Chapter 1: Hugh de Bigod, the Crusader
Happy Days of the Childhood
Part 1
I am Hugh de Bigod, son of Roger de Bigod, Duke of Norfolk. This will be my story. I was born in Norwich, anno domini 1186. My father used to tell me it was the happiest day of his life.
My first memories are from when I was 4. I remember a day when we were out with my parents, having lunch on a hill overlooking the construction site of the templar’s house, which my father had given construction rights some months back. There was temporary office for the templars next to the construction. Knights, albeit just a few of them, literally in their shiny armours were following the building process.
I was very energetic as a child. I guess I still am. I was also afraid of dark, but my father knew what to do about it.
One night he took me into the woods with him. It was dark and first I was so afraid I couldn’t move. I just kept telling my father it was late and I was tired, nonetheless, we kept going. After a while I started to feel more natural. We had long conversations, ran around and I started to enjoy it.
We used to do the little journey once a week and it was the highlight of the week for me, as it was one of the few moments when my father was there just for me. During the days he was understandably busy running the duchy and I usually went to bed before he stopped working. But during those special nights we were fooling around, enjoying each other’s company and just having fun. My father seemed to enjoy it too.
***
I remember when the third Crusade started; I was still a young boy then. It was the same year Richard Lionheart was crowned as King of England at the age of 33 and the typhoid spread to Suffolk. Two important looking messengers came to my father while he was having a meeting with the administrators of Suffolk, discussing what to do about the disease.
The men worked for the Pope himself. They told my father about the Crusade on Alexandria and criticized him of not having a diocese Bishop in his court. My father’s answer was, that there were no able men to take the duty of a Bishop and he kindly requested the Pope to send someone to him.
The messengers left and my father dismissed the meeting with his administrators of Suffolk.
***
When I was still 6 years old, my father organized a ball. All the nobility of our realm, as well as numerous Dukes and Counts from England and Normandy, took part. It was a magnificent evening. But I still have a rather negative memory from it.
I remember looking around for my father. On my way to check the room where he met with his court, I saw him having a conversation with his Spymaster, Isabella de St. John.
Isabella, the namesake of my mother, was enchanting lady. She had been proposed by numerous Dukes and Counts near and far, even by the Duke of Flanders, who’s a wealthy noble, but my father had always turned down the marriage proposals. I always though the reason was because she was so good in what she was doing, but now I know the more pressing reason; my father was deeply in love with her.
I saw them in the corridor and hid in the shadows. “Isabella”, my father said with downcast look on his face. “We cannot meet anymore like this, I’m a married man and I respect my wife and the heavenly Lord won’t see our relationship in a good light.” Isabella walked away disappointed, but I knew she would understand. She was a good woman, sweet and understanding. You wouldn’t believe it considering her job. To my knowledge my father never slept with her. He was a chaste man who has dedicated his life to serving the Lord and his people. He had spent some time with her flirting and given her expensive gift. That is at least what I want to believe.
***
When the Bishop, sent by Pope himself, Henry FitzGerald, arrived, I was following another meeting in my fathers hall as part of my education. The man stormed into the room banging the doors and loudly representing himself. I knew from the beginning that this man would bring trouble with him, but I could have never imagined the volume of them. I must admit though, he was a talented man, but from the day one, he and my father didn’t get along with each other at all.
He was always running after different women, was skeptical of everything, unlike my just father. And not the least he was, as my father used to say: “the eyes and ears of the Pope, looking for the smallest guilt in people.”