Anarchy Read online

  Stewart Binns

  ANARCHY

  Contents

  Maps

  Introduction

  Prologue

  1 Birthright

  2 Atrocity in the Marches

  3 Waking the Dead

  4 Arsenale

  5 Dalmatian Pirates

  6 Burning of Zadar

  7 La Serenissima

  8 Shipwreck

  9 Horned Vipers

  10 Battle of Sarmada

  11 Desolation

  12 Initiation

  13 Succubae and Sodomites

  14 Siege of Tyre

  15 Aquitaine

  16 Fugitive

  17 Birthplace

  18 The White Tower

  19 Anjou

  20 Flight to Freedom

  21 Heaven on Earth

  22 Hell on Earth

  23 Loudon Mere

  24 Death of a King

  25 Betrayal

  26 Battle of the Standard

  27 The Good Abbot, Gilbert

  28 Landfall at Last

  29 Battle of Lincoln

  30 Treachery

  31 Winchester in Flames

  32 Into the Perilous Night

  Epilogue

  Codicil

  Postscript

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  Genealogies

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  ANARCHY

  Stewart Binns began his professional life as an academic. He then pursued several adventures, including that of a schoolteacher, specializing in history, before becoming an award-winning documentary-maker and latterly an author. His television credits include the ‘In-Colour’ genre of historical documentaries, notably the BAFTA and Grierson winner Britain at War in Colour and the Peabody winner The Second World War in Colour.

  He also launched Trans World Sport in 1987, Futbol Mundial in 1993, the International Olympic Commitee Camera of Record in 1994 and the Olympic Television Archive Bureau in 1996.

  Currently Chief Executive and co-founder, with his wife Lucy, of the independent production and distribution company Big Ape Media International, Stewart has in recent years continued to specialize in historical documentaries including a series on the Korean War, the history of Indo-China and a major study of modern Japan.

  His first novel, Conquest, was published in 2011, followed by Crusade in 2012.

  Stewart’s passion is English history, especially its origins and folklore. His home is in Somerset, where he lives with his wife Lucy and twin boys, Charlie and Jack.

  www.stewartbinns.com

  To all those who fight for justice

  Maps

  England in the Twelfth Century

  England during the Anarchy, 1135–1153

  Europe in the Twelfth Century

  The Eastern Mediterranean and Holy Land in the Twelfth Century

  France, Normandy and Aquitaine in the Twelfth Century

  MAP I

  England in the Twelfth Century

  MAP II

  England during the Anarchy, 1135–1153

  MAP III

  Europe in the Twelfth Century

  MAP IV

  The Eastern Mediterranean and Holy Land in the Twelfth Century

  MAP V

  France, Normandy and Aquitaine in the Twelfth Century

  Introduction

  When Henry Beauclerc, King of England and Duke of Normandy, died in 1135, the powerful Norman dynasty that had conquered England in 1066 still held the English and its own Norman heartland in the iron gauntlet of its daunting rule. Henry was the fourth son of his formidable father, William the Bastard, Conqueror of the English. Henry had grabbed the English throne when his elder brother, William Rufus, was killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest in 1100. He then seized the Dukedom of Normandy from his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, who had been fighting in the First Crusade when Rufus died. Henry defeated Robert at the Battle of Tinchebrai in 1106 and imprisoned him for almost thirty years – until he died in Cardiff Castle, in 1134.

  There was little room for brotherly love in the harsh world of Norman kings.

  Henry Beauclerc ruled his domain as came to be expected of a Norman warlord: efficiently and harshly. The conquered English had been cowed into submission by their ruthless Norman masters, but bitter resentment lay not far beneath the surface.

  Henry produced a huge brood of children by almost as many women, but only two of them were legitimate. His second child, William Adelin, was groomed to be his successor: he would be William II, his mighty grandfather’s namesake. But William was drowned in the disaster of the White Ship in 1120. Carelessly, Henry was left without a male heir and, try as he might, he could not produce a replacement for William – even with a young and fertile second wife. He turned to his firstborn, his daughter, Matilda, who he had already married off to Henry V, the Holy Roman Emperor. But she was also childless.

  Then fate played an unexpected card: Henry V died suddenly in 1125, making it possible for the Empress Matilda to marry again and give Henry his grandson and heir. Geoffrey, the son of the Count of Anjou, a handsome young man who would bring Normandy an important strategic alliance as well as the fruits of his loins, was chosen. Henry was delighted, but not so Matilda: Geoffrey was only fourteen years old, Matilda was twenty-five. The marriage was not happy and the King’s anticipated heir did not appear. But Henry was patient and named Matilda as his successor in the hope that a grandson would eventually be conceived and that Matilda would act as Queen Regent until the boy was old enough to inherit.

  Two years before his death, Henry Beauclerc’s patience was rewarded when Matilda gave birth to a son. Dutifully, she called the boy Henry in her father’s honour. All seemed well, but all was not well: what appeared to be a happy conclusion to a crisis of succession was just the beginning of a tragic tale. Matilda was not only the daughter of a Norman king, she was also the daughter of Edith, a Scottish princess. Edith not only carried Celtic royal blood but, through her mother, Margaret, was a direct descendent of the vanquished kings of England. Thus, the Empress Matilda and her baby son embodied the hopes not only of a Norman dynasty, but also of every Celt and Englishman.

  When King Henry died in 1135, fate dealt another rogue card. Matilda’s cousin, Stephen of Blois, the son of Adela – William the Conqueror’s youngest daughter and the ninth child of his large brood – emulated his uncle Henry’s audacious move in 1100 and dashed across the Channel to grab the English crown.

  But fate had also played a third card: a wild one, a joker, which changed the game completely. It brought another family into the saga, an English family – not one of royal pedigree, but one that had already played a crucial role in England’s destiny and could trace its lineage back to a man whose heroic deeds were almost lost in legend: the mighty Hereward of Bourne.

  Chaos followed Stephen of Blois’ impudent move in 1135, not just a short interlude of dynastic warfare, but a long and bitter feud that lasted almost twenty years and brought England and Normandy to their knees. So terrible were the times that the chroniclers called them ‘The Anarchy’.

  One such chronicler was Gilbert Foliot, one of the great minds of twelfth-century Europe. Born into an ecclesiastical family in Normandy in 1110, he entered the great Abbey of Cluny at the age of twenty. A typically ambitious and determined member of the Norman elite which ruled England after the Conquest of 1066, he became Abbot of Gloucester in 1139, Bishop of Hereford in 1148 and Bishop of London in 1163. He was thus w
itness to one of the most tumultuous periods in English history: the Anarchy of Stephen and Matilda, the troubled reign of the mighty Henry Plantagenet and the trauma of the murder of Thomas Becket. Fluent in French, English and Latin, he was the most prolific letter-writer of his age; almost 300 of his letters have survived into modern times.

  As a young man at Cluny, Gilbert befriended Thibaud de Vermandois. It was an amity that would last a lifetime. Vermandois became Abbot of Cluny in 1180 and when Pope Lucius III named him Cardinal Bishop of Ostia e Velletri – the ancient port of Rome and a sub-diocese of the Bishopric of Rome – in 1184, he became one of the most powerful men in the Church and signatory of all Papal Bulls.

  In 1186, Foliot, who was now almost blind, increasingly frail with old age and fearing his imminent death, felt compelled to begin a long series of letters to Vermandois.

  This is the story of the turbulent events he chronicled.

  Prologue

  Fulham Palace, 1 September 1186

  My Dearest Thibaud,

  Forgive me, perhaps I should not be so familiar now that you wear the blue cape of a cardinal of Rome. I imagine it tempts one’s vanity to be addressed as ‘Eminence’. I am accorded ‘Lord Bishop’, which is quite enough for the son of a steward, although I have been greeted as ‘Beatitude’ a few times and even ‘Holiness’ on one famous occasion in front of the entire Chapter of St Paul’s, which found it difficult to contain itself for several minutes.

  I am so pleased for you. Ostia is a very agreeable place to enjoy your elevation to the most venerable College of them all. Perhaps you will invite your humble friend to visit you one day. We have both come a long way since our days together at Cluny: you, one of the most powerful men in the Church, I, someone of at least modest influence here in England. I am so proud of you and what you have achieved; for my part, and I hope I do not appear to be too conceited, I am content with my own modest success here in London.

  I am sure you have many crosses to bear, each probably far greater than mine. But if I may, I would like to add a little to your many duties. There is something I need to share with you and, if you will indulge me, I would like this letter to introduce a very important subject.

  But first, I have some news about me you may find interesting, although, sad to say, it is far from good news. Thankfully, contentment with my past and my modest contribution to the Holy Church are important to my peace of mind as age takes its toll on me. My eyesight is now very poor. I can see enough to get about in bright sunshine, but darkness is just that for me: candles are a mere flicker before my eyes, they illuminate neither face nor feature, unless the flame is held very close.

  My monks write everything for me, so if my Latin is not what it was, do forgive me. To my immense regret, I am unable to read anything written in my name. Sad to say, I am becoming feeble and have to use a stick for my short perambulations around the palace gardens. Mercifully, there is always a young monk nearby to steady me if I falter, or gather me up if I fall – an embarrassing mishap that has happened more than once.

  If my duties require me to go to London, I am transported to the quay in a litter like a prince and then rowed in my rather splendid barge up the river to the city. I often imagine I am your good friend Orio Mastropiero, the Venerable Doge himself, in his robes of gold, being rowed along the Grand Canal in his galley of state. I have never been to Venice, but your descriptions of it are so vivid, I can imagine it in detail. I know my false pride is a sin, but I’m sure you will forgive an old man a small flight of fancy.

  You would be impressed by my parish church of St Paul’s. It is not as grand as some in Normandy, nor as majestic as the great cathedrals of antiquity. But it is a towering edifice built, I am told, on a site that was originally consecrated in the time of Rome and a pagan place of worship before that.

  In fact, London has a remarkable collection of churches and chapels. Many of the smaller ones are ancient Saxon in origin – charming little buildings with timber frames and thatched roofs – but, since the Conquest, they are gradually being rebuilt in stone. Bishops from the provinces, powerful earls from the Marches and the wealthy city merchants are also building in stone. This creates an arresting visual contrast: the small beige and brown thatched hovels of the lower classes, who are still almost exclusively English, are cast into gloomy shadow by the gleaming creams and greys of the palaces and churches of the governing elite, who are of course predominantly Norman.

  I feel sorry for the English. They have suffered greatly, and many still do. But they have boundless resolve and preserve their culture with a tenacity that verges on the fanatical. Most Normans now speak English fluently, and many young Norman knights find the English propensity for drinking and debauchery very seductive. This is to the chagrin of the older generation, who complain that our old Norman disciplines are being lost in a land that is still so English in its ways. The Celts in the north and west are similar: also often feckless like many of the English, they are perhaps even more fierce and independent.

  Overt resistance from the English is long gone, but an undercurrent of sullen resentment remains – a glance, a deference denied, an occasional outburst – for they are a proud lot. I admire them, as do many of my kin. The Welsh are still troublesome, even to the hardiest Marcher lords, and the Scots still raid the north with impunity. I often think it must have been like this when the Romans ruled here. It took them centuries to pacify the natives; we Normans have only been here for two generations, and we still look and sound like an alien presence.

  We govern from our towering fortresses, build our glorious cathedrals to celebrate the power granted to us by God and we have sequestered all the land with ruthless efficiency. But we are still foreigners – even the grandchildren of those who came with the Conqueror.

  In the burghs, life seems normal and, on the whole, prosperous. But among the peasants, especially in the remote areas, the English seem untouched by us. There are still bands of outlaws, often leading squalid lives, and the families of dispossessed English landowners scratch an existence in the wild places. Occasionally there is an outbreak of violence among the English loyalists. This is dealt with by the torture and execution of the rebels, which only adds more heat to the cauldron of simmering discontent.

  We Normans believe in a strict regime – often too strict, in my view – but when a miscreant’s head is impaled on a spike above the gates of London, or his corpse is left to sway in the wind from a gibbet over the Thames, the mood of brooding hostility from many of the native population is palpable. Apparently, among themselves, we are called the ‘Bastards’ after the Conqueror – an epithet he deserved of course, both literally and metaphorically. Sadly, some of my kin have earned the appellation as well. I have seen them behave with a rare brutality, and usually without sanction from the King or the law.

  Much of the story I would like to share with you centres on the continuing problem of our rule in this land and the reluctance of the English to accept its permanence. I will return to that, but let me tell you a little more about my circumstances here.

  London continues to thrive, but with that comes an ever greater burden on the clerics in my diocese for, as you know, with wealth comes poverty and, in the wake of both, sin. London is a sinful place: alehouses and brothels multiply; disease is rife and villainy proliferates. I know this is yet another reference to Ancient Rome, but I often think that London must be a mirror of Rome in its pomp and squalor. We do not have the Colosseum, but we have bear pits and cockfights, fisticuffs and wrest
ling – both of which usually result in death or maiming – brawls and murders daily, quite apart from various judicial executions and mutilations by the score. I had always assumed Rouen was a depraved city, but London makes it seem more like a monastery; though I confess, I’ve known a few of those to be a little decadent.

  Amidst London’s new buildings and on its streets and quays you see a menagerie of people from all over the world. In the port of London, one is just as likely to hear Greek or Arabic spoken as English or French. I am told there are men to be seen on the Venetian trading ships who are as black as soot.

  King Henry’s Lord High Treasurer, Richard FitzNeal, an odious little miser, who prays for my imminent demise and covets my bishopric with an unseemly passion, tells me that London is home to more than 25,000 souls. God help us all, no place on earth can hope to retain its civility and well-being with so many greedy ambitions to satisfy and ravenous mouths to feed. Sadly, the lovely Thames, once a more than adequate sewer for the city, is now overwhelmed and the stench downstream from St Paul’s is unbearable. I thank my predecessors daily for choosing an upriver location and the clean water and fresh air of Fulham for our palace. I wake every morning to tranquil birdsong and gentle mist over the meadows of Putney and Barnes. Yesterday was the Sabbath and last night we had a full moon. The river danced, lit by moonbeams; it looked like a great lake of quicksilver and I sat and watched it for hours, listening to the quiet murmurings of the night.

  My friend, we are both getting old, in fact, very old. Indeed, it would not surprise me if we were the last of our generation at Cluny. I am seventy-six now; you, I think, are seventy-three. God has been good to us. But he has also smiled on a pompous fool who I am sure you know: Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem.

  I met him last year when he arrived in London to consecrate a new church for the Knights Templars, built on the ancient site of an old Saxon settlement in Holborn. It has a beautiful circular nave that, I am told, reflects the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Templars’ mother church in Jerusalem. However, as much as Temple Church is charming, Heraclius is repellent. Self-serving, conniving and deceitful, he embodies all the ills that afflict our Church. It was his visit and the increasingly malign influence of the Templars in Church affairs that persuaded me to begin this lengthy correspondence with you. He was the final ingredient in a noxious concoction that has been under my nose for years. The stink has gone on long enough.