The Queen from Provence (17 page)

‘Take him to the dungeons,’ said the King. ‘We will decide what to do with him tomorrow.’

When they had gone he turned to Eleanor and took her into his arms.

‘He might have harmed you,’ he said; and a terrible anger took possession of him.

He had been a fool and seen to be a fool. He had once more shown himself to the world as a weak man. His act of mercy in the great hall might have cost both him and his Queen their lives. It would be whispered of … remembered.

Eleanor was shivering.

‘Have no fear, my love. He shall pay for this. No more mercy for the mad priest.’

Nor was there. The next day the man was tied to four wild horses and when they rode off in different directions he was torn to pieces.

Chapter VI

BIRTH OF EDWARD

T
he Queen believed that that night there had been a miracle. In Rosamund’s Bower there had come to her the desire to stay there, and so they had while a madman tried to kill them and would certainly have done so if they had been asleep in their own bed. And when she discovered that she was indeed pregnant, she was certain of the miracle.

This was happiness indeed. There was only one irritation and that was the rejection of her Uncle William and the inability of Henry to force his acceptance at Winchester. Moreover Uncle William was not in very good health which was a great concern to her.

But the fact that she was to have a child superseded all minor irritations. Henry was beside himself with delight. He agreed with her that there had been a miracle that night and although they could not be absolutely sure that their child had been conceived in Rosamund’s Bower, that mattered little now. It had actually happened.

Henry cosseted her more than ever. He regarded her with a kind of wonder; he admitted that he had feared they might never have a child but so much did he love her that even that had not made him regret the marriage.

She became very friendly with her sister-in-law Eleanor de Montfort. Eleanor was herself the proud mother of a boy – Henry – and was therefore knowledgeable about pregnancies, having just emerged from one.

The Princess was happy in the Queen’s company because she was missing her husband who had gone to Rome to get a dispensation regarding their marriage.

The two found great pleasure in sitting together stitching and embroidering – and it was their joy to make garments for their children. The Queen dismissed her attendants and set them to work in another chamber so that she and the Princess could talk more intimately.

They had a great deal in common – two contented wives. The Queen thought it strange that the Princess had found happiness in marrying beneath her when she, the Queen, had found hers in the grandeur of her marriage. She could never have been content, as the Princess was, with the lowering of her status.

Yet there were compensations she realised. Simon de Montfort was a strong man; a forceful and ambitious man. Could it be that he had married the Princess because she was the King’s sister?

Henry was a weak man; she knew that. But he made up for his weakness in the strength of his passion for her.

The Princess talked as they stitched; Simon would be home soon, she believed. It was her fault that he had had to go away. ‘I should never have made that foolish vow,’ she added.

Then she told the Queen how when she had been very young she thought she would like to go into a convent and Edmund the saintly Archbishop of Canterbury had made her take a vow to embrace the vestal life.

‘And you made this vow?’ asked the Queen.

‘Well, I did not really take it seriously. I was staying with poor Isabella – Richard’s wife – at the time; and I knew how unhappy she was and I thought: So that is married life. I want none of it. And with Edmund almost forcing me, I suppose I did agree.’

‘And then you married Simon.’

‘Yes, I married Simon. I was determined to. For me no one else would do … nor any other life. And you see how right I was. I have my little angel Henry now … and soon Simon will be back with his dispensation and that will silence old Edmund.’

‘I doubt anything would silence him. What a trial saints can be.’

The Princess agreed. ‘Oh how fortunate we are in our marriages,’ she cried. ‘I often wonder if you realise it. Henry adores you. In his eyes you are the perfect Queen. He has changed since you came.’

The Queen nodded in agreement.

‘You have made him so happy,’ went on Eleanor the Princess. ‘When I think of Richard’s marriage … Well, that was why I decided I would never marry. Of course I had been married to William Marshal … if you could call that a marriage. I was a child and only sixteen when he died. Perhaps I should have accepted my life if he had lived, but now that I have met Simon I realise what I would have missed.’

So they stitched and talked and the Queen told the Princess of Richard of Cornwall’s arrival in Provence and how the poem she had written had brought her to Henry’s notice; and the Princess told of poor sad Isabella who had borne six children to her first husband and had given Richard only one.

‘Of course he dotes on young Henry. A fine boy he is too. I think Richard loves him more than anything else in the world. He is fond of women though and has a host of mistresses, I hear. Isabella knows it. It breaks her heart. She always said she was too old for him and she was right.’

So they talked of poor Isabella at length because talking of her brought home to them more clearly their own happy state.

And while they stitched they each looked into the future. The Princess for the return of her husband with the dispensation from the Pope because of the vow she had carelessly made, and the Queen for the birth of her child.

Simon returned with the dispensation and the Princess was happy. The Queen had to wait a little longer for her contentment. On a hot June day her child was born in the Palace of Westminster.

There was great rejoicing throughout the land, for the child was a healthy boy.

Henry could not tear himself away from the nursery. The child must be brought to him, examined, and embraced. He was overcome with anxiety lest it might not have the best of attention. Nothing must be spared in the rearing of this important boy.

The Queen pouted and declared he had transferred his affections from her to their son. Seriously he assured her that this was not so at which she laughed and said she shared his adoration for that wonderful little creature who was so entirely theirs and could quite understand his feelings.

What should they call him?

There was one name above all others which the King preferred. His greatest hero had been Edward the Confessor – that King who had been more of a saint than a King. Henry had always been a deeply religious man; some of his courtiers had likened him to the Confessor with the comment that it was all very well to be a saint when there was not a kingdom to be governed but that it was kings who made the best leaders, not saints.

‘So,’ said the Queen, ‘you would have the child named Edward.’

‘That is my wish,’ replied the King.

So the little Prince was christened Edward, and at his baptism Simon de Montfort, newly returned from Rome, stood as godfather and acted as High Steward.

London went wild with joy, for the citizens had begun to fear that the Queen was barren. Now they had an heir – a boy – and as was sometimes the case, when a Queen started bearing children she often continued.

Many presents were sent to the King for the child, but Henry spoilt the occasion by sending back those which he did not consider grand enough and demanding better of the donors, so that they ceased to be free gifts and were an imposition.

The people grumbled. ‘God gave us this infant,’ they said, ‘and the King would sell him to us.’

But in spite of that England rejoiced in its little Prince.

It could hardly be expected that Richard of Cornwall was as delighted with the birth of the baby as some. He, like others, had begun to believe that the Queen was barren in which case he was next in succession to the throne. Now he had been displaced and if the Queen had more children the farther away would be his hopes of the crown.

He grew more disgruntled with his own marriage, while it was impossible not to admit that this was his own fault. Then he saw his sister and Simon de Montfort revelling in their mésalliance and felt that he was the only one who seemed to be called on to answer for his follies.

Thus the marriage of Simon and Eleanor had angered him considerably. Henry, he told himself and others, had no right to give his consent to it. Henry was a fool – always so firm in the wrong cause; so weak when he should be strong. One would have thought he would be grateful to his brother, but for whom he would never have had his Queen.

If he had a chance to discountenance Henry he would seize it. He liked to prove him wrong and to show how much more wisely he would have acted if he had been in his brother’s place.

Richard had always had an ear and an eye alert for what was happening on the Continent and he had been wondering for some time how it was that Simon de Montfort had been able to acquire the dispensation with such speed.

He discovered how it had happened. Those about the Pope were not averse to a little bribery and Simon had bought his way to favour. But Simon was not a rich man, so how had he been able to manage this? The answer soon became clear. He owed debts on the Continent and he had given as his sponsor the name of the King of England.

The month of August had set in hot and sultry. The churching of the Queen was to take place at Westminster on the tenth day of the month and Simon and his wife came riding into London from Kenilworth on the ninth.

Richard called a few days earlier to see the King and after he had paid his respects to the Queen and admired the baby he found himself alone with Henry.

‘De Montfort stands in high favour with you, brother,’ he said.

‘Is he not now our brother?’ replied the King.

‘Alas, due to this mésalliance.’

‘Perhaps not so. Our sister is happy. And Simon now has the earldom of Leicester.’

‘And the confidence of his King … which some might say he does not deserve.’

‘Why say you so?’