‘Believe me when I say this to you, Dickon,’ I continued. The poor man kept glancing down at the sword and then up again to my face. ‘If you steal from me again, if you take from me so much as a crust of dry bread, I will hack off that one remaining arm and feed it to my pigs. Do you hear me?’
Dickon nodded. He was actually trembling with fear.
‘But, like our old master Robin, I do not care much for courts of law, and so I will not prosecute you in the manor court, nor the King’s court for the theft of my piglets; but I will fine you a shilling to recompense me for my loss. This is my judgment as the lord of this manor, and this is also the agreement between us as former comrades. Do you swear to abide by it?’
He licked his lips and croaked: ‘I swear it.’
‘Very well then, you may go.’ And I watched him lurch to his feet and stumble out of the hall door.
I knew that Marie would be angry that I had let him off with a small fine; and Osric would be very puzzled. But, my master Robin, although now rotting in his grave, would have approved. Dickon had fought bravely with me in the Holy Land; he had suffered with me there, and for forty years after he took his wound he had faithfully tended my pigs here at Westbury, year in, year out, rain or shine. I would never have seen him hanged for a piglet or two; and neither would Robin.
It is simply a matter of loyalty.
Historical note
The idea that Robin Hood should become a crusader might seem a perverse one, but it made perfect sense to me that an illustrious nobleman, a powerful member of the Anglo-Norman fighting caste, should be involved in the one of the greatest bellicose movements of his times — willingly or otherwise. England was gripped by a frenzy of religious fervour before and after King Richard’s departure on the Great Pilgrimage, as the Third Crusade was referred to then, and tens of thousands of knights from the Pennines to the Pyrenees, from Brittany to Bavaria, were prepared to risk their lives, their wealth and the security of their families to take part what must have seemed to them a great and holy adventure. I think it would have been a little bizarre if my fictional Earl of Locksley had not taken part in some way.
It was this religious hysteria that was the main cause of the shameful and sickening events in York of mid-March 1190. A crowd of armed townsmen, whipped up by a mysterious white-robed monk preaching hatred of the Jews, besieged about a hundred and fifty Jewish men, women and children, who had fled to the King’s Tower of York Castle (now called Clifford’s Tower) for sanctuary.
After several days of siege fighting, when it became clear that they could not safely surrender to Sir John Marshal, the Sheriff of Yorkshire, the Jews, led by Josce of York and Rabbi Yomtob, chose death at their own hands on Saturday March 16 ^ th rather than the prospect of being torn apart by a mob of blood-drunk Christians. For an academic but deeply moving account of this appalling event, read The Jews of Medieval York and the Massacre of March 1190 by R. B. Dobson (University of York).
The faith-crazed townsmen of York were led by, among others, a knight called Sir Richard Malebisse. And while my fictional villain Sir Richard Malbete is obviously based on him, it is important to be clear that they are not the same person. Malebisse was not killed during the Third Crusade and, although disgraced in 1190 by the massacre in York, he returned to prominence after Richard’s death in the reign of King John. He is recorded as being given a licence to build a castle in Yorkshire in 1199, and dying in 1209 or 1210. I believe there are several of his descendants still around today.
There is no evidence, of course, for the presence of two Christian warriors among the courageous Jewish martyrs of York — or, rather, one Christian and Robin Hood — but it is the novelist’s prerogative to place his fictional heroes at the centre of any historical catastrophe and have them emerge more or less unscathed.
The real events of the Third Crusade occurred pretty much as I have described them in this book — I took John Gillingham’s magisterial Richard I (Yale University Press) as the source for most of my information. In the summer of 1190, the main part of Richard’s army met up with the French at Vezelay. They then marched down to Marseilles, sailed to Sicily and over-wintered in Messina, where the crusaders — led by King Richard, and responding to a good deal of provocation from the locals — sacked the town and looted it thoroughly. Relations between kings Richard and Philip slowly began to deteriorate during that long winter of inactivity, and when King Philip departed for the Holy Land on 30th March, just a day before King Richard’s bride Berengaria arrived in Messina, the two monarchs thoroughly distrusted each other. Richard’s huge army followed the French ten days later but while Philip was at Acre by 20th April, Richard’s fleet was scattered by a great storm near Crete and the ships of his royal women ended up, badly damaged, anchored off Cyprus, where they were denied fresh water and food by the upstart Emperor Isaac Comnenos.
Richard attacked Limassol much as described and drove the Emperor off the beach, smashing through a hastily assembled makeshift barricade with only a few hundred men behind him — the King’s small contingent of Welsh archers playing a significant role in the victory. The success of the surprise attack in the olive groves that same night by the ill-mounted Christian knights sealed the Emperor’s fate. And he was indeed bound in silver — rather than iron — chains when he finally surrendered to King Richard on 31st May 1191.
After a siege that had lasted nearly two years, Acre fell to the crusaders on 12th July 1191, a month after Richard’s triumphant arrival. And while the weary Christian besiegers welcomed Richard’s appearance, and the massive reinforcements he brought with him, the King of England’s notions of diplomacy often left much to be desired. He alienated the German contingent by kicking their Duke’s banner off the ramparts and he further strained relations between himself and King Philip by supporting a rival candidate for the role of King of Jerusalem. When the French and Germans quit the Holy Land, Richard was left weaker — but, importantly, in sole command of the remaining Christian forces.
Richard really did order the cold-blooded execution of 2,700 Muslim prisoners of war — an atrocity that was chronicled by the Norman trouvere Ambroise in his History of the Holy War (translated from the Latin by Marianne Ailes; published by The Boydell Press) — before leaving Acre and marching south down the Mediterranean coast towards Jaffa (near modern-day Tel Aviv) to threaten Jerusalem. In order to stop his march south, Saladin was forced to confront Richard about fifteen miles north of Jaffa near a small village called Arsuf.
The Battle of Arsuf, on September 7th 1191, was hailed as a victory for King Richard and his armoured knights — but it was not a decisive one. Saladin received a mauling that day and withdrew his forces but, in the next weeks and months, he was reinforced by troops from all over the Near East until his army was soon once again at its former strength. But the battle did have a deep impact on the fate of the Third Crusade: as a result of his defeat, Saladin vowed never again to permit his light Turkish cavalry to face the might of the heavy Christian knights in a pitched battle. And this proved to be a war-winning strategy: instead of challenging the knights head-on, and losing again, the great Muslim leader opted for a policy of constant harassment, avoiding a major clash of arms. He let time and distance from home do his work for him. Over the next year, Richard’s forces were whittled away in skirmishes and minor sieges, and by death from disease, until it was clear both to the King and to his wily opponent (whom he never actually met) that, while the crusaders just might, with a huge effort, manage to capture Jerusalem, they would be too weak to hold it for long in a hostile environment. They would soon be forced to relinquish the Holy City to the Muslims and all the blood spilt in capturing it would be for nothing. A year after the Battle of Arsuf, after many months of negotiations, a three year-truce was finally agreed. Under the agreement, the crusaders were allowed to keep a crucial toehold on the coast of Outremer and Christians were permitted to visit the holy places in Jerusalem and pray there unmolested. Richard, having at least something to show for the Crusade’s massive expenditure of treasure and lives, was now free to leave the Holy Land, which he did on October 9th 1192.