England under the Angevin Kings, Volumes I and II

In the north William the Lion had overrun Lothian, burning Berwick, when Richard de Lucy and Humfrey de Bohun drove him back across the Forth. Tidings of Leicester brought the royal host southward, and on October 17 at Fornham St Geneviève they fell upon the rebel earl in marshy ground beneath the banner of St Edmund. Flemings singing “Hop, hop, Wilekin! England is mine and thine” were cut to pieces by peasants with flails and pitchforks. Leicester, his wife, and his French and Norman knights were taken and sent to Falaise to join Hugh of Chester in prison. Henry’s Brabantines overran Touraine through winter, while in January an attack by the young king and the counts of Blois and Perche upon Séez was repulsed by its townsfolk. A truce, prolonged at Hugh of Durham’s purchase, lasted till Easter.

The respite knit closer the rebel network across the north: Chester, Dunham, Stockport, Tutbury, Duffield, Leicester, Groby, Mount Sorrel, Kinardferry, Northallerton—and behind them the schismatic fortresses of Durham and the double belt of Scottish strongholds from Forth and Tweed to the Solway. On May 5 young Geoffrey of Lincoln, gathering the levies of Lincolnshire, took Kinardferry by storm, capturing Roger de Mowbray at Clay. Three days later Richard de Lucy began the siege of Huntingdon, the Scot king’s ancestral fief, in defence of Earl Simon of Northampton’s rival claim. On May 18 three hundred Flemish soldiers landed at the Orwell, forerunners of a great host sworn to sail under Count Philip. Hugh Bigod, whose truce had just expired, received them into his castles and three days after Pentecost took and sacked Norwich; the fisherfolk of Dunwich beat off his raiders, but elsewhere rebellion raged.

Through spring Henry had been fighting in France. He rescued Saintes from rebels holding it in Richard’s name, and by St Barnabas’s day was back on the Breton border fortifying Ancenis. At Bonneville on Midsummer-day Richard of Ilchester brought his message: England was lost unless the king returned. On July 7 he embarked at Barfleur, and after a perilous crossing—he prayed aloud to heaven as sailors would have turned back—he landed at Southampton. He bestowed his prisoners in safe keeping: Eleanor to Salisbury, the younger queen Margaret and the pledged brides of his younger sons to Devizes, the captive earls to Falaise. Then, in pilgrim’s woollen gown with bare and bleeding feet, he made his way to Canterbury, was scourged by bishops and monks before the martyr’s tomb of Thomas, spent the night in prayer, and rode fasting back to London.

On July 17 a courier roused the king with news that Ralf de Glanville, sheriff of Lancashire and castellan of Richmond, had taken William the Lion himself. English leaders under Robert de Stuteville at Newcastle on July 12 had marched to relieve Alnwick, which William was besieging. At dawn on July 13—the mist so thick that some wished to turn back—they came upon the Scottish king playing dice with but sixty knights, the rest dispersed on plundering raids. Bernard de Balliol’s cry, “Turn back who will; I will go on alone, rather than bear the stain of cowardice for ever!” decided them. The Lion charged; his horse was killed beneath him, and he and all his knights were taken. The northern struggle collapsed: Flemings landing at Hartlepool were paid off by Hugh of Durham, the young king landed a handful of troops at Wissant and sailed home disconsolate, and rebel lords came one by one to Northampton to yield. Huntingdon surrendered three days after Henry’s arrival, Framlingham on July 25 after a parley at Sileham, Bungay and Norwich in quick succession. By late July the king of Scots was brought, feet tied beneath his horse’s belly, from Richmond; Durham, Norham and Northallerton were yielded by Bishop Hugh; Leicester by its constables; Thirsk by Roger de Mowbray; Tutbury and Duffield by the earl of Ferrers. Far off in Galloway the native princes rose in revolt and offered themselves to Henry.

In three weeks the realm was pacified. Crossing to Rouen on August 11, Henry found Louis VII raising the siege in haste. By late September father and sons met between Tours and Amboise; on October 11 at Falaise the agreement was ratified. Young Henry and Richard received their promised endowments; all prisoners save the king of Scots, the two rebel earls and Ralf of Fougères were released. The amnesty was broad: dismissal of Flemings, demolition of unlicensed castles, and an assessment on royal demesnes and rebel estates to defray the war’s cost. Hugh Bigod paid a thousand marks and resumed the third penny of Norfolk. Even the earls of Leicester and Chester were freed within a short time. William the Lion, brought to Valognes on December 8, became Henry’s liegeman for Scotland and all his other lands, agreed that his heirs should give like homage, and surrendered Roxburgh, Jedburgh, Berwick, Edinburgh and Stirling as security. The settlement between the two kingdoms, doubtful since the Conqueror and Malcolm, was now made certain.