Stewart Binns - Anarchy

‘But it was the King’s wish – and oaths have been sworn.’

A tall dignified man, an old warrior and a man of honour, he looked uncomfortable.

‘Take the squadrons I’ve offered you. I shouldn’t even offer those, because whoever becomes Duke will not be happy.’

‘Explain yourself, man!’

‘I leave for Lisieux in the morning. All the lords of Normandy are meeting there to discuss the succession.’

‘Then we will go with you.’

‘That may not be wise.’

‘Then we will make it “wise”.’

‘The Empress Matilda is not invited. She will not find any support.’

‘And what of the oaths to the King?’

‘The King is dead.’

‘Will the twelve squadrons you’re offering be loyal to her?’

‘I don’t know. Things are moving too quickly for me. There is fighting all over the Dukedom – it’s just like when old King William died. An iron glove has no power if there’s no fist in it. I’m an old campaigner, and this is a young man’s game. I’m sorry.’

I rushed back to Maud.

‘You have been betrayed. There is to be a council in Lisieux to choose a new duke.’

‘But not a new duchess?’

‘No, the magnates are renouncing their oaths.’

‘Then we must put a stop to it, impose my authority!’

‘We have no men. Hugh de Pomeroy will give us three hundred, but he’s reluctant even to do that. There’s mayhem everywhere. Let’s go to the coast and escort your father’s body home to England. That will confirm the succession.’

She looked furious for a moment, and I realized I had not calculated the effect of my words. But she soon rallied and accepted the changed circumstances.

‘Agreed. It seems I am now required to admit that you were right after all!’

We travelled with only a small retinue: one groom, two stewards and two maids. Maud had made Greta a lady-in-waiting, so had her own maid in addition. Besides Eadmer and myself, our only armed men were Otto and Berenger. It was not the sort of entourage we had expected to accompany us on our first journey through Normandy after King Henry’s death.

The King’s funeral cortège, accompanied by several of Normandy’s leaders, had reached Caen, but there were no favourable winds in the Channel for the crossing. The body, which by then was the source of odours and discharges foul enough to turn a man’s stomach, was kept in the choir of the Cathedral of St Étienne. By the time the winds turned, several weeks had passed, Christmas had come and gone, and none of Normandy’s worthies was prepared to make the crossing with the rotting corpse.

But Matilda did not hesitate.

‘I will take my father’s body home.’

She turned to the monks of St Étienne.

‘Will you help me?’

‘We will, Your Grace.’

They were the first and only men to refer to Maud as their Duchess.

‘Thank you, we leave on tomorrow’s tide.’

It was not a journey any of us was looking forward to. The Channel north of Caen was at its widest; it would be a long crossing. However, later that evening, catastrophic news arrived, which not only dealt a hammer blow to Maud’s already damaged chances of becoming the Duchess of Normandy, but also to the likelihood of her becoming Queen of England.

It arrived in the form of a breathless monk in the service of William of Corbeil, Archbishop of Canterbury. He had a personal message for Hugh of Amiens – Archbishop of Rouen and the man in charge of the King’s funeral bier. Hugh summoned us to St Étienne to hear the monk’s message.

Stephen of Blois, Maud’s cousin – the son of Maud’s elder sister, Adela – had happened to be in Boulogne when the King died and, within days, had crossed the Channel with a small retinue of knights. He was in London only two days later and immediately agreed to grant it commune status to match many of the large trading capitals of Europe. He also offered guarantees of trade with Boulogne and other cities in Flanders, and thus won the support of all London’s burghers and merchants. He toured the strongholds of the Norman lords and made them profuse promises. He reminded them of his grandfather, King William, who he resembled, and a wave of support for him spread far and wide. As in Normandy, lawlessness had broken out as soon as news reached England of the King’s death, and Stephen promised to restore order.

Maud turned to me.

‘This is not possible! Am I not the King’s daughter, his chosen heir?’

‘He has done what William Rufus did to Duke Robert, and what your father did when Rufus died – he has made haste to England to grab the crown.’

But the young monk’s news got even worse. Having won over London, Stephen had gone to Winchester to the Royal Treasury. There, the King’s key-holders – Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, and William Pont de l’Arche – had bowed to Stephen and handed him the keys.

Maud was shaking with anger.

‘It is an outrage! This has been planned in advance, long before my father’s death.’

The last part of the monk’s account was the most difficult to bear, as it involved the man who had been kind to me in Norwich when I was a boy – Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norwich. He had sworn an oath, with several others, that he had been with the King during the weekend of his death in Lyons St Denis and that, with death approaching, the King had changed his mind about the succession. He had decided that his nephew, Stephen of Blois, should be his heir, not his daughter, Matilda.

Maud erupted in fury.

‘It is a conspiracy! It’s all lies; Hugh Bigod wasn’t even in Normandy!’

The Archbishop tried to calm Maud.

‘Ma’am, please, your father rests close by. Please be seated.’

Maud sat down reluctantly to hear the monk finish his message. He delivered it like an announcement from the pulpit.

‘The oath taken by Hugh Bigod convinced the nobles of the land that King Henry had chosen Stephen of Blois as his successor. On Sunday the 22nd of December 1135, the Archbishop of Canterbury crowned Stephen of Blois King of England and Duke of Normandy at Westminster Abbey.’

I thought about the good people of England. Although Stephen may well have won over the Norman lords and bishops, and indeed the prosperous English merchants, the ordinary downtrodden peasants, yeomen and artisans of England must have been heartbroken. Their ‘Lady of the English’, the great-granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, had been supplanted by a man whose odious Norman blood was diluted not by pure English blood, but by the blood of a clan from a land even more alien than Normandy. I thought about the people of Bourne, the young masons of Norwich, and all those who had hoped for a new dawn for England.

It was a wretched day for all of us.

The monk bowed to us all and made his exit, leaving us feeling that we had been struck by a thunderbolt. Maud was livid, her face white with fury.

‘Let’s talk.’

Eadmer, Greta and I followed her into the cloister of St Étienne.

‘They poisoned him! Lampreys, the easiest thing in the world to poison. Why did Stephen just happen to be in Boulogne, two domains away from his home in Blois? And Hugh Bigod’s part in this conspiracy is beyond belief.’

Maud was adamant, and I had to admit that her construction of events was credible. Her father’s death had been very sudden, and he had been making more and more enemies.

‘Maud, I know this is a body blow, but we must think carefully and develop a plan.’

‘I already have a plan; we sail for England with my father’s body in the morning. My conniving cousin will want to come to the interment, and there I will confront him.’

‘With what, my darling?’

I took her into my arms. She was rigid with anger.