Two Houses, Two Kingdoms by Catherine Hanley;

Author:Catherine Hanley;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300268669
Publisher: Yale University Press

CHAPTER NINETEEN

LOUIS REX

T

HE WAR IN ENGLAND WAS over; now the task was to ensure peace and to restore and maintain systems of governance, law and administration. This was complicated by the fact that the realm would be subject to the first royal minority since the Conquest, a minority that would be of some length, given the new king’s tender age, so new and different ways of working would need to be found.

To start with, new ways were not terribly apparent; it seemed almost as if John’s reign were continuing, for the men in charge were those who had served him for years. But things soon took a different turn once the prominent nobles – both those on the council and others – realised that for the foreseeable future they would be able to function without the direct and overbearing oversight of a powerful but unstable adult king. Self-interest became the order of the day.1 England was ruled by an uneasy coalition of William Marshal as regent, Peter des Roches as the king’s guardian and the legate Guala as the pope’s representative. Hubert de Burgh remained the justiciar, but his role had effectively been downgraded: normally the justiciar was the king’s right-hand man and his representative while he was away; but as the present king was already represented by a regent, Hubert’s exact position was unclear.

It was not long before changes took place both in the council and in the wider realm. A group of nobles, many of whom had been on opposing sides during the recent war, put aside their differences and departed in 1218 on the campaign that would later be known as the Fifth Crusade. Among them were Ranulf de Blundeville, earl of Chester; William d’Aubigny, earl of Arundel; Saer de Quincy, earl of Winchester; and Robert Fitzwalter. They joined up with contingents from France, Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire in a force led by Andrew II of Hungary and Leopold VI, duke of Austria (the son of Leopold V, who had been Richard the Lionheart’s antagonist and captor two decades previously). Together with the king of Jerusalem, John of Brienne – a French nobleman who had married Queen Maria of Montferrat, the Jerusalemite royal house having continued its long tradition of producing female heirs – they besieged and took the port city of Damietta in Egypt. However, they were later defeated as they marched south along the Nile, and were forced to restore Damietta as part of the negotiated settlement.2 Robert and Ranulf would eventually return from the expedition; Saer died at Damietta and William on his way home.

Meanwhile, in England, the original ruling triumvirate had dissolved. Guala retired as papal legate to England in the autumn of 1218, to be replaced by Pandulf Verraccio, who had previously spent time in England (he was involved in the Magna Carta negotiations) but who had been in Rome during the intervening three years.3 It was also in the autumn of 1218 that the aged William Marshal began to suffer from poor health; he died in May 1219.

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