The Passionate Enemies (25 page)

Hugh Bigod, calculating that this would win him an earldom from the new King, was ready to swear on the Holy Evangelists that Henry I had disinherited Matilda on his deathbed and named Stephen as his successor.

‘In this case,' replied the Archbishop, ‘all those who took the vow of fealty to Matilda are now released from it. I believe such vows to be null and void for the English would never accept a woman as their sovereign.'

So thanks to the timely arrival of Hugh Bigod the coronation could go forward.

Stephen was crowned at Westminster on the 26th December – St Stephen's Day, which seemed symbolic. He promised to establish all the liberties and good laws which had existed during the reigns of King Henry and Edward the Confessor, and to preserve the happiness of all classes of men and women.

The King was of pleasant and gentle mien; he had made himself beloved in his youth; he was married to a Queen of Saxon blood who had already born him a son and daughter – the son, alas, had died, but the daughter lived and the Queen was now pregnant with, it was hoped, a boy who would follow his father.

There seemed a good promise that life would continue under King Stephen as it had under King Henry, and that peace and prosperity had come to stay in England.

ADELICIA WAS SURPRISED
to find how deeply she mourned her husband. During his lifetime she had never felt very close to him. The disparity in their ages was great and although Henry had been kind he had never taken her into his confidence. He had married her, she was well aware, for the sole purpose of getting a legitimate son and heir to the throne. That she had not been able to provide him with one had been a constant grief to her. He had not reproached her but she knew that he often thought of his numerous illegitimate children and had believed that she was a barren woman and that it had been great ill fortune which had led him to settle on her.

She had dreaded those nights when he had been beset by nightmares and she had not known how to comfort him. She had been afraid of his bouts of temper. It had been a relief when he was called away to Normandy; and now she would never see him again.

She was astonished when Stephen came back and was proclaimed King in London. How could that be? Had he not sworn fealty to the King's daughter Matilda and was it not the King's wish that Matilda should follow him?

Before he had left for Normandy, the King had been so delighted because he had a grandson.

He had said to her: ‘Adelicia, I rejoice in the birth of this boy. This will make the people accept Matilda for while they will not like a woman as their sovereign, they will say: “Ere long we shall have a great King, another Henry who will be as his grandfather and his great-grandfather before him.” '

And now Stephen was setting himself up as King.

It was bewildering.

The King's
pincerna
was asking to see her. She immediately granted an interview. She had always liked William de Albini whose duties to her husband had often brought her into contact with him. As the King's cupbearer he was naturally in constant attendance and as this was a post which his father had held before him he came of a trusted family.

William was a few years older than herself but seemed
young since she compared him with her late husband; and on this occasion there was a faintly anxious expression on his face.

‘You would speak with me?' asked the Queen.

‘My lady, you know that there is to be a new king when we had been expecting a queen.'

‘Yes, I have heard the news. What think you?'

William looked over his shoulder and she said: ‘You may speak your mind before me.'

‘I think, my lady, that the people will take Stephen rather than the Empress. But the nobles have sworn fealty to Matilda and there could be trouble.'

‘I hope this will not come to pass.'

‘It would mean a civil war.'

‘I trust not. It is the last thing that the King wanted. He often compared the greater prosperity enjoyed in England to that of Normandy and said that while England lived at peace within, Normandy was constantly trying to tear itself apart.'

‘I was thinking of your safety, my lady.'

‘I? What should I have to do with it?'

‘In such a war all those in high places could be drawn in. May I make a suggestion?'

‘Please do.'

‘That you retire from Court. It would be understandable. You are in mourning for the King. You could stay for a while in one of the abbeys you have founded, or perhaps in your castle of Arundel.'

She was silent. He was looking at her intently and she flushed under his gaze.

‘I should like to leave Court,' she said. ‘It may be that the new King would wish me to. He has never been aught but gracious to me. But faces change when they are beneath a crown. My husband has never said to me that he would disinherit Matilda. Nor could I believe that he had – when at last she bore a son. His greatest joy in the last weeks he was here was in contemplating the good fortune which had given Matilda a son. He referred to him as Henry II. Yet if Stephen is King he will wish any son he may have to follow him, will he not?'

‘I see trouble,' said William. ‘It is for that reason that it
would please me to see you leave Court.'

‘Thank you for your concern. I will take your advice. I shall stay for a while at Arundel. It is a pleasant spot and there I shall feel at peace.'

‘May I have the privilege of visiting you there?'

‘That would be for me a pleasure,' she told him; and bowing low William de Albini took his leave of the dowager Queen.

The King's body was brought to England. It had previously received a form of embalming. This was done by slicing it and covering it with layers of salt and then wrapping it in the hide of a bull. Thus a certain preservation was assured, which was merciful as the cortège waited at Caen four weeks for a favourable wind.

It seemed fitting that the body should be laid to rest in the Abbey of Reading because the King himself had endowed it some fourteen years earlier.

Stephen arrived at Reading to be present at the burial and there he wept and made a great show of grief for the uncle who had done so much for him. He was not completely insincere. He had been fond of his uncle; and he had been grateful to him. His tears were genuine while at the same time he exalted in the glory which only the death of Henry could bring to him.

After the King had been laid to rest Adelicia went to Arundel where William de Albini came frequently to visit her.

When Matilda heard what was happening she gave way to great rage against Stephen.

How dared he – he of all people! He should have been the first to rally to her support and what had he done – stolen the crown!

How she hated him!

She had discovered that she was pregnant – and after her terrible ordeal with young Geoffrey, that was the last thing she wanted. Her condition was a handicap and she had to rely too much on her young husband.

Although she was reconciled to him she had no great love for him. He gave himself airs and she never failed to remind
him that if he had anything of which to be proud he owed that to his marriage with her.

‘Your father was eager for alliance with my house,' he taunted. ‘Why should he be if we were so unimportant?'

‘As he told you it was merely because of the position of your lands.'

It was the constant theme between them. There was no tenderness, no affection. The only bond was a common ambition, for his importance depended on her position and she could only rely on his help to gain and keep it.

People had begun to call him Geoffrey Plantagenet because he had adopted a habit of wearing a sprig of broom in his cap. This was the
planta genista
which they called Plantagenet.

When the name became attached to him he continued with this custom and was never seen without the sprig; and he caused the shrub to be planted on his lands.

Matilda, suffering from the discomforts of early pregnancy, gave vent to her fury against Stephen. She would go to England; she would have him in chains, she declared; he should have his eyes put out. She loved to remember those eyes close to her own, their expression one of ardent desire. She would teach Stephen of Blois what happened to those who flouted the Queen of England.

‘First,' Geoffrey reminded her, ‘we must make sure of Normandy.'

‘Why did this have to happen when I am with child?' she demanded.

‘There we see why women are not meant to be rulers,' said the tactless Geoffrey.

She quarrelled violently with him on the spot – and her disappointment fed her anger. It was Stephen she hated, not this foolish young boy. What cared she for Geoffrey? But Stephen had betrayed her.

‘No one will follow him,' she cried. ‘They have sworn fealty to
me.
How wise my father was to make them swear on oath.'

When the news came that Stephen had been crowned she could have wept with rage. How dared they! Hugh Bigod had dared to say that her father had disinherited her. When had Henry done this?

‘Bigod said on his deathbed,' retorted Geoffrey. ‘You
shouldn't have quarrelled with your father. You quarrel with everyone.'

‘You quarrelled with him, too. Who was it who demanded castles all over Normandy?'

‘You said they were our right.'

And so on. Quarrelling, thought Matilda, when they should be making plans to attack.

She was the Queen though; she was the Duchess of Normandy and if she could not yet go to England – for Geoffrey was right when he said that they must first secure Normandy – at least she could claim the Duchy.

The border towns surrendered to her; but the rest of Normandy made it clear that they would follow the English in taking Stephen for their ruler.

Meanwhile the child was growing within her. It would be born in July, and there was little she could do until the child was delivered. There must not be a repetition of her last confinement, the doctors warned her. Special care must be taken to avoid that.

Geoffrey must go out and fight. He was ready. At least he was ambitious and eager for her to be the acknowledged ruler because he believed that he would then rule through her. He was mistaken of course, but she let him make his own dreams, for the more grandiose they were, the better he would fight for her.

It was a frustrating time. What ill luck that she had not been in England at the time of her father's death! What bad fortune that she had quarrelled with him just before he had eaten those lampreys. Geoffrey would say it was her own fault but she regarded it as the greatest bad luck.

Robert of Gloucester had returned to England. He was deeply disturbed by what was happening. He had had a real affection for the late King who had been a good father to him and he was anxious to carry out his wishes.

He was unsure what steps he should take. He did not believe that the King had disinherited his daughter. Trying, she was, and the King had never loved her, but she was his legitimate daughter and as such, surely true heir to the throne.

Some of his friends had suggested that he take the crown. He had quickly refused. That, he knew, would plunge England into civil war – a contingency above all others that the King would have deplored.

‘But,' they said to him, ‘you were his beloved son. If he could have made you legitimate you are the one he would have wished most to see on the throne.'

It was true. But he was
not
the King's legitimate son and the King had a legitimate daughter and a nephew.

Some might say that Count Theobald of Blois, Stephen's elder brother, came before Stephen. But Stephen was the King's protégé; he was the one who had been brought up in England and there had been a time, Robert knew, when the King had considered making Stephen his heir.

And now Stephen had stepped in and taken the crown.

Roger of Salisbury, Robert heard, had after consideration given his services to Stephen. The Archbishop of Canterbury had crowned him; Hugh Bigod had sworn that he had heard the King disinherit Matilda; and when Stephen's representative had come to Falaise to demand the treasure which the late King had put into Robert's keeping, Robert thought it advisable to give it up.

But he did not really believe Hugh Bigod's statement and he was certain in his heart that the King wished Matilda to take the crown. This must be so because the King's grandson must follow him. Henry would never have made Stephen King because that would have meant that Stephen would nominate any son
he
might have to follow him.

No, it was that small child in Matilda's nursery whom the King had called Henry II, who proved the falseness of Bigod's statement and the wrong Stephen had done in taking the throne.

Robert must work therefore to win the crown for his half-sister Matilda.

But how? England had gone over to Stephen. Normandy was going. And Matilda's attitude wherever she went did not endear her to the people. Her husband, Geoffrey Plantagenet, was young and inexperienced and, like his wife, too arrogant.

But much could change.

Robert must therefore bide his time and for a while appear to go along with popular opinion.

Stephen sent word to him that he expected him to return to England.

It was not exactly a command; it was a feeler. What was Robert thinking? Whose side was he on? That was what Stephen wished to know. Important men were supporting him; what was Robert of Gloucester going to do?

Robert wrote back that he wished to return to England. He had, however, taken an oath to the King's daughter Matilda. He had heard that the King had disinherited that daughter. If this were the case he, Robert, would accept Stephen as King of England and serve him well. In return he would wish his estates in England to be left in his hands.

Stephen gave an undertaking that Robert should remain in possession of all lands bestowed on him by the late King.