ART. VII-A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF 1. Liberate Rolls. (Public Record Office.) 2. Royal Letters of Henry III. Edited by W. SHIRLEY. Rolls Series.' (London: Longmans.) HISTORICAL clichés, brought to the test of scientific investigation, encounter one or other of the alternative destinies which await the moth that flies too near the candle. Sometimes the insect escapes unharmed, in which case the momentary illumination has revealed in it details and beauties hitherto unsuspected. More often it shrivels in the flame. The present article is an attempt to examine the daily life of Henry III during a single year of his reign, in order to see whether the resulting impression will contradict, confirm, supplement, or illustrate the ordinary view of that king and his times. The fact is that to many of us Henry III seems less a creature of flesh and blood than a gilded figure in an illuminated manuscript, or the welldrilled actor in some gorgeous pageant who becomes unrecognizable when he doffs his robes. There is an unreality and archaism about him, so that we feel vaguely that he belongs rather to the artificial mediaevalism of the poet or romancer than to the actual world of the Middle Ages, with its dirt, splendour, hard blows, and great ideals. Let us forsake preconceived ideas, turn to our records, and watch Henry III's doings throughout his twenty-fifth regnal year, that is to say from October 28, 1240, to October 27, 1241.1 1 Most of my information is derived from the unpublished Liberate Roll No. 15, with constant reference to the printed Calendar of Liberate Rolls, 1226-40, which summarizes the contents of ten of these rolls, for the regnal years 11-14, 16 and 17, 21-24. As this is the only Liberate calendar yet published, it is cited henceforward without covering dates as Cal. Lib. Rolls. When that year opened, the Court was at Woodstock, as it had been regularly about this date for the three years preceding. The manor house there had long been a favourite residence of English kings. Alfred the Great had certainly often stayed at Woodstock, even if we reject the unsupported tradition that he was living there when he comforted his people and his own old age by translating Boethius' work on the 'Consolation of Philosophy.' A more recent story asserted that it was at Woodstock that Henry II had contrived a shelter for Fair Rosamund. And they so cunninglye contrived. With turnings round about, That none but with a clue of thread The third Henry was quite as frequent a visitor to Woodstock as his earlier namesakes, and the records are so full of minute instructions about work to be done there that it is easy to picture the appearance of the house in which he stayed, though nothing at all of it remains to-day. What did he see when he came riding north from Oxford on a cold October morning in 1240? First he would traverse the park, with its grazing herds of deer and cattle, and ancient trees, now golden with autumn, swaying in the wind. Then the house itself would come into sighta rambling group of buildings, some high, some low, some crumbling with age, some fresh from mason and carpenter, with irregular roofs of slate, or lead, or shingles. Above the rest soared the great hall, with its gabled ends, its long line of windows, and its attendant offices grouped about it -kitchen and bakery, rooms for the steward, the poulterer, the saucerer, and other domestic officers. Close at hand was the almonry, where day by day the crumbs from the rich man's table were distributed to the poor according to a strict convention of charity. There were two courtyards, bright with fountains. Somewhere not far away was the well, with a high well-chamber, recently built, and a garden of herbs about it. Close at hand too would be the dove-cot and the mill and the fish-ponds. These last were extensive, and served for more than the needs of residents, for when they were periodically emptied, though the biggest fish were kept for the King's eating, the smaller were sold for his profit.1 The religious needs of the household were met by the provision of two chapels, or perhaps three, for it is unlikely that when, in the year previous to that with which we are concerned, the King's new chapel and the Queen's new chapel' were built, it would be thought necessary to pull down the King's round chapel' which was already in existence.2 Henry III took a personal interest in the furnishing and decoration of rooms he lived in. He would give verbal instructions as to paintings required, or revise a colour scheme if it turned out not to be what had been hoped.4 What he achieved, however, and even what he was aiming at, was not comfort according to modern standards. The impression the records convey is of bareness, cold, and exposure, only partially relieved by scattered magnificences. There is talk of fires, it is true, but also of smoky chimneys. Whitewash is quite as prominent as gold and colours, and 1 Close Rolls, 1237-42, P. 29. When the pond had to be repaired a lay brother from St. James', Northampton, was fetched to see to it (Cal. Lib. Rolls, p. 28). In 1233 two new glass windows were being made there, and God's Majesty, the four Evangelists, St. Edmund, and St. Edward were to be painted in it in good colours (Cal. Lib. Rolls, p. 196). As in the chapel at Windsor Castle in 1240 (Lib. Roll No. 15, m. 20). ♦ Windows and green wainscoting were put into 'the King's painted chamber within Winchester Castle,' because it was 'too dark' (Cal. Lib. Rolls, p. 219). Henry the latter were often at the mercy of the weather. was hardy enough to insist that in one of his houses 1 glass windows opening and shutting' should be placed opposite his bed, although in another 2 the rain came in so violently as to deface the paintings on the wall above his head. At Woodstock it was not until 1239 that the paving of the passage between the Queen's bedroom and her chapel. enabled her to go 'dryshod' to her devotions. The bedrooms themselves were large, lofty, and comfortless. The Queen's had whitewashed walls with a curtain painted on them. The King's was a little more cheerful, since besides its wall-paintings it had the green wainscoting he was so fond of. In both rooms the windows were barred with iron, and were secured, as were the doors, with wooden bolts, while the Queen took the further precaution of having one of her yeomen always in attendance in the little chamber before her door.' The fact was that there were external dangers more serious than the weather, and at Woodstock in 1240 the defences were fresh, and the memory of the need for them fresh too, on account of a sensational incident which had occurred there only two years earlier. 'At that same time,' writes Matthew Paris,1 'a peril befell the King which astonished all who heard of it. For on the Nativity of Blessed Mary, there came a certain squire to the Court of the King at Woodstock, pretending that he was out of his mind. And at dead of night, noticing a window which was not at that time 5 either shuttered or barred with iron, he climbed up privily, bearing a dagger wherewith he might slay the King. And he entered and sought furiously for the King, but, as God would have it, the King just then had left the place in which he had been previously. Now at that time there was in the chamber 1 Marlborough (Lib. Roll No. 15, m. 17). • Geddington (ibid. m. 13). Cal. Lib. Rolls, p. 372. Hist. Anglorum, ii 412-3. "Not on September 8, but on September 12 orders were issued for iron bars and wooden bolts in both 'the Queen's vaulted chamber' and the King's high chamber' (Cal. Lib. Rolls, p. 344). a certain woman, a member of the Queen's household, holy and devout, and she, as was her wont, was saying her psalter by candlelight. Seeing that detestable assassin seeking the King's life with drawn dagger, she cried out with a loud and terrible voice, and when the servants ran in at this summons, the bloodthirsty robber was captured. Now the name of that holy woman was Margaret Biset, who that night, by God's permission, saved the life of the King.' The inquisitive who choose may pursue further either the fate of the assassin, whose four quarters were soon set up in four cities as a terror to evildoers, or the pleasanter destinies of Margaret, who received many royal favours during the few remaining years she had to live.2 The autumn visit to Woodstock in 1240 ran its peaceful course, undisturbed by alarms this time, till November 7, when the King left parting instructions as to various improvements which his stay had shewn him were necessary.3 The most interesting were in the hall, where two new glass windows were to be made in the gable, broken panes in the others mended, and the painting renewed. Moreover, in the same place there was to be constructed a chequerboard (scaccarium) bearing the following inscription— 'Qui non dat quod amat non accipit ille quod optat.' The allusion to the financial uses for which the chequer-board was intended is obvious, but it is not easy to be sure of the exact target at which the shaft was aimed. Was it against those who came to sell this or that to the King's purveyors, and who were guilty, as such sellers sometimes were, of concealing stores for which they hoped to get a better price 1' Psalterium psallebat' (Hist. Angl., loc. cit.) excubans ad psalterium' (ibid. p. 468). Was she reading it, and, if so, was it in Latin or in French? She died at Bordeaux in 1242. She had been magistra et nutrix to the King's sister Isabella, and accompanied the girl when in 1235 she went to Germany to marry that strange bridegroom, the Emperor Frederick II, who promptly dismissed all his wife's English attendants except Margaret and a certain embroideress of London. Apparently within three years even Margaret had been sent home. Lib. Roll No. 15, m. 23. |