Invisible bonds

Richard, John, William and Donald, Ireland and Greenland

Henry II left England, Wales, and a good deal of France to his elder son Richard, Ireland to his younger son, John. Richard went off on the Third Crusade, was taken prisoner on his way home and held for ransom. John took advantage of the situation to try to usurp his brother’s throne. He failed, due to the opposition of barons loyal to Richard, among them William Marshal, who will come into our story again.

Richard, ransomed and returned to England, was urged by one of his advisors to seize Ireland from John in order to deprive him of a base from which to make trouble in the future. A critical question was which side barons with holdings in Ireland would support. The question was put to William Marshal, possibly the most powerful of the Irish barons, who had been loyal to Richard in the conflict with John. He was lord of Leinster through his wife; her father had married the daughter of the last king of Leinster and died with no male heirs. The Marshal¹ responded that although he owed allegiance to Richard for his holdings in England and Normandy (also mostly held through his wife), he owed John allegiance for Leinster and would support him against anyone who tried to seize Ireland, including Richard.

Richard’s response was that, as long as his knights were faithful to their feudal obligations, his crown was safe.

I now shift the story back five years.² At the end of Henry’s reign he was at war with Philip, king of France; Richard was on the other side, allied with Phillip against his father. William, a famous knight³ in Henry’s service, killed Richard’s horse under him to stop his pursuit of his father, fleeing from the defeat of his army in the final battle of the war.

Before he died, Henry had offered William as reward for his services the wardship of Isabel of Pembroke, possibly the best catch in England. After Henry’s death Richard confirmed that decision; loyalty to the crown deserved to be rewarded even if it had been loyalty against the present wearer. William promptly married Isabel, converting himself in a night from a famous but almost landless knight to a great lord, ruler through his wife of extensive holdings in England, Wales, Normandy — and a quarter of Ireland.

When Richard died, there were two claimants to his throne: John and his twelve-year-old nephew Arthur Duke of Brittany, son of John’s elder brother Geoffrey. John succeeded Richard as king of England but substantial parts of the Angevin holdings in France recognized Arthur as the heir, as did Philip, happy to support a split in his Angevin opponents. The result was an off and on conflict between supporters of the two claimants. It ended when John succeeded in capturing Arthur and several hundred of his knights.

Most of them were never seen again. The fifteen year old Arthur was presumably murdered, by John himself according to one story, by his jailers according to another. Capturing and imprisoning a rival or holding captured knights for ransom were accepted elements of medieval conflict. Murdering them was not. That incident and others along similar lines cost John the respect and ultimately the support of a considerable number of his barons; he was playing by realpolitik rules, they were not.

The result, combined with baronial discontent at high levels of taxation to raise money for unsuccessful attempts to recover the Angevin holdings in France, most of which John had lost, produced a baronial revolt. When John died, probably of dysentery contracted on campaign, there was a French army in London allied with the rebel barons. It was commanded by Louis, son and heir of the king of France, who claimed the English throne through his wife, Blanche of Castile, the daughter of John’s sister.

John’s son was nine. Things did not look good for the Angevin monarchy.

William Marshal, who had not joined the revolt although his son had, took leadership of the royalist faction. In six months and two major battles, one of which William, aged seventy, commanded and fought in, the rebellion was over, the French back in France, John’s son on the throne as Henry III.

It is an interesting story — I posted my verse version of parts of it here sometime back⁴ — but what does it have to do with Donald Trump and Greenland?

The moral I draw from it is the title of this post. There was nothing to keep Richard from awarding the wardship of Isabel to some lord who had supported him against his father instead of one who had supported his father against him. There was nothing to keep William from supporting Richard against John in Ireland instead of risking everything by refusing to do so, nothing to keep Richard from seizing Ireland, nothing except the fact that both Richard and William were playing by the feudal rules and, as Richard correctly observed, as long as they did so his crown was safe.

John played by a different rule: “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” He had the power to kill his nephew and rival, so he did.

Donald Trump has the power to seize Greenland. It would be a mistake.⁵

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1. “Marshal” was originally a royal office, in the process of being converted into a last name.

2. From 1194 to 1189.

3. A tourney star at a time when tournaments were mock battles, hence a valued and very able combatant.

4. Gesta Gugliemi I, Gesta Gugliemi II, Gesta Gugliemi III, Gesta Gugliemi IV.

5. For an expanded version of the argument of this post, see A Positive Account of Rights.