Stewart Binns - Crusade

This was disastrous for the rebellion. It gave Rufus time to gather his forces and to persuade many isolated rebels in small pockets around the country to abandon the cause. By the generous use of the vast wealth of his Exchequer, he assembled a large army of loyal Norman lords and knights and, enticed by bulging purses of coin, a significant number of English infantry.

Gilbert of Clare was the first rebel to surrender at Tonbridge. He had been wounded in the initial assault and capitulated within two days of the arrival of the King’s army. Rufus then moved towards Rochester to cut off the head of the rebellion – Odo of Bayeux himself. But the Bishop was not there. He had panicked when he heard about Tonbridge and learned that Arundel had fallen to the King, and fled in the middle of the night to Pevensey to seek the protection of his ally and brother, Robert Mortain.

Even though he travelled with only a handful of men, he was seen by the King’s scouts and, within hours, Rufus was aware of the Bishop’s mad dash. He immediately turned south to Pevensey, where both leading conspirators were now holed up together.

I decided to intercede with King Rufus to prevent further bloodshed and sent word to Edwin to set sail from Normandy and make landfall at Rochester, where further instructions would be waiting.

By the time I reached the King, he was already camped outside the great walls of Pevensey and had begun to throw a cordon around the defenders. He had chosen to lay siege and the likelihood was that it would be a protracted affair. Robert of Mortain was one of the richest men in England and had spent the years since the Conquest reinforcing the high Roman walls so that the castle was one of the most formidable in the realm, second only to the great tower at London.

Rufus was not pleased to see me, nor was he civil.

‘Tell me why I shouldn’t have you arrested as a traitor?’

‘Because, sire, I am loyal to you and so is your brother.’

‘Well, you both have a strange way of showing it. An insurrection in my first year on the throne, hundreds dead – where is the loyalty in that?’

‘Robert did not instigate it; it is Odo’s work and that of his supporters.’

‘So, why has a fleet of over sixty ships just sailed from Dives?’

I decided to play a mischievous feint I had been thinking about for a few days in the light of the poor showing of the rebellion.

‘Your brother is loyal, my Lord King. He sent me to Bishop Odo to persuade him to call off the rebellion, but Odo would not hear of it. The fleet sailed a few days ago on my orders. They are meant to intervene on your behalf, should Odo refuse to stop the rebellion.’

‘Do you expect me to believe that?’

‘It is true, my Liege.’

Rufus had changed. His mannerisms were far more effeminate than I remembered, his clothes more flamboyant and he had a plethora of boyish-looking young men around him who were neither knights nor pages. His father would not have tolerated this while he was alive.

The King’s rudeness towards me continued.

‘I don’t like you and I don’t trust you – an English prince who spends his life courting favour with his Norman masters. Have you no shame, man?’

‘Sire, I do have some regrets, but I try to live a good life and behave honourably. Will you let me talk to Odo and persuade him to abandon his cause?’

‘No, I will not. I plan to deal with him myself.’

In the face of the King’s intransigence, I took my leave.

But Rufus was right. I did live a strange life, where shame had been a frequent companion, and my deceit in suggesting to Rufus that Edwin’s force was intended to support him rather than Odo was perhaps less than honourable. However, my shame was a thing of the past. I knew now that I had the skills and bravura to step into the lion’s den – and not only on the battlefield. I had become adept at winning wars of words, turning verbal battles into dramatic victories by the use of my wits and my guile.

I quickly returned to Rochester to meet the fleet and explain my strategic volte-face to Edwin before he committed his force to the wrong side.

I reached Rochester just as the ships were unloading their men and horses. There was much celebrating in Odo’s beleaguered garrison. Having been abandoned by the Bishop, they now thought that Robert had sent an army to rescue them. Little did they know that our intentions were ‘flexible’ at best and that Odo’s cause was all but lost.

After explaining the situation to Edwin and the others, it was agreed that we should quickly send word to Duke Robert to explain the current circumstances and my decision to switch the allegiance of our men. As it was a matter of some delicacy, I despatched Sweyn and Adela with a small company of cavalry to carry the message. Scouts were sent to Pevensey to report on the progress of the siege.

Meanwhile, we sat and waited. Several weeks passed in the midst of another hot summer until, in the middle of July, Sweyn and Adela returned with a sealed parchment for Rufus from Duke Robert. We left Edwin in Rochester and set off for Pevensey within the hour.

The rebellion was over in the rest of the country. Rufus had acted swiftly and decisively and his supporters had followed his lead. One of the most dramatic stories came from the far west. The rebel earl, Geoffrey of Coutances, had recruited hundreds of troublesome Welsh tribesmen to swell the numbers of his own retinue and those of his landowners. They had laid waste to vast parts of the Marches and slaughtered livestock, burned villages and torched acres of tinder-dry crops. It was reported that for days on end the whole of Shropshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire had been covered in a pall of acrid smoke.

This wanton destruction united non-rebellious Normans and non-aligned Englishmen in fierce indignation and common cause. Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, became the voice of incensed protest, issuing a solemn curse on the rebels. Over eighty years of age, a patron of music and learning and the only surviving Englishman from pre-Conquest days to hold the rank of bishop in the realm, he then led a citizen army to challenge the Norman rebels in battle.

Driven on by his oratory, a motley crew numbered in thousands, composed of English clerics, townsfolk and yeoman farmers, lined up behind Norman lords loyal to King Rufus and hurled themselves on to the rebel army. In a battle of astonishing savagery, joined just four miles east of Hereford at the confluence of the Wye and the Lugg in the tranquil water meadows of Mordiford, Wulfstan’s zealots cut the insurgent Normans to pieces.

After the melee, Wulfstan stepped into the morass of bodies and, from the middle of the battlefield, said Mass for the dead and dying. He then proceeded to preach to the dead about their wrongdoing in threatening the peace and security of England before condemning them to the fires of Hell for eternity. He ordered a mass grave to be dug, insisting that every participant in the battle, whether earl or villein, wielded a pick or shovel until the task had been completed. The number of dead was so great that the grisly chore was still underway a week later.

As we made our way to the forces of King Rufus besieging Pevensey, Sweyn, Adela and I reflected on Wulfstan’s deeds and what had become of our homeland. Bishop Wulfstan was the oldest and most senior Englishman of stature in the land. He had lived through the reigns of the Danish kings and the long tenure of King Edward. His loyalty to Harold was absolute throughout 1066 and the revolts which followed, but now, regardless of what had happened in the past, like us, he found himself fighting for a regime which had subjugated his own people.

‘Does it really matter to be English or Norman?’