The Passionate Enemies (21 page)

The King lying prostrate on his bed heard the news and groaned.

‘This is a sign,' he cried. ‘God is displeased with me.'

A few weeks later the picture changed.

Matilda had given birth to a child – a healthy boy.

‘We wish to call him Henry after his grandfather,' she wrote.

The King rose from his bed, his spirits restored. God was no longer angry for he had given the King what he had prayed for above all else.

A grandson! An heir! A Henry!

He commanded that the church bells should ring. There should be bonfires and rejoicing. All the country must be
en fête
.

At last God had granted England an heir.

He must go to Normandy to see his grandson. Reports that the child was lusty and healthy delighted him and he could not wait to see for himself.

First he addressed the Parliament and ordered that an oath of loyalty to his grandson, the future King of England, should be sworn.

Roger had pointed out that the Queen might yet bear him a son but he shook his head woefully.

‘You forget, Roger, that I have become an old man. All my hopes lie in this grandchild.'

The oaths were sworn and the King set out for Normandy. Adelicia remained behind in her role of Regent with Roger of Salisbury to assist.

‘I shall return ere long,' said the King, ‘but I must see my grandson.'

There was some consternation when, as the King stepped on to the royal ship, the light began to fail. The King looked up at the sky. A short while before the sun had been shining brilliantly, for it was a warm August day. It seemed as though a shadow had fallen over a part of the sun.

They set sail but before they had gone very far the darkness had increased and the sailors began to feel very uneasy. One shouted that the face of the sun was being slowly covered.

It was true. The darkness increased so that it was like night. Lanterns were brought. The sailors, the most superstitious people in a superstitious age, were filled with terror.

‘An evil omen,' they whispered. ‘We shall never reach Normandy.'

The general opinion was that some danger threatened the King. He was an old man and the sea crossing could be dangerous even in summer.

They talked of the calamity which had befallen the White Ship.

The King stood on deck with the sailors staring up at the sky in which the stars were now visible and a great
melancholy overcame him. He was in his mid-sixties; his end could not be far off. God had shown his displeasure in some ways, although great advantages had been granted him, and the birth of a grandson surely meant that He was smiling on Henry of England. Yet this was an uncanny experience.

A shout went up. Yes, it was a little lighter. The sun was clearly emerging from the shadow. The stars, vanished; there was no longer any need of lanterns. It was once more a summer's day.

‘To Normandy,' cried the King, ‘and my grandson.'

But as the sailors went about their work they murmured that it was an omen.

‘If the King reaches Normandy in safety,' they said, ‘he will never see England again.'

How happy he was to hold his grandson in his arms. He examined the child minutely.

‘This is a perfect boy,' he cried joyfully.

Even Matilda seemed to have become lovable since she was a mother.

The King paraded up and down the chamber holding the child. He thought of all the years he had prayed for a son and now in a way God had answered his prayers.

‘This boy will be great,' he said. ‘Do not ask me how I know. Suffice it that I do. God has answered my prayers not as I prayed they would be answered, yet this I know is his reply and I rejoice. Would I could live another ten . . . fifteen years to see the boy grown to manhood.'

Matilda was very proud of the child, too, but there was little of the softness of a mother about her. The King was pleased though to see a certain amity between her and her husband. Geoffrey was delighted to have become a father and this was clearly the reason for his better relationship with his wife. No matter the reason, thought the King, as long as it remains.

The King ordered that there should be feasts and entertainments to welcome his grandson into the world; and all those who did not wholeheartedly rejoice would incur the King's displeasure. So feasting there was and the minstrels and troubadours excelled themselves and sang tenderly of love
and the fruits of love of which this beloved infant was an example.

Henry found it difficult to tear himself away from the royal nursery. He doted on the child and became young again as he rocked him in his arms.

England was in safe hands. Roger and Adelicia were reliable; he could dally awhile in Rouen and play the proud grandfather. There he could forget the barrenness of Adelicia. She would never bear him a son now. There he could even accept the arrogance of Matilda. It mattered not. He had his desire and all his hopes were in this child.

It was true that Matilda's arrogance was often hard to bear, and as the months passed she became more so. She wanted no one to forget that she was not only the future Queen of England but the Duchess of Normandy: and as she contemplated her ageing father and saw him, nursing his grandson, she thought it was time he left State affairs to those young enough to handle them.

One day she came to the King and told him that she was pregnant.

His joy increased. ‘Another son,' he said. ‘That is the best news I have had since little Henry made his bow. If this is another boy you are carrying then that is God's seal of approval. Two boys! It is always wise to have more than one as I found to my cost.'

Matilda cut him short. ‘Oh, yes, yes, we have heard all about the White Ship and we know you married Adelicia to get a son which you failed to do. And now there is my little Henry so that trouble is over. And if I should have another son . . .'

‘I shall pray for it with all my heart,' said the King, and he thought how hard she was, how unloving; and he wondered he did not disinherit her. He would have done so some years ago. He had allowed no one to displease him in the days of his prime – nor later. But he was an old man; and there was trouble enough. If he disinherited her now, with himself so old and the child so young, there could be civil war. That was the last thing a King wanted for his country even if he would not be there to see it.

Nay, he would forgive Matilda, for whatever else she had done, she had given him little Henry.

During a banquet in the castle of Rouen which was part of the celebrations for the birth of the King's grandson a messenger arrived from England. The news he brought plunged the King into melancholy.

His brother Robert had died in Cardiff Castle.

It was twenty-eight years since Henry had seen Robert, who must have changed greatly for he was eighty years old . . . an age rarely reached by any man.

The King left the banquet and retired to his chamber and that night was beset by dreams more violent and disturbing than any he had known before.

He could not get Robert out of his mind and he sent for one of his brother's servant-guards for he wanted to know every detail of his brother's last days.

When the man arrived he was closeted with the King for a long time and was submitted to many questions.

‘I wish you to tell me the truth,' said the King. ‘If he cursed me, I would know it. Fear not for yourself. However unkind that truth to me I would have it. And you need only fear if you should withhold aught from me.'

‘The Duke was not a vindictive man, my lord,' replied the guard. ‘He did not revile you. He used to say he understood you and that you were another such as your great father.'

‘He said that, did he?'

‘Ay, my lord. And as the years passed he grew to be content with his prison.'

‘He was a man of great charm, dearly loved by many, but he lacked the qualities to become a great ruler.'

‘He knew it in the end, my lord. He liked to hear what was happening in England and he used to say: “My father would like that. Strange that our young brother would be the only one to resemble him.” '

The King felt happier to hear such sentiments expressed but when men have trembled for fear of displeasing you, can you be sure that they are telling the truth?

‘Did he accept the fact that he was a prisoner while I was a
King?' he insisted. ‘Did he never complain that I kept him under guard?'

‘Sometimes, my lord, he would say that he was like a bird in a cage who could look out at the green fields and never walk on the grass. There was one oak tree that he used to watch all through the years. He became excited when the buds came and then the leaves; and sad when they fell. “Another year is passing,” he would say, “and I am still the King's prisoner.”'

‘For twenty-eight years he languished in my castles, my prisoner,' mused the King. ‘Had I released him there would have been those to rally to his banner. His was a sad life. He lost his wife; he lost his son. She died many years ago in childbed.'

‘A sad tragedy, my lord, one of the saddest in the Duke's life.'

‘But there were rumours that he wished to be rid of her. It was said that her death was due to poison.'

The guard did not answer. He had heard of the King's melancholy and that his conscience troubled him greatly. He did not believe this story against the Duke but he felt that he dared not defend him at this stage. It pleased the King at this time to remind himself that Robert, whom many would say he had wronged, was no saint.

‘It was said that he wished to marry the widow of William Giffard,' went on the King, ‘who was possessed of great wealth, for she had promised that if his wife died and he married her she would rouse up all her powerful kinsfolk and put all her possessions into his hands. And then . . . his wife did die.'

‘Yet, my lord, there was no marriage with Giffard's widow.'

‘There was never time for it,' insisted the King. ‘He was busy fighting.'

The guard was silent and the King went on: ‘And he lost his son. All his hopes must have been in the Clito, as mine were in my heir. How did he take the news of Clito's death?'

‘He was in Devizes Castle then, my lord. He dreamed that he was fighting in Normandy and during the battle a lance pierced his arm. He awoke crying that he had lost his right
arm. And then he told the meaning of the dream. “My son is dead,” he said, and 'twere so. We heard that William the Clito had been wounded by a lance and the poison entering his body killed him.'

‘Life is full of strangeness,' said the King. ‘Who would have believed when we were playing in our father's castles, years and years ago, that it would come to this? Richard and Rufus dead in the New Forest; Robert my prisoner for twenty-eight years and myself master of England and Normandy, yet I have had my sorrows which have been as great as any endured by them. Tell me more of my brother, though. I have kept him as a noble pilgrim worn out with many troubles reposing in a royal citadel with abundance of delicacies and comforts.'

‘Sometimes, my lord, he would not eat. He used to say he would starve himself because he would not live as a prisoner.'

‘But he never did. My brother was one to make plans which, never reached fulfilment. Did he not have the best to eat? I sent him rich garments.'

‘He used to say that if they were not well made enough to suit the King they came to him.'

‘Which was right and fitting. Was he not my prisoner?'

‘I think, my lord, that he was not unhappy. He was ever a dreamer and he dreamed his dreams in prison.'

‘Where he did not have the tragedy of carrying them out to find they did not work.' The King nodded. ‘Let him be given a royal burial. It shall be in the abbey church at Gloucester and there shall be an effigy erected to his memory.'

He liked to think of Robert being given those honours in death of which circumstances had forced him to deprive him in life.

But his dreams were disturbed and Robert became yet another phantom to haunt his nightmares.

Matilda was brought to bed in the following May. Her labour was long and her life was in danger. The King waited impatiently to hear that the child was born.

The doctors were grave. ‘The Empress is in sorry case,' they told him. ‘This labour has gone on too long and she grows weaker.'

The King nodded gravely. He would send for the best physicians. They must save his daughter. But the hours began to pass and still Matilda's child was not born.

The King thought: There is death all about us. Robert has gone and is the next to be Matilda? I had thought it was my turn. Is God taking my daughter instead?

But being a King he must think of what Matilda's death would mean to the succession. An old King of more than sixty, a child of one. That would be disaster. Who should reign?

There was Stephen. Stephen was now in Boulogne where he was managing the lands which had come to him through his marriage. There had been a time when he had thought that Stephen might well be his heir. That was when Matilda was in Germany and the Emperor was alive and ruling. He thought then what a pity it was that Stephen was not his son. That young rascal – and the very mention of him even at this time brought a smile to his lips – had changed all that. Nay, his Henry was going to be King of England. In his mind he already thought of him as Henry II.

But if Matilda died, there was a predicament. ‘If you take my daughter, oh, God, give me a few more years that I may make the succession safe.'

He thought of Luke de Barré who had laughed often at the follies of men and had said more than once that men who pretended to worship God were constantly telling him how to rule them. ‘Would you allow your servants to tell you what to do, oh King?' he had said once. ‘Well, that is what men do when they are in need. They constantly tell their Maker.'

Then he was haunted by memories of Luke; he could hear his voice crying: ‘Would you then take my eyes . . .? Only a monster would do that to me.'