Split open to the teeth

In the summer of 1296, while Edward I launched his invasion of Scotland, a number of similar conflicts raged in the Iberian kingdoms south of the Pyrenees. One particular war, the invasion of Murcia by Jaume II of Aragon, shows how monarchs of this era would seize upon the weakness of their neighbours to seize power and territory.

At first King Jaume (reigned 1291-1327) was on friendly terms with the kingdom of Castile, but later intrigued to depose the boy-king, Fernando IV, and to divide Castile-Léon among Fernando's kinsman. The civil war that ensued left Jaume with a free hand to invade the province of Murcia in south-east Spain.

Jaume II presiding over his court

Murcia had once been part of the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba , only  to be captured during the Reconquista in the 1240s. In the early years of his reign, Jaume had agreed to a division of Murcia with Aragon, but in 1296 he tore up the agreement and launched a full-scale invasion. Distracted by their internal divisions, the Castilians could do nothing to stop him.

The progress of Jaume's invasion is vividly recorded by Roman Muntáner, a Catalan mercenary and writer who would later lead a 'Free Company' to help the Eastern Romans fight the Turks (before promptly changing sides and helping the Turks fight the Eastern Romans). In July 1296, even while John Balliol was being stripped of his empty coat in Scotland, the armies of Aragon swept over the borders into Murcia and laid siege to the town and castle of Alicante.

The castle should have been a tough nut to crack. The Castillo de Santa Bárbara (pictured) was a mighty fortress perched on the heights of Mount Benacantil. Originally a Moorish stronghold, it had been captured by Castilian forces in 1248, who named it after the feast day of St Bárbara.

Fortunately for Jaume, it was in poor repair. According to Muntáner, the king led his knights on foot up the slopes of the mountain to attack the castle gates. They found part of the wall had fallen in, and attempted to storm the breach. Jaume was almost killed when one of the defenders, a 'big and brave' knight, hurled a hunting spear at him. It penetrated the first quarter of the king's shield, more than half a palm's length, but stopped short. Jaume rushed at his attacker and gave him such a blow the king's sword carved through the cap of mail and split him open to the teeth. Jaume then pulled his blade free, attacked another knight and lopped off his entire arm and shoulder. It seems Jaume was no less fearsome in a fight than the likes of Richard Marshal, Saint Louis et al. 

The knights of Aragon poured through the breach and made short work of the defenders. Jaume himself killed five more men, and no mercy was shown to the 'alcaide' or Christian constable of the garrison. This man, En Nicholas Peris, defended himself stoutly with sword in one hand and a bunch of keys in the other. Muntáner remarks that his defence was of little use, since he was cut to pieces. Afterwards Jaume ordered that the corpse was not to be given Christian burial, but instead thrown to the dogs as a traitor.

Muntáner uses the alcaide's dire fate as a lesson to other men who wish to betray their lords:

“Wherefore, Lords, you who shall hear this book, be careful when you hold a castle for a lord. The first thing he who is holding a castle for a lord should have at heart, should be to save the castle for his lord; the other, to leave it only with honour for himself and his descendants...for in one day and one night that happens which no man imagined could happen.”

The rest of Jaume's campaign was little more than a military promenade, as one town and castle after another fell without offering much resistance. After the city of Murcia itself had fallen, Jaume installed garrisons and appointed his brother, En Jaime Pedro, as governor or procurator of the newly conquered territory.

Jaume's lightning campaign and apparently easy victory were as deceptive as Edward's triumph in Scotland. His success relied on the turmoil in Castile, and when Fernando gained his majority Jaume's position was weakened. In 1304 he entered into renewed negotiations with Castile over the division of Murcia, which ended in the agreement of Torrellas on 8 August. Most of Murcia was restored to the Castilians, with the exception of Alicante, Eliche and Orihuela, and the territory north of the river Segura. Jaume's allies in Castile were also forced to renounce their claims to the throne. 

Not to worry, though. Once the matter of Murcia was settled, Jaume and Fernando joined forces to carve up the Islamic kingdom of Granada. And so it went on.

'For the glory of your cause...'

The Anglo-French war between Edward I and Philip IV was a mightily confusing affair. After several years of bloody stalemate in Aquitaine (south-west France) both kings decided to widen the conflict into northern Europe. They set about spending vast reservoirs of cash on recruiting allies in the Low Countries, Scotland, Norway and the Holy Roman Empire: both kings intended to use these alliances as part of a strategy of encirclement to stretch each other’s military capacity to breaking point. In practice they simply cancelled each other out.

It didn’t help that many of their allies took the money on offer and ran, or used it for their own purposes. Adolf of Nassau, one of Edward’s allies and King of the Romans, used his English funds to wage two private wars in Thuringia in east-central Germany. By doing so he earned Edward’s undying wrath and the hatred of his own people, which ended very badly for him (perhaps the subject of another blog post).

Edward got better service from another set of allies in Adolf’s territory. These were a league of nobles in Franche-Comté, now eastern Burgundy in France. Edward had some bitter memories of this region. In 1274, on his way back from the Holy Land, he was invited to take part in a tournament in Franche-Comté. The local bigwig, the Comte d’Auxerre, had really lured Edward into a trap with the intention of capturing the English king and holding him to ransom. The plan backfired when Edward threw the count from his horse and ordered his infantry to slaughter the Burgundian knights:

“He said to his men, "Spare no-one you set eyes on now, and do the same to them as they are doing to us." So they began killing the other side, savagely attacking them everywhere with the sword. The men on foot had retreated from the slaughter of their fellows when they saw many of their people fall, but boldly joined the combat of the mounted men; they gutted many of the horses and cut their girths, so that their riders fell to the ground.” (Henry of Knighton)

A contemporary German depiction of a tournament

Over twenty years later, in 1297, Edward hired these same nobles to fight for him against Philip. Led by Jean de Arlay, a kinsman of the man humiliated by Edward in 1274, they agreed to serve for a payment of 60,000 livres tournois for the first year of the alliance, with 30,000 in each subsequent year

Unlike many of the so-called Grand Alliance, the Burgundians actually went into action. Jean and his followers had vested interests in doing so. At this time Franche-Comté was still part of the empire, which made them vassals of King Adolf. Philip wanted to conquer the region, and to that end had bought out Count Othon IV of Burgundy, a feckless character who was quite happy to sell his inheritance for a comfortable life at the French court. When the barons of Franche-Comté heard of the deal, they swore an oath never to surrender their lands and ancient rights to the French king.

In the spring of 1297 the Burgundians met Adolf at Koblenz, where he gave them money and promised to send German troops to aid them before 22 July. Despite his thunderous public denouncements of Philip, Adolf failed to deliver on any of his promises. The French didn’t take him seriously at all. Charles of Valois, Philip’s brother, is said to have sent Adolf a letter containing just two words - ‘Troupe Almande’, which translates as ‘Too German’ or even ‘Stupid German’.

King Edward finally landed in Flanders on 23 August. The campaign that followed was a mess and a muddle, if not quite the total fiasco often depicted. After several weeks of farcical manoeuvres and vicious brawling between Flemish and Welsh infantry, the allies started to get themselves in gear. On 6 October they stormed Damme, the port town of Bruges and the most direct route to the Channel. Two days later Edward received a triumphant message from Jean de Arlay:

“Most dear sire, this is to inform you, that on Tuesday, the eve of the feast of Saint Denis, myself and my companions of Burgundy captured and razed the castle of Ornans, which was held by Burgundy of the King of France and was the strongest castle in the whole of Burgundy. And know that, I and my other comrades broke down the walls of the castle and forced our way inside, and secured the castle, and took nine prisoners and a great quantity…put a large number to the sword, apart from those who threw themselves down below the rock…”

The remains of the castle of Ornans

Ornans, a dramatic fortress perched upon an outcrop, was the birthplace of Jean’s bitter enemy, Count Othon. Some of the defenders, poor souls, hurled themselves off the high precipice overlooking the valley. Afterwards the town and castle were looted and burnt, and Jean wrote a second letter promising to join Edward in Flanders, ‘for the glory of your cause’.

The English king had also received a note from two more of his allies, the counts of Bar and Savoy. They were gathering troops on the eastern borders of France and would also ride to join him. At this point Edward might have been tempted to continue the war. His chief ally, Count Guy of Flanders, begged him to carry on. The rains would soon come, Guy pointed out, and force the French to retreat.

Edward had a difficult choice to make. By now he had received word of the revolt in Scotland, where his northern army under Earl Warenne had been smashed at Stirling Bridge. The Scots under William Wallace had invaded and ravaged the northern counties. Edward did not trust his lieutenants to deal with the mess, but neither did he wish to completely abandon the war against France.

He compromised. In March 1298, from his new base at Aardenburg near the Zeeland border, Edward renewed his contract with the Burgundians. The said nobles agreed to ‘make and continue lively and open war’ against the French until a final peace was made. In return they would be paid another 30,000 livres tournois on top of the 60,000 they had already been paid, to be handed over in two instalments in June and December.

A few days later Edward set sail for home. While he mounted an enormous military operation to defeat Wallace, the Burgundians continued to harry the French. They destroyed more castles in Franche-Comté, including Clairvaux and the ‘hall’ or palace of Pontarlier. At one point they captured the bailiff of Mâcon, Count Othon’s lieutenant, and locked him up with other French prisoners in the castle of Roulans. The Burgundians were still active in September 1299, when Philip engaged a local knight, Geoffrey d’Aucelles, to defend his town of Gray against the rebels and deliver them to the king if they fell into his hands. Philip’s particular enemy, Jean de Arlay, was named as one of the targets.

A final peace was struck in 1301. By this point the Grand Alliance had collapsed into dust, and the rival kings had buried the hatchet. This left Jean de Arlay and his associates with little choice but to sue for peace. Philip was merciful. Instead of destroying the Burgundians he offered to pardon them all, if they swore homage and agreed to pay for the damage they had committed during the war. This was a bitter deal, since it meant Franche-Comté would become part of a greater France. Philip sugared the pill by offering to make Jean constable of the Franche-Comté. Jean accepted, and another piece of the tottering German empire was swallowed up.

 

Blood on the palace floor

Most people - history bods, anyway - have heard of Robert de Bruce’s murderous assault upon his rival John Comyn in a church at Dumfries in 1306. Not so many know of a (roughly) similar incident that occured several decades earlier, in the very presence of the King of England at Westminster.

The link between the two incidents is John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey. Warenne is best-known as the defeated English general at Stirling Bridge in 1297, although he had a long and eventful career before that date. In the 1260s he played an important role in the suppression of the Disinherited rebels in England; his brutal efficiency in this respect inspired one historian to dub Earl Warenne the ‘big stick’ of royal policy, employed to crush naysayers.

In a world of violent and grasping magnates, Warenne was unusually belligerent. The Hundred Rolls, a monumental record of local government corruption, record the oppressive treatment of the tenants on his vast estates. He terrorized the people on his manors in Yorkshire, and in Sussex indulged in a vicious private war against Sir Robert Aguillon, who had risen high in the favour of Henry III. Much of this was run-of-the mill baronial nastiness, but in 1268 Warenne went a step too far.

Earl Warenne's home of Lewes Castle

At this point Henry’s heir, the Lord Edward, was trying to recruit nobles to accompany him to the Holy Land. Many of the English barons preferred to concentrate on their private feuds than embark on the risky voyage. This was especially true of Warenne and Henry de Lacy, the young Earl of Lincoln. These two entered into a petty row over some pasture land, which threatened to flare up into civil war when both men started to raise troops. The crisis fizzled out, but the restless Warenne got into another row with Alan de la Zouche.

It was the usual scuffle over competing land rights, but this time Warenne decided to settle the affair personally. When the two men appeared before the king, in the crowded hall of Westminster, Warenne ripped out his sword and attacked Alan and his son. He then cut his way out of the hall, seized a horse from the royal stables and galloped off to his castle at Reigate. The injured men were left lying in a pool of blood, no doubt while shocked gasps echoed among the ancient rafters and Henry had apoplexy. Or perhaps he didn’t. He had been forty years in this game, after all, and men of violence doing awful things in front of him was nothing new.

Even so, Warenne could not be allowed to simply get away with it. The king dispatched Edward in hot pursuit, and the prince quickly surrounded Reigate with an army. Edward took the initiative in negotiating the terms of Warenne’s surrender, which was considered an offence to the royal dignity. Hardly surprising, since it had taken place in the presence of the king and his sons.

Stirling Bridge

The earl’s punishment was severe. He was ordered to pay a fine of 10,000 marks and a barefoot walk of penance from Temple to Westminster. The fine was eventually relaxed: he only paid 1850 marks of it before his death in 1304, with 6800 still outstanding. He was helped by his friends in high places, including Henry of Almaine and Gilbert de Clare, who closed ranks and swore the assault on Zouche was not premeditated. Warenne’s victim lasted long enough for Warenne to make his peace with the crown on 4 August, only to die six days later. His son Roger, who had also suffered Warenne’s murderous wrath, survived and inherited his father’s estates.

The blow to Warenne’s prestige and future freedom of action was severe, however. He remained under a cloud during the reign of Edward I, who made regular use of financial penalties as a ‘carrot and stick’ tactic of controlling his nobility. His grandfather King John had adopted a similar policy, except John used it as a means of destroying his nobles: Edward preferred to re-assimilate them, on the understanding that he could release the Sword of Damocles at any time.

To the woods and fields

The death of Simon de Montfort and most of his captains at Evesham in 1265 left their supporters in England scattered and divided. When the war of the Disinherited blew up the following year, the rebels had to adopt new tactics.

Many of the Disinherited abandoned their castles and took to what we would call guerilla warfare - ‘to the woods and fields’, as one chronicler put it. In this respect their strategy was very similar to that of the Scots in the Wars of Independence. Both deliberately avoided battle and operated from hideouts in wild country: the forest of Selkirk in the case of the Scots, the meres and fens of Ely and Axholme in the case of the Disinherited.

Unable to face the superior forces of Henry III in open battle, the Disinherited switched to hit-and-run tactics and hitting royalist supply lines. This kind of strategy was nothing new, and indeed central to medieval warfare. As Robert Wace, a twelfth century Norman poet, expressed it:

“Go through this country with fire,

destroying houses and towns,

take all booty and food,

pigs and sheep and cattle.

Let Normans find no food

Nor any thing on which to live.”

The rebel bands in the midlands lurked along the Great North Road, the main artery of trade and commerce linking north and south. From their base at Axholme, they rode out to plunder royalist merchants moving up and down the highway. One of their particular targets was Peter Beraud, one of the Lord Edward’s Italian creditors. They even attacked foreign dignitaries. In the summer of 1267, Alexander the Steward of Scotland was waylaid inside Sherwood Forest and held prisoner until his ransom was paid.

Many of these exploits have a distinctly Robin Hood flavour, which may be no coincidence. Later chroniclers such as Walter Bower placed the famous outlaw hero among the Disinherited in 1266, though he also made clear his disapproval:

“In that year also the disinherited English barons and those loyal to the king clashed fiercely, amongst them Roger de Mortimer, occupied the Welsh Marches and John de Eyvill occupied the Isle of Ely; Robert Hood was an outlaw among the woodland briars and thorns. Between them they inflicted a vast amount of slaughter on the common folk, cities and merchants”.

Another rebel tactic was to attack the Jewish communities in England. This was a way of wiping out their debts while also destroying a useful source of credit for the crown. The poor Jews themselves were left defenceless against the onslaught of savage fighting men.

In 1266 a band of Disinherited swooped down upon the Jewish quarter in Lincoln. They razed the synagogue, destroyed charters and deeds and butchered scores of innocents:

“That they have taken Lincoln, the Jews now

They take and destroy, breaking open the coffers;

Charters and deeds and whatever is injurious

To the Christians they have taken,

Treading them under foot,

Among the lanes, and woman and child,

They have put to the sword a hundred and sixty”.

Such ruthless tactics enabled the Disinherited to sustain a war of attrition for several years. They were up against some able opponents. Henry III himself, not renowned as one of England’s warrior-kings, could soldier when he really put his mind to it: witness his victory at Northampton in 1264, for instance. His heir the Lord Edward was an energetic and supremely confident military leader, while other royalist captains such as Henry of Almaine, Earl Warenne and Roger Leyburn were all formidable.

Outnumbered and out-resourced, the Disinherited had to find new leaders, and quickly. Their search for the next Simon de Montfort will be the subject of another post.