Harlot Queen (22 page)

Now, passing, she called to Madam de St Pierre to dismiss the others and then to come bringing with her my lady Mortimer of Wigmore. When they were settled about their work in the Queen’s closet, Théophania said, ‘The lord Despenser’s wife is not happy to be excluded. She will be punished for it no doubt, by her husband.’

‘Would to God they were at the bottom of the sea—the Despensers! Not Despenser’s wife; I must not trust her yet I wish her no harm. But the father and the son! They may yet plunge us into civil war!’

‘My husband fears it too!’ Jeanne said. ‘The people will no longer endure to be sucked dry!’ She bit off the end of silk with sharp, white teeth. Her husband hated the Despensers and she spoke like a good wife. ‘All those lands and revenues, all those licenses to sell and to buy, all those dues from markets and fairs, they’ve got enough, wouldn’t you think? And the son—he’s got the best part of the Gloucester inheritance as well. And still he’s not satisfied!’

‘Gloucester’s death was one of the tragedies of the Scottish war,’ the Queen said. ‘Not only because he was a man such as we can ill spare, but because he died without a child to inherit. The business of the Gloucester inheritance may yet drown the whole land in blood!’

‘But that business was settled.’ Théophania was puzzled. ‘As I remember the land was divided among the three sisters. Despenser got the lion’s share because his wife’s the eldest.’

‘He got the whole of Glamorgan to say nothing of half South Wales; and, because he’s what he is, he’s not satisfied,’ Jeanne said. ‘He wants the rest. He wants Newport—so my husband writes; and that belongs to Audley who married the second sister. And he wants Usk and that belongs to Damory through the youngest. He wants, in fact, the whole of the Gloucester property.’

‘He wants more!’ the Queen said, very slow! ‘He wants to be—Gloucester!’

‘It isn’t possible; even he must know it!’ Jeanne said. ‘He’s not born Clare!’

‘Only too possible—if he press the King hard enough!’ the Queen said. ‘The title died with Gloucester; he’s pressing the King to revive it. Gloucester’s royal title to fall so low! By God’s Face!’ she spoke with sudden passion, ‘I could love the man that puts a spoke in that wheel!’

‘There’s one man could do it!’ Jeanne lifted a thoughtful face, ‘and that’s the lord my husband. He leads the marcher lords—and this concerns them. And he hates the Despensers—both. Yes, he could do it but it means bloodshed, as Madam the Queen says; civil war!’

‘Send to him!’ the Queen commanded quick and urgent. ‘Bid him make an end of those two. For let us sit with folded hands and they’ll make an end of England. Tell him he shall have the Queen’s love.

‘I will tell him, Madam.’ Mortimer’s wife smiled, she took the Queen’s hand and kissed it.
He shall have the Queen’s love
. Later she was to remember the words; and then she did not smile.

Earl of Gloucester
. Hugh Despenser marched steadily towards his glorious goal. The Queen watched with anger and she watched with fear. Already he ruled in Glamorgan with rights more sovereign than ever royal Gloucester. He had forced Audley to give up Newport in exchange for poor land; he had got both hands on Lundy Island… and both eyes on the lordship of Gower. The old lord was failing; Mowbray the natural heir could go bury himself with his father-in-law! Bristol he meant to have also; Bristol that fine city with the rich estuary lands of the west.

And still Lancaster sat tight in Pontefract. Though he had estates in Wales that might also be threatened he made no move. This was Mortimer’s affair: to challenge the leadership of the marcher lords would be foolish. When his time came he would need all the support he could get.

When will Mortimer move?
The Queen asked herself night and day. But from Mortimer also—no sign.

‘Despenser looks to make himself King of Wales!’ she told the King and she was sharp and bitter.

‘Why not?’ He sent her his charming, lazy smile.

‘Because’—and she forgot the need for caution in the surge of anger, ‘because the people hate him!’

‘You mean
you
hate him?’ and he was smiling still.

‘This could cost you your crown!’ she told him, anger still driving.

‘My crown?’ And now his eyes were bitter above his smiling mouth. ‘As long as my loyal wife seduces my Londoners and charms my barons, I’m safe enough. I can always hide beneath her skirts.’

‘It is no laughing matter, sir!’ she cried out, stung.

‘If it were not I’d have you in the Tower. You speak sedition, my dear!’ And for all the lightness of his tone there was warning behind the words.

Despenser’s time had come. The old lord of Gower was dead; Mowbray his son-in-law sat in the old man’s place.

‘Ned,’ the younger Despenser told the King, ‘Gower is forfeit. Mowbray took possession without consent or homage.’

‘Then we put it in more loyal hands. Gower, my sweet, is yours.’

‘Now Mortimer must move; surely, he must move!’ the Queen cried out.

Jeanne Mortimer lifted her troubled head. Certainly her husband must move to protect the rights of the marcher lords; he had no choice. But, move directly against the King! It was treason.

‘The marcher lords will take it ill,’ Jeanne said. ‘They are not subject to this law. Mowbray takes possession through his wife; he has the right. The undoubted heir takes possession without the King’s consent—it has been their privilege and they’ll not let it go. They’ll fight to the death.’

The marcher lords were gathering—Mortimer had sent a secret message to his wife. Now that civil war threatened the Queen lost some of her complacency. This could mean a torn and bleeding country. It could set father against son and son against father. It could mean hunger and sickness and poverty—utter devastation; and in that devastation all, all must suffer.

Should she speak to the King, warn him of the deep, stubborn anger of the marcher lords and the threat of civil war? Yet, surely he must understand this for himself! While she hesitated the King sent for her. Despenser’s wife in the anteroom had caught here a word and there a word and had done her duty.

She found the King in his closet fondling his sweetheart.

‘Madam,’ he said unsmiling, ‘do not presume to question my wisdom. And watch your tongue. I tell you once and for all—and you may spread the good news—Mowbray is at fault. Gower is Hugh’s.’

‘If he can take it!’ she cried out and, too late, bit upon her tongue. To answer so was the act of a fool; but his rudeness, his stupidity, together with the Despenser’s intolerable triumph, and above all fear of trouble to come, drove her beyond reason.

‘Sir,’ she said and ignored the insolent look Despenser cast upon her. ‘Consider; I
beg
you to consider!’ And held out her hands as though she prayed. ‘Do not tread upon border privilege nor yet upon Welsh privilege. The pride of these lords you should know—you were Prince of Wales. Do not press that, in this, they are subject to English law!’

‘They are subject!’ Despenser broke in, insolent.

She ignored him. ‘Sir, I beseech you, pause. It is wiser to hold by the spirit of the law than by the strict letter; and especially in this case. Mowbray is the natural heir; he inherits by right of his wife. Sir, this
friend
of yours…’ and she cast a look of contempt upon Despenser triumphant and smiling, ‘shall make great trouble for us all.’

‘You talk like a fool!’ the King said, contemptuous, forgetting that she and she alone had reconciled the barons at Leake. ‘As for that other fool—Mortimer’s wife—send her packing or it will be the worse for her! I’ve no doubt this nonsense of yours is of her making. Madam, I warn you again, guard your tongue!’

‘Queens have found themselves in prison for less than this!’ the Despenser said.

She deigned no answer; but the insolence drove the colour from her cheeks.

‘He speaks truth; mark it well!’The King put back a lock of Despenser’s hair; arm about his friend he went laughing from the room and left her standing there.

The marcher lords were mustering.

First and foremost Mowbray that Despenser sought to rob of his inheritance; and with him Audley and Damory robbed, also, of the best part of their possessions by those same hands. With them marched Humphrey de Bohun of Hereford, in fighting mood; his lands lay close to Glamorgan and he had no mind to wait the Despensers’ next move. All the barons of the March mustering, save Pembroke and Arundel that still stood by the King. And behind the marcher lords the lesser lords that had suffered from the greed and cruelty of the Despensers. And, leading them all, the Mortimers, uncle and nephew, closer than father and son; men of strength, of power, that did not mean old freedoms to be violated.

Now the Queen cast away the last of her doubts; now she knelt thanking God for the Mortimers, beseeching their victory, bribing Him, cozening Him, bargaining, bargaining, bargaining. These days she missed Jeanne Mortimer; yet she was glad to have her go lest the Despensers lay hands upon her to hold her for ransom. Isabella smiled, remembering the anger of the Despensers that Jeanne had escaped their hands. And, thinking of the wife, how could she but think of the husband, that strong, commanding man? She would find herself wondering, at times, how a woman must feel in bed with such a man? Herself she had known nothing ever but the fainéant King.

The Despensers forever burned that Mortimer’s wife had gone free of them. The Queen had robbed them of their strongest weapon; and the Queen should pay for it. They vowed it and did not care who heard. Let her walk with care lest she find herself in the Tower! Now she must guard her every word, her every glance, her every breath, even. The King, she knew, would lift no finger on her behalf.

Against his rebel lords the King’s anger was hot; but against Mortimer of Wigmore it had passed into hatred deep and personal. And it was not, the Queen thought, on account of his leadership alone. Mortimer of Chirk was equal leader. What was there in the younger man to arouse this almost mad resentment?

It was the King himself, that let fly the secret.

‘By God’s Soul he was always a thorn in my flesh; always, always!’ It was to the young Despenser he spoke, not caring who might hear. ‘I hated him from the moment he came to Westminster—one of the palace boys. He was put in Piers’ charge; remember? And Piers did his duty by him; that and no more! Piers cared for me, for me only! But Mortimer, the fool, didn’t understand. He was forever at our heels, Piers and mine. Short of kicking him out of the way—impossible to be rid of him! But Piers was too kind, forever too kind!’ He kicked the stool at his feet as though he kicked the boy Mortimer. For whatever he might say, he must still remember that shoe had been upon the other foot. Piers had loved the boy above all others. He could see them now, those two. Piers, arm loving about the boy and both of them laughing at a shared jest, their prince left out in the cold, eaten with jealousy at the love between those two.

So that was it! Mortimer had been Piers’ pupil and Piers had loved him best. And for that Mortimer must bear the King’s undying hatred. The palace school had, it seemed, much to answer for.

The revolt was spreading. By January it had reached Herefordshire; by February Gloucestershire was in arms.

‘And God knows, sir, where it will end if we do not move at once!’ It was the elder Despenser that spoke, urgent, in the King’s ear. ‘We must march for Gloucester, show these Mortimers, these Bohuns and the rest of the pack’—and he spoke as though they were dirt, ‘how we deal with traitors’.

‘But—February; it is not fit weather!’ the King pouted into his sweetheart’s face.

We march within the week!’ the elder Despenser said.

Where, Isabella wondered, did her uncle of Lancaster stand in this? Certainly not with the King and the hated Despensers. His place was with the rebels to protect his estates in Wales.

But still from Lancaster, no word. Still he sat within Pontefract watching the way things should go.

It was March when the armies set forth, Edward leading them upright on the great horse, the perfect picture of a King. But when they had left Westminster behind and came into open country and the march winds cut sharp as a sword through the furred houppe-lande, then the King let the older Despenser take the lead while he and his sweetheart took their ease in the charette; when they passed through a town of any size the King would lead again.

Within the second-best charette Isabella resentful but gratified sat with Madam de St. Pierre. She was gratified because the King had commanded her presence; he had remembered, it seemed, her good offices at Leake. She was resentful because she rode in the second-best charette. She was the more resentful because she was once more with child. The King, as usual, had made no pretence of affection; he had done what he was pleased to call his duty—to prove his manhood, she supposed. The more the better, he had said when she told him the news; that, and nothing else. All very well for him! He had not to carry a child within a swollen, tormented belly! ‘By the blessed Virgin,’ she burst out to Théophania, ‘I’ll kill him before he gets me with child again!’ And looked as if, given the chance, she would carry out her threat. Théophania made her prayer for the unhappy Queen.

The King had been defeated; everywhere the citizens had refused to fight for him. Town after town, castle after castle had fallen to the rebels; they held all Glamorgan. Now they pressed steadily forward, driving the King ever backward.

Edward had been forced to accept their terms—and bitter they were! The Despensers must appear before the next Parliament; until that time he was sworn to keep them safe.

Behind a quiet face the Queen rejoiced. Though still she must endure them near her, fouling the air she breathed, though still she must endure their insolence, it could not be long. Parliament would deal with them!

Lancaster moved at last.

He had summoned the northern lords to Pontefract; and they had answered the call.

‘For this I must thank God!’ Isabella said. ‘Before that same God I wish the lord King no harm; but the Despensers—I could tear them to pieces with my own hands!’