Richard of Cornwall: The English King of Germany, by Darren Baker

Second paragraph of third chapter:

Richard was furious over the fiasco and denounced his stepfather for leading them into a trap. When Hugh just shrugged it off and blamed his wife, Richard removed his armour, picked up a staff, and made his way through the enemy line as a man of peace. The crusaders he saved in the Holy Land welcomed him with joy and respect and gladly conveyed him to the presence of their king. For Richard it had to be extremely humiliating. The last time he and Louis met, just two years earlier, he had been much feted and honoured. Now he was standing before him, a nervous and sweaty pilgrim humbly begging for a truce.

I was enthusiastically looking forward to this newly published book about Richard of Cornwall after very much enjoying The King of Almayne, by T.W.E. Roche; this is the thirteenth-century English prince, younger son of King John and brother of Henry III, who was elected “King of the Romans” (ie of Germany) and might have become Holy Roman Emperor, a fascinating case of England reaching into the politics of continental Europe with plenty of contemporary resonance.

Baker’s is the first biography of Richard since Roche’s, more than fifty years ago. It follows on from biographies he has previously written about Richard’s brother, Henry III; his brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort; and their wives, Richard’s sister and sister-in-law, both called Eleanor. The preface to the book promises a new portrait of a man driven by ego and greed, and perpetually in the psychological shadow of his brother (who incidentally was not all that bad).

Unfortunately the book itself is not all that good. It is largely a dry recitation of where Richard happened to be travelling to throughout the years of his long life, stifling the more dramatic moments and leavening the dullness of the facts as presented with sweeping and unsupported statements about Richard’s psychological state, failing to really substantiate the points made in the preface.

I also felt that given that this is the author’s fourth book about a member of the dysfunctional ruling family of thirteenth-century England, he assumes that the reader has knowledge of the earlier three, or at least of their subject matter, and important events and background are skipped or over-summarised.

I was frankly disappointed with this book, but it motivated me to download a copy of Noel Denholm-Young’s 1947 biography which everyone speaks highly of, and I’ll get to that sooner or later. Meanwhile, you can get Baker’s book here.

The King of Almayne: a 13th century Englishman in Europe, by T.W.E. Roche

Second paragraph of third chapter:

On the morning of 7th March, 1220, a royal messenger arrived at the gatehouse of Corfe Castle with the command of the Council to Peter de Mauley to convey the Lord Richard to Westminster for the coronation of his brother. The preliminary ceremony at Gloucester had been something of a dress rehearsal, designed to bind the country together. Now that order was restored there was no further obstacle to the fulfilment of the coronation in the traditional place. On his deathbed the Marshal had entrusted the person of Henry to Pandulf, the new Papal Legate,1 who had rather annoyed Hubert de Burgh and Peter des Roches by adopting a de haut en bas attitude towards them. Behind this ill-assorted triumvirate was Stephen Langton, ‘in the minds of many men as well as in his own the spiritual successor of St. Thomas of Canterbury’;2 and it was he who was chiefly responsible for organizing this second coronation.
1 Powicke, 46
2 ibid., 47

OK, hands up – how many of you knew about the thirteenth-century English prince who captured Jerusalem and got elected Holy Roman Emperor (though he was never crowned), at the same time doing his best to defend the Jews of England from being massacred?

Richard of Cornwall (1209-1272) is a fascinating character who has been almost completely forgotten. He was the younger son of King John, and younger brother of Henry III. As Earl of Cornwall from the age of 16, he became fabulously rich on the profits of the tin mines and took his Cornish responsibilities seriously. In 1230, he married Isabel Marshal, a rich widow and daughter of everyone’s favourite medieval knight, William the Marshal. She died in 1240 and in 1243 he married Sanchia of Provence, whose sister Eleanor was already married to his brother Henry III (their two other sisters were also married to kings); she died in 1261, and in 1269 he married a teenage Dutch noblewoman, Beatrice of Falkenburg, who survived him by only five years.

The politics of Henry III’s reign is very messy, but the dominant narrative is that of struggle between the king and the leader of the nobles, Simon de Montfort, who was incidentally married to Henry and Richard’s sister Eleanor. De Montfort is regarded in English political tradition as one of the founders of parliamentary democracy. In fact he was French, started his career in the brutal Albigensian crusade, and then took advantage of Henry III’s disastrous leadership to mount a coup and hold Henry and Richard prisoner, ruling England for a year, robbing and killing the Jews, before in turn being overthrown, killed and dismembered.

This was the most dramatic case of Richard of Cornwall’s life being disrupted by trying to extract his brother from the latest political mess he had got into. Richard’s diplomatic skills, used frequently to calm the situation in England, were frankly amazing. On crusade in 1240, arriving in Palestine after a series of military reversals, he picked up the situation and negotiated the return of Jerusalem to Christian rule without fighting a single battle. The front cover of Roche’s book shows a contemporary sketch of the negotiation.

He also negotiated the release of French soldiers captured during the unsuccessful military first leg of the crusade. This paid off less than a year later, when he and Henry III, on a speculative military expedition in France, found themselves unexpectedly confronted with a massively larger French force and facing annihilation. Richard stripped off his armour, donned a pilgrim’s smock, walked unarmed into the French camp (to the cheers of the French soldiers who recognised him from Palestine) and negotiated a dignified retreat. Extraordinary.

He had impressed other European leaders, and in 1257 the Archbishop of Cologne decided to support his election as Holy Roman Emperor, persuading three of the other six electors to vote the same way. Richard was never able to get officially crowned by the Pope – the next Holy Roman Emperor as such was not crowned until 1312, forty years after his death – but he did hold the title of King of the Romans, was crowned with that title in Aachen Cathedral, and successfully administered the Rhineland for fifteen years, though often at long distance from England.

The end of Richard’s life was not happy. In 1271 his older surviving son, Henry, was murdered in church in Italy by his own first cousins, the sons of Simon de Montfort, and a few weeks later his great-nephew, Henry III’s grandson John, died at the age of four while staying with Richard. (If he had lived, Edward I’s successor would have been John II rather than Edward II, which would have given Christopher Marlowe one less thing to write about.) Richard had a stroke that winter and died in early April the next year.

His younger son, Edmund, was a successful courtier who served as regent of England in the 1280s, but died without children in 1300. (Edmund’s wife was a granddaughter of Isabel Marshal, his father’s first wife, by her previous marriage. Pay attention, there at the back.) Richard had no other surviving children by any of his three wives, though apparently there were a number of others from less formal liaisons.

The 1966 biography by T.W.E. Roche is infused with a sense of reconnecting England to the positive elements of its continental past, and one can feel the optimism of the new approach to Europe, and Germany in particular, emanating from its pages. How times have changed…

I was left wondering about two aspects of Richard’s life. First off, he was married three times, but we are told that he also had many other relationships and several illegitimate children. Roche is a bit coy about this side of his hero’s personality.

Second, I really wondered what languages Richard would have used and known? The English court language was still Norman French, and he must have had enough Latin to manage administration, but surely neither would have got Richard very far when speaking to people in Germany or Cornwall, let alone negotiating with the Ayyubids in Palestine?

I’m glad to see that there is a new biography coming out in September – the first one in English since this was published in 1966 – and I suspect I’ll just have to get that as well. Richard’s story is crying out for a decent fictional treatment – it would be a great basis for a film or graphic novel. Meantime, you can get The King of Almayne here.