Old Dive's History of Norwich Castle - Part the Fourth - Under Siege: Norwich Castle During the Barons' Wars - Chapter VI

So ended the ludicrous game of musical thrones betwixt King's John, Louis and Henry; the barons were back on side, the Scots stayed north of the border and the boy King Henry the Third's armies were victorious under the leadership of elderly überknight William Marshal.

 In 1221, aged fourteen, Henry stayed at Norwich Castle and seemingly took a liking to it as in 1224 he forced Roger Bigod to surrender it to him. Yet, as Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu notes in East Anglian Archæology no. 132, "Somehow, the Bigod family always seemed to recover favour after the treasons of its members."

 

The interweb's idea of Henry the Third

The picture above does not do Henry justice. According to a contemporary chronicler he stood around five-feet-six and was rather fat, his left eyelid drooped and covered half his eye, giving him a sinister appearance. To cap it all, "His mind seemed not to stand on a firm basis, for every sudden accident put him into a passion."

After being sacked and burned by King Louis, the long-suffering folk of Norwich now had only thirty-odd years to rebuild their city before the Second Barons' War came their way.

By the late 1230s the barons had become heartily sick of Henry's nepotism and the increasing influence of his French relatives in the running of England. Henry married off his sister Eleanor to his French favourite Simon de Montfort and then had a barney with Pope Alexander the Fourth, who threatened him with excommunication for non-payment of a bribe offered to Alexander for his support in granting the Kingdom of Sicily to Henry's infant son, Edmund.

The barons forced Henry to sign what became known as The Provisions of Oxford in 1258, in effect nominating a fifteen member privy council of barons to oversee the country. Then they did what barons always did and quarreled and bickered and the whole thing fell to pieces.

Henry and his queen were hugely unpopular with the common folk and especially the London Mob, who pelted the queen with rotten eggs and vegetables when she travelled the Thames in the royal barge.

In 1261 Henry ripped up the Provisions of Oxford and in 1264 de Montfort defeated Henry's forces and ruled in the king's name, founding an early form of parliament from among the barons. The following year, Roger Bigod - like his father, sick of living in Bungay - switched sides once again and declared against the king, the barons reappointing him Constable of Norwich Castle.

Bad move, Roger … Henry's eldest son Edward stuffed the barons at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, Simon de Montfort was killed in the melée and his head displayed on a spike.

Back in Norwich, I shall let Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu take up the tale …

"After Simon's defeat his supporters were deprived of their lands and, though redemption terms were agreed in October, many of them remained dissatisfied. They became know as 'the Disinherited'. In the middle of December, a party of them and their followers who had a stronghold in the Isle of Ely and had no doubt exhausted the food in that district marched on Norwich.

The Lannisters moving 140 carts of loot from Norwich to King's Landing … possibly.

They overcame the resistance of the citizens, sacked and burned buildings and took a large number of prisoners for ransom. Plunder said to have been worth 20,000 marks and to have filled one-hundred-and-forty carts, was removed to Ely."

From there the rebels marched on London and took it, apart from the Tower. Eventually peace was negotiated but Norwich had to rebuild once again.

Norwich Castle was attacked but not taken during the sacking of the city. For his stout resistance, the sheriff was rewarded by Henry the Third with 100 marks (one mark being two-thirds of a pound, thirteen-and-fourpence).

Roger Bigod somehow managed to get himself restored as Constable of Norwich Castle in 1273, but stupidly conspired against the king yet again and was kicked out of Norwich and this time had to give up Bungay Castle, too.

Yet the Bigod luck held, no matter how many times they rebelled, and soon after his latest treasonous episode Roger was restored to Norwich and got Bungay Castle back, too.

This Roger Bigod, son of Hugh Bigod, who was son of Roger Bigot, now begat another Hugh Bigod, who begat another Roger Bigod. This Roger Bigod had no male heirs so the line passed to a younger son of Hugh Bigod called … Roger Bigod.

And you wonder why I look so confused all the while.

Sources:

Norfolk Museums Service and the Norfolk Archæological Society

East Anglian Archæology Vol. 132: Norwich Castle: Excavations and Historical Survey: 1978-1988: Part 1: Anglo-Saxon to c.1345: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2009

Gesta Stephani: In translation by K. R. Potter and R. H. C. Davis: Oxford Mediæval Texts: 1976

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 Norman Connections - Castle: Part 1: Norwich Castle: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2010

Mediæval Norwich: ed: Carole Rawcliffe & Richard Wilson: 2004 

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