Harlot Queen (23 page)

Théophania turned troubled eyes upon the Queen… The second time within a little she had spoken in hatred and spite. She had changed so much; a process so long, so slow one had scarce noticed it. Gentle she had never been nor patient; yet she had been loving. But she was no longer a child—twenty-seven; and one must expect change; and it was a change for the worse.

Yet who could blame her? Théophania’s thoughts went back over the long story. Unloved, Isabella had loved her husband, and, patient, had tried to win him. She had endured—if not always in silence—more than most women; more, certainly, than could be expected from so passionate a nature. And chief cause of her humiliation—the Despensers! It was human, surely, to desire their punishment; yes, but punishment within reason. As long as the good Queen lived, Isabella, whatever she felt, had shown no spite. But beneath constant humiliation, constant unkindness, one must harden or break. Isabella was not one to break. She should be blossoming now, body and soul—a flowering tree. Her body flowered in beauty; but her spirit? Théophania made her prayer. God grant it be not cankered at the root.

Things between the King and Queen were going from bad to worse. Once he had been known for the mildness of his humours; true they had been marred, at times, by fits of rage, fits of cruelty, but so it had been with his father and grandfather—his Plantagenet inheritance. Now he had grown so irritable he could scarce look upon the Queen without anger; and the Despensers rubbed his anger raw. Sufficiently rude before, their insolence now to the Queen was almost unbelievable. And the King allowed it all. Soon his beloved friends must face Parliament; and Parliament meant the Piers business all over again! By God, it should not end so!

Meanwhile they insulted the Queen in every way; they turned their backs upon her in full court, they interrupted her without any show of courtesy when she spoke with the King. Themselves they spoke to her not at all save to admonish or deride. She never knew when she might be free of them. They would burst into her private apartments when the King was there and stay until he left with them. She had no doubt that, if they saw fit, they would accompany the King to her bed when he chose to visit her. Indeed, she doubted, at times, whether the child she carried was not of their counselling—to keep her in her place. Once, goaded, she cried out to the King, ‘Since you take no pleasure from me in bed or out, why come to me at all?’

‘Duty not pleasure brings me!’ he told her. ‘Two brothers died before me—and between us a gaggle of women. Had my father not continued in his duties—what then?’

He had saved us all much trouble!
She bit back the words, loathing him as he stood there handsome and complacent; she prayed with passion she might never again feel his flesh upon her own.

The sight of her big with child was an added irritant. She offended his taste; he must be rid of the sight of her. ‘To the Tower you shall go, treacherous as you are! For, hark you, to hate those that love me is treachery, indeed. And, in the Tower you shall stay till it please me you shall leave. And that, Madam, continue as you are, may well be never! And when you are there, think of what lies below the palace—the strongest prison in the world. And that, if you do not mend your ways, you shall, by God’s Face, see for yourself!’

‘Farewell, sir, till happier times!’ She swept him her curtsey and so was gone.

She was glad to go; glad to be free of him and his outbursts, of the persecution of the Despensers and the insolence of the Badlesmeres. The Tower palace, if not so well-found as Westminster, had its own attractions. The rooms were smaller but thick walls kept them cool these summer days. She was comfortable enough with Théophania and some half-dozen women. For Segrave the Governor she did not much care—a man that for all his subservience to Madam the Queen, she did not trust. With him she watched her every word. With young Alspaye his lieutenant she was careful too, though she liked the charming young man so taken with his Queen. She would invite him, of an evening, to bring his board and his ivory pieces and they would play at chess. He was no match for her; but quite often she let him win and was clever enough not to let him know it. Once she stretched out a hand to take a piece, and, by no accident on her part, their fingers met. She felt his excitement at the light touch; she sent him a smile so bewitching that he all-but swooned. At that she gave him her whole hand and he kissed it with a most respectful fervour. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘Madam… I am now and till death your most faithful servant.’

She thanked him with yet another of her smiles and registered his vow.

Here, in the Tower, she found the gardens gayer, the river busier with trade, with the coming and going of people—a different sort of people. At Westminster there was a coming and going of bishops and barons, of ambassadors and foreign visitors, of poets and craftsmen and clerks. Here she could watch the merchant ships sailing out or coming into port. She could see the foreign sailors in their strange bright clothes, loading and unloading; she would wave to them and they would smile back, white teeth splitting dark faces. She would walk in the river garden; and the Londoners passing in their boats, seeing her so fair, so rich with child—their taste being less fine than the King’s—would call out a loving greeting. She had given the country three princes and was about to give it fourth; she scanted nothing of her duty. So much could not be said of their King; she had a poor time of it with him! Their hearts went out to her; she was the most popular of Queens.

Now, with time on her hands, she asked leave to have her children for a while—the children she hardly knew. Young mother with children—it would endear her still further to the Londoners.

A reasonable request, the Despensers advised the King. She might—it was their secret hope—let fall some thoughtless word for a child to repeat; enough to keep her in the Tower for ever—though in less pleasing accommodation.

Edward she hardly recognised; a tall, strong boy, not handsome like his father—and she liked him the better for it—but pleasant to look at. A dark little boy with a good forehead and a firm chin; the image of his grandfather, great Edward, people said. An even-tempered child for the most part, with occasional flashes of the Plantagenet rage. He was, she was glad to see, conscious of his position; not yet nine he bore himself like a little King. He was quick in every way—quick in movement, quick in mind; quick to take a point, quick to learn, quick to decide and quick to act. His generosity, his willingness to forgive, she considered childish; those things she must check. She must teach him to discriminate—a thing his father had never learnt; she would not have him at the mercy of his enemies, still less of his friends. Like any child he was to be won with honeyed words; against such words she must warn him. More; she must teach him himself to speak such words, keeping his thoughts secret.

Such a child is not hard to teach. But, at times, these lessons in diplomacy were too much for his sturdy honesty; then there would be tears and punishments. The tears would be hers; the punishments his. She was clever. She gave no punishment; but worked upon the boy so that himself asked for punishment, chose his punishment—a punishment harder than she would have given—and endured it almost with contempt. He adored his mother; she was lovely and she was kind; and every word that dropped from her lips a pearl of truth and wisdom.

And loving and obedient she intended, him to remain. Though in affairs of state he could, at his tender age, count for little, in a few years he must count for much. So she wooed the boy, rewarding him lavishly and punishing him—so it seemed—only at his own request. But she truly loved him, he was very lovable; though there were times when she found his honesty and the serious way he had with him tiresome.

John was going on for five, a pretty child that favoured his father in looks; it took away something of her appetite for him. A little boy passionate in his rages; then he was not to be controlled save by his brother; to all others, blind and deaf. Edward he followed blindly, trying to do whatever the nine-year-old could easily manage. And Edward was kind to the little boy; between them the bond of brotherhood was strong. No need for their mother to put herself out over John; whoever won Edward won John.

For her daughter she surprised within herself a passion. Eleanor was just three—a fat, plain little girl. But she was the plaything with which the child Isabella had never cared to play—a wooden baby could neither laugh nor cry. But the little Eleanor laughed or wept as her mother chose. One smile and the tears dried on the baby cheeks; one frown and the tears welled. Isabella, delighting in this power, found she preferred the little one to smile rather than cry. The plain little face would beam up at her and she would feel a rush of love and pity for this little one that would never be a beauty. She’ll never put her mother’s nose out of joint, the nurses said; and since this was clearly so she loved the child more.

In the first week of July, in the year of grace thirteen hundred and twenty-one, the Queen’s fourth child was born. Labour was long and hard; the child, they said one to another, would be the death of her. Gritting her teeth upon the pain she vowed that never would she allow her husband to touch her again.

Another daughter, this little princess of the Tower, small and fair and fine. She’ll be a rare beauty, fit to be a Queen like her mother, the midwife said.
Happier than her mother, pray God!
Isabella made her prayer. And yet, because she had not wanted this child, because the birth had been hard and because this morsel of flesh might one day challenge her mother’s beauty, Isabella could not love her.

Life had been cruel to the Queen. That she could not love this child was the measure of that cruelty; her nature was hardening to bear her burden.

Of this birth the King took little notice. He was much concerned with his Despensers; Parliament was to meet next month and Lancaster, so long quiet, looked to be making trouble. At the news of the child’s birth he rewarded the messenger; but to the Queen he sent no gift nor any wish for her speedy recovery. Nothing but the command to christen the child Joanna, after his dead sister—and to remain where she was.

Lancaster was clearly out to make trouble. Finished his solitary sulking. Now for the fight; the fight for power. Now or never. He had invited the princes of state and church to meet him at Sherburn-in-Elmut. And it was not the northern lords, only; it was the nobles of the south, together with knights, bannerets and simple gentlemen. To Sherburn, also, came my lord archbishop of York, my lords the bishops of Durham and Carlisle, and abbots and priors more than a man could count. One name the Queen noted with interest; from the Welsh marches came Mortimer of Wigmore. Of their business Lancaster made no secret. They were to discuss the King and his failures; his bad advisers and his worse friends. A rehearsal for next month’s Parliament.

The rehearsal was over. Sixty of England’s magnates—earls, barons, and prelates—had pledged themselves to destroy the Despensers. They had proclaimed Lancaster their leader; they had sworn to stand with him against the King.

The King leapt from his chair when he heard; teeth clenched upon shaking jaw, fists clenched upon shaking hands. The older Despenser thought, at any moment he will scream or weep.

‘Lancaster’s private Parliament!’ the younger Despenser said mocking. ‘Is Lancaster King to call his Parliament!’

Father sent son a warning look. This was no mere gathering; it had the look of a rising, a national rising. But the younger Hugh would not be waned. ‘Lancaster overreaches himself!’ he said. ‘It is Lancaster and his friends, only! All the barons are not with him—the Percies are not there; nor Arundel, nor Pembroke, neither. Nor does he carry all the bishops with him; and certainly not Canterbury. He had best take care lest that ugly head of his part company with his uglier body!’ the young man smoothed back the fair locks of his own shapely head.

The King stopped pacing; he was calmer now. ‘You are right, Hugh, my dear! It is Lancaster and his faction—he and he only! But his voice is loud enough to drown all Parliament. Me they cannot hurt; but you, dearer to me than all the world, they are pledged to destroy!’

‘I put my trust in the King.’ The younger Despenser bent and kissed the King’s lips; but the darkness did not lighten in his father’s face.

July. The month Parliament was to meet. And the King had not yet set a date. Nor intended to. For at this Parliament he had sworn to produce the Despensers for judgment.

The date had been fixed. But not by the King. It was Lancaster that had set it, Lancaster and his friends assembled at Westminster.

‘By God, Lancaster shall lose his head for this!’ the King burst out. ‘It is for the King to summon Parliament, the King and no other man. This is no Parliament. I will not go!’

I will not go!
Parliament had met. The King was absent; so also were the Despensers. Pembroke, so long loyal, turned from the King; and with him many more besides. It looked more than ever like a national rising. In mid-August, the Despensers standing by, Pembroke, that patient man, had audience of the King.

‘Lord King, you must meet your princes. Take heed of the danger that threatens you. Sir, for the good of the land you must free it of wicked men; and this you swore at your crowning.’

The King sat still as stone.

‘Sir, if you will not listen to your princes,’ and now Pembroke’s words came battering like stones, ‘then, sir, I think you will lose your crown. Sir, I entreat you, meet your Parliament.’

‘Parliament!’ The King’s laugh, splitting that face of stone, was shocking in the silence. ‘What Parliament? There
is
no Parliament unless the King call it. Pembroke, you and your friends speak treason. Go, warn them!’

Pembroke stood looking at the King. Then, in the silence, Pembroke bowed very low and walking backwards, as is seemly before the King, left those three alone.

‘I will not go, I will not go, I will not go!’ When he so repeated himself it was time for those that knew him to doubt his word. ‘They’ll not rest until they’ve robbed me, as they robbed me before, of the thing I love best in the world. Oh Hugh, Hugh—’ and he took the young man’s hand, ‘what shall I do and whither shall I turn? Already they have judged you. I shall lose you both—my father and my brother. Oh Hugh, Hugh, what shall I do?’