The Wobbly Kings of England

By Tony Maclachlan

The kings and poshies were a pretty nasty lot and didn’t reckon much on the sweaty peasant types. With war, assassinations, plots and some shady characters, British history sure is chaotic! If you want to know who did what, when and why in medieval English history, but don’t reckon much on the heavy, academic stuff, then this book mi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rowanvale Books Ltd
• Release date: Apr 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781910832721

Tony Maclachlan

Tony Maclachlan is a retired lecturer from the New Forest, Wiltshire. The inspiration behind Rowanvale Books, Tony began writing and publishing books based on his speciality of local historical wars. He has published two books, both of which sold globally despite their local focus. He is currently in the process of writing his trilogy covering the American War of Independence.

Book preview

Introduction

Let’s face it: political history isn’t everybody’s idea of fun. Endless dates and names, almost impossible to remember, intertwined with executions, battles and things like that, and all presented in a heavy style, have tended to make the subject a bit of a yawn. Recent television documentaries have gone a long way to removing the dust and tedium of distant times, but the pace of such programmes often prove to be too fast. Moreover, there’s always the chance that the phone might ring half way through. Books, on the other hand, where the full stories are told and the personalities and issues are presented, are always available. They can be taken down from the shelf and consulted at any time.

My aim, then, is to brush away the dryness of the more academic volumes and present the subject in a style that will entertain (hopefully) and, at the same time, be informative. Whether I have succeeded will be for you as the reader to decide.

I would like to thank the monarchs of England for having such interesting lives. If they hadn’t gone around upsetting people and being really macho, there wouldn’t have been very much to write about.

Chapter One

On a horribly cold day in November 1120, the seventeen-year-old Prince William and a group of friends sailed from France to England in a boat known as the White Ship. The knees-up started even before the ship left port. Wine flowed far too freely and soon the captain, Thomas fitzStephen, and most of the crewmen were totally plastered. What happened next was hardly surprising; the helmsman, now as merry as Christmas Day, didn’t see the rocks on the port bow and, dear Lord, the vessel sank within minutes. Poor Prince William, his brother Richard and 150 of his mates went down the plughole — ‘food for the fishes’, as a poet at the time wrote. Only one guy lived to tell his tale: a butcher called Berold. Dressed in warm furs rather than the blingy court dress worn by the rest of the passengers, he survived in the icy seas for hours. An uninvited guest on this medieval booze cruise, he had apparently crept on board in the hope that he might be able to collect some of the money owed to him by some of the flashy party goers. That’s given England one heck of a problem. King Henry I now had no male heir. The eighteen-year-old Matilda, his only other legitimate kid, faced the drawback — drop dead gorgeous as she probably was — of being a girl. You see, in those macho medieval days, heiresses were regarded as being bad for the nation’s health. Having a daughter as your heir just wasn’t the done thing. For several days, nobody dared tell the king about the accident. When he eventually heard the news, he refused to eat for a whole week.

King Henry’s nearest male relatives were now his five nephews. Henry’s sister, Adela, had married an important French guy named Stephen-Henry, the Count of Blois. Their oldest son, William, was a bit of a basket case — or so people at the time reckoned — and King Henry didn’t think that he would be any good at doing kingly things. Anyway, he went and died, which narrowed things down a bit. The second son, Theobald, was an okay sort of fellow, but Henry didn’t really know him. Stephen, the third son, was the king’s favourite and had spent a lot of time at Henry’s court. He should have been a passenger on the White Ship. On the day of departure, however, he was plagued by diarrhoea and spent most of the day on the loo. He consequently missed the ship and was forced to make a later crossing. You can bet your boots that he was glad about that. If it hadn’t been for this fellow’s runny tummy, English history in the twelfth century would have been a tad different. The youngest boy, Henry, would have been an equally good candidate for the throne but, for some reason or another, his parents thought he would manage better as a churchman. It wasn’t that he was particularly good or saintly. In fact, he was a bit of a hard nut, rather arrogant and self-centred — just the qualities, some might say, for the perfect priest of the time. He became Bishop of Winchester in 1129.

William Clito, the fifth nephew, was a right pain in Henry’s side. That’s not really very surprising when you realise that his dad, Robert, the eldest son of William I, should have become King of England when the latter died in 1087. The trouble is that Robert had quarrelled with his dad big time. William, not exactly overflowing with love for his rebellious first born, had gone and named his second surviving son, also called William, as his heir in England, leaving only Normandy to bolshie Robert. That put the pussies amongst the pigeons. Robert, a short, fat bloke with a weird dress sense, wasn’t very happy about that; the two brothers scrapped like cats over the inheritance. William II never got around to marrying or having kids. So, when he ended up dead in 1100, shot while hunting in the New Forest, there was a vacancy for the top job. Henry, the youngest son of William I, saw his chance and grabbed the throne. That made Robert madder than a March hare. That was the second time he’d missed out on the big prize — two younger brothers, each with their backsides warming the English throne in turn. That’s totally not on. In 1101 Robert landed in Portsmouth to claim his rights. In 1106 Henry I smashed the living daylights out of Robert at the Battle of Tenchebrai. Taking Robert prisoner, he grabbed Normandy as well. That’s where William Clito, Robert’s son, pops into the story. His dad was being held captive. Henry was ruling England and Normandy and young Clito’s got nothing. He declared war on Uncle Henry and kept it up. You can appreciate why he was hardly likely to be regarded by Henry as his favourite nephew.

Despite having this gaggle of nephews, Henry I was now totally freaked out by the fact that he now had no legitimate son of his own to follow him on the throne. Daughters were ideal material for marrying off to foreign poshies and so making advantageous links with other royal families, but they were a total disaster zone when it comes to inheriting thrones. Princesses just didn’t have what it took — well, that’s what guys at the time thought, anyhow. In his more youthful years, he had done his best to manufacture babies. Blessed with a wow appetite for sex, he had fathered twenty-one children with the help of dozens of mistresses, but only four had popped out of his wife, Matilda of Scotland. The eldest, a girl called Euphemia, had snuffed it as baby, leaving William, Richard and Matilda as the apples of the royal couple’s eyes. Now William and Richard had been flushed down the pan, leaving just Matilda to inherit Henry’s domains.

So that brings us up to the year 1120, when Henry was feeling all sad after the news of the loss of the White Ship. Queen Matilda had gone as well, snuffing it in 1118. King Henry went and did what a later king with the same name did; he looked for another queen. His new bride, the delicious Adelicia of Louvain, clearly excited the fat, middle-aged monarch, but failed in the function for which she had been primarily employed. No children, male or female, would emerge from her thighs. In desperation, therefore, he named Princess Matilda as his heir in 1127 and hoped that the barons and his nephews would accept his wishes.

King Henry, even before the death of his son, had showered presents on Stephen, giving him huge estates in England and Normandy, which, at that time, was still ruled by the Kings of England. Better still, Stephen married a rich chick, another Matilda, (that’s three Matildas so far), the daughter of Count Eustace of Boulogne. To clarify things, if you’re confused, we have Princess Matilda, the daughter of King Henry, Matilda, his wife, and now Matilda of Boulogne, the bride of Stephen.

Princess Matilda was about to be married for the second time! Living at a time when it was normal to be betrothed at a ridiculously early age, she had been married to the forty-three-year-old German emperor, Henry V, in 1114 — when she was still only thirteen! He unfortunately died in 1125, leaving Matilda, now twenty-three years old, as a widow. The King of England wasted little time in finding her a new husband. Monarchs in those days used marriages as tools of convenience and diplomacy, and Henry saw his chance of procuring a new ally to help him in his struggles with Clito. Bordering Normandy was the rich province of Anjou, ruled by Fulk, who would one day also become King of Jerusalem. Fulk had a fourteen-year-old son, Geoffrey — hardly a suitable match for a woman of twenty-three. But Geoffrey was a mountain of a boy with fair hair, and was hopefully developed enough to satisfy Matilda’s physical needs. In 1128 the two were married in Le Mans. They seem to have had a really cool wedding with celebrations that went on for several days; the poor of the city were given free bread and wine — and that’s something that didn’t happen very often in the Middle Ages. Geoffrey’s crusading father got bored and went off to Jerusalem a few weeks later, leaving the newly married teenager to take charge in Anjou.

The story of the fighting in Normandy and King Henry’s eventual victory over William Clito is not exactly riveting, edge of the seat sort of stuff. The marriage of Geoffrey and Matilda didn’t help Henry very much. The people of Normandy had never got on very well with the Angevins, the folk living in Anjou, and certainly didn’t go much on the idea of an Angevin prince becoming Duke of Normandy, a very probable result of the marriage. In those days, you see, it was customary for men to take possession of their wives’ inheritances. As the son-in-law of the King of England, Geoffrey could well have claimed the English throne for himself. Henry probably made even greater efforts in the weeks to come to manufacture a little son of his own.

The newly wedded princess now added to her father’s barrel of laughs. Apparently unhappy in Geoffrey’s bed, she came running back to her dad. No one, not even the gossipers of the time, had any real idea of why she left her Angevin husband. Her father, not very impressed with her behaviour, sent her back. Having now despaired of having another son of his own, he clearly hoped that she would do the things that she was biologically designed to do and give birth to a baby boy, a grandson for Henry and, far more importantly, an heir to wear the English crown. In 1133 she performed her dynastic duty, giving birth to another Henry. The following year, little Geoffrey was born, two healthy little fellows with their father’s fair hair and the princess’s blue eyes. King Henry was a much happier bunny now. With the succession secure, he got on with the job of ruling, reckoning that he was doing a generally okay sort of job.

In 1135 things then went belly up. Henry I, when visiting Normandy, pigged himself on lampreys, fell sick and unwisely died. Although he had turned sixty-seven, he had been Mr. Fit, hunting energetically on the day of his final meal. The astrologers with long beards had guessed that it was going to happen; stars had been seen encircling the sun and an earthquake had shaken the land that morning. Heck! Henry must have been a really important bloke. I mean, virtually nobody in the Bible ever got a send-off like his. That night, the embalmers cut open his body, removed various bits and bobs and filled the cavity with sweet-smelling herbs. The royal chappie’s body was then sewn up in a leather sack and returned for burial in Reading Abbey. He had ruled for thirty-five years, but had never got the hang of eating in moderation. Worse still, he had chosen to die leaving a girl as his heir — an uncool thing to do in those days when it was felt that women should stick to doing the things that they could do well, like having children and doing needlework. England had become a ship with no helmsman, drifting in a sea of dynastic confusion and with nobody ready to sail her to port. Matilda, keener to be a mother rather than a lady with ambition, stayed at home in Anjou and made no effort to secure her claim.

Theobald, Stephen’s brother, was the first to put on his running shoes. Inviting the poshies of Normandy to dinner, he was offered the ducal crown. Stephen went one better. Checking first to make sure that he looked like a king, with a full head of hair, smart looking beard, etc., he popped over to England, despite heavy clouds and the fear of his friends that the threatening weather might result in another whoopsie in the Channel. The storm broke as he landed on England’s shores, making him all wet and soggy. For a while, he didn’t look very kingly.

This is probably a good time to mention two more guys to complicate the story. Amongst the twenty or more of Matilda’s half-brothers and sisters were Robert, who had been created Earl of Gloucester in 1122, and Reginald, who a bit later on became Earl of Cornwall (an earldom, by the way, was a very important title given by a king to one of his favourites). Boy, these two — particularly Robert — would have loved to be king, but their illegitimacy ruled that possibility out. Having their sister on the throne of England was an ace notion, the next best thing to one of them being chosen. Robert, the more ambitious of the two, reluctantly accepted this hard fact and so began to work on his sister’s behalf. We’re clearly going to have a bit of bother over who’s going to rule England. Stephen’s on a roll now and trots up to London. The sweaty classes in London, the guys at the bottom of the social heap, had no idea of what was going on and possibly wouldn’t have cared a monkey’s whistle anyway. The city’s toffs, however, eyed him up and down, liked what they saw and accepted him as king.

There was still one guy, however, who needed to be persuaded: the Archbishop of Canterbury, William of Corbeil. This fellow’s got the job of crowning the king and so was quite keen on vetting candidates for the throne. A thoughtful man with strong political wisdom, as well as a theological sense of things, he knew that dead King Henry intended Matilda to be his heir. He also realised that England needed a strong ruler, something that Henry’s daughter could never hope to be. Having got from Stephen a promise that he would never interfere with things to do with the Church, Archbishop William agreed to anoint Stephen and do all the ceremonial bits and bobs.

One massive problem remained! Stephen had still to win over the barons, the guys who owned large chunks of land and some pretty strong castles. Under something called ‘feudalism’, these men had received land from previous kings in return for doing service, like supplying the kings with soldiers in times of war. On their estates, these men were like kings themselves and could do virtually what they liked. A king was generally safe if these guys were on his side, but God help any king who upset them or failed to gain their collective support!

Stephen, well chuffed with his early successes, went on promising the Earth and trying to convince everyone that he was the right fellow for the job of governing England. In December 1135 the crown was popped on his head. In January 1136 he made a point of attending the burial of his predecessor at Reading Abbey, showing that he was upset.

The Norman poshies took a little longer to be convinced that Stephen was really okay. They had long thought that Stephen’s older brother, Theobald, should be duke, but, knowing that England had crowned Stephen, they just abandoned poor old Theobald and asked him if he would mind withdrawing all claim to Normandy and take up a less ambitious hobby instead. It would be better, they reckoned, if one man could rule both places. Theobald was miffed by all this and stormed off in a real mood.

Stephen went on a charm offensive and soon persuaded the doubters that he was the coolest candidate for the job of ruling both regions. Even Robert of Gloucester, still feeling that his sister should give up needlework and maternal things and do something more exciting, was beginning to accept that Stephen might, after all, be quite good (but probably not as good as he, Robert, would be). Hesitatingly, he turned up at the new king’s court at Easter 1136 and knelt at Stephen’s feet. The king, instead of gloating, welcomed the earl and said all the right things.

In the years following, people really did begin to believe that King Stephen was a decent sort of guy and didn’t just turn on the charm when it suited him. Fair minded, courteous, gentle and just; these are just some of the jolly nice things that commentators at the time have written about him. ‘He sat and ate in the company even of the humblest, and earned an affection that can hardly be imagined,’ was what one fellow said about him. Stephen, using Henry I as his role model, did his best to provide law and order, the two most important things that any king could give. People got on with whatever they were doing, not all of it good, and the Middle Ages in England were in danger of becoming a bit boring.

Robert of Gloucester, despite being a wee bit miffed about things, seemed to be toeing the line. He had gone and settled down quietly and was just doing what feudal lords were expected to do. He had even refused to support Geoffrey when the latter went castle-grabbing in Normandy. King Stephen, if he had had any sense, would have left him alone and gone on saying nice things to him, even if he didn’t really mean a word of it. The king, however, trusted Robert about as far as he could have thrown him. Instead of inviting him to dinner, etc., he sent men to ambush Robert while he was trotting around Normandy. Apparently the king believed that Robert was going to visit his sister in Argentan. This was hardly a crime, but it was enough to alarm the over-sensitive man on the throne. Annoying Robert turned out to be one of Stephen’s less clever acts.

Chapter Two

Down in Devon, another Robert was about to cause Stephen a load of grief. At just about the time that Robert of Gloucester went back to France to chat to his half-sister about her possible new career, the owner of the castle of Bampton chose to start a quarrel with the fat abbot of Glastonbury. Robert of Bampton lived life to the full — drinking, hunting, bedding desirable women and acquiring all the latest medieval gismos. Like most of the other top-crust blokes, he wanted even more of all these things — particularly land. Angered by a legal settlement, which granted to the abbot some pasture and woodland that he claimed, Robert went and blamed the poor old king for the court’s ruling! Summoned by Stephen to explain the logic of his reasoning, Robert turned up at court with a miserable expression on his face and said things to the king that he really shouldn’t have said. King Stephen, not exactly impressed with the guy’s big mouth and his choice of language, coolly dispossessed Robert of his castles and land and probably told the man what he thought of him. Robert, not wishing to listen to the king’s lectures, rode back to Bampton, armed his men, folded his arms and refused to budge.

King Stephen thought that this was not the sort of way that feudal subjects should behave. Anxious to set an example for any others who might get cocky, he descended on Bampton with a whole lot of heavies. However, no Hollywood style fighting took place. Only one man died, hanged from a scaffold in front of the castle — one of Robert’s men, who had tried to escape. The only arrows that flew were those discharged at the unfortunate soul as he dangled by his thumbs. The rest of the garrison, not over-keen on sharing his fate, decided that it might be better to grovel. Their boss disagreed and crept out through the back door, disguised as a hermit or something equally downmarket. Changing his clothes somewhere on the way, he eventually turned up in Scotland and ranted on at King David about Stephen’s rotten behaviour. Stephen went home and presumably congratulated himself on a job well done.

Baldwin de Redvers, another West Country fellow of importance, failed to learn from Robert’s punishment. Whether he had any reason for winding the king up is unclear; perhaps he enjoyed the adrenalin rush that presumably comes from treading a dangerous field. He hadn’t even bothered to go to the coronation or attend the court when summoned. He was now a ‘marked man.’ Suddenly regretting his decision, he tried to cosy up to the king in 1136, but found that the time for forgiveness had faded with the season. A little worried, he, like Robert, sought the protection of big fat walls. Skipping off to Exeter, he barricaded himself inside Rougemont Castle and hoped that Stephen would forget that he was there.

The king, telling himself that there are only two ways by which a king could command respect (right and might), chose to be mighty. He hot-footed it to Exeter with a mean looking crew. He arrived to find Baldwin’s nasties urinating over the castle walls and yelling abuse at the townspeople for greeting the king and presenting him with turnips and potatoes. The siege of Exeter only ended when the water supply in the castle ran out — a bit of an inconvenience for those inside, who couldn’t exactly nip out into the town to fill their jugs.

These are just two examples of the poshies who fell out with Stephen. There were a lot more guys in the coming weeks who stuck two fingers up at the new king. Most of these geezers would do so for largely personal reasons, not because they supported Matilda. Some just held grudges. Skulking in one’s castle was not a particularly knightly thing to do, and so they rebelled instead. Whatever reasons they might have for going all ‘ape’, they ended up getting all chummy with Robert of Gloucester, a man who had never really been ‘bought off’ by Stephen’s promises. All in all, they ended up giving the king a load of hassle.

Stephen was also in danger of copping a load of grief from the Welsh, a bunch of really rowdy neighbours who got a hell of a kick out of baiting the English. To keep them out of England, William I had placed the border lands in the hands of trusted men, the Lords of the Marches. These feudal lords, men like Roger of Montgomery, generally did a good job — and raiding the English king’s lands became a little less fashionable.

David, King of the Scots, got right up King Stephen’s nose as well. From the very start of the English king’s reign, David had been slipping into Stephen’s lands and grabbing towns. Unlike the raids of the Welsh, these were proper military campaigns with sieges, fluttering standards and a touch of really enjoyable plunder. Annoying kings of England was what Scottish kings were supposed to do; it was implied in the unwritten job description that every monarch of the Scots accepted. David might have felt that he had a first class excuse for doing the inexcusable; he was Matilda’s maternal uncle. Stephen, his hands full with problems in Devon and the Welsh border, couldn’t cope with any more hassle in the north. By the Treaty of Durham in 1136, the English king gave Carlisle and Doncaster to David and granted the Earldom of Huntingdon to David’s son, Henry. King David had been claiming this earldom for yonks, reminding everybody that he was the son-in-law of one of the previous earls. He therefore thought that he was only getting what was his by right. In return, David handed back Newcastle, one of the towns he had pinched during his raids into England. Both kings thought they had been really statesmanlike and clever. David, however, had developed a taste for upsetting the English. After a year or so doing nothing very exciting, he went on the rampage again doing all sorts of unspeakable things to women and children as he and his men ambled south. He wasn’t particularly nice to a few slow moving priests who got in his way outside Newcastle, either.

Stephen went completely ballistic when he heard of David’s activities. This time he decided to sort out Matilda’s Uncle David once and for all. He assembled an army of several thousand men and sent them to beat up the irritating Scots. Accompanying his army was a large cart, to which a ship’s mast was attached. On this mast were a number of religious banners. At the top was a silver box containing consecrated bread — a really showy sign that the English were fighting for the Church, a jolly sensible thing to do in an age when God’s intervention was sought. A whole load of priests followed the cart, saying prayers and doing the sort of things that clerics in the Middle Ages generally did.

The Battle of the Standard (or Northallerton), so called because of the presence of the ship’s mast on the battlefield, took place on 22nd August 1138 during a time of heavy fog. Prince Henry of the Scots, a bouncy lad with no sense of danger, led his mounted men against the English, but seems to have ended up covered in mud. After a couple of hours of head smashing and jabbing people in unmentionable areas, the Scots got well and truly hammered and eventually scarpered from the field as fast as their little legs would carry them. The battle made Stephen feel a hell of a lot stronger, despite the fact that he wasn’t even present!

He really felt that he was top dog when he met the Scottish leaders at Durham (again!) in 1139 and had a go at them about their treacherous behaviour. Having got that off his chest, he decided to be a lot nicer, handing over Carlisle and all of Lancashire north of the Ribble to the defeated side. Some of his English mates, particularly a guy called Ranulf, were not overly impressed by Stephen’s generosity and told the crowned head exactly what they thought of all this nice-as-pie stuff. Ranulf’s biggest hobby was collecting titles. He was already Earl of Chester, but seems to have believed that he should be earl of just about everywhere else as well, particularly those places in the north which the king was cheerfully giving away. (That was the trouble with these guys — they wanted more of what they had and more of what they hadn’t). When the quarrel between Matilda and Stephen turned into proper war, these barons gave their support, not necessarily to the person with the most legitimate claim, but to the claimant who promised to reward them with ownership of the Earth and sky — and preferably the keys to Heaven as well! Ranulf — big, bald and with a moustache that dropped almost to his waist — was beginning to wonder whether Matilda might be a better bet.

Geoffrey, Count of Anjou — Matilda’s hubby — was an even bigger pain in the arse. He hadn’t been very nice to Stephen from the start. As soon as Stephen was crowned, Geoffrey went off the rails. First he grabbed some castles in Normandy, claiming that they should have been given to him as part of Matilda’s dowry. Stephen didn’t think that this is what mates were supposed to do and went around the place muttering about Geoffrey’s lack of respect. Soon Geoffrey was looking for bigger plums to pick. Normandy — large, prosperous and inhabited by lots of exploitable peasants — was far too attractive to ignore. Not particularly keen on doing peaceful things like gardening, reading or building abbeys, he thought that it would be totally okay to start a war. Claiming his right to be ruler through his dear wife, Geoffrey, sort of, sauntered into Normandy in September 1136 and… well, pretty much grabbed anything that he fancied.

In the Middle Ages, invading territory, whether you had a right to it or not, and being thoroughly nasty to people who got in your way, was big business, the must-have hobby for any territorial biggy who wanted to be powerful. Merely hanging about for law courts and kings to recognise claims was a girl’s blouse way of doing things. Heck, William the Conqueror would probably have still been waiting today for the European Court in Strasbourg to settle his claim to the throne of England! Like the Battle of the Standard, the fighting that took place over the next three years had absolutely zilch to do with the Civil War. Geoffrey was making his own private bid for ‘big man’ status and probably didn’t care a fig for Matilda’s claims or rights. Geoffrey got a lot of fun out of Norman bashing. He beat the hell out of some clerics, claiming that they had been uncooperative and obstructive. On 1st October he was wounded during one of these fun moments, pierced in the foot by a well-aimed (or perhaps poorly-aimed) javelin. One or two priests dared to suggest that this was retribution from above, but they must have wondered why God hadn’t done the job properly and finished him off for good.

Heaven did a far better job when it came to dealing with his soldiers. Lots of them got dysentery and diarrhoea — a bit of a handicap when you are supposed to be out fighting. Clutching their stomachs instead of their weapons, they had no time to conceal themselves in bushes. They crouched down by the roadside or wherever they happened to be when the need arose. The Normans, holding their noses, had only to follow the very visible trail of filth and catch the groaning Angevins while they had their metaphorical (and actual) trousers down.

Stephen popped over to Normandy in the spring of 1137 to say hello to any Norman lords who had remained loyal to him during Geoffrey’s period of naughtiness. Unfortunately, Theobald, Stephen’s dear brother, wasn’t one of these. Still mad at being forced to give up the Dukedom of Normandy, he was quite happy about sticking two fingers up at England’s king. The two brothers met at Evreux. Stephen, a really cool and polished diplomat, bribed Theobald with a pension; the two offspring of Adela became mates again.

Stephen’s charm offensive went into overdrive. Louis VI, King of France, quite liked the feudal structure, particularly if this meant that the Dukes of Normandy and co. would pay him homage and acknowledge him as boss. The territory ruled by the King of France in those days was titchy — just a small area around Paris. Everywhere else, feudal lords, the counts and the dukes made the rules — guys like the Count of Provence, Count of Anjou and, of course, the Dukes of Normandy. Some of the tougher kings tried to be bossy, telling these geezers with the impressive titles that they only held their lands because the king was nice enough to let them. In return, he expected them to perform simple acts of homage — showy things like kneeling and kissing the king’s hand and providing him with squaddies and knights when the king needed them. Stephen, a bit worried about getting in a tangle with Louis, thought that it might be a good idea to get Louis on his side. However, feeling that it wouldn’t do his street cred much good to grovel on the floor at the feet of Louis, he arranged for his ten-year-old son Eustace to go and do the boot licking on his behalf. The nipper did his job beautifully. Louis, crowing with delight, promptly accepted Stephen as Duke of Normandy and said that they could now be mates.

Geoffrey was really uncool when he heard about this. Invading Normandy again in May 1137, he drowned a few monks, burnt a number of peasants and extracted protection money from everyone with purses hanging from their belts. For four whole years, sporadic fighting went on. Geoffrey occasionally got bored with knocking people on the head and went back to Anjou to find something else to do. Then, a tad fed up with deflowering virgins or whatever it was he was doing, he trotted off back to Normandy for another adrenalin rush. Stephen, tired of playing Geoffrey’s silly game, went back to England to chill out and left his mates to play with the Anjevin count.

His timing was pretty good, for it was at this moment that he first heard that Matilda was thinking of giving up sewing and starting on a new career. Influencing her decision, of course, was Robert of Gloucester.

Back in England, he soon found himself in trouble with a really tricky customer. Miles of Gloucester (don’t confuse this character with Robert of Gloucester) was a decidedly mean bloke. Narrow chinned and with a prominent jaw, he never looked happy, even when he was pulling chicks and other men’s wives. Like the legendary opponent of Robin Hood, and equally unpleasant, Miles had been appointed to the position of Sheriff, a really important office in those days. As the Sheriff of Gloucester, he was keeper of the castle in that town and was responsible for maintaining the laws and other things like that. King Stephen had been really nice to him, supporting him in a dispute with two other guys and inviting him to dinner, etc. Mean Miles showed no gratitude at all. For some reason or other, he decided that Matilda was the girl for him and went off to have a chat with Robert about the practicality of plonking the lady on the throne.

Another guy soon rocked up. Brian fitzCount, the son of the Count of Brittany and the holder of Wallingford Castle, was one of Matilda’s ex-boyfriends. Still carrying a candle for her, he was as keen as mustard to make her queen. United in their objective, the three men, who reckoned they had the military resources to move mountains and kings, began work to start the process of kicking poor Stephen off the throne. That’s pretty full on; taking action against an anointed king was rebellion, the sort of thing that only people with a death wish would ever do. Most people preferred to keep their noses clean, their heads down and their mouths shut. Robert, Miles and Brian, the gang championing Matilda, must have been really committed to her cause After all, you could still get a whole load of fun in a dull life enjoying your ‘droit de seigneur’ stuff and doing feudal things without feeling the need to go around winding up kings.

Stephen was not particularly freaked out by all this. However, faced by a whole load of cross faces, he reckoned that it was about time he purchased a little help. Skilled fighting men, finding life a tad boring if there’s no fighting going on, often sold their skills to any guy who needed their services. These ‘mercenaries’ or ‘soldiers of fortune’ seldom considered the morality of the cause for which they were employed. Stephen had the cash, so off he went and hired a bunch of heavies — just in case he required an extra bit of muscle. Leading the mercenaries who came bouncing across the Channel when they smelt English money was William of Ypres, a descendant of the Count of Flanders. Obviously high on adrenalin and a really fabulous military commander, he chose to swap the politics of Flanders for those of England. He would become Stephen’s most loyal and able soldier.

William of Corbeil, the Archbishop of Canterbury, unwisely went and died in 1136, something that really fluffed things up at a time when King Stephen could well have done without the extra hassle. When an archbishop snuffed it, there was usually no end of candidates queuing up to put on the stiff man’s mitre and take full advantage of the opportunities that the position offered. The guy who got the job didn’t necessarily have to be all religious and saintly. As long as he said lots of prayers, conferred a few blessings and kept in with the pope, he generally managed to get away with anything. At the very top of the Church’s social pecking order, the archbishop was the pope’s number one guy in England and the boss of every single church man. Not that surprisingly, non-churchy fellows — earls mainly — quite fancied putting on pretty frocks and applying for the job. During the last 600 years or so, there had been some really good archbishops, men who put church affairs above everything else, even if it meant upsetting the king and being dreadfully holy. Others were not so good and preferred to be horrible. These fellows usually got away with whatever they were doing (or not doing) because they knew how to get away with it.

Henry of Blois, the king’s brother, was the obvious front runner for the archbishop’s job and hurriedly dusted off his curriculum vitae. For various reasons, the election of a new archbishop didn’t take place until 1139. The job went to Theobald of Bec, a really churchy guy. Henry of Blois couldn’t help thinking that his big brother had blocked his candidature. From that moment on, relations between the two brothers were a tad sour.

Stephen was really in the poo now. Just when he could do with a few more friends, secular and clerical, he goes and falls out with some really influential churchmen. The Bishops of Ely, Lincoln and Salisbury were top guys in the king’s administration, doing a reasonably good job and helping to keep church and state together. Roger, the Bishop of Salisbury since 1101, was the king’s chancellor, responsible for just about everything that went on. Clerics were supposed to be celibate, bookish and boring. Very few, however, could ever be accused of these three things and most preferred women’s breasts and other female bits and bobs to any of their religious duties. Roger was a real lad, visiting ale houses, brothels and doing things that probably wouldn’t secure him a place in Heaven. He had a few mistresses, particularly a woman called Matilda of Ramsey, and a few sons, two of whom became archdeacons in Salisbury. Matilda was in charge of Devizes Castle, holding it for her boyfriend.

The other two bishops were his nephews — or possibly his sons. Alexander became Bishop of Lincoln in 1123. Nigel, having worked his socks off in the king’s government, was rewarded by being made Bishop of Ely in 1133. For good measure, Nigel’s son Richard was made Bishop of London. Roger of Salisbury couldn’t have had much time for saying prayers and doing holy things. Busy procreating sons, making money and grabbing power, he was clearly guilty of another common abuse of the time: that of nepotism.

Anyway, by 1137 this trio had an unassailable hold on the government. These guys in frocks owned a string of castles around the country — just more proof of how worldly and unchurchlike they had become. They had also grown rather fat, like three plum puddings oozing in the king’s presence. They might have continued to ooze magnificently if Roger hadn’t gone and quarrelled with Alan of Penthiévre, one of the king’s real poppets. The two men’s heavies had some sort of ding dong in Oxford in June 1139, apparently arguing over places to sleep. Two men drowned in a water butt, held beneath the water by a giant of a fellow called Simon. His pal, — not quite as large, but just as strong — picked up a man and rolled him like a barrel down the street. Minutes later, Simon lay sprawling in the dust, felled by a one-legged man with a crutch. All a bit childish really. What were these knuckle keen heavies doing in Oxford in the first place?

Someone, possibly Stephen, had called a meeting of the nation’s toffs, ordering them to assemble in the town. The king decided to punish Alan and Roger for breaches of the peace. Alan put up with having his hand smacked, but Roger — dear me — got stroppy and refused point blank to turn up when commanded. That was a tad daft. Roger then went off the rails big time. Acquiring all the latest luxuries and ‘must have’ gismos of the time, he went on to pad out his castles with great looking fortifications, weapons and soldiers. Having nice things, lots of women and generally being blingy all over was standard practice, but putting up defence works on that scale — well, that just wasn’t on. Several of the king’s cronies thought that these bishop fellows had grown rather cocky and altogether too big for their clerical boots. They suspected that he was privately hanging out with the wrong crowd — the Angevin groupies, Matilda’s supporters. Stephen shoved Roger and Alexander in the slammer. I mean, he had to show who’s the boss, right? Unfortunately, they were going to give him one hell of a load of grief when they came out.

Chapter Three

It’s a wonder that Stephen got any kip at all by now with all this sniping from left, right and centre. Upsetting the king had become a fun thing to do. Stephen, however, was still managing to keep fairly cool. He went around besieging castles and trying to appear Mr. Tough. Henry of Blois, his brother, still miffed at not being appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, thought that making Bishops Roger and Alexander do porridge was a bit ‘off’ and called a meeting at Winchester to sort things out. We’ll pass over the details of this meeting. It’s totally boring medieval stuff, loaded with legal stuff and clever remarks in Latin. At the end of it all, the bishop people got let out of the nick, but were deprived of all their property and blingy party gear. It’s a bit surprising that Stephen didn’t jack it in at this point and take up another career. I mean, the list of guys sticking two fingers up his nose just keeps getting longer and longer. Things were about to get a hell of a lot worse for him, because now Matilda was getting properly involved. In September 1139 she and Robert came from France and landed on the Sussex coast.

Arundel Castle, then, as now, was a pretty impressive pile of masonry and a hell of a lot more solid than some of the rubbishy structures that had recently played the king up. It probably looked really awesome to Robert and Matilda. Adeliza, widow of Henry I and now married to William of Albini, the Lord of Arundel, had invited her stepdaughter to the castle for a bit of a medieval knees-up. Matilda didn’t have much time for Adeliza, but visiting the old girl would give the princess a damned good excuse for coming to England; so she hot-footed it to Sussex as fast as her little boat could get her there.

Stephen probably wouldn’t have minded one tiny weeny bit if his rival had been accompanied by just one or two innocent looking types. However, Robert and 140 knights were with her, a sure sign that she and Robert were up to no good. The king lost his cool and his appetite as well when he heard the news. Feeling that it might not be too sensible to hang around in London doing nothing useful, he popped on his war gear, collected some troops and went off to Sussex with a frown on his medieval face. Of course, Robert of Gloucester didn’t exactly hang around either to argue the toss with the rattled king. Knowing that he would be for the chop if he stayed in Arundel, he headed off to Bristol in the company of a few soldiers, leaving his half-sister at Arundel to charm the pants off the king.

Stephen didn’t feel at all inclined to have a chat with the woman who might be after his throne. Leaving just a few soldiers at Arundel to stop her going anywhere else, he sniffed his way west, hoping to pick up the circuitous trail that Robert had taken on his way west. Bishop Henry seems to have got involved too. Telling King Stephen that he would