was also used by Roger of Howden. That source, and the Chronicle of Holyrood, are the chief sources of information about Scottish internal affairs at this time. [. . .] From 1170 onwards, the chronicle [Holyrood] supplies little that is not found in the Chronicle of Melrose, which at that point, or earlier, becomes an original work.73

The older, flawed Brut y Tywysogyon, ed. J. W. ab Ithel (RS 17, 1860) has now been supplanted by Brut y Tywysogyon or the Chronicle of the Princes: Red Book of Hergest Version, ed. T. Jones (Cardiff, 1955), and Brut y Tywysogyon or the Chronicle of the Princes: Peniarth MS. 20 Version, ed. T. Jones (Cardiff, 1952). See also Brenhinedd y Saesson or The Kings of the Saxons: BM Cotton MS. Cleopatra BV and the Black Book of Basingwerk NLW MS. 7006, ed. T. Jones (Cardiff, 1971). 73 A Scottish Chronicle known as the Chronicle of Holyrood, ed. M. O. Anderson (Edinburgh, 1938), 42–3. See also The Chronicle of Melrose, eds. A. O. Anderson and M. O. Anderson, Studies in Economics and Political Science, no. 100 (London, 1936); the excerpts 72

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In terms of warfare the Scottish annals are most important for the only military conflict between Henry II and the Scots, the rebellions of 1173 and 1174 when William the Lion entered the conflict at the behest of Henry’s son, Henry ‘the Younger’. The Irish annals are even further removed from English affairs and offer no more than a passing remark until 1166, when Diarmait Mac Murchada, the exiled king of Leinster, recruited English and Welsh manpower and invaded Ireland with Richard fitz Gilbert, earl of Clare, by his side. Even then the Irish sources are brief and lacking sufficient detail. The most descriptive source for the regnal years of Henry II is the Annals of Clonmacnoise, a collection of transcribed manuscripts that perhaps has its origination in the late eleventh or early twelfth century. It is a patchy work with several missing years and many incorrect dates, but the annals have a moderate level of detail regarding the Anglo-Irish affairs of the 1160s and 1170s and thus offer some comparative perspective. Along with the fragmentary Annals of Tigernach, the Annals of Clonmacnoise comprises the so-called Chronicle of Ireland, a large synthesis of these two chronicles in addition to some older materials that are nevertheless no longer extant. Next in usefulness is the Annals of Ulster, a large compendium similar in style to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The earliest extant manuscript is of fifteenth-century provenance, although its composition probably began in the late thirteenth. The Annals of Ulster offers less detail on English affairs and is naturally more concerned with events in the north of Ireland. Along the same lines is the Annals of Boyle, probably completed in 1257; its information is extremely brief and virtually useless for the study of English history.74 During Henry’s reign, Ireland and Scotland were less frequently involved in English military affairs than were the districts of Wales, and this is reflected in the quantity and quality of the surviving historical materials. in which English chronicles cite Scottish events have been collected in Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers, A.D. 500 to 1286, ed. A. O. Anderson (London, 1908), and Early Sources of Scottish History, A.D. 500 to 1286, ed. A. O. Anderson (Edinburgh, 1922). 74 The Annals of Clonmacnoise, being the Annals of Ireland from the Earliest Period to A.D. 1408, ed. D. Murphy, trans. C. Mageoghagan (Dublin, 1896); Annals of Ulster, ed. and trans. B. MacCarthy, 4 vols. (Dublin, 1893). Historiographical studies include K. Hughes, Early Christian Ireland: Introduction to the Sources (Ithaca, 1972), 107 and 273–4; and E. O’Curry, Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History (Dublin, 1861), 81–2 and 105–6. See J. D’Alton, The History of Ireland, from the Earliest Period to the year 1245, 2 vols. (Dublin, 1845), for a still-valuable historical study.

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Record Sources Other documents such as legal and financial records are better suited to the study of logistics and organization than the application of warfare. The most valuable aspects of charters, writs, and diplomas are their witness lists and geographical origins. Even those available charters without a full text (printed in a basic calendar format) can be valuable for military historians, for their signatories permit the tracing of those individuals important enough to testify to an edict. Some of these witnesses are men of the cloth, but others are Henry II’s nobles and royal officers, either of whom were in many cases subordinate commanders in the field and, at times, in command of armies when the king was absent. Second, the place of composition tells us where Henry and these other men and women were located at a certain moment in time. The dating of charters is a problematic affair, however, and many edicts cannot be pinned down to a particular season, much less a calendar year, with any accuracy. At present there are four major collections of Henry II’s charters available in print. The first is a volume in the series Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154, which includes a register and full Latin texts of Henry’s ducal charters 1149–1154, as well as a few earlier charters on which he is listed as a witness. These documents, alongside chronicles such as the Gesta Stephani, are useful in charting his activity in England before his coronation as well as affairs on the Continent during the same period. The primary collection of Henry’s continental edicts is Recueil des Actes de Henri II, printed in four volumes.75 This compendium includes over 800 of Henry’s charters issued in France or for his French beneficiaries. It has been supplemented by two volumes from the List and Index Society, the Acta of Henry II and Richard I, published ten years apart and edited by different scholars.76 The first volume deals generally with charters residing in British library and museum collections, while the second is more concerned with materials in French repositories. Neither volume offers full charter texts; rather, they are calendars that include

75 Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d’Angleterre et duc de Normandie, concernant les provinces franscaises et les affaires de France, eds. L. Delisle and E. Berger, 4 vols. (Paris, 1916–27). 76 Acta of Henry II and Richard I, eds. J. C. Holt and R. Mortimer, List & Index Society Special Series, vol. 21 (Richmond, 1986); and Acta of Henry II and Richard I, Part Two.

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summaries of each manuscript, probable dates, citations to related studies of said texts, and in the case of the second volume, their full witness lists. These two volumes are but preliminary stages in the advancement of The Angevin Acta Project, an effort by J. C. Holt and Nicholas Vincent to collect, edit, and print every known charter and letter of Henry II and his sons. The project is sponsored by the British Library and the University of Cambridge, and although the finished product has not yet appeared in print, the dataset of over 3500 documents is available for study through the UK Data Archive. When published, the compilation should be the definitive source of Henry’s diplomatic activity that corrals all existing collections of his charters.77 Also useful are the edited collections of the grants and charters of Henry’s French peers Louis VII and Philip Augustus, although they are at times maddening for their lack of detailed witness lists.78 G. W. S. Barrow had produced a calendar of Scottish charters issued by William the Lion. For Wales, a 1996 handlist of the acts of the Welsh princes has recently been supplemented by an excellent full-text collection.79

77 The collection is titled, The Letters and Charters of Henry II, king of England 1154 –1189, ed. N. Vincent, 4 vols. (Oxford, forthcoming). For commentary on the project, see N. Vincent, “The Charters of King Henry II: the Royal Inspeximus Reconsidered,” in Dating Undated Medieval Charters, ed. M. Gervers (Woodbridge, 2000), 99–102; for a project description, see J. C. Holt, “The Writs of Henry II,” in The History of English Law: Centenary Essays on “Pollock and Maitland,” ed. J. Hudson, Proceedings of the British Academy 89 (1996): 47–64; and idem, “The Acta of Henry II and Richard I of England 1154–1199; the Archive and its Historical Implications,” in Fotografische Sammlungen mittelalterlicher Urkunden in Europe, ed. P. Rück (Sigmaringen, 1989), 137–40. Other collections exist as well. Ancient Charters, Royal and Private, prior to A.D. 1200, ed. J. H. Round, Publications of the Pipe Roll Society, vol. 10 (London, 1888), nos. 35–53, is but a limited offering. R. W. Eyton, Court, Household, and Itinerary of King Henry II (London, 1878), mentions several charters but generally paraphrases their content. There are also scores of scattered documents in Early Yorkshire Charters, eds. W. Farrer and C. T. Clay, 11 vols. (Edinburgh, 1914–63). 78 For Louis, see Études sur les actes de Louis VII, ed. A. Luchaire (Reprint, Brussels, 1964); for Philip, Recueil des actes de Philippe Auguste, roi de France, ed. M. H.-F. Delaborde, 4 vols. (Paris, 1916). To this collection has been added a fifth volume: Recueil des actes de Philippe Auguste roi de France. Tome V, Suppléments d’actes, actes perdus, additions et corrections aux précédents volumes, eds. J. Favier and M. Nortier (Paris, 2004). Catalogue des actes de Philippe-Auguste, ed. L. Delisle (Paris, 1856), is an abbreviated calendar of many of the charters in the later collections. 79 Regesta Regum Scottorum, vol. II: the Acts of William I, King of Scots, 1165–1214, ed. G. W. S. Barrow (Edinburgh, 1971); Handlist of the Acts of Native Welsh Rulers, 1132–1283, eds. K. L. Maund and H. Pryce (Cardiff, 1996); The Acts of Welsh Rulers, 1120–1283, eds. H. Pryce and H. Insley (Cardiff, 2005).

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Those charters whose dates can be certified often correspond to information found in narrative chronicles, various surviving letters, or the copious financial and legal records of Henry II’s reign. By financial we are referring primarily to the Great Roll of the Pipe (or Pipe Rolls), the summary of accounts payable and receivable flowing through the Exchequer. There were in Henry’s reign two terms of the Exchequer, the Michelmas term and the Easter term, and it was the job of the Scribe of the Treasurer and the Scribe of the Chancery to receive, confirm, and then compile the royal accounts paid in Henry’s characteristic ‘short cross’ silver pennies. The result is a large set of extant financial records for Henry’s regnal years, which are well-documented for the years 1155–1189.80 In the Pipe Rolls are records of expenditures for military equipment such as crossbow bolts or wagons, outlays for castle construction and destruction, the collection of scutage, and the granting of money fiefs, honours, and castles to individuals. Many of Henry’s laws were preserved in monastic cartularies by chroniclers such as Roger of Howden and Gervase of Canterbury, and the texts are of sufficient legitimacy as to justify their historical use.81 Literary Sources Other tertiary sources of information are the surviving collections of personal correspondence passed between notable individuals and hagiographical accounts that concern church matters during Henry II’s reign. Letter-writing as an art form reached a certain pinnacle

80 For Richard fitz Neal’s description of the Exchequer, see Dialogus de Scaccario, eds. A. Hughes, C. G. Crump, and C. Johnson (Oxford, 1902); for a summary, see Introduction to the Study of the Pipe Rolls, in Publications of the Pipe Roll Society, (Reprint, Vaduz, 1966), III. For the early reign, see The Great Rolls of the Pipe for the Second, Third, and Fourth Years of the Reign of King Henry the Second, 1155–58, ed. J. Hunter (London, 1844); and after 1158 Publications of the Pipe Roll Society, vols. 1–38. There is no text comparable to the Dialogus for Normandy; on the nature of this problem, see C. H. Haskins, “The Government of Normandy under Henry II,” AHR 20 (1915): 277–91. 81 J. C. Holt, “The Assizes of Henry II: the Texts,” in The Study of Medieval Records: Essays in Honour of Kathleen Major, eds. D. A. Bullough and R. L. Storey (Oxford, 1971), 85–106; for the laws themselves, see Select Charters and other Illustrations of English Constitutional History from the Earliest Times to the Reign of Edward I, ed. W. Stubbs, 9th ed. (Oxford, 1913), 145–241.

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in the twelfth century, but it was relegated primarily to ecclesiastical circles that included the most educated men of the day.82 Between 1149 and 1189, some of the more prolific letter-writers were also quite eloquent: Thomas Becket, John of Salisbury, Gilbert Foliot, and Arnulf of Lisieux are but a few examples.83 Most edited collections of their letters also include those they may have penned for others, such as the frequent correspondences that John of Salisbury composed and dispatched for Theobald of Canterbury as well as letters received from various other persons. Very few of these letters discuss military matters in more than a passing sentence or two, but at times these remarks can verify the movements of armies through different areas or the locations and/or temperaments of individuals involved in the campaigns. A final source of information for the military affairs of Henry II is twelfth-century literature, particularly Anglo-Norman romances, songs of the troubadours, or metrical narratives. It is from such ‘courtly literature’ that ideals like chivalry are integrated into the definition of knighthood, where soldiers on horseback represent not just military power but a noble image of proper combat. They often depict in specific detail individual combat between knights and are thus more detail-oriented in regards to practical warfare. The use of literary evidence for military history is a tricky affair, however. The purpose of the Chansons was to entertain an audience, and they are thus given to exaggeration. Whether they are retelling old legends or depicting contemporary figures on crusade, the authors of these texts are prone to excessive valorization and suspicious plotlines. The literature nonetheless has something to offer military historians, as Catherine Hanley notes: . . . the portrayal of warfare extends to more than just battle scenes: war has a social function and an impact on those who take part in it

82 The best survey of ars dictaminis is still J. J. Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1974), 194–268. 83 See The Correspondence of Thomas Becket, ed. A. Duggan, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2000); The Letters of John of Salisbury, Volume One: the Early Letters (1153–1161), eds. W. J. Millor, H. E. Butler, and C. N. L. Brooke (Revised, Oxford, 1986), and The Letters of John of Salisbury, Volume Two: the Later Letters (1163–1180), eds. W. J. Millor and C. N. L. Brooke (Oxford, 1979); The Letters and Charters of Gilbert Foliot, eds. Z. N. Brooke, A. Morey, and C. N. L. Brooke (London, 1967); The Letter Collections of Arnulf of Lisieux, ed. and trans. C. P. Schriber (Lewiston, 1997); or the older Letters of Arnulf of Lisieux, ed. F. Barlow, Camden 3rd Series, vol. 61 (London, 1939).

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. . . there is also considerable interest and variety in the narrative techniques used to depict war: the narrator of a chanson de geste may construct his scenes in a number of different ways in order to produce varying effects on his audience.84

Pertinent questions of analysis differ depending on the sort of text being used. Authors like Chrétien de Troyes, who invented the Arthurian romance, wrote for royal patrons with contemporary events on their minds. Their characterizations of warfare are either representative of the period, idyllic images of the past, or both; as Richard Kaeuper puts it, “ninth-century legends were being rewritten in terms of twelfth-century problems.”85 As such they reveal more about the mentalities of war than actual historical events. By comparison, L’Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal tells a tale of an actual person doing extraordinary deeds.86 Strickland writes, “the Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal is effectively the sine qua non for the study of warfare, the tournament and knightly values in the later twelfth century, without which our knowledge would be irreparably diminished,” whereas “because in many respects their representation of warfare is clearly considered distanced from reality, the use of chansons has been consciously restricted.”87 Gillingham has noted that in the 19,214 lines of poetry in William Marshal’s story 3,150 lines are devoted to tournaments and 8,350 lines devoted to war, making the poem a useful source of military information indeed.88 The story of Marshal was composed between 1226 and 1229,89 making it in some ways a dubious account for the warfare of Henry’s reign but an excellent one for the nature of Angevin warfare. Other literary works of similar approach include the aforementioned chronicle of Jordan

84

Hanley, War and Combat, 105–6. R. W. Kaeuper, War, Justice, and Public Order: England and France in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1988), 319. 86 Chrétien de Troyes, Erec and Enide, trans. D. Gilbert (Berkeley, 1992). Erec and Enide is thought by some to have been written about Henry II’s son Geoffrey, but the argument is purely conjecture; see J. J. Duggan, The Romances of Chrétien de Troyes (New Haven, 2001), 9–13. On William Marshal, see L’Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal, ed. P. Meyer, 3 vols. (Paris, 1891–1901); and the newer History of William Marshal, Vol. 1, eds. A. J. Holden, S. Gregory, and D. Crouch (London, 2002). 87 Strickland, War and Chivalry, 8–9. 88 J. Gillingham, “War and Chivalry in the History of William the Marshall,” in ANW, 253. 89 D. Crouch, William Marshal: Court, Career and Chivalry in the Angevin Empire, 1147–1219 (London, 1990), 2. 85

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Fantosme and the Conquête d’Irlande, a Norman poetic account of the arrival of the English into Ireland, 1166–1172.90 While the spread of relevant literature is rather small in comparison to the number of chronicles, letters, and edicts from the mid-to-late twelfth century, it remains an important component of the extant evidence for the reign of Henry II.

90 Damian-Grint, New Historians, 79–81. For the poem, see The Song of Dermot and the Earl, ed. G. H. Orpen (Oxford, 1892).

CHAPTER TWO

HENRY’S POLITICAL AND MILITARY CAREER Henry’s boyhood ended with his crossing of the English Channel in April 1149. He arrived at Devizes on the 13th to find the country gripped in a “wretched and frightful state of affairs.”1 His mother Matilda had reluctantly withdrawn from England to the Continent, thus allowing Stephen a freer hand in ruling the country, but the king himself was beset by schism in the English church. The dispute centered on Stephen’s inability to see his son Eustace (d. 1153) anointed as co-king and heir to the English throne, which was impossible because Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury (d. 1161), the only bishop legally allowed to perform the ceremony, refused to do so without permission from Rome. That permission would never come, as Pope Eugenius III (d. 1153) would not issue the order until Stephen confirmed Henry Murdac as archbishop of York, whom the pope had already consecrated on 7 December 1147. Murdac was thus the first English bishop consecrated without royal approval since the Conquest, a serious political defeat for the king amidst a tumultuous relationship with the English church.2 So long as Stephen remained opposed to the nomination, Eustace could not be anointed king; in the meantime, because of Stephen’s lack of firm control in Yorkshire, Murdac was able to enter the county and begin acting as archbishop. Stephen’s opponents seized the opportunity to move against the king on this new ecclesiastical front, particularly King David I of Scotland (1124–1153), the grand-uncle of Henry Plantagenet, who journeyed south into his Yorkshire lands to support Murdac’s position. David had since 1126 been one of the more ardent supporters of Matilda’s claim to royal succession and had ample political motivation to assist her son. Assisted by his own son and Ranulf, earl of Chester (d. 1153), David knighted both Henry fitz Empress and Roger, earl of Hereford (d. 1155), at Carlisle on Whit Sunday 1149

1 2

Gesta Stephani, 214–15. S. Marritt, “King Stephen and the Bishops,” ANS 24 (2002): 129–44.

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(22 May).3 The ceremony marked the beginning of Henry’s adult life at age sixteen and was a beacon of hope to the opposition forces which had lately lost momentum. Henry had already spent over a month in England before his knighting, issuing charters at Devizes as the Duke of Normandy, which was technically untrue because he had not yet received Normandy and would not until after year’s end.4 The signatories indicate a wide range of support for the young Angevin, with notables such as the earls of Cornwall, Gloucester, Hereford, and Salisbury in attendance, along with other important men.5 In particular, Ranulf of Chester became a steadfast ally to Henry from 1149 onwards, offering substantial resources to the Angevin efforts.6 In May, Henry traveled north to Carlisle for his receipt of knighthood, thus beginning what has been called the ‘Henrician Phase’ of the civil war. He and his newfound allies David, Ranulf, Roger, Hugh Bigod, the earl of Norfolk (d. 1177), and others determined to seize the moment and march southeast towards York with an army of Scots. The motivations behind this attack are unknown. R. H. C. Davis has suggested that the Angevin party hoped for a quick capture of the city, but perhaps David also hoped to marshal sympathetic allies in York through a show of unified strength. Paul Dalton argues that the attack was instigated by Henry Murdac, although the evidence for this is circumstantial at best.7 From two accounts of the event, the Gesta Stephani and the chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon, it appears that Stephen received word in advance

3

G. W. S. Barrow, David I of Scotland (1124–1153): the Balance of New and Old (Reading, 1985), 17; Davis, King Stephen, 101–7. 4 See the dispute over Henry’s return to the Continent in C. H. Haskins, “Normandy under Geoffrey Plantagenet,” EHR 27 (1912): 423, n. 26; R. L. Poole, “Henry II, Duke of Normandy,” EHR 42 (1927): 569–72; and Z. N. and C. N. L. Brooke “Henry II, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine,” EHR 61 (1946): 81–9. 5 D. Crouch, The Reign of King Stephen, 1135–1154 (London, 2000), 241. For the charters, see Regesta Regis, nos. 666 and 705. 6 On Ranulf ’s loyalties, see J. H. Round, “King Stephen and the Earl of Chester,” EHR 10 (1895): 87–91; R. H. C. Davis, “King Stephen and the Earl of Chester Revised,” EHR 75 (1960): 654–60; G. White, “King Stephen, Duke Henry and Ranulf de Gernons, Earl of Chester,” EHR 91 (1976): 555–65; and P. Dalton, “The Armed Neutrality of Ranulf II of Chester,” ANS 14 (1991): 53. Ranulf ’s support could be considerable, as he once provided Stephen with 300 knights during the siege of Wallingford in 1146; see Bradbury, Stephen and Matilda, 136. 7 Davis, King Stephen, 107; P. Dalton, Conquest, Anarchy and Lordship: Yorkshire, 1066–1154 (Cambridge, 1994), 173.

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and personally intervened by riding to York himself. In the meantime, the Angevin party approached with a significant army in hopes of besieging the city, but Stephen barred the way with assembled ranks of cavalry and infantry. Despite the number and quality of Henry’s supporters their forces were not similarly arrayed, and Stephen’s army was growing from numbers of newly arrived allies. Rather than risk losing a decisive battle the rebels retreated, took their leave of each other, and “turned back home to their kingdoms.”8 The newly knighted Henry and Roger, for Henry had few other choices, and returned to Hereford by a circuitous route in the wilderness in order to escape Stephen’s sentries. The king responded by sending his son Eustace to lay a series of traps on the road from Dursley Castle, where Henry was staying, to Bristol, his intended destination. The wily Henry received advance warning and eluded them all, first reaching Bristol with Eustace hot on his heels and then Devizes, an Angevin stronghold from the earlier segments of the civil war. In frustration, Eustace ravaged Gloucestershire and in September was joined by his father; Stephen, returning from assorted military affairs in Yorkshire, ravaged the area around Salisbury with his knights, then Marlborough, and finally Devizes. Davis interprets the march as a baiting strategy, in which Stephen hoped to lure Henry into battle by burning the nearby food supplies; David Crouch considers it an effort not to oust Henry but rather to break the power of the families Marshal and Salisbury.9 In either case the Angevin allies were in a defensive posture and could not hope to match in any one area the strength of the combined royal forces. Young Henry was finally able to launch his own campaign, the first of his military career, when Ranulf of Chester launched a diversionary attack into Lincolnshire in the northeast, threatening to cut off Stephen from Yorkshire. The king marched towards Lincoln and Henry took the opportunity to leave Devizes and march into Devon along with the forces of William, earl of Gloucester (d. 1183), and Roger of Hereford.10 This march in the fall of 1149 should be

8 Gesta Stephani, 216–17; Historia Anglorum, IV: 29. John of Hexham dissents from these two accounts by stating that the projected attack on York never physically materialized at all; see Historia Regum, 323. 9 Davis, King Stephen, 109; Crouch, Reign of King Stephen, 244. 10 On the role and position of William see D. Crouch, “Earl William of Gloucester and the End of the Anarchy: New Evidence Relating to the Honor of Eudo Dapifer,”

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considered Henry’s first proper military campaign, for unlike the march to York earlier in the year Henry stood at the head of an army, directed its actions, besieged towns, and ravaged the landscape, all the while being assisted, not led, by the English earls. On this campaign Henry also achieved his first military victory at the harbor town of Bridgport, taking the town by storm and acquiring the allegiance of its castellan. Further efforts in the south were stymied by Henry de Tracy, Stephen’s military governor in Devon and Somerset, “a man of war and well tried in all martial exercises,” who chose not to engage in battle but instead hole up in his fortifications, particularly Barnstaple in Devon.11 Young Henry was therefore not able to vanquish his enemies as he may have wished, although he did manage to relieve Devizes from the attack of Eustace before year’s end. Yet despite this vigorous resurgence in 1149, anti-Stephen forces in England remained in a precarious position. Outside of receiving a new leader in Henry, and with him perhaps a new swagger, the state of political and military affairs in the country had actually changed very little. Stephen and Eustace retained strong armies and marched at will, and because Henry had not brought very many troops with him when he arrived for his knighting, the coalition was in desperate need of additional manpower. Therefore, between the end of 1149 and March 1150 Henry returned to the Continent to collect more soldiers from Normandy and Anjou. The exact moment of his departure is unknown, perhaps either December 1149 or January 1150.12 In any case he was gone for more than three years, not returning to England until 1153. Robert of Torigini’s first report of Henry on the Continent is to note that he received, at the age of seventeen, the duchy of Normandy from his father Geoffrey, which was Henry’s rightful inheritance through his mother.13 For the remainder of 1150 Duke Henry stayed by his father’s side at the sieges of Montreuil-Bellay, and he did not perform homage to his new liege

EHR 103 (1988): 69–75; and R. B. Patterson, “An Un-Edited Charter of Henry Fitz Empress and Earl William of Gloucester’s Comital Status,” EHR 87 (1972): 755–7. 11 Gesta Stephani, 210–11. 12 Brooke and Brooke, “Henry II, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine,” 84. 13 Torigini, 161; see also the verses of Etienne de Rouen, Draco Normannicus, ed. R. Howlett, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, vol. 2 (RS 82, 1885), II: 602.

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lord Louis VII of France until August 1151. Louis himself was not altogether pleased by the prospect of a rival kingdom comprising of Normandy, Anjou, and England. His best recourse was to enlist the aid of Stephen in order to put down the Angevin threat. Stephen himself remained in England, besieging Worcester twice in 1150 and 1151, but he did send Eustace, an appropriate choice considering Eustace had married Louis’ sister Constance and was thus the king’s brother-in-law. Eustace’s presence on the Continent signified the last great effort by Stephen to secure his rights in Normandy.14 Henry clashed with both Eustace and Louis by relieving Arques Castle from their attack in the late spring or early summer 1151, and Henry’s subsequent attack upon Torigini was deterred by them in return. In August, Louis took an army to a point between Melun and Mantes on the Seine and encountered the forces of Henry and his father Geoffrey, but illness prevented a battle from taking place. A truce was settled, and Louis accepted Henry’s homage for Normandy. Soon afterwards two events occurred that would drastically change the landscape of the western Continent. The first was the death of Henry’s father Geoffrey le Bel on 7 September 1151, which occurred before Henry could assemble the nobles of Normandy to discuss an invasion of England. Geoffrey was only thirty-nine at his demise, young for a man who had often showed great vigor in governance and warfare, and Robert of Torigini attributes his death to a severe fever. His last will and testament proved to be highly controversial: on his deathbed he is said to have given Anjou to Henry and only four castles to Henry’s brother Geoffrey (d. 1186). William of Newburgh tells us that three of these castles were Loudun, Mirebeau, and Chinon, all notable strongholds in Anjou. Yet the absence of substantial lands was surely frustrating for Geoffrey and is comparable to Henry I’s receipt of money (but no land) from William the Conqueror in 1087.15 The period after the death of Geoffrey saw a renewal of strategic discussions between Henry and his barons, now Norman and Angevin alike, concerning the expedition to England. In the spring of 1152 occurred the second notable event, Henry’s marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine (d. 1204), the heiress to the duchy

14 Warren, Henry II, 41–2; Historia Anglorum, IV: 30–31; H. J. Tanner, “Reassessing King Stephen’s Continental Strategies,” Medievalia et Humanistica 26 (1999): 101–18. 15 Torigini, 163; Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 113–14.

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of Aquitaine, on 18 May. This was made possible by the annulment of Eleanor’s marriage with Louis VII in February 1152.16 Less than eight weeks later Henry took her as his wife. The marriage itself has been seen as a grand romance in which a dashing knight swept Eleanor up in an exciting display of chivalric love, but in fact it constituted only a small blip on the radar of the chroniclers alive at the time; only the later authors, looking back at an event which presaged a number of dramatic events in the 1170s and 1180s, thought to comment in any detail.17 The consequence of Henry’s marriage was to arouse the anger of men on the Continent who feared his sudden increase in power, for now Henry not only was the master of Normandy, Anjou, and Maine, but through marriage stood to gain the duchy of Aquitaine. Although Louis VII had not himself devoted much effort to the governance of the south, he had never relinquished his own lordship over Aquitaine and still fancied himself duke.18 Very quickly he realized that Henry’s strength could soon dwarf his own and moved swiftly to quash him. Joining Louis was Henry, count of Champagne (d. 1181), who was engaged to Louis and Eleanor’s daughter Mary and thus until the annulment had stood to gain Aquitaine for himself. Eustace also returned to the Continent, wishing to defeat Henry and preserve his inheritance of England. Finally, Louis was joined by Henry’s own brother Geoffrey, who felt cheated out a rightful inheritance by the dying wishes of his father. The coalition struck at Neuf Marché, and although it fell, Henry’s counterattacks into the Vexin persuaded Louis to make peace. As a result, Henry was finally able to sail to England.19 Events in England would force Henry to launch his invasion before the spring thaw of 1153. Stephen had mounted a series of winter attacks across the countryside, fighting battles, raiding villages, and 16 Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 92–4; Draco Normannicus, 603. For discussions of causation, see Warren, Henry II, 43–4; J. A. Brundage, “The Canon Law of Divorces in the Mid-Twelfth Century: Louis VII c. Eleanor of Aquitaine,” and C. B. Bouchard, “Eleanor’s Divorce from Louis VII: the uses of Consanguinity,” in Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady, eds. B. Wheeler and J. C. Parsons (New York, 2002), 213–22 and 223–36, respectively. 17 The drama is epitomized in A. Kelly, Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings (Cambridge, 1950), 79–81. 18 C. W. Hollister and T. K. Keefe, “The Making of the Angevin Empire,” The Journal of British Studies 12 (1973): 21. 19 Torigini, 165–6; Historia Anglorum, IV: 31; Gervase, I: 150.

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generally gaining the advantage wherever he rode. The rebels were outmanned and eagerly awaited Henry’s return, but he had been delayed by death, marriage, and two major stints of warfare. In the meantime the plight of the opposition had not improved. After shoring up his power in the counties Stephen turned his attention to Wallingford Castle, the most eastern Angevin castle and a strong rebel base that had frustrated Stephen twice before. In 1139 a potential assault was thwarted by the well-supplied motte-and-bailey structure, so Stephen ordered two counter-castles built to the west of town between Wallingford and Bristol in order to prevent potential sallies by the Angevin garrison. Robert of Gloucester demolished both countercastles in 1140, and Stephen returned in 1146 with 300 knights from Ranulf of Chester, but once again a direct attack failed to materialize.20 Stephen ordered another counter-castle built: called Crowmarsh Giffard, its construction was more solid than that of its predecessors and may have been built on a motte.21 After taking the town of Newbury by storm, the king returned to besiege Wallingford for a third time in 1152 and built either one or two additional countercastles.22 Crowmarsh was apparently still standing, for Robert of Torigini dates its destruction to 1153, but Stephen probably felt it necessary to tighten his ring of fortifications.23 The counter-castles, combined with the size and position of Stephen’s army, were serious threats to the garrison in Wallingford Castle. Together with Roger of Hereford and some of Duke Henry’s men, the Angevin garrison attempted a sally, but Stephen’s forces easily defeated the rebels and chased them back into the castle.24 In a treacherous move, Roger next made a secret deal with Stephen and surrendered himself in return for the king’s assistance against the castle of Worcester, which had been taken from William de

20 Historia Novella, 37. One of the counter-castles may have been named Brightwell; see D. J. King, Castellarium Anglicanum, 2 vols. (New York, 1983), I: 13. 21 Historia Anglorum, IV: 24; Gesta Stephani, 94. 22 Gesta Stephani, 226–7, notes “he hastily built two castles”; Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, IV: 32, says that Stephen built one castle by the entrance to Wallingford bridge in order to cut off food supplies; Gervase, I: 151, also notes only one castle. For commentary see Bradbury, Stephen and Matilda, 161; R. Bartlett, England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 1075–1225 (Oxford, 2000), 283; Warren, Henry II, 48; and C. F. Slade, “Wallingford Castle in the Reign of Stephen,” Berkshire Archaeological Journal 58 (1960): 41–2. 23 Torigini, 173. 24 Gesta Stephani, 226–7.

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Beauchamp (d. 1211) by some of Waleran of Meulan’s knights. Roger and Stephen marched to besiege Worcester while leaving some forces around Wallingford.25 Though Roger had betrayed the Angevin garrison his deceit probably saved the castle by leading the English army away from the scene. Now free from harm and safely in league with the king, at Worcester Roger switched his loyalties once again and secretly sent word to Duke Henry, asking him to travel speedily with troops to England. According to the Gesta Stephani, Stephen was well aware of this intrigue. Were he a different sort of king who discarded honor in the face of treachery, Stephen might have imprisoned Roger for his duplicity; instead, Stephen refused to break his new alliance (and thus his word), and he moved most of his army back to Wallingford, leaving Roger in charge at Worcester. Not surprisingly, once he was alone Roger secured Worcester through bargaining and became Stephen’s enemy once again.26 Henry landed at Wareham by mid-January 1153 with over 3000 soldiers and moved to attack Stephen’s castle at Malmesbury.27 The move had the effect of drawing the king away from Wallingford and to the north, and by the time Stephen and Eustace arrived not only had the town fallen but Henry had invested the castle. Henry gathered his forces and met Stephen across the River Avon but battle was not joined. Malmesbury keep was consequently surrendered in the absence of military succor and perhaps because of treason by its castellan Jordan. Jordan was directed by Stephen to oversee the keep’s destruction, a stipulation the Gesta Stephani claims was arranged between Henry and Stephen in a truce drawn up on the Avon’s banks. Instead, Jordan surrendered the castle to Henry, thus giving Henry yet another stronghold in western England. As respective portions of his army went their separate ways, Stephen returned to London dispirited and suspicious that some of his barons were considering desertion to the duke’s side.28 Henry let his army rest for the remainder of the winter and began campaigning anew in the spring. We are told that the duke set off

25 The confusion surrounding Stephen’s Worcester campaign(s) is addressed in Crouch, Reign of King Stephen, 289–90. 26 Gesta Stephani, 228–31. 27 Wareham as the landing point is argued in Davis, King Stephen, 118, n. 14. 28 Historia Anglorum, IV: 34; Torigini, 171–2; Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 89; Gesta Stephani, 230–33.

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in pursuit of the remnants of Stephen’s army, but his movements suggest a rather haphazard progress of moving from target to target, sometimes led by his own design and sometimes by the wishes of his allies. Because of charters that are difficult to precisely date and vague comments in the narrative evidence, historians have had some problems tracing his path across England in 1153.29 What is clear is that Henry spent the middle months of the year acquiring castles through force or negotiation, thereby gaining new territories and allies such as Robert, earl of Leicester (d. 1168). By August, Henry was strong enough to address the ongoing siege of Wallingford. He besieged Stephen’s counter-castle of Crowmarsh and once again managed to lure the king’s army into a potential confrontation. When Stephen and Eustace arrived Henry took down his ramparts and arrayed his army against them from across the River Thames. Battle was never joined, however, and the two sides agreed to a truce that included Stephen’s recovering of some eighty hostages and the demolition of Crowmarsh, which had been the cause for the situation.30 Henry spent the remainder of the autumn attacking the castle at Stamford and sacking Nottingham. Henry’s prospects in England continued to improve over the course of 1153. He had taken or received several towns and castles and campaigned largely without hindrance, while his enemies had experienced several political setbacks. Stephen’s ongoing attempts to have Eustace crowned as a living heir to the throne had been stymied since April 1152, when Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury refused to crown Eustace as a living heir. When other bishops refused Stephen’s request that they overstep the metropolitan’s primacy in the matter and crown Eustace themselves the king arrested them. Theobald himself escaped to exile in Flanders. Eugenius III backed the archbishop’s prerogative, and once Stephen regained his composure Theobald returned to England just a few months later.31 In the end, the coronation issue worked itself out without royal or ecclesiastical interference. After the demolition of Crowmarsh Castle in

29 Gesta Stephani, 235–6. See the chronologies in Davis, King Stephen, 120; Crouch, Reign of King Stephen, 262–72; J. T. Appleby, The Troubled Reign of King Stephen (New York, 1970), 64–7; and H. A. Cronne, The Reign of King Stephen 1135–54: Anarchy in England (London, 1970), 64–7. 30 Historia Anglorum, IV: 34; Gesta Stephani, 237–9; Gervase, I: 153. 31 A. Saltman, Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury (New York, 1969), 36–9.

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1153, Eustace, upset at Stephen’s inability to engage Henry in battle, embarked on a personal rampage of frustration, laying waste to the lands of Bury-St. Edmund’s. On the evening of 10 August Eustace sat down to dine, took a bite of his meal, promptly had a seizure, and died a week later. The food upon which he dined had come from the abbey, and the question of assassination or food poisoning is as of yet undecided.32 Stephen was left with only one remaining son, William of Boulogne (d. 1159), who decidedly lacked the political aspirations of his older brother. As the non-action at Wallingford had demonstrated, Stephen’s remaining barons were hesitant to fight Henry and perhaps sensed that an end to the civil war, which had been fought at least sporadically since 1139, was finally in sight. In fact, peace negotiations had already begun, with Theobald and Henry, bishop of Winchester (d. 1171), communicating with ducal representatives for several months during the summer and autumn of 1153. In the meantime, Henry’s strength had only grown in terms of both allies and territory. Four undated charters, which we can reasonably assign to late September or October 1153, indicate that Henry traveled south from Nottingham to the traditional Angevin base of Devizes and thence southeast to Wilton. In a grant to Bermondsey Priory, Henry promised royal confirmation of rents once his rights to the throne were confirmed, an indication that the duke’s confidence in his position was rising.33 From Wilton Henry rode east to Winchester, arriving there in early November to settle permanently a peace with Stephen. The agreement is one of the classic feudal documents of English history. Henry pledged fealty to Stephen as his lord with the condition that he become the king’s direct heir to the English throne. William of Boulogne in turn would pay homage to Henry as his lord, and the duke would reward his new vassal with all of Stephen’s lands in Normandy, most of which had been lost during the civil war. Specifically named are the honour of Warenne and the castles of Bellencombre and Mortemer, as well as several unnamed castles and all the villages and revenues of Mortaine, of which William was count. Finally, all of Stephen’s earls and barons would perform liege homage to Henry, destroy the unauthorized

32 See T. Callahan, “Sinners and Saintly Retribution: the Timely Death of King Stephen’s Son Eustace,” Studia Monastica 18 (1976): 109–17. 33 Regesta Regis, no. 90.

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castles built during the anarchy, and surrender to him the remainder of their fortifications at the time of his accession. The formal proceedings commenced on 6 November, the charter was signed in December at Westminster, and the rites of homage were performed at Oxford on the Feast of the Epiphany in 1154 (13 January). Although the peace was indeed brokered by ecclesiastical forces, the evidence of the period 1149–1153 should give the duke some measure of credit for enabling the Winchester settlement through force of arms.34 In practice, the terms of the treaty meant little until Henry actually became king, and there are no extant royal charters in which Henry attests to Stephen as his lord.35 In late February Henry again met with Stephen, complaining that many of the baronial castles still stood, but Stephen denied the charge. Henry then left England before Easter (4 April), returned to the Continent, and remained there until Stephen’s death on 25 October 1154. Some historians have attributed his departure to the strained relations with Stephen and also a possible plot against the duke’s life hatched by a conjunction of the English barons, Flemings (perhaps William of Ypres), and Stephen’s son William. The evidence is doubtful at best. The source of the rumor, Gervase of Canterbury, did not begin writing his chronicle until 1188, and neither Henry of Huntingdon nor Robert of Torigini mentions the plot. The supposed conspiracy between nobles, Flemings, and princes is rather akin to the rebellions of 1173 and 1174, and one wonders if Gervase was projecting more current events backwards into Henry’s ducal reign.36 The more likely scenario is that Henry was once again turning his attention to the Continent and, as Crouch notes, that he brought his two most important allies in England, Robert of Leicester and Reginald, earl of Cornwall (d. 1175), along for the journey speaks volumes.37 With England for the most part secure, the duke surely

34

Argued by Leedom, “Settlement of 1153,” 360. See J. C. Holt’s excellent “1153: the Treaty of Winchester,” in The Anarchy of King Stephen’s Reign, ed. E. King (Oxford, 1994), 291–316. The Latin text of the treaty can be found in Regesta Regis, no. 272; in English translation, see EHD, 404–7. It is mentioned in all of the narrative chronicles: see Torigini, 177; Historia Anglorum, IV: 38; Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 91; and Gesta Stephani, 240–1. 36 Reported by Gervase, I: 158; on the conspiracy see Davis, King Stephen, 126; Warren, Henry II, 53. 37 Crouch, Reign of King Stephen, 280–1. 35

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grasped the danger to his inherited lands in Normandy, where Louis VII was again moving against the border of the province. With the aid of Flemings Louis had besieged and eventually received the castle of Vernon in July 1153, and in September he launched a surprise attack on Verneuil and burned a portion of the town. In the next year Louis married his second wife, Constance, daughter of Alfonso VII (1126–1157), the king of Castile. Louis must have been thinking not only of the need for an heir (which he would not receive until his third wife Adela of Champagne delivered the young Philip II in 1165) but also of a way to expand his influence around Aquitaine. Accordingly, upon landing Henry first marched to assert his suzerainty over his Norman lands; second, he moved into Aquitaine to suppress a rebellion there and shore up his position in the south. The importance of Aquitaine is evident by the length of Henry’s stay there: despite Normandy’s position as the bedrock of his continental power, the duke remained in Aquitaine until late June. He was back in Rouen by 24 June to confirm the election of Robert of Torigini as prior of Bec. Peace talks between Henry and Louis were then initiated in August and Henry received the castles of NeufMarché and Vernon, two places Louis had besieged and taken after Henry’s reception of Normandy. In return, Henry compensated the French crown for its expenditures in the taking of the castles in the first place, to the sum of two thousand marks. The remainder of Henry’s time in the autumn of 1154 was spent besieging his rebellious cousin Richard, son of Robert of Gloucester, at Torigini, and then campaigning in the Vexin alongside Louis VII (who was, after all, his feudal lord) against Joscelin Crispin.38 It was during this second siege of Torigini that Henry received word of Stephen’s death on 25 October 1154 at the hands of a severe illness, perhaps dysentery. The last year of Stephen’s life was essentially tranquil, and apart from intense discussions with the unhappy Henry in late February, the king had been able to reign in peace. Henry’s English allies, such as Hugh Bigod and William, earl of Gloucester, ceased to present either military or political difficulties, and the indications are that the royal administration continued in its regular manner. Mints in Gloucestershire and Devon began turning out coins emblazoned with Stephen’s image for the

38

Torigini, 174 and 179–81.

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first time in decades, and Stephen seems to have enjoyed a general resurgence in his public image as well.39 Such newfound respectability had its dangers—Henry of Huntingdon speaks abstractly about the evil counsel whispered into his ears while Duke Henry was absent, pushing him to rescind the peace—but in the end Stephen upheld the strictures of Winchester. In order to return the honour of Drax in Yorkshire to the Paynel family, which had formerly been dispossessed for its allegiance to Matilda, Stephen besieged the castle there in the summer of 1154 and defeated Philip of Colleville. Stephen’s faithfulness to his word, a characteristic he displayed throughout his entire reign, bore fruit after his death. England was indeed at peace, and Henry himself found no reason to hurry to claim the throne as both Stephen and Henry I had done. Instead, the duke waited until 7 December to cross and was not crowned at Westminster until the 19th. Contrary winds in the Channel may also have been to blame, but in all likelihood, with peace having been agreed upon in both England and Normandy, Henry had no reason to speed up his affairs. Such deliberateness of motion was to be a hallmark of the first Angevin king of the English.40 Henry II was crowned at Westminster on 19 December 1154 and thereafter set himself to the governance of a kingdom vast in scope and diverse in population. His immediate concern was to stabilize the country and assert his royal authority. To this end he sought to confiscate or destroy the illegal castles left over from the anarchy of Stephen’s reign; in addition, Henry expelled all foreign mercenaries from English lands.41 While few could have been sad to see the Flemings depart, considerable resistance developed against what some nobles saw as a deprivation of their traditional right to private castles on lands held through homage. It was a risky political move because Henry had little money with which to reward loyal magnates, and his main supporters were those who championed his cause against Stephen. The policy of confiscation did not make the king many new friends.42 Nevertheless, with many nobles giving in to the king’s demands Henry got what he wanted, although the intractable

39 40 41 42

G. J. White, “The End of Stephen’s Reign,” History 75 (1990): 18–19. Historia Anglorum, IV: 39–40. Torigini, 183. J. A. Green, The Aristocracy of Norman England (Cambridge, 1997), 135–6.

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William le Gros and Hugh Mortimer both had to be persuaded by force. William surrendered upon hearing of the approach of Henry’s army, but Hugh was not to be intimidated and fortified his castles against the king. In the summer of 1155 Henry besieged Bridgnorth Castle for several days until its garrison surrendered; likewise, he took Cleobury and Wigmore but graciously offered Hugh a full pardon of his crimes.43 This display of force was enough to convince the barons of his seriousness, and Henry did not face a rebellion from the nobility in England for another decade. Once so established, Henry II laid out his other plans of strong governance, first turning his attention to the seizure of castles in his continental lands. Henry sailed from Dover in January 1156, landed in Picardy, and proceeded to Rouen. Before asserting his will he met with Louis VII in the Vexin and did homage for the lands of Normandy, Anjou, Touraine, Maine, and Aquitaine.44 Louis could not have been thrilled at his fortunes, but perhaps he took some solace in the fact that, for the moment, the powerful Henry was acting the part of an obedient vassal. The person of more immediate concern was Henry’s brother Geoffrey, who had been deprived of any substantial lands by their father. Geoffrey le Bel’s will had given Henry, already the duke of Normandy, the county of Anjou, leaving brother Geoffrey with only four castles, including Mirebeau (Poitou) and Loudun and Chinon (Touraine), which was notable for its natural defenses even before Henry improved its walls with semicircular stone towers.45 Back in Rouen Henry had a conference with his brother and Theodoric, count of Flanders, to contest Geoffrey’s claims to Touraine and Maine. As noted above, it was the count of Anjou who controlled both these regions and Henry was hardly going to acquiesce to his brother’s demands. The fact that he had paid homage to Louis strengthened his cause, but there was a price: Henry became England’s first king to pay homage to a French monarch.46 Geoffrey, for his part, left Rouen and marched to Nantes, taking the city with the consent of its citizens. Situated in a powerful strate-

43

Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 163; Ymagines Historiarum, I: 301; Gervase, I: 161–2. Chronica, I: 215. 45 Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 113–14. 46 That is, to pay physical homage as well as owe fealty or service; see C. W. Hollister, “Normandy, France, and the Anglo-Norman Regnum,” Speculum 51 (1976): 235. 44

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gic location by commanding the mouth of the Loire River, Nantes sat as a constant threat to the borders of Anjou and Poitou. Henry no longer had a choice in the matter and set about besieging Geoffrey’s castles in late February. One by one they fell: first Mirebeau, then Chinon, and finally Loudon, which was surrendered in May. Geoffrey and Henry agreed to terms by July: Henry retained his lands and by the assent of the people became the heir to the county of Nantes should his brother die. In exchange, Geoffrey received annual payments of £1,000 from England and £2,000 from Anjou.47 Henry spent the remainder of 1156 on the Continent, moving from Anjou to Normandy in September, and then he traveled south to Limoges in October. He sent an army northwest into Poitou to occupy Thouars and expel its viscount Geoffrey, who had helped defend Chinon against him earlier in the year.48 In 1158, Henry would be compelled to return to Nantes when his brother died on 26 July. Duke Conan IV of Brittany (d. 1171) took possession of the county, and although Conan had once assumed the dukedom of Brittany with Henry’s blessing he had now overstepped his bounds. The early years of Henry’s reign were characterized by the exertion of power over rebellious vassals, and Brittany was no exception. With Louis VII charging his vassal to pacify the Bretons, Henry called in the obligations of his Norman knights and mustered an army at Avranches on Michelmas (29 September). Conan submitted to Henry and ceded Nantes back to the king.49 Scotland and Wales Expansion of royal authority continued to interest Henry II after sailing from Barfleur to Southampton on 8 April 1157. On 19 May he demanded the surrender of the castles of Hugh Bigod and William of Blois, King Stephen’s only remaining son. This was an effort to bring East Anglia back under the sway of the king and away from that of the Bigod family, which had since the days of the anarchy been successful in amassing great wealth. Hugh himself appears to have been in the favor of Henry, evidenced by his regular appearances

47 48 49

Ymagines Historiarum, I: 302; Torigini, 187–90. Eyton, Court, Household, and Itinerary, 19–20. Torigini, 196–7; Warren, Henry II, 76–7.

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at court between 1154 and 1158, but the king’s policy of castle confiscation was not constrained by friendship.50 It was also in this year that the king first turned his attention to English borders in the north and west. In July he met with the Scottish king Malcolm IV at Chester. In 1149, Stephen had promised Northumbria to the descendents of King David I, but Henry saw this as a usurpation of his rights and wanted the land returned. Malcolm paid homage to Henry, surrendered Northumberland and its castle of Newcastleupon-Tyne, and also Bamburgh, Westmoreland, and Carlisle in Cumberland. To Malcolm was restored the earldom of Huntingdon that had been lost during the anarchy. Their feudal bond notwithstanding, Henry and Malcolm’s relationship was rocky: because Malcolm had not actually provided Henry with military service, the king did not knight him until 1159 and then only as a reward for the Scot’s assistance on the Toulouse campaign. The consequence of Malcolm’s knighthood was a rebellion of six Scottish earls the very next year, men upset about his acquiescence to Henry’s every wish concerning northern English lands.51 Malcolm was besieged at Perth, but after resisting the siege the Scottish king gathered an army and conquered Galloway.52 As for Henry, he looked to the rebuilding of Wark Castle with a three-story tower keep and perhaps a defensive ditch; this fortress would later be staunchly defended against Scottish invasions in 1174.53 In sum, the king of the English got what he wanted in terms of both land rights and stability in his northern regions. The central military event of 1157 was Henry’s first campaign in the Isles after his coronation, the invasion of Gwynedd in northern Wales. Unlike Scotland, which had periodically entered into stable relationships with the Anglo-Norman kings since the days after the Conquest, Wales was a splintered region of shifting alliances and difficult geography. All of the Anglo-Norman kings save Stephen had

50 Torigini, 192–3; A. Wareham, “The Motives and Politics of the Bigod Family,” ANS 17 (1995): 238–9. 51 Ymagines Historiarum, I: 302; Chronica, I: 217; Torigini, 192; Chronicle of Holyrood, 129–32. See also A. A. M. Duncan, The Kingship of the Scots, 842–1292: Succession and Independence (Edinburgh, 2002), 72; and A. O. Anderson, “Anglo-Scottish Relations from Constantine II to William,” Scottish Historical Review 42 (1963): 16. 52 Chronica, I: 217. 53 Armitage, Early Norman Castles, 367 and 388.

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attempted to subdue the Welsh in one way or another with mixed results, and during his reign his lack of attention westward had allowed the Welsh to regain a firm grip on their lands. By 1154, three major principalities existed in Wales: roughly, Deheubarth in the south, Powys in the center, and Gwynedd in the north, and one by one they rebelled against English authority. Initial problems arose in 1157 when Prince Owain of Gwynedd (d. 1170) seized power for himself by asserting his authority over that of the English as well as his own relatives. First came the exiling of his two brothers Cadwaladr and Madog, who were also the heirs to Powys; second, Owain attacked Henry II’s castle of Tegeingl. The seizure of power was not uncommon, but Henry could not accept an attack against his own possessions and so marched against Owain in the summer. The campaign has been noted for Henry’s use of scutage: his first levy of scutage had occurred in 1156, and in the next year he collected only one-third of the knight service owed to him in England for the war in Wales. This is also the first campaign for which we have detailed evidence about the nature of the king’s army, its rough itinerary through Wales, and a forest battle at Coleshill Wood that involved Henry in personal, mortal combat.54 After surviving an ambush in the forest, Henry pushed forward and Owain fled north. In time, the prince acquiesced and pledged fealty to the king, so despite the rocky progress of the campaign Henry had achieved the objective of his campaign by forcing submission. Before leaving Gwynedd, Henry fortified the castles of Rhuddlan and Basingwerk.55 The Welsh campaign of 1157 is symptomatic of Henry’s first few years as king: a policy of direct confrontations with his enemies and the reclamation of what he saw as his royal rights. While the 1157 campaign secured the submission of the northern princes, it did not really solve the problem of violence on the March. The Welsh were an intractable bunch, frequently moving against baronial lands on the Anglo-Welsh border, either by attacking castles or raiding into England itself. Not surprisingly, then, no other region in England contained more fortifications than the March: over

54 On scutage, see T. K. Keefe, Feudal Assessments and the Political Community under Henry II and his Sons (Berkeley, 1983), 25. The best accounts of the 1157 are Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 106; Hergest, 135; and Peniarth, 59. 55 Torigini, 195.

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300 castles occupied the border before 1215, most of them arrayed across the central Marcher lands in order to force Welsh incursions to the north or south, areas in which England had larger urban populations and thus higher numbers of available troops. Most of the castles were of the motte-and-bailey sort, constructed out of wood and as necessity demanded.56 Nevertheless, in the late 1150s southern Wales had yet to be dominated. Prince Rhys ap Deheubarth (d. 1197), much weaker initially than Owain and looking to expand his fortunes in the south, engaged in hostilities against the Marcher lands of Roger of Clare and Walter Clifford in 1158. Henry II first tried a diplomatic solution. Rather than mount a campaign against Rhys, he summoned the prince to court and offered him castles amidst the baronial lands in an attempt at pacification. Earl Roger reacted negatively to the offer and, using a deceitful treaty as cover, seized plunder and garrisoned castles in Rhys’ lands. When the prince complained to Henry, the king ordered Roger to pay reparations, but his concern ultimately lay with his earl and not the Welshman. Consequently, when Roger refused reparations and Rhys attacked his castles in response, Henry marched into Wales with an army. No fighting occurred, but Henry took hostages from Rhys as surety for his future good conduct.57 Such conduct was not forthcoming: in 1159, the very next year, Rhys attacked more castles and was beset by an army composed of five Marcher earls and Cadwaladr of Gwynedd, who had married into the Clare family and had an interest in their well-being.58 A truce was concluded, and Rhys spent the next three years quietly minding his own affairs. In 1163, however, Rhys would finally incur the wrath of Henry II by moving against not only baronial lands but interests of the English Crown. He attacked the castle of Llandovery, a fortress in which the Angevin court had invested substantial funds for its strengthening and reconstruction. Llandovery had been built by the Norman Richard Fitzpons, taken by the Welsh in 1116, and then recovered in 1158. Its defenses were bolstered by a stone tower and improved guardhouse, but the castle fell nonetheless to Rhys and Henry was

56 R. R. Davies, Conquest, Coexistence, and Change: Wales, 1063–1415 (Oxford, 1987), 90–1. 57 Brenhinedd y Saesson, 159–61. 58 A. H. Williams, An Introduction to the History of Wales, 2 vols. (Cardiff, 1962), II: 38.

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compelled to intervene in Marcher affairs once more.59 The king had spent 1160–1162 on the Continent but, unluckily for Rhys, had recently returned in January 1163 for the installation of Thomas Becket (d. 1170) as archbishop of Canterbury. Henry assembled a sizable force in April, entered Glamorgan, quickly marched through Gower and Carmarthen, and finally encountered Rhys at Pencader. There, persuaded by his uncle Owain, Rhys surrendered, was taken prisoner, and returned to England with Henry. At the Council of Woodstock on 1 July 1163 Rhys performed homage for Henry, Malcolm IV, and Prince Owain, and was thereafter allowed to return to southern Wales.60 The show of force had sufficiently cowed Rhys, although Deheubarth itself would remain a persistent problem for the Angevin kings for years to come.61 The strategy of intimidation produced only limited results in the rest of Wales as well. By 1164, the Becket affair was reaching crisis proportions, and the Welsh leadership perhaps saw an opportunity to rid itself of English rule. This time the different princes combined their forces into a concerted effort: Owain and Rhys, along with the chieftains of Powys, renewed attacks by sending Owain’s son David to set upon Tegeingl in the north. Henry was in Normandy at the time sitting in on conferences with Louis VII, Philip of Alsace, the new count of Flanders (d. 1191), and ambassadors from the court of Emperor Frederic Barbarossa (1152–1190). Among the latter Henry conversed with the archbishop of Cologne and secured a tentative agreement to marry one of his daughters to the duke of Bavaria.62 Upon hearing of the troubles in Wales, however, the king hurriedly returned to England in the early summer of 1165. While Owain was convinced that Henry fought the Welsh out of pure hatred, Henry’s campaigns to assert his supremacy fit in well with his governing style in the 1160s.63 A massive campaign culminated in an indecisive battle in the Vale of Ceiriog, and Henry ended up retiring back into

59

Fry, Castles of Britain and Ireland, 313. Expugnatio, 374; Ymagines Historiarum, I: 311; J. E. Lloyd, A History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest, 2 vols. 3rd ed. (London, 1939), I: 511–13. 61 See J. Gillingham, “Henry II, Richard I, and the Lord Rhys,” Partitia 10 (1996): 225–236. 62 Torigini, 224. 63 See the letter from Owain to Thomas Becket in 1165; Correspondence of Thomas Becket, I: no. 57. 60

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England with twenty-two Welshmen as hostages. His frustration getting the best of him, they were all blinded. Among the victims were Owain’s sons David and Conan and Rhys’ sons Cadwallon, Cynwrig, and Maredudd.64 The larger implication of the campaign’s failure was an increase of both power and prestige on the part of the Welsh princes and a lessening of English control over the Welsh March. Yet the Welsh lack of allies hampered any effort to secure a prolonged independence. Several times Owain tried enlisting the military aid of Louis VII without result. Prior to the 1165 campaign, Owain put himself at Louis’ command in a letter; after the campaign, he wrote to Louis again. This time he boasted of the victory at Ceiriog, stressed the fact that Henry had taken the brunt of the casualties, and once again asking for aid in order to punish the English for invading, as he opined, without cause. Finally, in 1168 Owain actually sent messengers to France to requesting a military alliance.65 All his efforts were in vain, and it seems that Anglo-Welsh hostilities actually died down between 1168 and 1182, there were no notable Welsh incursions during the Great Revolt of 1173 and 1174, and indeed, for the rest of his reign Henry would come to rely upon Welsh mercenaries as a significant component of his armies. The Continent Henry II pursued a foreign policy on the Continent that was quite similar to his first moves in England: negotiation followed up by force when necessary. The main difference between the two geographical areas is simple: in England, the king was concerned about internal stability, while across the Channel his actions were all geared toward the acquisition of land. In August 1158, Henry arranged the betrothal of his eldest son Henry to Margaret, Louis VII’s daughter through his second wife Constance. The young Henry was but four years old, and Margaret still an infant. Her dowry was to be the Norman Vexin above the River Epte. The betrothal was only pos-

64 Hergest, 147; Peniarth, 63–4; Brenhinedd y Saesson, 167 and 320; Annales Cambriae, 50; Chronica, I: 240. 65 Acts of Welsh Rulers, no. 193 [October 1163 X July 1165]; no. 196 [November 1165 X March 1166]; and p. 23.

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sible through a great show of affection and loyalty to King Louis, who was of course suspicious of his Angevin rival and not keen on simply gifting an important slice of territory. In order to persuade Louis, Henry’s chancellor Thomas Becket, being the collector of dues and fines as well as a personal friend of the king, imposed a betrothal tax upon the nobles and then rode to visit Louis with the proceeds: 200 knights, legions of servants all dressed in new clothes, gifts of silk and pelts, tapestries, twenty-four changes of clothing, and eight wagons. Two wagons were filled with nothing but barrels of ale— the mission was a success and the children were engaged. By 1158 Henry had established himself as the dominant force outside of Paris and had political control over Normandy, Anjou, and Maine as well the ancillary provinces of Touraine, Poitou and the county of Nantes. His success as a politician and general had so far been overwhelming. The sum of Henry’s military disappointments on the Continent thus far amounted to two non-actions at Arques and Torigini in 1151, where his army refused to fight the forces of his overlord Louis VII, and the loss of Neuf Marché in the summer of 1152, an event for which Henry was not even present. Every other campaign had gone in favor of the Plantagenet: counterattacks in the Vexin to relieve Neuf Marché, the defeat of his brother Geoffrey not once but twice, first in 1152 and again in 1156, seizing strong castles and winning over the loyalty of the citizens of Nantes. It is no surprise, then, that Henry had sufficient time and security to look after affairs in England, Scotland, and Wales in the 1150s and 1160s. There was one area in which he had not yet asserted his lordship, however, and that was Aquitaine. Medieval Aquitaine was said to have been, in the words of one geographer, “an unstable area, caught between the French and English monarchies, a vast inorganic mass.”66 Henry spent some time there as duke and had in the summer of 1154 marched through Aquitaine to suppress rebellions, urged on, no doubt, by his strong-willed bride. Henry’s need to settle affairs had been complicated by the rival claim of Eleanor’s former husband Louis VII. In addition, there was some question as to whether or not Henry could lay claim to the adjacent region of Languedoc, which had

66 X. de Planhol and P. Claval, A Historical Geography of France, trans. J. Lloyd (Cambridge, 1994), 178.

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traditionally been prized by the counts of Poitou. Centered on the cities of Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Narbonne, it was an extremely rich and fertile area with Toulouse as the centerpiece.67 When the Poitevin lords gained control over Bordeaux in the twelfth century they sought to acquire the valuable trade routes through Toulouse by way of hereditary right.68 The bloodline of Toulouse fell into dispute in 1093 with the death of Count William IV. William left no male heirs but a daughter, Philippa, the wife of William IX the Troubadour (d. 1126) and mother to William X (d. 1137), Eleanor’s father. This is a tale remarkably similar to that of Eleanor’s husband, for Henry himself claimed the throne of England through his mother Matilda, the daughter of Henry I. Just as the Angevin claim to England had caused a civil war, so too the dispute over Toulouse brought about political difficulties. William of Newburgh claims that William IX, needing money to pay for his extravagant living, pawned the city of Toulouse to Count Raymond V (d. 1194), the descendent of Raymond IV of St. Gilles (d. 1105).69 Raymond of St. Gilles was a famous participant in the First Crusade and became the first Count of Tripoli, and he was also the brother of the heir-less William IV.70 The historical ties between Toulouse and Aquitaine were substantial enough for Henry II to assert his lordship there. If successful, he would receive control over much of Languedoc. In this he was naturally opposed both by Louis, who sought to contain Henry’s ever-growing empire, and Raymond V. The marriage of Henry and Eleanor made Louis and Raymond allies through necessity: in 1154 Raymond married Louis’ sister Constance, the widow of Stephen’s son Eustace.71 Although the French king had in 1141 asserted his own claim to Toulouse through Eleanor, the burgeoning power of Henry forced him to stand with his brother-in-law to oppose the Angevin’s designs. The army, which was probably the biggest of his entire reign, mustered at Poitiers in an attempt to cow Raymond 67 J. Given, State and Society in Medieval Europe: Gwynedd and Languedoc under Outside Rule (Ithaca, 1990), 19–24. 68 Warren, Henry II, 83–5. On the political development of Toulouse and the south, see G. Duby, France in the Middle Ages, 987–1460: from Hugh Capet to Joan of Arc, trans. J. Vale (Oxford, 1991), 230–4. 69 Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 121–2. 70 On Raymond’s legacy see H. E. Meyer, The Crusades, trans. J. Gillingham, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1988), 67–8. 71 R. Benjamin, “A Forty Years War: Toulouse and the Plantagenets, 1156–90,” Historical Research 56 (1988): 26–7.

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V, but the count refused to submit, placing his confidence in both his allies and the protective city walls of Toulouse.72 Henry’s only remaining alternatives were to abandon his claim for the moment or lead a military campaign from Poitiers to Toulouse. He chose the latter. The grand army arrived at Toulouse by the first week of July, but while it was marching south Louis VII wisely decided to oppose Henry’s ambitions. A noose was tightening around the French demesne, the Angevin king was growing in power, and the addition of Languedoc would have effectively cut off French access to Rome by reducing the routes to those running through Burgundy and Savoy. So as Henry settled down to survey Toulouse, Louis suddenly arrived and entered the city with what soldiers he could gather in a show of support for Count Raymond V. Due to the presence of Louis in the city, Henry, according to Roger of Howden, sat before the city for a long time and wasted his resources, then left the city having accomplished nothing.73 For the first time in four years the French had successfully resisted the king’s expansionary moves. Yet contrary to Howden’s account, which was written many years later, Henry did put his army to some use by ravaging the land around the city, burning villages, sending raids north, and besieging, capturing and fortifying the city of Cahors. In late September, sickness penetrated the ranks of Henry’s army and it finally returned north and abandoned the campaign. Notably, King Stephen’s last remaining son, William of Boulogne, died from illness during the campaign, as did William of Mortaine, whose earldom passed to Henry II by virtue of William’s lack of an heir.74 The focus of historians upon the failure of the 1159 Toulouse campaign has in some measure pulled proper attention away from its immediate aftermath. Warren claims that the seizure of the country of Quercy was the only enduring accomplishment of his campaign, but there was more to Henry’s success than that.75 In the aftermath, 1160–1161 was in some ways a banner year for Henry II. Even without Toulouse itself Henry still controlled much of Languedoc and consolidated his wife’s claim to Aquitaine through

72

Torigini, 201–2. Chronica, I: 217; see also Ralph Diceto’s brief account in Ymagines Historiarum, I: 303. 74 Torigini, 203 and 206; Chronica, I: 217; Herbert of Bosham, Mats. III: 175–6. 75 Warren, Henry II, 87. 73

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ravaging operations, the taking of Cahors, and the fortifying of various castles. Moreover, Henry had retained the entirety of his continental lands and even added critical castles in the Vexin while ravaged Louis’ own demesne. He clearly had the upper hand, and when Louis agreed to a treaty in May 1160 it was disadvantageous to him. Henry used his newly-won gains as bargaining chips: he released Evreux and its castles in exchange for the French recognition of all the Angevin’s lands, including the southern lands outside of Toulouse. Toulouse highlights the biggest and most enduring point of contention between Henry II and Louis: the border region of the Vexin. According to the treaty, the Vexin could only be gained through a successful marriage between Henry’s son Henry and Louis’ daughter Margaret, whose betrothal had been secured in 1158. If the marriage occurred within three years, Henry would receive the Vexin to the benefit of his son. The Knights Templar was to occupy the castles of Gisors and Neaufles-Auvergny and act as guarantors of the treaty. With both sides satisfied, oaths were taken and the treaty concluded, but very soon after relations soured once again. Three of the Templars, Robert de Pirou, Tostes de St. Omer, and Richard de Hastings, treacherously handed the castles over to King Henry. In his fury King Louis banished the knights from France; Henry, never one to refuse a gift, welcomed the knights into England and rewarded them handsomely.76 But the treaty itself was not voided, and on 2 November 1160 the toddlers Henry and Margaret were indeed married at Neuborg. Henry II took possession of his castles, and further provoked Louis by attacking Blois in 1161. 1161 and 1162, therefore, were the best of times for the English king and one of the high points of his reign. In spite of the disappointing campaign at Toulouse, Henry had managed to maintain nearly all of his territories, and he even made some important strategic gains near the heart of Louis’ domains. The two sides were again reconciled in September 1162 through the personal mediation of Pope Alexander III at Touci on the River Loire.77

76 The treaty is mentioned in Ymagines Historiarum, I: 305; and Torigini, 206. Although Warren claims that the stipulations were not recorded by the chroniclers, they are actually in Chronica, I: 217–18; otherwise, see Recueil des Actes de Henri II, II: 151–3; and Warren’s claim in Henry II, 88. 77 Eyton, Court, Household, and Itinerary, 57.

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In stark contrast to the activity of the preceding three years, 1162 was a year in which Henry II did not engage in any notable military endeavors. Most of his activity was concerned with the regulation and fortification of castles. In January he received from Geoffrey de Mayenne the castles of Goron, Ambières, and Châteauneuf on the River Colme.78 By March, Henry had returned to England and held a conference at Dover with Thierry of Flanders to outline and confirm the obligations owed to him.79 In May, Henry persuaded his friend and chancellor Thomas Becket to become the next archbishop of Canterbury. Becket was an appropriate choice for the position in Henry’s eyes, although his predecessor Theobald had probably never imagined the chancellor taking his place at the head of the English Church.80 Henry’s desire to see his friend consecrated stemmed from his desire for revenues from vacant bishoprics, soldiers raised from church lands, and perhaps a better rapport between church and state, but the move would soon be his undoing. Becket experienced a conversion experience after his consecration and within a year became a stubborn opponent of the Crown.81 In March 1166, following his struggles against the Welsh the previous year, Henry returned to Normandy and marched into Maine to quell the rebellions of William Talvas, count of Sées (d. 1171), and his grandson John, count of Ponthieu (d. 1191), both of whom were led in their aggression by Ralph de Fougères. The rebels were resisting the orders of Queen Eleanor, who had been left in charge of Normandy while Henry was on campaign in Wales, but their efforts on the whole had been unsuccessful.82 Henry moved to strike the rebels and particularly Fougères, whom he had actually favored earlier in his reign. First, he received the castles of Alençon and La Roche Mabille from William and John, probably through nothing more than a show of force. In particular William Talvas symbolized the power shifts that had occurred since Henry’s accession to power in the 1150s: once an important ally of Geoffrey le Bel, he had now lost lands in both England and Normandy due to the rising power of Henry II.83 78 79 80 81 82 83

Torigini, 211–12. Eyton, Court, Household, and Itinerary, 60. Saltman, Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, 168–9. See M. Staunton, “Thomas Becket’s Conversion,” ANS 21 (1998): 193–211. Ymagines Historiarum, I: 329. K. Thompson, “William Talvas, Count of Ponthieu, and the Politics of the

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Following these events, King Henry also acquired in 1166 the last major continental component of the Angevin Empire, the duchy of Brittany. Brittany was an attractive territory, lying as it does to the west of Poitou, Anjou, Maine, and Normandy, not to mention its coastline and proximity to such bastions of Angevin strength as LeMans, Angers, and of course the church at Mont-St. Michel. Henry’s favorable position as the count of Nantes enabled him to keep a close eye on Brittany to the north. The duchy itself had been in a state of virtual civil war for ten years as Conan IV struggled with his stepfather Eudo de Porhoët, the second husband of his mother Bertha, for control over Brittany. As old feuds within the duchy were resurrected Henry was the immediate beneficiary: already perched on the fringes in Nantes, it was no difficult feat for him to assert his presence among the Bretons. For years it had been clear that Conan IV could not control the divided factions in Brittany, much less maintain good order.84 Henry II was a supporter of Conan, and in 1166 the duke agreed to the marriage of his daughter and heiress Constance to Henry’s son Geoffrey. The infants were of course too young to rule, so as his son’s guardian Henry became the de facto duke of Brittany and Conan took what Michael Jones has called the “twelfth-century equivalent of early retirement.” Henry thus ruled the duchy until Geoffrey reached sufficient age in 1181, and he continued as count of Nantes until Michelmas 1185, meaning that Geoffrey only held the combined Breton territories for less than one year.85 By the end of 1166 the Angevin Empire was complete in the sense that Henry II now had direct control over those territories he had inherited through blood or marriage, as well as the neighboring duchies and provinces that ensured a contiguous sphere of influence. To some extent he had been forced to fight for his gains, but with the exception of Toulouse and Wales in 1165 while his opponents had proven tenacious Henry had in the end beaten them all. Following

Anglo-Norman Realm,” in England and Normandy in the Middle Ages, eds. D. Bates and A. Curry (London, 1994), 183. 84 J. A. Everard, Brittany and the Angevins: Province and Empire, 1158–1203 (Cambridge, 2000), 32–35. 85 Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 146–7; M. Jones, “The Capetians and Brittany,” Historical Research 63 (1990): 8; The Charters of Duchess Constance of Brittany and her Family, 1171–1221, eds. J. Everard and M. Jones (Woodbridge, 1999), 1.

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his acquisition of Brittany through the marriage of Geoffrey, the king could now look forward to a future of relative tranquility, and the late 1160s were characterized by the advent of innovative legal reforms such as the Assize of Clarendon and the Inquest of the Sheriffs, both enacted before the martyrdom of Thomas Becket in December 1170, an event that would bring a drastic end to Henry’s decisive personal rule.86 In the meantime, the king’s greatest concern was to keep a close eye on those who sought to undermine his strength and authority on the Continent, most particularly Louis VII and his allies. While Henry had busied himself afterward in Wales and Brittany Louis VII had watched from the sidelines as the English king dabbled in matters outside of the French realms of control, but in April 1167 fresh problems arose across the Continent. The first monies promised by both Henry and Louis to the Holy Land in June 1166, raised through a special five-year tax, had been collected and deposited at Tours, awaiting transport to Jerusalem. Henry wished to send the funds through his own ambassadors; Louis sought control over everything because Tours belonged to the French. Meanwhile, there were new problems in Aquitaine. The treaty enjoined between the two kings in May 1160 stated that Henry was to retain control over Languedoc with the exception of Toulouse itself, but when Henry moved in 1167 to enforce his rule there he found opposition. The disputed region was Auvergne, ruled locally by Count William VIII (d. 1182), who had sworn to Henry in person that his nephew would succeed him. In early April 1167 William disinherited his nephew, leading Henry to demand he stand before a jury to explain himself. William refused, seeking instead to forge an alliance with King Louis. When Henry took the affront personally and sent a body of soldiers south into Auvergne to ravage William’s lands, Louis responded by sending attacks into Normandy and burning several villages in the Vexin between Mantes and Pacy.87 Henry responded by returning to Normandy and attacking Chaumont, earning himself a truce that was to last until Easter 1168 (31 March). Next, Matthew, count of Boulogne (d. 1173), threatened to invade England on behalf of the French, forcing Henry to take preventative measures by stationing

86 87

Both documents are found in Select Charters, 167–72 and 174–7. For the wars of 1167–1168, our primary authority is Torigini, 230–9.

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an army on the English coast under the command of the justiciar Richard de Lucy.88 The invasion never materialized, but warfare did erupt in Brittany over Eudo de Porhoët’s claim to the duchy on the merits of his wife Bertha’s lineage (now deceased). Joining him was the viscount of Thouars as well as sympathetic nobles in the county of Leon, Aquitaine, and France. By the end of August, Henry had marched with an army as far as Leon, and the operation successfully concluded within just two weeks.89 By October, Henry was back in Normandy, mourning the death of his mother Matilda on 10 September, but in January 1168 he returned south to Poitou to confront revolts in Lusignan. After leaving Eleanor of Aquitaine in charge of the area he returned north.90 By March Henry was in Normandy once again, negotiating with Louis over the continuance of their August 1167 treaty, which was set to expire at the end of the month. In addition, the rebels in Poitou had captured some of Henry’s men and given those hostages to Louis. Henry demanded that Louis stop conniving with his vassals and that he release the hostages. Louis refused to do so without sufficient compromise on the part of the English king, and the best the conference could achieve was a continuance of the truce until 1 July. On 7 April, the truce was broken by the murder of Earl Patrick of Salisbury, once of the hostages and the man in charge of Henry’s army in Aquitaine.91 As a result, Henry spent the remainder of 1168 engaged in warfare against Louis and his allies, including Eudo de Porhoët, John, count of Ponthieu, and Philip of Flanders. His campaigns ranged across Flanders, Brittany, Normandy, and Perche, and his successes were enough to finally bring Louis to a sensible peace accord.92 Assisted by two Papal Commissioners sent to mediate in the Becket dispute, the kings agreed upon a treaty on 6 January 1169 at Montmirail in Perche. Louis agreed to release his hostages and Henry and his sons performed satisfactory acts of homage. These were designed to alleviate Louis’ fears of an overpowering Angevin Empire by dividing the inheritance of Henry II amongst his sons before his death. The core stipulations were as follows: 88

Gervase, I: 203. Torigini, 232. 90 Torigini, 235–6. 91 Warren, Henry II, 103. 92 The whole series of events is recorded in Torigini, 236–7; see Eyton, Court, Household, and Itinerary, 116–7, for a reckoning of the precise dates. 89

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1. Henry II paid homage to Louis and his son Philip II for Normandy; he would hold Touraine from the Count of Blois 2. Henry “the Younger” paid homage to Louis for Anjou, Maine, and Brittany, as well as the Stewardship of France 3. Geoffrey held Brittany from Henry the Younger 4. Richard paid homage to Louis for Aquitaine and Poitou, and was to marry Louis’ daughter Alice93 The treaty of 1169 should rightly be seen as the origin for all of Henry II’s future difficulties with his sons, the French, and an assortment of rebellious vassals that would move against him in the coming decade. By dividing his empire and assigning each portion to his young, impressionable sons the king was inviting trouble. At the start of 1169, however, the solution probably appeared rather tenable. It ended the warfare of the past year, and, most importantly, ensured that his domains would remain under the control of his own family. That his family would soon turn against him was, of course, an unknowable future development. Yet Henry did not believe that Louis’ intentions were completely selfless and to the good of all parties concerned, and his desire to maintain a strong grip on the empire remained. Although his sons had paid homage to the French king, Henry was still the man in charge of both governance of his realm and the maintenance and operation of his military forces. He returned to England in 1170, passed his Easter (5 April) at Windsor, and conducted the Inquest of the Sheriffs in London, in which all the sheriffs were to be deprived of office until such time as the barons could ascertain the truth of their respective revenues and payments to the Exchequer.94

93 For details of the treaty, see Torigini, 240–1; Gervase, I: 207–8; and Herbert of Bosham, Mats. III: 418–19. The conditions are also explained in a letter from John of Salisbury to Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter (d. 1184); see The Letters of John of Salisbury, Volume Two, no. 288. 94 For the pertinent documents see EHD, nos. 47–49. The Inquest seems not to have been aimed at breaking hereditary connections in the office of sheriff, however, and several former sheriffs resumed their employment; see J. Boorman, “The Sheriffs of Henry II and the Significance of 1170,” in Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy: Essays in Honour of Sir James Holt, eds. G. Garnett and J. Hudson (Cambridge, 1994), 273–4.

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chapter two The Conquest of Ireland

Henry II’s military success on the Continent during the 1160s was considerable; in contrast, his warfare against the Welsh had been lackluster and his efforts to handle his new archbishop Thomas Becket were heavy-handed. After receiving the submission of Rhys ap Deheubarth at the Council of Woodstock in July 1163, Henry turned to judicial matters that would ultimately damage his excellent political reputation. At issue was Philip de Brois, a minor clerk who had murdered a knight and attacked a sheriff, but was absolved of his crimes by bishop’s court at Lincoln. The sheriff complained to Henry, who then proposed that Philip be tried before the royal courts. Becket, whom Henry expected to side with the Crown, intervened and prevented this from occurring. The dispute did not go away, for at the Council of Westminster in October Henry demanded that any clerk accused or convicted of great crimes should be sentenced by royal courts. Becket agreed with the king in principle but with the caveat “saving my order,” a convenient dodge that confused the issue and denied Henry full satisfaction. As a result, in January 1164 the king issued the Constitutions of Clarendon, decrees stating, among other things, that clerks were to be tried by both royal and ecclesiastical courts but sentenced in the royal court only. Urged by Alexander III and his cardinals to take a pacifistic position, Becket agreed to this in order to promote good order in the realm. Many churchmen and Becket’s own monks at Canterbury murmured their disagreement with his having abandoned age-old legal protections for the church in one swift moment, and soon Becket recanted his position at the Council of Northampton in October 1164.95 Henry now took a hard line with his archbishop: he demanded not only Becket’s consent to the Constitutions but also made a series of punitive financial demands that included Becket’s return of monies from the castelleries of Eye and Berkhampstead (which he paid) as well as monies borrowed for the former chancellor’s military operations on the Toulouse campaign of 1159. Finally, Henry demanded receipts from all the vacant bishoprics and abbeys held by Becket during his days as chancellor—the total amount required of Becket exceeded 30,000 marks, an outrageous and wholly unrealistic number.96 This 95 96

For the pertinent passages relating to these councils, see EHD, nos. 124–29. W. Urry, Thomas Becket: his Last Days (Stroud, 1999), 11.

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was a remarkable claim, for in maintaining vacancies Becket had acquired great funds for the king and the chancellor had, of course, only done Henry’s bidding in this regard. Now, however, the issue inflamed his rival bishops in England who had either felt slighted by Becket’s swift rise to the archbishopric or those who were merely jealous, and the list of bishops allied with Henry against Canterbury included Gilbert Foliot and Roger de Pont, archbishop of York (d. 1181). Foliot in particular was unwavering in his attacks on Becket, accusing him of betraying the Church by taking money from it with which to wage bloody war.97 Facing imminent arrest, Becket chose to flee. On 14 October 1164 the archbishop sneaked out of Northampton in the disguise of a Gilbertine lay-brother, taking only one servant and his pallium and seal. Several days later on 2 November, Becket left Sandwich in a small skiff and landed at Oye, Flanders, outside of Henry’s jurisdiction on the Continent, and began his life of exile.98 Negotiations between the king and archbishop became severely strained for the next six years. The dispute between Henry II and Thomas Becket had less to do with legal wrangling than the nature of the relationship between church and state. Henry wanted control and even dominance over his empire and tolerated little by way of rebellion. He had acted towards Becket as he had against all those who had previously chosen to oppose him. First, Henry made clear his will, second, he allowed each man to submit and reconcile himself with the court; failing this, Henry took stern measures to assert his control. The difference between Henry seizing a rebel’s castle, demanding a vassal’s homage, or requiring a bishop’s obedience was slight. Thomas Becket met his end in his own cathedral on 29 December 1170. The immediate cause of his death was the crowning of Henry II’s son Henry ‘the Younger,’ which occurred at Westminster Abbey on 24 May that same year. Under normal circumstances the Archbishop of Canterbury would have performed the ceremony, but as Becket had been in exile since 1164 the young Henry was crowned by Roger de Pont, who was aided in the act by Hugh de Puiset, bishop of Durham (d. 1195), Walter, bishop of Rochester (d. 1182), 97 D. Knowles, The Episcopal Colleagues of Archbishop Thomas Becket (Cambridge, 1951), 68–71. For Foliot’s attack see Correspondence of Thomas Becket, I: no. 109; or, Letters and Charters of Gilbert Foliot, no. 170. 98 F. Barlow, Thomas Becket (Berkeley, 1986), 115–16.

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Gilbert Foliot, and Jocelin, bishop of Salisbury (d. 1184).99 Other bishops such as Roger of Worcester (d. 1179) refused to so violate Canterbury’s primacy. When Henry and Becket finally reconciled at Fréteval on 22 July, the king promised Becket the opportunity to recrown young Henry upon his return. Once back in England on 30 November, however, the archbishop produced letters from Alexander III (drawn up at Becket’s request) that authorized his excommunications of Gilbert Foliot and Joscelin as well as the suspension of Roger of York and others who had assisted with the young Henry’s coronation.100 The bishops were unable to reason with Becket and so sought out Henry II in Normandy. Hearing the news, the king exclaimed, “What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and promoted in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born clerk!”101 Four knights, Reginald fitzUrse, William de Tracy, Hugh de Morville, and Richard le Bret, departed Henry’s court in response and began a hasty journey that ended with their grisly deed in Canterbury Cathedral. The crowning of young Henry had a secondary effect of infuriating Louis VII because his daughter Margaret had not been crowned alongside his son-in-law. Louis’ method of complaint was to assemble an army and invade Normandy in the summer of 1170 to correct the slight. Henry II sailed to Normandy in response and the two sides were quickly reconciled at Vendôme when the king promised to conduct a second coronation ceremony for both young Henry and Margaret. While on the Continent, Henry II was struck by an illness, and the malady was so severe that he dictated his first will that divided his lands amongst his children. The will followed in much the same fashion as had the treaty with Louis in January 1169: Richard received the lands belonging to his mother Eleanor, meaning principally Aquitaine; Geoffrey received Brittany; and young Henry received Normandy, Anjou, and Maine. All three were instructed to do homage to Louis VII for these lands. The child John, youngest of Henry’s sons, received a county in Mortaine but no gainful lands

99 Chronica, II: 4–5; Gervase, I: 219. This occurred in the tradition of the Capetian line in France, which had since the reign of Hugh Capet crowned a living successor. 100 Knowles, Episcopal Colleagues, 137. 101 Barlow, Thomas Becket, 235. The legendary phrase, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” is in reality apocryphal; see Urry, His Last Days, 66.

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to speak of, earning him the nickname “Lackland.”102 In November, Henry II had recovered and took an army into Berry to claim rights over the bishopric of Bourges, which he felt belonged to the duchy of Aquitaine. Given its proximity to the French demesne and its north-central location, Henry’s claim to Berry as an appendage of Guienne was perhaps spurious, although his acquisition of the castles Montmirail and St. Agnan from Henry de Vienne in the spring of 1169 did extend his influence into the contested lands. Regardless of legitimacy, an army led by Louis and Theobald, count of Blois (d. 1191), arrived at Bourges first. Henry had already performed homage to them both and was politically outmaneuvered. A truce was therefore agreed upon and Henry, at least temporarily, rescinded his claim to Berry.103 Upon hearing of the murder of Becket in December, Henry reportedly shut himself in his room for three days and mourned the loss of his old friend.104 He did not return to England until 1 August 1171, no doubt wishing to keep his distance while news of Becket’s death swept through England and outraged the common population. Meanwhile, he busied himself with a series of defensive moves against the wrath of Rome that was sure to follow. He was in a difficult situation, for no matter how innocent his intent may have been his words had spurred the four knights to their murderous deed. Ecclesiastical indignation against the king quickly manifested itself across the West and most severely when William, archbishop of Sens (d. 1176), placed an interdict on Henry’s continental lands in the spring of 1171. Alexander III and his cardinals mused over letters of outrage from religious and secular leaders alike, and excommunication became a common subject. Some damage control was in order, and the first envoys from Henry’s court arrived in France in March 1171 to plead before Alexander III. These men were unsuccessful, but another group, which included of the abbot of Valasse and Richard Barre and Henry Pinchon, the archdeacons of Salisbury and Lisieux, convinced the pope to postpone his judgment until Henry could swear his penance in person.105

102 103 104 105

Chronica, Chronica, Letters of Chronica,

II: 5–6. II: 13–14. Arnulf of Lisieux, no. 72. II: 27–9; EHD, 771–2.

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The stipulation that Henry physically present himself for judgment offered the wily king an opportunity in which procrastination played a major role. His penance would be easily delayed by a military expedition to Ireland. This was a campaign the king had been considering since 29 September 1155, where he laid out plans for an Irish invasion at a council in Winchester.106 The idea did not appear out of thin air but is said to have been conceived by Pope Hadrian IV (1154–1159) in the papal bull Laudabiliter. The controversy over the veracity of Hadrian’s bull has been rather intense, due not only to the vagaries surrounding the evidence, but also no doubt to the ubiquity of past and present Anglo-Irish hostilities. Regardless of his authority to actually invade the island, in 1171 the king saw a chance to improve his image in the eyes of Rome by settling the troubles of the Irish church.107 Henry II left Brittany for England in August 1171, spent two months gathering an army, and assembling a fleet at Pembroke for the voyage across St. George’s Channel. He departed on 16 October and landed at either Waterford or Croch, not returning to England until 17 April 1172, a full seven-month absence.108 The political cause of English involvement was the forced exile of Diarmait Mac Murchada, king of Leinster, in 1166. Diarmait requested the assistance of English soldiers but Henry would not provide any of his own troops, although he did allow the Irish king to recruit what volunteers he could find in England and Wales. The draw of potential Irish fiefs was strong and many soldiers agreed to fight, the most notable recruit being Richard ‘Strongbow’ fitzGilbert, earl of Clare/Hertford (d. 1217). Strongbow agreed to assist Diarmait in return for money and the hand of his daughter Aífe, which brought with it hereditary rights to Leinster itself.109 He obtained permission from Henry and launched his expedition to Ireland, which was heavily financed by loans from the Jew Josce of Gloucester, in August 1170.110 The rapid success of Strongbow in taking Dublin soon became a concern to Henry as he pondered the possibility of losing

106

Torigini, 186; Ymagines Historiarum, I: 300–1; Gervase, I: 77. On the issue of Laudabiliter, see the appendix. 108 Torigini, 252. 109 Chronica, I: 269; M. T. Flanagan, Irish Society, Anglo-Norman Settlers, Angevin Kingship: Interactions in Ireland in the Late Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1989), 79–80. 110 The Jews of Angevin England: Documents and Records, ed. J. Jacobs (New York, 1977), 51–2. Jacobs argues that were it not for the loans the Irish expedition would not have been feasible. 107

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control over conquered lands to both his vassal as well as several other Anglo-Norman principals roaming about Ireland.111 In response, the king sequestered Strongbow’s lands, closed the English ports to Ireland, and ordered that all Englishmen who had gone to assist the Irish should return home by Easter 1171.112 Before they could return, Diarmait died and his rival Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair besieged Strongbow, now the rightful heir to Leinster, within the city of Dublin for over two months.113 Strongbow’s men were outmatched by Ruaidri’s warriors, and he was forced to appeal to Henry II for assistance on the basis of old diplomatic ties between England and Leinster. While avoidance of penance for his part in the murder of Thomas Becket undoubtedly played a major role, it was Strongbow’s situation that was the ultimate cause of Henry’s personal intervention in 1171 and offered the king a convenient opportunity to assert his influence over Irish lands while sailing on a mission of succor for his endangered vassal.114 While Strongbow awaited the reinforcements, Gerald of Wales wrote that he and his supporters made a surprise sally out of Dublin and crashed into the Irish soldiers. The small band of less than two hundred men fought gallantly and routed the enemy, whom Gerald numbers at over 30,000 strong. Such a tale can scarcely be believed in its entirety and is more fantastic than Herodotus’ narrative of the Battle of Marathon. After English left Dublin the city was captured by O’Rouric, the one-eyed king of Meath. Strongbow sailed to England to meet with Henry II at Gloucester to confirm the king’s military assistance, promising his fealty as well as the city of Dublin to the king in return for assistance, to which Henry assented. Before his departure for Ireland Henry made his way to St. David’s, pausing along the way to discipline some minor Welsh lords and take the castle Usk. The king arrived in Ireland on 18 October 1171, never once employing his soldiers in battle or siege because one by one the Irish

111 L. Hays and E. D. Jones, “Policy on the Run: Henry II and Irish Sea Diplomacy,” Journal of British Studies 29 (1990): 298–300. 112 M. T. Flanagan, “Strongbow, Henry II and Anglo-Norman Intervention in Ireland,” in War and Government in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of J. O. Prestwich, eds. J. Gillingham and J. C. Holt (Woodbridge, 1984), 67. 113 Flanagan, Ireland in the Late Twelfth Century, 167–8. 114 Flanagan, “Anglo-Norman Intervention in Ireland,” 77.

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lords made their voluntary submissions to the English king.115 By the time he left, most of the Irish nobles and bishops had submitted to his rule without a fight. William of Newburgh wrote that the king subjugated the island “by the terror of his name, without bloodshed,” and some princes offered tribute to Henry and delivered hostages back to England.116 Strongbow was relieved and Henry entertained several Irish princes at his Christmas court in Dublin that same year, “the king having now silenced all opposition by his presence.”117 While his absence in Ireland helped to sooth angered hearts over the Becket affair, Henry also took the opportunity to address what had been the central concern of the 1155 bull Laudabiliter, the reform of the Irish Church. While the submission of the Irish princes had little to do with Hadrian’s bull, the submission of the Irish bishops and clergy most certainly did.118 As soon as Henry arrived in Ireland he “threw a religious aura round his new position” and played the role of reformer.119 Henry commanded that a synod be held at Cashel in 1172 to consider and evaluate the health and welfare of the Church in Ireland. Christian O’ Connarchy stood as the synod’s presider, and Ralph, an abbot in Shropshire, stood as Henry II’s representative.120 There, the bishops agreed to eight constitutions of reform and accepted the reformation as a blessing from the king of England.121 Henry II spent the early months of 1172 in Dublin and then Waterford, making arrangements for the lordship of Ireland. He granted to Hugh de Lacy (d. 1186) the lands of Meath, the city of Dublin, and the justiciarship of Ireland in exchange for the service of one hundred knights. Henry also granted Waterford and Wexford to Robert fitz Bernard, left the kingdom of Leinster to Strongbow and his heirs, and ordered castles built in the east country.122 Henry’s

115

Expugnatio, 277. Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 169; Bartlett, Norman and Angevin Kings, 87. 117 Gerald of Wales’ account is Expugnatio, 280; see also A. J. Otway-Ruthven, A History of Medieval Ireland (London, 1980), 50. 118 F. X. Martin, “Diarmait Mac Murchada and the Coming of the AngloNormans,” in A New History of Ireland, eds. A. Cosgrove, T. W. Moody, F. X. Martin, and F. J. Byrne, 10 vols. (Oxford, 1976–2005), I: 91. 119 J. A. Watt, The Church and the Two Nations in Medieval Ireland (Cambridge, 1970), 38. 120 Idem, The Church in Medieval Ireland, 2nd ed. (Dublin, 1998), 34. 121 Expugnatio, 281–3. 122 Chronica, II: 33–4; Ymagines Historiarum, I: 350. 116

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army departed for Wales on 26 March, but the king himself, waiting for a fair wind, did not return to St. David’s until 17 April. To what degree this respite in the form of an invasion prevented his excommunication is unknown, but Henry’s conquest of Ireland clearly had some influence with Alexander. On 1 March, having heard of the arrival of papal legates Theodinus and Albert in Normandy, he sought to return to England and then the Continent to meet them. Contrary winds kept him at Wexford for the entire month of March— that Henry was delaying his appearance before the papal court is certainly a possibility for his lengthy stay in Ireland—but once he left Wales his journey to the Continent took only eighteen days. On 30 May he appeared in person before the papal legates at Avranches, and, accompanied by his wife Eleanor and the bishops of Rouen, Evreux, and Worcester, Henry received his penance for his role in the death of Becket. The judgment found him guilty of intemperance of word but not deed; consequently, he was not excommunicated and the interdict on his lands was lifted. In exchange for his absolution, Henry promised to become crucesignatus and travel to either Jerusalem or Spain within four years, as well as provide funds for the maintenance of 200 Knights Templar in the Holy Land.123 For the first time, Henry had been forced to accept terms from a position of diplomatic weakness. He had long dictated events through force of will or arms, and every treaty yet concluded had been favorable to him in one way or another. Yet Becket’s death had sent a shrill of horror through Western Christendom. Henry’s capitulation at the feet of Pope Alexander proved to be just the opening the king’s enemies needed, and within months the Great Revolt against him would arise. Interestingly enough, Henry never explicitly invoked the privilege of Laudabiliter in his 1171 expedition, although the point remains important in the eventual justification of English actions in Ireland.124 His dominant performance in Ireland probably had less to do with

123 For Henry’s purgation and Charter of Absolution, see Chronica, II: 35–7; and Ymagines Historiarum, I: 351–2. For specific studies see A. J. Duggan, “Diplomacy, Status, and Conscience: Henry II’s Penance for Becket’s Murder,” in Forschungen zur Reichs-, Papst- und Landesgeschichte: Peter Herde zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. K. Borchardt and Enno Bünz (Stuttgart, 1998), 265–90; and idem, “Ne in Dubium: The Official Record of Henry II’s Reconciliation at Avranches, 21 May 1172,” EHR 115 (2000): 643–58. 124 Watt, Church and the Two Nations, 37.

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a papal bull than his swift movements and strength of his personality. Alexander III approved of the invasion after the fact and urged the king to purge the illicit and abominable practices in Ireland for the good of the English, the Irish, and Christendom. The pope issued three letters in September and October 1172 that supported Henry’s Irish activities and urged him to continue his humble work in the name of God: And so we exhort and beseech your majesty and enjoin upon you for the remission of your sins that in this work which you have so laudably begun you will even more intently and strenuously continue, so that, even as you have to the remission of your sins undertaken so great a task as regards that people, so also for the benefit to their souls you shall be worthy of an eternal crown.125

In light of the recent papal schism and the overtures of antipope Calixtus III (r. 1178) towards state leaders, Alexander had a definite need for allies. Maintaining good relations with Henry was vital to his survival.126 Alexander later offered a privilege of Ireland similar to that of Hadrian IV’s, which was read at a council at Waterford in 1173–4, and Henry’s conquest and reform of both the Irish Church and the country’s lands was fully accepted by Rome.127 In the end, Nicholas Brakespeare’s hopes of a reformed church in that country were in some way fulfilled through the English invasion, despite the fact that some of the older Irish monasteries were actually attacked and seized by various Norman nobles.128 After 1172, Henry II did not expend a great amount of thought or effort on Eire. When he did, it was to call upon Strongbow and his other barons there for military assistance. These included Hugh de Lacy, who retained Meath and Dublin for the service of one hundred knights. Henry also gave the kingdom of Cork to Robert

125 Irish Historical Documents, 1172–1922, eds. E. Curtis and R. B. McDowell (New York, 1968), 21. Gerald of Wales also provides a useful record of all the relevant Irish documents in his later work on the conduct of princes; see De Principis Instructione Liber, ed. G. F. Warner, Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, VIII: 195–200. 126 G. Orpen, Ireland under the Normans, 1169–1216, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1968), I: 310. 127 Calendar of Documents Relating to Ireland: 1171–1251, ed. H. S. Sweetman, 2 vols. (London, 1875), I: 6–7; Watt, Church in Medieval Ireland, 30. 128 P. Ó. Néill, “The Impact of the Norman Invasion on Irish Literature,” ANS 20 (1997): 179. Minor figures were rewarded as well: Walter the Goldsmith received a small plot of land for one tenth of a knight’s fee; see Acta of Henry II and Richard I, no. 288.

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fitz Stephen and Milo de Cogham for the services of sixty knights, although Henry kept the city of Cork for himself. He gave the kingdom of Limerick to Hubert fitz Hubert and others in exchange for sixty knights’ service but, again, kept the city of Limerick for himself. Given that towns had formed a critical basis for his support during the recent rebellions, as well as their substantial revenue through fees and tolls, we can easily discern Henry’s interest in the Irish cities. Most of these grants of land were confirmed again in May 1177 at a royal council at Oxford. In that year, however, there was to be a new twist: with the permission of Alexander, Henry created his son John king of Ireland.129 He insisted that his nobles holding Irish lands pledge their fealty not only to Henry but also John, and thereafter they owed knight service to both men. John’s kingship was a new approach to the lordship and reform of Ireland; rather than simply handing out fiefs to interested nobles, Henry had developed an interest in injecting his family into a leadership role. John was undeniably the apple of his father’s eye, and Henry showed great concern for his welfare. In 1177, however, John was only nine years old and would not become involved in Irish governance in any meaningful way until 1185.130 Good diplomatic relations between the papacy and England, at least on the matter of Ireland, persisted under Henry’s successors and final approval of English rule there was cemented when Innocent III granted Ireland to then-King John as a vassal kingdom in 1215.131 Having now added Ireland to his domains, Henry II had by 1173 dominated nearly every region he had set his sights upon, and in those areas in which he had fallen short (Wales, Toulouse, the Vexin) he either received the homage of the magnates there or was in the process of obtaining the land by way of treaty. The indications are that the king, now with his days of conquest largely behind him, was ready to divide the responsibility for the maintenance of the Empire amongst his sons. That he did not move quickly enough in this regard was the trigger for the rebellion of his son Henry the Younger and the outbreak of the Great Revolt of 1173 and 1174.

129

Chronica, II: 133. S. Duffy, “John and Ireland: the Origins of England’s Irish Problem,” in King John: New Interpretations, 226–8. 131 See Orpen, Ireland under the Normans, I: 310; Watt, Two Nations in Medieval Ireland, 40. 130

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Yet we may forgive Henry II his delay because his sons were still of young ages: while Henry was the oldest at a robust eighteen, Geoffrey and Richard followed at fifteen and fourteen, respectively, and John was too young to be of much consequence.132 None of the sons would demonstrate great generalship or soldiery during the revolts, and Henry II spent the bulk of his time fighting more seasoned magnates from across his lands. The Great Revolt was the centerpiece of Henry II’s military career. It was huge in scope, constituting of six different fronts (three in Normandy, one in Poitou, and one each in central and northern England) and multiple enemies including Louis VII, Philip, count of Flanders, Matthew, count of Boulogne, William, king of Scotland, Robert, earl of Leicester, and several other notable magnates and their armies. Henry’s campaigns to quash the resistance featured all the hallmarks of High Medieval warfare, including castle and town sieges, pitched battles, skirmishes, ravaging, relief actions, and the incorporation of mercenaries into the ranks of the feudal armies. Showcasing his abilities as a commander by directing armies and delegating authority, Henry defeated all the forces arrayed against him and, by the fall of 1174, emerged from the war stronger and more powerful than ever. The End of Louis VII In the fall of 1175, reports Roger of Howden, a mysterious and deadly disease broke out across England, killing seven or eight people a day. This was followed by a severe famine that struck not only England, but Anjou and Maine as well. Looking back, the misery was a grim foreshadowing of the final period of Henry II’s reign in which success and satisfaction became disappointment and despair.133 Yet in 1175 such a dismal ending to the king’s enormously successful reign was unthinkable, for he had become arguably the most powerful leader in the West. Still, pockets of resistance remained as residual

132 Henry the Younger, however, appears to have been more involved in administrative affairs than previously thought. I thank Matthew Strickland for letting me read his forthcoming article, “On the Instruction of a Prince: the Upbringing of Henry, the Young King,” in Henry II: New Interpretations, ed. C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge, forthcoming in 2007). Professor Strickland is currently working on a more extensive study of young Henry as well, the first major effort on the subject since 1925. 133 Chronica, II: 85; Ymagines Historiarum, I: 406.

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effects of the Great Revolt and of particular concern were the southern French provinces, the regions in which Henry had not actually waged warfare during the uprisings. Auvergne, Aquitaine, Poitou, and especially Berry became focal points of resistance, not so much against the king himself as against the terms of the Treaty of Mont Louis that demanded the reduction of illegal castles. In mid-1175, and then again after Easter 1176 (4 April), Henry sent his sons Richard, Geoffrey, and eventually young Henry to the Continent to clean up the mess. Richard in particular began to distinguish himself, receiving four castles through surrender and besieging and taking the castles of Aesse, Molineaux, the strong Neufchâtel-en-Bray, and the city of Limoges. Henry II himself ordered the destruction of several castles in England, including Leicester and Framlingham, both strategically important during the rebellions, and with the Assize of Northampton divided England into six judicial units.134 For some time, Henry II had looked to the construction of alliances through the marriage of his relatives. In 1169, his daughter Eleanor was given to Alfonso VIII (1158–1214) of Castile. He arranged the marriage of his sister Emma to David, son of Owain ap Gwynedd, in 1174. William II ‘the Good,’ king of Sicily (1166–1189), sent several notable magnates to England to ask for the hand of his daughter Joanna, and the two were married in Palermo on 13 February 1177.135 Henry’s reputation as a strong monarch would even lead to another political marriage after his death. Recognized as a major leader in the West, he became involved in international relations beyond his own territorial interests, and on Ash Wednesday 1177 (17 February), the king served as arbitrator over a territorial dispute between Alfonso VIII and Sancho VI ‘the Wise,’ king of Navarre (1150–1194) and Alfonso’s uncle. Henry deliberated with his barons and bishops over the matter and arrived at a judgment: because neither side had addressed the contentions of the other in its plea, both Sancho and Alfonso were rewarded the lands to which they laid claims. Good relations between England and the Iberian regions and Navarre in particular continued, and in 1191 his son Richard would marry Berengaria, the sister of Sancho.136 134 Chronica, II: 87–91 and 93–4; Ymagines Historiarum, II: 414. For the Assize, see Select Charters, 178–80. 135 Ymagines Historiarum, I: 334 and 414–15; Gervase, II: 82; Chronica, II: 95. 136 Chronica, II: 122–31; Ymagines Historiarum, I: 418–20. On the marriage, see

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By 1177, sufficient time had passed for Henry II to put the lingering memories of the rebellions behind him by forgiving the rebels and restoring their lands. With the exception of Poitou his domains had been quiet for nearly a year, and the earls, having pledged their loyalty and acting accordingly, were to be compensated. On 8 May, the king rewarded those who had remained loyal: the Stutevilles received the castles of Roxburgh and Edinburgh—a fine prize after Roger’s valiant defeat of the Scots at Wark in 1174! To the Neville family he gave the castles of Norham and Scarborough, and Roger de Conyers was given the fortress of Bishop Hugh de Puiset, who had betrayed the king by giving financial support to William the Lion.137 No doubt Henry saw the advantage in placating his nobles, rather than keeping them down. Therefore, after the feast of St. Hilary he restored to Robert of Leicester all his former lands in England and Normandy except for the castles of Montsoreau and Pacy-sur-Epte (near Bonneville), which he desired for his own use. Hugh of Chester, who had rebelled in Brittany, also received back his lands. Hugh Bigod, was the major exception during these restorations: Framlingham Castle was destroyed and Hugh died in 1177 while on crusade, having never recovered his lands in Norfolk from Henry II. Of great concern to Henry during these post-rebellion years was the maintenance of good order in England, and in this vein he also pursued the reforming of the Curia Regis. In 1178 he re-divided the English counties into four judicial districts, appointing to each district two clerks and three laymen—the origin of the Common Bench.138 The relative tranquility of 1176 and 1177 coincided with one of Henry’s longest stays in England during his reign. When he finally left on 18 August 1177 it was to deal once more with the French.139 At issue were the marriage agreements made between the Angevin

A. Goodman, “England and Iberia in the Middle Ages,” in England and her Neighbors, 1066–1453: Essays in Honour of Pierre Chaplais, eds. M. Jones and M. Vale (London, 1989), 74–5. 137 Chronica, II: 118 and 133–5. 138 See W. Stubbs, The Constitutional History of England, 5th ed., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1891), I: 524–5; and P. Brand, “‘Multis Vigiliis Excogitatam et Inventam’: Henry II and the Creation of the English Common Law,” HSJ 2 (1990): 205–6. 139 More study is needed on the reign of Louis VII from 1175 to 1180. In one of the more recent biographies, Ives Sassier devotes only 25 pages out of 473 to this period; see Louis VII (Paris, 1991).

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and Capetian houses. In November 1160, the young Henry had married Louis VII’s daughter at Neuborg, and, according to stipulations in the original betrothal treaty of 1158, he was to gain the Vexin as her dowry. There was also the matter of Richard and Alice, whose betrothal was decided in January 1169 at Montmirail after a year and a half of warfare against Louis and William of Auvergne. One of the stipulations was for Richard to pay homage to Louis for Aquitaine and Poitou and eventually marry Alice. Richard was only eleven at the treaty’s ratification, but Louis had clearly been thinking ahead in his efforts to regain Aquitaine. Between 1169 and 1177 several problems had taken precedence over the marital relations of the children, including Becket’s murder, the conquest of Ireland, and of course the Great Revolt. While Louis faulted Henry for postponing the marriage, the delay was fairly understandable. Yet in 1177, it was Henry forcing the issue by first demanding the receipt of the Vexin and, second, claiming that Richard was to receive as Alice’s dowry the town of Bourges and lands in Berry. The evidence, however, indicates that Alice actually had no dowry in the first place, and Warren has argued that there is no justification for Henry’s claim.140 Nevertheless, at Winchester on 2 June the king called in the obligations of his barons in England and Normandy and prepared for war, even ordering fleets to be assembled at Portsmouth and Southampton.141 For once, the tables were quickly turned against him. Instead of convening a council with Henry to discuss the problem, Louis appealed directly to the papacy, and in May the Cardinal Legate Peter, titular of St. Chrysogonus, arrived in France.142 He carried with him an order from Alexander III that Henry allow Richard to marry Alice; failing this, the entire Angevin Empire was to be placed under interdict.143 Henry received word of the legate’s

140 Warren, Henry II, 145. The lack of a dowry was noted by John of Salisbury in 1169; see Letters of John of Salisbury, Volume Two, no. 288. 141 Eyton, Court, Household, and Itinerary, 215. 142 Identified by I. S. Robinson as Peter of St. Grisogono; see The Papacy, 1173–1198: Continuity and Change (Cambridge, 1990), 169. 143 Christopher Holdsworth has found that papal legates feature prominently in peace negotiations during Henry II’s reign in 1167, 1172, 1174, 1177, 1180, 1182, 1187, 1188, and 1189, and this list excludes the numerous instances of legatine involvement with the Becket affair; see “R. Allen Brown Memorial Lecture: Peacemaking in the Twelfth Century,” ANS 19 (1996): 10–11.

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arrival and, understanding the larger scope of the problem, postponed his feudal summons on 1 July. He then prepared to cross over to the Continent to negotiate, but the trip was delayed by over a month, first by contrary winds and then to a reopening of a leg wound he had sustained in Norfolk in 1174 when a horse kicked him in the leg. Upon landing, he first dispatched Geoffrey into Brittany to deal with some rebellious vassals, and the king then marched to Ivry in late August to put down Waleran de Ivry, who was holding the town against him.144 It was there on 25 September that Henry and Louis concluded an agreement, the Treaty of Ivry (elsewhere ‘Nonancourt’), in regards to the marriages of their children. Henry’s request for Alice’s dowry of Bourges and Berry was denied, and the men never did reach a compromise on the matter; instead, each agreed to respect each other’s lands except for those disputed areas. Technically, therefore, Henry was not violating treaty when he proceed afterwards to summon the Norman host, march into Berry, and take Châteauroux and the Limousin. In July 1178, Henry II returned to England, where he saw to the knighting of his son Geoffrey at Woodstock on 6 August.145 Throughout 1178 and 1179 Geoffrey handled himself ably, ravaging the lands of Guihomar, viscount of Leon, in order to ensure his father’s ducal control over western Brittany. Continuing military success remained the hallmark of the Angevins. By comparison, Henry’s old foe Louis was much worse off: in August 1179 he fell ill and deigned to have his young son Philip crowned king on the feast of the Assumption of Mary (15 August), but then Philip fell ill after getting lost during a hunting trip. With his only heir lying at death’s door, Louis crossed the Channel and traveled to the tomb of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury to pray for healing.146 He was granted safe conduct by Henry II, who actually received his lord with great honor and escorted him to Becket’s shrine personally on 23 August. Philip recovered and was crowned at Rheims on 1 November 1179—the Capetian

144 Geoffrey was sent to Brittany several times at his father’s request: 1175–76, 1177–78, and 1179–81; see Everard, Brittany and the Angevins, 95–6. A charter in his and Henry II’s name was issued to Saint-Méen Abbey in this year; see Charters of Duchess Constance, 11. 145 Chronica, II: 150 and 166; Ymagines Historiarum, I: 426. 146 From three wives Louis had received five daughters and only one son: Mary and Alice from Eleanor; Margaret and Alice from Constance of Castile; and Agnes and then finally Philip from Adela of Champagne.

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line would live on, and Canterbury Cathedral received from France an annual payment of one hundred barrels of wine so long as he lived.147 By the dawn of 1180 Henry had been king of the English for a little over twenty five years and was, as he had been in 1156, 1161, 1169, and 1175, in a commanding political and military position over France.148 While in residence at St. Denis, Louis fell prey to a paralytic illness, lost the feeling in his right side, and consequently missed his son Philip’s coronation. Instead, Philip was served by Henry the Younger, who carried a golden crown, and Philip of Flanders, who wielded the coronation sword. The latter would prove to be most influential over the policies of the fourteen-year old Philip, and with Louis stricken by illness his son began making the major decisions for France. Citing his father’s illness and inability to use good judgment, King Philip deprived Louis of his royal seal and the reign of that monarch was for all intents and purposes commuted.149 Philip of Flanders was one of the oldest, most wizened men at court and his influence was felt immediately when, on 28 April 1180, King Philip married the ten-year old Isabella of Hainaut, daughter of Philip of Flanders’ sister Marguerite. Afterwards, the new queen was crowned (and Philip recrowned) at St. Denis on 29 May by the bishops of Sens, Paris, and Orléans. The wedding of Philip and Isabella caused a whole host of problems in France. Philip of Flanders benefited by having a relative in the royal family and gave as Isabella’s dowry the region of Artois, further strengthening the relationship between Flanders and France.150 The prerogative of William, archbishop of Rheims (d. 1202), over royal coronations, however, had been violated; moreover, both William and the Queen Mother Adela were of the house of Champagne,

147 On Guihomar, see Torigini, 281; and Chronica, II: 192. Thereafter, Guihomar and his wife went on crusade; see Warren, Henry II, 563. On Louis and Philip, see J. Bradbury, Philip Augustus: King of France, 1180–1223 (London, 1998), 38–9; Torigini, 282–3; Chronica, II: 192–3; and Ymagines Historiarum, I: 432–3. Henry generously granted Christ Church freedom from carriage dues for this wine; see Acta of Henry II and Richard I, no. 70. 148 On the comparison, see V. Moss, “Normandy and England in 1180: the Pipe Roll Evidence,” in England and Normandy in the Middle Ages, 187. 149 Ymagines Historiarum, II: 6. 150 J. W. Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1986), 14–16.

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which now saw its prestige lessened in the specter of Flemish influence over the young king. As a result, the Champagne party did not attend Philip’s wedding, the consummation of which triggered two events of military import. First, Adela of Champagne began fortifying the castles in her lands as a precaution against the ambitions of Flanders. The young Philip promptly ordered the lands of his mother seized, collected 3,000 soldiers from his new ally Baldwin of Hainaut, and Adela was forced to flee to safety with her brother Theobald of Blois. Never one to miss a chance to weaken French power, Henry II landed in Normandy shortly before Philip’s wedding and met with Adela and Theobald, who swore their confidence in him through oaths and the giving of hostages. Satisfied, Henry summoned the knights of Normandy as well as England in order to invade France on behalf of the Queen Mother.151 The army was never put to use, for Henry and Philip made peace together between Gisors and Trie on 28 June. The legal holdings of each king as stipulated in the 1177 Treaty of Ivry were reaffirmed, and Henry renewed a moneyfief contracted between himself and Philip of Flanders by receiving Philip’s homage and promising 1,000 marks of silver for the service of 500 knights. Regarding the rights of Adela and the house of Champagne, Philip promised to pay his mother a daily pension of £7 Paris and restore her dowry lands to her upon the death of Louis. Obviously aware of his impending death, Louis VII divided his wealth among the poor of France before expiring at Paris on 19 September 1180, three months after the peace between the Angevins, French, and Flemings. He was buried at the Cistercian monastery at Barbeaux.152 The military legacy of Louis is not very praiseworthy, and for nearly thirty years he had been consistently outmaneuvered by his vassal Henry II. Could the English king now contend with the aspirations of the young Philip Augustus? The Death of Henry the Younger The death of Louis VII brought about a new phase in the political landscape of Western Europe. Under his reign, France had been

151 152

II: 7.

Torigini, 289–90; Chronica, II: 196–7. Catalogue des Actes de Philippe-Auguste, no. 1; Chronica, II: 197–8; Ymagines Historiarum,

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able to maintain its structural integrity but had made few gains outside of the Ile-de-France. Whenever it appeared that Louis had gained an advantage, such as his relief of Toulouse in 1159 or the intrigue behind the Great Revolt, Henry II had each time managed to find another way to impose his will in disputed areas. By the French king’s death in 1180 Henry had been making serious inroads into Berry and was consolidating his rule in the south, using Richard as a tool of his overlordship. But following the Treaty of Gisors there was little left for which to fight, so the English king busied himself by attending to matters of efficient governance. In December 1180 at LeMans, and then again in England in January 1181, assizes of arms outlined the specific military equipment to be held at all times by freemen in Henry’s domains. Both Philip II and Philip of Flanders, thinking it a sound idea, ordered similar assizes in their own domains.153 Ranulf de Glanville (d. 1190), the knight who had captured William the Lion at Alnwick in 1174, was appointed justiciar. A series of statutes erroneously attributed to Glanville were issued in 1181, and in them many of the laws ordered by William the Conqueror were reaffirmed.154 These included measures to protect citizens on the Sabbath, laws stating the punishment of false clerks, thieves, and murderers, and royal policy towards the practice of usury and the social position of the English Jewry. Henry II’s ability to tend to his own affairs was largely a result of warfare between France and Flanders, all of it a consequence of Philip of Flanders’ ambitious efforts to gain land during the early reign of the young new king. Frustrated by the intrusions of Henry in favor of Champagne, Count Philip took matters into his own hands. Seeking to lay claim to the lands inherited through his wife, namely, Amiens, Vermandois, and Valois, he formed a warlike alliance with Stephen, count of Sancerre (d. 1191). Count Stephen, who was in fact King Philip II’s uncle, paid homage to Count Philip for the castle of St. Brice. Towards the end of 1181, Count Philip marched into and ravaged the lands of Raoul, count of Clermont-en-Beauvais

153

Chronica, II: 253. The authorship of Glanville was later attributed to the laws, Tractatus de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Regni Angliae qui Glanvilla vocatur, perhaps by the justiciar’s advisors; see F. West, The Justiciarship in England, 1066–1232 (Cambridge, 1966), 61–2. Ranulf died fighting with Richard I at the siege of Acre; see Domesday Descendants II: Pipe Rolls to Cartae Baronum, ed. K. S. B. Keats-Rohan (Woodbridge, 2002), 478. 154

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and Philip II’s constable, as well as Noyon and Senlis. Peace was arranged in 1182 and Count Philip received Vermandois, but when his wife Elizabeth died on 26 March 1183 that claim disappeared. In the absence of a male heir, Philip II was quick to claim the territory returned to the Crown.155 Henry II worked to broker the peace between king and count, and Philip of Flanders ultimately relinquished his claim to Vermandois.156 Yet beyond offering advice and support, Henry II largely stayed out of the fray until his son Henry started to get too close to the new French king. Although the chronicle references are vague, it appears that Henry the Younger was taking advantage of his friendly relations with Philip and looking for ways to acquire portions of his father’s lands with French assistance. The chronicler Ralph Diceto writes that the brothers Henry, Richard, and Geoffrey all lent military assistance to King Philip, Hugh III, count of Burgundy (d. 1191), and the Queen Mother during 1181. Their combined forces eventually caused Count Philip to flee and seek safety within a tower at Crêcy. Whether all three sons were involved is questionable, however, because when Roger of Howden recorded the king’s trip to Normandy that year he named only young Henry as the culprit. The son denied any misdoings and Henry II, ever the forgiving father, promised Henry the services of one hundred knights and a stipend for his and his wife’s overseas expenses.157 On 22 February 1182, Henry II held a council in Waltham (Hampshire) in order to make out his will. His first will, made out in the midst of a severe illness in the summer of 1170, did not reflect the enormous changes in the king’s family during the 1170s and needed to be revised. The will is recorded by Gervase of Canterbury and is most striking for what it does not say. Henry arranged for portions of his estate to be used for crusading efforts in the east, and much of the document parcels out funds for Cistercian, Carthusian, and Cluniac houses in England, Normandy, and Anjou. No lands or wealth, however, are disbursed to his sons, and the only refer-

155 Ymagines Historiarum, II: 8–9; Chronica, II: 267; mentioned briefly in Gervase, I: 297. See also Baldwin, Government of Philip Augustus, 17–18; and W. H. Hutton, Philip Augustus (Reprint, London, 1970), 34–5. Available scholarship on the FrancoFlemish war of 1181 appears to be limited and is barely touched in the standard biographies of Philip II. 156 As evidenced in a letter of Henry II in De Principis Instructione Liber, 189–90. 157 Chronica, II: 266–7.

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ences to his family are injunctions for the legal conduct of both them and the will’s executors.158 Henry may have thought that the treaty of 1170, combined with the peace made at Mont Louis in 1174, signified his intentions towards his sons and did not warrant repetition. Yet tensions between the brothers had been mounting, and Henry II learned of their disunity when the family spent the Christmas of 1182 together at Caen. He ordered Richard and Geoffrey to pay homage to Henry the Younger, and while Geoffrey obliged without complaint Richard refused. The stated cause of their friction was Richard’s fortifying of the castle of Clairvaux, which lay in an area of Poitou traditionally controlled by the count of Anjou. Anjou was young Henry’s birthright, upon which he saw Richard to be infringing. Warren has suggested that this may have been a convenient excuse while the true reason for the sudden animosity was young Henry’s ambitions towards Aquitaine. Despite Richard’s successful warfare in the south he was ineffective in terms of diplomacy, and the barons had not united behind his governance. In the summer of 1182, some of them threw in with young Henry.159 This dispute over homage was also a consequence of the sons’ prior oaths: in 1169, Richard had paid homage to Louis VII for Aquitaine, and in 1174, Richard and Geoffrey paid homage to their father. At no point had Richard ever paid homage to one of his brothers for anything, much less Aquitaine, which Richard held by virtue not of the house of Anjou but through his mother Eleanor. The result of the infighting was a renewal of Angevin family violence. Richard left his father’s court in January 1183 and withdrew to Poitou, building castles and fortifying others in preparation for war. He was pursued there by Geoffrey and young Henry, who, having declared himself an ally and benefactor of Poitou, brought several rebellious Poitevin counts and their retinues along for the trip. Young Henry traveled of his own accord and initiated warfare against Richard, of which we are lacking any details save for Roger of Howden’s comment that Henry inflicted many losses on his brother.160 Geoffrey, on the other hand, had been commissioned by

158

Gervase, I: 298–300. Warren, Henry II, 587. For the outbreak of rebellion see the accounts in Chronica, II: 274; Ymagines Historiarum, II: 18; and Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 233. 160 Ymagines Historiarum, II: 19; Chronica, II: 274–5. While treacherous, the magnates’ behavior was understandable given that young Henry was himself a king and, 159

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his father to assemble the barons of Poitou and Aquitaine at Mirebeau in order to sort out their alliances with his sons. Instead, Geoffrey entered Brittany and rebelled against his father—history was beginning to repeat itself in the Angevin family.161 Matters in Brittany had been stewing since 1182, when Henry II had sent an army to burn down the castle of Rennes, and in 1183 a consortium of Breton nobles joined Geoffrey alongside a host of hired Brabanters.162 This army invaded northeastern Poitou and began to ravage it, and another betrayal occurred shortly afterwards. Now left with only three sons who purported to do his bidding, Henry II allowed young Henry to travel to Limoges in order to hold a peace conference between the brothers. Geoffrey traveled to Limoges first and entered the city. Arriving next were Henry II and Richard, perhaps traveling together. Two accounts, neither mutually exclusive, state that the king either wished to combat his sons’ wicked designs or that Richard himself called upon his father for military assistance.163 Had young Henry simply been at odds with Richard over the issue of homage there might have been reconciliation, or at the very least a rejoining with the elder Henry. Such was not the case: Henry had been hatching plans for years that involved the gradual absorption of his brothers’ lands and was not prepared to relinquish what could be a favorable opportunity. As Richard and Henry II approached the gates of Limoges, a shower of arrows descended upon them, and a knight standing next to the king was wounded. The full treachery of the brothers Henry and Geoffrey was finally visible to their father, but doubt still lingered in his mind. Perhaps Henry refused to believe that his sons had ordered the garrison to fire upon their father, and he evidently managed to enter the city and conduct some sort of negotiations. At one point in their discussions another volley of arrows descended upon the king from the citadel of St. Martial; one arrow flew directly at the king’s chest but was luckily intercepted by the

at the time, the likely successor to the throne of England; see M. Strickland, “Against the Lord’s Anointed: Aspects of Warfare and Baronial Rebellion in England and Normandy, 1075–1265,” in Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy, 78–9. 161 The tradition of revolt would outlive Henry’s sons; see the general discussion in M. Aurell, “Révolte nobiliaire et lutte dynastique dans l’empire Angevin (1154– 1224),” ANS 24 (2001): 25–42. 162 Torigini, 302. 163 Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 233; Chronica, II: 275.

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lifting head of his mount. Henry II departed the city to resume negotiations from a safer locale. The tenor of Henry II’s relationship with his sons had dramatically changed in the period between 1174 and 1183. During the Great Revolt, the king was more than eager to send armies against his sons, but in 1183, approaching the age of fifty, Henry was more interested in reconciliation and compromise. Several different considerations were at work. First, although the sons had again gathered in discontented nobles, it was Geoffrey and young Henry leading the action themselves. While this was abhorrent to the elder king it was nonetheless preferable to their alliance with his overlord the king of France or powerful semi-independent vassals such as the king of Scotland or the count of Flanders. This was strictly a family dispute, albeit a violent one, and Henry perhaps felt able to sort out the problems for the benefit of his empire and everyone involved. Second, the military threat to Henry was not as severe as it had been in 1173 and 1174. Henry the Younger, after all, did not possess any major lands because the Treaty of Mont Louis had only provided him with annual revenue and two castles in Normandy. Geoffrey and Richard possessed greater lands in Brittany and Aquitaine from which to draw troops, but in 1183 Richard had not himself rebelled and Geoffrey, though acting Duke of Brittany since 1181, still had to contend with his father’s control of Nantes and the influence that position held with the southern Bretons. This mitigating factor is evidenced by Geoffrey’s need to hire mercenaries to round out his army in 1183. Finally, Henry II had not actually embarked upon a major campaign since 1174. Most of his efforts between the Great Revolt and 1183 were small-scale and aimed at the destruction of certain castles or the expression of royal authority. When he did levy the Norman host in 1180 to defend the rights of Adela of Champagne, negotiations with Philip II ended the need for conflict. With these and the other factors in mind, it is not altogether surprising that Henry II decided against a campaign against his two sons and sought to negotiate instead. It would be a difficult learning experience for the elder king. After the events at Limoges Henry sent envoys to meet with young Henry, who were slain by the Limoges garrison. Envoys sent to Geoffrey were likewise assaulted: Jerome de Musterol was stabbed in the head while Oliver fitz Ernest was thrown off a bridge into the water, all while Geoffrey looked on. The final blow arrived in the form of

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Brabanter bands hired by Philip II, viscount of Aimar, and Raymond, count of Turenne, who entered the Limousin and ravaged about in the cause of the young Henry.164 Negotiations had clearly failed and the crisis was deepening. Perhaps with a heavy heart, Henry II at last turned to warfare. He was fortunate at this moment that Richard decided to return to Aquitaine to campaign successfully against the barons there, for this allowed Henry to focus his efforts. In May 1183, he invested Limoges, and his sons’ money and provisions quickly began to disappear.165 In ensuing days they sought to acquire additional funds. Geoffrey looted the shrine of St. Martial and used the gold and silver to pay the wages of his Brabanters. Young Henry left the city and joined in the attacks in Aquitaine but later returned and tried to reenter Limoges, only to be prevented from doing so by its citizens. Running low on supplies, he sacked the tomb of St. Andemar in Quercy and soon after was stricken with illness “by the judgment of God”: it was an attack of dysentery, a “flux of the bowels.”166 He died on 11 June 1183, and the rebellion around him promptly collapsed. He had been the lynchpin holding the divergent rebels together, yet they had fought not on his behalf but rather for the opportunities that the rebellion presented. After his death his former allies returned home or gave up the fight: with the experienced armies of Henry and Richard now controlling Poitou and Aquitaine there was little chance of success. Geoffrey returned to Brittany and made peace with his father before the year was out, and Limoges was surrendered on 24 June. Henry II’s empire was once again at peace, but with the intrusion of Philip II of France into Angevin affairs the specter of conflict remained. The Wars against Philip Augustus With Henry the Younger now dead, Henry II had to disperse his inheritance among his other sons. The most likely choice was Richard: as the oldest son remaining, he was to received Normandy, Anjou, and Maine. Geoffrey would keep Brittany, and Richard’s former 164

Gillingham, Richard I, 73–4. Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, I: 293. 166 Chronica, II: 276–9; Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 233. Henry’s death is also noted in the Angevin chronicles Chronicæ Sancti Albini Andegavensis and Breve Chronicon Sancti Florentii Salmurensis, in Chroniques des Églises D’Anjou, 44–5 and 193, respectively. 165

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lands in Aquitaine would pass to John, who had no lands of his own save for the promise of a future kingship in Ireland. While the plan sounded reasonable to the elder king, who had worked out a system of prioritization based on age, Richard did not accept his terms. Through years of fighting in the south, Richard had actually grown quite fond of Aquitaine and refused to relinquish the duchy, even if John paid him homage for it.167 Henry grew angry at his refusal and suggested that John ought to take Aquitaine for himself. While the king was busy mediating the renewed conflict between Philip II and Philip of Flanders in summer 1184, John tried to do just that by marching with Geoffrey and a Breton army into northern Poitou.168 Richard responded with attacks into Brittany, and peace was not made until nearly Christmas 1184, but it was tenuous at best and the matter of inheritance remained unsolved.169 All of these territorial disputes wore greatly on the mind of Henry II, who, in the years following the second rebellion of his sons, seemed anxious to live out the remainder of his reign in peace. His outreach even included paying homage to Philip II on the feast of St. Nicholas (6 December) 1183, something that he had not done to that point. By this point, Henry II’s days of conquest were long over. The only moments in which he levied armies were to defend the rights of his vassals, protect his borders, and settle disputes between others. He had not mobilized soldiers by his own volition since October 1177, when he marched on Châteauroux and Limoges; since then, he had fought once at the request of Adela of Champagne and again on behalf of Richard in order to settle a rebellion. In all other cases, he sent his sons to police the duchies granted to them. In July 1184, Henry finally summoned an army again when he marched to Worcester to threaten Prince Rhys with invasion for warfare on the March that had been raging since 1182. In that year, several younger Welsh nobles assaulted the castle of Abergavenny and burned everything except its great square keep; then, they murdered Ranulf Poer, sheriff of Herefordshire, and were only put down when Ranulf de Glanville brought an army south to restore peace. King Henry himself did not campaign into Wales, for Rhys met him at Worcester

167 168 169

Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, I: 308–12. Torigini, 311; Gervase, I: 309. Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, I: 319–20.

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and offered hostages as surety that he would punish those responsible for the violence.170 This was par for the course, for whether or not he actually conducted warfare in Wales, the result was always the same: the princes made promises and offered gifts, which Henry accepted in hopes of a placid region. In military terms, however, the actual subjection of Wales was a problem left to his successors Richard, John, and the later Plantagenet kings, including Edward I.171 1185 ushered in new developments that would return Henry II to the personal conduct of warfare. The year began with the reception of Heraclius, patriarch of Jerusalem (d. 1191), who had traveled west to plead for military assistance with which to fight the ambitions of Saladin in the Holy Land. Henry and Philip II promised material support in the form of a three-year tax. On 31 March, John was knighted and sent to Ireland with Ranulf de Glanville by his side, and in the same year Henry managed to convince the new pope Urban III (1185–1187) to permit John’s coronation as king of that country. Now all three of his sons possessed inheritances of land, a development notable enough to warrant mention in the oftenabbreviated Angevin chronicles.172 John was received well enough by John Cumin, bishop of Dublin (d. 1212) and built three castles at Tibrach, Archfinan, and Lismore. Yet the Irish quickly wearied of the insolent newcomer who laughed at their beards, and when John became greedy and refused to pay his mercenaries their wages they abandoned him.173 He returned to England somewhat dispirited on 17 December. John’s Irish adventure, however, had provided Henry II with an opportunity: he sent Geoffrey into Normandy and gave him the county of Nantes. With John having a kingdom of his own, Warren suggests that Henry was now considering turning young Henry’s former inheritance over to Geoffrey instead of Richard. As

170 Chronica, II: 290; Lloyd, History of Wales, I: 568–9; on Abergavenny see Fry, Castles of Britain and Ireland, 297. 171 Ymagines Historiarum, I: 397–8. In 1172, Rhys was created justice of south Wales, perhaps because his lands lay over the route to Ireland; see A. J. Roderick, “The Feudal Relation between the English Crown and the Welsh Princes,” History 37 (1952): 205. 172 John of Marmoutier describes them as such: Ricardus comes Pictavensis et assignatus a patre; Gaufridus totius Britanniæ nactus est principatum; Johannes, de promissione patris et provisione securus, diversas Hyberniæ portiones, si desuper ei datum fuerit, in monarchiam reducet”; see Chroniques d’Anjou, 342. 173 See Warren, King John, 35–7, for a hearty description of John’s stay in Ireland; also, Duffy, “John and Ireland,” 228–34.

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duke of Normandy, count of Anjou and Maine, and duke of Brittany, Geoffrey would rule a coherent territory and the move made political sense.174 The ploy was aimed to provoke Richard’s jealousy and was effective, for Richard fortified Poitou and began sending raids into Brittany. Now Henry unveiled his second move: releasing his wife Eleanor from imprisonment, a state in which she had resided since her deception of 1173, the king demanded that Richard return Poitou to his mother, its rightful heir, and threatened his son with “a rod of iron and war” should he refuse. To sharpen his point Henry traveled to Normandy and spent Easter (21 April) at Rouen, levied an army in Normandy, and prepared for war.175 Richard returned Poitou to Eleanor and ceased his hostilities. Yet the problem of Henry’s domains still remained essentially unsolved and was in fact exacerbated when Henry appointed officers of his own in Aquitaine in April 1186, greatly offending Richard who as duke saw the move as an infringement of his rights.176 Two events in the spring and summer of 1186 temporarily disarmed the hostile situation when Henry and Richard turned to deal with military affairs in their own territories. First, Richard waged war against Toulouse in March and became otherwise occupied.177 Second, Henry departed for England in order to deal with Roland fitz Uhtred, who had disinherited Duncan, earl of Fife (d. 1204), by seizing Galloway. Roland and William the Lion engaged in hostilities in May, and by early July Henry was at Northampton assembling an army by collecting scutage with which to hire Welsh mercenaries. His army moved northwest to Carlisle, where he ordered his vassals King William and David of Huntingdon, as well as Ranulf de Glanville and Bishop Hugh of Durham to bring Roland before him. Roland surrendered his claim to Galloway, swore fealty to Henry, and promised to keep the peace on pain of excommunication by Jocelin, bishop of Glasgow (d. 1199).178 For all concerned

174

Warren, Henry II, 597. Chronica, II: 304; Ymagines Historiarum, II: 35; Gervase, I: 326. Judging Eleanor’s involvement in governance after her release is difficult, however, for there is scant evidence and most of her charters date to after Henry II’s death; see Richardson, “Letters and Charters of Eleanor,” 200. 176 Ymagines Historiarum, II: 40. 177 Gervase, I: 334. For Richard’s actions in the south, see Benjamin, “A Forty Years War,” 278–80. 178 PR 33, xxiii–xxiv; Chronicle of Melrose, in Anderson, Early Sources, 309–10; Historia 175

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parties the need for the king and his son to deal with matters of governance provided a bit of breathing space, and tempers cooled down in the meantime. The division of the Angevin Empire was thrown into disorder once more with the unexpected death of Geoffrey in Paris on 18 August, who was trampled while riding in a tournament.179 Geoffrey had only recently come into his own in terms of statesmanship, issuing an assize on knights’ fees in 1185 that demonstrated his ducal authority.180 But at his death a semi-secret alliance between Brittany and France was suddenly revealed. Geoffrey, it turns out, had paid homage to Philip at his coronation in 1179; moreover, he died at Paris and issued his final charter there.181 This was suspicious enough, but even closer ties were revealed when Philip II demanded that he be given charge of Geoffrey’s daughter Eleanor (1184–1241), who was at that point the only heir to the duchy of Brittany.182 Henry refused to let Philip have such a valuable gift. He sent envoys to Paris, and it was agreed that peace should be kept until 13 January 1187. Feeling secure in his position, Henry now returned to England. Next, problems arose in the always-contentious region of the Vexin in October 1186. The French knight Richard de Vals fortified a castle between Gisors and Trie, at which the constable of Gisors, Henry de Vere, rode out with some men to dissuade him. Richard took his own men to meet the constable halfway and the two groups skirmished with each other, with Richard being wounded and put to flight. King Philip reacted negatively and ordered that any of Henry II’s subjects found within French borders were to be arrested and their property seized; the order was reciprocated by Henry for any Frenchmen found inside his own domains. Taking advice from his magnates, Philip soon relented, but it was clear that animosity was in the air and tensions were high.183 Henry sent his envoys back to extend the treaty until Easter 1187 (29 March), but he was pessimistic about the course of Anglo-French relations and in December

Rerum Anglicarum, I: 237; D. D. R. Owen, William the Lion, 1143–1214: Kingship and Culture (East Linton, 1997), 72–3. In 1185 Henry II had restored the earldom of Huntingdon to David, of which he had deprived him during the Great Revolt. 179 Ymagines Historiarum, II: 41. 180 Charters of Duchess Constance, 24–5; Everard, Brittany and the Angevins, 111–15. 181 Charters of Duchess Constance, 31–2. 182 Œuvres de Rigord et de Guillaume le Breton Chronique de Rigord, I: 77–8. 183 Chronica, II: 315.

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sent Ranulf de Glanville to south Wales in order to secure the services of mercenary archers.184 After Christmas 1186, the cardinal subdeacon Octavian arrived in England at the behest of Pope Urban III for the purpose of crowning John king of Ireland. This was a matter Henry had arranged the year before, but Octavian’s timing could not have been worse. After spending the winter together, Henry brought the cardinal to the Continent to participate in a meeting with King Philip in late February. Landing at Witsand, they spent some time in Flanders before conferring with the French at Gué St. Remy. Philip’s claim to Eleanor, daughter of the Duchess Constance, was rendered somewhat impotent by both the birth of her son Arthur on Easter Day and her marriage to Ranulf “de Blundeville,” earl of Chester (d. 1232), but the king was still upset with the affairs near Gisors.185 The meeting was a failure and both sides parted in animosity: Philip would not relinquish his claims to the Vexin, and there was no point in arguing further. In 1187, both sides began to prepare for war. Philip entered Berry and besieged the three castles of Issoudon, Fréteval, and Châteauroux. The first two were surrendered to him by Urso de Fréteval and Robert II, count of Nevers, but Châteauroux was defended by Richard and John, and they refused to turn the fortress over.186 Henry arrived in relief on 23 June and both kings assembled their armies in anticipation of open battle. Preventing this was first a temporary truce, then a proposition to decide the outcome through individual battle between knights, and finally, a two-year truce brokered by Octavian and other bishops present. The armies subsequently parted without issue.187 The most famous anecdote from the confrontation was the conversation had between Philip and Richard. During the first truce, which the commanders used to prepare the field for war, Philip made overtures to Richard in an attempt to persuade him to leave his father’s side. The quarrels between Richard and Henry were well known and it was a smart tactic. Philip of Flanders was sent to talk

184

Eyton, Court, Household, Itinerary, 274. Ymagines Historiarum, II: 48. 186 Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II: 5–7; Chronica, II: 317–18. 187 There are several contemporary accounts of the non-action at Châteauroux: Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II: 6–7; Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 248–9; Chronica, II: 317–18; Gervase, I: 369–71; Ymagines Historiarum, II: 49; and the Chronicle of Hainault, 107–8. 185

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with Richard and thereupon plied him with a tale of how Henry had debauched Alice, his bride to be. While Richard was receptive and perhaps suspicious of his father, he was not yet at the point of treachery.188 Yet he evidently heard something pleasing during his talks with the French, and after the truce he returned to France with King Philip. They apparently became fast friends and spent every waking moment together, both at dinner, sport, and in bed.189 Whatever the nature of the relationship, the friendliness between his son and Philip did not please a father who was already questioning Richard’s motivations. Henry’s suspicions proved to be accurate. He sent a series of messengers to recall Richard to Angers. In late August, the duke of Aquitaine proceeded southwest from Paris to Chinon, ostensibly to join his father; instead, Richard broke into the castle at Chinon, seized his father’s treasure there, and carried it back to Poitou, where he used the funds to fortify his own castles. Richard’s motivations at this point are not well-documented, but it appears that he lost some of his rebellious ardor when separated from the influence of King Philip. The heat of the moment passed, and by September he rejoined his father at Angers and paid him homage. With the Richard question settled for the moment, Henry took the opportunity to move his army west into Brittany and besiege the castle of Montrelais that had been seized by the rebel Harvey de Leuns after the death of his son Geoffrey the year before.190 Henry then kept Christmas at Caen, thinking his affairs were well enough in hand to return to England in January 1188. The king made it as far as Barfleur before he was forced to turn back to Normandy. The reason for his extended stay on the Continent was the sudden warlike overtures of Philip II. Hearing of the English king’s impending departure, Philip levied the French host and boasted that he would invade Normandy unless Henry surrendered Gisors and its lands, or, alternatively, force Richard to finally marry his half-sister Alice.191 Each king had some legitimacy in regards to each

188

De Principis Instructione Liber, 232–3. Chronica, II: 318. J. A. Brundage has called their relationship intimate and writes, “Richard was by preference a homosexual”; see Richard Lion Heart (New York, 1974), 257–8. His sexuality has lately become a popular example in academic queer studies, but see Gillingham’s retort in Richard I, 84 and especially 264–6. 190 Chronica, II: 318. 191 Chronica, II: 334–5. 189

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claim. For the former, one could argue that Henry had a distinct right to Gisors, for in 1158 the marriage arrangement between young Henry and Louis VII’s daughter Margaret stated the Vexin as her dowry, and despite their young age, the two children were indeed married in November 1160. No doubt the matter was a source of conflict between Normandy and England, but there was legal precedent and good reason for Henry to not relinquish the city. The betrothal of Richard and Alice was another matter entirely. First betrothed in 1169 in the Treaty of Montmirail, the two had never married, despite the stipulation in the 1177 Treaty of Ivry that they do so. The wedding was integral first to the plan of Louis VII, and then that of his son, to recover Aquitaine, which had been lost in 1152 in the divorce from Eleanor. Thus either of Philip’s demands, if met, would yield strategically vital territory back to the French Crown. Henry was not prepared to give any ground, and he had little practical reason to do so. Despite the recent rebellions of his sons and ascendancy of Philip II, the English king was indisputably still the strongest military power in the West. In response to the French levy, Henry remained in Normandy in January 1188 and met Philip at a conference at Senlis, between Gisors and Trie, on the feast of St. Agnes (21 January). It was a sizable affair that included several important magnates and bishops, but while the meeting brought about the creation of the Saladin Tithe for crusading relief it did nothing to reach a compromise on the political matters at hand. Both kings attempted to bury the hatchet by taking the cross together, but it was, like the crusading talk in the 1177 Treaty of Ivry, a futile proposal. Ambroise relates, “the devil made great efforts to restore the discord between the two kings.”192 Henry would not live to see the Holy Land, and matters on the Continent were far too dangerous to be left alone while on a long journey east. The practical effect of the 1188 truce was thus to ignore the problems at hand and leave them essentially unsolved. Richard, who had been at the conference with the kings, soon afterwards marched south to Aquitaine to deal with two rebellions. The first was led by Geoffrey de Lusignan and included Ademar, count of Angoulême, and Geoffrey de Rancone, and together their

192 The History of the Holy War: Ambroise’s Estoire de la Guerre Sainte, eds. M. Ailes and M. Barber, trans. M. Ailes, 2 vols. (Woodbridge, 2003), II: 32.

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forces ravaged some of Richard’s lands but were ultimately besieged by the duke in the castle of Taillebourg and surrendered. While Richard was putting down Lusignan and Angoulême, hostilities were renewed by Raymond V of Toulouse, a conspicuous foe of the Angevins, who began attacking various Aquitainian merchants. In the spring Richard captured one of Raymond’s advisors, Peter Seilun, and Raymond captured two of Henry II’s knights returning to England from St. James de Compostella. Raymond suggested a hostage exchange but Richard refused, citing the knights’ immune pilgrim status that should have prevented their capture in the first place. Intervention by King Philip to mediate his vassals’ dispute proved to be ineffective, and Richard ultimately sent an army of Brabanters to attack Toulouse while he himself captured at least seventeen castles in and around Languedoc.193 Philip wrote to Henry and asked if the attack on Toulouse was at his bidding, to which Henry answered in the negative. Philip, now following the precedent set by his father in 1159, was forced to defend Toulouse as if it were his own.194 He did so by moving against the target that had eluded him the year before: Châteauroux. Levying a large army in early June 1188, the king moved into Berry and the castle was surrendered to him along with, by and by, nearly all of Berry, and Vendôme soon followed. It was a swift victory that immediately attracted the attention of the Angevins. Henry II sent Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1190), and Hugh, bishop of Lincoln (d. 1200), to ascertain the cause of Philip’s wrath, but despite their peacemaking efforts Philip refused to cease his hostilities.195 Henry’s response arrived in July, and his campaign demonstrates that, even as a tired king of 53 winters, he was more than a match for young Philip. Conflict began with Richard addressing rebel forces in the south, which Philip then used as a pretext for an illegal invasion of Normandy. The entry of French armies into Normandy was, in fact, a violation of the two-year truce agreed to at Châteauroux— a detail passed over in several major studies on Philip and especially

193 Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II: 34–6; De Principis Instructione Liber, 245–6; Benjamin, “Toulouse and the Plantagenets,” 280; Gillingham, Richard I, 90–1. 194 Chronica, II: 340; Ymagines Historiarum, II: 55; Gervase, I: 432. 195 Chronica, II: 343–4; Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II: 39–40; Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 276.

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notable in Jim Bradbury’s enthusiastic biography.196 In response, Henry and Richard mounted a simultaneous, two-pronged attack against French interests, with Henry moving into the Vexin and Richard entering Berry from the south. Their armies ravaged the terrain, captured several castles, and took numerous hostages. Philip was overpowered and forced back to the negotiating table. The two sides met at the customary spot, a point between Gisors and Trie, in which a large elm tree stood, but could not come to an agreement; in a move highly symbolic of the rapidly declining relations between France and the Angevins, Philip had the tree cut down and stated that no more negotiations would ever take place there. Philip’s show of strength and resolve was quickly diminished, however, when Philip of Flanders, Theobald of Blois, and several other French nobles laid down their weapons and swore to not fight Christians again until after they had seen Jerusalem. Very suddenly Philip had lost the bulk of his allies, and surely the English king grinned with smug satisfaction!197 Philip had no choice but to now reenter negotiations, which took place at Chatillon on 7 October. Henry II held the upper hand and took advantage: for breaking the truce at Châteauroux, Philip was to return the lands in Berry and the Vexin he had seized. In return, Richard would restore Toulouse to Raymond V. Yet now it was the Angevin’s pride that prevented successful compromise. While Richard agreed to further negotiations on the issue of Toulouse, when Philip requested that Henry return the castle of Pacy-sur-Epte the king refused. Philip took his army (now filled with Brabanters, perhaps necessitated by his loss of allies) south, captured the castle of Pauld, and traveled as far as Bourges.198 Henry remained behind and received the homage of Neulon de Fréteval. At this point Henry still held the advantage in the negotiations, for not only was Richard fighting loyally by his side but he was very close to getting

196

See the accounts in Bradbury, Philip Augustus, 78; Baldwin, Government of Philip Augustus, 30–1; Hutton, Philip Augustus, 46; and A. Cartellieri, Philipp II. August: König von Frankreich, 4 vols. (Leipzig, 1899), I: 276–8. A more balanced reading is offered in CH. Petit-Dutallis, The Feudal Monarchy in France and England from the Tenth to the Thirteenth Century (New York, 1964), 211: “once he [Philip] was in a position to take the offensive, he found his position of suzerain merely a justification for his attack.” 197 Chronica, II: 345; Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II: 46–9. Gervase, I: 434, notes that Richard attempted to retake Châteauroux but failed. 198 Chronica, II: 345–6; Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II: 49.

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everything he wanted out of Philip. Confident that further conferences would resolve the issue, in late October he sent his Welsh mercenaries back to England, thinking that he would no longer need them. The next meeting took place on 18 November at Boumoulins. Philip again offered to return the conquered lands in Berry and the Vexin, provided that Henry allowed Richard to marry Alice and allow his subjects to pay homage to Richard as their king. As Roger of Howden notes, however, Henry could not help but remember the difficulties that arose in 1173 and 1174 from having two crowned kings of England; not wishing to repeat his mistake, the king refused. At this Richard became very upset, and in one of the more startling moves in English history threw his support behind King Philip, paid him homage, and in return received Châteauroux, the castle of Issoudon, and the newly conquered lands in Berry.199 The End of the Reign The defection of Richard was elemental to the final defeat of Henry II. In many ways the king’s wars of the 1180s had proceeded in the same manner as had his wars of the 1160s and 1170s. Even up to 1188 the old king had asserted his will with relative ease, and while Philip had some successes none of them were fatal to Henry’s rule. Moreover, Philip had not been able to permanently turn the sons, something that Louis VII had at least been able to do for a time during the Great Revolt. Philip was a young king with scant experience in war compared to Henry, and we have seen how easily the Angevin was able to dictate terms and force Philip’s armies here and there. But as the decade progressed, Henry’s advantages of age, experience, and political statesmanship began to fade. There were substantial political differences between the 1170s and the 1180s. Henry’s sons had grown up, and all of them save John had become more recalcitrant with age. Their defections in 1173 meant little because they commanded so little respect and had so few resources of their own, but that was not the case ten years later. Henry himself was getting older, and Richard in particular was impatient for his opportunity to rule as king. Finally, Philip steadily became a cleverer oppo199 He did not offer his fealty, however, which he reserved for Henry II as his immediate lord.

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nent than Louis had ever been, refusing to follow dictates from Rome and breaking treaties as they became too burdensome.200 The final blow was the turning of Richard, who had become, through necessity, his father’s main and most powerful ally. October 1188 was the turning point for the arrayed opponents of Henry II. Richard, his chief ally in the campaign against Philip had defected; Normandy, Anjou, and Maine were now surrounded by hostile forces; and to make matters worse, his mercenaries had been sent back across the Channel at his own command. In one swift movement, Richard’s defective had put the old king on the defensive, and Henry was fortunate to be able to arrange a truce with Philip until 13 January 1189. This gave him a scant two months to ready his next move.201 The time available would not be enough for Henry to recover from the latest show of familial treachery. Sailing back and forth between Normandy and England, the king did what he could to patch together a suitable army. He sent Geoffrey Plantagenet, his bastard son who was now acting as chief-of-staff, to Anjou to raise troops, but many of his nobles on the Continent had begun to desert him.202 The dispute had also attracted the attention of Rome, and Clement III sent the Cardinal legate Henry of Albano to settle the dispute between the kings. Cardinal Henry, judging Richard as the person hindering peace, took the ill-advised step of excommunicating him and died shortly thereafter.203 As the truce between Henry and Philip expired on 13 January 1189, Richard and the French king launched an invasion into Henry’s domains. Apart from some ravaging little fighting occurred at the outset, for Cardinal John of Agnani came before the disputants with exhortations and even threats to cease and desist. The treaty was therefore extended, and another meeting was arranged for the octave of Pentecost and took place 4–9 June at La Ferté Bernard, near LeMans. Philip’s demands had not changed: Richard’s marriage to Alice was

200

The classic example of this would be Philip’s refusal of Innocent III’s plea to end his attacks upon King John’s continental lands, and particularly Normandy, in 1204; see R. V. Turner, King John (London, 1994), 154. 201 Ymagines Historiarum, II: 57–8; Gervase, I: 435–6; Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II: 50; Chronica, II: 354–5; Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 276–7; De Principis Instructione Liber, 254. 202 C. Given-Wilson and A. Curteis, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England (London, 1984), 110. 203 Gervase, I: 436; Chronica, II: 355.

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to occur immediately and Henry’s subjects should give fealty to Richard as king; furthermore, Philip asked that John take the cross and journey to Jerusalem, presumably in an effort to get rid of the potential threat of Henry’s favorite son.204 Henry could not assent to these terms and instead made a counteroffer: if Philip wanted Alice married so badly, perhaps she could marry John instead? This as well was wholly disagreeable: not only was Richard enraged by Henry’s stealing of his bride, but there was no political advantage to Philip in such a marriage. Cleverly, Henry had revealed the designs behind the French demands in front of Cardinal Agnani—Richard’s marriage was but a pretense for Philip’s territorial ambitions. The revelation was for a moment effective, and when Philip tried to leave the conference the cardinal threatened all of France with interdict unless the king arrived at some arrangement with England. Philip responded with a barb of his own: Rome could not prevent him from punishing his own rebellious vassals, which Henry technically was; moreover, he accused the cardinal of having been bribed by English money. The conference broke up and warfare resumed.205 Henry retired to Le Mans, where he was attacked on 12 June by the combined armies of Richard and Philip. Perhaps feeling that his 700 knights would not be able to defend the town, Henry ordered the town outside the castle walls burned. The idea was to create a fiery barrier between himself and his enemies, but it was a hasty and poorly designed plan: the fire spread to the town walls, and in the end the king was forced to flee with what knights and mercenaries he could. Meanwhile, the French cavalry pursued Henry’s fleeing remnants for three miles. The Welshman, lacking horses and pulling up the rear, were gradually caught and killed, but Henry managed to reach Saumur with many of his knights and took refuge in the castle.206 William Marshal was among those covering Henry’s retreat, and as Richard rode in pursuit of his father Marshal killed his horse underneath him, saying, “Let the devil kill you for I shall not!”207 Philip’s campaign had just begun. The French next took the castle of Mont-Doubleau through the assassination of Geoffrey of 204

Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II: 61; Chronica, II: 362–3. Gervase, I: 446–7; Ymagines Historiarum, II: 62; Chronica, II: 363; Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II: 66–7. 206 Chronica, II: 363–4; Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II: 67–8; Gervase, II: 447; Ymagines Historiarum, II: 63; Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 277. 207 Painter, William Marshal, 70. 205

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Vendôme, then the castle of Trou, and thereafter Roches l’Evêque and Montoire and the castles Chartre, Château Loire, Château d’Amboise, and Rochecorbon. On 3 July, Philip arrived before the walls of Tours and besieged it. He sent his men with scaling ladders against its short walls on the River Loire and stormed the city, taking eighty knights and a hundred soldiers prisoner. By this time Philip had, for all intents and purposes, now conquered Touraine and most of eastern Maine. Soon afterwards Ralph de Fougères, Henry’s old foe from the rebellions of 1173 and 1174, delivered up much of Brittany to the king of France, and several Poitevin nobles did the same.208 The war was over in the space of just two weeks. June and July 1189 were probably the most harrowing months of Henry’s life. Unable to maintain the cool, calm demeanor that had served him so well in past wars, Henry was now a shell of his former self: tired of fighting, suffering from an ulcer, and lying sick on a stretcher at Saumur, the king decided to make peace with his enemies. The rapidity with which Henry was defeated continues to astound, for the events of 1189 could not have been more different in nature from the first thirty-nine years of his military career. On 4 July Henry II was brought to negotiations at Azay on a litter and agreed to Philip’s terms. He paid homage to the French king and named Richard as his successor to the throne of England. Finally, he agreed that Alice would be safeguarded by five men until Richard could return from his upcoming crusade, at which date they would marry. In return for his concessions, for a price of 20,000 marks of silver Henry received the lands in Berry that Philip had seized in the conflict. As surety for the stated terms, Philip and Richard would hold certain cities and castles until all arrangements had been fulfilled.209 Henry never lived to see it done, expiring from illness on 6 July 1189 at the age of fifty-six. Richard arrived the day after to view his father, and as the story goes, the corpse began to bleed in his presence.210

208 Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II: 69; Chronica, II: 364; Ymagines Historiarum, II: 62–3; Expugnatio, 364. William of Newburgh writes that Philip then besieged Angers, but this is unsubstantiated elsewhere; see Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 277. 209 The terms of the treaty are recorded in Chronica, II: 365–6; and Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II: 70–71. The choice of locations was Henry’s: Le Mans, Tours, Château Loire, and Trou; or, Gisors, Pacy-sur-Epte, and Nonacourt. 210 Ymagines Historiarum, II: 64–5; Gervase, I: 448–9; Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II: 71.

CHAPTER THREE

MILITARY ORGANIZATION Roger of Howden tells us that Henry II lost a good number of barons, nobles, and men during his 1165 Welsh campaign, and in one succinct phrase he sketches the rough composition of a High Medieval army.1 The baronage is distinctly separated from its lessers in terms of importance (greater) and usually also their number (lower). The ‘nobles’ consisted of an array of men: those holding honours or great fees; the lesser or middling nobility later of the banneret; landed and un-landed knights (men owing service through so-called moneyfiefs); and perhaps also the king’s household knights or familia.2 The distinctions between knighthood and the baronage were often indistinguishable. Castellan lords also existed as perfect expressions of knighthood, so the different terms do not always indicate a difference in class.3 The king and his barons led particular tactical units in the army that rallied around their respective banners, and the nobles were the cavalry. The familia appears to have been omnipresent: Henry’s court was mobile and traveled with the king, and he had the use of his household knights at any given time. The chronicler Orderic Vitalis estimated this household contingent to be 200–300 men during the reign of Henry I, and by the later twelfth century the familia regis had become a standing professional force in its own right. Henry II’s familia supplied him with sheriffs, governors, councilors, judges, and diplomats as well as warriors and included by and by members of comital families.4 In 1159, for example, Henry’s familia 1

Chronica, I: 240. An honour could mean nothing more than an estate and was not limited just to barons and earls; see F. Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, 1066–1166 (Oxford, 1961), 57–9. Lesser families could be quite influential and powerful; see R. Dace, “Lesser Barons and Greater Knights: the Middling Group within the English Nobility c.1086–c.1265,” HSJ 10 (2001): 57–79. In any case, by the end of the twelfth century the honour had lost most of its prestige. 3 D. Barthélemy, “Castles, Barons, and Vavassors in the Vendômois and Neighboring Regions in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” in Cultures of power: Lordship, Status, and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. T. N. Bisson (Philadelphia, 1995), 58–61. 4 J. O. Prestwich, “The Military Household of the Norman Kings,” EHR 96 (1981): 11–12. Henry the Younger’s familia may have numbered over 200 knights; Prestwich, The English Experience, 13–14. 2

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included the chamberlain Henry Fitzgerald, the knights Richard de Camville and Robert de Dunstanville, Justiciar Richard de Lucy, Chancellor Thomas Becket, and the constable Henry of Essex.5 Knights, owing to their elite status acquired through a formal ceremony, are distinguished from mounted warriors, although both could wield similar weapons. John Gillingham has provided the tidiest definition: a ‘knight’ is a well-armed soldier who possessed horse, hauberk, sword, and helmet; ‘knight service’ is service performed by well-armed soldiers of this type and owed to a lord in return for land held from that lord.6 However, there are knights and then there are knights: William the Conqueror differentiated between middling noble knights (milites mediae nobiles) and common knights (milites rustici ), and later there appears terminology for hired mercenary knights (milites stipendiarii ).7 The number of knights in a battle was usually smaller than the number of cavalry itself. The ‘men’ were an amalgamation of English troops drawn from the great or select fyrd (discussed below), troops sent by allies, or mercenaries who had no formal lord and who received wages as a return for a period of service to the paying general. They were foot soldiers, skirmishers, archers, and missile troops (sometimes mounted) and could be composed of local forces or mercenaries.8 The Question of Obligation Of the major components of a typical Anglo-Norman army the knights have traditionally been viewed as the most important, borne from J. H. Round’s old view that William the Conqueror instituted a feudal system de novo after Hastings. Depending upon the size of his fiefs, a vassal owed knight service fees or servicium debitum in

5 J. Martindale, “‘An Unfinished Business’: Angevin Politics and the Siege of Toulouse, 1159,” ANS 23 (2000): 129–30. 6 R. Barber, The Knight and Chivalry, 2nd ed. (Woodbridge, 1995), 27; J. Gillingham, “The Introduction of Knight Service into England,” ANS 4 (1981): 53. 7 S. Harvey, “The Knight and Knight’s Fee in England,” Past and Present 49 (1970): 28–9. 8 Under consideration here is primarily the organization of Anglo-Norman armies, not French, although they had much in common. For a good survey of the latter, see Histoire militaire de la France 1: des origins a 1715, eds. A. Corvisier and P. Contamine (Paris, 1992), especially Contamine’s studies of the Capetian armies in chapters 3 and 4, pp. 43–106.

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multiples of five or ten.9 For our period, there is evidence that the overall number of knights was increasing by the end of the twelfth century for primarily economic and social reasons. The upper nobility remained privileged, and it is likely that knighthood itself had made gains in terms of class as knights began to approach the ranks of lesser nobility. It has thus been argued that the twelfth century saw the first true fusion of a warrior class and the aristocracy.10 Even so, there were degrees of separation based on their ownership of both land and personal weaponry. Jean Scammell divides the AngloNorman knights circa 1100 into four basic categories: 1. Precarious knights, relying upon their lords’ arming them. They might have no land, unfree land, or free land. 2. Knights who owned their own arms, and so were knights as long as they kept them, but had no land. 3. Knights who owned their arms, held land, but not by military service with those arms. 4. Knights who owned their arms so that they were always knights and who held land by service with those arms ( per loricam). Richard Abels has argued that in the eleventh century, judging from records in Domesday Book, knights with fief-rents11 were outnumbered by those without. It seems that much of the upward mobility of the knight came in the later twelfth century and through edicts of Henry II such as the Assizes of Clarendon (1166) and Northampton (1176).12

9 Round’s foundational study emerged in three articles: two titled “The Introduction of Knight Service into England,” EHR 6 (1891): 417–43, 625–45; and a third, identically titled, in EHR 7 (1892): 11–24. These are briefly summarized in idem, Commune of London and Other Studies (Westminster, 1899), 56–7, and reprinted in idem, Feudal England (London, 1909), 225–314. There are studies that argue for the presence of knights in Anglo-Saxon England; for example, see J. Gillingham, “Thegns and Knights in Eleventh-Century England. Who was then the Gentleman?” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., vol. 5 (1995): 129–153. 10 Strickland, War and Chivalry, 22. On the role of the knight in society, see R. A. Brown, “The Status of the Norman Knight,” ANW, 128–42; and France, Western Warfare, 58. 11 Bryce Lyon has suggested “Fief-rente” as a term generally applicable to all types of feudal obligations in Europe; see From Fief to Indenture: the Transition from Feudal to Non-Feudal Contract in Western Europe (Cambridge, MA, 1957), 15–16. 12 J. Scammell, “The Formation of the English Social Structure: Freedom, Knights, and Gentry, 1066–1300,” Speculum 68 (1993): 595 and 600; R. Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England (Berkeley, 1988), 135; D. Fleming, “Landholding by Milites in Domesday Book: a Revision,” ANS 13 (1990): 83–98, esp. 93–5.

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While knights with no land did not have specific military obligations to fulfill, those with land or those knights holding money-fiefs might be called to serve if the war was a local affair. Money-fiefs were paid in installments of money instead of a single grant of land, and the installments were meant to encourage the knight’s regular service in times of war. Occasionally a knight might hold both a traditional fief as well as a money fief, such as Count Thierry of Flanders (d. 1161), who owed a thousand knights to Henry II in return for a money-fief, but also twenty knights to Louis VII, his liege lord.13 The servicium debitum equaled the total number of fees due to the king, and he might also request the service of every fee held by his men as a result of subinfeudation, although by the late twelfth century this was uncommon.14 The king also distributed knights’ fees to bishops, and certain dioceses such as Bayeux and Lisieux could owe fees in numbers comparable to Henry’s most powerful secular magnates.15 Knights and their obligations have been the focal point of much research and debate. Between the champions of the Middle Ages as an ‘Age of Cavalry’ and the dissenters who prefer to stress continuity between the Anglo-Saxon fyrd and the Norman feudal order, many divergent conclusions have been reached.16 In 1954, J. F. Verbruggen argued that medieval warfare was characterized by the dominant role of the heavy cavalry and that the medieval art of war itself should be judged on the basis of cavalry. Verbruggen was countering the doubtful claims of Hans Delbrück and others that warfare declined in the Middle Ages through the diminishing use of foot-soldiers and the lack of grand, central strategizing on the part of commanders. Verbruggen saw the opposite: it was the knights, or miles, astride warhorses, leading bold charges against the un-mounted ranks of the enemy, which defined medieval warfare. In the last three decades this myth of mounted dominance has been dashed to

13 B. Lyon, “The Money-Fief under the English Kings, 1066–1485,” EHR 66 (1951): 161 and 165. 14 J. R. Strayer, “Knight Service in Normandy in the Thirteenth Century,” in Anniversary Essays in Mediaeval History by Students of Charles Homer Haskins, ed. C. H. Taylor (Boston, 1929), 315–17. 15 J. Peltzer, “Henry II and the Norman Bishops,” EHR 119 (2004): 1205–6. 16 For a succinct description of this problem, see J. Beeler, “The Composition of Anglo-Norman Armies,” Speculum 40 (1965): 399–400.

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pieces. First, studies have demonstrated that before the thirteenth century generals frequently ordered knights to dismount and fight on foot. This was not only meant to boost the morale and resolve of the lightly-trained foot soldiers, but also to prevent spontaneous charges out of formation, either in retreat or in pursuit of a fleeing foe. Even on those occasions in which knights remained on their horses, full-scale cavalry charges were quite rare in the West. This is not to say that cavalry tactics themselves had lost their identity or purpose; as demonstrated in Levantine warfare, crusading armies in the Holy Land employed the heavy cavalry charge as their principal offensive weapon. In the smaller campaigns in England and France, however, battles were somewhat rare.17 Owing to their speed and mobility, mounted soldiers became instead a primary tool in the chevauchée: destroying fields and flocks of the peasants and thereby reducing the ability of their lord to fight, was in the eyes of William the Marshal, argues Gillingham, a chivalric way to wage war.18 Second, the entire construct of the supposed feudo-vassalic system of obligation has been seriously challenged in the last thirty years. The question is essentially whether or not the knights summoned to war were responding because of their own particular obligation to a lord (from holding a fief ) or because all land-holders owed some sort of general obligation to the government, from which all had received land in the first place. In other words, were there individual obligatory contracts (attained through the performance of homage and an oath of fidelity) or not? This is the question of the so-called ‘F-Word’ or ‘feudalism’. The term feudalism has been denounced as an invention of the seventeenth century that cannot, and should not, be employed to describe a universally, or even nationally, applied system of obligation. Elizabeth A. R. Brown argued in 1974 that the word ‘feudal’ can be applied only as a reference to fiefs, and in 1994

17 J. F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, trans. S. Willard and R. W. Southern, 2nd ed. (Woodbridge, 1997), 5, 19. Verbruggen’s first edition was countered only four years later in R. C. Smail, “Art of War,” Medieval England, ed. A. L. Poole (Oxford, 1958), 139–40. For more modern studies see Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, 325–28; and Morillo, Warfare under the AngloNorman Kings, 150–57. On the use of cavalry in the east, see R. C. Smail, Crusading Warfare, 1097–1193, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1995), 165–89; and M. Bennett, “La Règle du Temple as a Military Manual, or How to Deliver a Cavalry Charge,” in Studies in Medieval History presented to R. Allen Brown, 7–20. 18 Gillingham, “William the Marshal,” 256.

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Susan Reynolds proposed that English fiefs did not refer to knights’ fees but to all free and heritable property.19 If Reynolds is correct, than the process of summoning an army was perhaps more collective than individual. For the other side, William Jordan has lately argued that our modern reckoning of a feudal system ought to survive because juridical and vernacular literature from the High Middle Ages was obsessively concerned with fiefs, the inheritance of fiefs, and the relationships between fief-holders. Thus, obligation remained an individual concept because individuals asserted heritable rights to the fiefs of their fathers.20 For the moment, because neither Brown nor Reynolds has suggested a replacement word for the adjective ‘feudal’ it will remain in use in this study in reference to the voluntary obligation of knights to a lord. The other controversies surrounding feudalism cannot be settled here, and the best method may be to use Helen Nicholson’s model, which states that, regardless of variations, military service tended to depend first upon personal bonds between lords and subjects and second, land holding.21 Still, we should interrogate the practical aspects of fiefs in the reign of Henry II. Addressing this subject specifically, Reynolds contends that it was a Plantagenet desire for military funds and the fiscal potential of the fees, not a need for soldiers, which dictated customs and obligations in the twelfth century.22 Her argument is based largely on an examination of Henry’s policies concerning mercenaries, which he typically hired with funds drawn from scutage (or ‘shield-tax’), a payment made in lieu of military service and based on the respective obligation of a given land-holder. Although the shield-tax was in use before the 1100s (William the Bastard incorporated mercenaries into his Breton campaigns, for example), the most-cited figure in England for dependence upon scutage is Henry II.23

19 E. A. R. Brown, “The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe,” AHR 79 (1974): 1086; S. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals: the Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (Oxford, 1994), 394. 20 W. C. Jordan, Europe in the High Middle Ages (New York, 2003), 15. 21 Nicholson, Medieval Warfare, 45–6. 22 Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, 361–3. This appears to be an elaboration on F. L. Ganshof ’s statement that Henry developed new methods of using feudal relations in the interests of the royal administration; see Feudalism, 2nd ed. (New York, 1964), 166. 23 T. K. Keefe, Feudal Assessments and the Political Community under Henry II and his Sons (Berkeley, 1983), 24–6.

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For example, in preparation for a campaign into northern Wales in 1157, Henry levied only one-third of the knights available to him through feudal obligation; from the remainder he collected the shieldtax and bought the services of mercenaries. In 1168, the king extended scutage to every knight’s fee, giving him the freedom to raise wholesale mercenary armies if he wished, and, more importantly, the ability to raise fees piecemeal as the political climate allowed.24 It is Henry’s zeal for calling in the monetary equivalent of an obligation rather than the service of the knight that attracts Reynolds’ attention. Using the 1166 Cartae Baronum, the first English roll of knightly obligation, she makes two claims. First, she argues that no hard evidence for the customary period (in days) of knight service exists, in the Cartae Baronum or elsewhere, which suggests that the rules for actual service were less important than the money each fief could provide the king. Second, she asserts that before Cartae Baronum no one knew the total number of knights owed by all tenants.25 This would lend credence to her argument that the financial aspect of obligation was more important than service. Citing the 1159 Toulouse campaign, she then concludes that scutage was more important to the war effort because “the personal service of those owing one or two knights can never have been vital to royal armies.”26 There are problems with Reynolds’ overall assessment. Despite the limited evidence available, Hollister managed to reach some reasonable conclusions that indicated obligations probably lasted forty days in England and France, and six weeks in Germany.27 Further, Reynolds is not a military historian and does not address the practical roles knights and soldiers filled while marching on campaign, fighting in various types of actions, and foraging for or seizing supplies. Medieval armies did not commonly rely upon massive groups of knights, and fifty to a hundred knights were usually more than

24

Keefe, Feudal Assessments, 39–41. The records of the Cartae Baronum can be found in The Red Book of the Exchequer, ed. H. Hall, 3 vols. (RS 99, 1896), I. For the Norman record see Liber Niger de Scaccario, ed. T. Hearne, 2 vols. (London, 1771); and J. Boussard, “L’Enquête de 1172 sur les services de chevalier en Normandie,” in Recueil de travaux offert A. M. Clovis Brunel, ed. A. Vernet, 2 vols. (Paris, 1955), I: 193–208. 26 Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, 362. 27 See C. W. Hollister, The Military Organization of Norman England, (Oxford, 1965), 89–100; and idem, “The Annual Term of Military Service in England,” Medievalia et Humanistica 13 (1960): 40–47. 25

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enough to satisfactorily ravage an area or contribute to a battle or skirmish. Considering that English kings rode with a familia that numbered in the dozens, the number of knights drawn from obligation could have been quite small but still vital. Moreover, the extra horse he might require could easily be drawn from mercenary ranks. We thus have an interesting counter: Henry preferred the shield-tax because the money allowed him flexible control over the composition of his army. Moreover, Henry actually preferred mercenaries over knights raised through obligation. He needed soldiers, and mercenaries were easier to control than the turbulent and often rebellious barons. Put simply, Henry did not need large numbers of enfeoffed knights to effectively wage his wars. As a result, many knights were left at home during Henry’s wars. And although there were exceptions, English knights were typically not summoned for continental campaigns and vice versa. Years might pass in-between a knight’s moments of mortal combat, especially after Henry personally banned the practice of holding tournaments in his lands. It could be a restless and boring life, as laments Bertran de Born, for whom “peace gives [me] no comfort.” As a social component the knight remained important, especially as regards the role of chivalry, and in any case, success in warfare was not always a standard of good knighthood. Chevalerie as a concept could refer simply to groups of mounted warriors, engaged in battle or not, and in England knightly status retained its importance after the creation of the ‘Grand Assize’ in 1179.28 The assize involved a jury of twelve knights who delivered a verdict in service to the king’s justices. This jury could be chosen by the plaintiff instead of the more traditional trial by battle, and only those with the requisite stature could participate on the jury.29 The diminished specter of the knight has also raised questions about the nature of the importance of heraldry and chivalry as cultural norms. The revision of chivalric studies has impacted literary scholarship as well, as the knights in chanson de geste

28 Bertran de Born, “A War-Song for the Count of Toulouse,” Trobador Poets: Selections from the Poems of Eight Trobadors, trans. B. Smythe (London, 1929), 76; Strickland, War and Chivalry, 23. Tournaments were still held in France, however, and Henry’s son Geoffrey practiced the “science of war” and became renowned in 1178 for his skill against “knights of reputation”; see Chronica, II: 166–7. 29 Warren, Henry II, 353–4; P. Coss, The Knight in Medieval England 1000–1400 (Stroud, 1993), 32. For relevant excerpts from Glanville’s treaty, see Select Charters, 190–95.

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are one by one reappraised. Tony Hunt has argued that the declining historical role of the knight only enhanced chivalry in literature, for his absence allowed courtly songs to construct an alternative image in which the knight’s function is amplified beyond the realities of medieval society.30 Mounted knights were noted for their heroic deeds. The glamorous reputation of the knight and the complexity of the feudal systems in which he was integral has attracted the bulk of the attention from literary scholars as well as military historians because as a general rule, non-knightly soldiers were marginalized in the chivalric literature of the period, if even mentioned at all.31 Nevertheless, knights did indeed fight in the armies of Henry and were important factors on his campaigns, much as they were in the other armies of the period. Had the full obligatory complement had been levied (and there is no evidence that this ever occurred), Henry would have had between five and seven thousand knights available for his use.32 As the Norman understanding of the obligation developed, however, leaders were allowed some flexibility when raising soldiers. This system has been a matter of some debate in the past. Notwithstanding the objections of Brown and Reynolds, the concept of a ‘feudal army’ itself is rife with difficulty. As Richardson and Sayles have argued convincingly, the questions surrounding English feudal levies are threefold and not purely military in nature: Infeudation and sub-infeudation are legal and social questions; knight service, the determination of servitia debita, is a question of revenue; the constitution of the armed forces—let us be forgiven a truism—is a military question [. . .] Military tenures and actual military service were two very different things, and enfeoffment bore little relation to the effective military force at the disposal of the king.33

Knights were probably not levied in Round’s neat and tidy groups of five or ten, arrayed before the commander in proper order, but rather in a piecemeal fashion as they became available.34 As Stephen

30 See J. Gillingham, “1066 and the Introduction of Chivalry into England,” in Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy, 31–55; T. Hunt, “The Emergence of the Knight in France and England 1000–1200,” in Knighthood in Medieval Literature, ed. W. H. Jackson (Woodbridge, 1981), 1. 31 Hanley, War and Combat, 226. 32 Beeler, “Composition of Anglo-Norman Armies,” 403. 33 Richardson and Sayles, Conquest to Magna Carta, 72. 34 J. C. Holt, “The Introduction of Knight Service in England,” in ANW, 58.

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Morillo has noted with some insight, after the predominance of cavalry came under attack in the twentieth century, the phrase ‘Age of Cavalry’ now refers primarily to an increasingly important role of mounted warriors in deciding battles in the West. A battle might be turned by charges of heavy cavalry, working together to offer a concentrated and irresistible attack on groups of foot soldiers. Such was the case at Hastings and also Tinchebrai in 1106. At other times the cavalry dismounted and joined the ranks of the foot: at Brémule in 1119, Bourgethérolde in 1124, the Standard in 1138, and Lincoln in 1141. In these cases, the well-trained knights served to stiffen both the strength and resolve of the men, and while dismounting was a less glamorous approach to battle, it was usually an effective one.35 In the second half of the twelfth century dismounted knights were very common, and this trend persisted until the reign of Henry III (1216–1272), in which knights fought on horseback at the battles of Lewes and Evesham.36 Accordingly, there are few examples of heavy cavalry charges being delivered against the enemies of Henry II.37 When battle did commence, the monastic chroniclers would mention a great battle here or men riding into a fray there, but there are only one or two specific depictions of knights charging as one. One of the best examples is from 1174, when a group of cavalry, led by Ranulf de Glanville and Bernard de Balliol charged William the Lion of Scotland at Alnwick Castle and captured him after a fierce battle on horseback. The chronicler Jordan Fantosme takes care to describe the valorous acts of several individual knights, and great feats of skill were performed on that day, but the operation was not a cavalry charge in the classic sense. Rather, the assorted cavalry and soldiers of the 500 Scots present were not in proper array, and King William himself had

35 S. Morillo, “The ‘Age of Cavalry’ Revisited,” in The Circle of War in the Middle Ages: Essays on Medieval Military and Naval History, eds. D. J. Kagay and L. J. Villalon (Woodbridge, 1999), 46–56. 36 M. Prestwich, “Miles in Armis Strenuus: The Knight at War,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., vol. 5 (Cambridge, 1995), 204. 37 The lack of documented charges should not lead us to conclude, however, that cavalry had lost its role on the medieval battlefield. It remained an important and necessary component of any sizable army. On this issue see the vitriolic, but wise, comments of J. F. Vebruggen, “The Role of the Cavalry in Medieval Warfare,” JMMH 3 (2005): 46–71 (originally printed as “De rol van de ruiterjj in de middeleeuwse oorlogvoering,” Belgisch tijdschrift voor militaire geschiedenis 30 (1994): 389–418.

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removed his helmet. The English made a surprise attack designed to scatter the loosely organized Scots and capture the principals; the attack was not meant to penetrate a stout line of warriors. Several of the knights, fighting for both sides, are named by Fantosme for their heroic deeds: Ranulf de Glanville, Bernard de Balliol, Roger Mowbray, Adam de Port, Alan de Lascelles, William de Mortimer, Ralph Rufus, and William de Vesci, among others.38 The Matter of the

FYRD

While many battles were indeed fought without the use of cavalry, very few battles were fought without foot soldiers.39 One great advantage of foot was the process by which a mass of soldiers could be mustered for war. It is difficult to calculate exact numbers of foot soldiers at a given battle, for the figures provided by the chronicles are often exaggerated for dramatic effect. For example, Gilbert of Mons provides round numbers for the warfare between Philip Augustus and Philip of Flanders in 1185: the French fielded an impossible army of 2,000 knights and 140,000 other effectives against a smaller army of 400 knights and 40,000 soldiers from Flanders.40 The charter record at times makes for a steadier counting of the important knights, albeit still incomplete; the knights were fewer in number and their elevated social status made them more conspicuous. As a general rule, the ratio of foot soldiers to cavalry was quite disparate. At 140 knights and around 3000 foot, Henry Plantagenet’s January 1153 landing force illustrates the difference; similarly, Norman levies in 1172 resulted in only 581 knights put into action.41 Horses were more difficult to transport by ship, of course, but there were always fewer knights owed through obligation than soldiers who could be raised in towns and shires. Unlike the enfeoffed knights, the foot soldiers could be paid to fight or prodded into the defense of their

38

Fantosme, 195–200. There is a dearth of infantry studies for the Anglo-Norman period, perhaps because modern military historians have attributed their victories to accident and luck; see K. DeVries, Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century: Discipline, Tactics, and Technology (Woodbridge, 1996), 5. 40 Chronicle of Hainault, 99. For the difficulty in counting foot soldiers, see Verbruggen, Art of Warfare, 164–9. 41 Verbruggen, Art of Warfare, 7. 39

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town. In the 1190s, Philip Augustus took soldiers from French communes which had formerly seen to the defense of individual regions and was able to bolster the numbers of his army accordingly.42 Most of the foot soldiers were raised in a manner similar to the knights— through the obligation of the king’s tenants. This could constitute a double obligation in which a subject provided both knights and soldiers. Another way to raise foot soldiers was through laws and mandates. Before the Conquest landowners and even a monastic house with no servicium debitum could be obliged to supply a soldier for every five hides, a hide being the amount of land required to support one family.43 This had been the process of the Old English system of militia recruitment in which men were raised not through personal obligation but through an individual’s possession of lands and chattels. The 1086 Domesday Book records in some detail the number of hides owed by county, and one particular entry for Berkshire reveals the Anglo-Saxon system which was, essentially, still in place years after the Conquest: When geld was commonly paid TRE. throughout the whole of Berkshire, a hide gave 3½ d before the Nativity of the Lord and as much at Pentecost. If the king sent out an army anywhere only 1 thegn went out from 5 hides, and for his sustenance or pay 4 s for 2 months was given him from each hide. This money, however, was not sent to the king but given to the thegns. If anyone summoned on military service did not go he forfeited all his lands to the king.44

Given such an explicit statement, and the fact that the hide system was in existence in 1086, the central question asks whether or not this Old English system, referred to generally as the fyrd, stayed in use throughout the Anglo-Norman period. In Hollister’s opinion, the Berkshire strictures call for the ‘select fyrd,’ those men obliged to serve on the five-hide basis. These soldiers were typically thegns or ceorls who were expected to serve for their own lands, although a townsman or wealthy peasant might also serve. The ‘great fyrd,’ on 42 Verbruggen, Art of Warfare, 161. For a comparative study of the military uses of communes under Richard I and John, see S. R. Packard, “The Norman Communes under Richard and John, 1189–1204,” in Anniversary Essays in Mediaeval History, 231–54. 43 Beeler, “Composition of Anglo-Norman Armies,” 409. 44 Domesday Book, eds. A. Williams and G. H. Martin (London, 1992), 136. TRE refers to tempore regis Edwardi, or “in the time of King Edward [the Confessor].”

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the other hand, was “a general levy of all able-bodied freemen from a local district who were required to defend their own neighbourhood or their own shire against invasion”; this force consisted of untrained provincials.45 Both the ‘great fyrd’ and the ‘select fyrd’ were preserved in Anglo-Norman England. Access to the militia came through William the Conqueror’s insistence that all freemen of England swear loyalty to him, and the ‘great fyrd’ was summoned many times in the late eleventh and mid-twelfth century, appearing most clearly in the reigns of William Rufus and Stephen. A passage in the Chronicle of Peterborough suggests the survival of the ‘select fyrd’: along with an assessment of fees, lower-status and sub-feudal military tenants are specified based on the number of hides owned by the vassal.46 By the reign of Henry II, the distinction between the select and great fyrd is unclear and in any event had lost much of its usefulness when land ceased to be assessed on the basis of hides. Instead, the annual rent-value or income of the land became the preferred auditing standard. Yet Henry is credited with a rough reformation and reconstitution of the fyrd into a general militia in the later years of his reign. Two royal assizes were issued in 1181 that specified the arms and armor men ought to possess at all times, based on their financial condition, in order to serve the king in times of need. The first was issued at Le Mans on Christmas 1180 and soon after copied by both Philip Augustus and Count Philip of Flanders; the second, the Assize of Arms, was issued a few days later in January 1181. The former edict applied to Henry’s continental lands and the latter to England. Both assizes are graduated sets of standards that dictate how all orders of freemen are to be armed.47 In England, knights were armed according to their holding a fee. The Assize of Arms expects a vassal to possess a hauberk,48 helmet, shield, and lance for every knight’s 45

Hollister, Military Organization, 14–16. Hollister, Military Organization, 216–57, esp. 235–6. 47 The assizes are both found in Howden: for the assize of Le Mans, see Chronica, II: 253; for the Assize of Arms, Chronica, II: 260–3. See also Select Charters, 181–4; and EHD, 416–17. 48 A twelfth-century hauberk was a mail shirt stretching to the knees, with either elbow or wrist-length sleeves; see I. Pierce, “The Knight, his Arms and Armour c.1150–1250,” ANS 15 (1992): 250. It could weigh twenty-five pounds, while the lance grew to a weight of thirty or forty pounds by the fourteenth century; R. H. C. Davis, The Medieval Warhorse: Origin, Development and Redevelopment (London, 1989), 21–24. 46

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fee in his demesne; thereafter, freemen holding chattels or rents valued at sixteen marks or more should possess the same armament, and those holding lands worth ten marks the same but with quilted doublets and no shield. On the Continent the system is based exclusively on the worth of a man’s chattels or rent and the armament is different: men with over £100 of property were expected to possess a horse as well as mail, shield, helmet, and lance; amounts under this were spared the expense of a horse; and all others needed a helmet, quilted armor, and their choice of weaponry, either a lance and sword or a bow and arrows. All men were forbidden to sell their arms or ship them to foreign lands. Finally, all must hold the arms perpetually in their family and swear allegiance to Henry as their king or lord. The exception to this rule was the Jews, who are forbidden in the Assize of Arms to possess a hauberk. This has led some at least one scholar to argue that the Assize, by forcing the Jews to disarm, opened the way for anti-Jewish violence in England and in particular the massacres of 1190 and 1191. This argument is not persuasive. In regard to the Jews, the Assize of Arms speaks only of armor, not weaponry, and there is no document from Henry’s reign in which Jews are explicitly disarmed.49 The more famous of these laws is the Assize of Arms, for two particular reasons. First, the English version is much longer and more detailed. Second, the affinities between the Assize of Arms and the Old English fyrd are undeniable. David Douglas and George Greenaway write, “its intention was to re-create the ancient ‘fyrd’ as an efficient force supplementary to the feudal levies.”50 William Stubbs, thinking decades beforehand, offered analysis that was perhaps foundational to their understanding: In order finally to secure the defense of the country, and to have a force on which he could depend for the maintenance of peace and order, he armed the whole free population, or ordered them to provide arms, according to a fixed scale, proportioned to their substance. Thus he restored the ancient Anglo-Saxon militia system, and supplied the requisite counter-balance to the military power of the great feudatories, which, notwithstanding the temptation to avoid service by payment of scutage, they were still able and too willing to maintain.51

49 50 51

A. M. Hyamson, A History of the Jews in England (London, 1908), 34. EHD, 416. W. Stubbs, The Early Plantagenets (New York, 1889), 88.

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Stubbs and his contemporary E. A. Freeman saw a strong continuity between the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman periods; for them the Assize represents a return to an older system that had steadily lost its value during the reigns of the Anglo-Norman kings. The discussion is based on technical analyses of fragmentary evidence over a 200-year period that J. O. Prestwich calls “difficult to interpret with confidence.”52 The consensus seems to be that the Assize of Arms employed traditional Anglo-Saxon concepts of arming the English freemen, while at the same time it was neither fully innovative nor wholly reliant upon the Old English model, as evidenced by its references to knight’s fees and the value of property. Thus it was both a revival of the fyrd as well as a synthesis of its ‘great’ and ‘select’ attributions into a single system, a recruitment of militiamen that were now involved with local peacekeeping efforts.53 This was much the same as the Old English system, which was initially devised as a counter to invading Vikings and was hardly ever used to form armies meant for invasions. Between the reigns of Alfred (871–99) and Edward the Confessor there are only four instances of Anglo-Saxon armies being sent on offensive campaigns into lands outside the Heptarchy. Three of these were by Anglo-Saxon monarchs: Æthelstan into Scotland in 934, Eadred into either Scotland or Northumbria in 948/5, and Queen Æthelflæd into Wales in 916. Unlike her successors, neither she nor husband Edward actually accompanied the troops. The fourth occasions were the successful campaigns of Harold Godwinson into Wales in the early 1060s.54 Yet the key to understanding these documents, and Henry II’s intentions behind them, lie in the differences in armament in England and Normandy. The continental forerunner to the Assize of Arms, the assize of Le Mans, seems to have been purposefully designed to 52 J. O. Prestwich, “Anglo-Norman Feudalism and the Problem of Continuity,” Past and Present 26 (1963): 41. 53 M. Powicke, Military Obligation in Medieval England: a Study in Liberty and Duty (Oxford, 1962), 56; Hollister, Military Organization, 258; Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, 121. 54 ASC, 100, 106–7, and 112; K. DeVries, “Harold Godwinson in Wales: Military Legitimacy in Late Anglo-Saxon England,” in The Normans and their Adversaries at War: Essays in Memory of C. Warren Hollister, eds. R. P. Abels and B. S. Bachrach (Woodbridge, 2001), 65–85. Anglo-Saxon navies, however, were a different matter entirely, and are commonly found in the surviving evidence operating up and down the English coasts.

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equip potential soldiers for the king’s armies. Unlike England, Normandy had no tradition of a fyrd and its peoples were more used to the customs of personal obligation—in the reigns of Richard and John, the townsfolk would be directly recruited for service in the general levies.55 Only the Norman assize requires that those holding more than £100 in chattels be equipped with horses; presumably, these men would know how to ride their horses as well. Thus, for Normandy Henry was thinking about the acquisition of cavalry, or, at least, warriors who could ride to battle and then dismount. This seems logical, given that the bulk of Henry’s campaigns before (and in hindsight, after) 1181 took place on the Continent. The king had less use of cavalry in England in that year: the Treaty of Falaise had soothed Anglo-Scottish tensions, there had not been a serious rebellion in the English towns since 1174, and even the Welsh March had settled into a peaceful, if tense, border region. Normandy, on the other had, consumed Henry’s attention for the duration of his life. There, armies ranged across the provinces, battles were more common, and the need for horse greater. In addition, only the Norman assize gives each man the option of carrying a bow and arrows, although there are plenty of references to archers in the English Pipe Rolls as well.56 Yet despite such financial outlays for missile troops there was no specified role for them in England in 1181. The mention of bows on the Continent thus signifies a general need and some attention to the defense of fortified structures or a perceived need for castle or town garrisons.57 Henry II’s two assizes can only be properly understood through such a comparison of the two assizes. The documents’ wordings are far too detailed to suggest that they were only intended to provide for a militia. Conversely, the argument that such an equipped force could dissuade the ambitions of powerful barons, first offered by Stubbs and then Richardson and Sayles, is also far too idealistic and impractical for the later twelfth century.58 1181 was seven years removed from the Great Revolt, and the direst threat to Henry was

55 There is no evidence that John ever used the communal levies against the French, however; see Packard, “Norman Communes,” 237. 56 J. Bradbury, The Medieval Archer (New York, 1985), 78. 57 This might then answer the uncertainty surrounding the differences between the two assizes, which is briefly discussed in M. Strickland and R. Hardy, The Great Warbow: from Hastings to the Mary Rose (Stroud, 2005), 83. 58 Stubbs, Early Plantagenets, 88; Richardson and Sayles, Conquest to Magna Carta, 76.

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the belligerence of his son Henry the Younger, who fought primarily with mercenaries and Flemish allies. Even during the rebellions of 1173 and 1174 the threats to England were largely external and manifest in Scottish invasions and incursions of Flemings hired by Robert of Leicester. Where, then, was the threat of baronial appropriation of the English townsfolk? Philip Contamine’s assessment, that Henry was trying to arm the townsfolk while simultaneously increasing the stock of available weapons, is closer but is likewise limited by a lack of strategic consideration.59 The reality is that Henry had ordered the arming of citizens in order to create another pool of soldiers ready for his personal use. Such an interpretation meshes well with his policy of dependence upon reliable and readilyavailable warriors, which, as we will see, is amply illustrated in his reliance upon mercenaries. Mercenaries Outside of the feudal order there was room for Anglo-Norman kings to go beyond the system of obligation when it became advantageous. The clearest example of this is their use of mercenaries before and after the Conquest, commonly referred to as mercennarios, stipendiarii, and solidarii. These men fought for profit as well as out of loyalty or respect for a lord’s suzerainty.60 The rise of paid soldiers corresponded with a general economic revival in the High Middle Ages, fed by an increase in towns, the rise of a merchant class, and the gradual development of a money economy.61 They formed integral parts of Henry II’s armies, and his use of mercenaries as complements to the feudal levy was of enormous help in waging war over the huge Angevin Empire.62 There is a long tradition of vilifying mercenaries as uncivilized and brutish, yet their usefulness and ubiquity suggests that it was medieval and Renaissance thinkers and authors, not military leaders, who eschewed their use.63 59

P. Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, trans. M. Jones (Oxford, 1984), 88. That early stipendiarii could act like vassals even towards temporary employers has been argued persuasively by Hollister, Military Organization, 189–90; more recently, see S. Isaac, “The Problem with Mercenaries,” in The Circle of War in the Middle Ages, 101–10. 61 Hollister, Military Organization, 169. 62 Kaeuper, War, Justice, and Public Order, 19–20. 63 See the discussion in M. Mallet, Mercenaries and their Masters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy (Totowa, 1974), 208. 60

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The number and character of stipendiarii on campaign depended upon their terms of service and area of origin. In general, they would campaign for forty-day terms in England, France, and Flanders, and six-week terms in the Empire, serving as foot-soldiers, heavy or light cavalry, and archers.64 They saw a certain profit in fighting for a foreign lord, often due to their own lack of obligation to one of their own. They were most often used for general harassment purposes, including the ravaging of fields and towns. While mercenaries played a key role in the defeat of the Scottish king David I at the Battle of the Standard in 1138, their common role was more of a supportive nature. Mid to late twelfth century mercenaries are identified in Western chronicles as belonging to three major groups: Flemings, Welshmen, and ‘Brabanters’ (at times called Brabácons, Cotereaux, or Routiers), a loose term that could also indicate men of Navarrese, Basque, or German origin. Irish and Scottish mercenaries were less common in Henry II’s armies but appear periodically. The Flemings and Brabanters were typically mounted warriors or skilled foot soldiers, while the Welsh were principally skirmishers or bowmen, differentiated by location: the northern Welsh (Gwynedd and Powys) fought with spears and in light armor, while the southern Welsh (Deheubarth) were predominantly archers. While Brabanters and Welshmen were common sights in the armies of Henry II men from Flanders were not. In fact he expelled all Flemish mercenaries from England in 1155 and thereafter they are generally found in ranks arrayed against him.65 Henry did grant several Flemish barons money-fiefs in 1163, each with a servicium debitum attached, perhaps an indication of his unwillingness to employ men from Flanders without some surety in the deal.66 The Brabanters,

64

Hollister, Military Organization, 167–8, 178–9, and 90. One possibility of their employment was the 1165 Welsh campaign, where the Brut y Tywysogyon places Flemings in his army, but they seem quite out of place; see P. Latimer, “Henry II’s Campaign against the Welsh in 1165,” Welsh Historical Review 14 (1989): 532. A second was the Siege of Malmesbury in 1153, a disaster in which Duke Henry’s mercenaries sacked a monastery; see Gesta Stephani, 230–33. As for his foes, in 1173–1174 Louis VII employed Flemings against Angevin holdings in Brittany and Normandy, and in 1174 the rebel Robert of Leicester purchased the services of an entire Flemish army that was later crushed at the Battle of Fornham. 66 S. D. B. Brown, “Military Service and Monetary Reward in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” History 74 (1989): 32. 65

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whatever their individual origins, were generally known for their ruthlessness, so much so that the Third Lateran Council of 1179 ordered the excommunication of anyone hiring their services.67 Yet in the armies of Henry they earned a reputation for success, including a major victory in September 1173 over the rebel forces of Ralph de Fougères and Hugh, earl of Chester, at the Battle of Dol.68 The Welsh were most skilled at skirmishing and ambushes, which Henry learned firsthand when Welsh men jumped from the trees and nearly slew him in 1157. After leading three campaigns into Wales during the early years of his reign, Henry ultimately began hiring their services for his own purposes. Not everyone had been so keen on the prowess of the Welsh: in a battle oration before the Battle of Lincoln in 1141, Baldwin FitzGilbert called the Welsh “object[s] for our contempt . . . devoid of skill and all knowledge of the art of war, like cattle running upon the hunting-spears.”69 Henry II obviously disagreed and viewed them from a perspective of utility. In a letter sent to the Byzantine emperor Manuel Comnenus he spoke of their skills in battle, fearlessness on the attack, and ferocity exceeding that of wild beasts.70 The hired Welsh were primarily used for ravaging and were quite good at it. In 1188, Henry sent his Welsh troops into France where they burned several villages and captured and burned the castle of Damville, an impressive feat for a band of untrained skirmishers.71 In 1923, Hans Delbrück argued for a thirteenth-century shift in English military obligation towards mercenaries, demonstrated by King John’s preference for foreign soldiers over the traditional English levy.72 More likely, this change occurred during the reign of John’s father, the dominant name associated with the use of mercenaries in post-Conquest warfare by twentieth-century historians. Although

67 William of Newburgh recorded the declarations of the council; for the Brabanters, see the fifth canon in Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 209. 68 As France has noted, when commanded from above in a proper battle they were often effective; see Western Warfare, 74. 69 Historia Anglorum, IV: 17. 70 Descriptio, 181. 71 Chronica, II: 345. 72 H. Delbrück, History of the Art of War, Volume III: Medieval Warfare, trans. W. J. Renfroe (Lincoln, NE, 1982), 172. Against Delbrück’s methodology see B. S. Bachrach, “Early Medieval Military Demography: Some Observations on the Methods of Hans Delbrück,” in The Circle of War in the Middle Ages, 3–20.

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he did not overtly transform armies through an ambitious use of the shield-tax, as argued by Jacques Boussard, Henry II did alter their complexions by preferring the reliable services of hired soldiers. Boussard calculated that there were 6,000 such effectives hired by Henry during the rebellions of 1173 and 1174.73 Michael Prestwich argues that such numbers are anomalies and that the percentages of hired men on campaign were typically lower and agrees with Delbrück about a transformation after 1189.74 Yet this does not deny that Henry relied heavily upon mercenaries in a strategic sense, for they are found in nearly all of his campaigns. That he relied upon hired soldiers specifically for their effectiveness in warfare has been recognized at least twice before and not yet refuted.75 Different theories have been offered to explain why Henry II depended so much upon mercenaries in his armies. Henry’s treasurer Richard fitz Nigel explained in the Dialogue of the Exchequer that the use of hired men saved the lives of the citizens: “the prince prefers to expose mercenaries, rather than natives to the fortunes of war.”76 This is a magnanimous view, certainly, but is not indicative of Henry’s strategic thinking, and at any rate the king rarely showed much concern for the safety of his often-rebellious vassals. Closer are views that Henry’s nobles were uninterested in war and that the use of mercenaries had become an international phenomenon in the twelfth century.77 To this I would argue that Henry simply valued the battle skills mercenaries brought to the table. During the rebellions of 1174, Henry relied so heavily upon hired troops that William of Newburgh concluded that they were more reliable than the troublesome barons.78 Yet to therefore state, as W. L. Warren has, that mercenary footmen were the mainstay of Henry’s military power overemphasizes their use. On nearly every campaign Henry still

73 J. Boussard, “Les mercenaires au xiie siècle: Henri II Plantagenet et les origins de l’armée de métier,” Bibliothèque de l’école des Chartes 106 (1945–6): 189–224; see Powicke, Military Obligation, 49, for the numerical discrepancy between this and other periods. 74 Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, 149. 75 Richardson and Sayles, Conquest to Magna Carta, 72; Warren, Henry II, 231. 76 Dialogus de Scaccario, IX. 77 J. Schlight, Monarchs and Mercenaries: a Reappraisal of the Importance of Knight Service in Norman and Early Angevin England (Bridgeport, CT, 1968), 74; Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, 150. 78 Historia Rerum Anglicarum, II: 172.

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called in the obligations of his vassals, and the feudal norms of obligations carried on after his death.79 Stipendiarii thus constituted a reliable and easily acquirable supplement to the king’s armies.

79

Warren, Henry II, 231.

CHAPTER FOUR

STRATEGY, TACTICS, LOGISTICS Any discussion of strategy and tactics ought to begin with Clausewitz’s definitions of the two: tactics teaches the use of armed forces in the engagement; strategy, the use of engagements for the object of the war.1 Here we will examine Henry II’s strategy through his various campaigns, including his invasions of hostile territories, use of armies for offensive and defensive land warfare, the employment of ships as support vessels for military operations, and the financing of campaigns. The king’s tactics, his decisions about how to deploy his assets at moments of direct confrontation with his enemies, are best illustrated through study of his battles and sieges. While his tactical choices remained rather constant over his long reign, his strategic vision changed as he advanced in age, and he became less belligerent and more interested in settling disputes through diplomacy. Much of Henry’s historical legacy is unfairly constructed by way of this diplomacy and statesmanship of his later reign. A thorough revision of his military career is therefore necessary. High Medieval Strategy and Henry II In the Middle Ages there were only a small number of full-scale battles fought by any one particular general, especially between 1066 and the Hundred Years War. Considering the warlike nature of the medieval ordo of ‘those who fight,’ this is often surprising to the nonspecialist. Military strategy in the period centered instead on defensive logistical warfare. Medieval generals sought the submission of foes through attrition: ravaging the countryside, capturing or destroying supplies, besieging enemy castles, and reducing the enemy’s ability to wage war.2 Some scholars have attributed this logistical strategy

1 C. von Clausewitz, On War, eds. and trans. M. Howard and P. Paret (Princeton, 1976), 128. The italics are the editors’. 2 The standard case studies for our period are J. Gillingham, “William the Bastard at War” and “Science of Warfare,” in ANW, 143–60 and 194–207, respectively.

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to the De re militari of the early-fifth century Roman author Flavius Vegetius Renatus, whose military manual enjoyed great popularity in the high and late Middle Ages.3 The number of extant manuscripts is a testament to the popularity of the De re militari: there are more surviving copies of Vegetius dated pre-1300 than the works of Julius Caesar, Livy, Valerius Maximus, and Pliny the Elder.4 Vegetius advises Roman commanders to employ logistical warfare while engaging in open battle only when there was a clear probability of decisive victory. Medieval armies were particularly suited to such styles of warfare because their preservation was paramount. In an age before recruitment, conscription, and standing national armies, the loss of even a single battle could be a crippling setback. Logistical warfare enabled a commander to acquire provisions and booty with which to feed and pay his army while simultaneously reducing an enemy’s resources. There is no direct evidence that Henry II ever read Vegetius, although circumstantial clues suggest that he did. His father Geoffrey le Bel may have owned a copy.5 Perhaps young Henry’s tutor William of Conches plundered Geoffrey’s library for authors such as Vegetius while instructing the boy in Latin, but De re militari did not become a textbook for military training until the fourteenth century. Before then, it would have been supplemental reading at best, perhaps treated as a cousin of the sciences.6 John of Salisbury copied sections

3 Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science, trans. N. P. Milner, 2nd ed. (Liverpool, 1993). On the De re militari in the Middle Ages, see B. S. Bachrach, “Medieval Siege Warfare: a Reconnaissance,” Journal of Military History 58 (1994): 119–133; C. R. Shrader, “The Influence of Vegetius’ De re militari,” Military Affairs 45 (1981): 167–172; and C. Allmand, “The De re militari of Vegetius in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,” in Writing War: Medieval Literary Responses to Warfare, eds. C. Saunders, F. Le Saux, and N. Thomas (Cambridge, 2004), 15–28. 4 C. R. Shrader, “A Handlist of Extant Manuscripts Containing the De re militari of Flavius Vegetius Renatus,” Scriptorium 33 (1979): 282–3. 5 The accounts are found in Historia Gaufredi ducis Normannorum et comitis Andegavorum, 218; and Chronicon Sancti Sergii Andegavensis, 146–8. These are accepted as accurate by K. Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings, 2 vols. (New York, 1887), I: 386; Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, 211; and Warren, Henry II, 38. For the dissenting view see B. S. Bachrach, “The Practical Use of Vegetius’ De re militari during the Early Middle Ages,” The Historian 47 (1985): 240–4 and 250. 6 Orme, Childhood to Chivalry, 185–9; idem, Education and Society, 173–4. Instead, Henry probably learned through chanson de geste, Arthurian romances, or other such works. For the place of military manuals and independent thematic texts in the period, see J. S. Beddie, “The Ancient Classics in the Mediaeval Library,” Speculum 5 (1930): 14–15; B. Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of

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of the De re militari into books sent to Thomas Becket during the Toulouse campaign in 1159.7 Several copies of the book are found scattered throughout the monasteries of Henry’s Angevin Empire: two at St. Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury, two at Tours, single copies at Poitiers, Canterbury, Lincoln, Le Bec, and Angers, one traced to either England or northern France, and two in Anjou.8 The missing link is definitive proof that Henry read his father’s books, examined Becket’s copies, or ever bothered to investigate the libraries of his realms. Whether as a result of Vegetius or not, today the premise is that generals in the High Middle Ages fought logistical, defensive warfare while avoiding battles. Battles themselves were risky affairs and to be avoided unless a decisive victory was a near-certainty, for commanders did not wish to lose their human resources on spear tips. Taking cues from Philip Contamine’s comments regarding the relative infrequency of medieval battles, military historians have pointed to a shift in the Anglo-Norman period from pitched combat in the field to the ravaging of land, villages, and the general depletion of enemy resources, and also a defensive strategy of warfare that involved using castles and fortified towns to hamper an enemy’s ability to raid, gather supplies, or rest while on campaign.9 It seems, however, that when confronted with the actual writing of history, scholars default to decisive battles as the prime requisite for strong military leaders. Interpretations of Henry II’s military career hang primarily on the tradition that he did not fight battles and was not interested in fighting battle. This is a popular myth and is found in many historical commentaries, some of which even state that he was never present at any battle. A few examples should suffice:

Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton, 1983), 328; R. R. Bolgar, The Classical Heritage and its Beneficiaries (Cambridge, 1963), 194–7; and H. Buttenwieser, “Popular Authors of the Middle Ages: The Testimony of the Manuscripts,” Speculum 17 (1942): 51. 7 Metalogicon, III: 10; and Policraticus, VIII: 19 and 25. 8 Shrader, “Handlist,” 280–305; J. W. Thompson, The Medieval Library (Chicago, 1939), 241. 9 Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, 228. Following him, see Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, 305–8; France, Western Warfare, 9–10; C. J. Rogers, “The Vegetian ‘Science of Warfare’ in the Middle Ages,” and S. Morillo, “Battle Seeking: the Context and Limits of Vegetian Warfare,” JMMH 1 (2002): 1–20 and 21–42; and Gillingham, “Up with Orthodoxy!” 149–58.

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1. “. . . Henry, who fought no major action, made no progress in tactical skill.” 2. “By contrast [with Henry I], Henry II never seems to have been present at a battle, unless you include the fighting around Rouen . . .” 3. “Henry II, for example, in his whole life never fought a single battle. . .” 4. “. . . Henry II’s success at not fighting battles is often cited in defense of the Vegetian nature of medieval warfare.” 5. “Full-scale battles were not frequent [. . .] Henry II was not present at a single one.” “Henry was something of a specialist in battles which did not take place.” 6. “On the contrary, veteran commanders like Henry II of England— who never fought a single general action in his long reign . . .” 7. “He tried to avoid battles and disliked casualties.” 8. “Henry II did not seek victories.”10 The historiographical tradition stretches back even further: Sir Charles Oman, writing in the 1920s, reached a similar conclusion and stated, “all through his reign the king was fighting hard, yet he was never present at an engagement of first or even second-rate importance in the open field.”11 That Henry was not a seeker of battles has become the standard depiction, and as a result, he is rarely ranked among the great generals of the High Middle Ages, much less the kingdom of England. This reputation as a non-combatant has even infiltrated studies about other periods of medieval warfare and even some recent comments about the late medieval ‘military revolution’.12 10 Respectively: (1) F. Barlow, The Feudal Kingdom of England, 1042–1216, 5th ed. (London, 1999), 280; (2) France, Western Warfare, 50; (3) Gillingham, “Science of War,” 197; (4) Morillo, “Battle-Seeking,” 38; and (5) Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, 306 and 315; (6) Rogers, “Science of Warfare,” 2; (7) C. Tyerman, England and the Crusades, (Chicago, 1988), 45; and (8) Warren, Henry II, 629. See also Richard Barber’s version of the myth: “nor did he [Henry] prefer armed combat to diplomacy, using the latter until either his patience or his skill was exhausted”; Henry Plantagenet, 63. 11 C. Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, Volume One: 378–1278 AD (Reprint, London, 1998), 400; he also calls Henry’s campaigns “weary and uninteresting” (370). 12 See the editorial introduction in The Medieval Military Revolution: State, Society, and Military Change in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, eds. A. Ayton and J. L. Price (London, 1995), 7: “Not every experienced medieval commander had fought as few real battles as Richard I (or indeed his father) after 25 years of campaigning” (emphasis mine).

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Whence the impression that it was Henry II’s policy, or even preference, to avoid battles? Gillingham himself does not offer citations to the source, but Michael Prestwich points to a remark made by Gerald of Wales in the Expugnatio Hibernica: Resolute in war, and provident in peace, he so much feared the doubtful fortune of the former, that, as the comic poet writes, he tried all courses before he resorted to arms.13

Gerald thus depicts the king as reluctant to initiate warfare as a first course of action. Doubting the fortunes of war, however, is not the same thing as doubting success in a particular battle. Moreover, because of his rough personal relationship with the king, Gerald of Wales is not the most reliable source when it comes to characterizations of Henry. His other writings reflect a definite animosity, such as his criticism in the Expugnatio Hibernica of Henry’s refusal to crusade on behalf of Heraclius. In another book, Gerald repeatedly calls the king a blasphemer, judges his marriage to Eleanor to be scandalous (despite writing more than thirty years after the fact), and dubs Henry’s rebellious sons the ministers of divine justice.14 Such bias demands our trepidation, and I am disinclined to take his words at face value by ascribing a definite assessment to such a general remark. There are other contemporary remarks to consider as well, and Jordan Fantosme clearly saw something of the warrior in his king when he compared Henry’s military exploits to those of Charlemagne.15 A more accurate depiction probably lies somewhere in between the disparagement of Gerald of Wales and the enthusiasm of Fantosme, but the trend of classifying Henry as an avoider of battle, I would suggest, misreads the Expugnatio Hibernica, for all of the above arguments can be dismissed with only three examples. First to go is the premise that Henry was never present at a battle and/or never fought in one himself: in 1165, Henry led a campaign (costing over £7,500)16

13 Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, 307, citing Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio, 303; the translation is from The Historical Works of Gerald of Wales, trans. T. Wright (London, 1863), 251. 14 De Principis Instructione Liber, 255 and 283, 300, and 302. 15 Fantosme, 10–11. 16 See the logistical analysis in Latimer, “Henry II’s Campaign against the Welsh,” 545.

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into Wales, issued orders to his soldiers at the Vale of Ceiriog, and engaged his enemy in battle therein. In Wales in 1157, he was involved in the fighting and nearly killed. We can just as easily address the second premise, that Henry did not seek victories as part of his military strategy, by examining the summer of 1173. The king first attempted to engage Louis VII in battle at Verneuil, only to have his enemy retire the field, and later that summer, he sent an army to crush the Breton rebels at Dol. This was clear ‘battleseeking,’ as Morillo puts it: in both cases Henry sought battle before attempting blockades of the towns taken by the rebels; the actions were not examples ‘battle-threatening,’ those actions Morillo sees as elaborate feints conducted in the knowledge or supposition that one’s enemy will refuse the overture of battle.17 In both cases Henry wanted battle and sought victories. Battle as Strategy Morillo’s comments on battle-seeking do raise a critical issue about combat in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but it can be a tricky methodology in practice. Discerning a general’s intentions requires a close reading of the limited evidence, which is usually in the form of chronicles written far from the field by non-specialists and at a much later date. Interrogation of the historical context and each document’s historiography is important. In the case of Henry II, he is famously known for forming up lines for battles that never materialized. It is thus useful to explore the context of each of these instances to see whether or not the king really desired a clash of arms in the field. For the first twenty years of his military career Henry II often sought battle as a first option. By this I mean he employed strategies designed to induce an enemy army into a general field action. This is not to say that he discounted ravaging or castle sieges as viable strategies, only that these were usually not his first choice. Only later in his reign, most particularly in the 1180s, did the king seek to mitigate hostilities and conserve his assets. Henry brought his foes to action through a variety of initiatives. One method was

17

Morillo, “Battle-Seeking,” 26.

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besieging a castle in the full knowledge that the enemy would respond by sending a relief force, to which Henry could then offer battle. Another was the relief action. Providing succor to besieged garrisons was quite common, and usually the besieger would move away upon hearing of the approaching relief force—this was considered a victory for the besieged side. Henry, however, tended to actually attack the enemy besiegers during the relief action instead of allowing them to retire. A third option was to simply draw up in battle array against an opposing army. Critical analyses of his battle-seeking strategies are necessary towards a recasting his overall military legacy, which has suffered significantly due to modern historical obsession with open battle. The Relief of Devizes, 1149 Henry is first found attempting to fully engage his enemy during the Henrician Phase of the civil war in the autumn of 1149. King Stephen, then conducting a scorched-earth campaign in the south in an attempt to frustrate the young Henry’s moves, was forced to move his armies north when Ranulf of Chester launched an attack into Lincolnshire in the northeast, threatening to cut off the king from Yorkshire. Exhibiting his characteristic inability to finish one job before starting another, Stephen abandoned his southern campaign and marched to Lincoln, which Ranulf had not yet captured. Once the pressure was off, Henry Plantagenet seized the opportunity before him, left Devizes, and marched southwest into Devon. On this his first campaign as lead commander Henry became a besieger and ravager, earning his first military victory at Bridgport.18 Although Stephen’s governor William de Tracy refused to engage in battle, the Gesta Stephani tells us that while in Devon Henry received word of an impending attack upon Devizes by Stephen’s son Eustace, and he quickly broke off his offensive campaign and rode north.19 It is at this moment that the chronicle offers an initial glimpse into Henry’s generalship: rather than march directly into town, he sent his vanguard ahead for reconnaissance purposes while he remained behind with his army, “taking precautions and in good order, in

18 19

Gesta Stephani, 210–11. Gesta Stephani, 222–3.

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military fashion, wishing both to save his castle and to offer spirited resistance to any who opposed him on the way.”20 His advance force arrived just as Eustace was burning houses in the outworks of the castle. The outnumbered and intimidated Angevin garrison huddled behind their walls until Henry’s relief force arrived, at which they took to arms and, launching a counter-attack against Eustace, drove the surprised Englishmen into a hasty retreat. It was a great victory, although in fairness the royal army was not at full strength because a portion of Eustace’s army was away in East Anglia fighting Hugh Bigod and the Beauchamps. In a manner of speaking, Bradbury is correct in calling the relief of Devizes “hardly a military triumph,” and although both Davis and John Appleby credit Henry with a victory at Devizes the Gesta Stephani indicates that Henry arrived only after the struggle had ended. We may thus credit him with wisdom for sending an advance force in relief, but he did not partake of the fighting and probably did not even witness the action firsthand.21 Still, this was an early indication of Henry’s desire to defeat soldiers aligned against him. Arques and Torigini, 1151 More early examples are found in the period before Henry’s investiture as duke of Normandy in 1151. The young duke’s military exploits on the Continent began with a confrontation between the French and Angevins at Arques Castle, probably in late spring or early summer 1151. Louis VII and Eustace of Boulogne gathered an army and marched into Normandy and up to the castle. Henry soon arrived with a force of his own gathered from Normandy, Brittany, and Anjou. Geoffrey le Bel was present for neither of these encounters, as he was busy raiding towns in Perche, taking Mont-de-laNue, so Henry was the man in charge of operations. It is clear that the brash young soldier desired a battle because the barons under Henry’s command refused to fight, citing the lack of sufficient insult on the part of the French. This lack of insult suggests that Arques was never actually invested by the French. Later that summer, Henry besieged the castle of Torigini and had managed to burn some houses

20

Gesta Stephani, 222–3. Bradbury, Stephen and Matilda, 147; Davis, King Stephen, 109; Appleby, Reign of King Stephen, 176. 21

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between the town walls and the keep when Louis and Eustace arrived in relief. Henry was forced to back down in the face of the French army. In August, Louis gathered his armies and marched towards Normandy again, arriving at a point between Melun and Mantes on the Seine. Marching quickly, Henry and his father joined forces and rode to meet the French from across the river. Were the Angevins looking for a battle? Here the evidence is unclear. Before any conflict arose Louis was struck by severe illness and forged a temporary truce with the Angevins, to be honored until he recovered. When Louis felt better, a formal peace was arranged and the French king accepted the homage of the young duke in August 1151 at Paris. In 1151, therefore, we have at least one instance of Henry seeking battle, and perhaps two. The Relief of Malmesbury, 1153 In late January 1153, Duke Henry’s biggest concern was the relief of Wallingford Castle in Berkshire, the easternmost Angevin stronghold and a strategically important town during the anarchy. He could have marched there as he had done at Devizes, but instead Henry moved to attack the royalist stronghold at Malmesbury in Wiltshire.22 His reasons for doing so are unknown, and none of the surviving accounts speaks of the duke’s strategic motivations. Historians have explained his intentions in two different ways. The first, and most common, argument contends that Henry wished to draw Stephen away from Wallingford and into the open field where the two armies could fight a proper battle. The second argument, made only by David Crouch, contends that Henry sought to open a path from Gloucester to the Thames by seizing Malmesbury; going further, Crouch argues that Henry was disappointed at the arrival of Stephen’s army, which checked the Angevins before Malmesbury Castle was taken.23 In a strategic sense both solutions, each wholly rational, could not be more different: Henry was either willing to risk everything in a decisive battle, or he wished to avoid battle by attacking a castle away from Stephen’s army.

22 The accounts of the action at Malmesbury are Gesta Stephani, 230–1; Historia Anglorum, IV: 34; Torigini, 171–2; and Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 89. 23 See Davis, King Stephen, 118; G. J. White, “The End of Stephen’s Reign,” History 75 (1990): 7; and Crouch, Reign of King Stephen, 263.

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The events of Henry’s early military career provide a solution. Here we recall the words of Gerald of Wales in regards to Henry’s memory: Except when troubled in mind or moved to anger, he was a prince of great eloquence and, what is remarkable in these days, polished in letters [. . .] anything he had once heard worthy of remembrance he could never obliterate from his mind. So he had at his fingers’ end both a ready knowledge of nearly the whole of history and also practical experience of almost everything in daily affairs.24

Despite Gerald’s personal biases here is a compliment, and if Henry’s memory was anything close to this glowing account, we should expect him to learn from his mistakes, especially in warfare so crucial to his attainment of the English throne. In 1149, Henry and his allies moved towards York, only to see it relieved by Stephen; in that same year, Henry’s ally Ranulf of Chester attacked Lincoln, and Stephen moved his army away from Gloucestershire and towards Ranulf in response. Henry drew a similar response in the fall of 1149 when he marched to the relief of Devizes, only to watch it be relieved by an opposing army, and in 1151 Louis and Eustace relieved Torigini from the duke’s siege. Henry would have been a fool not to connect the dots at some point and realize that a siege works wonders in drawing an enemy’s army to oneself. Accordingly, I disagree with Crouch’s assessment of a more complex strategic goal: it makes more sense that Henry attacked Malmesbury in 1153 in order to (1) capture a strategically important town, and (2) lure Stephen’s army to a decisive showdown in the process. The town of Malmesbury fell before it could be relieved. Henry owed his rapid success to the tactics of his mercenaries, whom the Gesta Stephani takes great care to describe in action: attacking the town wall with missile fire and ladders, the hired men forced Malmesbury’s defenders into retreat, and they took up shelter in a monastery church. Bursting into the church, the mercenaries attacked the priests and monks inside, desecrated the altar, and stole its valuables. The chronicle’s author laments the fact that the mercenaries in the duke’s army had committed similar atrocities in other nearby areas as well. Upon hearing of the news from his barons, Henry ordered some five hundred mercenaries back to the Continent, and 24

Expugnatio, 302–6; translation is from EHD, 386–8.

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their ships poetically sank in the channel, unable to ride out a severe storm at sea.25 Henry of Huntingdon fails to mention this event, but instead ascribes Henry’s success to chivalric deeds performed by his knights. Their skill notwithstanding, while the town fell Malmesbury keep could not be taken, and Henry’s army settled down to starve out its garrison. Henry’s gambit worked to perfection by drawing Stephen’s forces north, but a decisive battle did not ensue. The king probably arrived in early February 1153 with Eustace at his side after having followed Henry back to England. The opposing armies drew up their ranks across the Avon River but did not enter into battle. Several explanations appear in the chronicles for the inaction. It appears that Stephen’s army was the larger one, “packed with numerous nobles and gleaming with golden banners, and it was both very terrible and beautiful,” and Robert of Torigini numbers the force at several thousand strong. Henry’s modest invasion force had been supplemented by allies in England but remained insufficient, forcing the duke to trust more in his skill and bravery. William of Newburgh, writing several decades later, notes that battle was not joined because Stephen was unable to attack with advantage; other evidence attributes this disadvantage to the banks of the Avon, which had swollen from hard rains and snow and could not be forded. Strong winds blew from west to east, driving icy cold air into the faces of Stephen’s men, who were so soaked and cold that they could not hold their weapons steady. These were not ideal conditions for a fight, and given Henry’s outnumbered soldiers the duke was fortunate that both sides declined battle.26 Wallingford, 1153 Wallingford remained a strategic priority, however, and August 1153 saw Henry finally moving to relieve the siege there. Several hostile castles were in the vicinity but with garrisons numerically insufficient to harass the duke as he rode south, so he reached Wallingford in safety. Upon reaching the town Henry concentrated his efforts against

25 Of all the accounts, Gesta Stephani, 230–33, contains the most dramatic and detailed record of the siege. 26 Historia Anglorum, IV: 34; Gesta Stephani, 230–1; Torigini, 171–2; Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 89.

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the counter-castle of Crowmarsh near the eastern bank of the Thames, attacking the wooden structure’s perimeter. The initial assault was relatively easy, for the garrison at Crowmarsh was small, and some of Henry’s soldiers managed to penetrate the bailey and climb up the motte. In the midst of the fighting, however, the Angevins were ambushed by small parties of knights hidden in the nearby woods and behind concealing structures, many of whom constituted the remainder of the original Crowmarsh garrison. The attacking force gave way and Crowmarsh was temporarily saved. After recovering from his losses, Henry became more determined and sat down to besiege the castle by surrounding it and his own men with a rampart that exited only to Wallingford Castle in the west. By now Stephen had been alerted to events at Crowmarsh. While he gathered and eventually marched with his army, the king sent an advance force of three hundred knights to Oxford to conduct raids into Berkshire and against Henry’s fortified position. And so it went until Stephen and Eustace arrived in full force, at which point Henry took down his ramparts and arrayed his men into battle formation.27 For the second time that year Henry was either threatening or seeking battle against Stephen, but which was it? Henry was safe within his ramparts and well-positioned for a quick escape towards Wallingford Castle, so he could have remained in a defensive posture but chose the field instead. The two armies, “in all their warlike array, stood close to each other, with only a river between them, it was terrible and dreadful to see so many thousands of armed men eager to join battle.”28 Here we can discern Henry’s intentions through his strategy of once again drawing out of Stephen’s army.29 Given Henry’s history of such undertakings this is a distinct possibility, but it makes no sense to deliberately draw a relieving force down upon a siege in progress unless battle is desired. It is thus no surprise that Henry leveled his ramparts and formed battle lines upon hearing of Stephen’s approach. Once again, the duke was seeking, not threatening, battle. Battle was never joined, however, and the two sides agreed to a truce that included Stephen’s recovering of some eighty hostages and the demolition of Crowmarsh, which had been the cause for the situation. 27 28 29

Historia Anglorum, IV: 34; Gesta Stephani, 237–9; Gervase, I: 153. Gesta Stephani, 120. That such a tactic was intentional is argued by Slade, “Wallingford Castle,” 42.

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The failure of Stephen and Henry’s armies to clash at Wallingford has traditionally been viewed as a pragmatic move on the part of the barons, few of whom wished further bloodshed. Historians derive this view from differing accounts of the chroniclers, who offered reasons as varied as a baronial distaste for continuing war and destruction, their fear of backing the losing side, or the persuasive influence of church leaders.30 A simpler explanation is the military one: Henry’s plans were dashed when he discovered that Stephen had arrived with a numerically superior force. Henry of Huntingdon writes, “he [Stephen] gathered all the forces from the lands in his power and came to overawe the duke. But the duke, quite unmoved by fear, even though he was outnumbered by the royal army . . . drew up his lines and marched in splendour against the king.” Henry’s followers had already balked once at fighting Stephen’s larger army at Malmesbury earlier in the year, so it is no surprise to see them recoil from battle once more. Stephen’s soldiers, on the other hand, forsook battle because they were not expecting a relief action, not a large pitched battle. Huntingdon again: “when the royal army saw the enemy battle lines unexpectedly rising up against them, they were struck by a sudden panic.”31 The shift from relief action to pitched battle accounts for the panic in Stephen’s ranks: the king’s barons had simply not planned on fighting Henry in the field. Decisive battles were not entirely absent from the anarchy, as the Battle of the Standard in 1138 and the Battle of Lincoln in 1141 demonstrate, but to fight a decisive battle without prior warning was an entirely different affair. As it was, Henry’s nobles did not like the odds and pushed for a resolution, which the other side more than welcomed. None of the contemporary accounts preclude this interpretation: Crouch’s “dissident barons” certainly had, as Slade argues, “no wish to fight,” but their concerns were military in nature, not political or religious. And given this military interpretation, statements such as Emilie Amt’s, “on the whole, the barons were determined to prevent a military victory by one side or the other” are too decisive and serve to obscure practical considerations of the nobility’s

30 This ecclesiastical influence, if true, was of the highest order; one of Henry’s charters at Crowmarsh was attested by Theobald of Canterbury and Roger, archdeacon of Canterbury and later Archbishop of York; see Regesta Regis, no. 491. See Appleby, Reign of King Stephen, 189–90, for a good discussion of the pertinent accounts. 31 Historia Anglorum, IV: 34.

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perception of warfare.32 Henry was too ambitious and his barons had to reel the young duke in before he committed a foolish mistake, but while we can criticize Henry’s generalship here we cannot simultaneously dub him as an avoider of battle. Coleshill Wood, 1157 Henry II was clearly frustrated in his early attempts to draw opponents into battle, but he finally got his chance in 1157 during his campaign against Owain ap Gwynedd in northern Wales. Henry’s army mustered at a point south of Chester and set out in July, heading along the Dee estuary in a northwesterly fashion. His army was composed of several parts: heavy cavalry and infantry, a contingent of archers recruited in Shropshire, and a fleet operating in the mouth of the Dee.33 Henry dispatched his fleet to the isle of Anglesey further to the northwest to conduct ravaging operations against the Welshmen there. The landing operation was a disaster as the Welsh villagers, uniting together in a show of force, killed many of the English and drove the rest back to their ships. On the mainland, the Welsh host had occupied a blockading position across the main road to the town of Ruddlan, flanked on one side by the Dee and on the other by the Coleshill Wood, looking to prevent Henry’s march north. Henry had turned his attention to the road before him. The Welsh had dug defensive ditches in front of their position and were ideally situated to receive a cavalry charge, although the Welsh themselves, men generally suited skirmishing and ambushing with light weapons, were not. It is unlikely that many of Owain’s men had ever faced a heavy cavalry charge; nevertheless, they were determined to fight a battle against the English.34 They perhaps hoped to inflict enough casualties on the first rush so as to dissuade Henry from trying

32

Crouch, Reign of King Stephen, 269; Slade, “Wallingford Castle,” 43; E. Amt, The Accession of Henry II in England: Royal Government Restored 1149–1159 (Woodbridge, 1993), 12. 33 D. J. C. King, “The Fight at Coleshill,” Welsh History Review 2 (1965): 369; Lloyd, History of Wales, II: 497. 34 The vernacular accounts of the battle are Hergest, 135; Peniarth, 59; Brenhinedd y Saesson, 159; Annales Cambriae, 46–7. For Welsh armament in the twelfth century, see F. Suppe, Military Institutions on the Welsh Marches: Shropshire, 1066–1300 (Woodbridge, 1994), 7–8.

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again.35 A group of Welsh skirmishers also hid in the trees on Owain’s left flank, commanded by his sons David and Conan. It is now clear that Henry II was well apprised of both his enemy’s defensive posture and Welsh methods of warfare, despite the fact that 1157 was his first foray into that country. Riding with him into Gwynedd were both of Owain’s brothers Cadwaladr and Madog: Madog accompanied the fleet that landed at Anglesey, and Cadwaladr, who had improved his own stature by marrying Alice de Clare, sister of Gilbert de Clare, earl of Hertford (d. 1152), received an estate in Shropshire from Henry and rode with the king on the Welsh campaign. Joining these men were Hywel ab Ieuaf and Madog’s other brother Iorwerth Goch.36 Also beside the king was Eustace fitz John, the constable of Chester and a veteran who had fought alongside David I at the Battle of the Standard in 1138. In addition to such invaluable local insight, Anglo-Norman military intelligence was quite good for its time and notably so in the reign of Henry II.37 In response to the fortified Welsh main body and their protective flankers, Henry divided his army into two portions, one to address each threat. The barons and cavalry, alongside the largest portion of the army, marched towards Owain’s position across the road. Henry himself took the remainder of his troops, principally composed of infantry, and entered the Coleshill Wood with Eustace fitz John and a few other retainers. Fierce fighting erupted in the forest as Henry’s men encountered the Welshmen under Conan and David. Although previous interpretations as well as the contemporary monastic chronicles contend that the king was taken unawares and ambushed, Henry’s push through the woods was a pincher maneuver designed to trap Owain between the two English divisions.38 The course of the battle, however, did not go as Henry had intended. As guerilla warriors the Welsh were in their element and the English took heavy losses. Henry himself disappeared, leading his knights to believe him dead, and Henry of Essex, the royal constable, threw

35

King, “Fight at Coleshill,” 372. J. Hosler, “Henry II’s Military Campaigns in Wales, 1157 and 1165,” JMMH 2 (2004): 57–9. See also The Acts of Welsh Rulers, 1120–1283, eds. H. Pryce and C. Insley (Cardiff, 1005), 2–3 and 23, for discussions of these Welsh supporters. 37 See also J. O. Prestwich, “Military Intelligence under the Norman and Angevin Kings,” in Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy, 18–19. 38 Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 107–8; Hosler, “Campaigns in Wales,” 65–7. 36

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down the royal banner and fled. The standard was retrieved by Roger, earl of Clare (d. 1173), who rallied the remaining troops into order and led their retreat backwards out of the forest.39 Once out of danger they were rejoined by their king, for Henry II had been hurt but not killed and somehow dragged himself out of the woods. Eustace fitz John and Robert de Courcy were both slain in the action but the army was not a complete loss, and Henry led his soldiers to rejoin the main host on the road. The two divisions joined ranks and proceeded cautiously along the road towards the Welsh position, which had now been abandoned.40 Upon receiving word of Henry’s flanking maneuver and fearing encirclement, Prince Owain led his men in a retreat to the northwest. Henry continued to march into Gwynedd, took some hostages, and was occasionally harassed by the Welsh, but he faced no more open battles. Henry of Essex, for his cowardice and untimely betrayal of the king during a battle, later accepted trial by single combat against Robert de Montfort and was defeated.41 Vale of Ceiriog, 1165 Coleshill Wood was not Henry’s last battle against the Welsh princes, and once more in 1165 he would take the considerable risk of sending an army into battle against them. For this campaign, the logistical preparations suggest that the king wished to be done with Wales through an all-out assault, and considering his military success on the Continent in the early 1160s, he had every reason to feel confident about his chances. Moreover, he had already faced the Welsh in battle in 1157 and was now personally acquainted with their tactics and resolve. The king joined the bulk of his army at Shrewsbury; it thereafter moved to Oswestry, the bastion of Shropshire, in August before crossing the March into Wales.42 As Henry led his army west

39

Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond, 69–70. The falling of a standard signaled defeat in medieval warfare; see M. Bennett, “Wace and Warfare,” in ANW, 247. 40 Eyton, Court, Household, and Itinerary, 28; Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 108; Descriptio, 138. 41 Chronicle of Joscelin of Brakelond, 68–71; Ymagines Historiarum, I: 310. Henry of Essex retired as a monk of Reading in 1163 but the date of his death is obscure; see Keats-Rohan, Domesday Descendants II, 449–50. 42 For analyses of the logistics involved, see Keefe, Feudal Assessments, 27–9; idem, “The 1165 Levy for the Army of Wales,” Notes and Queries 227 (1982): 194–6; and

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the Welsh, aware of his presence, advanced east and halted at Corwen. The Welsh were led by an assortment of princes, including Owain ap Gwynedd, Rhys ap Deheubarth, Einion Clud, Cadwallon ap Madog, and Owain Cyfeiliog of southern Powys. A letter sent from Owain to Louis VII after the battle states that the Welsh had a combined force of five different armies, all united in opposition to Henry II’s advance.43 The collected armies of Wales and Henry’s levies closed in a dense wood, separated only by the Vale of Ceiriog. A standoff similar to those between Duke Henry and King Stephen in 1153 ensued in which no commander dared enter the woods unprotected. Recalling his experience in 1157, Henry refused to again be trapped in a forest. His solution was to cut down the trees between the two armies, probably in an effort to goad the Welsh, who were by comparison the less disciplined force, into battle.44 Interestingly, the Welsh chronicles state that the Welsh were “leaderless”; whether this was literally true or a commentary upon the fragmented nature of the alliance is unknown.45 In any case, Henry’s ploy succeeded: the Welshmen charged imprudently into the Vale to engage the English army in fierce hand-to-hand combat. We have scarcely any details about the progress of the battle, but it is clear that neither side was able to gain an advantage; indeed, the Welsh proved to be better melee fighters than anticipated. Both sides took heavy losses. Henry became frustrated at the battle’s progress, and before a decisive outcome was reached by either side he withdrew his troops and retreated southwest to reconsider the situation. The Welsh undoubtedly took this to be a great victory, while the English army could only ponder developments with some regret. Owain later claimed that more of Henry’s men were killed than his own.46 With the safety of his army in mind, and knowing firsthand the propensity of the Welsh to use guerilla tactics, Henry led his

Warren, Henry II, 158. On Oswestry, see J. E. Lloyd, “Oswestry as a Link between England and Wales,” Archaeologia Cambrensis 78 (1923): 196–202; and Suppe, Military Institutions, 63–85. 43 Acts of Welsh Rulers, 15 and 41; for Owain’s letter, see ibid., no. 196. 44 See Hosler, “Military Campaigns in Wales,” 69–70, for arguments to this effect. This tactic is hinted at in De re militari, III: 6, and was actually employed against the Welsh in 1094 by William Rufus; see Suppe, Military Institutions, 20. 45 Peniarth, 63; Hergest, 145; Brenhinedd y Saesson, 167; Annales Cambriae, 50. 46 Acts of Welsh Rulers, no. 196.

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army to a safe location in the hills of Berwyn. The high ground protected his army from the Welsh but not the weather: a chance storm struck and supplies were unable to move through the wet and muddy passes in the hills. We may also surmise that troop morale decreased in relation to disappearing provisions and soaking garments. Although Lynn Nelson has argued that guerilla warfare had beaten the English, it is clear that failure came through an inadequate effort in battle followed by inclement weather.47 Henry had failed to win a decisive victory over an enemy met in a proper field of battle, but it was not for a lack of trying: the battle-seeker was still very much at large. Chênebrun, 1168; Verneuil, 1173 Henry II’s battles in Wales were followed by later examples in Normandy of his seeking battle, and they are equally instructive. Following the 1165 Welsh campaign, the next major period of warfare was a lengthy affair in Henry’s domains on the Continent that ran the entire year of 1168. Beginning in Poitou, he besieged castles, destroyed villages that had given the rebels support, and garrisoned several castles. Next, he burnt forty towns in Ponthieu before finally catching up to Louis VII’s army. With Henry so engaged in Flanders, Louis had made his own dash into Normandy, attacked and burned the town of Chênebrun, and took four knights hostage. This was to be Louis’ only victory in the war, and when Henry heard the news about Chênebrun he wheeled his army around and marched south. Incredibly, he caught up to the French army’s rearguard and attacked, capturing Philip of Flanders’ steward with a giant hook (or crow) and killing several others. When the fighting was over, Henry resumed his march of devastation, this time in the countryside of Perche to the southeast, destroying the castles of Brezolles and Châteauneuf, and engaging in other warlike activities.48 This skirmish at Chênebrun is significant: once again, he had marched to the relief of a town and sought to inflict causalities on the attacking army.

47

L. H. Nelson, The Normans in South Wales, 1070–1171 (Austin, 1966), 128. The whole series of events is recorded in Torigini, 236–7; see Eyton, Court, Household, and Itinerary, 116–7, for a reckoning of the precise dates. 48

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A similar action occurred at Verneuil in 1173 during the first phase of the Great Revolt. Marching quickly to provide succor to the garrison besieged by Louis, Henry arrayed his troops on a hillside and dispatched messengers to the French camp. Why Henry did not alert Verneuil itself as to his presence is unknown, but it may be that Henry was too distant from the town and he chose to send word directly to his foe first. Louis sent two earls and an archbishop to negotiate, and Henry replied with a fierce voice, “tell your king that I am at hand” At sunrise, Louis and his army were nowhere to be found, for the French war council had resolved not to fight but to retire. Before departing, Louis cleverly informed Verneuil that Henry had missed the three-day timeframe, at which the defenders upheld their end of the bargain and surrendered. The French promptly sacked the town before withdrawing into the countryside; upon hearing of Louis’s duplicitous actions, Henry set out after the French rearguard and before nightfall “slew many of them, and took considerable numbers.”49 The safe interpretation of this chain of events may be to call the relief of Verneuil a Vegetian situation in which battle had become a last resort, what Morillo has dubbed the last hammer in the toolbox.50 On the other hand, we should consider the possibility that Henry was not just threatening but actively seeking battle. Roger of Howden and Jordan Fantosme offer hints as to the king’s purpose. Howden writes that Henry arranged his troops for the express “purpose of engaging with the king of France.” In Fantosme’s chronicle the king declares that his enemies will see many a shield, horse, and cavalry charge before he is driven from the field of battle.51 Why would Henry form up his lines in battle array before sending word to Louis? If he wanted to persuade the French king that succor had arrived, surely the knowledge of several thousand enemy soldiers would have been sufficient. Instead, Henry was preparing for a fight that might just be forthcoming. His eagerness to fight is further proven by his attack on the fleeing French; had he only had the relief of Verneuil on his mind, wouldn’t he have marched first to the town after Louis’ departure? The evidence indicates that Henry

49 50 51

Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 174–5. Morillo, “Battle Seeking,” 25. Chronica, II: 50; Fantosme, 6.

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twice wanted battle, before Louis chose to retreat and after the sack of the town, and regardless of his motives he was yet again committing soldiers to the clash of arms. Dol, 1173 Following his action against Louis at Verneuil, the king now turned his attention to the rebels in Brittany, Hugh, earl of Chester (d. 1181) and Ralph de Fougères (d. 1196). The king remained in Rouen but dispatched soldiers towards Avranches, a mass of hired Brabanters and some Norman cavalry under William de Humet but kept his familia in Rouen.52 Ralph de Fougères determined that the Castle Dol, in which they were stationed, was inadequate for defense and elected to meet their enemies in the field. Roger of Howden, present at Henry’s mobile court during the Revolt, notes that the rebels drew up in proper array, as did the king’s advance force. The evidence seems to indicate a dual cavalry charge with foot soldiers following behind, and many lances were broken in the contest. Robert of Torigini states that the rebel horsemen were put to flight and many of the common soldiers were killed, and Howden claims that 1,500 Bretons fell in the Battle of Dol.53 The remaining rebels fled into either the town or castle of Dol, and both were invested by the Normans and Brabanters. In the meantime, back in Rouen Henry II heard news of the victory, gathered the bulk of his remaining army, and marched towards Dol. Upon arriving, he ordered the deployment of his stone-engines (perrarias) and other machines of war (alias machinas bellicas). The rebels were now in a desperate position. Already cut off from the town of Dol and surrounded by the Brabanters and knights serving under William de Humet, they now faced the energetic king of the English and his siege weaponry. Being unable to defend the castle properly, Hugh of Chester surrendered it to the king on 26 August.54 While the Battle of Dol constituted several different military actions, in the background stands Henry directing his forces and sending his armies into harm’s way. Skeptics may retort that Henry himself was not present for the battle; moreover, he could not have known that a

52 53 54

Historia Rerum Anglicarum, II: 172; Fantosme, 15. Torigini, 260; Chronica, II: 51. Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, I: 57; Chronica, II: 52; Torigini, 260.

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battle would take place and not just a siege. Yet most of the advance force was cavalry able enough to form ranks and withstand a charge: this suggests that Henry had at least entertained the possibility of a chance encounter and figured the composition of the army accordingly. Châteauroux, 1187 Although Henry II’s aggression diminished later in his reign and especially during the 1180s, there were still moments when he sought to battle his enemies in the field. Such was the case at Châteauroux on 23 June 1187, two years before his death.55 It might have been a battle on the scale of Hastings or Lincoln had it occurred. Henry marched with a large feudal host and a number of Welsh mercenaries (probably archers, as they were from Deheubarth) under contract. These were transported to Normandy and joined the levy. Thereafter, the king divided his army into four parts, giving one each to Richard and John, a third to his bastard son Geoffrey Plantagenet, and the fourth to William de Mandeville, earl of Essex (d. 1189). His two sons marched south through the Vexin to Berry and fortified Châteauroux, to the west of Bourges. Philip Augustus proceeded into Berry with an army and attacked the two castles of Issoudon and Fréteval, which were surrendered to him by Urso de Fréteval and Robert II, count of Nevers.56 Having gathered some momentum, Philip then moved to Châteauroux and besieged Richard and John within its walls. They put up a stout defense until Henry arrived to relieve them. Instead of riding away, Philip boldly led his troops into the field and formed them into battle array. Henry and his sons left the castle and did the same. William of Newburgh describes the scene as two great armies of thousands of Christians, prepared to spill their blood for the pride of their kings.57 Although Gilbert of Mons states that the count of Hainault brought 110 knights and 80 sergeants to Philip’s side, a full reckoning of the numbers involved escapes us. Yet the Battle of Châteauroux was not to be, for Gilbert of Mons

55 This figure discounts Henry’s non-action at Toulouse in 1159; there, Henry did not decline battle but a siege against a fortified town. Refusal to invest a town cannot be employed as evidence of his avoidance of battle. 56 Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II: 6–7; Chronica, II: 317–18. 57 Historia Rerum Anglicarum, I: 248–9.

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also relates that the battle was to be fought instead between champion knights from each side. Those fighting for Philip were the counts of Hainault (Baldwin V), Flanders (Philip), and Champagne (Henry II), but we do not know the identities of King Henry II’s champions—perhaps son Richard or William Marshal? Before the jousting could begin, a two-year truce was created by the bishops and the cardinal sub-deacon Octavian, who preferred that the kings expend their energies on crusade.58 Once again Henry had faced his greatest nemesis in the field without result, but was that truly his wish? One could argue either way: while he had hired mercenaries for the war and probably wanted to use them, Henry had also spent much of the 1180s seeking results through peaceful treaties. Likely, Philip was also adverse to the idea of open battle, probably viewing it as too hazardous and not willing to endure a decisive loss so early in his reign. Such is suggested in the Chronicle of Hainault: it is the only document to mention the proposition of settling the dispute through knightly combat. There are other battles and non-actions from the reign of Henry II that are not discussed here. Some point to his desire to make peace through treaties and reconciliation, others his need to crush the opposition that lay before him. Sometimes he threatened battle by using his armies to persuade an enemy to surrender. For example, at Pontorson in 1171 Guihomar, viscount of Léhon, surrendered after being terrified by the group of knights sent by the king to crush him; at Carlisle in 1186, Roland fitz Uhtred surrendered at Henry’s court before the English army could reach Scotland. These incidents involved his use of numerically superior armies to dissuade further rebellion: battle was unlikely to be joined because the odds were so insurmountable for his enemies. My examples of Henry’s battleseeking are not intended to prove that he was a consistently belligerent king but only to prove a point. In the larger scheme of his reign as duke and king, Henry actively looked for opportunities to engage his opponents in the clash of arms. His reputation as an

58 Chronicle of Hainault, 107–8; Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, II: 6–7; Chronica, II: 317–18; Gervase, I: 369–71; Ymagines Historiarum, II: 49. On the question of William Marshal and the events here, see N. Vincent, “William Marshal, King Henry II, and the Honour of Châteauroux,” Archives: The Journal of the British Records Association 25 (2000): 1–15.

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avoider of battles is therefore erroneous and needs to be eliminated from further scholarly studies of medieval generalship. I suspect that future rejoinders may sound something like, “yes, but none of Henry II’s battles were large-scale, set-piece, decisive battles!” At first glance those voices appear to ring true, for on several occasions Henry was in a favorable position to fight a set-piece battle but was denied. He was also not present for what was arguably the most decisive battle of his reign.59 This was the ‘Fight at Fornham’ in October 1173, in w