Royal Pains: A Rogues' Gallery of Brats, Brutes, and Bad Seeds Read online

  King John inherited a disastrous economy. Richard had constantly bled his subjects dry in order to finance his numerous wars. In addition, years of baronial resentment over the Angevin monarchs’ taxation and arrogance were finally coming to a head, but John was compelled to raise taxes yet again to cover domestic expenditures. He also chose to purchase peace with his continental vassals for the sum of twenty thousand marks; it was a vast amount of money, but cheaper than going to war against them. The move further angered England’s barons. For preferring the price of peace in this most martial of eras, John earned the nickname “Softsword.”

  It was an age of constantly shifting loyalties and frequent betrayals. Allies one month might be mortal enemies the next. The Angevin empire covered England, Ireland, and parts of France; however, it was exceptionally difficult for an English king to govern his continental lands from across the Channel. He had to rely on administrative stewards, or seneschals, to ensure that taxes were collected and the counties running smoothly, while staving off potential rebellions from neighboring nobles or the encroaching Capetians, the royal house of France, who were always seeking to add to their holdings.

  The Angevins and the Capetians sought the same lands. It was as if France were a chessboard or a quilt, and each dynasty wanted to be sure it controlled enough connecting squares. Three adjacent counties in particular—Lusignan, La Marche, and Angoumois—were of vital importance to everyone, because whoever controlled those lands held the balance of power in the region. One of those three territories held a particularly attractive set of assets.

  Isabella of Angoulême was the heiress of a region within Aquitaine also known as Angoumois, a wealthy and desirable county near the west coast of modern-day France. Her father was the powerful Count Aymer (sometimes written as Adomar) Taillefer of Angoulême, and her mother’s family was descended from and related to a number of kings, including the monarchs of France and Hungary.

  In order to create an unbroken swath of continental territory that would be considered part of England’s dominion, John needed to find a way to control the centrally located county of Angoumois. On the tic-tac-toe board of France he had already placed a metaphorical X in the northern box of Normandy and in the southern one of Aquitaine. The dowager queen Eleanor had made over her inheritance of Aquitaine to John after Richard’s death in 1199, but that was no assurance that her barons would be loyal to him as their new duke.

  And John needed as many continental allies as possible. During the first nine months of his reign, he made an effort to checkmate the encroaching king of France, Philip Augustus, by purchasing the loyalty of a couple of powerful vassals, including the formidable Lusignan family, ceding them large portions of Aquitaine in exchange for their support.

  By the summer of 1200, John had been king of England, as well as duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, for little more than a year. Although his crown was the ultimate accessory, he nevertheless dressed to impress, being quite the clotheshorse, with a stable of fine garments and jewels. According to measurements taken of his remains when his tomb was opened in 1797, John was about five feet, six and a half inches tall. Self-conscious about his inferior height (even for those days), he swaggered in order to keep pace with taller men. Still, he was considered fairly attractive, with bright eyes, dark hair, and a mocking sense of humor; and although he’d been clean shaven in his youth, as king he affected a trim mustache and beard. As John matured, his taste for good living got the better of his metabolism and he evidently grew paunchy.

  In August of 1200, John visited Aquitaine, and from the accounts of contemporary chroniclers, became utterly smitten with young Isabella. Their meeting changed the course of Western history.

  Isabella’s physical appearance has never been described, although medieval chroniclers frequently referred to her lustful appetite, painting her as a sexually precocious Lolita. Twelve was considered the age of consent at the time, and it is generally accepted that Isabella was that age when she met John, though some historians believe she might have been as old as fifteen. Other scholars believe she may have been as young as eight or nine, which would have to put the lie to the story that has been repeated for centuries, namely that John was so taken with her beauty that he couldn’t wait to bed her. Even in the year 1200 it would have been viewed as child molestation and would certainly have been added to the lengthy list of “evil King John’s” transgressions. But if Isabella was indeed twelve years old in the summer of 1200, John (if born in 1166) was nevertheless considered middle-aged at thirty-three.

  Whether it was lust or politics that drove him, John was ready to do whatever it took to marry Aymer’s daughter, including securing an annulment of his unconsummated first marriage.

  A scandal of international proportions was about to commence. First, John consulted six bishops—three in Normandy and three in Aquitaine—before putting aside Isabella of Gloucester. At least their annulment proceeding was evidently amicable; long after they’d been divorced, John sent his ex-wife generous Christmas gifts. Isabella of Gloucester would eventually marry twice more. But John, always looking for an angle, found a way to make some money from it. He charged Geoffrey de Mandeville (Isabella’s second husband) the exorbitant sum of twenty thousand marks for the right to wed her. In his quest to secure allies by any means possible, the fee was John’s way of forcing his ex-wife’s new husband to become indefinitely indebted to the crown, aware that Geoffrey’s income and revenues couldn’t begin to offset the expense. In fact, Geoffrey never even fully paid the first installment.

  John disentangled himself from his first Isabella, but there was a major hitch in his plans to wed the heiress of Angoulême. According to the chronicler Roger of Howden, before little Isabella had reached the age of nubility, and “on the advice and at the wish of King Richard,” she had been betrothed to someone else. Count Aymer had already promised her to Hugh le Brun, lord of Lusignan and a loyal vassal of John’s—one he could ill afford to anger. The le Bruns of Lusignan were powerful and important barons in the lower region of Poitou, and an illustrious crusading family, having accompanied King Richard to the Holy Land.

  Hugh de Lusignan IX was also a powerful rival of Count Aymer of Angoulême. Adopting the strategy of keeping his friends close but his enemies closer, initially Aymer had thought it made perfect sense to forge an alliance by wedding his little Isabella to Hugh. Their marriage would unite two warring formidable families—making them allies, and making King John nervous.

  Count Aymer of Angoulême and the le Bruns of Lusignan were rivals for a wealthy, sprawling territory just to the east of Angoulême known as La Marche. And before John learned of Isabella’s marriage plans, he had been backing Hugh de Lusignan’s claim to it. But John quickly recognized that if Hugh were wed to Isabella, he would then control all three key counties—Lusignan, Angoulême, and La Marche—tipping the balance of power in the area, and making Hugh a rival John would have to reckon with. It was therefore vital for him to prevent Hugh’s marriage to Isabella of Angoulême. Although right up until that month, John had been seriously considering a union with the princess of Portugal, after he saw Count Aymer’s daughter, those plans went out the window. He recognized that if he were to espouse Isabella himself, it would prevent the creation of a powerful dynastic alliance between the houses of Angoulême and Lusignan.

  Little did John realize that the fallout from this hasty marriage would cost him half his kingdom.

  Many chroniclers, especially those writing during the High Gothic era, believed that John’s sudden interest in Isabella was primarily sexual. Other historians, perhaps with the benefit of seeing the bigger picture, believed the match was politically motivated, intended to check the Lusignan barons’ land grab. The truth probably lies somewhere in between.

  According to the custom of the times, in arranged marriages between powerful families the young bride-to-be was sent to live in the household of her prospective groom until she came of age and could be a true wife in e
very way. In John’s defense, Isabella’s betrothal to Hugh may not have been regarded as fully ironclad because, in the words of Bishop Philip of Durham, she “had not yet reached her nubile years. Hugh had not wished to marry her in facie ecclesiae. So her father snatched her from the custody of Hugh le Brun, and she was immediately married to John by the archbishop of Bordeaux.”

  According to the chroniclers, John fell in lust with Isabella on sight. “He believed she possessed everything he could desire,” wrote one of them. Naturally that cryptic sentence could just as easily apply to the county of Angoumois as to her physical attributes.

  Evidently, John had made it worth Count Aymer’s while to back a different bridegroom. Agreeing to support King John against the Lusignans—the very family he would have otherwise made his in-laws—Aymer signed two treaties with John: one private and the other public. In exchange for his preadolescent daughter, Aymer received John’s support for his claim to La Marche. Consequently, as a direct result of John’s marriage to Isabella, both the Angoumois and La Marche were brought under Angevin control.

  Aymer removed Isabella from the home of Hugh de Lusignan on August 23, 1200. Although there had been a thirteen-year gap between John’s betrothal to his first wife and their wedding ceremony, by this point he was no longer a pimply adolescent, but an impatient middle-aged monarch (politically, sexually, or both) and had zero interest in a lengthy engagement. So on August 24, King John of England married the young—very young—Isabella of Angoulême. A few days later he presented his child bride to his ailing mother, Eleanor, who was living at Fontevrault Abbey. Apparently, Eleanor liked what she saw in the girl.

  But something must not have been entirely kosher with his second marriage ceremony, because John went out of his way to obtain the consent of several bishops to his union with Isabella of Angoulême. This clue has caused historians to surmise that she might indeed have been well under the age of consent at the time the king “stole” her from his vassal Hugh de Lusignan, and gives further credence to the Bishop of Durham’s remark that she “had not yet reached her nubile” years. Isabella was said to have looked so young when she arrived in England that many who saw her were skeptical that she had even reached the advertised twelve years of age.

  Isabella was crowned queen of England on October 8, 1200, by Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury. About thirty pounds were spent on her royal robes, an exorbitant sum at the time, considering that the annual income of a knight was only about a hundred and fifty pounds. Yet, barring the expense of her coronation, Isabella was treated by her husband with precious little pomp, while John continued to spend lavishly on his own accoutrements. He loved good music, fine food, and expensive clothes, and his court was a lovely one, filled—to excess, some chroniclers claim—with music and gaiety. So was something sinister at work or was the rotten condition of England’s economy to blame for the fact that Isabella had been permitted the tiniest of retinues when she came to England, and had no income of her own?

  During his brother Richard’s imprisonment in Germany, John had already demonstrated his rapaciousness, as well as his capacity for appropriating funds that were not his to collect. It must have been a difficult habit to break, because he essentially began stealing from his own wife.

  After Isabella gave birth to their first son, John began to pocket the “queen’s gold” (the name for the tax of one gold mark for every hundred marks of silver paid by the Jews for the privilege of living and working peaceably in England). Queen’s gold was traditionally used by the consort to fund her personal expenditures or for philanthropic bequests. So, where his young wife was concerned, was John still unjustly lining his pockets with others’ largesse, or was he just an inconsiderate husband? It’s possible that once Isabella did her royal duty by begetting an heir, her spouse no longer felt he had to be generous to her.

  Unfortunately, Isabella’s feelings on the issue (if they were recorded at all) have been lost to history. But there were others whose discontent with John’s lack of noblesse oblige was most certainly noted.

  The Lusignans bided their time after John wed Isabella, expecting him to offer them some recompense for snatching away Hugh’s intended bride. But when John ignored them instead, the enraged and embarrassed Lusignan family threw its support behind the prematurely bald and perennially paranoid King Philip of France.

  And with that John’s continental headaches had only just begun. Over the next several years, he became embroiled in various skirmishes on French soil, all of which could be traced to his marriage.

  For starters, in 1202, John received desperate messages from Count Aymer of Angoulême and from Eleanor of Aquitaine, who remained a force to be reckoned with although she was then residing in Fontevrault Abbey. They urged John to sail to France immediately to smooth things over with the Lusignans, who were doing a lot of saber rattling in Poitou.

  But John had trouble marshaling any backing from his English barons. They were reluctant to finance his continental ventures (much less to accompany him abroad). This should have come as no surprise, as John had already informed them of his plans to limit baronial authority in their own counties. Ruling through intimidation rather than respect, John threatened to confiscate the castles of those who refused to support him in France.

  Although at this stage in the game John and Philip of France were on the outs, John, as duke of several French territories, was still Philip’s vassal. Upon John’s arrival in France the monarchs “played nice” in an effort to suss out each other’s plans. Uncertain of John’s martial strength, and no doubt hoping to glean some information as to the size of John’s forces, Philip advised the Lusignans to tread softly while he lavishly entertained John and Isabella.

  The le Bruns of Lusignan had formally appealed to Philip against John, accusing him of unjustly attacking and despoiling them, taking over Hugh’s county of La Marche, harassing Hugh’s brother Ralph, and encouraging his officials to “do all the harm they could” to hassle them. John retaliated by charging the Lusignans with treason, challenging them to fight a judicial duel with champions—a contest involving knights, not lawyers—where might would make right.

  John promised to uphold his part of the agreement by turning over three castles in surety to the contest’s arbitrator, King Philip of France. But when he failed to appear for the combat, Philip attacked Normandy and bestowed John’s holdings there on the English sovereign’s teenage nephew, Arthur of Brittany. Because Arthur had been raised in the French court, many believed him to be far more inclined to support Philip than to back his own uncle John.

  Between 1202 and 1204, John’s mercenaries faced off against forces supported by Philip of France. But once a spoiled brat, always a spoiled brat; by bullying important vassals and thumbing his nose at his own continental overlord, the king of France, John began losing battles and hemorrhaging lands. Although John was in his mid-thirties by this time, and only two years younger than Philip, he still behaved like a feckless baby who petulantly took whatever he wanted (his brother’s ransom money, his vassal’s fiancée) and then blamed everyone else when things blew up in his face.

  He did assert himself, as a man and as a king, when Eleanor of Aquitaine became caught in the civil cross fire. After John received the news that his eighty-year-old mother was being held hostage in the castle at Mirebeau by the Lusignans and her own grandson, Arthur of Brittany, John marched his army eighty miles in two days to reach her with all due speed. On the night of July 31, 1202, his soldiers stormed the castle and rescued Eleanor. Arthur, still a teenager, was among the rebels captured and paraded in manacles across the country. John’s cruelty to his captives was noted in L’Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal: “He kept his prisoners so vilely and in such evil distress that it seemed shameful and ugly to all those who were with him and saw his cruelty.”

  John’s treatment of his nephew Arthur of Brittany was the most ruthless of all; but the king’s conduct was not entirely without reason. Not only had Art
hur allied himself with the French king and rebelled against John in Normandy, but the boy had also held his aging granny hostage. After the battle at Mirebeau, Arthur was taken prisoner by John and was never heard from again. Stories abounded that he was tortured and eventually murdered (in April 1203), possibly by John himself, adding to the king’s reputation as an “evil” man. According to the chronicles written at Margam Abbey in Glamorgan, Scotland, “After King John had captured Arthur and kept him alive in prison for some time, at length, in the castle of Rouen, after dinner on the Thursday before Easter, when he was drunk and possessed by the devil . . . he slew him with his own hand and tying a heavy stone to the body cast it into the Seine. It was discovered by a fisherman in his net, and being dragged to the bank and recognized, was taken for secret burial, in fear of the tyrant, to the priory of Bec called Notre Dame de Près.”

  Yet some historians believe that the information detailed in the Margam annals may be fanciful; their supposition lies in the documented evidence that John treated Arthur’s sister Eleanor very well during the remainder of his reign. Although she was more or less under permanent house arrest as a captive of the crown, John routinely presented her with costly gifts of furs, textiles, clothes, and saddles, in addition to an annual allowance from the royal exchequer.

  The supreme court of France condemned John for Arthur’s murder, even though no corpse was ever submitted as evidence. And it made a convenient excuse for France to invade England; therefore, the revolt of John’s French barons can be seen as a direct consequence of his alleged murder of his nephew.