Crowns and Crusades

Crowns and Crusades, story by story.

1. IEngland, 1066
   

   Chapter I · England, 1066

   Hastings

   You play Harold Godwinson

   Two invasions in one autumn. Can one king hold England for a whole year?

   England, January 1066. The old king is dying next to his brand new church, and he has no son.

   Your first call · William: 250 miles south

   Ride south to London at onceRest at York and let him come north

   Sources

   • Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 1065 and 1066 (Ingram trans.): Edward buried and Harold crowned on Twelfth-day, the long-haired star 'all the week', the summer watch on the coast, the army sent home at the Nativity of St Mary, Harald of Norway with three hundred ships, Fulford on St Matthew's eve, Stamford Bridge, survivors sent home with twenty-four ships after swearing friendship, William at Pevensey on Michaelmas eve, the castle at Hastings, the battle 'ere his army was collected', Harold, Gyrth and Leofwine slain, William hallowed at midwinter
   • John of Worcester (Florence), Chronicle, 1065 to 1066 (Forester trans., 1854): Harold tried and failed to reconcile Tostig with the northerners; Edward buried the day after his death and Harold crowned the same day; the comet seven days; Harold's forced march to London on hearing of the landing, with half his troops not yet assembled
   • William of Poitiers, Gesta Guillelmi 2 (the Normans believing their duke had fallen; William baring his head: 'Look at me. I am alive')
   • Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, Book 3 (Forester trans.): Gyrth's advice, Harold kicking his mother, six days of summons, the relics Harold swore on, the Bretons of the left wing routed, the rumour of the duke's death, the bared head, two more feigned retreats
   • William of Malmesbury, Chronicle of the Kings of England 2.228 and 3.238 to 3.239 (Giles trans., 1847): Harold driven ashore in Ponthieu and handed to William, his oath to William, Gyrth's advice that Harold stay back so he could rally the fugitives and avenge the dead
   • Bayeux Tapestry (the oath on relics, the comet, the house burned near Hastings, William raising his helmet)
2. IIEngland and France, 1158 to 1170
   

   Chapter II · England and France, 1158 to 1170

   Becket

   You play Henry II

   Your best friend is now your enemy, and the Church says you cannot touch him.

   A century after Hastings, England belongs to William the Conqueror's great-grandson, Henry II. He rules England and half of France, and he gets his way.

   Your first call · The Pope: ready to shut every church

   Let him come home to CanterburyRefuse and keep him in exile

   Sources

   • William FitzStephen, Vita S. Thomae, in J. C. Robertson (ed.), Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, vol. 3 (Rolls Series, 1877), ch. 19 (the 1158 embassy: wagons of five horses, hounds, hawks, a monkey on every packhorse, the French saying 'wonderful must the king of England be whose chancellor travels so'), 107 (Fréteval: the kiss asked for and put off, Henry's oath in anger never to kiss him), 112 (Amboise: the kiss dodged again), 126 to 127 (the archbishop of York and the bishops of London and Salisbury at Henry's Christmas court, the false report of Becket touring with armed knights, 'while Thomas lives you will have no good days', four knights leave)
   • Herbert of Bosham, Vita S. Thomae, in Materials vol. 3: Becket warning Henry the friendship would turn to hatred, the flight as 'Brother Christian', the Pope ordering an interdict on all Henry's lands if he refused peace, the peace made in a meadow near Fréteval on 22 July 1170
   • Edward Grim, Vita S. Thomae, in Materials vol. 2, ch. 75 (Henry's outburst: idle and wretched men he had raised who let him be mocked by a low-born clerk; the four knights leave without his knowledge)
   • Edward Grim, The Murder of Thomas Becket (Medieval Sourcebook trans.): 'Here I am, not a traitor of the king but a priest', the vespers, the altars beside him
   • Roger of Howden, Annals (Riley trans.), 1170 and 1174: the young king crowned at Westminster by Roger of York with no mention of Becket; Henry walking barefoot to the martyr's tomb and taking the discipline from bishops, priests and monks
3. IIIThe Holy Land, 1191 to 1192
   

   Chapter III · The Holy Land, 1191 to 1192

   The Lionheart and Saladin

   You play Richard I

   The best soldier of his age against the best general of his. Is Jerusalem worth losing England?

   Jerusalem, October 1187. The holy city has just changed hands, and all of Christian Europe is in shock.

   Your first call · Jaffa's citadel: bargaining to surrender

   Sail at once to save JaffaLet Jaffa go and sail for home

   Sources

   • Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi (as 'Geoffrey de Vinsauf', in Chronicles of the Crusades, Bohn 1848), 4.4 (2,700 hostages led out and killed), 4.35 (Templars, Hospitallers and Pisans advise against besieging Jerusalem: the city could not be held), 6.9 to 6.22 (the return from Beit Nuba, Saladin's assault on Jaffa, the citadel's terms, the contrary wind, the priest's swim, Richard wading ashore, the dawn battle with about ten horses and a crossbowman between every two spearmen); also trans. Helen Nicholson (1997)
   • Richard of Devizes, Chronicle (same volume), sections on 1189 and Acre: 'I would sell London if I could find a buyer'; Leopold's standard cast down in the dirt at Acre
   • Baha ad-Din Ibn Shaddad, What Befell Sultan Yusuf (Conder trans., PPTS 1897): the 1187 ransom terms for Jerusalem, the Acre prisoners killed in sight of Saladin's advance guard on 27 Rajab (20 August 1191), fruit and snow during Richard's illness, the truce of 2 September 1192 (three years, Ascalon demolished, pilgrims to Jerusalem)
   • Roger of Howden, Annals (Riley trans.), 1192 to 1194: John seizing castles, Richard sailing from Acre on 9 October, reaching Corfu within a month, hiring galleys to Ragusa, going overland disguised as a pilgrim, taken near Vienna by Leopold's men and handed to the emperor; the ransom of 100,000 plus 50,000 marks and England taxed a quarter of its revenues
   • Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-tarikh, year 583 (Recueil des historiens des croisades, Historiens orientaux, vol. 1, Paris 1872, pp. 702-703, French trans.): the ransom terms for Jerusalem, anyone who had not paid within forty days 'devenait esclave', and after Balian's 30,000 dinars for the poor, sixteen thousand men, women and children who had nothing to give were made captive. The same terms in the Old French continuation of William of Tyre (Eracles/Ernoul, RHC Historiens occidentaux vol. 2): whoever could not pay the ransom 'seroit esclas'
4. IVEngland, 1204 to 1215
   

   Chapter IV · England, 1204 to 1215

   Magna Carta

   You play King John

   Can a king be made to keep his word?

   England, 1215. Richard the Lionheart has been dead for sixteen years. The crown went to his little brother, the one who plotted while Richard sat in prison.

   Your first call · London: held by the rebels

   Seal the charterRefuse and fight for your crown

   Sources

   • Magna Carta (1215), clauses 2, 8, 12, 39 and 61 (Davis translation, as used by the British Library; the BL page is offline)
   • Roger of Wendover, Flowers of History (Giles trans., 1849), vol. 2, 1208 to 1216: the interdict and burials without priests, its lifting after six years and three months, Philip claiming papal authority in 1213, La Roche-aux-Moines and Bouvines, the Brackley demands drawn from Henry I's charter, FitzWalter 'Marshal of the army of God', London entered on Sunday 24 May during divine service, Runnymede between Staines and Windsor on 15 June, the charter and clause 61, the Pope's bull annulling it (24 August), the siege of Rochester, the starving garrison, Savaric de Mauléon's warning, the Wellstream crossing and John's death
   • The Magna Carta Project (University of East Anglia), itinerary: the fall of Rochester (Walter of Coventry's single crossbowman whom the king had raised from boyhood; Wendover's crossbowmen), and week seven of the siege (after seven weeks; the writ of 25 November for forty of the fattest pigs to fire the mine under the south-east tower)
5. VScotland, 1306 to 1314
   

   Chapter V · Scotland, 1306 to 1314

   Bannockburn

   You play Robert the Bruce

   A huge English army is coming. Do you run again?

   Scotland, 1314. England's kings have spent nearly twenty years trying to swallow it, and they keep choking.

   Your first call · Stirling: surrenders tomorrow if you leave

   Attack at dawnSlip away into the hills tonight

   Sources

   • John Barbour, The Bruce (c. 1375; Eyre-Todd prose trans., 1907): Comyn killed at the high altar of the Greyfriars, Dumfries; the grey palfrey, de Bohun and the broken axe-handle, the lords' rebuke; the Scots kneeling and 'they ask mercy, but not at you'; Keith's five hundred light horse sent at the archers; Douglas's chase with sixty, Edward's five hundred, Dunbar and the boat; Hereford exchanged for the queen, Marjory and Bishop Wishart
   • Sir Thomas Gray, Scalacronica (Maxwell trans., 1907): the Stirling bargain made by Edward Bruce, the English vanguard repulsed and Clifford's squadron routed on 23 June, the English camped on the wet marsh beyond the Bannock Burn, Bruce about to withdraw into the Lennox, Alexander Seton's defection and pledge, the schiltroms, Edward's flight to Dunbar and by sea to Berwick
   • Chronicle of Lanercost (Maxwell trans., 1913), 1307 and 1314: Thomas and Alexander Bruce executed at Carlisle and Nigel hanged; the Scots kneeling to pray, the English riders broken on the spears and drowned in the Bannock Burn
   • Vita Edwardi Secundi on Bannockburn (de Bohun killed by Robert's axe, the battle, Edward's flight)
   • G. W. S. Barrow, Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland (4th ed., Edinburgh University Press, 2005): the coronation at Scone, the caging of Mary Bruce at Roxburgh, Falkirk 1298, the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton (book; no online text)
6. VIEngland, 1483 to 1485
   

   Chapter VI · England, 1483 to 1485

   Bosworth

   You play Richard III

   You took the crown from a child. Can you keep it when your own lords will not say whose side they are on?

   England, 1483. For nearly thirty years, two branches of one royal family have been fighting over the crown, York against Lancaster. York has won, or thinks it has.

   Your first call · Henry Tudor: marching through Wales

   Keep him close as your hostageBehead him as a warning

   Sources

   • Dominic Mancini, The Usurpation of Richard III (1483): the princes 'day by day began to be seen more rarely behind the bars of the windows, until at length they ceased to appear altogether' (quoted in Historic Royal Palaces, Tower of London source capsule)
   • Crowland Chronicle, Second Continuation (Riley trans., 1854): Rivers, Grey and Vaughan seized at Stony Stratford and later beheaded at Pontefract; Hastings beheaded at the Tower on 13 June; Richard crowned 6 July; the rumour that the princes had died; Buckingham's rising; the deaths of Richard's son (April 1484) and queen; Richard rejoicing at the landing; Strange left as pledge, Stanley's sweating sickness, Strange caught and confessing the plot with Sir William Stanley and Sir John Savage, both proclaimed traitors; the army leaving Nottingham 'though its numbers were not yet fully made up'; as the enemy advanced, the order that Strange 'should be instantly beheaded', which the men entrusted with it delayed, 'leaving the man to his own disposal' and returning 'to the thickest of the fight'; Oxford's French and English against Norfolk; Richard killed fighting, not fleeing; the crown won on the field
   • Polydore Vergil, English History (early Tudor trans., ed. Ellis, Camden Society 1844): Henry sails with two thousand men and lands at Milford on the seventh day of August; Stanley's army between the two hosts; the marsh between them; Norfolk leading the vanguard; Richard's charge, William Brandon killed, Sir William Stanley's three thousand; the swift horses and Richard's refusal; the crown found in the spoil set on Henry's head
   • University of Leicester, The Discovery of Richard III (2012 excavation, scoliosis, battle wounds)