We Normans arrived in England with William the Conqueror in 1066 and knocked seven barrels out of King Harold and his Saxons at the Battle of Hastings. Then we took most of the top jobs (and the land) from the Saxons. There are still a few rich Saxon families, but the real bossmen are French (thank goodness!). The Saxons are mainly tradespeople and peasants.
Robert owns Locksley Manor, and he’s had several run-ins with the Sheriff of Nottingham. The Sheriff is a thug and a bully, and he treats his peasants like dirt. He and Robert don’t exactly see eye to eye. Robert says it’s a landowner’s duty to look after his Saxon peasants and treat them with respect. That’s how the Feudal System is meant to work.
Maybe Robert’s right – I can’t be bothered to argue. Money’s money. Saxons earn it, I count it, Normans spend it. End of story.
Richard’s back in England at last and Earl David has received his invitation (or rather command) to attend his coronation. The Earl has to hold a ceremonial sword for the King. He’s taking me along to make sure young Robert doesn’t embarrass us all (or get our bits cut off) by trying to play practical jokes or some other such nonsense.
* Anti-Jewish feeling was very strong in England during this time.
Richard deserves the throne after what he had to go through at the coronation. Talk about embarrassing! He had to stand at the front of the church and get undressed in front of everyone! He stripped right down to his undies. I’m surprised he didn’t catch a chill – it was well draughty up the aisle. Then he put on golden sandals and had hot oil poured all over him by a priest. (Robert whispered to me that the priest with the hot oil was probably a fish friar or a chip monk – I didn’t laugh.) At last Richard put on his clothes again, was crowned and we all shouted hooray. Then we all trooped off for a big feast. That’s when the trouble started.
Some Jews tried to enter the banqueting hall to present the King with a gift. However, they were attacked by some of the guests. This set off the crowd outside, and apparently they’ve run into London to find as many Jews as they can. I’m not sure what they’re going to do, but it probably won’t be very nice.*
* It wasn’t. Hundreds of Jews were murdered and their houses ransacked and burnt.
Earl David, the silly old fool, is determined to join King Richard’s Crusade to the Holy Land. My cousin, Basil Count de Money, is going too. He sent me a brochure.
Earl David obviously hasn’t read the small print. I’ve told him that this Crusade will cost him a fortune, but he won’t listen.
Robert is mad keen to go as well, but I put my foot down about the cost of that. (Unfortunately I put my foot down on Earl David’s toe, which didn’t do his gout any good.) Earl David agreed with me. He’s also worried that the Sheriff of Nottingham has got his eyes on the Huntingdon estates. I can see the Earl’s problem:
The Sheriff is a big buddy of Prince John
While Big Brother, Richard, is away at the wars, John might get some funny ideas
If anything happens to Earl David, one of John’s funny ideas might be to make the Sheriff, or one of his other mates, Earl of Huntingdon.
Earl David wants Robert to stay at home and look after his estates, so he won’t let Robert go on the Crusade. Robert is now in a sulk.
King Richard’s been raising money for the Crusade. He’s been selling off land, jobs and titles like there’s no tomorrow. He’s been taxing everyone (me included!) and fining people for not volunteering to go on the Crusade. He’s even said that he’ll sell London, if he can find a buyer for it!
What a nerve, eh? Richard nips over from France, gets crowned, takes everyone’s money and says, “Thanks a lot, ta-ta, cheerio, I’m off!”
I had to go to Dover to see Earl David aboard the ship, bound for the Crusade. Cousin Basil is going across to France with Richard first to make all the final preparations. Richard is supposed to be meeting up with King Philip Augustus of France. There’ll be fur flying at that meeting. By all accounts, Richard and Philip get on like two cats in a bag.
The whole scene at Dover was organised chaos. There seemed to be scores of ships and thousands of sailors swearing good ripe sea oaths at each other and trying to load hundreds of horses, tons of food and drink, and great piles of weapons. Meanwhile, thousands of soldiers were standing round gawping and getting in the way.
It’s obvious that this Crusade is going to cost a pretty fortune. And my taxes have paid for some of it!
Basil waved goodbye and promised to keep in touch.
I hate these long winter evenings. There’s nothing to do except sit round the fire with a few candles and play board games.
Robert loves board games, as long as they’re not too complicated. I tried to introduce him to chess (which Crusaders brought back from the Holy Land) but Robert is useless at it – he calls knights “horsies” and can never work out which way they go.
So we went back to Three Men’s Morris, where you have nine holes on a board and all you have to do is get three pieces in a row without being blocked*.
Robert’s favourite game is queek, where you throw pebbles on to a chess board and bet whether they’ll land on a black or white square. He plays this game with Marian. When she loses, she shouts, “Wats!” and “Oh, dwat!” Then she blushes and says, “Oh, pardon my Fwench.”
Robin laughs just as much when he loses as when he wins, but there’s no skill in a game like this and I get bored out of my skull.
The Sheriff hates the Saxons and treats them like dirt. This is because they keep teasing him.
The Saxons called Nottingham “Snottingham”, but when the Normans came over and asked the name of the place, some Saxon told them, “It’s Snottingham,” and they thought he said, “It’s Nottingham”, so they got the name wrong on all their maps. Of course, Normans never admit they’ve made a mistake, so they insist on calling it Nottingham – but the Saxons still call it Snottingham, and whenever they see the Sheriff of Snottingham they shout out, “Hey up, Snotty!” and run off laughing.
* Exactly as we now play noughts and crosses.