476 – The Crackdown

Welcome to the British History Podcast.

My name is Jamie, and this is episode 476: The Crackdown.

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In 1096, Robert de Mowbray, the former Earl of Northumbria, was living in Windsor.

And he better get comfy because His Majesty seemed quite happy to keep him there as a permanent resident.

And Rufus wasn't the only person pleased to see DeMowbray imprisoned.

The king's younger brother, Henry, was downright delighted.

Now, you may have noticed there hasn't been a whole lot of Henry in the story lately, and there's a few reasons for that.

First, he was the youngest of the conqueror's sons, and so he was considered a footnote in the pages of Norman power struggles.

I mean, he wasn't even given any lands in the will, and was essentially suffering total political neglect.

But the second reason is that, likely in response to living among two older brothers who were impossibly powerful in comparison to him, Henry had learned to keep his head down.

And so he typically only makes himself known in our record at this point when he makes a play for increased power, often by playing one brother against another, or taking advantage of an existing conflict between the two of them, of which there were many.

But just because Henry hasn't been a major character in our story doesn't mean that he wasn't doing anything.

Most recently, he had switched sides and supported Rufus in his fight against Robert.

And in doing so, he had regained control of his lands in Western Normandy, you know, with the help of Rufus and also some of Henry's allies, like Earl Hugh Lupus.

And according to one contemporary chronicler, Henry had even begun acting as a proper lord by granting St.

James, which lay on the Breton frontier, to Earl Hugh Lupus in thanks for his help in regaining the Cotentin.

And on top of all that, during this period of stalemate where Rufus failed to secure Normandy for himself, but Robert wasn't really in control of Normandy either, Henry had been hard at work re-establishing his control over the Cotentin and rebuilding his reputation as a key ally of King Rufus and the English crown.

So not bad for a guy who'd been forced to live as a bandit only a few years earlier.

But even with things looking up, Henry was still a Norman aristocrat.

And that meant he had a lot of rivals, and few were more dangerous than Robert de Mowbray.

Orderk notes that Mowbray was a direct threat to Henry's control and influence over Western Normandy, and pointed out that he was the only baron who opposed Henry in the Cotentin.

So when Mowbray was captured and imprisoned in England, Henry suddenly found himself without any significant opposition in Western Normandy.

And he carefully began to take advantage of that fact, which is something that Rufus appears to have been only too happy to support, as that would set the stage for future joint operations in Normandy, you know, once this whole rebellion nonsense was fully dealt with.

Speaking of that, back in England, Rufus was done waiting.

He was done negotiating, and he was definitely done pretending that this wasn't personal.

And so the king ordered the court to relocate to Salisbury.

which was a significant royal center and one that had the advantage of being far from any medically fragile bishops that might disrupt things with a poorly timed stroke.

It was perfect for what the king had planned, because the king had one thing and only one thing on his mind.

Retribution.

And sure, he had Robert de Mowbray imprisoned at Windsor, and he'd stripped him of all of his titles and lands, but that was just one man.

And so far, the only other person who had directly felt the king's wrath was de Mowbray's wife, Matilda.

And that was probably by accident.

The king had actually ordered her to be freed, because as far as anyone could tell, her only crime was that she'd been married off to de Mowbray days before he'd launched his rebellion.

But due to the nature of medieval marriage, even though Orderic claims they never even lived as husband and wife, poor Matilda was forced, as a matter of law, to be ride or die with her now landless prisoner husband, whom she barely knew.

And since it's not like she could go out and get a job, that meant she was pretty much screwed, unless she could somehow secure a papal dispensation for divorce, which would be incredibly difficult, and even in the best case, would take years.

So not a great situation for Matilda.

But as far as Rufus was concerned, also not the sort of satisfying conclusion that he wanted.

Because he wanted someone to bleed for this.

Preferably, a lot of someone's.

Rufus had shown an enormous amount of restraint and forgiveness following the 1088 rebellion, and he'd done it almost certainly at the urging of Archbishop Lanfrank.

But in the end, that really had gained him nothing.

His vassals remained disloyal, his reign remained unpopular, and the rebellions continued.

Now, I think we can all see why these rebellions were happening and how it was actually the king's own behavior and decisions that were creating this environment.

But Rufus wasn't going to adjust his governing strategy, and he definitely wasn't going to admit fault.

With the death of Landfrank, Rufus had become an unrestrained strongman.

And so, in classic unrestrained strongman style, he determined that what went wrong wasn't his governing strategy within England.

No, actually, it was that England needed more of his governing strategy.

And so it was time for a brutal crackdown.

And apparently, the king was in such a state that some of our scribes even obliquely blame him for causing the bishop of Durham to have that stroke over Christmas.

And Malmsbury even writes that when the bishop had that stroke, the king initially thought that the holy man was trying to pull a fast one and get out of having to defend himself in court.

And while we're not told what the charges were, it sounds like even the bishop who had supported the crown during this latest rebellion was facing some sort of charges.

And the stress of that, apparently, was enough to kill the old man.

So the point I'm driving at here is that tension had been building for quite a while.

And while Rufus could be patient and pragmatic, at least for a time, all of that bottling was clearly threatening to blow.

And so this court at Salisbury couldn't come soon enough for the king.

And on the 13th of January of 1096, the festivities began.

Just like at Christmas, Rufus made sure to invite all the chief men of the kingdom.

But unlike Christmas, the king wasn't wasting any time.

He got right down to business as soon as everyone gathered.

Now, because this was Rufus, there was a certain amount of stage management that went into this affair as well.

The venue he selected was grand, emphasizing the king's power.

And the tone of the gathering was solemn, emphasizing the seriousness of what was to take place.

Because Rufus was a man with a sense of flair.

Further reinforcing the king's authority, he decided he would directly oversee the trials himself.

And this would allow him to choose who would be punished and how, and also who would be forgiven or rewarded.

In doing this, no one would come away confused about the fact that he was the law, and that the only thing you should be worrying about was keeping him happy.

The composition of court also underlined this point.

There were in attendance, attendance, of course, the soon-to-be-accused, but there were also witnesses, and critically, there were a large number of highly ranked men whose presence would validate every legal proceeding that was about to take place.

Because technically, even in the 1090s, the king shouldn't rule by fiat as an autocrat.

But if he had a group of nobles who were willing to rubber stamp his overreaching behavior, then the optics of this abuse of power got murkier, just murky enough that no one felt safe enough to stand up and stop it.

This carefully constructed court was here to telegraph to everyone that the laws and customs were really at this point just formalities.

The king's will was the only thing that mattered, and he was practically daring the nobility to disagree.

Orderick tells us, Rufus started the meeting by exulting about his victory over the rebellion, which again was probably calculated to impress his power upon the assembled nobles.

Then the king quickly moved on to the main purpose of the gathering, trial.

Now, sadly for all of us, we're not given the level of detail that we got with some of the previous legal proceedings.

In fact, we aren't even given a full roster of who was accused.

Instead, our scribes crib together a set of greatest hits and skip over many of the juicy details.

So from what little we're told, we're only able to construct a rough sketch of what happened.

But keep in mind, it is a rough sketch.

For example, we don't even know what order the trials went in.

Now, I would imagine that Rufus would begin the proceedings with the trial of Robert de Mowbray.

After all, he was one of the principal ringleaders, his kinsman Morel had already flipped, and there was a mountain of evidence against him.

So trying and convicting him would make many of the later trials easier.

Not on an evidentiary level, because the evidence doesn't seem to have been the goal here, but on a political one.

Namely, that his conviction would make it harder for people to speak up and defend later defendants.

At least, that's my guess.

Now, I'm not sure if Mowbray was brought out of his cell at Windsor Castle for this trial, or if he was just tried in absentia.

But either way, I imagine the king and his counselors laid out an avalanche of evidence for the assembled nobility and clergy.

And I imagine they emphasized that this wasn't a mere Northumbrian uprising.

The implications and goals here were much more far-reaching than that.

When Mowbray engaged in piracy, he was disrupting English trade.

He was also violating the king's peace and creating an international incident.

And when he refused the king's summons, he was rejecting and challenging the king's authority.

And Mowbray was one of the greatest magnates in the kingdom, with extensive properties on both sides of the channel.

And in years past, he had actually sought to press Duke Robert's claim for the English throne.

And all of that is before we even get to the ambushes, the sieges, the castles.

So just an absolute mountain of evidence.

And all of it supported the king's contention that he was justified in whatever he chose to do next.

Another reason why I think Mowbray went first is because as the scribes note, a bunch of the co-conspirators were keeping their heads down and doing their best to appear as loyal as possible.

They even went so far as to join the king's army when things started to go sideways.

And while the king did have a list of co-conspirators from Gilbert and Morel, there's no indication that that list was public knowledge at this point.

So even here at court, there may still have been people trying to keep their heads down, as Orderic states, and were just nodding along with whatever the king was doing.

completely unaware that they were adding fuel to this fire that they might be thrown on top of at any minute.

Now, once the trial, such as it was, reached its conclusion, the king passed sentence on Mowbray right then and there: life imprisonment.

And that's a surprise to me considering all that Mowbray did.

And I wonder if, with this specific sentence, Rufus was also handing down a punishment to Matilda for her brief tenure as the commander of Bambora.

Because if if Rufus had simply executed Mowbray, Matilda would be free to remarry.

But by sentencing Mowbray to life in prison, now she was socially and economically ruined for life.

No love, no companionship, no family.

In all likelihood, unless she could somehow find a way to get permission for a divorce, she would spend her life as a ward of one of her male family members or be forced to enter a nunnery.

Brutal.

After Mowbray, the next marquee trial was that of Count William of O.

Now, William of O was the Baron of Hastings and he held nearly 80 manors in England.

So this man was wealthy and powerful.

And critically, he wasn't a fan of Rufus.

In 1088, he had joined the rebels in their efforts to install Duke Robert on the throne of England.

And then in 1095, he had joined this most recent rebellion to install Stephen of Umal.

But that being said, I'm not entirely sure what role William specifically played in this rebellion.

Worcester records him as being one of the nobles who swore an oath to kill Rufus.

But as for what he actually did to advance that goal, We're not told.

Unfortunately, our view into the broader conspiracy is murky at best, and the same goes for these trials.

But whatever his role, Jeffrey Baynard, a very highly ranked official and kinsman of the king, and also a man who occasionally served as the sheriff of Yorkshire, publicly accused Count William of Ooh of treason.

Now, Jeffrey wasn't directly involved in this, and he doesn't appear to have been personally wronged by the count.

So the fact that he was the one making the accusation is odd, and this has led historian Frank Barlow to argue that it's likely that when Jeffrey made that accusation, he was actually acting as the king's champion.

Now, why would the king need a champion?

Well,

because Rufus wasn't actually interested in arguments or defense.

What he wanted was theater.

He wanted trial by combat.

Jeffrey versus William.

The Rumble in the jungle.

You know, except in Salisbury.

So, um, the romp in the swamp?

And this is one of those moments where I really wished seances worked.

Because I want to resurrect Orderk and Malmsbury and just read them the Riot Act for not telling us anything about this duel.

Like, what the actual f ⁇ ?

Both of those men clearly love to spin a yarn, so how the hell do you leave leave something like this out of your record?

But no, Orderick just skips right over it, while Malmsbury and Worcester tell us that William lost, but nothing more.

Just that he lost.

Cool, guys.

Really cool.

But in the case of Orderic, I am willing to cut him a little more slack here because I think he just wasn't all that interested in fighting.

Essentially, sports weren't his thing.

Orderick's main interest was social mess.

And as soon as the fighting was done, Orderk comes right off break and starts filling us in on some of the details.

You see, this duel wasn't actually to the death.

So once William lost, it just meant that he was guilty.

And consequently, he still needed to be sentenced because apparently, getting beaten up in front of the entire court wasn't punishment enough.

And according to Orderick, it's at this point that Earl Hugh Lupus of Chester stepped forward and sought permission to speak.

You see, Earl Hugh was the Count's brother-in-law, being that the Count married Hugh's sister.

So they were family, and Hugh wanted to speak on behalf of family.

Now, considering how much power and influence Earl Hugh wielded, the king wisely granted him permission to speak.

And once he held the floor, Earl Hugh calmly and resolutely urged the king to castrate his brother-in-law and then cut out his eyes for good measure.

You see, it turns out that William of Ooh had been cheating on his wife, Hugh's sister, for ages now.

And not on the down low either.

No, he had three illegitimate children children that we know of.

So he was humiliating his wife in private and in public.

And while Hugh Lupus might have appeared like he was okay with the situation over the years, he clearly was not okay with it at all.

He wanted payback.

And the king listened to Hugh's suggestion very carefully and decided that this was a wonderful idea and he enacted the recommended sentence.

Now, I'm not sure if this was done publicly right then and there, or if it was done in a more intimate setting, but however it was done, it had the desired effect.

This was such a horror show that even the scribes were transfixed and were scarcely able to talk about anything else.

And for good reason, even for the time, this was a barbaric sentence.

And as you might imagine, after it was carried out, the count died soon thereafter.

Now, as I mentioned before, our sources don't give us enough detail to know what order these trials went in.

But whatever the order was, once the king started chopping balls off, I'm pretty sure everyone, guilty and innocent alike, became very eager for this whole event to come to a close.

But unless the king decided to end it on a high note, there was more, a lot more, and nobody knew who was going to be called up next.

Now, if I were Rufus and I had his sense of stage direction, I probably would have wanted to manage the tone of the room and bring the temperature down a little.

So, if it were me, I would call Roger DeLacy next.

Now, DeLacy, like the previous defendants, had been involved in the 1088 rebellion, and he was also implicated in this current rebellion.

And like William of O,

it's not clear precisely what DeLacy had done in this most recent rebellion, but some scholars have suggested that he might have formed an alliance with the Welsh, which means he may have been involved in that uprising at Montgomery.

And given how things have been going, you could imagine that the room was anticipating the worst for poor DeLacey.

But instead, De Lacy was simply banished.

And as for his lands, they were actually given to his brother, Hugh, who had remained loyal throughout this most recent rebellion.

Now, obviously, losing your lands and home was a catastrophic loss.

But, after seeing what could happen, I'm guessing that this would have felt downright magnanimous.

And granting those lands to a family member who remained loyal would have served as effective propaganda, encouraging further loyalty.

So that might have been Rufus' plan here.

Or maybe it was just reflexive narcissistic splitting behavior.

I don't know.

Either way though, if I wanted to manage the absolute horror that comes screaming off the pages, this is probably what I would do.

Though of course, given the lack of timeline, it's just as possible that Rufus was on a roll, and as the count was slowly dying presumably in the next room the king just moved on to the count's kinsman and steward who like Count William of Ou and King William Rufus was also named William this William was William of Aldry

are you missing the apples yet anyway so William of Aldry was called forward And according to Worcester and the Chronicle, he was actually some sort of kinsman to Rufus.

And then Malmsbury adds the crucial detail that actually Aldry stood as godfather with the king.

So rather than blood relatives, they appear to have been spiritual kin.

And as we've talked about in previous episodes, those sorts of ties were viewed to be at least as strong, if not stronger, than blood relations.

The point being here that culturally and socially, William of Aldry and King William of Rufus had much more in common than their names.

They were kin, and there were customs and beliefs about these kinds of ties.

But if Aldry thought that would save him, he probably should have paid more attention to how King Balcony Pisser tended to treat his kin.

Aldry was accused and quickly convicted of treason.

And then Rufus was absolutely merciless in his sentencing.

Death by hanging.

Now, historians have pointed out that the severity of this punishment in this case was due to the fact that Aldry should have been unwaveringly loyal to the king due to their relationship.

And therefore, the king was lashing out from a sense of betrayal.

But there's a problem with that narrative.

Malmsbury.

You see, Malmsbury writes that actually Aldry was innocent.

And while he was the steward for the recently mutilated Count William of Ooh, the nature of feudal society and obligations means that if the Count gave him any orders, he really didn't have leave to say no.

So while the Count may have been guilty, that doesn't necessarily extend down to the people who were literally bound by law to obey him.

I mean, can you be guilty of treason when you're forced by law to follow the orders of your treasonous lord?

If you violate those orders, aren't you guilty of treason to that lord instead?

And this is the same issue that Rufus ran into during the previous rebellions, and it's part of what motivated the king to pardon so many people in 1088.

But

this wasn't 1088, and Rufus had run out of patience.

So, Aldry was sentenced to death by hanging.

With that handled, the king probably moved on to the powerful house of de Montgomery.

And actually, this one deserves some context.

See, this family, thanks in no small part to the efforts of their father, Roger de Montgomery, as well as his close ties to the conqueror, was fantastically wealthy.

Just mind-bendingly wealthy.

But I'm sure it was much more interesting to Rufus that the father and the family in general were also up to their necks in that failed rebellion of 1088.

Now, granted, Earl Roger had flipped once it was clear that Rufus was going to win, but a good chunk of his family fought on, with his son Robert of Balem leading with the most gusto.

And when that rebel stronghold of Rochester was finally brought down, Rufus wanted to have them all hanged, including Balem.

But, through the negotiations of Balem's dad, Earl Roger, the king eventually backed down.

So the point here is that Rufus had a beef with his family.

And while he may have appeared like he was chill about it, this was Rufus, and he had zero chill.

And here, in 1096, Earl Roger was dead.

He died in 1094.

And so those sons of his were on their own.

Now, unfortunately, the biggest baddie, Balam, was beyond the king's reach, as he was over in Normandy.

But there were two other sons within England, Earl Hugh Montgomery of Shrewsbury and Philip the Grammarian.

And as a bonus, Earl Hugh's influence was centered at Shrewsbury.

And it was his castle, Montgomery Castle, that had fallen to the Welsh in 1095.

And it was that loss that had kicked off Rufus's incredibly embarrassing campaign into Wales.

So if the guy was a traitor, then if you think about it, it really wasn't Rufus' fault that he got his teeth kicked in by a bunch of wiry Welshmen.

Again.

So obviously, Rufus rolled in and was like, Jacuse!

Jacuse bon de salud.

Now, In the case of Hugh Montgomery, the records imply that the king's case was pretty thin and had some pretty big holes in it.

In fact, far from collaborating with Wales, Montgomery was known for vigorously fighting to expand English controls of the Welsh marches, which very well might be one of those holes.

Furthermore, like the Lacys, the Montgomerys weren't a uniform bloc.

Some of them sided with the rebels, others sided with the crown.

And even a cursory look through the doomsday book gives you an idea of just how much power some of these landed dynasties, like the Montgomerys, held within England.

So antagonizing them with a ruthless purge was politically dangerous.

So rather than brutalizing Hugh, the king instead levied a fine of 3,000 pounds against him.

Now this was a huge fine, but it didn't include the family jewels.

Also, it's been suggested that actually the fine wasn't even really a fine, but instead was just the collection of an outstanding debt that Hugh already owed the crown for an unpaid relief when he inherited his lands from his father.

But regardless, Rufus got his payday, the Welsh marches would continue to be vigorously pressed upon by Hugh, and if I'm right, Rufus got an excuse that actually it wasn't really his fault that he got absolutely racked by the Welsh yet again.

Instead it was Hugh's fault, somehow.

Now, as for Hugh and Blem's brother, Philip the Grammarian, well, we're not told what he did, but apparently he was implicated in this rebellion in some way.

And the case against him must have been stronger than for Hugh.

Or, and I suspect this is more likely, Phil just wasn't as useful to Rufus as his older brother.

Because unlike Hugh, Worcester reports that Philip was found guilty and imprisoned.

But we're not told how long his term of imprisonment was.

And that's interesting because all of this was taking place under the specter of the First Crusade.

And

we actually know that Philip will die in 1099 during the siege of Antioch during the First Crusade.

So was he released?

Was he commuted so he could go on Crusade?

I couldn't find the answer, but it's one of those things that makes this entire situation infinitely more complicated.

Especially because in the background of all of this, that crusade was gathering a lot of momentum.

And suddenly, nobles and commoners alike were developing a keen interest in fighting for God.

And even if you weren't interested in that, if you just watched the King Geld account, I'm guessing that Crusade was starting to look pretty attractive.

And one of those newly enthusiastic nobles was Stephen of Umal.

And if you forgot about him, don't worry.

So did England.

But Stephen was that slice of wonderbread that de Mowbray had tried to install on the throne of England.

And this is going to shock you, but while Rufus was holding court and sentencing a bunch of rebels, Stephen decided to skip that meeting and instead began preparations to join the First Crusade.

Smart move, Steve.

But while Stephen wasn't in town, his father, and apparently the only man who could pick him out of the lineup, Count Odo of Champagne, was in England.

And unfortunately for Odo, he was in attendance at this court at Salisbury.

Even worse, Count Odo was the king's uncle by way of of marriage, and familial ties to this king were a dangerous prospect at the best of times.

And in this circumstance, it meant the king was far more likely to enact harsher penalties than grant leniency.

So I suppose Odo should have been quite grateful that instead of suffering what some of his co-defendants had faced, the king merely seized all of his English lands and had him chucked in prison.

And when that looks like leniency, you start to get why this king had a reputation for tyranny.

Now, apparently, there were others who were accused as well, with Malmsbury adding that many of them were honorable and innocent in particular.

And while other scribes don't take a position on guilt or innocence, many do imply that there were others who were convicted and imprisoned.

But apparently, our scribes were trying very hard to keep their carbon footprint as low as possible because they don't bother to spill any ink on those unfortunate souls.

But in the blank spaces of our record, there were other men being imprisoned.

And interestingly, there were also reportedly many others who were merely fined or avoided trial altogether.

Despite the conviction of additional unnamed conspirators, and despite the tyrannical way in which justice was meted out against some of the named defendants, it does seem like Rufus once again managed to moderate his cruel side and adopt a tone of pragmatism, at least towards the end.

Because accounts speak of a very widespread conspiracy, and yet, when we look at the aftermath of that conspiracy, the punishments seem to have been narrowly targeted.

Vicious, but narrow.

And the story here seems to be that Rufus was cruel and merciless when it came to figures that he believed were at the center of the plot, or figures that he believed owed him a degree of fealty that went beyond the normal levels of loyalty that you would expect from a vassal, or against those who rebelled against him in the past.

But as for the lesser ranked figures, or those who were on the periphery and hadn't established a pattern of betrayal, either those figures were faring far better, or our scribes just didn't feel like writing about them.

I'm guessing it's the former, because this very well could have been due to the cold, hard reality of English political life.

You see, this rebellion didn't break along territorial or dynastic lines.

Rebels and loyalists came from the same regions and many times from the same families.

And many of those families were influential and militarily powerful.

So you have to pick your battles here, right?

And that might explain the jarring absence of one particular name from these trials, Earl Hugh Lupus.

Lupus had multiple marriage connections to the conspirators, and yet he wasn't accused at all.

And his only involvement in the affair was to suggest that his brother-in-law be tortured to death.

And while he might have been loyal, apparently so was Aldry, and that hadn't saved him.

But unlike Aldry, Lupus was one of the most powerful men in all of England, perhaps only surpassed by the king himself.

So questioning him and asking him why so many members of his family were involved in this, and why he didn't put a stop to it, and why he didn't report it, well, pulling on that thread too hard might might be dangerous.

And besides, if Rufus started gelding every single person that had been friendly to this rebellion, at some point, he could trigger a far larger rebellion against him.

As even his own loyalists, after seeing, say, a brother bleed out in front of the throne, would begin to feel quite a bit less loyal.

And so I think that's probably why the pragmatic side, or at least the self-preservation side, of Rufus ended up winning out.

As historian Emma Mason notes, quote, many more eminent men had been implicated, but when the plot failed, they were ashamed of having been involved.

When the most powerful of their allies had been ruined, these others lay low.

The king perceptively realized this and followed the advice of his counselors to spare them.

He was aware that if they were all brought to trial, this might goad them into yet another rebellion, with potentially disastrous consequences.

⁇

And so, after scaring the hell out of them with a few trials, it seems like Rufus let his foot off the gas.

And this approach worked.

There wasn't another broad rebellion during Rufus' life.

Though, granted, he wasn't without his rivals.

And some of them were a bit closer than he probably realized.

So those were the trials of Salisbury.

But what of William Aldry, that guy who had stood as godfather with the king, and who the king had sentenced to be hanged?

Well, for the most part, our sources kind of skim over him in classic fashion, with Worcester pretty much saying, oh, he guilty.

But Malmsbury was absolutely convinced of Aldry's innocence.

And for Malmsbury, Aldry appears to have been a concrete example of the tyranny and injustice of Rufus, because he spends even more time writing about Aldry than he did about Count William of Ooh's duel and subsequent torture.

And it's through his account that we learn that Aldry was apparently just as aware of public perception and stage management as Rufus was.

Because according to his account, after sentencing, Aldry was allowed to make his confession to Bishop Osmond of Salisbury, where he continued to profess his innocence.

He was then marched from church to church, all throughout the town, and at each church, he was whipped.

Now, under normal medieval circumstances, this might have indicated some sort of public penance or atonement, but Aldry was still professing his innocence as this went on.

Furthermore, rather than having his clothes ruined by the whip, he chose to remove them and give them to members of the poor.

And so naked and gushing blood from his wounds, he stumbled and often fell to his knees as he was forced to march from church to church as he continued this brutal ritual.

And the public, now believing him to be innocent, followed him as he was led to the gallows.

This ordeal, which shares a lot in common with the passion, even convinced Bishop Osmond of Aldre's innocence.

But the king was unmoved.

As Aldry was led to the news, he cried out, God help my soul and deliver it from evil, as I am free from the charge of which I am accused.

The sentence indeed passed upon me will not be revoked, but I wish all men to be certified of my innocence.

End quote.

Not even the bishop could stop the proceedings, and so he merely administered last rites and departed.

Aldry was then hanged in front of a horrified crowd.

And about 30 years later, when Malmsbury wrote his Gesta,

people were still mad about it because the loathing drips from the pages.

But this is how it goes with tyrants.

No one is safe.

Not even the loyalists.

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