Richard the Lion Hearted, who became king of England in 1189, had
inherited Aquitaine (western France) from his mother Eleanor and Normandy
and Anjou—and England—from his father Henry. As Duke of
Normandy and Anjou, Richard was a vassal of the king of France, but
he controlled more land in France than did the French king. Although
Richard had been an ally of Philip Augustus in the Third Crusade, in
1192 he went to war with the king over his French lands. Richard built
Chateau Gaillard (he called it the “cocky castle”) on a cliff above the
Seine north of Paris to defend his claims to Normandy (Figure 15). He
began his castle in 1196 and boasted that he finished it in a year (in fact
it may never have been completely finished). Having experienced the
advantages and defects of the great crusader castles, Richard put all his
expertise to work in the design of his Norman fortress.
Richard chose an excellent site, in the territory of the archbishop of
Rouen, who objected strenuously until Richard paid him a handsome sum
for the land. The site is a narrow plateau, about 600 feet long and at most
200 feet wide, surrounded by deep ravines leading down to the river
Seine. On one side a narrow spit of land links the site to its hinterland.
A walled town (Les Andelys) stood at the base of the cliff, and Richard
also built a tower on a small island in the river. Dams and obstacles in
the water inhibited an enemy’s approach from the river, while during
peacetime these river defenses enabled the castle’s commander to support
the garrison by levying tolls on the river traffic (see Chapter 3, Figure
23). Richard also raised money by selling rights of citizenship to
residents of the town.
The castle consists of three separate units along the plateau. An attacking
army had to approach the castle along this land route, capturing
one fortification after another. First, a walled outer bailey, which was built
like an independent castle, blocked the approach. Huge round towers defended
its curtain wall. From this outer bailey, a bridge with a drawbridge
over a very deep moat led to the gate into the middle bailey. Again a
curtain wall with one rectangular and three round towers enclosed a large
area where Richard built his inner bailey with its tower. This fortresswithin-
a-fortress became a concentric (double-walled) castle with a wall
that resembled a series of round towers. Rising at one side of this “corrugated”
wall and commanding the river side of the castle was the great
tower. This tower had massive walls about sixteen feet thick and a battered
base that made mining virtually impossible. Its massive pointed keel
also deflected blows, and inverted buttresses supported a fighting gallery.As long as Richard was alive to command and reinforce it, the castle
stood securely. But Richard died in 1199, and his brother John was not
an effective general. Philip Augustus moved to the attack, laying siege
to the castle in the summer of 1203. The constable of the castle was
Roger de Lacy of Chester, who had sufficient supplies and a large garrison
of about 300 men to hold the castle for King John. Roger expected
to hold out for as long as a year, while the English king gathered resources
to relieve the castle.
The town and the river fort soon surrendered to the French king, and
the siege of the castle began in earnest in August. About 1,500 civilians
from Les Andeleys fled to the safety of the castle and added to the strain
on the provisions. Aware that he probably could starve the castle into
submission, Philip built ditches, walls, and timber towers around the castle
to prevent supplies from entering. These fortifications were beyond
the defenders’ arrow range, so they could not destroy or even harass the
attackers. With nothing to do but stand guard, the castle garrison undoubtedly
suffered from a loss of morale during the long winter.
Two months into the siege, Roger de Lacy realized he could not feed
all the people who had taken refuge within the castle walls. He evicted
the oldest and weakest who could not help in the defense, and the French
army permitted them to leave. But later when de Lacy had to expel the
rest of the town, the French closed their lines. When the people tried to
return to the castle, they found the gates locked. Trapped between the
opposing forces and forced to live in the ravines around the castle walls,
they slowly starved.
The final attack on Chateau Gaillard began at the end of February in
1204. First the French had to take the outer bailey. They used stonethrowing
machines to keep up a barrage while they filled the castle ditch
so that they could haul in a siege tower. But the French troops were so
eager to attack that they did not wait for the tower. Instead they used
scaling ladders to climb from the bottom of the ditch to the base of the
main tower whose foundations they mined, causing the tower to collapse.
With the outer walls breached, the garrison had no choice but to withdraw
to the middle bailey.
Again a deep ditch prevented further attack. As the French studied
the castle walls, one man, named Peter the Snub Nose, saw a weak point
and a possible way in. The arrangement of windows high on one wall
suggested there might be a chapel and well-appointed living quarters,
which would have garderobes. Peter and his friends searched the base of
the wall until they found the place where the drain from the garderobes
emptied. In a daring sneak attack, the men climbed up the drain and
emerged under a large window where they boosted each other into the
castle. Once inside they made so much noise that the castle guard
thought a large force had entered. The defenders started a fire hoping to
burn up the invaders, but the wind shifted carrying the flames back
through the building, and the defenders had to retreat to the inner courtyard.
Peter and his men escaped the flames and opened the doors for their
comrades.
The end was near. The English had about 180 men left. The attackers
smelled victory. They brought in a “cat”—a mobile, roofed gallery—
for protection and began to mine the gate. The English cut a counter
mine and drove the attackers back, but the double mining operation
weakened the base of the wall. The French brought in their stonethrowing
machines, and the volleys of rocks combined with the weakened
foundations caused the wall to collapse. Still the English fought
on—with only 36 knights and 120 other men. They moved into the
tower, but to no avail. In March 1204, Chateau Gaillard fell to the army
of King Philip Augustus, and with the loss of the castle the English lost
their claims to Normandy.
World History
