by Rachel Bard
In early 1230 we were in Angoulême, discussing with the builders, masons and carpenters our plans for a new palace. We’d decided that instead of merely adding a tower to the four-hundred-year-old palace of the Taillefers we’d start afresh. I envisioned a capacious three-towered residence, appropriate to our status. Two of the towers would be round and one octagonal—a nice contrast, I thought. There’d be an interior courtyard where I could create a garden as impressive as the one I’d seen at Vendôme. Hugh objected at first to the cost, despite our new prosperity. Then he saw how we could surround the palace and its bailey with thick defensive walls, linked to the existing city walls. That would give us a palace that was also a fortress. Hugh had been worrying for years about the meager defenses of Angoulême in case of an attack.
While we were discussing these matters with the architect, a messenger came from King Henry. The man had been riding hard through a spring downpour and water was dripping off his cloak when he was ushered into the audience chamber. He insisted on delivering his message at once. It was urgent, he said, and was too important to be trusted to writing. He had to deliver it orally. He’d memorized it well.
“To our beloved mother Queen Isabella and our stepfather Count Hugh, from Henry, King of England, greetings. We trust that you and your sons and daughters are well and prospering. We also trust you have received favorably our several invitations to support us, for which support we have promised you suzerainty, as our vassals, over any lands in Poitou that we reclaim. Now we hereby inform you, in utmost confidence, that King Henry and Count Richard are on the eve of launching an invasion of Poitou from the north. We beg you, in view of the love and respect that we hold for you and that we believe you hold for us, to join us in this endeavor. We plan to arrive at the port of Nantes during the first week in May. We shall hope and expect to find you there. Please send your reply by the messenger who brings you this. Your loving son, Henry.”
We sent the messenger down to the kitchen to dry off by the fire and have some hot soup while we considered our answer.
“I see no reason to change loyalties,” said Hugh. “We have a perfectly satisfactory arrangement with Queen Blanche and King Louis. They leave us to ourselves without making demands. If we went over to Henry it would mean raising armies, doing battle, alienating many of our vassals, and for what? What chance does he have? The minute he begins his advance he’ll find not just the barons of Poitou to subdue, there’ll likely be resistance from Brittany, not to mention an army mobilized for Louis.”
I understood his reasoning. Yet it wasn’t easy to turn down this plea from my son. I could sense the hope and desperation behind the formal words. Over the years since I’d last seen Henry I’d held the memory of him as a beautiful little boy, still learning to rise to what was expected of him, still willing to listen to his mother. I knew that was foolish. He was now twenty-three, he’d been King of England for fourteen years and all that time he’d been dreaming of victories in France. If only that wicked Hubert de Burgh hadn’t sent me away I’d have been Queen Regent, just like Queen Blanche. I could have helped my son rule during his minority. Part of me wanted to help him even now.
Hugh was looking at me, wondering why I didn’t speak up in agreement.
“But Hugh, think of what it might mean for us if the war went his way—our way? If he brings a large enough army he might succeed this time. We’d be masters of twice as many lands as we now hold. We could forget about Queen Blanche and King Louis. We could leave magnificent legacies to our children. Shouldn’t we at least talk about the alternative?”
“Isabella, my dear Queen Isabella, even if by some miracle Henry succeeded, we’d be trading one master—who asks so little of us—for another who would require every service a vassal can provide. The English would be looking over our shoulders every minute, demanding our support for one scheme or another.”
We were still sitting side by side at the table, strewn with the papers and parchments we’d been going over with the workmen. Hugh put his arm around me and spoke earnestly. “I know you’d like to help your son. But you have other sons now, and daughters. We mustn’t forget our own best interests as well as theirs. We need to fortify our castles and build support in the lands we hold now. Remember our pledge? To Angoulême and La Marche, against all others!”
I sighed, then nodded. He was right, of course.
We instructed the messenger to tell Henry that we were deeply sorry, but we would be unable to meet him at Nantes. But we would be wishing him well and asked him to keep us informed of his progress. I insisted that we leave that small loophole in case he had spectacular success and we decided it would be in our interest to come over to him.
His invasion failed. Though he made some inroads in Poitou, the forces of King Louis were too much for him. By the end of September he went back to England, dejected and, I heard, humiliated that his own mother had refused to come to his aid. The next year he signed a peace treaty with King Louis.
We had a rare opportunity now to look to our own interests. The new castle in Angoulême was our first concern. I sent secret agents to inspect Queen Blanche’s gardens at Vendôme and to report to me in detail, so mine could outshine them. We also went ahead with another of my favorite projects, the “Logis de la Reine” at Lusignan. The Queen’s Lodgings would be within the ramparts and across the bailey from the old castle keep, joined to it by a long gallery. I could imagine the stately processions of the Queen and her court along the gallery to the castle’s great hall.
Throughout Poitou we examined our vassals’ defenses and helped them make improvements. We also built a completely new castle at Crozant on the Creuse River at a strategic point that had been woefully undefended. In this and other constructions we were greatly aided by the Lusignan clan. Among the most enthusiastic were Hugh’s cousins, descendants of his father’s old companions at arms, Geoffrey de Lusignan and Ralph of Eu.
I’d never known Geoffrey, but I had many fond memories of Ralph, my guardian when I was a girl at Lusignan.
“What do you suppose Uncle Ralph would say, Hugh, to the way we’re spending all this money to secure Poitou for the interests of the Lusignans and the Taillefers? Would he approve?”
Hugh also remembered his gruff old uncle. “He’d probably say, ‘You go ahead if you think it’s so important. Just leave me out of it. I have a pain in my belly and I’m going home.’ ”
Chapter 55
Hugh X
1241
How the money poured in!
Isabella and I kept finding new ways to assert our rights of governance over most of Poitou and tap into undreamed-of sources of revenue. Isabella was particularly ingenious.
One Sunday afternoon in Angoulême we went to mass at St. André and were strolling back to the palace. Our eldest sons, tall strapping Hugh and almost-as-tall Guy, had become impatient with our slow pace and had gone on ahead. I was enjoying the fine day, thinking how prosperous and tidy the city looked, when Isabella stopped suddenly and pulled on my arm. “Hugh, I’ve just had the most marvelous idea. Stand still and let me tell you. ”
When Isabella had a marvelous idea, her whole face tensed and her blue eyes positively blazed with her sense of urgency. There was no way to avoid hearing her out.
The narrow street was crowded with other Sunday strollers, who moved around us, looking curiously at their count and countess so deep in conversation. No doubt they wondered what we were up to now. I fear we’d earned a reputation for shaking things up.
“Remember that large tract of vineyards along the Charente River that we own? I think I know how we can get a better price for our wine. Hugh, don’t we have the right to set the date of the market when the vintners offer their new wines?”
“We do, as lords of the county. Though we’ve never bothered to make any changes to the usual date, second week in October.”
“Suppose that we postpone the date for the wine market this year.”
“Why would we do that
?”
“Why, because we can then offer our own wine well before the market and charge whatever we like. There’ll be plenty of thirsty folk who can’t wait to fill their empty cellars. They’ll be glad to pay a little extra.”
I laughed in delighted admiration. “How clever! How simple!”
A few days later she came up with another clever idea.
“Hugh, did you know that we permit the Jews to live in their own districts in our cities, and we don’t even charge them for the privilege? They should be paying us for protecting them.”
I did know that there were Jewish enclaves in the larger cities like Poitiers and Angoulême. It hadn’t occurred to me that we were protecting them.
“Of course we are. If we wished we could drive them out, and you may be sure King Louis would support us. He’ll do anything to convert Jews to Christianity, but he doesn’t care a fig for the ones who prefer not to give up their faith. Yet we let them live peacefully in their neighborhoods. They’re rich enough, they could afford to pay something.”
So we charged the Jews rent, which they paid without argument.
Sometimes the seigneurs who owed us fealty were surprisingly willing to increase their monetary contributions when we requested it. I explained to Isabella why we were so fortunate. It had to do with the peasants.
“You must have noticed, Isabella, how they toiled at the plowing, with those slow plodding oxen? Now they can plow up a field twice as fast.”
“How, by harnessing more oxen? Or whipping them harder? I must confess I’ve never paid much attention to peasants or oxen.”
“No, now their seigneurs are encouraging them to use horses. They move a lot faster. And they’re managing to get two crops a year instead of one. So now their lords can demand higher rents which means they can afford higher payments to us.”
We also found we could levy tolls on travelers who wished to cross our bridges or pass through our city gates.
There were, of course, grumblings. Sometimes I worried that we’d be seen as greedy.
“Never mind. We’ll do more for the church and the holy orders,” said Isabella. “That will show people that we’re devout and generous.”
So we founded two orders of mendicants in Angoulême and provided the wherewithal for the Abbey of La Couronne to enlarge the dormitory and build a chapel where the monks could pray for our eternal souls. Abbot Vital had respectfully asked if he might not spend our donation on a scriptorium instead of the dormitory remodeling. But neither of us was particularly interested in the boring work that scribes did. We thought it far more important for the monks to have a few more inches of space between one cot and the snoring brother in the next one.
“So they’ll be rested and in a serene state of mind,” I said, “when it’s time to go the chapel and pray for their benefactors.”
Once we’d settled that matter, Isabella came to depend on the abbot as her spiritual adviser. She’d often visit him to tell him her concerns. He would listen to her when she had doubts about whether our subjects, not to mention God, would think she had acted wisely in this or that affair, or when she wondered if she’d be seen as selfish or vain. I’d overheard complaints about her highhandedness, though I never mentioned them to her. But she probably had an idea she wasn’t universally beloved.
At any rate, the abbot must have been reassuring. Isabella would come away from the abbey so full of self-confidence that she couldn’t resist telling me all about it.
Our royal overlords in Paris left us alone for the most part. Though King Louis had long since reached his majority, Blanche still acted as co-ruler. Their lack of attention suited us. We liked the freedom to do as we pleased. Then Isabella began to worry. Were King Louis and his mother ignoring us because they thought we weren’t important?
She was gleeful, therefore, when in June 1241 a messenger in the blue-and-silver livery of the Capetian kings appeared at our palace in Lusignan with an invitation to a royal assembly at Saumur. This castle on the Loire River had been a favorite of the King’s grandfather, Philip Augustus, who had restored it and maintained it as one of his royal residences. With such a distinguished history and with its present fame as a place frequented by the highest nobility of France, the castle of Saumur was like a magnet for Isabella.
“I must have two new gowns,” was her first pronouncement.
“Certainly, my dear. As many as you like,” I said.
“And we’ll need to decide how large a party to take with us. Surely we should include young Hugh, since he’s betrothed to the King’s sister. And Isabella too, who is promised to the King’s brother Alphonse.”
“I don’t think so. The invitation was directed to Count Hugh of La Marche and Countess Isabella of Angoulême. Nothing about anyone else. If they’d wanted our children they’d have said so. Queen Blanche is probably responsible for planning this event, and she’s most punctilious about proper etiquette.”
Whereupon my Isabella pouted and we almost quarreled. She insisted on taking our daughter Isabella at least, as well as four of our courtiers.
We found Saumur to be an enormous and confusing conglomeration of towers, inner and outer courtyards and walled enclaves, with a dreary, tall keep in the midst of it all. But it was considerably brightened by the throng of elegantly dressed lords and ladies who milled about, then gathered in the large interior courtyard for King Louis’s grand reception. Tables were draped and canopied in blue silk embroidered with silver fleurs-de-lis. The attendants wore tunics of the same blue, bearing the coat of arms of our County of Poitou.
“Why do you suppose they’re bearing that insignia?” I said to Isabella. “Saumur isn’t in Poitou. It’s in the Touraine.”
Isabella stopped a passing servant who was carrying a tray of little cakes. They gave off a marvelous aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg.
“Why are you all wearing the coat of arms of Poitou? Why not the King’s own insignia?”
The man looked at her haughtily.
“All I can tell you, my lady, is that the tunics were made up especially for this occasion on orders of King Louis.” Holding his tray high, he marched off.
“Maybe it means the King is going to give us some special honor, as lords of Poitou.” She smoothed down her rose satin skirts and straightened our daughter Isabella’s sash.
The King wasn’t flaunting any Poitevin insignia, but a tunic and surcoat of blindingly white satin and a scarlet mantle trimmed in ermine. Most of the guests were only slightly less splendid. I was put off by the ostentation but Isabella reveled in it. Her spirits fell somewhat when she found that I’d been asked to sit at the King’s table while she hadn’t. My tablemates, besides the King and his mother, were his brother Prince Alphonse; the Count of Brittany; and Jean de Dreux, the King’s uncle and one of his close advisers. A beautifully gowned young woman, unknown to me and wearing a tiara and a fixed smile, sat next to Queen Blanche. Isabella and our daughter were at the next table down but still surrounded by counts and countesses.
Nobody imagined this was a purely social occasion. Sure enough, at the end of the meal the King rose to address the gathering. He’d been seated when I arrived. Now I saw that he’d grown from the frail-looking, diffident boy I’d last seen into a tall, well-built man, as dignified as a deacon and as humorless.
He told us, after welcoming us and thanking us for gracing his assembly, that he was pleased to make two announcements that he knew would give us joy. First, his younger brother Alphonse, recently knighted, would henceforth be Count of Poitou.
“This was my father’s last wish,” said King Louis. “He regarded the rich County of Poitou as one of the jewels of his domains. He instructed me to safeguard it, to keep it from falling again into the hands of the English, and to grant its overlordship to his son Alphonse, as soon as he attained his majority. That day has come.”
The significance of the Poitou coat-of-arms was now shockingly clear. Isabella and I had come to see ourselves as de facto lords of Poi
tou, ruling independently of any monarch, French or English. I looked down to where she sat. Her face was strained. She was fighting not to show her anger. All around her, others were murmuring their approval and smiling as broadly as though they themselves had been granted countships.
The King continued.
“Furthermore, we rejoice to welcome Jeanne, daughter of Count Raymond of Toulouse, into the royal family of France. She was only yesterday joined to our brother Alphonse in matrimony.” He gestured to the young woman in the tiara. She stood, smiled even more radiantly at everybody, and sat down again.
I believe I felt this affront fully as much as Isabella did. Without a word to us the King had annulled the engagement of his brother to our daughter Isabella. I looked at him in angry disbelief, then saw Queen Blanche send a malicious glance in my wife’s direction. Isabella caught it and sent it back. So much for conciliation. The battle lines were drawn.
“Now,” said the King, “I ask all my loyal vassals from Poitou to come forward and pledge your homage to our brother Count Alphonse of Poitou and to his Countess, Jeanne de Toulouse.”
One by one we advanced to where Alphonse and his still-smiling wife sat enthroned. Count Alphonse, a good-looking youth of twenty-one, was almost as richly dressed as his brother. When I’d bowed to them both, knelt and placed my hands in his and made my oath, I stood and returned to my seat. I looked toward Isabella to see how she was taking this new insult. Her face had reddened. She suddenly rose, took her daughter’s arm, pulled her to her feet and led her away. The girl looked bewildered. Her mother had decked her out for this occasion in a new gown and a cape embroidered with the coats of arms of La Marche and Angoulême. How meaningless those symbols of our power were now!