The Star of Lancaster (35 page)

With that he walked out, leaped onto his horse and taking only six of his attendants with him galloped away across the frontier to Flanders.

When it was known that he had escaped there was great indignation and a hundred of Orléans’s men gave chase but they were too late and could not catch up with him.

The affair had shaken the Court. People talked of nothing else. There was nothing that could be done to bring Burgundy to justice; and people were beginning to say that Orléans had deserved his death. He had dishonoured his brother; he had made no secret of his adulterous relationship with the Queen, he had imposed taxes on the people, his rule had nearly brought the country to ruin, whereas everyone knew that Burgundy was a strong man. Fierce he might be, ruthless, violent; but his father’s rule had been good and he showed signs of his father’s strength.

Violante Visconti, widow of Orléans, was determined that his murderer should not go unpunished. In spite of his infidelities she had loved the Duc passionately, and she was eager to avenge him. She arrived in Paris with her children. The weather was bitterly cold – the worst Paris had experienced for several years. Nevertheless she came because the King was in the midst of one of his lucid periods and she believed that she would get justice from him.

She came to the Hôtel St Pol, where the King was in residence and she forced her way into the room where he was sitting with his council. There she threw herself onto her knees and demanded that her husband’s murderers be brought to justice.

The King promised her that everything should be done. ‘We regard the deed done to our brother as done to ourself,’ he told Violahte.

Isabella, unhappy in her own unsatisfactory marriage, did her best to comfort Violante. She knew what it meant to have a husband done to death.

‘We have much in common,’ she said sadly. ‘I feel for you.’

There were rumours in the town. Burgundy had no intention of remaining outside France. True he had murdered the Duc d’Orléans but he had done it for France. Everyone knew that he was ruining the country. Burgundy was building himself up as the saviour of France. The King beset on all sides immediately lapsed into madness.

Paris waited for what would happen next. It soon came. A monk arrived with a message from the Duke of Burgundy to the King. Poor Charles, his mind being in a clouded state, was unable to receive the monk; but his son the little Dauphin, who was now aged twelve, sat at the head of the council and listened to what the monk had to say.

The burden of his discourse was that it was lawful, honourable and meritorious to slay or cause to be slain a traitor to his country – especially when that traitor holds greater power than the King. Was this not what had happened in the case of the Duc d’Orléans, whose object had been to set aside the King and his sons and take the crown himself? Far from blaming the Duke of Burgundy, the King and the country should applaud what he had caused to be done.

The poor little Dauphin was bewildered. So was the council. There was some truth in this. Orléans, the extravagant libertine, had no gift for government. The country had prospered temporarily under the old Duke of Burgundy. Was his son right in what he had done?

While the monk continued to lay before the Dauphin and the council the case for Burgundy, the King recovered and was able to preside and listen to the arguments put forth. It was true, he thought, that Orléans had almost brought the country to ruin; it was true also that the old Duke of Burgundy had
saved it. All he wanted was peace and there never would be if he did not agree that what Burgundy had done was good for France. Orléans had been a traitor to him. The King knew of his liaison with the Queen.

A letter was brought to him from the monk who implored him to sign it.

‘My lord,’ he pleaded, ‘a stroke of the pen from you and this matter will be settled.’

The King read the letter:

‘It is our will and pleasure that our cousin of Burgundy abide in peace with us and our successors in respect of the aforesaid deed and all that hath followed it, and that by us and our successors our people and officers no hindrance on account of that may be offered to the Duke and his.’

‘Just your name, sire,’ begged the monk, ‘and this highly dangerous matter is at an end.’

Charles was tired of strife. He did not know from one day to the next when an attack was coming on.

He signed.

‘Tell the Duke of Burgundy that I will receive him,’ he said.

The Duke did not need a second invitation. He came at once to the King.

Charles received him cordially but somewhat mournfully.

‘I can cancel the penalty,’ he told him, ‘but not the resentment. It will be for you, Monsieur le Duc, to defend yourself from attacks which it seems likely will come.’

‘Sire,’ replied the Duke, ‘if I am in favour with you I fear no man living.’

The Queen was dismayed. The King would not listen to
her. She had lost her lover. She was distraught and she wondered what would happen to her.

Isabella, deeply concerned by all that was going on around her, caught up in a marriage which had not been of her seeking, found time to visit her little sisters who were lodged in the Hôtel St Pol and were often neglected.

She arrived one day to find they had gone. The servants, distressed and weeping, told her that the Queen had come and taken them away.

‘Where has she taken them to?’ cried Isabella.

No one could say. This was particularly strange because the Queen had never shown much interest in the children.

Later it was discovered that she was hiding in Melun and had all the royal children with her. The King had lapsed into one of his mad periods and the Duke of Burgundy seized the reins of government and showed by his strength of purpose that he was capable of the task.

After a few months a revolt in Flanders demanded Burgundy’s presence, so he left France and rode off to settle the trouble in Flanders.

No sooner had he gone than the Queen came back to Paris with the Dauphin, and the latter was very warmly received by the Parisians. It was clear that the people were with him. The widowed Duchess of Orléans then began to plead with the Dauphin to bring her husband’s murderer to justice and the Dauphin was advised to tell her that he would consider the matter, but before he had time to do this news came that Burgundy had subdued the rebels in Flanders and was on his way back to Paris. The Queen with the Dauphin and all the members of the royal family set out for Tours so that when Burgundy returned he found no one there to greet him.

He was wise enough to know that he could not rule as King; what he wanted was the Dauphin to be his figurehead; so he immediately set out for Tours in an attempt to make peace between the two factions. At this time Violante died – some said of a broken heart so much had she loved her faithless husband; but with her no longer begging for revenge and with the Queen realising that it was to her advantage to make a pact with Burgundy, peace was made between the parties.

Isabella had watched all that was going on with disgust and sadness.

She did not dislike her young husband, and she was now going to have a child. She wondered whether that would change her feelings and whether she might be happy again.

If only it were Richard’s child, how happy she would be! So many years had passed. Was it nine since she had last seen him? She remembered how he had picked her up and held her fast and begged her never to stop loving him. As if she could!

He had not known what lay ahead then – a cold and dismal cell in Pontefract Castle, death . . .

And she a child then, to be left alone . . . to face life without him.

From the Court of that scheming murderer and the blustering hateful Harry she had come to her home to find her father mad, her mother a wanton and to be plunged into another drama of murder and revenge.

But soon she would have a child. It must make a difference.

Charles, her young husband, had grown up considerably in the last few months; he was delighted that they were to have a child; he could not do enough for her. She was beginning to care for him.

As she lay on her bed, heavy with child, she sometimes
asked herself if she could be happy again. Perhaps. When she had the child and she and Charles had become absorbed by it. Who knew? Perhaps the future would chase away those figures of the past. Perhaps she would cease to mourn for Richard and accept the fact that he was lost to her for ever.

She had gone to Blois, home of the Orléans family of which she was now a member. There was something formidable about this massive château with its thick stone walls rising from the rock on which it was built. It looked impregnable standing high over the town, supported by its mighty buttresses. Isabella could not forget that here such a short time ago Violante Visconti had died, of a broken heart, they said; and on her deathbed she had implored her three sons and daughters to avenge the death of their father. There had been one other child she sent for – the bastard son of her husband and a woman called Marietta d’Enghien; she saw in this boy of six the making of a warrior. ‘You will avenge your father, little bastard of Orléans,’ it was reported she had said; and he had sworn he would.

Was she wise to have come to Blois, the scene of so much unhappiness? But then what place was not so haunted?

Charles came to her. He did not seem so young now. She herself was twenty-one – not so very much older than he was yet she felt old in experience.

He talked of the child. He wanted a boy who would become a future Duc d’Orléans. She wondered how often he thought of his murdered father. He never spoke of him. Like her he was looking forward; there was only sadness in looking back.

The thought of the child was always with her. It will be a new life, she thought. And she shut out the memory of the violent happenings about her. Her mother did not come to see her. She was too involved in her intrigues. She must not brood
on what might be to come. She had had enough of trouble and wanted peace.

September had come. She had carried the child through the hottest months; now she was grateful that the weather was a little cooler.

Her pains started early in the morning. Her labour was long and arduous. She was only half aware of the figures round her bed. There was nothing now but the agony.

She fell into unconsciousness . . . and when at last she heard the cry of a child, she was not sure where she was. She was riding in the country. It was England and Richard was coming to meet her. They were looking at each other, in a kind of bewilderment. He was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen with his golden hair waving in the breeze and his blue eyes alight with admiration for her and a faint flush on his delicate skin. And for him she was the most beautiful little girl in the world. She could hear his voice telling her so.

‘Oh Richard . . . Richard . . . dear Richard . . . I am coming to you now . . .’

How had she known? It was some premonition. She had a new life to lead but she was not going to start it. Her happiness had been Richard. There was nothing that could replace that.

They put the child in her arms. A little girl.

Charles, Duc d’Orléans since the murder of his father, was kneeling at her bedside. She could see his anxious eyes. She put out her hand and touched his face. It was wet with tears.

Why did he weep? But she knew.

She was twenty-one years old. It was young to die. But she was ready.

Within a few days after the birth of her child Isabella was dead.

Chapter IX

T
he Queen of England was thoughtful as her women dressed her. She was beautiful, everyone had agreed with that; but she had to grow accustomed to the fact that the people did not like her. She was not very sure that they liked the King himself. They called her the Foreigner and some whispered of him: Usurper. Coming to the throne as he had would naturally mean that there would always be some to raise their voices against him.

Her hair hung in thick curls; and her close-fitting gown accentuated the excellence of her figure. She did not look as if she had had several children. Her women placed the tall Syrian cap on her head. It became her. She would have changed the fashion if it had not done so; she herself arranged the transparent veil.