Kings in One Year in Matthew Paris’ Chronicle

One Year in Matthew Paris’ Chronicle

Overview of Kings in Chronica Majora
Kings are an important part of history for Matthew Paris. As Lewis points out, “since St. Albans owed its very existence and continuing prosperity to royal patronage, [kings] hold a position of paramount importance.” Surprisingly, this act of good will of the crown on which the abbey depended upon did not limit Paris’ exhibition of his own feelings and biases. Paris’ accounts within the Chronica Majora are coloured with criticisms of the King’s policies. “Unlike most monastic chroniclers, whose traditional conceptions of old feudal loyalties left them unprepared to deal with the emerging political integration of monarchies in England and France, [in dealing with kings] Matthew reveals [and maintains] a remarkable sense of English identity and pride, often verging on xenophobia.”

While the chronicles and illustrations frequently express disproval of royal action and policy, Lewis believes that it is a result of a comparative evaluation of the more modern rulers with that of Alexander the Great. Alexander is often the measuring stick with which rulers are held to – he represents a level of heroism that superceded all moral considerations, he was Matthew’s godlike king. “Alexander plays a key role at the head of a long succession of rulers illustrated in the Chronica Majora, beginning with the founder of Britain and reaching into Matthew's own time, when the awesome task of governing Europe fell divided upon the shoulders of Henry III, Louis IX, and Frederick II.”

Henry III
Henry III was named so because when the earlier Henry died, who was originally in third succession to become king, his father was still living. At his succession, Louis of France had begun a war that was perceived as a usurpation. The war that continued, in the portrayal of a crusade, occurred on land and on sea. The sea aspect of the battles will be remembered as being the tale of St. Bartholomew’s Day and Eustace the Monk. The two separate events are merged by Paris in an attempt to clarify the “incoherence and confusion” of these events. The war was basically a taking and keeping of castles. In true Chronica fashion, the descriptions of the French in the war are less than stellar:
Roger Wendover, who was at this time prior of the Benedictine house at Belvoir, remembers with disgust and dismay the ravages of the French troops: And there everything fell into the hands of these robbers, because the soldiers of the French kingdom, being as it were the refuse and scum of that country, left nothing at all untouched, and their poverty and wretchedness were so great that they had not enough bodily clothing to cover their nakedness.”
Paris characteristically maintains the focus on the vengeful xenophobia of the war, particularly turning points which emphasize the French defeat.The peace that concluded the war in 1217 was amicable and depicted as such with the two princes Louis and Henry, beardless and crowned, surrounded by water to represent the Thames Island it was reached on.

Henry III was crowned again in 1220. The ceremony was, as we’re told, properly performed. Events like this fit well with Henry’s love of pomp and celebratory ritual. Henry’s wedding in 1236 to the French Queen’s sister was prime example. The marriage, well quite the extravagant affair, also signified a new alliance with France that would have a profound effect on the rest of Henry’s reign. Paris attended many functions, beginning with the wedding mentioned above, and as a result he was able to provide great details in the Chronica. This is of note as his accounts of future events depict “that … Henry III was well acquainted with him and knew that he was writing a chronicle. Paris' frequent references to meetings and conversations with the king at St. Albans, Westminster, Winchester, and York suggest that he was on good terms with Henry and that the king had some interest in his historical writings.” Yet in spite of this apparent relationship between the two, Paris considered Henry to be “a spiteful caricature” which Lewis suggests could have been derived from his “deep-seated mistrust of all monarchs and his violent disapproval of most governmental actions.” Overall, his subservience to popes and dependency on the advice of the queen’s French relatives demonstrates to Paris his tyrannical, weak-minded nature which leaves him in the darkness of Alexander’s shadow. On occasion we have reason to note revisions which show a softening; however, his disproval remains abound.

Examples include:
1. Henry Ill's first vain attempt to recover lost Angevin lands in France in 1230
a. He foolishly believed he would gain a foothold across the channel so he lead an invasion full of pomp and regalia expecting to be treated as conqueror by merely arriving. As he waited in vein he fell ill and returned home by October.
b. Matthew illustrates this expedition which he believed a fiasco with the return home showing the king alone “in the front of the vessel, his chin aggressively thrust forward in a truculent pose, suggesting something of his pompous and blind determination, while four knights in mail huddle apprehensively behind the mast, and the helmsman steadies their course with a lateral steering oar” While Roger flatly records Henry's return from France without comment, Matthew notes bitterly that the king came back empty-handed, "having wasted an infinite amount of money, and having caused the deaths of innumerable nobles, weakened them with sickness and hunger, or reduced them to extreme poverty.”
2. Henry’s renounced truce with King Louis.
a. On June 8 Henry renounced his truce with King Louis and moved south, but there was no substance or organization to the rebel movement, and the venture came to nothing. While Paris was able to wet his xenophobic palate when, overcome by hunger and thirst due to the wells being stopped and the rivers and springs becoming poisoned, the French troops fell. It wasn’t long until a truce was recommenced.
3. Battles with the Welsh
a. Despite a few minor triumphs between 1240 and 1246, Henry's attempt to impose English control over Wales also ended in failure. Although Paris, following in the footsteps of Gerald of Wales, perceived the Welsh in an appalling light, his pictorial chronicle of truces punctuated by outbursts of guerrilla warfare and treachery is intended to reveal the instability and inherent weakness of both sides.
4. Enguerrand de Coucy
a. Throughout the Chronica Majora Matthew Paris continues to complain of the king favoring the French at the expense of the English barons, seldom missing an opportunity to prove the untrustworthiness and general moral issues of the French over which providential punishment frequently prevailed. Paris takes special satisfaction in seeing a particularly reprehensible individual receive his just desert.
b. In 1244 he blames the deterioration of the friendship between Henry and the king of Scotland on the latter's matrimonial alliance with the daughter of Enguerrand de Coucy who, "like all the French, was known to be the chief, or rather one of the chief, enemies of the king of the English." We end up learning of his unfortunate double death, a sort of karmic retribution.

Conclusion
As I will discuss more in my presentation to the class, Paris represents in his annal for 1244 that royal virtue is a thing of the past. Various kings since the times of Alexander fall into various categories of moral and political ignominy. As Lewis states, “Wendover and Paris approach their own time, the tarnish of familiarity evokes even greater contempt for the reigning monarchs, John and Henry III, while a new species of hero emerges in a small band of courageous barons who rebel against royal greed and injustice.” The romantic views of what should be royal virtue fails to be revealed in modern times, aside form maybe the adversary of popes – Emperor Frederick II. Virtue, for Paris, comes from the refusal to yield to the pope and the brave defence of Britian’s freedom and independence which Henry III cannot achieve due to his weak-minded relations with the French.