‘Come, man, what is it?’
‘I have news of the King, my lord,’ he said. ‘He has left Sicily. He has made a pact with the usurper King Tancred.’
‘So he still lives,’ said John, his brow darkening.
‘Aye, my lord,’ said the messenger, ‘and there is ill news.’
‘Ill news!’ he cried. ‘What news?’
The messenger looked alarmed. It was not good to be the harbinger of news which did not please and he knew what he had to tell Prince John would send him into a passion. But he must tell it. It would be more than his life was worth to withhold anything.
He blurted out: ‘The King has promised Prince Arthur of Brittany to Tancred’s daughter. It is one of the terms of the pact.’
‘Arthur!’ screamed John.
‘’Tis so, my lord.’
‘By God’s teeth,’ muttered John. ‘He has offered Arthur as the heir of England!’
‘’Twould seem so, my lord, for Tancred has accepted the offer most joyfully.’
John’s face was distorted with rage.
‘By your leave, my lord,’ said the messenger bowing and hastily taking a few steps backwards.
But John did not see him. He was thinking of what this would mean. Their nephew, Arthur, son of their brother Geoffrey, had been named by Richard as heir to the throne of England!
‘No, no, no,’ screamed John.
Then he smiled slowly. Of course Arthur would never be King. He was a baby. He had never been to England. The English would never accept him.
But, by God, how he hated his brother for attempting to cheat him!
Could some say that Arthur had the greater claim? Geoffrey was older than he, John. Geoffrey’s son! No, it was nonsense. It could never be. He would see that it never was.
By God, he would take the throne now while Richard lived if need be. What had he to fear from a puling infant?
He was in no mood for Hadwisa. He had matters of greater moment to consider than her discomfort.
‘We are leaving,’ he shouted. ‘There are matters of business to claim me. I can no longer rest here.’
Hadwisa stood at the turret watching his departure.
She blessed the messenger who had brought such a message to drive her from her husband’s thoughts.
William of Longchamp was too clever a man not to have realised that his most dangerous enemy was Prince John, and that sooner or later the Prince’s simmering hatred would boil over into dangerous action.
Longchamp believed that he could deal satisfactorily with the Prince, who for all his blustering and violent temper was a weak man. Had he not been the son of a King he would never have risen very far. Whereas he, Longchamp, had done so, although severely handicapped, his grandparents both being fugitive slaves who had come from France to the little village of Longchamp and lived out their lives in obscurity, their great ambition being never to be discovered.
He had been determined not to remain in obscurity. Nature had seen fit to bestow on him an unattractive body but a clever brain and all wise men knew that the second was more desirable than the first. When he had been younger he had longed to be tall but he soon realised that he never would be. In fact unkind people called him ‘that ill-favoured dwarf’. That was not true but he was of very low stature so that his head seemed bigger than normal, as were his hands and his feet. It was as though nature had joked with him, giving him a chin that receded and a stomach that protruded; and as if that were not enough one leg was slightly shorter than the other which meant that he walked with a limp. But to compensate him for his physical disabilities he had been given not only a lively mind but the understanding that it could take him far if he nurtured it; so he learned where he could, observing constantly and making himself agreeable to those who could be useful to him.
It was great good fortune which had brought him to the notice of Richard when he was in Aquitaine. Two men could not have been more different. The shining god-like creature, physically perfect and with a natural dignity and grace, a man as many said born to be king and who looked every inch of it, and his poor misshapen servant. It might have been this contrast which attracted Richard’s attention. In any case he soon discovered the mental brilliance of his servant and began to take notice of him. Soon Longchamp was making Richard see how clever he could be and the King took him more and more into his confidence.
So firm did Richard’s patronage become that when he was King of England and planning his crusade he decided that Longchamp should be his Chancellor and share with Hugh Pusey, Bishop of Durham, the office of Chief Justiciary in the commission he was appointing to govern England during his absence. What did it matter if Longchamp was ugly? He was going to show Richard that he had not misplaced his confidence and to flaunt his wealth and position in the faces of those who had jeered at him for his lack of social grace. It was not long before he quarrelled with Hugh Pusey; they were both ambitious and each saw in the other a rival to power. Longchamp was the more wily, always one step ahead; and in a short space of time he had completely overcome Pusey, bringing charges against him which justified imprisonment and then taking from him, in exchange for his liberation, his office and some of his possessions. Thus Longchamp became the sole justiciary, the man in whose hands lay the means and the power to govern England during Richard’s absence.
Of course the people hated him. He was a Norman and insisted on unfamiliar customs in his household. Then there was his love of ostentation. It was natural enough that one who had been despised must find it necessary to show continually how rich and powerful he had become. Every extravagance was a gesture. See how the King loves me! he seemed to be saying. But the more gestures of this nature there were, the more the people hated him. He in his turn hated the English. He was constantly trying to show them how inferior they were. If he were an astute statesman he was no student of human nature. He blindly revelled in Richard’s favour and cared nothing for the enmity of others, forgetting that Richard was far away and that his enemies were all around him.
The crusade swallowed up great wealth. More was constantly demanded. If he were to serve his master well he must see that taxes were levied and paid; it was ironical that the people of England should not blame their King whose activities made it necessary that the money should be raised but his Chancellor whose duty it was to see that the money was collected.
There was murmuring all over the land about the upstart Norman, the nobody who dressed as richly as a king and travelled in great state wherever he went. When he went about the country and rested at religious houses as became a man of the church, for besides being the King’s Chancellor he was also the Bishop of Ely, there were complaints that to house him and his splendid retinue cost them several months’ revenue.
Longchamp heard the sly allusions to his humble origins and this only made him the more extravagant; he was determined to show them that however he had begun he had climbed to the pinnacle of success at this time. He insisted that his servants kneel when serving him, a fact which was noted and circulated throughout the kingdom. The arrogance of the man was unendurable. The King himself could not live more regally.
It was inevitable that his enemies should see that the King heard of his growing unpopularity. Queen Eleanor had become disturbed and when in Sicily had advised her son to send Walter de Coutances, the Archbishop of Rouen, over to England, ostensibly to assist Longchamp in the Regency, but in fact to watch events carefully and if Longchamp became too unpopular, and that might cause the people to rise against him, to take over the reins from him.