473 – Stage Management

Welcome to the British History Podcast.

My name is Jamie, and this is episode 473, Stage Management.

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So when we left off, Anselm finally had his pallium.

And Rufus, well, he got all the independence and freedom from church interference that he could have hoped for.

Even better, his bishops were on the same page as him and were now supporting the king's independence from Rome.

Now, technically, that would make them schismatics according to the papacy, essentially people who refused to submit to the pope.

But that framing strikes me as misleading for a variety of reasons.

First of all, because it implies the king and the bishops were doing something wrong or in violation of agreed upon principles, when the reality was that the king was on some pretty solid ground here.

He wanted to rule England in the same manner that his father had done.

He wanted to be an independent king.

And the idea that the king would hold his authority under the pope was still far from settled at this point and was instead a pretty radical notion.

Second, calling them schismatics carries the implication that they were breaking with Rome and that that break was over theological grounds.

However, if they were schismatics, then so was the papal legate, because he was on board with this as well.

And on top of that, it seems quite apparent that everyone was making this choice not on theological grounds, but on political ones.

So, while I have read historians call them schismatics, and while that is technically true, I think the better term for the English bishops at this point would be opportunistic or politically savvy.

But while the bishops were acting that way, Anselm well, say what you will about Anselm, you can't deny that this was a guy who stuck to his guns.

The trouble though is that I'm not sure if that had anything to do with submission to the papacy.

I mean, Anselm wasn't originally a papal hardliner, and it was only when he got pressed by Rufus that he hardened into Urban II's camp, with all the characteristic Anselm zeal.

So I can't help but wonder if Anselm was just a guy who didn't like to be challenged, and then didn't like to back down once he was in a corner.

He also might have just been a guy who really didn't like Rufus.

But whatever it was, Anselm's behavior was getting on everyone's last nerve.

And at this point, the king, the English bishops, and even the papal legate were angry, and some of them were even penning sternly worded letters about how much Anselm sucked.

And this put the old priest in a hell of a position.

Because Rufus was at the height of his power at this point, while Anselm was so low, even his own subordinates were complaining about him.

And so the archbishop was trying to navigate this situation as best as he could by calmly and non-threateningly presenting himself before the king in hopes of getting some sort of reconciliation.

So Rufus had one big here, and that had to feel good.

But just because he was on top didn't mean he could finally turn his attention back to Normandy, which was almost certainly where he really wanted to be.

After all, what's the House of Normandy if it's not a machine designed to facilitate intra-family bloodshed?

And Rufus' main rival was over there in Normandy being all robbered and stuff.

You know, probably talking about all kinds of things that Rufus hated, like the importance of upholding oaths and how brothers shouldn't pee on each other.

Just the worst.

But unfortunately, while Rufus had been fighting with Anselm over, officially, a scarf and, unofficially, the entire ruling structure of England, the king had also been fighting an entirely different battle at the same time.

Because the fact was that people in England weren't happy.

And that was for good reason.

Rufus had been treating the entire kingdom as his personal ATM in order to fund the endless conflicts he had with his brother and various other people.

And this habit of making a mess and then making everyone else pay for it, literally, meant that the English public were footing the bill for Rufus' various interpersonal feuds and power grabs, and that was having a very real and present effect upon the English people.

The king's tax policies, enacted to replenish the drained royal coffers, created a situation where people couldn't afford to feed themselves, thus causing widespread famine.

And as is often the case with starving people, outbreaks of disease were becoming distressingly common.

And that had begun to irritate some rather influential aristocrats.

The fact was that while these taxes weren't going to cause someone like Earl Robert de Mowbray of Northumbria to miss out on his roasted swan banquet, and while someone like de Mowbray had a reputation for being an arrogant, unfeeling jerk, These policies would still have been a major point of frustration, even for someone like de Mowbray.

Why?

Because dead peasants can't work the land.

Even though they were more shielded from the physical realities of the king's policies than most, the aristocrats were still getting hit in the wallet.

And generally, aristocrats don't like that.

And when it happens, sometimes they take an interest in regime change.

You know, sometimes, not always.

But it turned out that 1095 was one of those times.

And while there are plenty of economic factors in play here, this was one of those events where personal issues and personalities were definitely also playing a role, and perhaps even an outsized role.

Because Earl Robert de Mowbray wasn't just upset about economics.

He had some pretty personal beefs with the king.

And chief among them was the fact that Rufus had never warmed up to the Earl.

And while that might sound like a petty thing, and for all we know, it might have been kind of petty because we don't have his diaries, so we don't know if DeMaubray was filling up pages with mean girl stuff about how he wasn't invited to sit with the king for lunch.

But beyond the social element of being excluded from the cool club at court, there was also a very real economic and political element to it as well.

In the world of feudal politics, if you're not one of the king's favorites, you're losing ground.

Tax breaks, economic grants, social power, literal titles.

These are all the kinds of things that you could benefit from if you're close to the king.

And when that king is someone like Rufus, you are missing out on a lot of benefits.

Now, today, we call this rank corruption, or at least some of us would.

But this was just how things were done in 11th century England.

And that was becoming a problem for the Earl.

Even worse, the Bishop of Durham was back in the king's good graces, at least politically, if not socially.

And that had to rankle de Mowbray, given the fact that those two men had a really complicated history.

And that all meant that de Mowbray just had to watch as his rivals, like the Bishop of Durham, were actively cultivating the king's favor and gaining ground on him as a result.

And none of this would have sat well with the Earl, because he was also an intensely ambitious man.

He also doesn't appear to have been the sort of person to feel bound by norms or cultural constraints.

I mean, this was the same guy who just hauled off and killed the king of Scotland on his own authority.

And while Orderic calls him martial, haughty, and ambitious, honestly, once you're engaging in unsanctioned regicide, I think we need some new adjectives to describe you, because ambitious doesn't quite cut it.

And the bigger truth is de Mowbray wasn't just demonstrating his political and military power by killing a freaking king.

He was also simultaneously increasing his power and influence within England through politics.

For example, do you remember Bishop Geoffrey of Coutons?

He was the warlike bishop who fought on behalf of William the Conqueror and engaged in a lot of behaviors that today we would call war crimes.

Well, that guy wasn't just violent.

He was also rich and de Mowbray's uncle.

And in 1093, he died, almost certainly of old age.

And his estates, fully 280 manors, including the honor of Barnstaple, passed directly to Mowbray.

More recently, de Mowbray had arranged a marriage to Matilda de Legley, which meant that now the Earl was the nephew of the powerful Earl Hugh Lupus of Chester, and also the son-in-law of Richard de Laglie, who was quite close with Duke Robert of Normandy, the same guy that Rufus was currently at war with.

So the point I'm driving at here is that the Earl had all the signs that he was going to be a problem for King Rufus.

And beyond that, he wasn't much of a talker.

Unlike previous rebel leaders, who were a bunch of chatty Cathys who managed to out themselves by trying to use weddings as recruiting rallies, de Mowbray kept his cards close to his vest.

And as Orderic points out, he was, quote, given more to meditation than to speech, end quote.

He wasn't a talker, he was a doer.

And so when he plundered those four Norwegian trading vessels that sailed into a Northumbrian port, possibly on the River Tyne, It wasn't clear whether this was opportunism, some form of retaliation, or just outright defiance of the king, but I'm pretty sure that members of court were beginning to have their suspicions.

After all, de Mobray wasn't just brazenly undertaking an act of piracy, he was also undermining England's relationships with her trading partners, and on top of that, violating the king's peace.

And all of this would have had the effect of undermining Rufus' image as a powerful leader.

And an unpopular king like Rufus needs an aura of power if he's going to stay in power.

Even worse, the Norwegian traitors did what any traitors would do in this situation.

They'd notified the crown of the theft, and that put Rufus in a very difficult situation.

While it was probably clear to everyone in court where this regicidal little twerp was headed, and while de Mowbray was so distrusted and so obvious in his apparent belief that he was above the law, that there are indications that the king had people watching him.

It was also probably clear that there was a general sense of dissatisfaction within England.

And so, if Rufus treated this as open rebellion and he called up his barons, well, he couldn't be precisely sure how many of them would actually show up and how many of them might show up for De Mowbray instead.

And keep in mind, I am taking you a little bit back in the story to the start of this conflict, which means that at this point in the story, where De Mowbray decided to become a pirate, Rufus was still embroiled in that power struggle with Anselm.

So not exactly at the height of his royal power, at least not yet.

And so instead, the king played this very smart.

First, he moved his court north, close to DeMowbray's territory.

And that's almost certainly why that initial council between Anselm and Rufus, you know, those three days of grown men shouting like children in a playground?

Well, that's probably why it took place at Rockingham.

Rufus was probably making a show of force in hopes that de Mowbray would explain himself and then reimburse the Norwegian traitors.

Though it clearly didn't work, because soon thereafter, the king issued an official summons to de Mowbray, telling him to come to court and explain himself and make restitution for the plunder.

But de Mowbray refused.

He wasn't coming to court.

And also, he wasn't going to pay those traitors a damn thing.

Now Rufus reportedly raged when he heard it, which is pretty on brand for him.

But rather than saddling up for war, he paid the traitors out of his own coffers, which likely saved the trading relationship, but also sapped him of funds that he would have much rather used for something else, like war.

And the reason why I'm taking so much time to explain this moment is because I think that Rufus was being very clever here.

And it's really easy to forget that he could be clever.

After all, we've been dealing with a weakened Rufus for quite some time.

He's been deathly ill, he's been politically strained, his forces have been militarily exhausted after a few bad decisions.

And so it's been easy to forget that this was also the same man whose court was so theatrical that scribes were ranting about just how sinfully sexy Rufus's court was.

And the thing is, the men of court weren't just being hot.

They were deliberately referencing tournament culture.

So Rufus's court were saying, we're the new rock stars.

And they were saying it with all the social and sexual cachet that comes with it.

This was a social maneuver linking his court to a popular cultural phenomenon on the rise.

And apparently, it was having the side effect of causing noble ladies and apparently monks to awkwardly shift in their seats occasionally.

That's socially clever.

And someone who could turn court life into a cultural rock show probably knew how to structure it for other effects as well.

Which brings us back to his public rage, which was followed by his very reasonable public act of reimbursing the traders.

I think all of this was political theater.

I'm not saying that Rufus didn't have a temper.

Orderick reports that the king was cruel and immoral.

And Edmur, well, for Edmur, he was pretty much the devil incarnate.

But both of them agreed that the king was explosive, seemingly capricious, and cruel.

And it's entirely plausible that he was all of those things.

In fact, I think he probably was.

But a socially adept person can absolutely take traits and flaws that would normally be detrimental and use them to his benefit.

And the events of 1095 makes me think that Rufus was one of those people.

I think that while he was cruel and temperamental, he also knew how to use those instincts in theatrical ways in order to achieve his goals.

And so here we see him expressing rage at an injustice and then acting as the very model of a just king.

I think that totally fits the mold.

And what he does next is similarly clever.

See, Rufus sent another summons to De Mowbray, ordering the disobedient Earl to come to court, and likely adding that he'd better bring his checkbook, because now he wasn't in debt to those traitors, he was in debt directly to the crown.

But just like the situation with Anselm, the issue here wasn't the money.

The issue was power, fealty, and dominance.

Rufus wanted it, and Earl Robert de Mowbray was starting to think that fit would look a lot better on someone else.

And so, in a move that was probably becoming irritatingly familiar familiar to Rufus at this point, his orders were completely ignored.

Even worse, DeMowbray sent a message back and he said that he would only answer the summons if the king gave him hostages and guaranteed his safe conduct.

I kid you not.

So crazy how, DeMowbray was being even more provocative than the Bishop of Durham or Anselm.

And yet Rufus didn't take the bait.

He didn't settle up and go to war.

He didn't condemn him.

He didn't do any of the big emotional things that you might expect.

And while it is possible that all the conflict with Anselm and Durham had taught Rufus patience, or maybe he was just overwhelmed with other crises and was hoping to avoid another one so he could go and do something wholesome, like try and kill his brother in Normandy, I wonder if Rufus, who was rapidly approaching full strength, was instead actively playing court politics.

And not just playing it, playing it well.

Because by publicly trying to de-escalate the situation and not exploding or overreacting, his actions stood in stark contrast to the narrative that was being pushed by Edmur and Anselm.

They're accusing him of being so unstable, they literally called him a wild bull at one point.

And meanwhile, he was calmly and patiently trying to de-escalate a growing crisis in Northumbria.

It's an effective narrative.

But at the same time, there were limits on de-escalation.

While the king was willing to reimburse the Norse traders out of his own coffers, at least for now, the law was still the law.

And Rufus was still king.

So he wasn't going to give an earl a bunch of hostages in order to get him to show up to court and answer for his own crimes.

I mean, that's just crazy.

So instead, the king outright refused the demands and issued another summons.

And this time,

he wasn't messing around.

No hostages would be granted, no pledges would be given.

He was king, and DeMowbray was his earl.

And if he wanted to stay his earl, then he would present himself at court on Pentecost and answer for his actions and pay for the damages he'd caused.

And using Pentecost as the date for De Mowbray's appearance is honestly so genius that it calls into question every time that Edmur characterized the king as an oaf, because this really put de Mowbray into a bind.

And while it is possible that his advisors came up with the idea, Flambard, for example, was quite clever, there's also something about it that just feels very rufous.

This was theatrical and dramatic while also being socially manipulative and ruthless.

That all feels very rufous to me.

So, why was summoning DeMowbray to appear on Pentecost so clever?

Well, first of all, there's the politics of the situation.

When the king said he wouldn't issue any grants or hostages, he was telling DeMowbray that he wouldn't guarantee his freedom.

And for good reason.

This guy was out there doing crimes and defying the king, so promising to let him go free kind of defeated the whole purpose of the summons.

But by telling him that there were no guarantees, the king was saying, without saying, that there was a very high likelihood that DeMowbray was going to get imprisoned.

But at the same time, if the Earl doesn't show up to court and he ignores the summons like he had done with the previous two, then it's going to be very clear to everyone that he's in open defiance of the king, which means he's a rebel and a traitor.

And while Rufus could sometimes be forgiving and let things slide, even low-key defiant behavior, he tended to come down very hard on actions of public defiance that threatened his authority, which, if DeMowbray refused to attend the Pentecostal court, he definitely would be doing.

So that's the politics of it.

Politically, if DeMowbray comes, it's bad for him.

And if he doesn't come, it's also bad for him.

But I think the cultural element of all of this is even bigger.

And it's where the real genius of this move lies.

Pentecost landed on May 21st of 1095.

And if you remember, that truce between Anselm and Rufus ended on May 20th.

So Rufus was picking a day where he was guaranteed, one way or another, to be free of this conflict with Anselm.

And funnily, the way things actually ended up shaking out, Pentecost ended up being the same day where Anselm went and picked up his pallium from the high altar in Canterbury.

So the king really was free of his Anselm problems, at least for now, on Pentecost.

Not only that, but carrying out official functions on Pentecost carried with it strong religious and cultural subtexts.

This was a day of divine inspiration and divine intervention.

It's a day to think about the apostles receiving tongues of fire and the Holy Spirit making itself present.

And in the medieval context, this was a day for high pageantry, for ceremonial rituals like knightings, and for exercising public royal authority through things like royal declarations.

So Rufus wasn't telling De Mowbray to come to court on any old day.

He was telling him to come to court on the day of court.

Everyone in this era would have read the situation the same way.

This was DeMowbray's last chance to submit to his divinely sanctioned king.

And if he refused, then he would be a heretic to the body politic.

So, what Rufus was doing wasn't just an assertion of authority.

It was a dramatization of his place in the divine cosmos.

And DeMobray, should he refuse, would be symbolically aligning himself in opposition to that divine structure.

On top of all of this, the repeated refusals to show up were probably starting to look increasingly weird.

After all, the bishop of Durham had defied the king, and after submitting to him and reconciling, the bishop became one of the king's courtiers.

And more recently, Anselm had been in defiance.

Like, oh God, had he ever been in defiance.

And yet, at the end of it, he also wasn't punished.

Instead, he kept his archbishopric and got his pallium.

So while Rufus didn't have the best reputation, and he was way too combative in my opinion, there still is an undeniable pragmatic side to him.

And when it came to issues like this, he had a well-earned reputation for moderation and forgiveness, at least when it came to figures that submitted to him and still had some sort of value to the king.

And DeMowbray still could be very valuable to the king.

After all, he was quite powerful, especially after that inheritance.

So you would think that with the political and cultural winds against him and with that clear path to reconciliation that stood before him, that De Maubray would show up to court, submit to the king, and make restitution in exchange for reconciliation.

But that's not what he did.

De Maubray refused to show up for a third time.

The king had offered him grace, at least some form of grace, and it was grace that was symbolically and culturally linked to the divine grace of Pentecost, and de Mowbray had rejected it.

On top of that, I can't stress this hard enough, the king's conflict with the church was over and he had won.

That is huge.

So, far from a weakened king, instead, Rufus sat as a triumphant monarch whose authority and kindness had just been spurned on an extremely holy day.

By failing to arrive, DeMowbray had proved to court in dramatic fashion that he warranted strict punishment.

And thus, rather than Rufus acting as a tyrant, the king would simply be meting out judgment as his divinely ordained role demanded.

See?

Clever!

Meanwhile, to the north, just because DeMowbray wasn't showing up at court didn't mean that he wasn't doing anything.

Instead, he was reaching out to allies and co-conspirators because he could read the writing on the wall.

This king was on to him, or at least he very soon would be.

So it was go time.

He needed to pull the trigger and turn this conspiracy into a full-blown rebellion.

Because yes, according to the records, DeMowbray wasn't just a rebellious earl.

He was involved in a conspiracy against the king.

Which honestly makes a lot of sense.

Things in England weren't going well.

These various wars were a problem.

The taxes were a bigger problem.

That famine was an enormous problem.

And Rufus' conflict with the church and his obsession with Normandy were an absolutely enormous problem.

Because nothing's better for growing a rebellion than a regime that's disinterested and is focused on things other than governing the region they're supposed to be governing.

So I'm not at all surprised that there were nobles who were looking for a change.

And as for what they were conspiring about, well, the chronicle just kind of awkwardly shuffles its feet and avoids digging too deep into it.

Essentially, it's just saying that DeMowbray led a conspiracy.

But thankfully, Florence of Worcester spills the beans.

And it seems that DeMowbray and his boys were really shooting for the moon here.

They wanted to dethrone Rufus and install the king's first cousin, Stephen of Umall, on the throne.

Now, the fact that they wanted to be rid of Rufus doesn't surprise me at all.

He'd done more than enough to create big divisions within the ruling classes while simultaneously fostering a lawless culture of norm violations.

But why Stephen of Umall?

That's kind of a weird pick, right?

I mean, this guy wasn't particularly famous.

He wasn't especially powerful in England.

He wasn't even all that central to Norman politics.

So why rally behind this guy, of all people, to wear the crown?

Well, here's the thing.

If you're staging a rebellion and you do actually want to swap out kings, not like just tweak the court roster, but literally throw the king on the trash heap and crown a brand new one, you need someone with enough royal blood to make it plausible.

but not so much status that they come with a bunch of baggage.

I mean, that's probably why the eldest son of the conqueror, Robert Curtose, was a non-starter for the rebels.

While he did have the strongest dynastic claim, he was also a failure on this specific issue already, because he had already made a plea for the throne in 1088, and it had bombed hard.

Most of the ringleaders either got punished or had to make peace with Rufus, but either way, they got nothing for their trouble.

And besides, Robert could barely hang on to Normandy, so it wasn't like he was ready to jump up to the big leagues here.

Consequently, backing him in 1095 would have been political suicide.

Short pants was a known quantity, and not in a good way.

But what about the bastard's other son, Henry?

Well, at first glance, he might seem like a solid alternative.

But the issue is that in 1095, Henry was still the spare with no real power.

He had briefly exercised power in the Cotentin thanks to that sweet deal with Robert, but that had already gone sideways, and by 1095, he was a bookish prince without any principality, and he had a reputation for having more ambition than influence.

And recently, Henry had been operating as a bandit lord, which, while not a foreign concept to the Normans, wasn't exactly the sort of noble that they were looking for.

Compounding that fact, if de Mowbray and the other rebels got to know Henry, the young prince's mind for analytical thinking, legal matters, and governance probably would have put them off him as well.

So Robert was too weak and played out, and Henry was either too unknown or too dangerous and calculating.

Enter Stephen of Umall.

He had royal blood, being the son of Adelaide of Normandy.

He was a member of Rufus' family and part of the ducal royal line.

But crucially, he wasn't tangled up in the usual family drama of the House of Normandy, which meant that he wasn't tainted by previous failures or by open factionalism.

But probably most important, though, was the fact that he was pliable.

And if you're a disgruntled earl with land to protect and scores to settle, this is exactly the kind of guy that you'd want as a king.

He had the right bloodline, he had the right last name, and he had the right amount of desperation.

He was a king who would owe you his crown and whose reign would have only been made possible by your support, rather than being someone like Henry who would show up with a memory like a steel trap and an agenda of his own.

So basically, Stephen was just royal enough to be legitimate, but just obscure enough to be controlled, and just disconnected enough to avoid inflaming the same factions that had already burned the barons once before.

So they were picking leverage over lineage.

This pick also tells us a lot about where de Mowbray and his compatriots stood.

Because by selecting Stephen, they're telling us that this wasn't about justice or succession or good governance.

This was about power.

It was about being heard at court.

It was about ensuring that whoever wore the crown would would owe their position to the men holding the real muscle.

The other thing about this conspiracy that Florence illuminates is that it wasn't just an isolated group of angry barons griping about Rufus' aggressive assertion of royal authority and his pay-for-play behavior.

Because by selecting a figurehead, they're showing that this wasn't just mere discontent.

DeMowbray had launched a proper big boy conspiracy to overthrow the government.

And so who was in it?

Well, it's a secret conspiracy, so obviously that's a difficult question to answer.

All we have are later accusations, convictions, and insinuations.

And so obviously, that's an imperfect view into any conspiracy.

Because first, it relies upon their involvement being discovered.

And second, it relies upon the accuracy of any accusations of involvement.

But taking a conservative view of the records, DeMowbray and William of O, who was the Lord of Hastings, were the principal ringleaders of this conspiracy.

And joining them were Stephen of Omal, clearly, William of Aldry, who was the relative and steward for William of Ooh, and Morel, who was de Mowbray's steward and kinsman.

He was also a fellow conspirator on that previous unsanctioned regicide of King Malcolm Canmore, for what it's worth.

In addition, there were also powerful figures who were sympathetic to the rebels and were probably supportive, like Odo of Champagne, who weren't caught with sword in hand, but did get implicated by Florence and others.

In that same vein, there's a very good chance that De Mobray's wife, Matilda, was involved, as were various northern aristocrats and clergy, because that region is always down for a rebellion.

Though, unlike Odo's sympathies, the views of the northern barons is more speculative since we don't have clear accusations being made against them.

But the point here is that this was one of the biggest threats that Rufus had faced to his reign since that rebellion in 1088.

And just like in 1088, this was organized, they had selected a replacement, and the rebellion included his own vassals.

But here's where it starts to get a little messy, and why our picture for how far-reaching this conspiracy was gets blurry.

King Rufus wasn't a weak king in the spring of 1095.

He was a powerful king who had not only extracted papal support for his absolutist views on royal authority, but had also spent over a month dramatizing the rift that was opening between de Mowbray and the crown.

And with that scene on Pentecost, he successfully framed it in the medieval mind as a conflict between divinely ordained rule and a heretical rebel.

And so, when de Mowbray refused to show up and the king declared him guilty of treason and called up his forces, the response was swift and widespread.

Feudal forces and ecclesiastical forces flocked to the king's banner.

We even see powerful northern figures like Archbishop Thomas of York attaching to the king's army, and even Anselm and the papal legate joined in, though Rufus did dismiss Anselm pretty early on and instructed him to prepare Canterbury in the event of an invasion by sea.

Which was a fact that Anselm was reportedly quite grumpy about, though Anselm was grumpy about pretty much everything involving Rufus, so that's nothing new.

But this decision by Rufus is actually a pretty good highlight for one of those curious elements about his rule.

Because even though he was hot-headed and clearly got into rap beefs, he also had that pragmatic side.

And in a crisis, he often set aside personal conflicts in favor of strategy.

And so, even though he and Anselm were not on the best of terms, he took Anselm at his word that he was now submitting to the crown, and he trusted that enough to leave the defense of major ports like Dover and Sandwich, at least partially, in Anselm's hands.

And all of this probably muddied the whole, this guy's a combative tyrant, and we'd be better off with Captain Rando of Umal narrative that was being pushed by de Mowbray.

Either way, though, that combination, the baronial support, the backing of both archbishops, the active planning for a second front, all of it shows how widespread Rufus' support had become.

And it also shows he was clear-eyed about what he was facing, and he was already repositioning for another 1088.

And modern historians argue that it was at this point that many of the disgruntled barons lost their nerve and either backed the king or sat on their hands.

And it's easy to understand why.

1088 had been a disaster for the rebels.

And that was a rebellion that had kicked off when Rufus was at the nadir of his power, which likely explains his soft touch with many of the rebels back then.

But now things were different.

And you can imagine that the barons looked at Rufus now in the zenith of his power and realized that they were incredibly likely to lose.

And when that happened, he was much less likely to adopt that soft touch, and instead, they would probably lose their heads.

And so, as Rufus gathered his army and took command of a massive force drawn from across the kingdom, DeMobray was finding himself largely isolated with just a small group of core supporters.

This conspiracy was was crumbling into a small, dysfunctional working group, thanks, at least in part, to Rufus' incredibly effective stage management.

But now he was off the stage and marching towards Northumbria.

He was already planning his newest venue, which would be built not to rule from, but to ruin from

the Malvois song.

The evil neighbor.

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