1141 … A mere twenty years since the completion of Norwich Castle as Henry the First's Royal Palace.
Empress Matilda holding a suspiciously blank charter.
Courtesy our friends the interweb.
And here we are with Empress Matilda, Henry's nominated successor, about to be crowned Queen of England. The usurper 'King Stephen' is her captive in Bristol Castle, chained and manacled and all Matilda has to do is win over the London Mob. Don't cock it up, Matilda …
Too late … The London Mob loves a good bribe and Stephen had exempted the city from royal taxes. Matilda demands the resumption of taxation and - by contemporary accounts - acts all hoity-toity and empress-y, haughtily haranguing them about her rights and their duties.
The Mob chase Matilda and her entourage out of London and she flees to Oxford Castle. Cue Stephen's wife, Queen Matilda and her Flemish mercenaries under William of Ypres. Queen Matilda promises to restore Stephen's tax bribe and - with the riotous support of the Mob, heads off in pursuit of the Empress. At last, the Matilda versus Matilda smackdown!
Well nearly … Getting back to the whole point of these talks, we (briefly) return to architecture.
As the Anarchy took hold across England, a siege tactic peculiar to this conflict was born; that of the "counter-castle".
So many new castles were built during Stephen's reign and so many earldoms granted that inevitably squabbles broke out when the scorched-earth warfare of the Anarchy left the new earls with little to eat and still less to loot.
Brian FitzCount complained that the destruction of his lands forced him to "take things from other people in order to sustain my life and the lives of my men."
Any earl or baron wishing to rob his neighbour now simply blockaded their castle and built another castle between three and four-hundred yards away (just out of bowshot but ideal for launching siege weapons), as you can see was done at Oxford (above).
Historian and Norman monk Robert of Torigni estimated at the time that as many as 1,115 castles and counter-castles were erected during Stephen's chaotic reign. Most were demolished under Henry the Second but a few mounds, such as at Oxford. still remain.
Under cover of a snowstorm, Empress Matilda was bundled up in white sheets and sneaked out across the frozen River Thames, heading for Bristol Castle. George R. R. Martin wrote this episode into GoT as Sansa Stark fleeing Winterfell in much the same manner. I wish he'd hurry up and finish Winds of Winter; it's not as if we've run out of history for him to use.
Empress Matilda now set out with Robert of Gloucester, Henry the First's favourite bastard and the leader of Matilda's army to Winchester in an attempt to secure what was left of Stephen's treasury; they lay siege to Wolvesey Castle.
Queen Matilda gathered up William of Ypres' army and some thousand armed militia from the London Mob and rushed to raise the siege. On September the fourteenth, 1141, in what became known as the Rout of Winchester, they defeated Robert's army and captured him, Empress Matilda managing to escape once more.
Queen Matilda offered to swap Robert of Gloucester for Stephen, still in chains in Bristol Castle, but Empress Matilda was having none of it, intending to hang on to Stephen. Instead she offered a dozen or so earls and a shedload of gold for Robert's release.
While they were haggling, Queen Matilda went behind the Empress' back and got a message to Robert's wife Amabel at Bristol Castle. The two of them agreed to swap Robert for Stephen. Empress Matilda threw a Trump-like tantrum but with no army left she retreated to Anjou to raise more forces.
The result of the smackdown: Queen Matilda, one … Empress Matilda, nil.
King Stephen clambered back onto the throne and there we were, back at the start again. Sheesh!
There followed thirteen more years of dread and terror as the earls and barons, mercenaries and Mob chased one another all over the country, laying waste to towns and villages, burning crops, castles and churches, spending more time robbing, raping and murdering the citizens and peasantry than actually fighting one another.
When they did have a scrap, they wouldn't kill one another … hell no! They were the aristocracy (their worthless descendants still are) and merely captured one another for ransom. It was everybody else who got killed.
The Golden Age of Chivalry was a really shitty time to be alive. Next time, more unpleasantness, but after that we'll relieve things with some gratuitous grossness and the odd giggle. I promise.
Sources:
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (various): C. Clark (ed): 1970
Historia Novella: William of Malmesbury. In translation as William of Malmesbury's Chronicle of the Kings of England from the Earliest Period to the Reign of King Stephen: J. A. Giles: 2016
Historia Anglorum: Henry of Huntingdon: In translation as The History of the English People, 1000 - 1154: Diana Greenway: Oxford World Classics: 2009
The Chronicle of John of Worcester, Volume 3: 1067 - 1140: In translation by R. R. Darlington: Oxford Mediæval Texts: 1995
Gesta Stephani: In translation by K. R. Potter and R. H. C. Davis: Oxford Mediæval Texts: 1976
Feudal Documents from Bury St. Edmunds: British Academy Records of the Social and Economic History of England and Wales: Donald C. Douglas: 1932
Francis Blomefield: An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the
County of Norfolk: Volume 3: The History of the City and County of
Norwich: 1753 to 1775
The Oxford History of England: 1087-1216: From Domesday to Magna Carta: Austin L. Poole (ed): 1951
The Anarchy of King Stephen's Reign: Edmund King (ed): 1994
Norwich Castle Keep: Romanesque Architecture and Social Context: T. A. Heslop: 1994
Stephen and Matilda : The Civil War of 1139 - 1153: Jim Bradbury: 2005
The Pipe Roll Society: Archive Editions (various): online resource
5 comments:
Gratuitous grossness! Always a crowd-pleaser.
I wonder why people find the aristocracy fascinating. I admit I do, and it's because of what they have that I don't - the palaces! the money! the history! As if the non-famous don't have history. We do, but nobody writes about it.
That's not exactly true; I'm reading The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England, where Ian Mortimer has written a history of the masses, 14th century style. (I'd like to have a similar book for every century of Britain's history.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Traveller%27s_Guide_to_Medieval_England
That's a fun book, Petrea. My favourite book on the fourteenth Century is Barbara Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror". My favourite US historian.
I love reading diaries from previous centuries. Everybody knows Pepys of course, and John Evelyn, but there are the Paston Letters, the Creavy Papers, Narcissus Luttrell's Diaries, the very wonderful Diary of a Village Shopkeeper, the Diary of a Country Parson, the Autobiography of Olaudah Equiano and dozens more. Take a holiday in the past with the people living there.
Thank you! That's a fantastic list. I'll seek these out.
I'm ashamed to admit I haven't read all of Pepys, just snippets here and there. He's still quoted constantly, and someone does a Twitter feed of his diary (chronologically, I believe).
I'm still reeling from the past entries! Movies and fiction have nothing on you, sweetpea, when it comes to history! xox
Old diaries are addictive, Petrea. Good old Pepys is a constant delight, though a very naughty boy at times.
Savannah, living in the past is a lot nicer than living in the present, especially this year. xox
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