The Last Plantagenet

by Thomas B. Costain

  At first the French council refused the English envoys the right to see the princess, thinking no doubt that the terms on which the mother had come to France should not be repeated. “She is but a child of seven,” was the reason they gave. The ambassadors insisted and finally were granted permission to pay a visit at the Hôtel de St. Pol.

  Their first impression of Isabella was that she seemed small even for her years. When they arrived, she was seated on a low stool, while the queen and her ladies remained watchfully in the background. As the tailors of the day had not yet conceived it possible to design clothes especially for children, Isabella was a petite replica of her mother: a thin gold chaplet about her dark hair, her slender neck showing white and pure above her bell-shaped gown, her sleeves embroidered in the delicate shades of butterfly’s wings, her skirts spread out demurely around her.

  The three Englishmen stood in silence for a moment, each thinking the same thing, no doubt: “This miniature of a great lady will grow up into a beautiful queen.”

  The English marshal then dropped on one knee beside her and said, “Madame, if it please God, you will be our lady and queen.”

  There was a nervous tension among the women grouped about the queen, for this form of greeting had not been anticipated. How would the child conduct herself? But their fears were wholly unnecessary.

  The small princess answered promptly: “Sir, if it please God and my lord and king that I be queen of England, I shall be well pleased thereat. For I have been told I shall then be a great lady.”

  The balance of the audience proceeded, no doubt, along the lines which had been planned. It passed off smoothly and well. The princess asked the marshal to rise and then led him by the hand to pay his respects to the queen. The latter received them graciously. Her desire to charm all men, even members of the hated English breed, was displayed in the brief talk which followed.

  The members of the embassy had been quite carried away by the loveliness and intelligence of the child and so no time was lost in arranging the terms of the marriage contract. It was signed on March 9, 1396, and at the same time the truce between the two countries was tentatively extended for twenty-eight years. It was arranged that the marriage would be held at once, with the marshal acting as proxy for Richard.

  The English king was to cross to France later when the terms would be ratified finally. He would then take his little bride back to England where she would be educated in a household of her own.

  4

  Richard decided that the ceremonies in France were to be conducted on the most lavish scale. He notified John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock that they were to accompany him, with their wives, and similar instructions went out to the higher-ranking members of the aristocracy. They all crossed over to Calais together, including the wives who had openly declared their intention of refusing to acknowledge the fair Katharine, Gaunt’s wife. Apparently the rancorous ladies were brought to realize there must be no open evidences of ill feeling, for the party arrived at Calais and then proceeded as a unit to a place between Guisnes and Ardres, where a century later another King of England would meet another King of France with an absurdity of extravagance at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

  The two courts met on the vigil of the feast of St. Simon and St. Jude, on October 27, 1396. There was an open space between the two camps and this was guarded by 400 knights from each country, on foot and with drawn swords. The royal parties met in a lane formed by the armed knights, the King of France conducted by the Dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester (Gaunt and Woodstock), and Richard walking between two of the French royal uncles, the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy. When the two kings met, “the eight hundred knights,” according to Froissart, “fell on their knees and wept for joy.” This sounds like one of the typical high-flown exaggerations in which the French historian indulged, and yet it is probable that some of the knights wept. In the Middle Ages men were intensely emotional and tears poured forth on the least provocation. It was true, also, that many of the nobility of both countries were thoroughly weary of the interminable fighting.

  The two monarchs then went hand in hand into the pavilion of the French king, where they conversed privately, sipping wine and dipping into comfit boxes. Richard did not see his bride until the next day, however, when dinner was served in the French tent, with the kings seated alone at different ends of the table. The royal uncles waited on them and it was reported later that Thomas of Woodstock cast a rolling eye on the elaborate gold and silver service and whispered to one of the others that “France was still a very rich country, and that peace ought not to be made,” a remark which befitted a burglar staring through a window at the table appointments he planned to steal that night.

  After the feasting was over, the bride was brought into the tent, attended by a train of French ladies. Her father, who felt so deeply about losing her that the parting brought about a partial return of his mental malady, took one of her hands and placed it in that of Richard. Isabella looked up into the handsome face of the English king and felt as much fluttering of the heart as was possible in one so young. Apparently he impressed her as the prince charming of her dreams, for she never ceased thereafter to speak of him in any terms but of open admiration.

  Richard smiled and whispered a compliment. In accordance with the prearranged etiquette, he shook the hand of his father-in-law and withdrew from the tent.

  During these various meetings the English king had appeared in a magnificent variety of costumes which no mythical bird from the East could have equaled. King Charles, in contrast, had worn at the start a cloak of white and gold velvet with a single plume in his hat. This had sufficed also for all of the other events.

  It was estimated later that the marriage had cost England £200,000, of which £7000 had been spent in presents lavished by the king on the French nobility. By the terms arranged in advance, Richard had renounced all claims to the throne of France in right of Isabella or the children she might bear. The queen came handsomely endowed, however, in the sum of 800,000 francs, which were to be paid in a series of installments.

  The seven-year-old Isabella, who was already being called by everyone the Little Queen, was taken in charge by her ladies and escorted outside to the litter in which she was to travel. Richard had insisted that she was to be raised in the best English traditions, and so none of her ladies would accompany the lonely child to the land of her adoption. The only familiar face in her entourage would be that of Philippa, the first wife of Robert de Vere, who had returned to the English court after the death of her husband and was now called officially the Duchess of Dublin. The records do not say whether or not Launcecrona, the second wife, had accompanied de Vere into exile, but the likelihood was that she had returned finally to Bohemia. Philippa was half French, the second daughter of the Lord of Coucy, and as she was a woman of charm and warmth, her choice was a happy one.

  Nevertheless, it must have been with a sinking heart that the Little Queen found herself leaving home in the company of foreigners, the people who had always been referred to at the French court in terms of hatred and contempt—the Go-dams, as they were universally called. She had been pleased by the looks of the man she was to marry and she liked the lady Philippa, but she would have been less than human had she not shed a tear when the movement of her golden draped conveyance told her she was on her way. Soon she would be married, she knew, on soil which was legally considered English and none of her family would be present.

  In spite of this, the start of the marriage had been auspicious. The guests who had accompanied the king from England had been won over by the beauty and charm of the child bride. There would be no weeping fits on the part of Isabella, no imploring cries to be taken home. She seems to have been determined to accept the conditions she must now face in this land where she was to be “a very great lady.”

  The official marriage took place at Calais on November 4, with the expected magnificence. There is no record of the gown worn by the queen but a
mong the finest robes listed in her wardrobe was one of red velvet, embroidered in gold, with strange birds perching on boughs made of emeralds and pearls. This may have been the selection for the ceremony. The French dressmakers had gone to excessive pains to save their princess from being outshone by her resplendent bridegroom. No finer wardrobe had ever been assembled and it was estimated that her jewelry was worth 500,000 crowns. According to the custom of the age, she brought her own chamber appointments. Her bed was as dainty as its occupant, having light hangings of white and red satin.

  A large part of the dowry, 300,000 crowns, was paid over before the ceremony began.

  5

  It had been decided that Windsor Castle was to be the home of the girl queen and there had been serious efforts to make the King’s House clean and attractive, with polished woodwork and new hangings. She was to have the duchess Philippa with her, and the latter’s sister, the Countess of St. Pol. Courtenay, a younger brother of the former archbishop, recently chosen constable of the castle, was charged with her safety. Here a pleasant atmosphere was soon established while Isabella began the education which was intended to make her a good English queen.

  Richard visited Windsor often and the Little Queen was always delighted to see him. Her affection seemed to grow with each visit. He would ride in after the long jaunt from London, looking as fresh as when he started; his cloak without a wrinkle, his handsome riding boots free of mud, a splendid new plume in his cap. He took a great interest in her education and seemed chiefly concerned about the subjects which pleased her most. It was his invariable custom to preside over her music lessons and to demonstrate his own skill on the strings or the flute. Always he read to her from the Romances which he himself found enthralling. He never talked to her of war and sieges and death, nor of the hurly-burly of the tournament lists and the sharp clash of spearheads. It is probable also that he took an interest in the clothes being made for her and saw to it that the right materials were found to keep her warm when the raw blasts of winter whistled about the turrets of the King’s House.

  It is also said that the Little Queen conceived a liking for the fair Katharine, John of Gaunt’s third wife, above the other royal ladies. This would not be surprising, for Katharine had become a woman of serene beauty, with natural kindliness and tact, whereas the others, particularly the hard-visaged wife of Thomas of Woodstock and the proud Philippa of Arundel, were troublemakers from the beginning.

  As the months passed and merged into years, her memories of home and family began to recede and the Little Queen took on much of the coloring of the new land. If nothing had occurred to disturb her development, she would in time have become what the people of England wanted: an English queen in thought and outlook and training.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  The King Strikes

  1

  RICHARD and his young father-in-law, Charles of France, had found one thing in common during their private discussions before the marriage. They both had suffered, and they continued to suffer, from the activities of royal uncles. Charles knew about Thomas of Woodstock and is said to have spoken of him as “the worst-tempered man in England.” He seems to have told Richard of his own troubles with the French dukes. The result was a mutual engagement to help each other in any difficulties which might arise from avuncular opposition.

  Early in the year 1397 the Count of St. Pol came to England to visit his wife at Windsor Castle. He was reported to have whispered in Richard’s ear that the English malcontents were moving silently in the background with the purpose of taking the throne away from him. This may have been the first result of the understanding between the two kings, but the situation was not entirely unknown to Richard. He had already received some inkling of what was afoot from the Earl of Nottingham, who was serving as governor of Calais. Nottingham had been one of the original dissenters but had afterward swung around to the king’s support.

  The story was, briefly, that secret meetings had been held between Thomas of Woodstock, the Earl of Arundel, and the archbishop at Arundel Castle and at St. Albans. The Earl of Derby had been one of the group of five who had activated the Merciless Parliament but, since returning from his crusading jaunts, he had been on friendly terms with the king, and for that reason he had not been invited to the meetings. Nottingham had been kept in the dark also. Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, had joined the group later, but with some unwillingness.

  It had been decided that Richard and his two oldest uncles, John of Gaunt and Edmund of York, were to be seized and placed in perpetual imprisonment. Thomas of Woodstock then took a step which he had immediate reasons for regretting. He confided in Roger de Mortimer, who had been selected by Richard as his successor.

  Mortimer was a son of Philippa, the only daughter of Prince Lionel, second son of Edward III. His grandmother, Lionel’s first wife, was Elizabeth, the only child of William de Burgh, Lord of Connaught and Earl of Ulster. The family were considered first among the Anglo-Norman lords of Ireland and it had been a natural thing for the boy Roger to be chosen by Richard as lord-lieutenant of that island. The boy was only seven when the appointment was made and it had been necessary for an uncle to act as his deputy. But now Roger was twenty-two and was planning to go to Ireland and take up his work there seriously. He was a young man of honesty and amiability and had become justly popular with the people of England.

  “You need not wait to succeed to the throne,” was the message whispered in his ear when Thomas of Woodstock sought him out. An army would be raised, he was told, to fight under his banner against Richard. The persons of the king and his French wife were to be secured and they would then be kept in the most rigid confinement. Mortimer would be declared King of England.

  It had never occurred to Thomas that the youth would see anything but his own advantage in such a plan. He was amazed when Mortimer became pale and so agitated that he could hardly speak. Mortimer, it became clear, was too loyal for treasonable activities, even though his own interests might be served. It was evident he was aghast at the disclosure which had been made.

  This brought Woodstock to a realization that he had made a serious blunder. He reacted in a way that was natural to him, blustering and threatening and demanding of Mortimer a promise to keep the matter secret. The latter was so seriously disturbed that at first he did not know what to say. He liked Richard and was completely loyal to him but he realized also that it would mean death for the conspirators if he divulged what he knew. Finally, in a state of panic, he agreed to say nothing. Soon afterward he sailed to Ireland.

  The young lord-lieutenant took his duties seriously, even to the extent of wearing the native costumes. His responsibilities included, however, the restoration of order in the land and he was plunged at once into hostilities. Two years after his arrival he was killed in a skirmish with the armed men of an Irish clan and was buried in Wigmore Abbey. In the meantime the family complications from which he had fled had been carried through to their sanguinary conclusion.

  This story of a second conspiracy is based on the chronicles of two French writers, Froissart and Gaillard, both of whom were favorable to Richard. English historians have been disposed to regard the evidence as inadmissible, although they agree there had been many things to fan the king’s anger during the months immediately following his marriage. Both Woodstock and Arundel had withdrawn from court and had been openly critical of the placing of the port of Brest in the hands of the Duke of Brittany. Whispers had been spread that Richard intended to return Calais to France. This story, for which there was no foundation, was circulated all over the country and generally believed, being one of the reasons for the unpopularity of Richard through the final stages of his reign. On the arrival of the Count of St. Pol, the whispers took wings and spread fast. It was said he had been sent over to arrange the transfer.

  Did Richard have the justification of acting in self-defense? Or had it been his intention from the first to repay the dissenting barons in their own coin when th
e opportunity presented itself? There is so much evidence on both sides that it is impossible to point to one and say the truth lies there.

  However, there can be no doubt or dispute in considering the measures that the king took. His methods can neither be explained away nor condoned.

  2

  July 10, 1397.

  St. Pol had returned to France. Roger de Mortimer had sailed for Ireland. Woodstock and Arundel were remaining away from court, but rumors were flying thick and fast.

  Richard was in London and his troop of Chester archers, estimated by some as numerous as 2000, were with him and ready for action. Richard Whittington, who had lived to see the promise of Bow Bells come true by his elevation to the mayoralty of London, was disturbed to find the streets of the great city filled with so many armed men wearing the royal livery of the White Hart and was keeping the trained bands alerted for trouble. Summonses for a meeting of Parliament had been sent out. It was to be a “packed” session of the House, according to some authorities.

  The king had sent invitations to his uncle of Woodstock, Arundel, and Warwick to meet him at dinner at the residence near Temple Bar of the Bishop of Exeter, who had been appointed chancellor. There was something about the invitation which smacked of trouble. Thomas of Woodstock sensed it at once and returned word that he was ill and could not leave his castle of Pleshy. No word at all was received from the Earl of Arundel, but he promptly shut himself up in his stronghold at Reigate. Only the unsuspecting Warwick put in an appearance. Expecting a larger company, he was disturbed by the empty seats at the board. The king was cordial, however, and nothing was said to cause uneasiness until dinner was over. Richard then rose to his feet and told Warwick he was under arrest. The earl, who was not made of the stern stuff of conspiracy, was so overcome that it was not difficult later to bring him to the point of a confession. He was sent to the Tower and lodged in a section which later was called the Beauchamp Tower.