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The King of Almayne
258 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1966
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January 25, 2015
As part of my on-going research into the history and use of the double-headed eagle as an identifier, I have been reading about 13th century England to gain background information. This curious two-headed creature appears occasionally in British heraldry, mainly in Cornwall. The reason for this is connected with the fact that Richard Earl of Cornwall (1209-1272) was for some years the King of the Germans, in other words the King of the Holy Roman Empire, whose symbol is the double-headed eagle.
This account of the life and times of Richard, Earl of Cornwall by TWE Roche is the second book that I have read about this remarkable 13th century aristocrat. The first was a tightly written, densely detailed biography by Denholm-Young. Roche’s book is equally detailed and thorough but far more readable. It assumes less prior knowledge than the book by Denholm-Young.
Richard was the brother of the English King Henry III and nephew of the famous Richard ‘Coeur de Lion’. Henry III was an unwise and somewhat cruel king, always in trouble with his barons and also liable to make a mess of dealings with his neighbours, the kings of France in particular. His brother Richard rescued his reign from disaster. Richard, although not a great warrior, was a brilliant mediator.
Richard of Cornwall went on a Crusade to the Holy Land. This proved to be successful not because of his military prowess but because of his skill in diplomacy. His talent in mediation was often called into play to settle difficulties between his regal brother Henry and the ‘magnates’ or barons who, a few years before, had been responsible for the ‘Magna Carta’ signed by Henry’s father King John.
In addition to being a clever mediator as well as one of the few noblemen in England who had learnt the English language, Richard of Cornwall was also a brilliant ‘businessman’. Through his holdings in Cornwall, which included lucrative tin mines, and his commission to reform the English coinage system, he acquired so much wealth that he was one of the richest men in England. He was also skilful in protecting the country’s Jews, who also proved to be a source of his immense income.
Richard, whose long held ambition was to become a king, was elected to become King of Germany in 1256. However, he was not alone in receiving this title. He had to share it with Alfonso of Castile. Being King of Germany was an important step towards becoming the Holy Roman Emperor. The choice of Emperor was in the hands of the Pope in Rome. For years, two Popes dithered deliberately over whom was to become Emperor. Richard was on tenterhooks.
A good ruler in Germany, Richard had to divide his time between looking after his subjects who lived mainly along the River Rhine and taking care of his and his regal brother’s affairs in England and also in France. Richard rescued his brother Henry from seriously awkward situations on several occasions.
The barons under Simon de Montfort eventually stirred up the country into internal warfare. This resulted in the capture and imprisonment of Richard as well as his sons and brother. Whilst in captivity, Richard learnt of the decline of stability in his German kingdom. This he was able to resolve satisfactorily when he was freed from Kennilworth Castle by allies of King Henry. Throughout the years that he was King of Germany, the Popes continued to vacillate over who was to become the Holy Roman Emperor. Two Popes failed to come to a decision; Richard never became the Holy Roman Emperor. The Empire remained without an Emperor until after Richard’s death when Rudolf I of Habsburg became King of the Germans. Richard’s successor was to have been his son Henry, but this unfortunate fellow was murdered in Viterbo by members of Simon de Montfort’s family who were seeking revenge for Simon’s death at the hands of Richard and Henry’s allies.
Richard Earl of Cornwall married three times. Each of his three wives were said to be amongst the most beautiful women in Europe at the time. He was close to all three, and passed many a happy time in his various castles scattered over the south of England including the Thames Valley.
Roche’s well-written and interesting book charts Richard’s life in a lively way, making many references to primary sources. While it did not make any references to double-headed eagles, which are my primary interest, it provides superb background historical material and, like Runciman’s superb “Sicilian Vespers”, it illustrates how intimately interconnected were the affairs of different parts of mediaeval Europe and the ‘Middle East’. This out-of-print book deserves 5 stars!
This account of the life and times of Richard, Earl of Cornwall by TWE Roche is the second book that I have read about this remarkable 13th century aristocrat. The first was a tightly written, densely detailed biography by Denholm-Young. Roche’s book is equally detailed and thorough but far more readable. It assumes less prior knowledge than the book by Denholm-Young.
Richard was the brother of the English King Henry III and nephew of the famous Richard ‘Coeur de Lion’. Henry III was an unwise and somewhat cruel king, always in trouble with his barons and also liable to make a mess of dealings with his neighbours, the kings of France in particular. His brother Richard rescued his reign from disaster. Richard, although not a great warrior, was a brilliant mediator.
Richard of Cornwall went on a Crusade to the Holy Land. This proved to be successful not because of his military prowess but because of his skill in diplomacy. His talent in mediation was often called into play to settle difficulties between his regal brother Henry and the ‘magnates’ or barons who, a few years before, had been responsible for the ‘Magna Carta’ signed by Henry’s father King John.
In addition to being a clever mediator as well as one of the few noblemen in England who had learnt the English language, Richard of Cornwall was also a brilliant ‘businessman’. Through his holdings in Cornwall, which included lucrative tin mines, and his commission to reform the English coinage system, he acquired so much wealth that he was one of the richest men in England. He was also skilful in protecting the country’s Jews, who also proved to be a source of his immense income.
Richard, whose long held ambition was to become a king, was elected to become King of Germany in 1256. However, he was not alone in receiving this title. He had to share it with Alfonso of Castile. Being King of Germany was an important step towards becoming the Holy Roman Emperor. The choice of Emperor was in the hands of the Pope in Rome. For years, two Popes dithered deliberately over whom was to become Emperor. Richard was on tenterhooks.
A good ruler in Germany, Richard had to divide his time between looking after his subjects who lived mainly along the River Rhine and taking care of his and his regal brother’s affairs in England and also in France. Richard rescued his brother Henry from seriously awkward situations on several occasions.
The barons under Simon de Montfort eventually stirred up the country into internal warfare. This resulted in the capture and imprisonment of Richard as well as his sons and brother. Whilst in captivity, Richard learnt of the decline of stability in his German kingdom. This he was able to resolve satisfactorily when he was freed from Kennilworth Castle by allies of King Henry. Throughout the years that he was King of Germany, the Popes continued to vacillate over who was to become the Holy Roman Emperor. Two Popes failed to come to a decision; Richard never became the Holy Roman Emperor. The Empire remained without an Emperor until after Richard’s death when Rudolf I of Habsburg became King of the Germans. Richard’s successor was to have been his son Henry, but this unfortunate fellow was murdered in Viterbo by members of Simon de Montfort’s family who were seeking revenge for Simon’s death at the hands of Richard and Henry’s allies.
Richard Earl of Cornwall married three times. Each of his three wives were said to be amongst the most beautiful women in Europe at the time. He was close to all three, and passed many a happy time in his various castles scattered over the south of England including the Thames Valley.
Roche’s well-written and interesting book charts Richard’s life in a lively way, making many references to primary sources. While it did not make any references to double-headed eagles, which are my primary interest, it provides superb background historical material and, like Runciman’s superb “Sicilian Vespers”, it illustrates how intimately interconnected were the affairs of different parts of mediaeval Europe and the ‘Middle East’. This out-of-print book deserves 5 stars!
July 23, 2022
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-king-of-almayne-a-13th-century-englishman-in-europe-by-t-w-e-roche/
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.
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.
February 13, 2024
King John:
-Excommunicated by the Pope
-Had all of England suffer an interdict from the Pope so no one could attend Mass
-Stole another man's fiancee
-Sadistic, psychopath, narcissist
-Magna Carta
-Some shit with Richard the Lionheart
-Went to war against his own father
-Hated by absolutely everyone minus one toady
Author: "Yeah I know I listed all this, but he wasn't so bad actually cause he was an okay general."
-Excommunicated by the Pope
-Had all of England suffer an interdict from the Pope so no one could attend Mass
-Stole another man's fiancee
-Sadistic, psychopath, narcissist
-Magna Carta
-Some shit with Richard the Lionheart
-Went to war against his own father
-Hated by absolutely everyone minus one toady
Author: "Yeah I know I listed all this, but he wasn't so bad actually cause he was an okay general."
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