The Queen from Provence (16 page)

Woodstock, this beautiful palace in the heart of Oxfordshire, had always fascinated Henry. It was as though his mighty ancestors had left something of themselves behind in this place, and when he was there a little of their grandeur seemed to fall on him.

The forests surrounding it provided good hunting ground; and there was the deer-fold put there by his great great grandfather Henry I which he had filled with strange beasts from foreign lands. There lived lion, leopard, lynx and what had been a wonder at the time and still was, a porcupine. The deer-fold was protected by a high stone wall to prevent the animals escaping. These animals had given great delight to that wily ancestor of his; and it was comforting to hear that he often indulged in his pleasures, mostly hunting – animals but chiefly women – and in spite of this he had been known as the Lion of Justice because of the good laws he had introduced into the country. Then there was his grandfather Henry II whose name was often mentioned in connection with Woodstock. Here he had kept his mistress Rosamund Clifford, about whom many ballads had been made. Henry liked to consider the troubles in the lives of those men who were always held up as an example for him to follow. His grandfather had kept Rosamund in a bower close to the palace which was approached through a maze of trees. That maze was still here; so was the little dwelling known as Rosamund’s Bower. Henry II was a notorious lecher. His wife, the forceful Eleanor of Aquitaine, had hated him for it. She had discovered the existence of Rosamund in her bower because she had seen attached to the King’s spur the end of a ball of floss silk. She took the ball and holding it loosely she was able to track him through the maze and thus she learned the way to his mistress’s abode. When the King left Woodstock she remained behind and Queen Eleanor having discovered the way through the maze visited Rosamund on whom she was determined to be revenged.

He walked with his own Eleanor through the maze and showed her Rosamund’s Bower. How charming it was, yet full of shadows and if the legend was true what terror the beautiful young woman must have suffered within those walls.

Henry shivered as he put his arm around his wife.

‘Here my grandfather kept his mistress and here his wife discovered her. According to some her revenge was terrible.’

‘She was a very jealous woman doubtless.’

‘Indeed she was. She did not love the King herself but resented any other woman doing so.’

‘It is understandable that a wife should resent her husband’s mistress.’

‘Yes, but to take such a revenge as some said she did! I often wonder how true these stories are. One was that the Queen came to her with a dagger and a bowl of poison. “You may take your choice,” she said.’

‘And which did she choose?’

‘It is not known. Indeed I do not think she was ever presented with such an alternative. There is an even more gruesome story of how the Queen stripped her naked, tied her hands and feet and had her beaten until the blood ran; then two toads were set at her breasts to suck her blood; and when she died the Queen had her thrown into a filthy ditch with the toads. This is completely false I am sure.’

‘Poor Rosamund, she should never have become the King’s mistress.’

‘It was said that she truly loved him. Should she not have some mercy for that?’

Eleanor was silent, asking herself what she would do if she discovered she had a rival for the King’s affections. Perhaps she would be as ruthless as her namesake.

Henry was still brooding on the love of his great ancestor for the Fair Rosamund.

‘One poet says that she was not buried in a ditch but put into a chest and taken to Godstow where the Queen said she should be buried but on the road the cortège was met by the King who demanded to see what was inside the chest and when he was shown fell into a deep swoon. When he recovered he swore vengeance on his wife and sent the body of his mistress to Godstow Nunnery where it might be buried with all honours. The facts are that Rosamund herself decided to go into the nunnery and repent for the life she had led, and there she stayed with the nuns until she died.’

‘And that,’ said the Queen, ‘is the story of another Eleanor and Henry. Remember it, husband. If you take a mistress, be wary of your wife.’

‘That could never happen to me. How could I ever look at another woman?’

‘I believe you now.’ She sighed. ‘But perhaps the day will one day come …’

‘Never!’ he declared. ‘But it amuses me. These ancestors of mine are held up as examples and yet are they such heroes?’

‘Many men become heroes when they are dead. I should prefer you to stay alive and be a normal man.’

‘All my life as King I have heard my grandfather and my great great grandfather spoken of with awe. As for that other ancestor, The Conqueror, they speak his name with a hushed reverence they do not give even to the two Henrys. They imply that I cannot be a great King because I am not like them. Yet my father they hate and abhor and constantly they watch me to see how like him I am growing.’

She laughed at him. ‘They are perverse indeed. But what care we, Henry? We are well content with each other. Is that not enough?’

‘If I can give you all you want … yes.’

‘I want a son. I fear people will begin to think that I am barren.’

‘Nay, you are so young. My mother was several years before she conceived. Then she had five of us.’

‘Perhaps here at Woodstock …’

‘Let us pray it may be so.’

They walked through the maze and back to the palace. Later they hunted in the forest and when they returned, pleasantly tired from the chase, Eleanor dressed herself in a gown of blue edged with miniver and wore her hair in two plaits which hung over either shoulder in a manner which delighted Henry.

In the hall they feasted. The King and Queen seated at the high table with a few of the most exalted of the party and the rest at the great table with the enormous salter in the centre to divide the company into those deserving respect and those who were considered of lesser degree.

The Queen had arranged for some of the minstrels she had kept with her to sing to the company. She liked to do this to show the people who so deplored the foreigners she had brought into the country that their performance was superior to anything the English could do.

It was while the minstrels were singing that the mad priest came into the hall. There was a sudden silence throughout as this man stood there facing them all.

His clerical garments, which were in disarray, proclaimed him as a priest; and his eyes were wild.

In the silence, a voice cried: ‘Why ’tis Ribbaud, the priest.’

Henry stood up. ‘Who knows this priest?’

The man who had spoken stood up. ‘My lord, I know him. He is the mad priest of Woodstock.’

Eleanor had reached for Henry’s hand and gripped it tightly for the priest had come to stand before the high table immediately in front of the King.

Henry looked at the tousled hair and the wild eyes of the man and he said gently: ‘What would you have of me?’

The priest said in a voice of thunder which echoed about the hall: ‘You have my crown. I am the King of England. Give it back to me. Usurper!’

Two of the guards had come forward; they gripped the priest by his arms and held him pinioned.

‘Why do you make such statements?’ asked Henry still gentle, for he was always sorry for the weak. It was only the strong who made him uneasy; he could feel compassion for those who were afflicted.

‘I speak truth,’ cried the priest. ‘I am the King of England. The true King … robbed of his crown.’

‘How do you make that out?’ asked Henry. ‘My father was King, my grandfather was King and I am my father’s eldest son.’

‘No,’ muttered the priest. ‘You have stolen my crown. I have come to claim it. You will never prosper until you give me back my crown.’

‘My lord,’ said one of the guards, ‘what is your wish. What shall we do with this man?’

‘Hang him,’ cried a voice from the hall.

‘Cut out his tongue,’ said another.

‘Nay,’ said Henry. ‘Hold. This man is not to blame. He is a man with an addled brain. Through no fault of his he has been sent into the world so afflicted. It is only a man who knows himself not to be a true king who would fear such as he. I would be merciful. Take him away and let him go free.’

There was a murmur of amazement as the priest was taken from the hall.

Eleanor pressed his hand. ‘You are a good man, Henry,’ she said. ‘Few kings would have let him go.’

‘My father would have had his eyes put out, his ears or his nose cut off. But then my father was a wicked man. There was no godliness in him. I want these people to understand that although I am my father’s son there was never one less like him than I am. My ancestors, what would they have done? The Lion of Justice would have freed him for he has committed no crime.’

‘He has shown disrespect to your person.’

‘What he has done is dictated by madness. It was not Ribbaud who spoke but the demons within him. He has gone. Let us forget him. Call for the minstrels.’

The minstrels sang and it was said in the hall that Henry was a good man and it was sad that he could not be as good a king as he was a man.

Night at Woodstock was enchanted with the moon high in the sky, shedding its light on the still trees of the forest. Through those trees the King and Queen walked together, arms entwined, down to Rosamund’s Bower haunted by the spirit of the Second Henry whose lust had been at the heart of Rosamund’s tragedy.

Here they had sported together; here they had played out their secret lives. There was an aura about the place. The spirits of the past brooded there. In these rooms the King’s bastards had been born – the children who, it was said, the King loved better than those he had had by his Queen.

‘It is almost as though she is here – sweet Rosamund,’ said Henry. ‘Do you sense that, my love?’

Eleanor did; poet that she was her fancy was always ready to soar. They walked through the rooms – small by palace standards – charming rooms, with much of the furniture still remaining, for this place which had become known as Rosamund’s Bower had been kept as it was in Rosamund’s day on the orders of Henry II and the care had continued through the reigns of Richard and John until now.

Eleanor said: ‘Let us stay here a while just ourselves – in Rosamund’s Bower. Here her children were born. I have a notion. There is magic in the air tonight. Something says to me “Stay”. Perhaps here our son would be conceived. Henry, there
is
some thing which tells me we must stay. It was so strange when that crazy priest stood there. I kept thinking of him. Henry, you were so good to him. You saved him. The saints will reward you … tonight here …’

‘What odd fancies you have. But there is a magic in the air tonight.’

‘Here that other Henry made love with his mistress. Why should not this Henry make love here with his wife?’

Henry laughed. ‘Delightful notion,’ he said.

She sat upon Rosamund’s bed and held out her hands to him.

He took them, kissed them fervently.

He said: ‘There is nothing in the world I would not give you.’ She was happy; she was content; she was glad he had been lenient to the mad priest.

It was past midnight when they wandered back into the palace.

In their bedchamber was noise and confusion. A babble of voices, a man bound by robes trussed in a corner.

In the light of the torches the King looked round the room and saw a knife embedded in the straw of the bed he would have shared with Eleanor.

A guard said: ‘We caught him as he was making away, my lord. And when we came here we saw what he had done. God’s mercy was with you tonight, my lord, for had you been in your bed the madman’s knife would have been buried in your heart.’

The priest began to shout, ‘I am the true King. You stole my crown.’

Henry looked at the pale face of Eleanor, the terror in her eyes and he thought of her lying in that bed, covered in blood, dead … beside him. Two of them victims of the madman’s knife.

‘This is a dangerous madman,’ he said.

There was a sigh of relief. It was clear that the guards had feared he might have wished to save Ribbaud’s life yet again.