Isabella: Braveheart of France (22 page)

She has expected this, but it is still a bitter draught to swallow. But she forces a smile. “Really? What makes it so necessary?”

“Cornwall for instance. It has valuable tin mines and is susceptible to attack. It cannot be left outside of the king’s control.”

He thinks I am his enemy? Not yet. But he is making one of me. He and the Despenser.

“Is that all?”

“The constraints of war have made it necessary to reduce the allowance the Crown provides for your expenses.”

Her fingers tighten around the arms of the throne. “Oh? By what degree?”

“We have allowed one thousand marks for the coming year, should it please Your Grace.”

One thousand marks, down from eleven thousand. She feels the blood drain from her cheeks. “If that is the king’s pleasure.” She sips her wine. She would rather dash it in this creature’s face.

“We thank you for your service,” she says. “My servants will now show you the kitchen if you need provisions for the journey back.”

He dithers.

Surely not...

“There is another direction I am required to pass on to you.”

Another one? Surely this is enough humiliation for one day. Perhaps he requires her to dress in sackcloth and service the king’s infantry.

“The parliament has declared that all French subjects must leave the realm, for the safety of the kingdom.”

“You are asking me to remove my closest friends and servants?”

“With great regret.” But Stapledon does not look like a man who harbours great regret; he looks like a man who is enjoying himself hugely despite his wet clothes.

“We understand the king’s concerns. My household are all loyal servants of the king, but it shall be as you say.”

He looks disappointed. He would rather she threw the chamber pot at him, she supposes. But it seems he is done with his dressing down of the Queen of England. For a man who was once just the Bishop of Exeter, this must be a day to remember. His family and friends will hear this recounted word for word for years to come.

After he leaves she sends everyone out of the chamber and hurls an expensive glass goblet at the wall for the pleasure of watching its contents run like blood down the wall. She does not scream for fear that someone will hear her.

She is a daughter of France, the King’s royal blood. How dare they!

But it is not all.

When the Despenser’s good wife returns to the household, Isabella’s son John is given to her care. This is intolerable. When he shirks his lessons she does not scold him, and she gives him sweetmeats whenever he asks for them. She is not even allowed to teach her own son his manners now.

Eleanor is much changed from the woman that sailed with her from Tynemouth, who she held when she thought she would die in the tempest.

She was persuaded to follow her conscience once, and go against her husband’s wishes in the service of Lady Mortimer; it is clear she is of a mind never to make the same mistake again. She resents the situation Isabella brought her to, she imagines that the Despenser made it clear to her with the flat of his hand that he did not much like his wife having a mind of her own.

Isabella supposes he has turned Eleanor’s mind against her as well.
She is a French spy, watch her well, any letters she writes you must open, any word she utters you must report to me. Provoke her if possible. We must know what is on the traitor’s mind.

“Do you love him, your husband?” Isabella asks her one day, outright.

Eleanor looks as if she has been caught secretly taking a chess piece from the board. “He is a fine husband and much misunderstood.”

“I think you are like me, Eleanor. We both see ourselves as a Guinevere looking for our Galahad. And look what we married! I have a Greek and you have a banker.”

“I am nothing like you, your grace,” she says sniffily, managing somehow to be subservient and condescending at once.

“Oh, I think we are very like. I wonder what it is with your husband, do you think? Where did such greed come from? I suspect it a surfeit of pride. All his life he has passed unnoticed, and now he wishes to make the world pay.”

“You do not know him as I do,” Eleanor says, and feels so secure in the Despenser’s primacy that she turns her back and leaves the room without asking leave.

***

It has become a lonely vigil. Many of the servants she has had since she first saw Dover as a child bride flee back to France; she sends Théophania home, Rosseletti too, for his own safety. Just a handful remain in defiance of the new regulations.

As the winter nights draw in, Isabella stares at the logs crumbling in the grate and sees her life come to nothing. She was once one of the greatest landowners in the realm, now she is a pensioner.

Her two daughters are removed from her household and are taken into the care of Edward’s brother-in-law at Marlborough. She is virtually a prisoner now. She has lost her lands, her income, her children, her husband, her influence and her friends. She supposes the Despenser will not be truly content until she is dead, and she wonders if he is planning that too.

***

She is finally summoned to the king’s presence.

She is taken by barge up the Thames. Fifteen years ago, when she first came to London, there were not so many houses. Now the Exchequer has moved from Winchester, and the spaces between Westminster and London are filling up. The Archbishop of York has his house on the Strand, there are big houses for the bishops of Norwich and Durham. Soon there will be no land at all between London and the palace. Where shall it all end?

Arriving in the Great Hall it feels as if she is hauled before the saints for final judgment. The whole crowd is there, like crows sitting on a fence, waiting to pick at her eyes. The Despenser is there, and Stapledon of course. Old Hugh as well, he has seen the chance of quick money and been led by his son into this devil’s bargain.

But there are some friendly faces, at least: the Archbishop of Vienne and the bishop of Orange, the Pope’s men in England; and the bishops of Norwich and Winchester as well as the Earl of Richmond, just returned from their embassy in France, where they have tried to repair the king’s diplomatic missteps.

Edward is slouched on his throne, bored and resentful. He meets her eyes briefly then looks away. It is like that first time in Boulogne cathedral, she knows what that look is now. He is embarrassed.

She cannot believe his malice. She had expected it of the Despenser, but not Edward. Why would he do this to her? All her servants, those who did not abandon her, are now detained and shut up in religious houses. She is quite alone.

He had never been deliberately cruel to her before; he had been guilty of neglect, but only of her affections. But what he had done in this last six months was venomous. Had the Despenser really taken his mind so much?

“Dearest consort,” he manages.

“Your grace.”

“We trust we find you well.”

“May I first enquire about my children?”

He flushes with anger, that she should have the temerity to raise the subject of their offspring in front of these others. “They are well.”

“I have not seen my daughters for three months. And Edward, he prospers?”

Old Hugh cuts in. “May we to the business at hand?”

Pembroke tells them all in bald terms their situation. It has been suggested that she travel to France to negotiate a peace for England with her brother, the King of France. Charles has promised that he will make Prince Edward the Duke of Aquitaine if he comes to France and pays homage to him there. This arrangement has been ratified by the French council.

“This is the general principle. But he will only confirm this arrangement in the presence of either the king or queen.”

“Impossible.” Despenser shouts. “If we let her out of the country she will foment unrest in the French court against us.”

“Should I go, then?” Edward asks him, but the Despenser balks at this too. Without the king, who will protect him from the barons and earls he has robbed? And he dare not accompany him and set foot in France himself, her father would have him hanged from the nearest tree before his boots were dry.

“She is sister to the King of France, and has already proved her worth in such negotiations,” Richmond points out. “It was she who had the Earl of Lancaster make peace with the king when a civil war seemed inevitable.”

Heads nod in agreement. The Despenser scowls.

“How do we know we can trust our wife?” Edward says to her.

“I have been a good and faithful wife to you, your grace. As these gentlemen recount, I have helped you with the Earl of Lancaster, and many times before and after. I understand your suspicions, for I am of France, but you must know that it is my duty and my heartfelt desire to serve you and only you, and has been from the day we were married at Boulogne, a day I carry in my heart always.”

The
nuncios
nod and smile, well pleased with this speech. Stapledon looks as if he has bitten down on a lemon. The Despenser can see the debate rushing away from him. But what is he to do? Someone must go, the King of France has made it plain, or else the king loses Gascony. It is he or the queen.

Old Hugh speaks over the top of all of them. “May I remind you all that as we speak, Mortimer is in Hainaut raising troops for an invasion? The Duke has given him levies, and he is using his wife’s money to get more soldiers from Germany. We cannot afford a war with France at this moment. Anything is preferable.”

“You know about this?” the king asks her.

She wants to say: ‘I am virtually a prisoner, how would I know what goes on in the world?’ But this is not entirely true, nor is it the answer the king is seeking. She shakes her head and looks resigned.

“This is madness to let her go,” the Despenser says. “She will only hatch more mischief.”

“My lord, I understand your apprehension,” she says, “and I acknowledge there has been bad blood between us in the past. But in this matter we are in agreement. We both want peace for England and for Edward, and this war serves neither my brother nor my husband. I only wish for there to be peace again between us so our lives can be as they were before.”

This little speech astonishes the Despenser. Richmond smiles and nods approvingly. The
nuncios
turn to the king.

Her poor, tortured Edward. He looks as if he would rather be mending thatch than sitting here weighing such dilemmas. His hands grip the edge of his throne and he looks at the ceiling. “I will think on it,” he says, and finally he gets up and leaves the chamber.

It is a Sunday, and she is at her prayers when Eleanor disturbs her there. She prepares herself for the news. Eleanor’s face is a study in equivocation. She is unsure if she is witnessing the queen’s rise or her downfall.

“You are going to France,” she says.

Isabella smiles and thanks her for the news and returns to her prayers. She would call her friends for a celebration, but there are none left, not in England.

Chapter 41

March, 1325

The wind is cold and there are whitecaps on the Narrow Sea. They say that on a clear day you can see all the way to France, but she has never been in Dover on a clear day. Servants bring spiced wine and bread. She refuses it all. She will not keep it down long, once she is aboard the ship.

Her retinue is thirty strong, mostly spies masquerading as servants; Joan of Bar and Countess Warwick are her chief attendants. She feels as if she is about to be released from prison and is terrified that her gaolers will change their minds at the last moment. Her hands are shaking and she tries to conceal them beneath her cloak.

“The King of France has offered to make the prince Duke of Aquitaine,” the king reminds her. “In return he will pay homage to your brother in person. For this you will demand that he withdraw his army from Gascony and cede the province to the king’s control.”

“This last he did not promise,” Isabella reminds him.”

“It is up to you to negotiate the details,” the Despenser says. “Your children are here in England, ransom to your good conduct and intentions.”

Edward puts a restraining hand on his arm. “No need to talk of ransom. She knows where her duty lies,” he says, and it is the first time she has seen this gentleness from him in many months. She nods her head in acknowledgment, but directs her reply to the chamberlain.

“You want what is best for England,” she says, “and so I understand your concerns. But I shall do all in my power to bring this matter to a peaceful resolve.”

“Once it is done, young Edward will join you in France to conclude the matter. Not before.”

She looks at Edward. “I will give you reason to trust me again, your grace On this I give my word. I am sorry for our differences in the past.”