The Prince of Darkness (39 page)

John danced with rage when he read the Pope’s reply.

‘Does he think we have no men of intellectual stature here? We have our scholars here. Does he think England is populated with the ignorant?’

He sat down and wrote in the heat of his anger once more to the Pope. He would not have Stephen Langton in Canterbury. He had decided on John de Grey and John de Grey it should be. If the Pope did not agree with him, if he withheld his sanction, let him. Why should he be governed by Rome? He was quite prepared to break away if the Pope wished it. Let the Pope do his worst. He was ready for him, but first let him consider how much poorer he would be from all the benefits which he would miss from England, for if John broke with Rome he would not allow his churchmen to journey back and forth taking rich gifts, which he knew they did now. It was not England which would suffer; it was Rome.

This vituperation was received coldly by Rome.

The Pope merely replied that John should give thought to what could happen to him if he continued to offend the Holy Church. This was a hint that there could be excommunication for him and an interdict placed on England.

John snapped his fingers and put the matter from his mind. Another event had occurred – a much more pleasant one. In the early part of the year Isabella had discovered that she was pregnant.

Isabella was delighted. She was nearly twenty years old and had been John’s wife for seven. She had begun to be rather worried about the fact that she had not conceived during that time. It was true that John had not wished her to in the first years of her marriage – and it may well have been that her extreme youth
had prevented her from doing so. In those early years neither of them had wanted children and even later the passion between them and the sexual satisfaction which was so necessary to them both was of far greater importance than anything else.

And now she was sure. She was with child.

She had to watch her beautiful body – of which she was very proud – become misshapen. Never mind, it would return to its former beauty when the child was delivered. It would be interesting to have a child, and she hoped for a son.

John was delighted when he knew.

‘People have been murmuring,’ he said. ‘They’ve been saying we couldn’t get children and that it was God’s punishment because we were too fond of the preliminary act.’ He laughed aloud. ‘They were sniggering about us, my love, when we lay abed till dinner time. Remember those days?’

‘I remember them well.’

‘And no child to show for them! That was strange, they said. They can say that no longer.’

‘Do you think it will be a boy?’

‘Of a certainty,’ said John. ‘The first of many.’

‘Not too many,’ Isabella reminded him. ‘Your father had too many and look what happened to some of them …’ She looked at him slyly. ‘And their offspring.’

He flushed with sudden anger. He did not like to remember that scene in Rouen Castle when he had looked down at the still figure of his rival nephew; nor did he like to think of himself and the mute carrying the body down to the river. Could he trust the mute? What could the man say when he had been so conveniently deprived of his tongue, which was the very reason John had used his services on that occasion.

No matter how careful one was, such news seeped out
sometimes. Where is Arthur? was a question which was going to be asked for some time to come and there was one who would be determined to find the true answer: Philip of France.

Isabella should not have reminded him. She had always been over-saucy, perhaps because he had been so enamoured of her, but he was less so now. Other women could please him too, although oddly enough he still preferred her. But he would brook no insolence from her.

‘People should learn their lessons,’ he growled.

She folded her hands together and raised her eyes piously to the ceiling. ‘’Twould be good for us all to do that,’ she observed meekly enough but with sly insinuations.

No matter for now, he thought. She was comely; and he could still say that he was well pleased with his marriage. If she gave him a son, he would be delighted.

Success on the Continent – for not even his worst enemies could say he had not made progress – and an heir at last!

She was only twenty. There were years of childbearing ahead of her.

Yes, he was as delighted as ever with Isabella.

Isabella was six months pregnant when news came that Innocent had consecrated Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury.

John laughed sneeringly when he heard and told Isabella that Innocent could have saved himself the trouble, for the election was not going to be recognised in England. He’d not have Langton set foot on his shores, and by God’s feet and toes as well, he’d put John de Grey in the Primate’s chair.

It was a different matter when the Pope sent instructions to
the leading churchmen of England and Wales reminding them of their duty first to the Church; and he named three of them, William, Bishop of London, Eustace, Bishop of Ely, and Mauger, Bishop of Worcester – three of the most important – to approach the King and remind him also of his duty.

It was three very apprehensive bishops who faced John.

He shouted at them: ‘Come, my good Bishops, you have come to talk to me. You come straight from your master and I believe you are very bold when you are not in my presence. What ails you now that you tremble?’

‘My lord,’ said William of London, ‘we come on the orders of the Pope.’

‘The Pope,’ screamed John. ‘He is no friend to me, and nor are those who value his friendship more than mine.’

‘We would beg of you, my lord,’ said Eustace of Ely, ‘to listen to His Holiness’s commands.’

‘It is a king who commands in this country, Bishop,’ retorted John.

‘In all matters temporal,’ Mauger of Worcester reminded him.

‘In
all
matters,’ snarled John.

‘My lord,’ said the Bishop of Ely, ‘if you would but receive Stephen Langton and give the monks permission to return …’

‘You are mad,’ cried the King. ‘Do you think that I will allow myself to be so treated? You come to threaten me. Is that so?’

‘Nay, nay,’ cried the bishops in unison. ‘We but come to tell you the wishes of the Pope.’

‘That he will lay an interdict on my kingdom. Is that what you would say?’

‘I fear, my lord,’ said the Bishop of London, ‘that if you will
not accept Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury and allow the monks to return there, the Pope will put the country under interdict.’

‘As I said, as I said. And let me tell you this.’ John narrowed his eyes and his looks were venomous. ‘If any priest under my rule should dare to obey the Pope in this matter, I shall take his property from him and send him a beggar to his master the Pope since it will be clear to me that he is no servant of mine and it is meet that he should go to his master.’

‘His Holiness will not allow the matter to rest,’ began Eustace.

‘No, he will send his envoys with dire threats, I know that. And I shall let him know who is ruler here. Not him, he must understand, but the King. Tell him this … you who serve him so well … that if I catch any of his envoys on my land I shall send them back to their master … aye, and not in quite the same condition as that in which they came. They’ll grope their way back for they’ll have no eyes to see with and I’ll slit a nose or two for good measure.’

‘My lord, I beg of you, remember that these messengers would come from His Holiness.’

‘Remember it. Remember it. Do you think I should forget? It is for that reason that I shall make them very sorry they ever came this way. As for you, my lord Bishops, I have endured your company too long. It maddens me. It sickens me. Get out … while you are still in possession of your organs, for by God’s ears, if you are not gone from my sight in the next few minutes I shall call my guards and you will be shown what happens to men in this realm who dare defy me.’

They could see that he meant it, for the temper was beginning to flow over.

They bowed and hurried out.

John burst into loud laughter as he watched them.

‘Farewell, my brave Bishops,’ he shouted.

Isabella was lying in at the castle at Winchester which had been built by the Conqueror.

It was October and the leaves of the trees were turning russet, red and bronze. She lay in her bed and waited for her child to be born, fearful yet expectant, asking, ‘Will it be a boy or a girl?’

Isabella would prefer a boy, of course, but it would be amusing to have a daughter. How she would enjoy dressing a girl! Would she be beautiful like herself or resemble John who was scarcely that?

John was getting old now, having lived for forty years. That mattered little. She was but twenty. It was perhaps well that she was having a child, for she was no longer as eager for John’s company as she had once been. Sensual in the extreme she still was – but not for John. During her pregnancy she had been thinking a great deal of the child and like most women she had changed a little. But once the child was born those desires which had been so important to her would return – but they would not be for John.

But the child was the main concern now. Here she was in this ancient town of Winchester where it was fitting that heirs to the throne should be born – Winchester, one of the oldest towns of the country. The Early Britons had called it Caer Gwent or the White City; then the Romans had come and named it Venta Belgarum and it was the Saxons who afterwards called it Witanceaster which had become Winchester.

The original castle was said to have been founded by King Arthur himself and it was in this city that when the people were weary of the Danish occupation the order had gone out that all good Saxon women should take a Danish lover and on a certain night each should, as he lay in bed beside her, cut either her lover’s throat or his hamstrings. That had been the order of Ethelred the Unready. She could imagine John’s giving such an order.

When her pains started she could think of nothing but the need to come through her ordeal. There were people in plenty about her bed to help her along and the labour was neither very long nor too distressing.

‘My lady will give birth easily,’ she heard one of them say.

And so it was, for not long after she had been brought to bed her child was born.

It was a moment of the greatest satisfaction when she heard the words: ‘A boy. A fine and healthy boy.’