The Third Crusade: an Early Mishap at Lyon, 10 July 1190

by Charlene Newcomb

King Richard I

When Richard became King of England in 1189 the pilgrimage to the Holy Land to free Jerusalem became his top priority. After his coronation, Richard set the kingdom in order and raised monies to support the undertaking. Richard’s fleet sailed towards Gibraltar intending to meet him in Marseille. His army of pilgrims – or crusaders, as we refer to them now – gathered in Tours in the spring of 1190. By early July, Richard and King Philip of France concluded discussions at Vézelay setting the conditions of their cooperation.

From Vézelay, the pilgrims marched south towards Lyon. Contemporary chroniclers describe the locals’ reactions and the grandeur of the armies, thousands strong. The discipline of the soldiers impressed them. “Who could stand against their force? What a beautiful company, what handsome youths!” Ambroise and the author of the Itinerarium claim the English and French troops numbered near 100,000 – a huge exaggeration. We can only estimate the actual numbers. Author David Miller suggests that when the army began its coastal march south from Acre in August 1191, the French and English forces numbered approximately 1,600 knights and over 14,000 foot soldiers.

On the 10th of July in 1190, Richard and Philip arrived in Lyon. The mishap here on the River Rhône – early in the crusade timeline – could have proven disastrous. In his Annals, Roger de Hoveden writes,

When they had arrived at the city of Lyons on the Rhone, after they with the greater part of their households had passed over the bridge across that river, the bridge, being thronged with men and women, broke down, not without doing injury to great numbers. Here also the two kings separated…

A second account of the incident comes from Ambroise. He describes the scene as utter chaos. Hundreds of people, animals, and wagons plummeted into the rapidly-raging river:

But those who in the morning passed?
Crowded the bridge so thick and fast?
Misfortune did them overtake.
For one span of the bridge did break
Because of the waters treacherous,
Swollen so high and perilous.
For weight of men more than an hundred
O’ertaxed the pine arch till it sundered;
The arch fell and they tumbled in,
And there were shouting, groans and din…

The Itinerarium mentions that the bridge was extremely high, the drop to the river below far enough that many could have died. Onlookers raced to pull victims from the swift current. Incredibly, the chroniclers report that only two people died. Were the numbers underreported, reflecting only those of noble birth? Many historians suggest only "important" deaths were recorded, and therefore, we will never know the true death toll.

De Hoveden has no further comment on the aftermath of the bridge collapse. None of the accounts reflect whether King Richard witnessed the incident, but the Itinerarium describes those who had not yet crossed the river as “at wit’s end.” None wanted to be left behind. The chronicler claims Richard oversaw the construction of a floating bridge built of boats lashed together. The king would have read of the idea in De Re Militari, a treatise of military principles and practices written by Publius Falvius Vegetius Renatus. Amboise does not mention the bridge of boats, but writes that small skiffs were used to ferry people to the opposite riverbank. Both accounts indicate the incident delayed the march south by three days.

What gives one pause is that one month earlier and two thousand miles away, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa met his fate at the Saleph River in Turkey. His horse slipped and Frederick fell into the river and drowned. It was a devastating blow for his followers, only one-third to one-quarter of whom – perhaps 5,000 men – continued on to the Holy Land. During the siege of Acre, these troops reported to Duke Leopold of Austria, a man who would become King Richard’s bitter enemy.

What if the Lionheart had been on the bridge when it collapsed and had died at Lyon? Would Richard’s forces have been thrown into disarray as Barbarossa’s had? Would Philip of France have forsaken the pilgrimage to pursue his desires to regain French territory and to remove the Angevins from the continent? Christians besieging Acre would have been left without reinforcements. They were in dire straits, having suffered repeated attacks by Saladin’s forces. It is likely the siege of Acre would have failed. Acre, other coastal towns, and Jerusalem would remain in Muslim hands. The Third Crusade might not have been.

Sources 

Ambroise. (1976). The crusade of Richard Lion-Heart. (Trans. by M.J. Hubert.) New  York: Octagon.

De Hoveden, R. (1853).  The annals of Roger de Hoveden, comprising the history of England and of other countries of Europe from A. D. 732 to A. D. 1201. (Henry T. Riley, Trans.). London: H. G. Bohn. (Original work published 1201?)

Miller, D. (2003). Richard the Lionheart: the mighty crusader. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Nicholson, H., & Stubbs, W., trans. (1997). Chronicle of the third crusade : A translation of the itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta regis ricardi. Aldershot, Hants, England ; Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate.

Painting of Richard I by Merry-Joseph Blondel. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

An earlier version of this post was originally published at http://charlenenewcomb.com/2014/07/10/10-july-1190-the-bridge-on-the-river-rhone/ , and published on EHFA on July 9, 2015.

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Charlene Newcomb is the author of the Battle Scars series, 12th century historical fiction filled with war, political intrigue, and a knightly romance of forbidden love set during the reign of Richard the Lionheart. She is currently working on a new medieval tale set during King John’s reign; and in summer 2020 will publish Echoes of the Storm, a sci fi/space opera filled with rebels and traitors and battles and romance in a galaxy far, far away (no, not Star Wars). Sign up for Char’s Newsletter for exclusives, including a free short story, and other special offers. Find her books on Amazon & connect with Char on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

William Longchamp – Richard the Lionheart’s Chancellor

by Charlene Newcomb

Richard I

Whilst preparing to depart on crusade in 1189, King Richard, the Lionheart, invested the authority to act in his name in the Bishop of Ely, William Longchamp. A cleric likely trained at Bologna, Longchamp had been a trusted advisor to Richard and had served him as chancellor of Aquitaine. Longchamp’s family was Norman and not of high birth, but his father had risen in power during the reign of Henry II and held lands in Normandy and in England.

To serve as co-justiciar with Longchamp, Richard named the Bishop of Durham, Hugh of Le Puiset; and three others, William Marshal, Hugh Bardolf, and William Briwerre, were named associate justiciars. Richard is not known as being a capable administrator and he failed to delineate the specific authority of these men, which led to major upheaval in 1190-91.

For the sum of £3000, Richard named Longchamp chancellor and asked the Pope to make him papal legate to England. To his contemporaries, William Longchamp became “a man with three titles and three heads,” exercising power as justiciar, chancellor, and papal legate. His critics claim he was greedy, ambitious, and unscrupulous and he eyed co-justiciar Le Puiset’s authority with envy. Longchamp did not know the language, did not adapt to English customs, and “openly professed his contempt for the English.” The author of a biography of the gentle Bishop Hugh of Lincoln writes that Richard “left behind a little lame, black foreigner, Longchamp…who had been adviser, schemer, general brain box and jackal to Lion-heart.” Perhaps Richard did not know Longchamp as well as he thought.

Contemporary sources note that Longchamp was short, had a limp, and “possessed the face of a dog.” It did not take the chancellor long to alienate his co-justiciars or the English barons after Richard left England behind. The chronicler Roger de Hoveden writes “the said bishop of Ely, legate of the Apostolic See, chancellor of our lord the king, and justiciary of England, oppressed the clergy and the people, confounding right and wrong; nor was there a person in the kingdom who dared to offer resistance to his authority, even in word.” The chancellor deposed Le Puiset, had him arrested and forcibly taken to London. He appointed numerous relatives to high positions, removed sheriffs and castellans, and suspended clergy.

Lincoln Castle

As Longchamp attempted to consolidate his own power, many barons turned to Richard’s brother John. John, who eyed Richard’s crown and expected to be named his heir, garnered the support of these men. When Longchamp removed Gerard de Camville as Sheriff of Lincolnshire, de Camville joined forces with John to take over Nottingham and Tickhill Castles, whilst his wife, Nichola de la Haye, held Lincoln Castle against Longchamp’s forces in a 40 day siege in 1191. Compromise was reached due to the efforts of Walter de Coutances, archbishop of Rouen, whom Richard had sent back to England from Sicily after hearing of the many complaints against Longchamp.

For a very brief period it appeared that Longchamp and John might come to a peaceful coexistence after John secured word that the chancellor would support him as heir should Richard not return from the crusade. But Longchamp made a fatal error, taking action against Richard’s half-brother Geoffrey, the archbishop of York, when he landed at Dover.

Dover Castle

Longchamp denied ordering the rough treatment against the archbishop, but his supporters physically dragged Geoffrey from the sanctuary of a church (recalling Beckett’s murder 20 years earlier). John and the justiciars called Longchamp to appear to explain his action, but he fled and barricaded himself in the Tower of London for three days before surrendering. The bishops excommunicated him and the justiciars removed him from office and ordered him to relinquish custody of his castles.

Longchamp attempted to flee and, according to one of his enemies, Bishop Hugh of Nonant, he was caught trying to board a boat in Dover dressed as a woman. De Hoveden writes that “He chose to hasten on foot from the heights of the castle down to the sea-shore, clothed in in a woman’s green gown of enormous length instead of the priest’s gown of azure colour… a hood on his head instead of mitre… [he] became so effeminate in mind… Having seated himself on the shore upon a rock, a fisherman, who immediately took him for a common woman, came up to him; and having come nearly naked up from the sea, perhaps wishing to be made warm, he ran up to the wretch, and embracing his neck … began pulling him about, upon which he discovered that he was a man.”

Incarcerated for several days, Longchamp was released and sailed to Flanders at the end of October 1191. Armed with a message from the Pope, he landed at Dover the following year and attempted to be reinstated to his former position, but was ordered by Queen Eleanor and the justiciars to leave the country.

When word of Richard’s imprisonment became public knowledge in 1193, Longchamp ended up at the king’s side in Germany, negotiating for terms with the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI. He delivered information to the justiciars in England about the ransom agreed to by the king, bringing Richard’s instructions about collection and delivery of the money. Richard sent him to negotiate with King Philip and later with John. Longchamp was with the king when he released from captivity in Mainz in February 1194, and returned to England with him.

Longchamp continued to serve Richard on numerous diplomatic missions to Germany and France. His last task for the king was to go to Rome and ask the Pope to lift an interdict the Archbishop of Rouen had placed on Richard. Longchamp fell ill on the journey and died in January 1197.

Images

Richard being anointed during his coronation. by Unknown. - A 13th-century chronicle. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15543148

Gate at Lincoln Castle. by Rodhullandemu - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5143923

Dover Castle. by Misterzee - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4999617

Sources

Appleby, J.T. (1965). England Without Richard. Ithaca : Cornell University Press.

Lloyd, A. (1973). King John. Newton Abbot Eng.: David & Charles.

Marson, Charles L. (1901). Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln: a short story of one of the makers of Medieval England. London : Edward Arnold.

Norgate, K. (1902). John Lackland. London : Macmillan.

Turner, R.V. (2009). King John: England’s Evil King? Stroud, Gloucestershire : The History Press.

Turner, R.V. “Longchamp, William de (d. 1197)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2007 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16980, accessed 24 April 2016]

This is an Editor's Choice from the #EHFA archives, originally published June 4, 2016.

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Charlene Newcomb is the author of the Battle Scars series, 12th century historical fiction filled with war, political intrigue, and a knightly romance of forbidden love set during the reign of Richard the Lionheart. She is currently working on a new medieval tale set during King John’s reign; and in summer 2020 will publish Echoes of the Storm, a sci fi/space opera filled with rebels and traitors and battles and romance in a galaxy far, far away (no, not Star Wars). Sign up for Char’s Newsletter for exclusives, including a free short story, and other special offers. Find her books on Amazon & connect with Char on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Wealth, Land, and Titles – Little Guarantee for a Happily Ever After

by Charlene Newcomb

Ranulf de Blundeville (or Blondeville), sixth earl of Chester, was born in 1170 during the reign of Henry II. Ranulf was the oldest son of Hugh, earl of Chester, and Bertrada de Montfort, a cousin of the king. When Ranulf’s father died in 1181, the young heir became a royal ward of Henry II. With his mother and four sisters, he was sent to the king’s court in Normandy. Little is known of Ranulf’s early life, but he became one of England’s most powerful and wealthy magnates who served four kings: Henry II, his sons Richard I and John, and John’s son, Henry III. The Chester family’s extensive holdings stretched from England and across the channel. Ranulf later became Earl of Lincoln and of Leicester. He was hereditary Viscount of the Bessin in central and western Normandy, encompassing the Viscounties of Bayeux and of Avranches; he was also Viscount of St Sauveur-le-Vicomte, Viscount of the Val de Vire and Baron of St Sever. At the time of his death, he had 138 manors. He had it all, or so one would think.

Ranulf was four years younger than King Henry’s son John. They may have been companions at court, but Ranulf avoided entanglement in the bitter battles between the king and his sons in the 1180s likely due to his age. Interestingly, his own father Hugh had sided with the young Angevins in the rebellion a decade earlier. Hugh had been imprisoned and eventually was restored his lands when he gave his allegiance to Henry. But Ranulf is not mentioned in the contemporary chronicles during his teenage years, until he reached his majority and was knighted by King Henry II in 1188 (some records say 1189) and assumed control of his estates.

The nineteen year old was thrust into the limelight when, in that same year, Henry arranged for his marriage to Constance, duchess of Brittany. She and her Breton lords had been fond of Geoffrey, her first husband - son of Henry II — but they disliked the Plantagenets and their interference in Brittany and often leaned toward supporting the French king as Geoffrey had. Henry and Richard saw the union between Ranulf and Constance as a way to keep Brittany aligned with the Angevins, which was critical to maintaining the open sea lanes between England and the continent. And in negotiations in 1190 with King Tancred of Sicily, Richard had acknowledged Constance’s three-year-old son Arthur as his heir in a marriage arrangement with Tancred’s daughter.

Constance of Brittany

Through Constance, who was nine years his senior, Ranulf added Earl of Richmond and Duke of Brittany to his titles. For a young man with wealth, titles, and extensive lands on both sides of the Channel he certainly was in a position to take a leadership role not only in Brittany, but also in England. Based on the scant information of Ranulf’s life in the years 1189-1194 he did not. Unlike many nobles, he did not accompany King Richard on crusade. He wasn’t involved in running the realm like William Marshal, Hubert Walter, and others. He appears to have issued a few charters but nothing his contemporary, the chronicler Roger de Hoveden, felt worthy of national note. In The Annals, De Hoveden does record the marriage of Ranulf’s sister Matilda in 1190 to David, the brother of William, King of Scots. Ranulf finally reappears in those chronicles in 1194 when, with his brother-in-law David “and the earl of Ferrers, with a great army, [they] laid siege to Nottingham castle.” Recently released from captivity in Germany, King Richard arrived with more men to deal with the traitors there on 25 March. It is likely Ranulf fought at the king’s side when the outer bailey of the castle was taken by Richard and his men that day.

Nottingham Castle, 2010

Following the castellans’ surrender on the 28th day of March, Ranulf was present as Richard convened the four-day Council of Nottingham. To affirm his control of the realm, the king had been counseled to hold a formal crown-wearing ceremony. Ranulf may have accompanied the king as he made his way to Winchester. On the 17th day of April, the young Earl carried one of three swords from the treasury, standing with the King of Scots and the Earl of Warenne before the king. It must have been quite an honor and privilege.

King Richard turned his attention to the French incursion against his continental lands and left for Normandy in May 1194. Ranulf followed, but unlike the king, he would set foot in England again.

Ranulf should have had a joyful reunion with his wife after months apart. Surely they should be getting about the whole purpose of marriage – siring an heir or two. And Ranulf’s position as a strong supporter of King Richard implied that as Duke of Brittany he would influence Breton solidarity against King Philip of France. But Ranulf’s role as Duke was in name only. Ranulf hardly appears in Breton records and his wife Constance continued to rule, as she had since Geoffrey’s death. Was this due to Ranulf’s young age and inexperience? Apparently, this marriage was not a match made in heaven. Ranulf’s biographer Soden claims the couple loathed each other. He spent virtually no time in Brittany and supposedly was run out of the duchy by Constance’s supporters.

In ten years of marriage the couple had no children together, but by virtue of the marriage Ranulf was stepfather to Constance’s children by Geoffrey. There is no evidence that he was ever close to Eleanor (born 1184) or Arthur (born 1186) not that he was given much opportunity to be a father to them. Constance might have missed an opportunity to have her husband influence King Richard in her favor. Her arranged marriage was not the only chain* tying Brittany to the Angevins: Richard also held Constance’s daughter as a royal hostage to ensure Breton loyalty while he was on crusade. Constance saw very little of her daughter during this time and nine-year-old Eleanor became a political pawn. Richard’s ransom included terms stipulating that Eleanor marry the son of his enemy, Leopold, Duke of Austria. She was on route to Austria in 1194 when word arrived that the duke had died. Eleanor returned to Richard’s custody. Known as the ‘pearl of Brittany’, Eleanor holds a royal record: when her brother was captured by King John, she was held in captivity for 39 years until her death in 1241.

As Richard began his campaign to restore lands King Philip had conquered, Ranulf may have been directly involved in sieges, assaults, and skirmishes. He obviously had other things on his mind: an awful marriage, being thrown out of Brittany, no power to rule as duke. Ranulf’s ego must have been badly bruised. So what’s a young man to do? Kidnap and imprison your wife of course!

Constance had been commanded to meet with King Richard in Normandy. As she crossed the River Couësnon from Brittany into Normandy, Ranulf and his knights waylaid her ducal train. She was ‘escorted’ to St. James de Beuvron, one of Ranulf’s castles east of the Breton border town Pontorson.

Some of the histories claim the scheme to kidnap Constance in March 1196 was hatched between King Richard and Ranulf. Even the Bretons believed this, and we can be assured French propaganda exploited the idea.

Arthur of Brittany

What is fact is that Richard wanted Constance’s son Arthur to be raised at his court and away from French influence. Given the bitter fighting with France, this is understandable. After all, Arthur was a legitimate heir to Richard’s throne.

Was King Richard the instigator? If the Bretons had been so inclined to exchange Arthur for Constance's release, the scheme might have worked. The Bretons responded by swearing fealty to Arthur and allying themselves with France. They hid Arthur until he could be stealthily whisked to King Philip’s court in Paris. In April 1196, Richard attacked Brittany, “not even pausing for Good Friday” per chronicler William the Breton. According to De Hoveden, Richard, “collecting a large army, entered Brittany in a hostile manner, and laid it waste.” In negotiations, Richard agreed to Constance’s release in August 1196, but Ranulf would not comply. The Bretons attacked Richard’s forces in Normandy, and counterattacks in Brittany furthered devastated their forces.

Constance’s two year imprisonment did nothing to endear her to Ranulf. If he had concocted the plot on his own, surely it was the impetuous act of a young, spurned man who wanted to assert his control as her husband and as Duke of Brittany. Was that his intention? Did he want to raise his stature by securing Arthur for King Richard?

Richard recognized the critical importance of having Brittany in his camp in the war against France. He received concessions and allegiance from Brittany in a negotiated peace, but he did not get Arthur.

And Ranulf? Was he merely an agent of King Richard? There appeared to be no repercussions against the young duke. The records for 1196-1198 place him at Château Gaillard, Richard’s massive castle building project on the River Seine. Soden notes that Ranulf provided protection for men and materials being moved upstream for the project.

Château-Gaillard, 2005

Constance eventually was released by Ranulf, but the circumstances are vague. She returned to Brittany and ruled as Arthur’s regent. When King Richard died as a result of a crossbow wound at Chalus in April 1199, Constance turned to France to support her son’s claim to the English crown. King Philip turned the tables on Brittany and recognized John as king. Ranulf joined a council of nobles that August and swore fealty to John.

Constance apparently had sought a divorce from Ranulf on the grounds of consanguinity. At least once source claims that though the Pope had not ruled, she remarried in October 1199 without the king’s permission. (There are some who argue Ranulf had sought the annulment.) Ranulf also remarried in the Fall of 1200. His career and life took serious twists and turns during John’s reign as he fell in and out of favor with the king, but that is a story for another day.

Notes

*Arthur’s betrothal to King Tancred’s daughter was a moot point after Sicily was conquered by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI (Richard’s gaoler) in 1194.

Sources

De Hoveden, R. (1853). The Annals of Roger de Hoveden, comprising the history of England and of other countries of Europe from A. D. 732 to A. D. 1201. (Henry T. Riley, Trans.). London: H. G. Bohn. (Original work published 1201?)

Eales, R. "Ranulf (III) , sixth earl of Chester and first earl of Lincoln (1170–1232)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2716]

Everhard, J.A. (2000). Brittany and the Angevins: Province and Empire, 1158-1203. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gillingham, J. (2002). Richard I. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Soden, I. (2013). Ranulf de Blondeville: the First English Hero. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing.

Image Credits

Images are in the public domain unless otherwise noted.

Nottingham Castle gatehouse, which dates back to 1250, not Ranulf's time. Photo taken by the Author in 2010, CC BY-SA.

Château-Gaillard by Urban 2005 CC BY-SA 3.0.

This article was selected as an Editor's Choice and was originally published October 10, 2016.

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Charlene Newcomb is the author of the Battle Scars series, 12th century historical fiction filled with war, political intrigue, and a knightly romance of forbidden love set during the reign of Richard the Lionheart. She is currently working on a new medieval tale set during King John’s reign; and in summer 2020 will publish Echoes of the Storm, a sci fi/space opera filled with rebels and traitors and battles and romance in a galaxy far, far away (no, not Star Wars). Sign up for Char’s Newsletter for exclusives, including a free short story, and other special offers. Find her books on Amazon & connect with Char on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Richard the Lionheart's Ordeal, October - December 1192

by Charlene Newcomb

A few days before Christmas 1192, Richard the Lionheart, King of England 1189-1199, surrendered to Duke Leopold of Austria in a Vienna suburb. Perhaps best known for his role in the Third Crusade, Richard had set sail from the Holy Land in October 1192 after an unsuccessful campaign to free Jerusalem from the hands of Saladin. Richard's journey home sounds more like fiction than fact. Let me share this incredible story, looking back at events in the Fall of 1192 and other historical background leading up to Richard's capture.

Enemies – Old Rivalries, Hatred, and Politics

To the west, the quickest route to Richard’s realms was via Sicily and Marseille – the route he had sailed in 1190/1191 to the Holy Land. But word reached Richard that he would not find safe harbor in Marseille. Raymond, Count of Toulouse, an old enemy he’d engaged with in border disputes in Aquitaine, planned to seize him there.

There were ports west of Marseille, but Toulouse had conspired with the king of Aragon and Catalonia, cutting Richard’s access to Provence and northern Spain. There were also rumors that Genoese ships had been hired to watch for and intercept Richard. Skirting the north African coast to sail west and through the Straits of Gilbralter into the Atlantic would be far too dangerous. Seafaring men of the 12th century knew the hazards of winter sailing, and the best among them rarely ventured into the Mediterranean after the 1st of November.

Richard weighed his options as he approached Sicily. With the sea routes to the west cut off, his buss, a large galley called the Franche Nef, turned back and sailed into the Adriatic Sea.

Pirates, Privateers, and Shipwreck

The Lionheart abandoned his buss in Corfu and, dependent on which history you read, either: 1) had a run-in with pirates (with whom he ended up bargaining); or 2) hired two privateer galleys for 200 marks. With a small group of trusted companions and the 2 galleys, Richard sailed north from Corfu battered by one storm after another. In early December, the galleys were driven ashore by storms somewhere between Aquileia and Venice.

Overland Routes

Richard now had to consider overland routes, which presented as many hazards as the sea routes. Travel west meant traversing the Kingdom of Italy (ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI), treacherous passages through the Alps, and the lands of King Philip of France. The northeast route would take the returning crusaders through lands subject to Henry VI, and Leopold, Duke of Austria. In every direction, Richard was faced with enemies or inhospitable terrain.

King Philip was no doubt delighted by Toulouse’s actions. Philip – supposedly Richard’s ally in the Holy Land – had returned to France after Acre surrendered to the Crusaders in July 1191. He had invaded Richard’s lands in Normandy and stirred rebellion amongst Richard’s barons while Richard marched towards Jerusalem. Richard had also jilted Philip’s sister Alys to marry Berengaria of Navarre in 1191.

Henry VI had no love for Richard. His wife Constance had a strong claim to the throne of Sicily following the death of Richard’s brother-in-law William II. But Richard had supported Tancred’s accession there. Henry had also fought against another of Richard’s brothers-in-law, Henry of Saxony. And he was an ally of Duke Leopold of Austria, whom Richard had insulted after the siege of Acre. Highly offended when Richard ordered the removal of his banners, which had been raised above the city walls, Leopold returned to Austria.

Three hundred miles of enemy territory. Could Richard and his 20 companions make for Bohemia, a country whose ruler was no friend of Henry VI? From there, Richard could go to Saxony where his brother-in-law Henry the Lion ruled. Safe passage to an English port on the North Sea would be assured.

Recognizing the higher western range of Alps presented a formidable barrier in the winter, Richard and his companions traveled northeast through the territory of Meinhard II of Gorza, an ally of Henry VI and nephew of Conrad of Montferrat. Montferrat, also cousin to Leopold of Austria, had been a claimant to the throne of the Kingdom of Jerusalem whom Richard did not support. Richard had been accused of arranging his murder in the Holy Land.

Traveling Incognito

Richard had disguised himself as a merchant, but acting the part did not come naturally. His large retinue spent lavishly and attracted the attention of the locals. And Richard’s reputation and looks – 6'5" with reddish-gold hair – set him apart from most men. To keep Henry VI and Leopold off his scent, Richard agreed that the majority of his party would stay behind in the town of Friesach. Eight of his knights were captured, but Richard and two companions, William de l’Etang and a German-speaking boy he had hired, escaped. At one point, they raced almost 150 miles in 3 days. Fifty miles from the safety of the Moravian border, Richard stopped in the Vienna suburb of Erdburg. Ill with fever and exhausted by his ordeals, he was unable to go any further until he rested.

Captured

Unfortunately, the German boy raised suspicions when he went out for food on three successive days. His manner and his dress, which included a fine pair of Richard’s gloves, were reported to Henry VI’s secret police. The boy was questioned. Whether he led soldiers to Richard or told them his location under torture is not clear. And the circumstances of Richard’s seizure are also disputed. Most historians agree he was abed with fever, but gossip that he was caught basting a chicken in the kitchen of Erdburg inn also flourished. A chef wearing a large signet ring would have been highly unusual, but it certainly makes for great fiction!

The contemporary chronicles report that Richard refused to surrender to the soldiers who came for him, and insisted he would give himself up only to Duke Leopold. Leopold imprisoned Richard at Durnstein Castle. Though the Pope had declared safe passage for men who had taken the Cross, that did not deter Richard’s enemies. Philip of France, Henry VI, and Leopold of Austria – their hatred for the King of England must have been intense for them to risk excommunication. Leopold turned Richard over to Henry VI, and reports of machinations between Philip and Henry VI continued over the course of about 13 months. In a letter written shortly after Richard was in Henry VI's hands, Henry writes Philip:

The roads, however, being watched, and guards set on every side, our dearly-beloved cousin Leopold, duke of Austria, captured the king so often mentioned, in an humble house in the vicinity of Vienna. Inasmuch as he [i.e., Richard] is now in our power, and has always done his utmost for your annoyance and disturbance, what we now have above stated we have thought proper to notify to your nobleness, knowing that the same is well pleasing to your kindly affection for us, and will afford most abundant joy to your own feelings.

King Philip also conspired with Richard’s brother John, Count of Mortain and Lord of Ireland, offering Henry VI more silver to keep Richard imprisoned while John secured his hold on England. Eventually, in February 1194, Richard was released for the ransom of 150,000 marks.

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Sources
De Hoveden, R. (1853).  The annals of Roger de Hoveden, comprising the history of England and of other countries of Europe from A. D. 732 to A. D. 1201. (Henry T. Riley, Trans.). London: H. G. Bohn.

Gillingham, J. (1978). Richard the Lionheart. New York: Times Books.

McLynn, F. (2006). Lionheart and Lackland: King Richard, King John and the wars of conquest. London: Jonathan Cape.

Nicholson, H., & Stubbs, W., trans. (1997). Chronicle of the third crusade : A translation of the itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta regis ricardi. Aldershot, Hants, England ; Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate.

Painting of Richard the Lionheart by Merry-Joseph Blondel in Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Map of the Holy Roman Empire is c2014 Dennis Lukowski, commissioned by the author and used with the artist's permission.

A version of this post first appeared on Charlene Newcomb's blog on 20 December 2014. This version  is from the EHFA Archives, published December 23, 2015.
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Charlene Newcomb published Swords of the King (Book III of her Battle Scars series) in 2018. This 12th century historical adventure series is filled with war, political intrigue, and a knightly romance of forbidden love set during the reign of Richard the Lionheart. 

Visit Charlene's website: http://charlenenewcomb.com. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.

Book links: Amazon

The Truth Behind the Fiction: Two Brothers, Two Kings

by N.B. Dixon

When I began working on my Robin Hood series, I had to research the real characters in the story as well as the fictional. The two Kings most closely associated with the Robin Hood legend are King Richard I, also known as the Lionheart for his fearlessness in battle, and his brother John. Usually, Richard is portrayed as the chivalrous knight, a man of honour and decency, while John is the dastardly villain, a man greedy for wealth and power. But were things really as cut and dried as that?

It’s true that in many ways, Richard and John seemed to have been opposites. Richard was a warrior, a born soldier. He was never happier than when he was on a battlefield. During his ten year reign, he spent only four months on English soil.

John, being the youngest son, was never expected to amount to much. He seems to have favoured strategy and manipulation as his weapons of choice. When he did take to the battlefield, it was often disastrous. His brief spell in Ireland when he was in his late teens, is a study in mistakes. Far from bringing the Irish lords to accept English rule, he succeeded in alienating every one of them.

However, the two brothers do have more in common than is evident at a first glance. Firstly, neither of them was born to be King. They were the sons of Henry Plantagenet, later to become King Henry II, and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Richard was the elder of the two, but he was the third son born to Henry and Elinor. His eldest brother William died in infancy. The next brother, Henry, did survive into adulthood. However, his life was a short, tempestuous one, mainly spent in rebelling against his father. His father outlived him. Between Richard and John, there was another brother, Geoffrey, as well as some sisters. Richard was, however, destined to rule from birth. His mother always intended him to take over the Duchy of Aquitaine at her death.

The ambition that Richard and John shared, was that of triumphing against their father. Richard joined his elder brother’s rebellion against King Henry. The rebellion did not succeed, and for a time, John’s star was in the ascendant as his father’s favourite son. However, when it became evident that the King was dying, John switched his allegiance to Richard. He was quick to renege on that almost as soon as Richard became King.

Richard was crowned King of England in September 1189. Almost immediately he set out preparing to go on crusade to the holy land. It was an oath he and several kings and princes had taken, to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims and return it to Christian rule. Richard’s friend and ally, Philip of France, had also sworn to go on crusade. Richard fully expected Philip would keep his oath.

Richard was delayed in reaching his goal. First he was held up at Sicily, where he liberated his sister, the former Queen, who, on her husband’s death, had been taken prisoner by his bastard cousin, Tancred. Tancred had seized power, and Richard was held up as he attempted to bring peace to the region. This he eventually succeeded in doing, by suggesting that his brother Geoffrey’s young son Arthur could be betrothed to Tancred’s daughter, thus uniting their two families. Richard’s brother Geoffrey had died before his son was even born, and it is doubtful whether Richard ever intended to honour this agreement. Arthur was, at that time, his only heir Besides John.

In Cyprus, Richard wed his queen, Berengaria. He was a reluctant bridegroom, and spent as little time with his wife as possible.

By the time they reached Aker, the crusade was already well underway. Attempts had been made to breach the city, but they had been unsuccessful. Philip of France was ill. The climate was not agreeing with him. When Richard arrived and succeeded in doing what he had been trying and failing to do, Philip had had enough. He chose to return to France. Richard accused him of going back on his oath, and their friendship was broken.

It’s at this time that Richard did something that even the Robin Hood legends have been unable to gloss over. After the fall of acre in 1191, many of its citizens became prisoners of war. Richard agreed to return them to the enemy side in exchange for a large sum of gold. When Saladin refused to pay, Richard had nearly 3000 men, women and children beheaded. Saladin retaliated in kind. Despite this, there does seem to have been some respect between the two men. When Saladin heard that Richard was ill, he sent him a present of fruit.

Richard was never able to reclaim Jerusalem. Finally in 1192, a peace treaty was agreed. Jerusalem remained in Muslim hands, but Christians would be permitted to visit and worship at the holy sepulchre. Richard was ready to return home, but he’d made many enemies during his time in the holy land, and not all of them were those he’d come to fight.

In December 1192, Richard was captured in Vienna by Leopold of Austria and later handed over to Henry of Germany. There is a charming legend that his minstrel, Blondel, travelled from castle to castle, singing a song that both he and Richard knew well. When Richard heard him and answered, that was how Blondel was able to discover his location. In reality, Richard’s location was never a secret. The ransom demanded was a hundred thousand marks.

So what was John doing all this time? When Richard left for the Crusades, he left his mother Queen Elinor as regent. John, however, lost no time in capitalising on his brother’s absence. He said that he would be an English king for the people. Richard is rumoured not to have spoken a word of English. John had stayed in England all this time, not deserting his people the moment the Crown was on his head. There were some who rallied to his support. His greatest enemy, the Chancellor Longchamp, was eventually forced to flee the country.

John entered into negotiations with Philip of France, who was still smarting from his humiliation at Richard’s hands. It is rumoured that they wrote a letter to Henry of Germany, stating that they would pay twice the amount of money specified for Richard’s release, if he died in his prison cell and never came home at all. But John had reckoned without his mother. Somehow, despite the fact that England was already suffering owing to the amount of money Richard had demanded to fund his crusade, part of the ransom was raised. Promises were given that the rest would be paid, and Richard was released. He returned to England in 1194, but it was to find a divided country. Some declared for John.

Nottingham Castle refused to surrender to Richard, and a bloody battle ensued. The castle Gatehouse was burned down, and Richard hanged several rebels. Those left alive surrendered, and John’s hopes of seizing his brother’s throne came to nothing. He was loyal throughout the rest of Richard’s reign, but he didn’t have long to wait. Richard lived only five years after his release. Much of that time he spent in France, and he was killed in action.

John became king in 1199. However, he did face a threat to his own rule in the form of his nephew, Arthur of Brittany. There were many who felt that Arthur’s claim was just a strong as John’s. Arthur laid siege to the Castle of Mirabeau in France, where Queen Elinor was staying. John was forced to go to her rescue, and Arthur was captured. In 1203, he disappeared. Later a body was found washed up on the banks of the River Seine, but it was never positively identified as that of Arthur of Britany. It was widely believed that John had had the boy murdered. Philip of France had turned against John by this time, and he lost no time in vilifying him.

Like Richard, John made many enemies in his reign. Many of John’s barons turned against him, which eventually led to the signing of Magna Carta, a charter giving power to the barons, and restricting the King’s ability to pass laws without consulting them.

John ruled from 1199 to 1216. He was a lecher, and also cruel and vindictive. However, he did often give money to beggars if he came across them in the street, not something the Robin Hood legend would report.

Richard’s reign was short and eventful. He was generous to his friends, but murdered three thousand innocent people. To think of Richard as the good King and John as the evil one is perhaps to make things two black and white, but as the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire.

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N.B. Dixon is an author of historical fiction. Her love for the Robin Hood legend began in a neglected corner of the school library and has continued ever since. She is a self-confessed bookworm and also a musician.

She began work on the Outlaws Legacy Series in 2013, and was accepted by Beaten Track Publishing in 2016. Outlaws Legacy is a historical series based around the Robin Hood legend. The author describes it as Exciting Historical Adventure with GLBT romance. Knight of Sherwood is available now.

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War Crime or a Strategic Military Decision? The massacre at Acre, August 20, 1191

by Charlene Newcomb


Surely one of the saddest, most horrible, and notorious events of the Third Crusade occurred on August 20, 1191. When Acre surrendered to Christian forces in July 1191 after a two-year siege, negotiators from within the city agreed to terms that included the return of Christian hostages and a fragment of the True Cross - captured by Saladin at the Battle of Hattin in 1187 - and payment to secure the release of Muslim hostages. Saladin was not involved in the negotiations, and contemporary accounts provide no evidence that the Muslin leader actually agreed to the conditions set on his behalf. There is no doubt Saladin knew the terms and used delay tactics whether to better position his troops or to stall the Christians' march to Jerusalem. In the words of chronicler Geoffrey de Vinsauf, Saladin “sent constant presents and messengers to King Richard to gain delay by artful and deceptive words.” The deadline was extended in hopes Saladin would come through.

What is clear: the terms of the surrender were not met. Twenty-seven hundred hostages were executed under orders issued by Richard the Lionheart.

Richard’s decision has been a cause for debate for centuries. In today’s world, this would be a war crime of huge magnitude. In 12th century warfare, the execution of hostages was not uncommon, though in many situations, hostages were kept under house arrest – sometimes for years –  or sold as slaves.

Richard’s dilemma: where do you house 2,700 hostages? How do you keep them fed when you must feed your own army? How many guards would it take to ensure the captives would not escape? With the departure of King Philip of France, Duke Leopold of Austria, and many of their supporters that summer, Richard needed nearly every able-bodied soldier on the coming pilgrimage to secure Jerusalem.

Why didn’t Richard sell his hostages? That would take time. It was already mid-August. The army needed to begin the march to Jerusalem or else run the risk of being caught by winter storms.

Based on morals and the conduct of war in the 12th century, are these excuses or valid reasons to execute close to 3,000 prisoners?

I was surprised that contemporary observers had very little to say about the executions. It is incredible to read the accounts of wholesale slaughter generally described in such nonchalant terms.

Roger de Hoveden writes:

On the seventeenth day of the month of August, being the third day of the week and the thirteenth day before the calends of September, the king of England caused all the pagans who belonged to him from the capture of Acre to be led out before the army of Saladin, and their heads to be struck off in the presence of all . . .

De Hoveden does provide more detail than most chroniclers and further along that passage he describes what the Christians did to the bodies. It is horrific, and I won't repeat it here. He then continues:

On the twenty-first day of the month of August, after the slaughter of the pagans, the king of England delivered into the charge of Bertram de Verdun the city of Acre. . . On the twenty-second day . . . the king of England crossed the river of Acre with his army, and pitching his tents between that river and the sea, on the sea-shore between Acre and Cayphas, remained there four days.


The chronicler Geoffrey de Vinsauf writes:

. . . 2700 of the Turkish hostages [were] led forth from the city and hanged ; [King Richard's] soldiers marched forward with delight to fulfill his commands, and to retaliate, with the assent of the Divine Grace, by taking revenge upon those who had destroyed so many of the Christians with missiles and arbalests.

Ambroise writes:

Two thousand seven hundred, all

In chains, were led outside the wall,
Where they were slaughtered every one;
And thus on them was vengeance done.
For blows and bolts of arbalest.

Even Muslim contemporary writers have not provided us more than a few sentences about the event. Ibn al-Athir writes that Saladin and his emirs did not trust the Franks (the term used to denote the European Christians). Al-Athir felt that the crusaders intended 'treachery' and would not free the hostages even if Saladin met the demands. Al-Athir then notes:

On Tuesday 27 Rajab [20 August 1191] the Franks mounted up and came outside the city with horse and foot. The Muslims rode out to meet them, charged them and drove them from their position. Most of the Muslims they had been holding were found slain. They had put them to the sword and massacred them but preserved the emirs and captains and those with money. All the others, the general multitude, the rank and file and those with no money they slew.

The chronicler Baha' Al-Din writes:

Then they brought the Muslim prisoners whose martyrdom God had ordained, more than three thousand men in chains. They fell on them as one man and slaughtered them in cold blood, with sword and lance . . .

He is one of few contemporaries who comments on Richard's motives:

Many reasons were given to explain the slaughter. One was that they had killed as reprisal for their own prisoners killed before then by the Muslims. Another was that the King of England had decided to march on Ascalon and take it, and he did not want to leave behind him in the city a large number (of enemy soldiers). God knows best.

Richard justified his actions in a letter to the abbot of Clairvaux. This was war, and Saladin had not met his end of the agreement. Many of Richard's contemporaries and numerous scholars over the years have condemned the Lionheart for his decision. It was a brutal and unchivalrous act. Would Richard's reputation have suffered less if the besieged had chosen to fight to the bitter end? Those sieges did not end well for the losers: pillaging, burning, and killing. But the garrison at Acre had surrendered. Richard sought advice from his council, and seeing no alternatives if he intended to be at Jerusalem's gate before winter set in, he issued the orders.

Sources

Ambroise. The history of the holy war : Ambroise’s estoire de la guerre sainte. (Trans. by Ailes, M., & Barber, M.) Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003.

De Hoveden, R. (1853). The annals of Roger de Hoveden, comprising the history of England and of other countries of Europe from A. D. 732 to A. D. 1201. (Henry T. Riley, Trans.). London: H. G. Bohn. (Original work published 1201?)

"Geoffrey de Vinsauf's itinerary of Richard I and Others, to the Holy Land" in Chronicles of the Crusades: contemporary narratives, compiled and edited by Henry G. Bohm. London: Kegan Paul, 2004.

Gillingham, J. (1978). Richard the Lionheart. New York: Times Books.

Ibn al-Athīr, ʻIzz al-Din. (2007). The chronicle of ibn al-athīr for the crusading period from al-kāmil fi’l-ta’rīkh. (Trans by Richards, D. S.) Aldershot ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

Ibn Shaddād, Bahāʼ al-Dīn. (2001) . The rare and excellent history of Saladin, or, al-Nawādir al-Sultaniyya wa’l-Mahasin al-Yusufiyya. (Trans by Richards, D. S.) Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate.

Siege of Acre By Blofeld of SPECTRE at en.wikipedia (Transfered from en.wikipedia) [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASiege_of_Acre.jpg

Richard the Lionheart Merry-Joseph Blondel [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARichard_coeur_de_lion.jpg

"SaracensBeheaded" by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville - François Guizot (1787-1874), The History of France from the Earliest Times to the Year 1789, London : S. Low, Marston, Searle &

Rivington, 1883, p. 447. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SaracensBeheaded.jpg#/media/File:SaracensBeheaded.jpg

This post was originally posted on English Historical Fiction Authors on Wednesday, August 19, 2015.

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Charlene Newcomb is the author of Men of the Cross and For King and Country, two historical adventures set during the reign of King Richard I, the Lionheart. For King and Country is an HNS Editors Choice, long listed for the 2017 HNS Indie Award. Men of the Cross was selected as an indieBRAG Medallion honoree in 2014..

Charlene is a member of the Historical Novel Society and a contributor and blog editor for English Historical Fiction Authors. She lives, works, and writes in Kansas. She is an academic librarian by trade, a former U.S. Navy veteran, and has three grown children.


Connect with Char: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Amazon

Richard the Lionheart and the Siege of Nottingham, 1194

by Charlene Newcomb

King Richard I

The siege of Nottingham in 1194 lasted only three days, but its significance should not be downplayed. The siege signaled the return of Richard I to England, secured his realm from his brother John, and set in play the mechanisms to allow Richard to carry out campaigns to drive the French from his continental lands.

Background
On the fourth day of February 1194 King Richard I, the Lionheart, began what would be his final journey to England. He had last touched English soil in December 1189, a few months after his coronation. Having taken the Cross in 1187, Richard had been committed to the crusade to re-capture Jerusalem and left for the Holy Land in 1190. The Third Crusade was not successful in that respect, and aware of troubles back home – the French invading his lands on the continent and his brother John stirring trouble - Richard signed a truce with Saladin and started back to England in October 1192. Other returning soldiers arrived in England by that December, but there was no sign of the king. By late January, word arrived: Richard had been captured by Duke Leopold of Austria shortly before Christmas, and was being held by Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor.

John (of future Magna Carta fame) had not been idle whilst Richard was on crusade. Richard had left his younger brother in good stead, with lands and income that made him one of the wealthier barons in the kingdom, but John consolidated his powers further in 1191-92. He and his supporters stood against the king’s chancellor and troops sent against them, and John took control of the strategic castles at Tickhill and Nottingham. When he learned of Richard’s capture, John plotted with Philippe Capet, King of France, to usurp the throne. John’s mercenaries attempted an invasion of the southeast Kentish coast in March 1193; his men ravaged the countryside near Windsor. Sieges against his castles that spring finally ended in a truce to last from May to November. John appealed to his mother, Queen Eleanor, and to the Council that Richard was dead. He tried to convince barons in Normandy to swear fealty to him as king.

John and Philippe went so far as to offer Henry VI a deal if he would keep Richard imprisoned. With the majority of Richard’s ransom raised and partially delivered by late 1193, Henry was advised to accept the ransom agreed upon.

Richard returns to England
Richard was finally released on the 4th day of February. With his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine at his side, he finally set sail and arrived in Sandwich on March 13.

Upon hearing news of Richard’s impending release, John, who had fled to France in January, had ordered his vassals to defend his castles against the king’s men. Acting on Richard’s behalf whilst he had been absent, Queen Eleanor and the king’s justiciars ordered sieges against John’s men in early 1194. Several of the castellans immediately laid down arms, and others, upon verification that King Richard was on English soil, capitulated. The castellan of St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall supposedly died of fright when he heard the king had landed. Only Nottingham Castle held out.

The siege of Nottingham
King Richard arrived in Nottingham on March 25 with great fanfare. The chronicler Roger De Hoveden writes “that those who were in the castle…were astonished, and were confounded and alarmed, and trembling came upon them; but still they could not believe that the king had come, and supposed that the whole of this was done by the chiefs of the army for the purpose of deceiving them.”

Foulds tells us that the size of Richard’s retinue is difficult to estimate, but his forces likely included William Marshal’s men, and those from the earls of Chester, Ferrers, and Huntingdon, from the bishop of Durham, and the archbishops of York and Canterbury, to name a few.

Gatehouse, Nottingham Castle

Visitors to Nottingham today will see a gatehouse, but that stone structure was built in the 1250s and little remains of the 12th century castle. Richard’s troops would have encountered a wooden gatehouse and a timber palisade surrounding the outer bailey. 

Nottingham Castle, c.1189
copyright The Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire

That bailey on the eastern side of the castle stretched to the stone curtain wall of a middle bailey on higher ground. Drawings in Drage’s work depict a barbican and massive stone wall surrounded the middle bailey. The upper bailey rose even higher on the motte, some 40 meters (131 feet) above the town. The scale of the castle can be seen in a model representing the castle in the 15th century, but the great hall of the middle bailey and many of the buildings in the upper bailey – including the keep, the king and queen’s apartments, and a long hall – were built during the reign of Henry II.

Nottingham Castle, circa 1500

Impregnable? Perhaps, but certainly a bloody fight and long drawn out siege might be needed to bring the castle garrison to its knees. And that meant bodies, time, and money, none of which King Richard wanted to expend.

Richard commandeered lodging in full view of the castle, close enough that a man in his retinue was struck and killed by archers from the castle. The Histoire notes Richard was dressed in light mail with an iron hat rather than heavy armor “because that is what he was used to” after the fighting in the Holy Land. Richard was reportedly angry that the castle garrison had sent no one to confer and he ordered an immediate assault. Using large shields to protect themselves from crossbowmen on the battlements, the king and his men stormed the timber gate and broke into the outer bailey. The fighting was brutal and many were killed, wounded or captured. By nightfall, the besieged withdrew through the barbican and behind the more formidable walls of the middle bailey. The barbican was fired during the night by the garrison, prompting Richard to say, “This is much to our advantage unless I am mistaken.”

On day two of the siege, Richard ordered gallows built within sight of the castle and hung two soldiers captured during the previous day’s fighting. Richard did not order another assault, wanting to have his siege engines set in place. He had Greek fire at his disposal and the materials to make more, but there is no evidence it was used against the castle.

A later version of a siege machine,
i.e., trebuchet 

Foulds speculates that bombardment of the castle and the arrival of more troops (from the siege at Tickhill) finally prompted Nottingham Castle’s castellans to send a delegation to meet with King Richard on the third day of the siege, March 27. (The Historie places an initial meeting with men from the garrison on day 1 of the siege.) Once the delegation confirmed that, indeed, King Richard was at their doorstep, a group of the garrison leaders surrendered, recognizing their punishment would be less severe. Prompted by negotiations with Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, the remaining defenders surrendered to the king on the 28th of March.

King Richard spent March 30 – April 2 in the Council of Nottingham. He sold shrievalties and levied taxes to raise monies to pay off what was owed for his ransom and for the coming fight against the French, heard complaints of John’s actions, and listened to accusations of excesses by his half-brother Geoffrey, Archbishop of York. He also set April 20 in Winchester as the date he would deal with the men who had supported John. Many were put in prison and would be ransomed; others were released upon promise to pay a fine of 100 marks.

King Richard left Nottinghamshire on April 5 never to return again.

Sources

De Hoveden, R. (1853). The annals of Roger de Hoveden, comprising the history of England and of other countries of Europe from A. D. 732 to A. D. 1201. (Henry T. Riley, Trans.). London: H. G. Bohn. (Original work published 1201?)

Drage, C. (1989). Nottingham Castle: a Place Full Royal. Nottingham: The Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire.

Foulds, T. (1991). “The Siege of Nottingham Castle in 1194” in Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire, volume 95.

Gillingham, J. (1978). Richard the Lionheart. New York: Times Books.

Holden, A.J., ed., (2002). History of William Marshal [L’Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal. French and English]. London: published by the Anglo-Norman Text Society: Birkbeck College.

Images
Painting of Richard the Lionheart by Merry-Joseph Blondel in Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Line drawing of Nottingham Castle, circa 1189. In Nottingham Castle: a Place Full Royal, copyright the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire. Used with permission.

Model of Nottingham Castle. Photo taken at Nottingham Castle, Museum & Art Gallery by Cathy Young. Used with permission.

All other photos taken by the author. CC BY-SA

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Charlene Newcomb is the author of Books I & II of Battle Scars. These historical adventures are set during the reign of Richard the Lionheart. Men of the Cross is a tale of war’s impact on a young knight and of forbidden love. In For King and Country, the knights return from The Third Crusade to an England threatened by civil war.

Connect with Char:
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Giveaway: For King and Country by Charlene Newcomb

To celebrate publication of For King and Country, Charlene Newcomb is having a giveaway for a Kindle or epub version of the book. For King and Country will be published on Amazon on May 2, 2016. To see more information about the book, please click HERE.

This Giveaway ends at midnight Pacific Standard Time on April 24, 2016.

To enter the drawing, comment below on this page and be sure to leave your contact details. Good luck!

Richard the Lionheart's Noble Adversary - Saladin

By Helena Schrader

Richard the Lionheart was a man of war, and he had many adversaries in his lifetime. He fought his father more than once in his early years, with his father against the rebellious lords of the Aquitaine and against the French King even more frequently. He spent the last six years of his life in a bitter struggle against King Philip II. Yet of all his adversaries, few have captured the imagination of chroniclers, novelists or artists as much as the man he fought in the Holy Land - Sultan Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, more commonly known as Saladin.

Saladin has long been viewed as the epitome of “chivalry.” His honesty and sense of honor is often compared favorably to the duplicity and dishonor of Richard's Christian foes such as the Holy Roman Emperor and Philip of France. Indeed, in the 19th century it became common to suggest that, while the crusaders (including Richard!) were treacherous barbarians, Saladin stood out as a paragon of virtue and honor, a shining light of decency and chivalry in an otherwise brutal age. This is the view of Saladin that dictated the highly sympathetic portrayal in Ridley Scott's film “The Kingdom of Heaven.”

The Hollywood Saladin - "The Kingdom of Heaven"

This positive view of Saladin in Western literature is largely attributable to a biography of Saladin published by Stanley Lane-Poole in 1898. This was arguably the first scholarly biography of the 12th century Kurdish leader in the English language, and Lane-Poole made a major contribution to Western scholarship by drawing upon Arab sources for his work. Unfortunately, he did so uncritically, adopting without scruple the purely adulatory descriptions of Saladin penned by the Sultan’s court biographers. Indeed, Lane-Poole is so completely under the spell of his Arab sources that he claims:

“...civilization, magnanimity, toleration, real chivalry, and gentle culture were all on the side of the Saracens.” 

With this statement, Lane-Poole dismisses Richard the Lionheart, the troubadour and paragon of Western chivalry, without so much as a mention.

Yet, as Andrew Ehrenkreutz meticulously documents in his biography of Saladin, far from being the embodiment of "magnanimity, real chivalry and gentle culture," Saladin used deceit, hypocrisy, propaganda, bribery, extortion, murder and, ultimately aggressive war to establish an empire in the Near East. Notably, Saladin spent much more time and many more resources fighting (and killing) fellow Muslims than he did fighting Christians, and that Saladin was responsible for the loss of many more Sunni Muslim lives than Christian ones.

Furthermore, the many instances in which Saladin treated former foes with leniency, often awarding them new lands and titles within his growing empire, demonstrates not so much his “gentleness” and “chivalry” as his cynical opportunism. If fighting men, particularly the commanders of contingents of troops that offered effective armed opposition to Saladin, could be bought with the promises of riches and titles, then why fight? After all, the alternative (killing or enslaving his opponents on capture) would only have increased the tenacity and fervor of his opponents, and Saladin had a hard enough time subduing them as it was. His mild treatment of defectors is not so much a mark of “gentleness” and “chivalry” as of opportunism that was particularly effective against the fragmented and jealous feudal lords in northern Syria.

One of the few contemporary depictions of Saladin from an Arab Manuscript

Against these documented cases of apparent “gentleness” and “chivalry” are a number of equally well documented incidents of ruthlessness, brutality, duplicity and vindictiveness that are incompatible with the image of Saladin as the paragon of chivalry. To name only a few, Saladin played a key role in eliminating the Egyptian vizier Shawar. Then, having won the confidence and trust of the Fatimid Caliph, Saladin worked systematically to undermine his regime and carried out a bloody coup d’etat against the Fatimid elite as soon as the Caliph conveniently died. While it might be argued that this was justified by repeated Fatimid conspiracies against Saladin or by Sunni orthodoxy’s hostility to Shiism, the same cannot be said of the slaughter of the unarmed women and children of the Sudanese guard that the “gentle and chivalrous” Saladin ordered burned alive in their homes. And if that weren’t enough, Saladin ended the rebellion of their men by agreeing to spare their lives if they left Cairo — only to break his word and slaughter them after they had laid down their arms.

So, yes, Saladin did break his word when it suited his purposes -- as he did to Richard the Lionheart with regard to the surrender of Acre.

Saladin next distinguished himself by waging war against the heir of his feudal overlord Nur al-Din, the eleven-year-old al-Salih -- but only after first swearing humble and abject submission to al-Salih. When the young Sultan’s legal guardians refused to acknowledge Saladin’s bogus claims to be the “true” guardian of the young Sultan, Saladin gave up his pretense of serving the interests of al-Salih, and demanded patents for his position as Sultan of Damascus from the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad. He then spent the better part of the next ten years fighting bitter campaigns against the family of Nur al-Din and their supporters based in Aleppo and Mosul and all across northern Syria.

Which is not to say that Saladin did not fight the Christians too. In fact, Saladin undertook a number of campaigns against the Christians including the invasion of 1177 that ended in Saladin’s complete humiliation at Montgisard, the invasion of 1179 that ended in the routing of the Templars and the capture of nearly 300 Christian knights and nobles on the Litani. The siege of Beirut in the same year, the campaign that ended in the draw at Le Forbelet in 1182, the equally indecisive campaign of 1183, and the sieges of Kerak in 1183 and 1184. This may sound like an impressive track record, but given Saladin’s overwhelming strategic advantages, and the fact that the Kingdom of Jerusalem was led by a youth slowing dying of leprosy, his lack of success suggests either strategic and tactical incompetence or anemic motivation.

Not that Saladin didn’t demonstrate his hatred of the Franks. When in August of 1178, less than a year after Saladin’s scalding defeat at Montgisard, Christian prisoners fell into Saladin’s hands he had them summarily executed, one by one, by members of his retinue. Aside from it being against Sharia law to kill men who had surrendered, it was hardly a demonstration of “chivalry.” Nor was it an isolated incident. When the Christians involved in the Red Sea raids were finally run-to-earth and captured, Saladin again ordered their execution. According to Bernard Hamilton in his excellent work The Leper King and His Heirs, the Christian prisoners were “taken to Mecca where, during the great annual pilgrimage, they were…slaughtered ‘like animals for sacrifice.’” Clearly these men were mercenaries and they had killed Muslim pilgrims and captured Arab shipping so perhaps they were not worthy of mercy, but the same cannot be said of the “unlucky common Christian soldier whom the sultan had slain when he noticed a minor facial scratch his son al-Afdal [by then in his late teens] sustained in the battle of Arsuf.” (Ehrenkreutz, p. 228.)

Last but not least, no discussion of Saladin would be complete without reference to the brutal execution of the Templars and Hospitallers taken captive at the Battle of Hattin. On July 6, these knights and sergeants, bound and helpless, were beheaded in public. Bartlett describes the scene in Downfall of the Crusader Kingdom as follows: “Saladin gave the task…to a group of religious Sufis, holy men largely untrained in the arts of war. Some of them took six or seven attempts to sever the heads of their victims…However justified the death of these men might have been in military terms, the cruelty and indignity of their death did Saladin no credit whatsoever. It was an act of violence, almost barbarism, which Saladin’s apologists have all too frequently glossed over.” (Bartlett, p. 204-205.)

It is important to remember that this massacre preceded — and may indeed have helped instigate — the slaughter of the Muslim hostages at Acre by Richard the Lionheart four years later. If Richard the Lionheart's reputation was sullied by the massacre at Acre, so was Saladin's by the massacre after Hattin. The 12th century was a brutal age, and empires were not built with kindness and "gentle culture" -- not in France, Aquitaine, Egypt or Syria.

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Helena Schrader is the currently writing a three part biography of Balian d’Ibelin, who served as Richard the Lionheart’s envoy to Saladin in 1192. Saladin plays a role in all three books in the series, while Balian’s relationship with Richard and their common struggle to recapture Jerusalem 1191-1192 is the subject of the third book in her Balian series, Envoy of Jerusalem. The first two books in the series, Knight of Jerusalem and Defender of Jerusalem, were released in 2014 and 2015 respectively.

You can find out more about them and Crusader Jerusalem at defenderofjerusalem.com and more about all of Helena’s books at helenapschrader.com.