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In Our Time: History
The Battle of Lincoln 1217
00:53:10
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the fight for the English crown at the Battle of Lincoln.
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- [00:00]
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Stephen Church
This is the BBC.
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Melvyn Bragg
Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time. There's a reading list to go with it on our website and you can get news about our programs if you follow us on Twitter bcinartime. I hope you enjoyed the programmes. Hello. On the 20th of May 1217, two armies fought at Lincoln to keep or to win the English crown. The forces of the new boy king, Henry iii, attacked those of Louis of France, the claimant to the throne. Backed by rebel barons. At one stage, they controlled about two thirds of England. Henry's regent, William Marshal, was almost 70 when it said he led the charge on Lincoln that day. And his victory confirmed his reputation as England's greatest knight. Louis sent to France for reinforcements, but in August, these too were defeated at sea at Sandwich. As part of the peace deal, Henry reissued Magna Carta, which King John had granted in 1215. But soon Rob withdrawn and Louis went home, leaving England's Anglo French rulers more Anglo and less French than he had planned. With me to discuss the Battle of Blink in 1217 are Louise Wilkinson, professor of Medieval History at Canterbury Christ Church University, Stephen Church, professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia, and Thomas Asbridge, Reader in Medieval History at Queen Mary University of London. Louise Wilkinson. There had been a civil war in England since 1215. What had provoked it?
- [03:41]
Louise Wilkinson
Well, it had basically been provoked by King John's extremely harsh system of royal government. He placed immense pressure on his English subjects during his reign. So, for example, after the loss of Normandy in 1204, he became a king obsessed with raising money to recover his lost continental possessions. As a result of this, he taxed his subjects to the hilt and actually his barons had felt the weight of his rule, particularly in this way. So, for example, he charged them various large arbitrary sums by way of inheritance tax. He demanded large sums of money as well from baronial widows. And he also, unfortunately, administered a deeply unpopular patronage policy. He was a hugely suspicious king. He relied on a very small group of individuals to support his government. He was also perceived as a very cruel man. A contemporary writer described him as brimful of evil qualities. John might have got away with his harsh government of England had he been successful in war, but he ultimately failed to recover Normandy. There was a great battle fought at Bouvines in France in 1214, and the defeat of the English forces at this battle ultimately left his prestige in tatters, and it gave courage to his English opponents. And in May 1215, civil war had
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Melvyn Bragg
erupted, so his hold on power wasn't very secure. You listed a lot of, as it were, crimes. There are others, aren't there? There's the murder of, supposed murder of Arthur. Can you tell us about that?
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Louise Wilkinson
Yes. He was widely believed to have murdered his own nephew, Arthur of Brittany, who'd been captured in France in 1202 and who disappeared in John's custody. In addition to this, though, he'd also been incredibly cruel to his nobility. So Matilda de Breose and her eldest son William, for example, offended the king and were starved to death in his cust in a royal castle. And this wasn't why.
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Melvyn Bragg
Starved to death?
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Louise Wilkinson
Starved to death, I think, because the king particularly disliked Matilda and he wanted her to die in a particularly cruel and vicious way. And that, I think, was one of the problems with John. His personality was really unpleasant. He was a nasty piece of work. He was a really bad king.
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Melvyn Bragg
So 1066 and all that got it right in this case.
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Louise Wilkinson
They did indeed. Absolutely bad King John in every sense of the world.
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Melvyn Bragg
But it was losing of the power in Normandy that was offended and displeased the Barish most, because a lot of what he lost was their land.
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Louise Wilkinson
Yes, that was the case in 1204, and I think there was an interest in securing its recovery. But having said that, in England, due to the really oppressive nature of his regime, there was also a lot of hostility to actually pursuing further campaigns overseas. People did not want to serve in his armies away from their own lands for any great length of time. An overseas campaign was very costly. So you do see a growth in opposition to King John in the years even before bovine. There are baronial conspiracies. For example, in 1212, was there any
- [06:47]
Melvyn Bragg
sense of divine right around at that stage?
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Louise Wilkinson
I think there were sort of some magnates who did support him as sort of God's divinely appointed monarch. And actually, at the end of his great quarrel, which dominated much of his reign with the papacy, he had surrendered England, the Pope, as a papal fief. So the Church was on his side by the latter years of his reign.
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Melvyn Bragg
Stephen. Stephen Church. How far had King John's Magna Carta addressed the baron's concerns?
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Stephen Church
Well, I think it had addressed the baron's concerns extremely well. I mean, in the first instance, we're talking about a text which runs to 60 odd chapters, which deals with matters as detailed as the amount of money that a baron needed to pay in order to enter into his inheritance. It included things like what should happen to fish weirs and the like. What should happen in terms of the rights of the men of London. So in terms of a text, I think it went an extremely long way towards answering the concerns of the barons. I mean, I think one of the interesting things is that, as Louis said, when John came back from France in the autumn of 1214. He was coming back to concerted resistance, and he knew he was coming back to concerted resistance. Everybody knew, including the Pope, who was at that stage writing letters to the barons, attempting to get them to keep on side with the king. And what the barons agreed to do in early January was to confront John with. With a text of a charter which had been issued by Henry I when he had been crowned in 1100. And this text was. Was quite a lot shorter than Magna Carta. They just wanted him to reissue it. Now, the text of the coronation charter of Henry I did actually deal with things like the amount of money that a baron would have to pay in order to enter into his inheritance. It did deal with arbitrary acts by the king. But when John refused to reissue the coronation charter of Henry I, there was a process that went on, process of negotiation, which in the end culminated in the production of a text, a really very detailed text about how the king would have to rule, rule according to, rather than ruling according to his own will, ruling according to custom and to be advised and to take counsel. It seems to me that this is the absolutely crucial point about Magna Carta.
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Melvyn Bragg
He must have been irked by the fact that 25 barons were given the right to supervise him and keep him in check.
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Stephen Church
I think he was. I think he was.
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Melvyn Bragg
Would you think he was right to be irked out? This was for a king, it must have been rather.
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Stephen Church
Well, I think from his perspective, yes. I mean, one of the things that I think is absolutely fundamental about John and fundamental to how we understand the early 13th century is it's absolutely wrong to think in terms of national politics. It's wrong to think in terms of England, it's wrong to think in terms of France or Normandy or Anjou. These were private estates, not public states. We're not in the world of public states. So when John lost his continental lands, as Louis said in 1204, he wasn't losing some sort of English empire. What he was losing were the lands that had been held by his ancestors for 250 years. You know, his ancestors as Counts of Anjou, his ancestors as Dukes of Aquitaine, his ancestors as Duke of Normandy. These were personal possessions. And I think that in large part, this explains his determination to get them back, in large part explains why the English baronage were not interested in those continental campaigns, because they weren't their lands. It wasn't the. The loss of those English lands in Poitou, it was the loss of the king's or the. The Duke of Aquitaine's lands. And I think that's how we need to understand it. And Louise is right. People didn't want to follow John.
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Melvyn Bragg
What was there any one thing that prompted the barons and a great number of barons to approach Louis? Louis to prince in France to replace John. He had a very tenuous connection.
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Stephen Church
Yeah, Louis claim to the throne of England was tenuous indeed. It went through his wife, Blanche of Castile, who was a granddaughter of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. So it was very tenuous indeed. I think that the barons turned to Louis because he was the son of Philip Augustus, the King of France. And actually our chronicle evidence is very clear in that it says not that the barons approached Louis, the barons approached the king of France, Philip Augustus, to allow his firstborn son, Louis to come to England and to claim the, the English throne. So I think people look to Louis as a. As a good alternative to John. But I think more importantly, what Louis had was the resources of the French monarchy behind them. I think by the autumn, by the late summer, early autumn of 1215, I think it had become very clear to everybody that we were heading for civil war, because, as Louis said, the relationship between John and his barons had broken down irrevocably.
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Melvyn Bragg
Thank you very much, Don Asbridge. William Marshal plays a central role in all this. Can you tell us who William Marshal was?
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Thomas Asbridge
Which maybe go back to one of the comments you made right at the start, which is that he had earned by the end of his life, this reputation as supposedly contemporaries describing him as the greatest knight in all the world. I think he's quite. He was in his own lifetime trying to cultivate that reputation. But what's remarkable about him is that he, he doesn't rise from nothing. He doesn't come from being a pauper by any stretch of the imagination, but he is someone who rises from relative obscurity. He's the minor son of an Anglo Norman noble, and partly through his own martial abilities, partly through a bit of luck, he found himself drawn into the inner circle of the Angevin dynasty. Originally, he becomes a member of the household of Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1168, so long before we're getting to the. The early 13th century. He's someone who's climbing through the ranks at the side of this family.
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Melvyn Bragg
How is he winning his status?
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Thomas Asbridge
In part by showing that he's effective in tournaments in the mid to late, just winning tournaments or not even winning, showing that he's able as a warrior. But I think there's a particular moment, 1168, that seems to bring him to the notice of Eleanor of Aquitaine and perhaps Henry ii. Eleanor at this point is in Aquitaine. Her party is attacked by a group of local barons who are not happy with the way she's trying to dominate the landscape, and she's forced to flee. And Marshal fights what is effectively a rear guard action to protect her escape. He seems to have been pretty heavily wounded. Certainly his uncle, the Earl of Salisbury, is killed in this encounter. And Marshal's taken captive and held captive by this group, the Lusignans, for a number of months. And eventually Eleanor seems to intervene, arrange his release, and then draws him into her inner circle. But the real answer to your question is, how does he, how does he come to their notice? We don't really have an answer to that.
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Melvyn Bragg
When John is in, as we've heard, when John is in Normandy, he loses his lands, he loses his battles and so on. William Marshal, was he with him then?
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Thomas Asbridge
He's with him through certain periods of those campaigns. He also loses favor pretty significantly with John.
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Melvyn Bragg
Why is that?
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Thomas Asbridge
I think because Marshal's trying to cut a deal where he gets the best of both worlds. So in essence, he tries to find a way of maintaining his relationship with the English crown and holding on to his Norman lands by cutting a deal with the French.
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Melvyn Bragg
But then he goes back to the court, he goes back to John, and he stays with the royalist side throughout then. And John's nine year old son, who is a very difficult person to suggest that the English baron should be the next king, has got his full backing and he rallies around it and he emerges as a figure there to come again to you, Louise. John died in November 1216, and Louis was already over in England then, wasn't he?
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Louise Wilkinson
Yes, he was.
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Melvyn Bragg
So he was. His job really was to kill John so he could be king.
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Louise Wilkinson
Yes. So Louis had arrived in England in May 1216, and John then died actually on the night of the 18th and 19th of October 1216 at Newark from dysentery. A very, very painful, unpleasant death. And you might have expected due to the state of England at that time, that the royalist cause would have collapsed. But luckily for King John, in his last hours, he'd drawn up a testament. He'd appointed 13 tremendously capable men, key figures in the church, key figures among the English nobility, to look out for the interests and in particular, to help his royal sons succeed to their inheritances. And so what happened after that was basically, fortunately, some of the royalists in England held a number of key castles, which gave the Royalist cause a future so Nottingham, for example, was held by Philip Mark, a very loyal servant of John. Lincoln was held by the great woman Nicola de la Haye. And there are other castles held by similarly capable individuals.
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Melvyn Bragg
And of these 13 people, one was Marshal, who was called back into favor and given the title of Regent.
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Louise Wilkinson
Yes, yes, a close approximation to Regent. And he would go on to play really a key role in securing the fortunes of the royalist cause.
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Melvyn Bragg
What odds do they think they had? What chance did they think they had when John died?
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Louise Wilkinson
I don't think the odds for the royalists were terribly good. We know of the holders of 97 baronies who were in revolt against the crown at the time of John's death, while about 36 remained loyal. The whole of eastern England, pretty much apart from a few isolated pockets of resistance, was in the control of Prince Louis. He was also supported by the Welsh and the Scots. The royalists managed to sort of retain a base in the west and particularly the West Midlands, that was critically important for them.
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Melvyn Bragg
So we have another great invasion imminent, don't we? Can I turn to you, Stephen? How vulnerable was the boy king, the nine year old, who was crowned hastily at Gloucester with all this must against him?
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Stephen Church
It's interesting. It's a combination of being extremely vulnerable and yet not vulnerable. So extremely vulnerable because he's a nine year old boy, because much of the kingdom is held against him. But what he has in his favor is that he is the legitimate and lawful successor to the kingdom and he has in fact gone through this coronation ceremony. It seems to me that this coronation ceremony is absolutely central, absolutely crucial, because within the English kingdom there had long been an ideal and an idea that you could only have one king crowned at any one time. And we have Examples in the 1140s of the Papacy refusing to have Stephen's son Eustace crowned. And using that, that particular argument, there's one example experiment in 1170 when Henry II's son Henry was crowned as the young king. That was such a disastrous experiment, nobody wanted to go through that experience again. And so the hasty coronation, I think, was absolutely Central to Henry III's success. So.
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Melvyn Bragg
But not in Westminster.
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Stephen Church
Not in Westminster. It was done on the wrong day, so it was done on a Friday and they're supposed to be done on a Sunday. Done in the wrong place. It's supposed to be Westminster Abbey, not Gloucester. It was done by the wrong person, supposed to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, it was Gwawler, the Papal Legate. So everything was wrong about it, but it didn't matter, what really mattered was the moment that Henry received unction with holy oil and at that moment he became king. And we see it, I think we see that sort of loyalty, loyalty to Henry as king in things like Dover Castle. Dover Castle, the key to England, we're told by Matthew Paris, as reported by Hubert de Bur. And Hubert de Burgh was at that moment inside Dover Castle and Louis was laying siege to it. And Louis had failed to take Dover Castle. Hubert de Burgh was putting on a great defence and apparently as soon as he heard of John's death, Louis called Hubert out for a parley and he said to Hubert, your lord is dead now give up your castle. And Hubert said no. And at that point, according to one of the chroniclers, Louis went off to besiege easier castles. So there's Hubert de Burgh. His loyalty to John should have come to an end, but not in Hubert de Burgh's mind.
- [19:47]
Melvyn Bragg
You want to come in?
- [19:49]
Louise Wilkinson
Yes. I mean, one of the things that I think it's really important to emphasise, building upon Stephen's point, is actually the accession of Henry saw the accession of a young nine year old boy who was blameless of his father's crimes. So he really offered a new figurehead in his person for the royalists.
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Melvyn Bragg
But it went against the thing when you were 12, you could. What could you do when you were 12? You could be made king when you were 12.
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Stephen Church
Minorities are a real problem. And yes, as a nine year old, theoretically he couldn't take oaths, he couldn't receive oaths. Yet they sort of elided over that and I think they recognized it was a problem because in 1220, at the age of 12, Henry went through a second coronation.
- [20:28]
Melvyn Bragg
Yeah. Tom Thomasbridge, let's talk about the Church here. We know that at that time the Church was very powerful in many ways. Now how specifically powerful was it here at this moment when this boy's been crowned?
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Thomas Asbridge
Well, we've already heard about the critical moment in 1213 where John makes his concession to the papacy and essentially allows England almost to become the equivalent of a papal state. That support of the papacy is really crucial in what happens after John's death. I think not least because the papal legate Guala Becceri arrives in England, is there to participate in this essential ritual, just as Stephen says of coronation. But actually the papacy in Guala goes a little bit further than that and I think that's quite significant in the way we think about the conflict that's going to come in 1216 and then on into 1217. And that is that they start to not just talk about this as a just war, a just conflict in which Henry III and his supporters are on the right side of the fence. They actually start to use the language of holy war. And this is, this is quite a bold step.
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Melvyn Bragg
The Pope, on whose part?
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Thomas Asbridge
Well, potentially on Guala's part. He's the papal legate. He's empowered to act really with the voice of the Pope. But I don't think the Pope is pope. Honorius III is quite content to go as far as this. Papal records don't indicate any, any release of what we might expect, a papal bull announcing formal crusade. But what Gwala is willing to do, it seems, particularly in the first months of 1217, is start to talk about the fact that people who are going to fight for Henry III are going to be led by William Marshal. They're going to be able to have a cross on their clothing born in the same way that a crusader would bear a cross, and that if they fight, they're going to gain a remission of sin. So the act of fighting is going to help them to cleanse their souls of the taint of sin. And all of that has the hallmarks of a holy war, of a crusade being waged on English soil. And I think that's quite significant, not least because we are in part talking about a war of ideas. The baronial rebels had spoken about themselves as the army of God, and this is overturning that notion.
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Melvyn Bragg
They say God's really on our side. Indeed, Louise. In 1217, Louis went to France for reinforcements. Why did you do that?
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Louise Wilkinson
Well, he desperately needed help from his wife, Blanche of Castile, to rage further troops. He also needed to raise further funds to pursue his war in England. But actually his absence, I think turned into a godsend. For the royalists. Soon after his departure, at the end of February, there were some high profile defections, including William Longsby, Earl of Salisbury, who was actually an illegitimate son of King Henry ii. Salisbury was promised the castle of Salisbury and also the shrievalty of Wiltshire to come back to the royalist side. He was also promised the castle of Sherborne and other sheriffdoms in other counties as a nice sweetener. And actually in the months after Louis departure, you could see in the records actually the desertion from the rebel side of around 100 people in counties like Wiltshire and Berkshire and Somerset.
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Melvyn Bragg
Now let's come back to this battle is Lincoln, which is a centerpiece of the program. Lincoln is on a hill. It's a Massively fortified castle. It's been run by this wonderful woman. She's held out and held out. Although Lincoln, the city is awash with anti royalists, as I understand it.
- [23:56]
Stephen Church
Well, the battle of Lincoln on 20 May was clearly an extraordinarily important moment and it was made important, I think, for a number of reasons. One is Lincoln was an important strategic location. The second is, as you've, as you rightly pointed out, the castle was for the royalist side, but the city itself, the city which was in two quarters as it is now actually there's an up and a down. You say the castle is on a hill. It is indeed on a hill. But of course a large part of the city is down at the bottom of the hill. So there's the, the up and the down. And as far as we can see, the up and the down were full of rebels, they're full of the Northerners. The cathedral community at Lincoln was on the side of Louis too. So Dame Nicola was in an extraordinarily difficult position. And I think that whilst William Marshal was looking at Lincoln, thinking about Lincoln, he couldn't actually do anything about Lincoln until two important things happened. One was Louis returned from France and he then lay siege to Dover Castle again. So that's great. Louis got his siege engines out, he's tied up at Dover, so William Marshal's back is protected. The other thing that happened is that the darling of the French forces, a man called Thomas, Count of Perch, led his troops through Mont Sorrel Castle in Leicestershire and then on to Lincoln. So all of a sudden at Lincoln we have a concentration of Northerners and we have a concentration of the second part of the French army. And I think it's at that point that William obviously got news of this and he made the decision that this was the moment to bring the enemy forces to battle. And I think, I want to say one more thing about this which is, I think extremely significant and that is that battles in the Middle Ages were extreme and they were extremely rare because they were damn dangerous. They were dangerous for the people who were leading them, but they were also dangerous because they could be absolutely, they could change the course of a campaign. So he was taking a very high risk strategy in going to Lincoln and obviously thought that was an important moment.
- [26:14]
Melvyn Bragg
Excellent. So he takes that strategy, Tom, and he goes to Lincoln in a roundabout way to give him the advantage of the hill. So they're driving into Lincoln down the hill. So can you give us some idea of where he is as he's Approaching Lincoln.
- [26:27]
Thomas Asbridge
Sure. Just to echo what Stephen said, I think it is really, really important to realize that the royalist side and Marshal make a proactive decision to seek battle and how unusual that is, and that this is essentially rolling the dice both for himself dynastically. One way or another decision is going to be made at this point. And I think one of the things we haven't talked about but is money. I think the royalist side is running out of money at this point, and he thinks he needs to get a victory when he can. You also talked about the route that he takes and to get to Lincoln and to be able to make a military intervention. And in some respects, I actually think that's perhaps maybe the most important decision that's made in this entire battle. Regardless of everything else that happens, understanding the lie of the land, the most obvious way he could have approached, because he's based at Newark, is to make a straight line along this thing called the First Fosse Way. That would have brought him to the southern end of Lincoln and meant that he would have been fighting uphill. The fact that he takes this circuitous route that you described and approaches from the north means that if he can just get into battle inside the city and get the edge militarily and start to push the enemy down the hill. If anyone's ever been to Lincoln, you get the chance to go there. There's this fantastic street called Steep Hill. And I tell you what, it is a steep hill, and you do not want to be fighting uphill on that surface. So that's. That's critical.
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Melvyn Bragg
And he gets in. Does he get in by a discovered secret door?
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Stephen Church
That's.
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Melvyn Bragg
That's in two versions.
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Thomas Asbridge
Yeah, that's. That's one gate, one version of the story.
- [27:56]
Melvyn Bragg
He gets into Lincoln with the forces that he's got, and the other forces are superior in number, and they control the cathedral and that great space there. And the cathedrals are monstrously. What happens then? How does he win?
- [28:10]
Thomas Asbridge
It seems to be a mixture of things. So one of his commanders, a pretty unsavoury character called Foukes Bretay, has gone into the castle and with the assistance of Nicolas de la Haye, seems to be using crossbowmen to strafe a group of baronial forces and French outside the castle who've been bombarding the castle. That causes quite a lot of bloodshed. But the real moment of decision comes, I think, when Marshal is able to break in to the. Into the city, launch a surprise attack, and then the fighting reaches its real high point outside the cathedral literally in front of the cathedral. And it's here that something pretty unusual happens for this time. One of the leaders is killed. Stephen already talked about Thomas, Count of Pech. This is a man who, like all of his contemporaries at this point is really heavily armoured, almost invulnerable to most forms of attack in terms of lethal attack. But someone on Marshal's side, Reginald Crock, springs forward, we think, with a sword or a dagger and basically makes a strike that goes through the visor of Thomas helmet. And not surprisingly, it's supposed to have gone through his eye into his head. He falls dead. And that is an absolute shockwave across the armies.
- [29:26]
Melvyn Bragg
We've lost sight of William Marshal now. He's about 70 years old.
- [29:29]
Stephen Church
Yes, he is.
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Melvyn Bragg
One version is he dons his armor and he goes up there in front and leads the army in. Is that correct?
- [29:35]
Stephen Church
I don't know whether it's correct or not. That's certainly the tale that his biography tells us.
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Melvyn Bragg
How near correct is it?
- [29:42]
Stephen Church
Well, I mean, I think, I mean, on those sorts of details, I'm inclined to believe the history of William Marshal. I think that William Marshal, not just by his own estimation, but by the estimation of other people, was one of the most remarkable knights of his age. And Even as a 60 year old, people were very, very wary about confronting him in battle. But I think that in his 70s he was still a formidable individual and
- [30:09]
Melvyn Bragg
so he swept down and was. There's the death of Persia, but is that the conclusion of the matter?
- [30:14]
Stephen Church
I think the death of Persia is very important. I think Reginald Crock was one of John's household knights, in other words, one of those people who were closest to King John and made his rule as ugly as it was and as possible as it was. I think they deliberately killed. I think they deliberately killed Thomas. I think Reginald deliberately did that. Interestingly, Reginald did not survive the Battle of Lincoln either.
- [30:37]
Melvyn Bragg
What about the Castellan we've been talking about? She kept the castle royalist, she defended it. The French didn't get in. She aided and abetted William Marshal and the forces of the young Henry Louise.
- [30:50]
Louise Wilkinson
She was really a remarkable woman. She was by this time Nicola de la Haye, a widow diress in her 50s or 60s, 60s. She was a highly experienced local lord who commanded the castle garrison for a number of years. She'd actually defended Lincoln Castle for the first time against the siege in 1191 during Richard I's absence on crusade. And she was a really formidable character, certainly in Lincolnshire, as Castan of the castle. She'd had responsibility for the garrison there, but she was also served by a male deputy, Geoffrey de Surland, former household knight of King John. And I think he fulfilled many of the physical demands of the battle on her behalf. And Nicola remained within the great keep of the castle. She was described by the Royalists as a good dame, whom God preserve in body and soul. The rebels, however, saw her as a very cunning, vigorous and bad hearted old woman, which I think gets to the heart of her character.
- [31:46]
Melvyn Bragg
Stephen Church. Lincoln turned out to be an extremely significant victory, partly because it was followed by the battle at sea, Sandwich, where the French came over to aid Lewis and they lost the battle at sea.
- [32:00]
Stephen Church
Yeah, the Battle of Sandwich, I think.
- [32:01]
Melvyn Bragg
And Marshall was there down there on the shore with his army waiting for them.
- [32:05]
Stephen Church
Yeah, I think the Battle of sandwich on 24-8-1217 set the seal on Lincoln. I think Lincoln was absolutely crucial. We're told by one contemporary that as soon as Philip Augustus heard that what had happened at Lincoln, he knew his son's campaign was at an end. And I think that there was a period of negotiation that went on throughout June and July between Louis and the Royalist leaders attempting to find a solution. They didn't find a solution, but the Battle of Sandwich created the solution, because what was happening was that Louis was attempting to be resupplied from France. It was a resupply group of ships led by Eustace the Monk, one of these sort of great swashbuckling heroes or villains, whichever way you want to have it, of the early 13th century. And again, Hubert de Burgh, who is the real hero, if you ask me. Hubert de Burgh led the English fleet out, captured Eustace the Monk, executed Eustace the Monk, chased the rest of the French fleet off and at that point it was clear that Louis was not going to be resupplied. And at that point he had to turn to negotiations. So Sandwich important, but it really just set the seal on Lincoln, the significance of Lincoln.
- [33:28]
Melvyn Bragg
Does it strike as remarkable, Tom, that the big forces that Louis had at his command were defeated in this way?
- [33:36]
Thomas Asbridge
You mean generally across the campaign? No, because I think England's England or the British Isles are pretty hard nut to crack. It's a very difficult place to conquer. So that's not necessarily so surprising given that you've got the issues of supply of contact and communication across the Channel. I think there is a significant degree of fortune involved in the way in which Lincoln plays out. You asked earlier on, was that the end of the battle once Thomas can of Persh is dead. It's not. It's not the absolute anymore. There's still some fighting that goes on, but the most important thing is, I think, that Lincoln, building on what Stephen said, Lincoln breaks much of the baronial rebellion. A lot of people are taken captive and then when we look at the documentary records in Royal Archives, we can see a huge stream of people coming back into the Royalist cause after Lincoln. So Lincoln's solved that side of the equation. Perhaps Louis resistance needs to be further
- [34:29]
Stephen Church
snapped by Sandwich and that's it, is it, really?
- [34:33]
Melvyn Bragg
Well, but Sandridge isn't a pushover. I mean, I think we should spare a moment for Eustace the monk.
- [34:39]
Louise Wilkinson
Yes, absolutely.
- [34:41]
Melvyn Bragg
He was an apostate monk, we're told, but he had been a real nuisance in the Channel Isles, raiding the British for a long time. Yes.
- [34:48]
Stephen Church
And had actually been in King John's employ between about 1205 and 1212. Yeah. I mean, an extraordinary character. We're told that he. He studied magic in Toledo and when he returned, he entered a monastery and then came out of the monastery in order to avenge his father's death. And he's an extraordinary character in that he had a French romance written about him. Certainly by the mid 13th century, this French romance had been written down. So he was clearly an extraordinary character in the sort of Robin Hood vein of these sorts of.
- [35:24]
Melvyn Bragg
And some of his. And Louis was then. Louis. Fate was rather humiliating, wasn't it, Louis?
- [35:28]
Louise Wilkinson
Oh, it was, yes. And it's actually interesting.
- [35:30]
Melvyn Bragg
Can you tell the listeners what it is?
- [35:32]
Louise Wilkinson
It was. So peace terms began to be negotiated almost as soon as news reached Louis camp after the Battle of Sandwich. And they sort of carried on in fits and starts until sort of really the first week or so of September. And then on the 12th of September, there was a great meeting on an island near Kingston, a peace meeting, and Louis decided to accept the peace terms. As part of this, it was required, really, that Louis would return to the church. The rebels had been declared excommunicants during the course of the conflict, and so he had to undertake a penance, which probably took place on 13 September. Initially, Louis had refused to appear as a penitent in his woollen undergarments, feeling this was not appropriate for the son of a French king. And so he managed to negotiate that he would perform his penance with a mantle over his undergarments. And so he appeared as a penitent in front of all the clergy and was absolved of all his sins, that he committed during the civil war. In terms of the peace agreement, it was quite a good agreement. The lands that had been taken during the wars were to be restored to their rightful holders. There were clauses touching the release of prisoners ransoms, and Louis followers were promised that they would be allowed to have the liberties and customs of the Kingdom of England. And this was probably a reference to the liberties and customs contained within Magna Carta.
- [36:57]
Melvyn Bragg
The Magna Carta is reissued. And how significant is that for our history?
- [37:03]
Thomas Asbridge
I think it's enormously significant because it had already been issued, reissued once and reshaped in November 1216. And now, after the final victories against the French and Louis departure from England, then It's reissued in 1217. And the reason we think of the 1215 Magna Carta and the reason that Magna Carta has a life into the 13th century and beyond are these two reissues, the fact that it's reborn after King John's death. So I think it's essential, not just
- [37:31]
Melvyn Bragg
the Magna Carta, we have the forest chart here as well.
- [37:33]
Stephen Church
Yeah, yeah. The sort of. The poor relation of Magna Carta, the Charter of the Forest, which is absolutely, I think, absolutely central to the peace settlement. The Charter of the Forest is the thing that affected most ordinary people within the English kingdom. And I do think it's fascinating that when Magna Carta was reissued in 1217, not the 1216 Magna Carta, but the 1217 Magna Carta, when it was reissued, a deliberate decision was made to draw out the items focusing on the forest and give the forest charter a second, you know, a priority all of its own. And actually, it's at that point that Magna Carta gets its name. Before 1217, it's. It's the Charter of Runnymede. But of course, there needs to be. We now need to differentiate between the two charters. We now have Magna Carta, which, you know, has the sort of main bit. And now we have its friend, the Charter of the Forest. And you. I think you can see the importance of the Charter of the Forest because Almost immediately after November 1217, we get perambulations being set up. We are attempting. Now, what we're attempting to do is to reduce the size of the forest. And the forest was absolutely crucial in the early 13th century because so much of England was under forest. And what that meant was that you were subject not just to the common law of England, but also to forest law. And forest law was designed to protect the woodland. The vert. It was designed to protect the sort of King's Chase. And what that meant was any land that was in the forest was economically, if not worth less, worth an awful lot less than it would have been had it not been in the forest. So it was incredibly important charter. We've kind of forgotten about the forest charter, but I think contemporaries saw the Charter of the Forest as being really important.
- [39:22]
Melvyn Bragg
Can we go back to some of the players? The chatelaine. Lincoln Castle didn't do too well out of it, for all her.
- [39:28]
Louise Wilkinson
No, she didn't. I feel very sorry for Nicola, actually. Within four days of the battle, on 24 May, she was removed from office as Sheriff of Lincolnshire. And the royalist forces wanted to reward the Earl of Salisbury by giving him actually Lincoln Castle and also possession of the county.
- [39:43]
Melvyn Bragg
How did they get away with that? Wouldn't people protest against this war, against the removal of this woman who'd held that castle for the royalists for so long?
- [39:51]
Louise Wilkinson
Well, I think Salisbury was a very, very influential figure in the king's party, and not quite as influential as Nicola, but Nicola went to the royal court to recover her right, and she was successful in doing so briefly, although she. So she recovered the castle and actually control of the county. She was a rare thing, a female sheriff, but then in December 1217, she was made to surrender the county to Salisbury and she retained the castle. In the years that followed, there were repeated heated wrangles between Nicola and Salisbury. Salisbury just wanted to take control of Lincoln Castle, but Nicola emerged victorious and she was eventually removed from office in 1226, which I think reflects her force of personality again.
- [40:31]
Melvyn Bragg
And what about William Marshal?
- [40:33]
Thomas Asbridge
Well, he goes on to lead and act as regent for the English realm until his death in 1219. So he has two more years at the head of government, effectively, and I think for the majority of that, he's ruling with a pretty even hand and he's trying as best as he can to steer the government of a very still, very young king who he knows is going to be imperiled once he dies.
- [40:58]
Melvyn Bragg
So there's still peril. Even though Louis is withdrawn back to France and doesn't come back and doesn't invade again, it's still a perilous place to be.
- [41:07]
Thomas Asbridge
It's still perilous. And also we're talking about a world that's been wracked by civil war, where things, essential things, not particularly maybe so exciting as a battle, but essential things like raising tax, the systems for finance, things like that, have broken down.
- [41:21]
Melvyn Bragg
So is there. Sorry up you?
- [41:22]
Stephen Church
Well, I was just going to say, I mean, the English regime was not really in proper control of what was going on until about 1224. So we've got the best part of a decade where the kingdom of England is wracked by civil war, by various disruptions, continuing.
- [41:39]
Melvyn Bragg
Civil war?
- [41:40]
Stephen Church
Yes. I mean, not necessarily armed civil war, but the difficulty of persuading people to give up things that they had worked so hard to acquire. So this is where the minority of Henry III comes in. We have people like Brian de Lisle, another one of John's household knights, holding Knaresborough and Boroughbridge, refusing to give it up because, well, John gave it to me and Henry III isn't old enough to take it away from me. So I've got to hold onto it until Henry III reaches his majority. So it carries on being a really complex problem having this young king.
- [42:14]
Melvyn Bragg
How near was it that this second invasion for Brant could have been successful? I'll start with you, Tom.
- [42:21]
Thomas Asbridge
I think it could certainly have been successful. I think there are, for all its difficulties, there are critical moments where the course of events could have changed. I think, for example, if William Marshal had not chosen to support Henry III right at the start of his, his reign, then maybe we wouldn't even have got as far as the coronation. I think if the battle of Lincoln had played out differently and the French and baronial forces have been successful there, then we really are looking at a very, very difficult position for Henry III's regime.
- [42:49]
Louise Wilkinson
I completely agree. I think it was at times a very, very close run thing and I think luck played a part in all of this as well. I think the roll is for, well, luck. For example, Louis decision to split his forces in the build up to the Battle of Lincoln and then the fact that his forces ended up mustering before Lincoln with an existing baronial group so that the royalists could come in hard and decimate that part of his army.
- [43:13]
Stephen Church
And finally, Seaman, I think that yes, it was a close run thing, but I think we get an indication that in the summer of 12 16, autumn of 12 16, people are beginning to get wary about Louis. Louis has not issued his own Magna Carta and we get some indication in the, in the chronicles that the, the rule of the French was beginning to be seen as oppressive. So we talked about the return of William Earl of Salisbury in the spring of 1217. In part, William Earl of Salisbury returned to the royalist side because of the way in which Louis was dispensing his patronage to, to his French followers. And I think people were beginning to see, oh, this French king, what we've done is We've invited somebody in who's, who's in fact going to take away our rights, not help us gain our rights.
- [44:06]
Melvyn Bragg
It's all about the barons.
- [44:07]
Stephen Church
It's always about the barons.
- [44:10]
Melvyn Bragg
Thanks very much, Louise Wilkinson, Thomasbridge and Stephen Church. Next week we'll be discussing Emily Dickinson, one of the leading American birds of the 19th century. Thank you very much for listening.
- [44:21]
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- [44:29]
Melvyn Bragg
What did we miss out?
- [44:30]
Stephen Church
Well, I'm not sure we gave enough weight to Magna Carta. One of the things that struck me during the whole of 2015 and thinking about Magna Carta as we did on the 800th anniversary was how quickly Magna Carta became a brand. I mean, we think of it as a brand now. People refer to Magna Carta with having no idea what was in it. And I think in the early 13th century, people were referring to Magna Carta in precisely the same way. When Henry III was crowned as king, there were three things that they, that the royalists did that were absolutely central. The first was to have him crowned as king. The second was for him to take the cross as, as Tom said. And then the third was to go to Bristol, hold a great council. Hello, everybody. We're going to, we're going to talk with you. Hold a great council and then reissue Magna Carta.
- [45:26]
Melvyn Bragg
We're talking about a nine year old boy. So who inspired all that?
- [45:28]
Stephen Church
Oh, not him. I mean, it's clearly William Marshall and Gwawler, the Papal legate. They're the people who are running the show. And I think the intellectual heavyweight in all this is probably Koa', le, which you say.
- [45:38]
Louise Wilkinson
I would say so, yes, absolutely.
- [45:41]
Stephen Church
And I think recognizing that the importance of Magna Carta, and there's a little bit at the end of 1216, Magna Carta, which I think is really revealing, in which it's all done in Henry's words, even though he's nine years old. But it's all done in Henry's words, in which what he says is there are various bits and pieces which are too contentious for us to deal with. Now we promise to hold a great council at which we will discuss these issues more fully.
- [46:05]
Louise Wilkinson
And actually that council also demonstrates the importance of the Church in this period, because aren't there 11 bishops present at that council, which is a vast number. And one of the reasons that Louis Cause failed in England was he did not have the backing of the English bishops. And that was critical.
- [46:19]
Stephen Church
Yes.
- [46:20]
Thomas Asbridge
And the point you're making about almost like leaving the door open to further negotiation. When we were talking earlier on, you made a very powerful and I think, very accurate case for the holistic nature of much of the 1215 Magna Carta. But actually it makes sense to say, let's not try and. Let's not try and solve everything else. We'll have further discussions, we'll try and, you know, we'll try and iron out those difficulties later on. This doesn't have to cover every single thing, but this is our position at this point. I think that's actually a very sensible way of approaching the business, the pretty messy business of trying to reach an accommodation.
- [46:53]
Stephen Church
There are three copies of 12, 6, 16 Magna Cart, one of them in Durham, two of them in the French royal archives. Why is that? Louis took those back to in the autumn of 1217, not the 1217 Magna Carta. We've got the 1216 Magna Carta. So it's clear that this is a. This is an important text and was clearly part and parcel of the way in which the peace was being negotiated. Those people who come back get those liberties that are also there in Magna Carta. And I think that Magna Carta became a central plank of the reconciliation. And the very first point I made, or going back to the very first point I made about the importance of counsel, because we've got a minority government and kings can act arbitrarily, of course they can, because they have the divine right, but their officers can't. And when a king is too young that he can't command his officers, his officers have to take counsel. So what characterised the minority government from 1217 through to 1225 was council, council, council, council after council after council after council.
- [47:59]
Thomas Asbridge
Tom, we're just talking about things we. We didn't discuss, we didn't go to go into at great length. I think the other thing that maybe we don't all in the panel don't all agree on is the consequences or the potential consequences of what happened in 1217. And this question of, I think maybe nation is a red herring as a word, or it's got so many modern resonances that it doesn't work in the 13th century. But identity, I think, is very, very powerful. I was rereading the account and the history of William Marshall when I was thinking about what we're going to be discussing today. And of course, that's a constructed text and it's a text written in the mid-1220s that's trying to put across a very specific message. But it resonates again and again and again with this, with phrasing. We're going to fight for our land. This is. We're going to protect. It's almost edging towards the idea that people have a new identity in this period and that that identity is much more, much more distinctly English. And that, I think is going to be something that's going to. That emerges in the course of the 13th century as a much more powerful notion that can be played around with, that can be manipulated in relationship with England's contest with the wider world. And that, I think that could have been significantly overturned. If the events of 1217 played a different way, then we could have seen a return to a much more of a hybridized identity.
- [49:24]
Stephen Church
I think that's absolutely right. One of the sort of stories of the 13th century is the creation of an English identity or recreation of an English identity which perhaps had existed before
- [49:34]
Louise Wilkinson
1066among the higher levels of society, among the French speaking aristocracy.
- [49:38]
Stephen Church
Absolutely. Simon de Montfort.
- [49:40]
Melvyn Bragg
And the English language begins to creep back into respectability.
- [49:44]
Stephen Church
Yeah. Amazingly, Magna Carta, back to Magna Carta again, was translated into French almost immediately after its issue in 1215, because French was the language of the shire court. So it's called. Clearly designed to be read out in court. Certainly by 1300 it's been translated into English.
- [50:05]
Thomas Asbridge
And by 1270. 1270. 1271, we've got Robert of Gloucester producing the first history of the kingdom in Old English. Not in Latin or Anglo, Norman, French. So this language is a massive indicator of identity, I think. And I think that shows part of this shift.
- [50:24]
Melvyn Bragg
Oddly enough, it takes about a century to really get going, the development of the English language, doesn't it? Until we come into Chaucer, sorry, Chaucer and Wycliffe and Gower. It's really fun.
- [50:36]
Stephen Church
It's a literary language. Yes. Although, you know, we do have the remains of some, you know, the Owl and the Nightingale is the sort of the classic early early English and there are other sort of early 13th century, early early texts like the Metrical Life
- [50:53]
Louise Wilkinson
of, sorry, the Ankara and Oyster, actually.
- [50:56]
Stephen Church
Yeah, that's right. In the earliest life, the life of Robert of Naresborough, the symmetrical life of Robert of Nesborough, which is in Middle English. So, yes, English emerging as a language, as a respectable language, a language of literacy, literature and also the language of which it is all right for high status people to use. So Simon de Montfort, I don't suppose, understood any English at all. I'm sure it was entirely in French, but by the time we get to the mid 14th century, aristocrats are understanding they're operating in English. Forgotten. Who's. Who's the first king of English to have his will in English? Is it Henry V?
- [51:33]
Louise Wilkinson
I can't remember.
- [51:33]
Melvyn Bragg
I think Henry V sends letters back from the front in English.
- [51:36]
Stephen Church
He does, doesn't he? I think he's in English as well. But, you know, that's one of the, you know, what language do you die in?
- [51:43]
Louise Wilkinson
Yes, that's interesting.
- [51:45]
Stephen Church
John's will. John's will exists. It's in Latin, but Latin is so convoluted that it's quite clearly French. He was dying in French and then it was translated into the first person,
- [51:56]
Louise Wilkinson
which is very important.
- [51:57]
Stephen Church
Yeah, because it's his. It's. Because it's his testament. That's the point. You know, it's a personal testament, but it was quite clearly he died in French.
- [52:05]
Melvyn Bragg
Was Louis not quite up to it then? Did. Was any of the. We're talking about fault not and blame. Sorry, I'm going to sore through it. Was he. Was he. Was he not up to the task of winning that battle? He had an enormous advantage. He had London and all that went with that. He had up the east coast.
- [52:24]
Thomas Asbridge
I think it's so difficult to judge someone in hindsight, to think what could have been. I think you could argue if he'd had. If Philip Augustus had made a decision to put huge amounts of support behind him and to prioritize this above all else, then maybe we're looking at a different position for him. Philip Augustus is an extraordinary king. I mean, he's. His achievements in terms of raising up his dynasty, the Capetian dynasty, in opposition to the Angevins. What he's able to do from 1180 onwards is remarkable, I think. So there's that potential capacity, but most of the. England's been a. A prize that people have looked at and thought about as something that could be taken. But it is not an easy thing to do to bring an army, not just win the first couple of battles, but then sustain a period of conquest. So regardless of whether he was militarily capable or not, I mean, you could argue if he. If he decided to put all of his eggs in one basket and go to Lincoln in person, or go into the north and then eventually target Lincoln and he'd been present, maybe the battle would have turned out differently. But again, the history of William Marshall actually says they were disappointed by the fact that he wasn't there, because I think what they had in mind is if all Your chickens are in one coop, then maybe you can swoop down on that and capture him at that moment.
- [53:43]
Stephen Church
I want to be fair to Louis and say that he saw Dover as key. We have a sort of mid 13th century account, well, 1240s by Matthew Paris, who was a friend of Hubert de Burgh. And Matthew Paris reported that Hubert de Burgh saw Dover as the key to England. And I think that Louis saw it likewise in the sort of winter of 1216, 1217. The Cinque ports were absolutely central in trying to keep Louis cooped up in England, because Louis was trying to. One of the things he wanted to do was to get resources from France into England. And Louis, I think, managed to break out of Rye, was it. I think it was rye in the February of 1217 in order to go to France. And I think when he came back, he thought, what I need to do is I need to secure the Cinque Ports and what I need to do is to secure Dover. So I think, you know that in the, in the, in the tent where they were all sitting around talking about, well, what's the key? What is the key? What do we have to do? Well, let Thomas get on with what he's getting on with. What we have to do is we have to have to capture Dover. And I think he was right. It's just that Lincoln worked out a way in a way he wouldn't have liked, but he needed to capture Dover.
- [55:00]
Louise Wilkinson
Dover was tremendously important. I completely agree. And actually it was a measure of its importance that during the course of his reign, Henry III went on to spend more money on fortifying Dover than he did on any other English castle. So it just shows you how valuable it was. Amazing fortress.
- [55:17]
Melvyn Bragg
Well, thank you all very much.
- [55:18]
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