by Rachel Bard
I stayed until I thought I could leave without being noticed. The guests had risen from the tables and were strolling about, chatting, seeing and being seen. Before I could disappear, though, I heard the King call my name. Perhaps he was going to explain and apologize.
“Sir Hugh,” he said while I stood before him respectfully, “I was desolated to see that your lovely wife was so suddenly unwell. I hope it is nothing serious, and I can understand your desire to see to her. Before you go, however, please accept our invitation to join us at the royal palace in Poitiers, in two days’ time. We are asking all the new vassals of Prince Alphonse to come to reaffirm their homage to him and agree on various matters to do with his assuming the countship. I hope we may see you there.” I had no choice but to say, “Of course, my liege.” I added, “And I assume you will want me to bring the Countess of Angoulême.” Isabella would be even more unwell if she weren’t invited.
“Perhaps the countess, in view of her indisposition, will find it wiser to remain quietly at home for a time.”
All the way back to our lodgings I worried about how I’d tell Isabella that King Louis and Count Alphonse didn’t want her at Poitiers.
When I got there I found that Isabella had left, taking young Isabella with her. One of her ladies had remained behind to tell me that if I wished to see my wife, I would find her at Angoulême.
Well, that would have to wait. Perhaps it was just as well; I had an idea she would need some time to cool off. Meantime, I’d go to Poitiers.
I’d returned from Poitiers to Lusignan and been there for several days when Isabella arrived from Angoulême. At first I thought everything was going to be all right. She seemed calm. During dinner, where Young Hugh, Guy and Isabella joined us, she spoke to the children and her ladies, with not a word for me. Studying her, I saw the signs. This was the ominous, oppressive quiet that precedes a violent storm. We’d had disagreements, of course, but they seldom lasted long. Often I gave in, just to avoid unpleasantness. Often we settled our differences in bed. Tonight that might not work. Nevertheless, after dinner I accompanied her along the gallery to the Logis de la Reine.
The minute we were in her chamber and before I’d had a chance to sit down, she began.
“So, Hugh, what new shame did you bring on the houses of La Marche and Angoulême at Poitiers?” She was still calm but barely so. Her eyes were cold and blue as icy ponds. She stood straight and rigid, as though she were afraid she might break if she moved. She was clenching and unclenching her hands. The rage that had been building up for a week was boiling to the surface.
“I agreed only to what was necessary to safeguard our interests and those of our children.”
“Such as?”
I thought I might as well get it all out at once.
“ First I renewed my homage to Alphonse.”
“For your La Marche alone, or for the County of Angoulême as well?”
“For both.”
“And then?”
“I agreed to hand over to Alphonse the cities of l’Aunis and Saint-Jean-d’Angély.”
“What? Those were awarded to us as part of the dower that Louis’s sister Isabelle will bring when she marries our son Hugh.”
“Apparently that’s not going to happen. They’ve affianced her to someone else.”
She flung herself into a chair and looked up at me, pale with shock and disbelief. Then she loosed a torrent of invective.
“This is too much, too much. Hugh, how could you let them insult us so? How could you give up our independence, our prospects of advancement? And for what? What did you get in return? Nothing! Oh I wish to God I hadn’t listened to you and that we’d kept our allegiance to Henry. My son would never have treated us so basely. If only I’d been there! I would have made it plain that as Queen of England, I will never, never bend the knee to that nobody from Toulouse, countess though she calls herself.”
When Isabella was in such a passion, she could be powerfully persuasive. Also strikingly beautiful. Over the years her face had sharpened somewhat and lost its youthful softness, yet gained character. The tilt of her chin, the flash of her eyes, told the world that this was a woman to be reckoned with. Over twenty years of marriage I’d seen her in many moods. The embattled queen stirred me fully as much as the bewitching temptress.
“Isabella…” I began.
“Leave me!” she cried. “I cannot bear the sight of you. I never want to see you again!”
Obviously there’d be no reconciliation in the bedchamber tonight. I left.
The next morning she gathered up all her linens and clothing and the hangings from her rooms, packed up her chests, tables and whatever other furnishings she could remove, and took herself off to Angoulême. She refused to see me before she rode away.
I was anguished. I followed her, but she wouldn’t let me into the palace. I had to stay at the lodge of the Templars, across the square. Finally after three days she sent word that I could be admitted.
I found her tearful, wearing a clinging lilac gown that I was sure had been chosen to present her at her most seductive. The presentation was successful. She allowed me to put my arms around her and kiss her. She looked up at me, with tears still welling in her eyes.
“Oh my dear Hugh, do you see now why I had to come away? I couldn’t bear the humiliation and the injustice of our treatment by King Louis and his brother. I couldn’t bear to think that you had been a party to it. Hugh, we cannot permit them to push us around like pawns on a chessboard!”
I was deeply moved. She was my wife, the mother of my children, but beyond that she was so fiercely devoted to our cause. I burned to match that devotion. Above all I wanted to restore myself to her good graces. I was ready to promise anything.
“My own Isabella, you are right and I was misled. Will you forgive me? I swear from now on I’ll listen to you. Surely the two of us together can find a way to right these wrongs.”
She looked at me, unsmiling and deadly serious.
“If you’d said otherwise, my lord, I would never again admit you to my bed.”
We were united once more. She permitted me to play the master again as I took her hand and led her to her bedchamber. I believe that was the night our daughter Alice was conceived.
The very next day we began planning a complete reversal of our allegiances. We’d launch a new campaign. It would involve her sons Henry and Richard, our supporters in La Marche and Angoulême and all the barons of western France, to be deployed against King Louis, Queen Blanche and Alphonse.
Chapter 56
Henry III
1241-1242
In the autumn of 1241 I received a surprising letter from my mother.
To our beloved son, from Queen Isabella, Countess of Angoulême and Hugh de Lusignan, Count of La Marche, greetings. The barons of the West are ready to rise against their Capetian king and his brother Alphonse, whom he has named Count of Poitou. That title is rightfully your brother Richard’s. Will you join us in their good fight? We can promise you all the support you lacked when you came across to France ten years ago. The barons’ feudal authority is being undermined. They think with longing of the days when they were pledged to the Plantagenets, who were open and generous and who understood their traditions. Will you come to lead them? Your loving mother, Isabella.
How well she knew me! I desperately wanted to believe that the vassals who had failed to answer my call during my last, disastrous invasion would flock to my banner today. Should I have another try at fulfilling my dream? Might it at last be possible to reclaim Aquitaine, Normandy, Brittany?
The days were long past when I had to let my council decide England’s course. The men who’d run the country during my early years as king were no longer around. William Marshal, long dead. The papal legate Pandulfo, returned to Rome. Peter des Roches, dead three years ago. Hubert de Burgh, now grown old and weary, retired to his estates in Surrey.
At thirty-four, I felt that I’d learned a great deal about
kingship. Now was the time to prove to myself, to my mother and to my people that I could succeed in what had become almost a crusade for me.
But I’d been misled before. I decided I should learn more about the situation before committing myself.
I invited my mother and her husband to come to discuss the matter. They arrived in early December. I’d chosen the small city of Reading for our meeting because I didn’t want this to appear as a state visit, pompous and ceremonial. I knew there’d be resistance in England to another Continental venture.
My young wife, Eleanor of Provence, came with me. I’d married her for political advantage, to cement relations between England and the south of France. To my great joy we proved to be fond partners, perfectly suited to each other. We were equally devoted to England and the monarchy. Also in my party were Peter d’Aigueblanche, the bishop of Hereford; Peter of Savoy, Eleanor’s uncle, whom I’d come to admire greatly for his circumspection and discretion, and my trusted old household steward William de Cantilupe.
We met at Reading Abbey, one of England’s noblest monastic centers, and were lodged in a commodious house adjoining the cloister. These quarters were always reserved for royal guests, because my ancestors had founded the abbey and given it many donations. I’d often come to stay at the peaceful abbey when I needed an escape from the cares of state.
We’d hardly paid our respects to Abbot Richard when our visitors from overseas arrived. They were quite a large party—some dozen lords and ladies besides my mother and my stepfather. My mother entered the hall first.
I thought at first she hadn’t changed a bit. She was slim and graceful and walked with the quick, assured step I remembered. She’d tucked her hair under a little jeweled cap, but the tendrils that escaped to frame her face were as golden as ever. Her long purple cloak swept the floor. Her lips were parted in an eager, expectant smile. She was dazzling.
“Henry, my dear son,” she said. She reached out her arms and we held each other. I felt like the twelve-year-old boy who’d said goodbye to his adored young mother twenty-one years before. All the anguish of that day came back to me, the day she’d told me that though she was leaving England she’d follow my progress and pray that I’d become the great king she’d always known I could be.
“I am so glad to see you, mother. And how well you look!”
“I am well, thanks be to God. But older, as you see.”
Now I did notice a few fine wrinkles fanning out at the corners of her eyes and a little fleshiness under her chin.
“No, I don’t see. You’re just as lovely as I remember you. And here’s another beautiful queen, come to meet her mother-in-law.”
Eleanor had been standing at my side waiting to be introduced. They appraised each other. Eleanor was only eighteen, in the first blush of young womanhood and disposed to make a friend of her mother-in-law. My mother was in her fifties, serenely self-confident and with every reason to enlist Eleanor on her side. They smiled at each other, and Eleanor took my mother’s arm.
“I’ll show you and your ladies to your rooms so you may rest a little before the meal. There’s someone there who’s waiting most impatiently to see you.”
“I do so hope you mean Lady Anne. When I saw Sir William in the hall I thought surely he’d have brought her. Thank you, my dear. You couldn’t have brought me a better present.”
After they left I greeted my stepfather, whom I was meeting for the first time. He was grayer on top and thicker about the middle than I’d expected. By and large, though, he was good-looking and good-natured with a disarming smile for all. I could see how my mother would be attracted to him.
“A charming city, Reading,” he said, “at least what I’ve seen of it as we rode along the Thames into town. And the abbey is marvelously imposing. But tell me, why did you choose this out-of-the-way spot instead of meeting at Westminster or Winchester? Isabella had so hoped and expected to go to Winchester. She remembers it with great fondness, and I’ve always wanted to see it.”
He looked around the uninspiring room, doubtless comparing it with the imagined splendors of Winchester Palace. It was large and well proportioned. It was perfectly clean and scrubbed; the monks saw to that. The furnishings were adequate—a table now set for dinner but also suitable for parleys, a well-drawing fireplace, performing admirably on this cold December day, and ample illumination from candles on the table and in sconces around the walls. As I saw it through his eyes, though, I realized it was woefully lacking in any attempt at beautification.
“Yes, I can understand that she might have wanted to meet in Winchester. I’m sorry to disappoint you. But we anticipate a great deal of opposition to any new Continental engagement from the lords and barons of England. I didn’t want our meeting to draw too much interest. Better to keep quiet for now.”
I didn’t tell him the other reason. My mother was still enormously unpopular in England. I’m not sure she or Hugh knew that. I wanted to spare her from the rude, even dangerous, public censure she might have met in London or Winchester.
We made our way through the meal quickly so we could get down to our discussions. There was a great deal to go over. During that afternoon and the next day we hammered out a formal alliance between the Lusignans and myself.
Hugh and Isabella promised faithfully to help me recover my possessions, in exchange for certain considerations.
I agreed in return to grant in perpetuity to them and their children the rights to a dozen or more cities and fortresses in Poitou as well as the archbishopric of Bourges and bishoprics of Limoges, Périguex, Saintes and Poitiers. It was an impressive list, including most of the onetime holdings of the Plantagenets in Aquitaine.
Of course, at the moment it was only promises on parchment.
We talked at length about raising an army in France. They assured me I’d find enthusiastic support the moment I came ashore. I reminded them, most politely, that I’d been told the same thing eleven years before.
“This time it’s a totally different climate, isn’t it, Hugh?” He nodded and my mother went on. Her face was tense and I noticed how thin it had become. But her blue eyes blazed with conviction. She was beautifully persuasive. “Truly, Henry, you’ll find most of the powerful lords eager to fight under your banner. What’s more, we’ll publicly announce that from now on we’ll give you our fealty instead of King Louis and his brother. The fact that we’re openly defying the King will encourage even more of our vassals to join our cause and bring with them their own knights and foot soldiers. They’ve grown quite resentful of the way King Louis meddles in their affairs.”
They described how they’d already traveled all over Poitou exacting pledges of aid. They named names, very impressive names. All that was needed was for me to gather as many troops and as much money as I could and sail across the Channel.
On this optimistic note we parted.
I plunged into preparations. My counselors weren’t as enthusiastic as I was, but they didn’t try to dissuade me. The most supportive was Eleanor’s uncle, Peter of Savoy, who had more ties to France than the others. The most cautious was William de Cantilupe.
Early in January 1242 he came to me with an astonishing tale. William had ways of learning useful information. If he took it seriously enough to pass it on, it had to be reliable.
It seemed that Prince Alphonse had invited Hugh and Isabella to Poitiers for the Christmas festivities.
“They’d never have been asked, of course, if Alphonse had known of their plans to desert the Capetian cause,” said Sir William. He went on to tell the story as it had been told to him, in such detail that it could hardly have been invented.
Alphonse and his court were feasting in the great hall while musicians filled the air with carols. Into the noisy and joyful scene strode Hugh with Isabella close behind him. Hugh went straight to Alphonse. He cried out, so loudly that he could be heard above the trilling of the flutes and beating of the tabors, “Now let it be known to you, Prince Alphonse, tha
t I am no longer your man. I withdraw my homage from you, in protest against your stealing the countship of Poitou from the rightful count, Richard of England, while he is on Crusade to the Holy Land. I am no longer your subject or subject to any son of Queen Blanche. Henceforth I owe homage only to Henry of England!”
William seemed uncomfortable telling this story. He paused to see how I was taking it.
“By our Lord, Sir William! This is remarkable, if true. Last December my mother and my stepfather promised they’d publicly withdraw their homage to Alphonse. But I’d never imagined they’d do it quite so publicly. I can’t say I approve of such brazen defiance.”
“Unfortunately, it’s true. And there’s worse to come. They left in as much of a rush as they’d arrived, before anybody could put out a hand to stop them. They rejoined their troops who’d been waiting outside and rode to their lodgings. They set fire to the house, then galloped off to Lusignan.”
“What possible reason could they have for making such a scene?”
“I’ve been turning that question over in my mind, and talking to my wife, who knows your mother so very well. I believe that the grievances Queen Isabella holds against Queen Blanche and her sons have festered to the point where she will do anything to let the world know how she despises them. You know, my liege, that your mother is a woman of strong passions. So strong that she can easily persuade others to go along with her. Both she and Hugh are fearful that King Louis will take away from them the power they’ve amassed in Poitou. And it may be that when word of this outburst gets around it will build even more support for their—for our—rising against Louis. A headstrong baron minded to declare his independence can’t help but applaud it.”