“But surely,” William argued, “she is much like any other of her sex. She is a pretty girl, and sweet tempered. Whatever she does not know I’m sure you could teach her.”
Philippe turned his face away and would not answer.
Priests. What did they know of women?
The truth was that in person Ingeborg so repelled him he had not been able to consummate the marriage on the one night they had spent together. Well, thank God for that now, for it would be all the easier to obtain the annulment that he wanted.
“Annulment?” William sounded shocked when Philippe told him of the plan. “But Ingeborg has been crowned already and by my own hand! You cannot cast her off by some mere caprice. Philippe, you are courting troubles if you do this, for the Church will have some pretty things to say on such a matter.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Philippe snorted. “The Church accepts annulment as easily as pigs take to mud. My own father after fifteen years of marriage to Eleanor and children by her, got free of her as quick as that.” He snapped his fingers in William’s face.
“That was different,” William protested, “both of them favored the divorce, there was no injured party. But this poor girl—one day a wife and queen, the next cast off? It is dishonorable. And she is your crowned queen by right of law.”
“Crowned or uncrowned makes no difference,” Philippe declared. “She cannot be my queen if she is not my wife. And I say that she is not.”
And he would say no more.
Richard was freed in February, 1194.
His aging mother had traveled all the way to Mainz in order to be present when he was set free. She knew, more than anyone, what happiness he felt at the end of his confinement. Eleanor had not forgotten what it was like to be a prisoner.
England welcomed back their king with shouts of joy.
After he had seen to the security of his kingdom and reclaimed his crown, Richard prepared to cross over into France in middle May. The news of his coming was met with terror by all who had schemed for his destruction.
But no one was more terrified than John.
Uneasy with the news himself, Philippe had sent a message to John in Normandy, ending with these warning words: Look to your own safety, for the devil is loose in the land.
Indeed, John did not know where to turn.
He couldn’t trust Philippe to protect him against his brother’s fury. It seemed equally useless to appeal to Eleanor. She had always loved Richard best of all her sons. John was just the unloved youngest child made in his mother’s womb at a time hen she already hated Henry. The memory soured any affection she might have felt.
In the end John resolved to make his peace with Richard. The two men were reunited at Lisieux in Normandy after almost four years of separation. John was timid and penitent, afraid to look his famous brother in the face. But Richard, who loved the act of forgiving, was happy to forgive John.
“I understand,” he said. “Whatever you have done was not your fault. Philippe enticed you with his evil lies, and in the end he would have betrayed you just as he did me.”
The significance of what he’d done had not hit him fully till that moment, listening to Richard’s words of reconciliation. John hesitated, then stumbled forward and fell weeping at his brother’s feet.
THE BREACH between Philippe and Richard never healed.
They spent the next five years in a series of wars against one another. Philippe kept up his steady and determined raids on the borders of Normandy, but he was always beaten back in the end. The only gain he made against his rival in all that time was in August of 1195 when Richard allowed him to take back Alais from the tower of Rouen. Philippe swiftly arranged a marriage for her with the Count of Ponthieu, so that he might have a strategically placed ally to ward off threats from Normandy and Flanders.
Baldwin of Hainault had died earlier in the year, his wife a few months before him. Isabel’s brother ruled in both Hainault and Flanders now, and he had made himself the ally of King Richard. In Boulogne a cousin of the Hainault family. Count Reginald, had also turned against Philippe and thrown in his lot with the English king.
Philippe’s political fortunes were at their lowest ebb.
He was fighting a paper war with Pope Celestine over the Ingeborg situation. The Danish princess was still asserting her claims and demanding that they be recognized by both her husband and the Church. Philippe was equally willful, keeping Ingeborg imprisoned in a series of convents. He swore over and over that she was not his wife; that he would never live with her.
But the Church would not allow him a divorce.
Despite that, Philippe married for a third time in June, 1196, and took as his wife Agnes of Meran. the daughter of a petty noble from Bavaria. This was Philippe’s bold way of putting a challenge to the pope. Now he would be forced to dissolve the union with Ingeborg.
For no man would dare to make the King of France a bigamist.
But the pope did dare. And the fight went on.
In mid-November Philippe came to Barbeaux in Melun, to pray at the tomb of his father. From there he continued south to Fontainebleau to visit Edythe at the fine chateau that he had provided for her and their young son. She had left the Cite Palais when Philippe brought Agnes there to live, but Philippe sought her out whenever his travels took him anywhere near Fontainebleau.
More than any other woman since Isabel, he loved Edythe. She gave him the peace he needed and the tenderness he craved. Her love was genuine and perfect as a prayer—not motivated by any purpose other than love itself.
Edythe laid a wedge of pastry on a dish and handed it to him.
“I baked this earlier today,” she said.
He smiled as she set the food before him on the table, still so very much the serving girl, although she was now the mistress of her own home.
Philippe ate well while she sat at his elbow, admiring him with her eyes. What a treat it was to see her lover once again. She missed living with him, seeing him every day, though at least their separation made each meeting special now.
“I never get meals as good as this anymore,” he told her as he sampled a fishcake. “Ever since mother went back to live in Champagne and took all our best cooks with her, the food at the palace has been dreadful.”
Edythe leaned to his shoulder. “I miss Paris sometimes.”
He turned to smile at her. “But not the palace surely; not that drafty place.”
She gave a sniffing little laugh. “Oh, it is much more comfortable here. This is a lovely house.” Her face sobered. “But I love it all the more because you gave it to me.”
After he had finished eating he poured wine for both of them, and they sat on stools near the fire, warming themselves and drinking. “Oh, Edythe,” he sighed, his voice a mingling of weariness and satisfaction, “you give me the only peace I know in life. All the rest is such a tangle now. Everyone is against me: my family, the bishops, even the pope himself.” He twirled a loose lock of her soft brown hair between his nervous fingers. “All of this business about Ingeborg—ridiculous. I shouldn’t have to fight to end a marriage which is no marriage. But because of this controversy I am blamed for every current ill: the droughts and famines, even the fires last year in Beauvais and Amiens.”
Edythe tugged at his sleeve. “It is only vicious tongues and jealousy at work.”
“Jealousy—yes,” he agreed, “and revenge. I know for certain Sibylla has done all she can to turn every noble in Paris against me.” His voice lowered to a near whisper. “How she hates me now!”
His cup was almost empty and Edythe rose to fill it up, before settling herself once more at his side. “She is unhappy because you married Agnes. She wanted to keep you all to herself.”
He brushed away her gentle explanation with a wave of his hand. “It’s foolish. She knew why I did it, why I had to do it. I thought that in the face of another marriage the pope would sanction my divorce from Ingeborg. But he didn’t. Damn him to hell.”
He gave her a look hard-edged by anger. “You should know better than to say such things to me, Edythe. I loathe that woman! I will never take her back!”
Edythe reached to stroke his beard with her fingertips. “I know. But I can’t help feeling sorry for her. And for Sibylla too, though I have never really liked her. You see, my darling, I know how I’d feel without you.”
He kissed her hand lovingly. “You could never be anything but what you are—my sweet and gentle girl.” He raised his cup to her mouth and fed her a little wine from it, then kissed away the drops that remaied on her lips. “You know,” he said, “when Sully died last month I thought: that’s it; I’ve lost the last true friend I have. They’re all gone now: Harry, Geoffrey, Isabel. And Richard might as well be dead, for the friendship between us died years ago. Now Sully. All who cared for me are gone—except for you, sweet Edythe. I care for you more than you can know.”
She raised her face to him. “And you are everything to me.”
He tossed the cup aside and eagerly took her in his arms, and after several kisses Edythe could sense the passion racing in his blood. She closed her eyes and felt him lift her in his strong embrace and carry her from the room.
He had taught her everything she knew of love, how to free herself from the constraints of morality and plunge herself joyfully into passion. And although she had never known another man, she felt that no one else could bring such excitement to a woman’s bed.
Afterwards she lay in his arms, sleepy and full of peace. Her cheek was on his chest and she could hear his heart beating. “I love you,” she whispered.
His arms tightened around her. “I can forget almost everything when I’m with you, dear Edythe.”
Except for Isabel.
Edythe left kisses on his chest where the scars were. “You still miss her, don’t you?” she asked, reading his thoughts.
There were deeper scars which could not be seen. “Yes,” he admitted ruefully. His embrace grew harder till Edythe winced in pain. “Oh God, why can’t I be free of her? Why does her memory haunt me like a ghost that cannot be laid to rest?”
She struggled out of his embrace and sat up, looking down at him. She’d learned long ago to master whatever jealousy she felt, but there was quiet pain in her voice. “You don’t want to be free of her, Philippe. Your grief for Isabel is the most precious thing you have and you will treasure it until the day you die.”
You are mine until the grave makes ghosts of both of us.
He turned his face away so she could not see the tears.
Outside the town of Chartres, just a mile beyond the cathedral, Philippe stood in a little grove of yew trees, remembering another November.
He stared out toward the grey sky where the snow was falling.
It was cold and the world seemed empty but for him. When the wind rattled a branch behind him he jumped at the sound. After a moment he relaxed, but turned his head a bit, anticipating a presence that was not there and a sweet scent of narcissus that had faded long ago.
Philippe pushed at the snow with booted feet as the pale sky deepened to vaguer shades of smoke color. Then when the light was gone, he straddled his horse and rode away.
Alone in the empty grove there was a sudden hiss of wind.
IN APRIL of the year 1199, King Richard died in France from a battle wound and the crown of England passed to John.
There were those who believed it should have gone to the other claimant, Arthur of Brittany. But John murdered him or caused him to be murdered, and when the posthumous son of his brother Geoffrey was dead, there was no one to contest the throne that Henry had promised to John a decade before.
Richard’s death was a stroke of magnificent luck for Philippe.
It meant unlimited potential gain against the Plantagenets, for John was no fit warrior like his older brother; and indeed as years passed Philippe was able to confiscate more and more of the great Angevin domains in France. Normandy, the prize of all prizes, fell to the French in 1204.
And yet, Philippe’s power continued to be threatened by the Ingeborg fiasco. Finally a new pope—Innocent III—pronounced the dreaded interdict upon all of Philippe’s lands until the king was forced to put away Agnes of Meran, and acknowledge Ingeborg as his lawful wife. For a year Philippe refused. But when Agnes died in childbirth in 1201, he finally agreed to take back Ingeborg, on the condition that the pope legitimize the two children Agnes had borne to him.
And so it was done.
But once again Philippe reneged on his word, and it was not until 1213, a full twenty years after the marriage had been celebrated at Amiens, that he was at last persuaded to recognize the unhappy Ingeborg as his queen. She was given a manor house near Chantilly, and allowed to exercise minor rights as Philippe’s consort. But he never bedded her; never treated her as a wife.
She outlived her unloving husband by thirteen years.
Fortified by forgiveness of both God and pope, Philippe turned his attentions toward the dangers of an invasion by his enemies. For several years a number of coalitions had arisen to threaten his power. Then in 1214 they all banned together against him: England, the Empire, Germany, certain French vassalages, and the counties of Flanders and Hainault.
At Bouvines, a little town just a few miles south of Isabel’s birthplace, Philippe proved his might to the world by defeating his aggressors in the most splendid victory France had ever known. If any man alive had doubted Philippe to be master of Europe, they did not doubt it after the battle on that hot summer day.
At the head of his triumphant army, he came back to Paris.
Philippe led his bloodied troops through streets gone mad with celebrating, and took them into Notre Dame. There before the great altar, they all knelt to give thanks for this great victory.
Above their heads the bells thundered out Te Deum to the glory of God, and the honor of their king.
In July of the year 1223 the noble Philippe-Auguste, king of the Franks, fell ill of a fever and died at the abbey of Ste. Gabrielle in Mantes, after a reign of forty-three years. This man of great skill and courage, noble in his deeds, a winner of battles, greatly enriched the treasury and brought honor to France.
He enlarged the royal demesne by four times what he found it at the start of his reign. To its small area he added Vermandois, Artois, Amiens, Poitou, Anjou, Touraine, Maine, Alencgn, Clermont, Valois, Ponthieu, and Normandy.
He gave generously of his monies to building and fortifying his beloved capital, and was a friend to the churches. During his reign France knew the rise of great cathedrals, including Notre Dame de Paris, which he loved. He was a builder of other things and put himself a fortress in the center of the city which he used to keep his treasury, called the Louvre; and he put the wall about the city of Paris to keep it free from enemy invaders.
As befits so great a monarch and illustrious a man, he was laid in burial at St. Denis beside the tombs of his ancestors, and amid the sound of cries and mourning from all the nobles in France.
At his death he has left us a worthy successor, a strong and mighty warrior-king who it may please God long to reign over us, Louis VIII, son of Philippe-Auguste and his first queen, who was Isabel de Hainault …
William le Breton
Preface to The Philippid
November 1, 1223
THE END
Glossary
Albigenses—An extremist and heretic religious sect of southern France.
Almoner—A small pouch, made of silk and decorated with beading or fringes, carried by men and women for distributing coins to the poor.
Arnoldia—The mysterious wasting illness suffered by men at Acre, including the two kings, during the Third Crusade. The symptoms were high fever, peeling skin, and vomiting. It also caused damage to the hair and fingernails.
Assize of Arms—A survey of equipment held by feudal tenants; generally, an assize came to mean any
law which modified a law already in existence.
Bezant—Gold coin of Byzantium. Blazon—A coat of arms, or its representation in heraldry.
Bliaud—A tunic-style garment worn to the knees or longer, usually belted and decorated with embroidery at the neck, wrists and hem. Worn most often by men, though women wore a more free-flowing variation.
Braies—Loose trousers worn by men, held together at the front by lacing.
Brunette—Wool dyed dark brown in color, used for the making of blankets or common clothes.
Cantel—Medieval vestment for the mass; also called a cope.
Castellan—The keeper of a castle, though not necessarily its lord.
Cendal—Also sendal. A fine, shimmery silk, often decorated with appliques.
Chainse—A long tunic with tight sleeves, worn by women, usually under their bliaud or pellison. Isabel wore hers alone, in the Flemish fashion.
Chambrette—A small room, usually a bedroom annex.
Chamois—Soft leather made from the hide of the animal of the same name. Most often used in making boots and gloves for the nobility or royalty.
Champagnois—The ruling house of Champagne; those representing it.
Chapter House—Place of assemblage for a religious order, usually attached to a cathedral. Guests could be housed here as well.
Chasuble—Long, sleeveless vestment worn by the priest at mass.
Chatelaine—A decorative chain worn at the waist, whereon a mistress of the house kept her keys.
Chemise—Loose garment worn by women, often made of silk or fine linen.
Chief Justiciar—A top-level judicial and political figure of state, particularly in Norman and Plantagenet England.
Circlet—A dainty and ornamental band worn by women of rank.
Coif—A skullcap worn beneath a knight’s mesh hood; the hood itself.
Corselet—A breastplate or light form of body armor to cover the breast.
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