Richard I by John Gillingham: A Review

John Gillingham describes his book on King Richard I, one in a series of biographies of English Monarchs by Yale University Press, as a political biography. In his preface to the book he stresses that he is not attempting to analyze Richard Plantagenet the man, but rather the political legacy of King Richard I, and he explicitly excludes from his discussion Richard’s “inner life.” He does not look at him as a son, husband or brother, but only in the context of his effectiveness as a ruler — first as a deputy for his mother and/or father and later in his own right as Duke of Aquitaine and King of England. Essentially, Gillingham sets out to determine whether Richard was a “good” or a “bad” king.

The focus is justified by the fact that King Richard has been both lionized and vilified by historians over the centuries. As Gillingham catalogues, medieval historians saw in him a hero on the scale of King Arthur, Roland and Charlemagne. Later Plantagenet kings were judged in comparison with him — the highest praise being to come near to equaling him. Yet during the Reformation and the later Tudor era Richard started to fall into disrepute as a result of Protestant condemnation of the crusades. By the 19th century it was commonplace to dismiss his achievements as paltry because they did not promote Victorian values such as empire building, trade and sound fiscal policy. In the 20th century RIchard was condemned for spending too little time in England and “oppressing the masses” with his taxes for “worthless” ventures such as the Third Crusade — and his ransom, of course.

Gillingham points out that, long before the historical debate, Richard inspired extreme opinions in his lifetime. Adulated and adored by some of his subjects and supporters, he was demonized by his political enemies, particularly Philip II of France. He is credited with abusing noblewomen and maidens, with hounding his father to his grave, murdering his political opponents, and with betraying the cause of Christ while in the Holy Land. The ironic result, Gillingham suggests, is that the most objective contemporary commentary on Richard probably come from Muslim sources. Unfortunately for us, these only describe his actions during the less than two years in which he was active in the Holy Land.

Given the treacherous nature of his sources, Gillingham does an admirable job of depicting Richard Plantagenet based on what he actually did rather than on what people said about him. In doing so, he convincingly builds the case that Richard was a remarkably effective monarch — judged by the standards and values of his day. In doing so, he highlights the absurdity of expecting a mercantilist monarch in a feudal kingdom, much less a mild and tolerant ruler in a brutal and violent age.

What emerges is a complex but on the whole admirable and competent leader, a statesman as well as a general. As Gillingham documents, Richard was not just a dashing knight and outstanding commander, nor merely a brilliant tactician, strategist and logistician. He was a sound financial manager, who alone among the leaders of the Third Crusade was consistently in a financial position to recruit and provision troops. He managed to raise a truly enormous ransom without, in fact, beggaring his subjects. He was, to be sure, creative in his methods of raising funds — from selling offices to selling conquests (Cyprus). Rather than wrinkling our noses at these allegedly distasteful practices, however, we should consider that the alternative would indeed have been to tax the innocent poor rather than milk the grasping rich. He was also an astonishingly effective diplomat, not only in his complicated negotiations with Saladin, but in turning his erstwhile German enemies into allies, and in his tedious but eventually effective efforts to pry the Counts of Flanders and Toulouse out of the French camp and into his own.

Last but not least, despite his reluctance to discuss the private side of Richard, Gillingham does offer insight into Richard’s personality. We get glimpses of a man who was very well educated, loved music and was more than superficially pious. We learn that he had a fine and subtle sense of humor and often spoke half in jest, and was man adept at using a light-hearted tone to deliver serious messages. While he clearly inherited the infamous Plantagenet temper, it did not dominate him, and he was rarely irrational even when angry. Most important, Gillingham’s Richard is a man of many parts far removed from the buffoon-like Richard found in so many films and novels that reduce him to a brutal idiot or a jovial but empty-headed figurehead.

This biography is well-worth reading and is a must for anyone interested in the period. 

Richard plays a key role in the third book of my Balian d'Ibelin biography as Balian -- after some initial disagreements and conflicts -- was eventually chosen by the Lionheart to negotiate the truce with Saladin that ended the Third Crusade.

Read the first two books in the series:

Knight of Jerusalem: A Biographical Novel of Balian d'Ibelin

Book I

A landless knight,

                A leper King

                                And the struggle for Jerusalem.

Buy Now!

Defender of Jerusalem: A Biographical Novel of Balian d'Ibelin

Book II

A divided kingdom,

                         A united enemy,

                                                  And the struggle for Jerusalem.

Buy now!  

"The Greatest Knight" -- A Review

The Greatest Knight: The Unsung Story of the Queen’s Champion by Elizabeth Chadwick

William Marshal was undoubtedly one of the most intriguing – and engaging – characters of the Plantagenet era in English history.  The true story of a man who rose of landless knight to regent of England has long deserved a good historical novel – or more. The story cried out for a novel so loudly, in fact, that I was often tempted to attempt it myself, and felt a little sad that Ms. Chadwick beat me to it.

That said, Ms. Chadwick has done an excellent job.  Her narrative sticks very close to the known historical facts about Marshal and relies heavily on the panegyric poem commissioned by his eldest son after his death as a memorial.  The history is meticulously accurate – as one expects from Chadwick.  Furthermore, because Chadwick has written a number of books set in this period of history, she understands and effectively describes customs, clothes, food and lifestyle as well as the historical events.

Chadwick’s Marshal, like the historical figure he portrays, is likable from the start, but given the material she was working with this is hardly remarkable.  More impressive was her handling of Henry the Young King and Henry II, both of whom are very vivid characters, who despite their faults win our sympathy. The description of Henry the Young King’s death is one of the best in the novel.  Likewise, Chadwick’s handling of the Young King’s wife and her relationship with Marshal is sensitive and believable.

If the book has a weakness, it was in the handling of what Chadwick herself calls a “spiritual crisis” following the Young King’s death. Marshal undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in place of his dead lord, and spent two years there returning, by many counts, a changed man. Apparently because there is no historical record of what Marshal did in the Holy Land, Chadwick more-or-less skips over this episode in his life and does not explore it psychologically before or after, preferring to remain silent as Marshal’s 13^th century biographer did.

 Altogether the book is well worth reading, and I look forward to reading Chadwick’s continuation of Marshal’s life (The Greatest Knight ends in the middle of Marshal’s life) in The Scarlet Lion.

William Marshal in the Holy Land

William Marshal has gone down in English history as one of the most famous non-royal heroes of the Middle Ages. He was famed even in his lifetime as one of the greatest knights of a knightly age and a “flower of chivalry.”

Marshal loved and excelled at tournaments, depicted here in a 13^th century German manuscript.

His story is better than fiction. If his biography were not so well documented, it would be easy to dismiss the stories about him as pure invention. But William Marshal really existed, and he really rose from being a landless knight to regent of England by his merits. Even his wife, through whom he became a magnate of the realm, was won by his prowess and loyalty, for he was granted the rich heiress by the dying Henry II as a reward for his decades of service to the Plantagenets, and the grant was confirmed by Richard I to secure Marshal’s loyalty in the future. But in addition to being a paragon of chivalry, Marshal was typical of his generation in that he was also a faithful son of the Holy Catholic Church. On his deathbed he renounced the world and took vows as a monk, a Templar monk, and was buried in the Temple in London.

Tomb of a Knight in the Temple of London, sometimes identified as William Marshal

He also went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Because Marshal was such a famous knight and powerful figure at the time of his death, we are lucky to have a long eulogy in the form of a poem or song that was commissioned by his eldest son and intended to record his life for posterity.  The poem is nineteen thousand nine hundred and fourteen verses long, and it is a remarkable document in itself, both lively and evocative.  Perhaps even more astonishing, the poem identifies sources and distinguishes between hear-say and verifiable fact, points out when sources are contradictory, and recounts many events at first hand, stating explicitly “this I have seen” in many places. The latter suggests that the author was an intimate of William Marshal, or at least a trusted member of his household. This document, otherwise so rich in detail, however, tells us almost nothing about Marshal’s stay in the Holy Land.

What we do know is that William Marshal was bequeathed the crusader cross – the vow to go to Jerusalem and pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – by his liege Henry the Young King. Henry had taken crusader vows sometime in 1182 or 1183 – which did not stop him from sacking churches and monasteries to pay his mercenaries. William Marshal appears to have been a witness – if not a participant – in the sack of Rocamadour, at which the Young King stole the sword of Roland and much other treasure.  Returning from this disgraceful act, the Young King fell abruptly ill. In a high fever and fearing for his soul at last, he sent messengers to his father begging for forgiveness, and turned over his mantle with the crusader cross over to William Marshal.  He begged Marshal to fulfil his vow in his stead, then lay on a bed of ashes with a noose around his neck and died. It was June 11, 1183.

Medieval depiction of a Crusader

According to Marshal’s biographer, William spent “two years” in Syria, serving the King of Jerusalem, doing great deeds of arms and winning the respect of the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller. However, he was back in Europe by 1187, months before the devastating Battle of Hattin, and he brought with him two white, silk shrouds for his own burial.  He also returned having vowed to join the Knights Templar before his own death.

Those are the only known facts we have about William Marshal in the Holy Land, but even these facts are intriguing. Marshall most probably reached the Holy Land, travelling by either land or sea, in the spring of 1184. If he spent two years there he departed at the latest in the autumn of 1186.

The Crusader Kingdoms were defended by a network of castles such as this: Krak de Chevalliers

Those two years were years of dramatic change in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. On the one hand, the Muslims, which had long been bitterly divided between the Sunnis loyal to the Caliph of Baghdad and the Shiites of the Fatimid Caliphate, had been united under the strong and charismatic leadership of the Kurdish leader Salah ad-Din.  Saladin, as he is known in western writings, had called for jihad, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem was more threatened than it had been since the early years of its existence. At the same time, the Kingdom was weakened from within because the king, Baldwin IV, was suffering from leprosy and slowly dying. His heir was a young boy, the son of his sister Sibylla, by her first husband.

Not long after William Marshal arrived in Jerusalem a delegation headed by the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Grand Masters of the Templars and Hospitallers was dispatched by King Baldwin to the West. The delegation carried with it the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the keys to the Tower of Dave: effectively the symbolic keys to the kingdom. The three men sought first the aid of Philip II of France and then Henry II of England, begging the later to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, turn his Western Kingdom over to his adult and capable heir, and take up the cause of Christendom by defending the Holy Land. If he would not do that, the delegation pleaded, then he should send one of his sons in his stead.  One has to wonder if this was pure coincidence of timing, or if William Marshal, who knew the Plantagenets so well had not recommended – or at least encouraged – the appeal.

Meanwhile, Baldwin IV, in anticipation of his death, made his vassals vow an oath with regard to the succession.  If his nephew did not live to manhood and sire heirs of his own, they were to send to the Kings of France and England and to the Pope, who were then to jointly name a successor. Baldwin IV expressly excluded his sister Sybilla and her second husband from the succession.  

In the summer 1185, in the midst of Marshal’s stay in the Holy Land, Baldwin IV died.  His nephew was crowned Baldwin V, and the High Court of Jerusalem chose Raymond of Tripoli, an able and experienced man, as his regent. Tripoli immediately secured a new truce with Salah ad-Din.

Baldwin V, however, was sickly, and in August 1185, with Marshal still in the Holy Land, he died. The regent and the High Court of Jerusalem met in Tiberius to deal with the interregnum, but the dead king’s mother and her husband staged a coup. Sibylla had herself crowned Queen in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and placed the second crown on her husband’s head as her consort. Her second husband was a certain Guy de Lusignan, the younger son of a Poitivin baron and possibly an accomplice in the murder of Patrick, Earl of Salisbury, William Marshal’s uncle.

The murder of Patrick of Salisbury had been a highly significant episode in William Marshal’s young life. As a landless knight in his uncle’s entourage, he had been escorting Queen Eleanor through her own territories, when they were attacked by the Lusignan brothers, then in rebellion against her. Accounts vary on which of the Lusignans was present (there were four brothers: Hugh, Geoffrey, Aimery and Guy), but there is no disagreement on how the Earl of Salisbury was killed.  Namely, he was pierced from behind by a lance when both unarmored and not defending himself.  This was clearly an “unchivalrous” blow, a despicable act, that outraged the young William Marshal.  William himself severely wounded in the encounter, taken captive, and ill-treated by the Lusignans.

Given this history, it is hard to imagine that William Marshal was partial to Guy de Lusignan, whether he had been personally responsible for the Earl of Salisbury’s murder or not.  (Indeed, it may have been his opposition to Guy de Lusignan that inspired him to suggest the above mission to Henry II – assuming he had anything to do with it.) Furthermore, Sibylla and Guy’s coup preempted the rights of Henry II, Marshal’s liege, who should have been involved in naming the next King of Jerusalem.  Marshal must have been appalled by their behavior, and it would probably have reinforced his dislike for the Lusignans. Since Marshal appears to have left the Holy Land not long after Lusignan’s usurpation of the throne, it is probably fair to postulate that it was Lusignan’s rise to power that induced Marshal to quit

The Holy Land.

This hypothesis is supported by the fact that William appears to have spent his years in the Holy Land as one of the many secular knights who temporarily served with the Templars.  These knights did not take the final vows of poverty and chastity, but for the period of the voluntary service, submitted themselves to the discipline and Rule of the Knights Templar.  Indeed, in William’s case we know that he vowed to join the Temple – as he eventually did. The timing, however, is significant. The Grand Master of the Templars, who had been sent to plead with Henry II to come to the Holy Land had died during his mission and been replaced by a man who supported Guy de Lusignan.  So Marshal’s decision not to take his final vows and stay with the Templars in their hour of need, may have had to do with his unwillingness to serve Guy de Lusignan, leaving it to his deathbed to finally join the Templars.

An illustration from Matthew Paris’ “Greater Chronicle” depicting Knights Templar.

We will never know, but Marshal’s very silence to his household and family about this episode in his life suggests that he left the Holy Land with a bitter taste in his mouth – or opinions he felt he should best keep to himself.

Biographies of William Marshal available today include:

·         William Marshal, Knight-Errant, Baron and Regent of England, by Sidney Painter, 1933.

·         William Marshal, Flower of Chivalry, George Duby, 1985.

·         William Marshal: Knighthood, War and Chivalry, by David Crouch, 2002.

·         William Marshal Earl of Pembroke, by Catherine Armstrong, 2007

Recommended works of historical fiction featuring William Marshal:

·   Christian Balling’s Champion is delightful, but it only covers a tiny slice of Marshal’s life. 

·   Elizabeth Chadwick’s The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion are well-researched and well-written tributes to William Marshal.