82: Grappling with a Lion

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            Philippe II lost a lot during the Third Crusade. Disease ruined his gums, eventually leading to the loss of his teeth. The same illness took his hair as well. He also lost militarily. After repeated difficulties at Acre, the Crusaders did not even attempt to assault Jerusalem. Philippe II probably wasn’t feeling so lucky when he returned to his homeland. Yet, as unfortunate as he had been, his rival fared even worse. During Richard I’s return journey he was blown off course and had to travel through the German lands where he was captured by Duke Leopold of Austria in December 1192. For 15 months he would remain a captive, first of the Duke and then the Emperor.

            Philippe II suddenly had a golden opportunity to make the King of France the dominant power in the kingdom for the first time since Guillaume the Conqueror subjugated England. Philippe II had made a vow not to invade Angevin territory so long as Richard I was gone on Crusade. At the moment, the King of England was a prisoner of a Christian king, and as such, Philippe II was released from his oath, at least according to Philippe II.

            For the next 15 months the King of France launched a multi-faceted campaign in all directions. First, he pressed his claims to those territories he viewed as rightfully his. Second, he courted and pressured nobles in border zones to switch allegiances from the Angevins to him. Finally, he conquered new territories which he gained through agreements with Jean, who claimed the throne of England.

            To start, Philippe II led an army into the Norman Vexin. There he met the seneschal of Normandy and gave him a copy of the agreement that he and Richard I had made at Messina, in which the King of England would return Alix’s dower lands after breaking off his marriage to her. The Normans refused to cooperate, claiming that Philippe II must have forged the document. Perhaps the northern lords were genuinely unaware that their sovereign had married Berengaria of Navarre and made a new deal with the King of France. Either that, or they were holding out until Richard I returned and did not want to surrender lands to someone they considered an enemy.

            With the Normans stubbornly holding out against the king’s demands, Philippe II decided it was time to turn the Angevins against each other. The King of France reached out to Richard I’s younger brother Jean, known in the English-speaking world as ‘John Lackland,’ because he was Henri II’s youngest son and was set to inherit almost nothing compared to his older brothers. However, with three brothers dead and the other in captivity, Jean saw his opportunity to become the leader of the Angevin Empire. Philippe II and Jean struck a bargain under which Jean would cede a number of important border territories in exchange for the French king’s support. Thus, the Angevin Empire was simultaneously invaded, torn apart in a civil war and suffered a rebellion in Poitou.

            The two main theaters of war were England, where Jean warred for the throne of the island kingdom, and Normandy, where Philippe II invaded from the south. Most of the nobility in England remained loyal to Richard I, and Jean’s campaign went poorly as he and his allies had their castles besieged. In contrast, Philippe II made significant gains, taking Lyons-la-Forêt, Neaufles and the stronghold of Gisors. Many Norman aristocrats surrendered without a fight to the King of France, which is understandable given that they held lands both within the Angevin Empire and in parts of France under Philippe II’s power. Since these lords had dispersed territories they owed fealty to both Richard I and Philippe II, and were not fully loyal to either. The King of France was a powerful enemy; even if Philippe II could not take Norman lands outright, he could still threaten the lord’s manors within the royal domain. The only thing that had kept the Normans on the borderlands from resisting the King of France was knowing that they had a powerful leader who would defend their rights across the kingdom. With Richard I gone, Philippe II walked largely unopposed into his enemy’s fortresses.

            Philippe II pressed north along the Seine, taking towns until he reached the capital of Normandy at Rouen. The French encircled the city and besieged it with 23 siege engines. Yet, Rouen was heavily fortified, and the marshy terrain made it difficult to approach. Philippe II sent envoys to the city, telling its leaders he would be a just ruler if only they surrendered. Yet, the Normans refused. As the siege dragged on, the King of France decided to quit while he was ahead. He had the siege engines set on fire so that they could not be used against him. For similar reasons, he did a far fouler thing: he had his men break the wine casks they had brought with them, though ostensibly after drinking every last drop. Philippe II failed to take Normandy outright, but he still held a garrison at Le Vaudreuil, which was a mere 20 kilometers from Rouen.

            In the ensuing negotiations, Jean agreed to give up all Norman territory east of the Seine River, save only Rouen. This was largely a formality; Jean had no power on the Continent, and was on the backfoot in England. Yet, these concessions were a clear affirmation of Philippe II’s growing power. Following the campaign in Normandy, Philippe II prepared an invasion of England to place Jean on the throne, though Richard I’s little brother was performing so poorly that the French king decided against it.

            On 4 February 1194, Emperor Heinrich VI released Richard I, after receiving 150,000 silver marks from his mother, Aliénor of Aquitaine. Before he did, Heinrich VI showed Richard I letters from Philippe II asking him to keep Richard I in captivity. Philippe II later denied that he had conspired against Richard I. To this day historians debate whether Philippe II actually did send letters to the Emperor offering to pay him to hold his enemy hostage. Perhaps just as likely, the Emperor had the documents forged to further sow discord between the King of England and the King of France. The Holy Roman Emperor was a perpetual enemy of the French King, as the two warred over border territories. The Emperor clearly recognized the King of England as a potential ally against a common foe. Whatever the case, Richard I left the Emperor’s court with a burning hatred for Philippe II and a need to enact vengeance on all those who betrayed him.

            Upon his release, the Lionheart made a miniature tour of the northwest fringes of the empire, visiting Antwerp and Cologne. During this time, he met with a number of powerful lords, among them the archbishop of Cologne, the dukes of Swabia, Louvain and Limburg and the counts of Holland, Montferrat and Flanders. With kind words and ample cash, Richard I and his mother forged friendships as they prepared for battle.

            On 13 March, Richard I arrived in Sandwich and within three days he was in London. When Jean’s supporters heard the news they abandoned his rebellion. With England subdued, Richard I raised an army so large that it took a fleet of one hundred ships to carry all the men, horses, equipment and supplies. When a storm appeared in the Channel, Richard I refused to hold off and ordered his men to sail. The Lionheart was not easily cowed, though he soon realized that Mother Nature’s fury was even worse than his own, and his armada briefly pulled back into port before taking off again in mid-May. From the coast, his army marched south until they reached Lisieux. There, Jean threw himself at Richard’s feet. In response, Richard I roared at his upstart sibling, calling him a child who had been beguiled by evil counselors. The King of England further stated that Jean would have to earn back his lands by joining the war against Philippe II.  

            Jean immediately set out for the castle at Évreux, which the King of France had recently taken and handed over to Jean for safe-keeping. The Angevin passed through the gates with a small army, pretending to occupy it on behalf of Philippe II. Once inside, the Anglo-Normans slaughtered the garrison. Jean then invited a number of nearby French lords to Évreux. When they arrived he had their heads cut off, placed on pikes and paraded them around the city. Such vile acts earned Jean universal condemnation as a coward and a betrayer. While Richard I and Philippe II had enemies, they were at least respected even by those who opposed them. Jean’s dishonorable tactics garnered no respect, and would later work against him.

            For five years, between 1194-1199, the two kings engaged in on-and-off warfare across France. This was a particularly brutal war as both sides made heavy use of mercenary forces, who pillaged villages, sacked towns, and took whatever they pleased.

Richard I’s sudden arrival in Normandy caught Philippe II off-guard. When the French learned that the Anglo-Normans were approaching Verneuil, Philippe II abandoned the siege. With the French in full retreat, Richard I moved from one territory to the next, reimposing his control. Yet, while Philippe II focused on Normandy, Richard I headed southwest to Aquitaine, which was the favorite of all his possessions. With Richard I away, Philippe II retook Évreux, burning it to the ground.

In mid-1194 Philippe II and Richard I were both campaigning in the Loire Valley. The two kings shadowed each other, neither looking for a direct engagement. During the medieval period armies were largely comprised of local levées who aimed to intimidate their opponents or engage in small skirmishes to defend their own territory rather than fight full pitched battles far from their homes.

The Anglo-Normans struck on 3 July 1194 at Fréteval, halfway between Le Mans and Orléans. Richard I managed to outmaneuver Philippe II and a part of his forces attacked the French king’s baggage train. While the French lost relatively few soldiers, this was a political disaster. In the pre-modern period, the government was usually located wherever the king was at the time. With the baggage train, Philippe II lost his royal seal, many important tax and legal documents, lists of Richard I’s vassals who had switched sides and a list of Philippe II’s spies in Angevin territory.

As his forces fell apart, Philippe II fled to a nearby church. Perhaps Richard I could have ended the war then and there, had he been able to capture the rival monarch. Who knows; he may have been able to take the throne in Paris and unite the kingdoms of England and France. Yet, that was not to be, as Richard I went looking for Philippe II elsewhere, allowing the French monarch to slip away.

            By 1194 much of the territory Philippe II had secured in the west and south had reverted to the Angevins, yet he still maintained sizeable gains in Normandy. While Philippe Auguste struggled against the Lionheart, he easily dealt with Jean. French forces forced Jean to flee as Philippe II rampaged across the north.

            Historian Jim Bradbury writes that as 1194 drew to a close, “A pattern emerged for the war, of fighting until the exhaustion of both sides led to a truce for the rest of the year.” The war continued into 1195 when Philippe II besieged Le Vaudreuil. Before long, Richard I arrived and the two kings entered into peace negotiations. Even as they did, French sappers continued undermining the walls. Hilariously, as the two discussed terms there was an enormous crashing sound as the walls collapsed. So too did the peace talks, as the furious scion of House Plantagenêt stormed off. The two sides continued the war for the rest of the year. Richard I led an unsuccessful siege of Arques, while Philippe II sacked Dieppe, razing the city with Greek fire. The Anglo-Normans again struck the French baggage train, though not as successfully as at Fréteval.

            The peace treaty of Louviers lasted less than a year. In 1196 a new front in the war opened up when the Bretons rebelled against Richard I on behalf of the 9-year-old Arthur. As the grandson of King Henri II, and son of Richard I’s brother Geoffroi, Arthur had a strong claim to the Angevin throne. Indeed, Richard I himself had recognized Arthur as his heir when he was in Sicily. Yet, it was clear that Jean wanted to take possession of the Angevin Empire for himself, and Arthur’s mother Constance feared for her son’s succession. That year she attempted to marry Arthur’s elder sister to Philippe II’s only son Louis, but negotiations fell apart.

            Richard I understood that Constance was determined to assert her son’s power. He also feared that her influence with the Bretons would escalate into a military conflict and so he summoned her to court. As she approached, one of Richard I’s vassals kidnapped her, though Arthur’s loyalists secreted him to the French court. The outraged Breton lords appealed to Philippe II who happily supported their revolt against their mutual enemy. The King of England defeated the insurgents, though at significant cost. Moreover, while the Bretons recognized Richard I as their overlord they also held that Arthur was his rightful heir and not Jean.

            Richard I secured a number of small victories through trickery, taking Vierzon and Nonancourt. He attempted to relieve the siege of Aumale but Philippe II’s men defeated him and he was personally unhorsed. Richard I then led his forces to besiege Gaillon. As he rode around the walls, its castellan shot him in the knee with a crossbow bolt. While the arrow to the knee did not end his adventuring days, he suffered a more serious injury when his horse was struck and fell on him, forcing him to take a month off from campaigning while he recovered.

            The King of England managed to gain a powerful ally when he secured a marriage alliance between his sister Jeanne and Count Raymond VI of Toulouse. However, the alliance also showed a measure of weakness, as the Angevins had been at war in the center-south for 40 years, starting under Henri II, who claimed Toulouse was his by rights. Even as Richard I bolstered his strength in the south he gave up any rights he had to controlling the territory outright.

            In July 1197, The King of England made an even stronger ally: the Count of Flanders. Richard I placed an embargo on Flanders which devastated the Flemish economy. Flanders had a significant textile sector and depended on English wool to produce clothing. Richard I agreed to lift the embargo in exchange for Count Baldwin going to war with France. Baldwin managed to take a number of important castles before Philippe II arrived in the northeast. The King of France repulsed the Flemish but was briefly trapped when they destroyed the bridges leading back to the royal domain. While Philippe II retook his territory in the northeast, Richard I captured a number of important territories around Normandy.

            The war continued into 1198 and again the Lionheart bested his French counterpart at Courcelles. The French army retreated to Gisors and suffered another tragedy when the bridge crossing the River Epte collapsed. Weighed down by their armor, 18 knights drowned. The king was among those who fell into the river but his men just managed to pull him out and watched him vomit up water along the muddy bank. The Anglo-Normans then captured 100 French knights left on the other side of the Epte.

            After five years of war, Richard I had won back nearly all the territory Philippe II seized from him during his imprisonment in Germany. It was a significant accomplishment, though it came at great financial cost. Many of the king’s subjects were furious that after they had to pay the ‘Saladin tithe’ to fund the Third Crusade that they now had to pay exceptional war taxes. This was particularly galling for the lords in England. The aristocracy of England descended from the Normans who invaded the island under Guillaume the Conqueror, but by this time many of them had ‘gone native.’ Not in the sense that they spoke English; God forbid. The Anglo-Norman aristocracy maintained their own language and culture, but they increasingly drew their wealth from England. Some English lords maintained holdings in Normandy but almost none of them had territory in Aquitaine or the other faraway parts of the Angevin Empire. In 1196 the bishops of Lincoln and Salisbury claimed that lords in England did not owe military service in France. As famine and plague struck the island, the citizens of London even revolted against Richard I’s rule.

            Richard I certainly earned his moniker Lionheart, for his fearsome temper, often irrational bursts of anger and from the unrelenting terror he struck into his foes and subjects alike. Yet, it was becoming clear that the different regions of the Angevin Empire were drifting apart and were only held together through the personal will of the lion. Richard I was able to take back much of what he had lost, but short of some twist of fate he could not realistically seize additional territory from any strong opponent.

            In the year 1199 the two kings entered into yet another peace negotiation. These final negotiations may have been longer-lasting had they ever been finalized, due to the pressure of the papacy. Pope Innocent III had enough of Christians spilling Christian blood in Europe when there were plenty of Muslims they could be killing instead. The previous year he had preached a Fourth Crusade to retake Jerusalem and was determined to end the infighting between Catholic lords.

            If Philippe II was willing to go along with the demands of His Holiness, Richard I had reservations. For several years he held the bishop of Beauvais in bondage after capturing the militant bishop while he was leading a force against the Anglo-Normans. The papacy initially allowed the imprisonment of one of their bishops and condemned him for taking up arms. Yet, after a year in captivity, a papal legate went to Richard I’s court and asked that the spiritual leader of Beauvais be released. In his usual polite manner, Richard I threatened to castrate the legate. The Lionheart likewise expelled Innocent III’s legate, calling him a, “traitor, liar, trickster and simoniac.”

            The two kings finally agreed to a tense meeting near Louviers. With neither trusting the other side, Philippe II remained on horseback on the riverbank while Richard I sat on a boat in the middle of the Seine River. There the two agreed to a marriage alliance between prince Louis and Richard I’s niece, Blanche of Castille. While not committing to peace, the two established a five-year truce.

            Philippe II agreed not to fight Richard I and by God he stuck to his promise. But Philippe II wasn’t one to follow the spirit of the law, and he supported a rebellion in Aquitaine. Richard I traveled south to fight against the upstart Count of Limoges and besieged the castle of Châlus. On the 26 March, Richard I strode around the walls, looking for potential weak points to exploit. While the walls were thick, the besiegers heavily outnumbered the garrison, who were also poorly equipped. One crossbowman in particular, was batting away enemy bolts with a frying pan in lieu of a shield! It was just that crossbowman who saw Richard I pass by and fired the bolt that would end his life. The bolt’s point sunk into the space between the king’s shoulder and neck.

            Richard I initially thought the wound was not that serious and so he got on his horse and rode back to camp, bolt still protruding from the side of his neck. By this time Richard I was well past his prime at 41 years old. Moreover, he likely had problems walking ever since he took an arrow to the knee and his horse fell on him. Since then he had grown fat, and his excess skin tissue made it difficult for the surgeon to extract the bolt. Said surgeon mangled the king’s shoulder and the wound became infected with gangrene.

As the king lay dying his men took the castle. Richard I ordered his men to bring the crossbowman who had fired the bolt before him. Shockingly, rather than condemning the shooter, Richard I chose to show mercy and even gave him 100 shillings. It was, after all a good shot. That was the King of England’s last act of kindness. On 6 April 1199, the Lionheart passed away in his mother’s arms.

King Philippe II spent the better part of his life at war. First, he triumphed against his upstart vassals. Then he united with Henri II’s sons against their powerful father. After returning from the Third Crusade he again warred with the Angevins, this time primarily against the Lionheart. In truth, Richard I bested Philippe II over a 5-year period. However, Richard I was only taking back what he had lost. Furthermore, the French king was never defeated decisively, and eventually outlasted his rival.

The Lionheart’s death meant that the Angevin Empire was in tatters. When Philippe II heard the news he immediately invaded Normandy, probably after skipping for joy. Many Norman nobles surrendered without a fight, recognizing that they had no strong lord to protect them. Jean was not fit to succeed Richard I; in fact, some, particularly the Bretons, refused to acknowledge him as their new sovereign. Even those who nominally bended the knee knew that if pressed, Jean could not hold the empire together. After spending so much of his life on the defensive, Philippe II looked to crush House Plantagenêt and destroy the personal empire that dominated France over the previous century.

Sources:

Jim Bradbury, The Capetians: Kings of France 987-1328, 2007.

Jim Bradbury, Philip Augustus: King of France 1180-1223, 1998.

John W. Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages, 1986.

Jean Flori, Richard the Lionheart: Knight and King, Translated by Jean Birrell, 1999.