Harlot Queen Read online

  ‘It was the beginning of the trouble between them. My father didn’t understand children; his girls he loved—he didn’t expect too much of them. From his boy he expected too much; the courage, the endurance of a grown man. He tried to strengthen the child with the whip; and that didn’t make things better. Edward was just beginning to know our mother, to go to her for comfort—and then she died. He was just six.

  ‘So there he was—a motherless, frightened child, the object of his father’s deepest love… and deepest fears. A handsome boy, very strong. He rode well, he made good showing with his little sword; in every sport quick and skilled. But he lacked something; princely dignity, my father thought. Well, that was no wonder! While my father lived Edward was never his own master. When he was too old for a whipping, he’d be punished another way. Humiliated by harsh words, his allowance stopped, forced to trail at my father’s heels like a dog expecting the whip. He lost faith in himself. He began to seek the company of low fellows; and he found some comfort using his hands… making things. He’d plait a basket, or hammer a piece of iron, or make a pattern for my needle. He could stitch better than I could. Once he took my work from me to unpick a fault and my father caught him at it. He snatched the work from my brother and his face went black. In Christ’s name, he roared out, what do you call yourself—a lad or wench? And the contempt in his voice was terrible.’

  ‘Can you wonder?’ And there was contempt, also, in Isabella’s voice.

  ‘Yes, you can wonder! To see some beautiful thing his own hands had made—it was a need in him. Oh he’s man enough with sword or spear; but it’s the skill he likes, not the blood. He’ll fight if he must; and give a good account of himself. Even my father admitted it.

  ‘For eight years after my mother died, my father grieved; a lonely man. And then he married again. Not for love; he loved no woman ever save my mother. He married for peace; peace with France. A good marriage. It meant more to my brother than he’ll ever know. My father’s wife was so good to him. And she was young—seventeen to his fourteen; and that helped. But she had to feel her way; he didn’t trust her. She’d married the enemy—and she was a woman! But she won him. He loves her and he trusts her. And she? She loves him and she fears for him.’

  ‘She may well do that!’ Isabella said, a little spiteful. ‘Gaveston turns all hearts from the King.’

  ‘Then you must turn them again; you can do it! Madam, try to understand. Gaveston is come to be the joy in my brother’s life, all the sweetness. Gaveston dazzles him. And, above all, to cherish Gaveston is a symbol of revolt; revolt against my father, still more against those barons that like my father would curb him. It is for you, Madam, to teach my brother a new joy.’

  ‘Teach him to play the man in his own bed?’

  ‘Women are wiser in such affairs than men. And you are all of a woman. He’s twenty-four and you, fourteen. Yet still you are older. Bear with him, Madam, and teach him. So you save yourself and him and all England. I beseech you, think upon it.’

  ‘I have thought and can find no answer. That a man should love another man above all women, it is hard to understand; harder still to bear. Yet I will try; I will try, I swear it.’

  Elizabeth took the Queen’s hand and kissed it.

  VII

  The wisdom of Elizabeth’s advice Isabella accepted. With a patience foreign to her quick and wilful nature she set herself to woo the King. These days she was learning her craft; the craft of a clever woman exploiting her every charm. She was gentle with a gentleness learned from Madam Queen Margaret, she was gay with a gaiety learned from Madam Princess Elizabeth; and she was discreet beyond her years. Above all she made the most of her budding beauty; she was enough to delight any eye that could tear itself from contemplation of Gaveston.

  But still the King looked upon her as a child, albeit a precocious one. When he came, as was now his custom, to bid her Goodnight, she would put forth every art to coax him to stay that he might not go to Piers. Sometimes he would allow himself to be coaxed into bed… but no further. Then she would turn to him with passion, locking him in her childish arms. Gentle, he would free himself; kiss her upon both cheeks and take himself off to a more congenial bed. Every failure still further lacerated her pride. But still, though often in despair, she went on trying.

  ‘Were he set upon a woman,’ she told Queen Margaret, ‘I could, I think, win him. It would be a challenge! But to win him from a man—and such a man! It is a challenge I cannot meet.’

  ‘Handsome enough; but stupid. One day he’ll make his blunder.’

  ‘The King’s blind with love; he’ll never see it.’

  ‘But others will see it; and others will punish. They bide their times, our lords. They’ll not endure for ever the way he stands between them and the King so that it’s hard for them to come at the King’s private ear. Nor will they long endure the way he speaks to them as though they were his servants—this petty Gascon squireling…’

  ‘…whose mother was burned as a witch. A pity they didn’t burn her litter with her!, that is what my uncle of Lancaster says and doesn’t care who hears him!’

  ‘Yet he should have care. It is not wise, even for Lancaster, to offend Gaveston.’

  But, indeed, Lancaster and his brother Henry of Derby had their own grievance against the man. Uncles by blood to the Queen—sons of her grandmother of Navarre—they were not likely to countenance rudeness to their niece.

  Gaveston and his rudeness was not the Queen’s only cause of distress. Great Edward, piling up his glory, had piled up, also, his debts. About those the King was not disposed to trouble—he had enough of his own making. There was no money in Treasury or Wardrobe, but still he went on crazily bestowing gifts upon his friend—lands and titles, jewels, horses, hounds, and hawks, what ever he deemed worthy of acceptance. And now it was May; four months since her marriage and the Queen had received nothing of her revenues. When she complained to the King that she had not the wherewithal to pay her servants, he retorted, Gaveston prompting, that her French household must go—ladies, women, priests, knights, esquires and pages.

  ‘Sir… my friends!’ Hands flown to her breasts she turned her frightened eyes upon the King.

  ‘It is not unusual,’ he said. ‘When Madam Queen Margaret came from France my father, within a little, sent her ladies home. Nor did she complain.’

  She had no need. She was her husband’s dear companion. She bit back the words. She turned on him the look of a little frightened animal, a cornered animal, so that his heart a little relented.

  ‘Madam de St. Pierre you may keep; and your confessor, also!’

  She thanked him for that, grateful smile and bitter heart.

  This, this, too, she would add to the long account with Gaveston! Alone in her closet—narrowed eyes, teeth caught upon her under-lip—she swore it.

  She gave no sign of her anger. She went about white-faced and quiet; her quiet must have warned a wiser man. Madam Queen Margaret was not deceived. She went to the matter roundabout.

  ‘Madam the Queen has not received her revenues,’ she reminded him. ‘She has no money…’

  ‘She may save it upon her servants; these French—spendthrifts all! And for what also does she need money? She has gowns of tissue, gowns of silk, and gowns of scarlet-cloth. She has cloaks for summer and cloaks for winter and furs more than I can count. What else does she need?’

  Margaret could have told him of many things, including the freedom to reward those that had rendered especial service.

  ‘And the jewels? And the gold plate she brought with her? They are not in her possession nor yet safe in the Tower. Where are they?’

  No need for him to answer. She knew—and everybody knew—the answer. That the mignon might go richer the Queen must go poorer.

  He shrugged. ‘What am I to do? I can get no more from the Wardrobe. You cannot squeeze blood from a stone!’

  She sent him a long glance. Let Gaveston need aught and the stone will blee
d. ‘Then give her the revenues of Ponthieu and Montreuil,’ she said.

  His face darkened. He remembered—as she had meant—that once he would have given Ponthieu itself to Gaveston; that over this very matter he had quarrelled bitterly with his father.

  She said, ‘Ponthieu and Montreuil—you had them from your mother. It is fitting, I think, they should be given to your wife.’ And when still he hesitated she put the matter plain. ‘You would have given both cities—not merely the revenues—to Gaveston that had no right. Shall you do less for your wife that has every right?’

  He sent, sore against his will, for Lancaster. ‘Cousin, we are pleased to assign the revenues of Ponthieu and Montreuil to Madam the Queen for her own use. See that the seneschal of those towns have their orders.’

  Madam the Queen said her thanks; she said them prettily… but her heart burned. These were her rightful revenues. They should have been given without this delay, this show of gratitude; nor could it compensate for friends sent away. That Gaveston had urged both the despatching of her friends and the withholding of her revenues she knew well; it was common property. That he was angered by this turn of affairs was clear. He showed himself sullen to the Queen; he behaved more rudely even than before. For this, also, Gaveston should pay one day! And, to judge by her uncle of Lancaster, that day would not be long coming.

  The day had come. Parliament had spoken.

  It was full summer now; six months since the King had sworn the oath of his crowning. Yet nothing had been done towards keeping it; nothing would be done until the head of all offending was removed.

  Gaveston must go. Peers and commons alike demanded it; demanded it with threats. Before a Parliament so united, the King must bow his head. Very well, go Piers should… but in a way his enemies would not relish.

  ‘Gaveston must leave at once,’ my lord archbishop of Canterbury told the king. ‘And if he should return, mark it, sir, he shall be excommunicated and damned. I have sworn it!’

  He had sworn it, Winchelsey that the King had brought back from obscurity! He must be pretty sure of himself. Well there was a neat little surprise in store for him!

  ‘I cannot think he would wish to return!’ the King’s mocking eyes met those of his archbishop. ‘He goes to govern Ireland. I trust it will please my lords.’

  He saw the archbishop’s jaw actually drop. He read the priest’s thought plain. The King thumbs his nose at us. He gives Gaveston the richest plum in the administration; royal honours and unlimited opportunities to make his fortune. And, most cunning of all, he sends the fellow not too far away…

  ‘You see—’ and he all but laughed in the priest’s shocked face, ‘I keep my word.’ And now, driven by one of his sudden gusts of anger, he could not stay his tongue. ‘My lord of Cornwall—and beware priest how you forget his title—goes provided as a King should go. He shall have precedence and every honour that belong to his high position. He stands in the King’s place.’ But even in his anger he judged it wise to say nothing of revenues from Aquitaine, of blank bonds pressed upon his friend—gifts for which Gaveston himself had not dared hope, nor the King name.

  But such news is not to be kept quiet. It was spread, in not unnatural triumph, by Gaveston himself. The black brows of barons and bishops alike, amused him. That it would not be so amusing if ever he fell into their hands did not trouble him—for he never should! He was the King’s friend.

  Piers was departing like a King, indeed; with knights and esquires and men-at-arms, with lords and ladies to form his court, with servants unnumbered, with horses and hounds, with baggage-trains scarce to be counted. The King, himself, in full procession of lords and ladies took the way to Bristol. Simple folk might stand agape but those with an eye for affairs noted that the great barons and the most part of bishops were absent. Absent, too, was the Queen; she had pleaded woman’s sickness and not all the advice of Madam Queen Margaret nor the black looks of her husband could induce her to ride in this triumphal procession.

  The King was back from Bristol. He was gloomy, he missed Gaveston intolerably; for him all joy had fled the court. And things were worse between himself and the Queen. He still resented the letter she had written home and her father’s rebuke, mild though it had been. More bitterly he resented her dislike of Gaveston. Most bitterly of all he resented that she had not ridden with him to honour his departure. Nor was his anger the less that, because she was so young and because she made no complaint, she had won the good will of his lords—won it at his own expense.

  And still she carried herself—a gentle, helpless child. But it was no child that dwelt within that ripening body.

  She was forever at her uncle of Lancaster with her subtle words—a dove that would peck to the death. ‘Gaveston departed more glorious than a King. Surely that touches the honour of my lords the barons! And surely to keep him in such state costs gold and gold and yet more gold.’ She forever pricked him with Gaveston’s success. ‘He wins golden opinions in Ireland. Everywhere they call him King Gaveston. How will it be when he returns again?’

  And every time Lancaster answered, ‘Let them call him King of Ireland—and of England, too! So he stay away I’ll not complain.’ But she knew very well by the restless turning of the great head upon his hunchback’s shoulders that every word of hers pricked home.

  The King was growing more and more difficult. To every demand for the redress of grievances he had but one answer. When my lord of Cornwall returns I will consider it. Gaveston was more present in absence than in the flesh.

  A gloomy court; barons, bishops and King all alike morose. The Queen, as far as her husband was concerned, might not have existed. To him she was still a child; of no importance.

  And yet a little kindness to his Queen might have won him comfort from her and approval from his barons. To win her now would not be easy; he had humiliated her overmuch. He had taken no account of a heart ready to love him. It was not so ready now; but still she might have been won.

  But how could he find kindness for anyone at all, sick as he was with longing for Piers? ‘He cannot have the plaything he wants,’ she cried out to Madam de St. Pierre with all a woman’s bitterness, ‘so all other things must be broken—even if that thing be my heart!’ And when Théophania would have comforted her, broke in quick and fierce, ‘Never counsel me to patience—though, by the Mother of God I have tried. Or shall I kneel beseeching him for favour? I am no serving-wench, I, but daughter to the King of France and he should know it!’ And before Théophania could take breath to answer, was gone, but not before the older woman had seen the brightness of tears.

  Save for her aunt, save for Théophania, she must keep her anger to herself. She must guard her tongue; but she thought the more. She would sit pondering the word that should move this baron to anger on her account, that one to pity. Pity she resented; but it was needful—a weapon she could not afford to lay down.

  The pity the whole court felt for her was driving still further a wedge between herself and the King, between the court and the King. Every word of pity or of praise, even, was condemnation of the King. Queen Margaret watched with an ever troubled heart. Deliberate unkindness towards her was not in the King; nor in her any hatred… but already the seeds had been sown. Nourished alike by his indifference and her resentment what fearful fruit might they not ripen?

  April in the year of grace thirteen hundred and nine. A spring sweet with violets, with primroses, with scarlet tassels of hazel and hanging golden chains. But for the King there was little sweetness; he languished still for Gaveston. Ten months since Piers had gone… and every day of them black for lack of him, black with his own bitterness against his barons. Could they not see how unjust their accusations against his friend? For the first time within memory Ireland was quiet. Piers had beaten her rebellious kings; he had taken their homage. As well as battles he had won hearts. All Ireland rang with his praises. His king’s choice had been justified; but here in England no-one would admit it.

&n
bsp; And still the old miserable ding-dong. Parliament was demanding redress of grievances according to the coronation promises. Grievances there were aplenty, and the most pressing the removal of officials of the King’s household. They were his personal friends—and for that purpose chosen. They wasted the country’s revenues—and nothing to show for it but the clothes upon their back. Of the King’s own extravagance Parliament had, as yet, said nothing. Put others in the place of Keeper of the Wardrobe and the Wardrobe Clerk—and the King’s extravagance must find itself curbed. All Parliament pressing upon the King in this matter—barons, bishops and commons alike; and always the same answer—Recall my lord of Cornwall and I will consider the matter.

  ‘They’d be fools to believe him; his word is not to be trusted,’ Isabella cried out. ‘God send they stand firm and keep the King’s sweetheart away! By God’s Face I wish the man were dead!’

  Shocked by the bitterness in the young voice Théophania said, ‘Madam… Madam, my darling.’ She cast a swift look round. ‘I implore you, watch your words.’

  ‘I say what everybody says; no more! Well, Parliament’s to meet next month and the question settled once and for all. I cannot think the King will win.’

  For nigh on a year the King had languished moody, resentful. Now, suddenly, and for no reason, he was cheerful. What had brought this sudden turnabout? Isabella asked herself disquieted. Nor was her disquiet the less that the younger Despenser had been much with the King of late. Two Despensers there were at court, father and son—and both of them Gaveston’s friends, and both of them she distrusted; nor was she alone in her distrust. The younger man she thought might prove—give him the chance—as dangerous as Gaveston. He was sly, he was greedy, he was good-looking though he lacked Gaveston’s undoubted charm. And he was clever; cleverer than Gaveston, cleverer than the King, cleverer than his own father, that shrewd man of affairs. She watched disturbed. Between the King and this sly, clever young man what game was afoot?