The Traitor's Wife (101 page)

“Lord, yes! Every single morning I woke up in prison I wished my name was George the baker's son. Once I was free I even thought of running off to Italy, just to get clear of the past. But instead I decided to stay and make what I could of my name, and we must all do the same. We will be a proud family again.” He laughed. “And now I will stop speechifying.”

He did. Elizabeth lay back, looking thoughtful. She was by far the best-looking member of the family, in Hugh's opinion. Her serious dark eyes were relieved by very long eyelashes, and her hair, curly like her mother's and dark like her father's, fell in a thick mass to her shoulders. “Hugh? Is it true I am to marry little Maurice de Berkeley?”

“Yes, when you are a little older. It will be a couple of years before you go to live with the Berkeleys; they have agreed to that.” He patted Lizzie's head. “Sweetheart, I know it is a little daunting, but your mother and I think it will be a good match for you. And for both our families as well.”

“I understand. But I am still a little afraid, Hugh.”

Hugh started. How much had she heard of what had happened in Berkeley Castle? William la Zouche, bless the man, had kept Eleanor from hearing the details all these years, but had some dolt been gossiping around his little sister? “Afraid of what, Lizzie?”

“Maurice is still a little boy. He will throw frogs at me, I know, and wave spiders in my face. I hate things like that.”

Hugh grinned with relief. “Rest easy, Lizzie. He will be a model of good behavior by the time you go to live with him, and if he comes near you with a spider, I will get an annulment for you. Settled?”

Lizzie smiled. “Settled.”

The barge was turning back toward Hanley Castle. As he had promised, Hugh went to wake his mother so that she could see the sun set on the river. “Lizzie, William, isn't this pretty?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“The king would have me on his royal barge and we would watch the sunset together. Quite a few times.”

Neither Lizzie nor William had to ask their mother which king she meant; these days when she spoke of the king, it was always her uncle. William said, “He must have liked you very much, Mama.”

“He did, William. And I him.”

She smiled, and none of her children caught the glint of mischief in her smile. “He was very dear to me, and very kind.”

“But not kinder than Papa!”

“No, William dear. Not kinder than your papa. Did you know that he and I were married upon this very barge?”

William did, but he enjoyed hearing the (considerably redacted) story again. Lizzie, who had regarded Lord Zouche as her father in all but name, also liked hearing the story of her mother's second marriage. For the rest of the way back to Hanley they talked of Lord Zouche, and then Hugh told them some amusing stories about his own father, Lord Despenser. The four were in good spirits when the barge moored. “Thank you, Hugh,” Eleanor said as her son helped her off it. “It was a perfect day.”

That was the last time Eleanor left her chamber. Several days before, Hugh had quietly sent for his other brothers and sisters, and soon they arrived at Hanley Castle, Joan, Nora, and Margaret escorted from the convents by some of his mother's men, Edward and Anne (pregnant again) with their baby and men, the Countess of Arundel and Edmund with their men, Gilbert and John in their Warwick livery. On the last day of June, all of them gathered around Eleanor's bed.

Eleanor had been drifting in and out of sleep all morning, and after a long doze she opened her eyes wide and stared around her. “Hugh?” she called in a worried tone. She smiled with relief as he stepped forward, unabashedly weeping, and kissed her cheek. “You should—”

Her voice was very faint, and Hugh saw out of the corner of his eye that a priest was pushing toward the bed with the Sacrament. But he continued to bend over his mother as she struggled to speak. “You should get married,” she said finally, for the last time in her life. “It is an incomparable adventure.”

E
LEANOR'S SON HUGH LE DESPENSER MARRIED ELIZABETH, A WIDOWED daughter of the Earl of Salisbury, sometime after May 1341, when they received a dispensation to marry. He played a notable part in Edward III's French wars, particularly at the battle of Crécy, where he led the English forces across the Somme. He died in 1349, possibly a victim of that year's plague, without children. His widow remarried but elected to be buried beside him in Tewkesbury Abbey, where their canopied tomb (often confused with that of Hugh's father) can be seen today.

Edward le Despenser died in battle in France in 1342, survived by his wife and four sons. The youngest son, Henry, had a rather controversial career as the “Fighting Bishop of Norwich” and led an ill-starred crusade, although he spent most of his time performing more conventional bishopric duties and died in the midst of performing a church service. The eldest son, Edward, inherited his uncle Hugh's estates. He was created a Knight of the Garter by Edward III, fought in France and Italy, and was lavishly praised by the chronicler Jean Froissart as a gallant knight without whom no feast was complete. His chantry chapel, topped by a figure of Edward kneeling in prayer, is also at Tewkesbury Abbey.

Gilbert le Despenser died in 1381, having apparently had a wife and son who predeceased him. He served as a knight in Edward III's household.

John le Despenser was murdered in 1366, for reasons that do not appear in the records. His murderers were hung. He might be the John le Despenser who was granted an annuity in 1363, apparently at Queen Philippa's behest. This suggests he might have been connected with her household at some point.

Richard Fitz Alan, Earl of Arundel, annulled his marriage to Isabel le Despenser in 1344, rather belatedly, on the highly dubious ground that the couple had been forced by blows to cohabit. He promptly married his mistress, a widowed daughter of Henry, Earl of Lancaster. Isabel le Despenser, who was provided with some estates by her former husband, was alive in 1355; it is unknown whether she remarried or when she died. Edmund Arundel was bastardized by the annulment, which he fought unsuccessfully, but was able to attain knighthood and marry a daughter of the Earl of Salisbury, Sybil, by whom he had several daughters. Perhaps his bastardization benefited him in the long run; his younger half brother inherited what became the massive Arundel fortune and the accompanying earldom, ran afoul of Richard II, and was beheaded.

Margaret le Despenser died in 1337; her aunt Elizabeth de Burgh sent items to be used in her burial. Eleanor le Despenser was living in Sempringham in 1351, when the crown ordered that she receive an allowance. Joan le Despenser died at Shaftesbury Abbey in 1384.

Elizabeth le Despenser married young Maurice de Berkeley in 1338, spending some time at Wix priory and with Elizabeth de Burgh before joining the Berkeley family. She bore her husband a number of children before his death, after which she married Sir Maurice Wyth, whom she also outlived. She died in 1389.

William la Zouche, Eleanor's son by her second husband, became a monk at Glastonbury. He was alive in 1381, when the abbot there was granted money during William's life.

Alan la Zouche, William la Zouche's son by his first wife, died in 1346, several months after fighting as a banneret at Crécy.

Among many other good works, Elizabeth de Burgh founded Clare Hall at Cambridge University. She died in 1360, leaving behind a set of household records that have been invaluable to researchers. Margaret d'Audley died in 1342.

Amie de Gaveston, Piers Gaveston's natural daughter, married John de Driby, a royal yeoman, having been granted some lands for life by Queen Philippa.

Nicholas de Litlyngton became abbot of Westminster Abbey, the famous Jerusalem Chamber of which was built for him. With a bequest from his predecessor, he resumed construction of the abbey's nave, the work on which was still ongoing when he died in 1386.

Roger Mortimer's widow, Joan, never remarried. She died at age seventy in 1356, having lived to see her grandson, another Roger Mortimer, become the second Earl of March and a Knight of the Garter.

John de Grey's luck improved after his unsuccessful attempt to claim Eleanor as his wife. He was a founding member of the Order of the Garter and served for a considerable time as Edward III's steward. He remarried, fathering two sons by his second wife, and died in 1359.

Princess Gwenllian died at Sempringham in June 1337, several weeks before Eleanor. She was age fifty-four and had been in the convent since infancy. In 1993 a memorial was erected to her memory near the site of Sempringham; it is now tended by the Princess Gwenllian Society.

Mary, Edward II's sister the nun, died in 1332. She was buried at Amesbury.

Edward III and Philippa produced a dozen children during Edward's lengthy, mostly popular reign. Their eldest son, Edward, later known as the Black Prince, was renowned for his military prowess. He married Joan, daughter of the Earl of Kent executed by Roger Mortimer, and predeceased his father. The prince's only surviving son, Richard, succeeded Edward III as king. Richard II's reign was as ill-starred as Edward II's and ended similarly, with Richard II deposed and dying in captivity. One of Richard II's unsuccessful endeavors was an attempt to canonize his great-grandfather Edward II. It fell flat, as did the efforts throughout the fourteenth century to canonize Thomas, Earl of Lancaster.

Isabella died in 1358. She was neither her son's prisoner, a nun, nor a madwoman as is frequently reported even today, but lived a comfortable, conventional existence as dowager queen, traveling between her estates, receiving visits from relatives and friends, going on pilgrimages, and giving to charity. Joan of Bar and the Countess of Pembroke visited her in her last days. She was buried in the Church of the Friars Minor in London, a fashionable resting place that Isabella had patronized and that was also the burial place of her aunt Margaret, Edward I's second wife. Isabella was buried in her wedding garments, apparently preserved for that purpose. Construction of her splendid tomb, long since destroyed, was overseen by a woman artisan. Edward II's heart was placed inside the tomb.

Isabella's daughter Joan, Queen of Scotland, lived an unsatisfactory life with her philandering husband and eventually chose to live in England alone. She was with her mother during the last months of Isabella's life and was buried near her in 1362. Eleanor, Countess of Guelders, was widowed in 1343. Impoverished for a time by her feuding sons, she retired to Deventer Abbey, which she had founded during her marriage. She was engaged in establishing another religious house when she died in 1355. She was probably buried at Deventer.

Thomas Gurney was captured in Naples by a royal agent but died, probably of natural causes, as he was being transported to England. William Ogle (or Ockley) was never found. John Maltravers ended up in Flanders, where he eventually regained Edward III's favor.

The characters in this book are mainly real men and women, though Eleanor's midwife Janet, Eleanor's named jailors, Eleanor's French admirer Jean, John de Grey's squires Fulk and Henry, and Master Geoffrey Preston are fictional. Gladys is based on a damsel of Eleanor's named Joan, whose name I changed as a concession to reader sanity.

Readers accustomed to thinking of Piers Gaveston and Edward II as gay icons may have been surprised to learn that both men fathered out-of-wedlock children. Their existence is established by documentary evidence, though nothing is known about their mothers and very little about the children themselves. Amie does not appear in records until 1331, when she is noted as being one of Queen Philippa's damsels. Adam appears in the records only in 1322, when he was being outfitted for the Scottish war; as F. D. Blackley pointed out, the fact that he was mentioned as being in the care of a master at the time suggests that he was still in his teens. Lucy, therefore, has an invented name and background, as does Amie's unnamed mother.