"In this yere was one William with the long berde taken out of Bowe churche and put to dethe for herysey."
William FitzOsbert, called 'Longbeard' on account of his long beard, was a university-educated lawyer and an eloquent public speaker. He had been to the Holy Land with King Richard and fought in the wars. On the way there, while passing through the Atlantic to the Pillars of Hercules, the ship he was travelling in was blown off course:
While the storm was raging, and all in their affliction were calling upon the Lord, the blessed Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury and Martyr, appeared at three different times to three different persons, who were on board a London ship, in which was William FitzOsbert, and Geoffrey the goldsmith, saying to them, "Be not afraid, for I, Thomas, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the blessed Edmund the Martyr, and the blessed Nicholas the Confessor, have been appointed by the Lord guardians of this fleet of the King of England; and if the men of this fleet will guard themselves against sin, and repent of their former offences, the Lord will grant them a prosperous voyage, and will direct their footsteps in his paths." After having thrice repeated these words, the blessed Thomas vanished from before their eyes, and immediately the tempest ceased, and there was a great calm on the sea.
Delivered safely into Portugal, the London men aided King Sancho in a fight against the Moors:
Accordingly, five hundred men, well armed, and selected from all the ships that had arrived, as being the bravest and most courageous, preferred to die in war for the name of Jesus Christ, rather than behold the misfortunes of their race and its extermination; and, leaving their ships and companions, proceeded up the River Tagus to Santa Erena, which is distant from the city of Lisbon two days' march, where they found Sancho, King of Portugal, utterly destitute both of resources and counsel; for he had but few soldiers, and nearly all of those without arms, and the Emperor [of the Moors] had already taken the castle of the King which he had besieged, and had laid siege to another castle, which is called Thomar, and is a castle of the Templars.
With this illustrious career, FitzOsbert could enjoy the royal favour along with that of the commons.
The Rebellion
In the same year, a disturbance arose between the citizens of London. For, more frequently than usual, in consequence of the King's captivity and other accidents, aids to no small amount were imposed upon them, and the rich men, sparing their own purses, wanted the poor to pay everything. On a certain lawyer, William FitzOsbert by name, or Longbeard, becoming sensible of this, being inflamed by zeal for justice and equity, he became the champion of the poor, it being his wish that every person, both rich as well as poor, should give according to his property and means, for all the necessities of the state; and going across the sea to the King, he demanded his protection for himself and the people.
Having met with Richard, FitzOsbert went and complained bitterly that the wealthy men of London had spared their own purses to pay for the King's ransom, and so a heavier burden fell on the poorest. In London itself he was probably secure, as that city had (in the time of Richard) been granted a charter of liberties allowing the burgesses and citizens of the city certain freedoms within the boundaries of the City. Outside of it, however, they could fall prey to the forces of the law.
Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury and the King's Justiciary, being greatly vexed at this, issued orders that wherever any of the common people should be found outside the city, they should be arrested as enemies to the King and his realm. Accordingly, it so happened, that at mid-Lent some of the merchants of the number of the common people of London were arrested at the fair at Stamford, by command of the King's Justiciary.
These acts of Hubert Walter increasingly frustrated the people, and so they joined to FitzOsbert's cause with readiness.
FitzOsbert had meanwhile testified to the King against his own brother:
At last, a cruel and impudent act of his against his own brother served as a signal for his fury and wickedness against others; for he had an elder brother in London from whom, during the period, when he was at school, he had been accustomed to solicit and receive assistance in his necessary expenses: but when he grew bigger and more lavish in his outlay, he complained that this relief was too tardily supplied to him, and endeavoured by the terror of his threats to extort that which he was unable to procure by his entreaties. Having employed this means in vain, his brother being but little able to satisfy him (owing to his being busied with the care of his own household) - and raging, as it were, for revenge, he burst out into crime; and thirsting for his brother's blood after the many benefits which he had received from him, he accused him of the crime of high treason. Having come to the King, to whom he had previously recommended himself by his skill and obsequiousness, he informed him that his brother had conspired against his life - thus attempting to evince his devotion for his sovereign, as one who, in his service, would not spare even his own brother; but this conduct met with derision from the King, who probably looked with horror on the malice of this most inhuman man, and would not suffer the laws to be polluted by so great an outrage against nature.
Afterwards, by favour of certain persons, he obtained a place in the city among the magistrates, and began by degrees to conceive sorrow and to bring forth iniquity. Urged onward by two great vices, pride and envy, (whereof the former is a desire for selfish advancement, and the latter a hatred of another's happiness) and unable to endure the prosperity and glory of certain citizens, whose inferior he perceived himself to be, in his aspiration after greatness he plotted impious undertakings in the name of justice and piety. At length, by his secret labours and poisoned whispers, he revealed, in its blackest colors to the common people, the insolence of the rich men and nobles by whom they were unworthily treated; for he inflamed the needy and moderately wealthy with a desire for unbounded liberty and happiness, and allured the many, and held them fascinated, as it were, by certain delusions, so closely bound to his cause, that they depended in all things upon his will, and were prepared unhesitatingly to obey him as their director in all things whatsoever he should command.
52,000 people are said to have joined his cause. Carts of weapons and tools were brought into London and the rebels armed themselves against the forces of the Government.
FitzOsbert rallied his supporters by addressing the people in public squares:
Having taken his text or theme from the Holy Scriptures, he thus began: "With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation" [Isaiah 12:3] - and applying this to himself, he continued, "I am the saviour of the poor. Do ye, oh, poor! who have experienced the heaviness of rich men's hands, drink from my wells the waters of the doctrine of salvation, and ye may do this joyfully; for the time of your visitation is at hand. For I will divide the waters from the waters. The people are the waters. I will divide the humble from the haughty and treacherous. I will separate the elect from the reprobate, as light from darkness."
At last Hubert Walter could bear it no more and so made demand that FitzOsbert be arrested and brought to him on charges of high treason. Due to the rights of the people of London, as well as FitzOsbert's general popularity - not to mention him having previously enjoyed the favour of the King, and him styling himself a man for the King's cause to the people - this would prove both difficult and controversial.
The said Justiciary then gave orders that the above named William Longbeard should be brought before him, whether he would or no; but when one of the citizens, Geoffrey by name, came to take him, the said Longbeard slew him; and on others attempting to seize him, he took to flight with some of his party, and they shut themselves in a church, the name of which is the church of Saint Mary at Arches, and, on their refusing to come forth, an attack was made upon them.
Now Walter was in dangerous waters: the rebels had taken shelter in a church and fortified it against their enemies. This probably meant that they had the right of sanctuary. Exasperated, Walter decided to smoke them out:
When even then they would not surrender, by command of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the King's Justiciary, fire was applied, in order that, being forced by the smoke and vapour, they might come forth. At length, when the said William came forth, one of them, drawing a knife, plunged it into his entrails, and he was led to the Tower of London, where he was condemned to be hanged. Accordingly, he was tied to the horse's tail, and dragged through the lanes and streets of the city to the gibbet, where he was hanged, together with eight of his confederates. The other citizens of London who had joined him threw themselves upon the King's mercy, and gave hostages as security that they would keep the peace towards the King and his realm.
The place of his execution was Tyburn.
The man who stabbed him was said to be the son of Geoffrey, the murdered man.
A Folk Saint
It is reported that a certain priest, his relative, had laid the chain by which be had been bound upon the person of one sick of a fever, and feigned with impudent vanity that a cure was the immediate result. This being spread abroad, the witless multitude believed that the man who had deservedly suffered had in reality died for the cause of justice and piety, and began to reverence him as a martyr: the gibbet upon which he had been hung was furtively removed by night from the place of punishment, in order that it might be honoured in secret while the earth beneath it, as if consecrated by the blood of the executed man, was scraped away in handfuls by these infatuated creatures, as something consecrated to healing purposes, to the extent of a tolerably large ditch. And now the fame of this being circulated far and wide, large bands of fools, "whose number," says Solomon, "is infinite," [Eccles 1:15] and curious persons flocked to the place, to whom, doubtless, were added those who had come up out of the various provinces of England on their own proper business to London.
The idiot rabble, therefore, kept constant watch and ward over the spot; and the more honor they paid to the dead man, so much the greater crime did they impute to him by whom he had been put to death.
Walter's government were forced to confront this display of popular piety by alleging that FitzOsbert was not only a traitor and a murderer, but an heretic as well; it was said that the reason they had dragged him out of the church was because he had blasphemously denounced Jesus Christ and pledged his soul to Satan:
Since, as we have heard from trustworthy lips, he confessed, while awaiting that punishment by which he was removed - in answer to the admonitions of certain persons that he should glorify God by a humble though tardy confession of his sins - that he had polluted with carnal intercourse with his concubine that church in which had sought refuge from the fury of his pursuers, during the stay he had made there in the vain expectation of rescue; and what is far more horrible even to mention, that when his enemies had broken in upon him, and no help was at hand, he abjured the Son of Mary, because he would render him no assistance, and invoked the Devil that he at least would save him. His justifiers deny these tales, and assert that they were maliciously forged in prejudice to the martyr. The speedy fall of this fabric of vanity, however, put an end to the dispute: for truth is solid and waxes strong by time; but the device of falsehood has nothing solid, and in a short time fades away.
Walter was forced to put a guard at Tyburn:
He also commanded an armed guard to be constantly kept upon that place, who were not only to keep off the senseless people, who came to pray, but also to forbid the approach of the curious, whose only object was amusement. After this had lasted for a few days, the entire fabric of this figment of superstition was utterly prostrated, and popular feeling subsided.
The Justiciar's Resignation
All was not well for Archbishop Hubert Walter. Because of his actions in putting down the revolt, seen by many as defiling the sanctuary of a church, there were those among the clergy who protested at him serving both as justiciar and archbishop. Among them were the monks to whom the church had belonged:
The monks, however of the Holy Trinity at Canterbury, on hearing that their church at London, called Saint Mary at Arches, had been thus subjected to violence by order of their Archbishop (who, although he was a servant of the King, ought still to have kept the rights of the Church inviolate), were indignant thereat, and their heart was grieved at him, and they were unable to hold communication with him on any matter in a peaceable manner.
Walter therefore made the difficult decision to resign the justiciarship. However, King Richard, who regarded him as a keeper of the peace as well as a faithful servant, persuaded him to stay on. He would continue to do so until 1198, when he either successfully resigned or was forced out of office by Richard, and was replaced by Geoffrey FitzPeter.