As soon as Yolande heard of René’s elevation as Duke of Lorraine, her first thought was that this territory would henceforth be added to the regions loyal to the king. According to the written and verbal testament of the late duke, René and Isabelle would now become the duchy’s joint rulers. But her joy is short-lived.
Isabelle is greatly distressed by her father’s death, but instead of being able to mourn him quietly, she finds that their inheritance is not as clear as the old duke planned. Her uncle, Antoine de Vaudémont, her father’s nearest relative in the male line, also claims the throne of Lorraine. René is indignant. His father-in-law made his wishes clear for many years, and this was known by all his kin. With his mother’s blessing and his wife’s agreement, René will fight for Isabelle’s rights.
Thus it is that at the same time as she finally hears of the execution at Rouen, Yolande receives more terrible news.
René’s scouts had come in early to tell him that Vaudémont was gathering his troops to engage René’s army at Bulgnéville, a part of Lorraine he knew well. Since his troops had won their last two engagements, René was not anxious; he had no doubt they would do the same again that day. The two armies met on a large field backed by forest, and their combat could not be described as much more than a skirmish. To René’s shame, however, his horse put its foot in a hole and he fell heavily on the hard ground. Before he could get up, awkward in his armour, a knight held a sword at his throat and captured him. At first René did not realize who his captor was, and surrendering his own sword said merrily: ‘Go ahead and claim a big reward for me, you deserve it.’ Then, to his misery, he saw that it was Vaudémont himself who had taken him prisoner.
As an ally of the Duke of Burgundy – the one man in France with whom the Anjou family have a personal problem despite their political truce – René knew at once that Vaudémont would hand him over to Philippe. There could be no possible worse scenario for him, just as he was about to accede to Isabelle’s birthright. As the prisoner of Duke Philippe, Isabelle will be left alone to be threatened by her cousin Vaudémont, just when she needs René by her side more than ever. And what would be his future in the hands of this ruler of Burgundy?
In all their time spent amiably negotiating together, Yolande and Philippe have been acting on behalf of the kingdom. The question of René’s imprisonment, however, is personal. Philippe will use René to settle the old family score – that of the Anjou family returning his sister unwed, to die a year later. This new Duke of Burgundy may be different to his loathsome father, but he will not listen to Yolande in the case of her son. The insult inflicted on the House of Burgundy by that of Anjou still burns deep inside him, and he refuses to release René.
Yolande writes at once to her daughter-in-law. ‘Isabelle – heed my words and act quickly! You have two tasks. First you must summon the council of Lorraine immediately. Dress in deepest mourning, gather your children about you, convene your army and meet with your vassals in the Great Hall at Nancy. Once they have willingly sworn loyalty to you, set out for Chinon to plead with the king. I shall be there and will prepare him.’ Charles VII likes Isabelle and Yolande knows he can be swayed by a beautiful lady in distress.
Accompanied by her children, Isabelle arrives at Chinon. Tall and slender in her long court dress and train of black velvet, she looks ethereal and frail. Her golden hair is piled on her head and tied up with pearls. With her two blonde little ones, also in black velvet, clinging to her skirts, she makes a great impression on the king – and on Yolande. How adorable the children are, with their blue eyes gazing wide open at the king, and how tragically beautiful is their mother! Isabelle does not need to act out her pain and agony – it is real, and Charles can feel it. Charles is also particularly fond of René, and aware how his capture must be affecting his bonne mère. For once he does not disappoint her. As a result of her discussions with the king, Isabelle achieves a truce with Vaudémont regarding her right to rule Lorraine – but René remains a prisoner of the Duke of Burgundy, which tears at his mother’s heart.
It comes as a small relief when René is given permission to write to his family – at least they can exchange their news. When they were very young, Yolande taught her brood a code for secret letter-writing developed by her husband, and René has taught this to Isabelle. They can receive and send information between one another that cannot be read by others. Apart from that small concession, René has very little compensation for the loss of his freedom. For some weeks since his capture he has heard nothing from the duke and has no idea about his eventual ransom. But at least it is some consolation to Yolande and to Isabelle that they hear regularly from him and how he occupies himself. He writes of his imprisonment in as light a vein as he can conjure: how for the first time in his life he has time to ponder; when the duke finally deigns to visit him, how their meetings progress; and how, in spite of his intransigence on the matter of Rene’s freedom, their relationship is completely cordial. Philippe has allowed him paints, and he has struck up a friendship with a visiting artist, Jan van Eyck, nephew of Philippe’s court painter. Painting is Rene’s new passion – as well as reading and writing in earnest, inspired by the legends and romances of his childhood: the tales of Arthur, the Romance of the Rose, Tristan and Iseult. Yolande knows he makes light of the strictures of his freedom, concealing the disappointment below, but she treasures them the more for that.
Her replies are as cordial and light-hearted as his; how can she make this dearest son of hers feel better but by words of encouragement and assurances that she will continue with her negotiations for his release?
Chapter Two
The court is at Chinon. It is the early spring of 1435, and Yolande is walking dreamily in the garden among the flower beds, admiring the fresh green leaves beginning to appear on the fruit trees, when a messenger brings her a long-awaited packet from Naples. It has finally reached her, having been sent to Tarascon and then to Angers. How she delights in receiving letters with news of Louis’ activities, her ‘golden boy’, as she has always thought of him. They are always well written and amusing, and sometimes he encloses pencil sketches of a building or scenery, every little event turned into an adventure for her pleasure – how well he writes – another gift inherited from his father, as well as his looks and goodness of heart.
Yolande is quite alone in this part of the garden, and she settles on a comfortable seat to open the letter. This 4 April is warm, but with a slight fresh breeze, bringing her the scent of early-blooming flowers and bulbs. There is not a cloud to be seen, a gentle sun shining, birds singing, and she sits to open her letter full of anticipated pleasure.
But sorrow, they say, never comes alone. She reads the cold words. Her beloved eldest son, Louis III d’Anjou, died on 12 November 1434. It seems he contracted malaria while campaigning on the Italian peninsula. It has taken more than four months for the news to reach her.
She does not cry out; she just sits very still, hardly breathing, trying to take this in. Her thoughts turn immediately to her beloved husband. My darling, are you with me in this hour of my grief? she wants to cry to the heavens. She has seen so little of their firstborn in the past years. Her last contact was over his rejection of the Duke of Brittany’s daughter, when she left for Nancy once his army had departed for the Italian peninsula. We did not even say goodbye!
She turns her thoughts to the happiness he gave her and Louis with his birth, and as a family during his childhood: a sunny blond boy, serious, and then bursting with playful mischief. He was a good influence on the sad young Prince Charles, making him laugh, possibly, for the first time in his life. He was a wonderful inspiration to René, and always tender with the girls. He inherited his father’s looks and was strikingly similar in other ways too – intelligent, handsome, gentle yet strong, wise yet a warrior prince, cultured and full of courage. Yolande admired him intensely, this firstborn son of hers; he was all a royal duke should be, and yet they grew apart with time and distance, less awa
re of one another’s daily lives. She realizes she never met his wife. How often she has prayed that he would come home with her, but somehow she always knew his fate would be entwined with that fantasy kingdom.
She will mourn him quietly away from the court, and examine her inner heart as to how she might have failed him. She needs to be alone to cry out her anguish. I do not want to be brave! I want to weep and beat my breast in my pain for the loss of this golden, heroic son!
She goes to Charles to tell him and to ask to be excused from the court’s activities. The words stick in her throat when she finds him. Quietly, she says, ‘Sire, I have sad news.’
He sees from her face that something is tearing her apart and, taking her hand, he leads her away from the others. ‘What is it, dearest bonne mère, tell me. I hate to see you distressed. How can I help?’
‘Dear boy, forgive me, but my son and your friend Louis . . .’ and she falters.
He knows at once and holds her, and she feels his body shaking with his own sobbing joining hers. Charles hero-worshipped Louis from the first day they met; she knows that Louis seemed to him a shining example of a princely knight. Which indeed he was! He takes her on to the terrace so they can be alone. They sit in the shade, and when they are done crying, they recount their memories to one another and discuss the happy times: the adventures, the tree houses, the pony excursions, the fights with the neighbouring children, and much more. In times of grief, this king she has raised can be so gentle and understanding, quite a different person.
Since Louis and his wife, Margaret of Savoy, had no children, René becomes Duke of Anjou, a territory he has ruled for his brother since Louis left more than ten years ago.
For a week Yolande retires to her suite, and Charles imposes a period of royal mourning on the court for the King of Sicily, his cousin and childhood friend.
Louis dead and René imprisoned indefinitely – how alone Yolande feels, and there is no Juana to comfort her. Somehow her beloved dogs feel her sadness and sit by her all the time, but even they cannot do much to console her.
Chapter Three
Spring becomes summer. Yolande has chosen to distract herself from her grief over Louis by spending time with Isabelle and the children, when she receives news from Calabria. Queen Giovanna II of Naples, the last of her line, had appointed Louis III d’Anjou as her co-regent and heir. Following his death, she named René as his brother’s successor shortly before she herself died. With the last of the senior branch of the Anjou family known as Duras, or Durazzo, gone, now the throne has finally passed to the younger branch. It is in his prison tower that René learns he has been bequeathed the kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem – a poisoned chalice as far as Yolande is concerned. How she prays those sirens of Naples will not call again and claim her sweet René one day as well.
And still Philippe of Burgundy refuses to set René free to accept his new responsibilities. The Queen of Sicily sends her representatives to plead with him; she offers to buy her son out of prison, but to no avail. He will not even see them. In reply to her written plea, Duke Philippe dares to remind her that Charles d’Orléans has been held in the Tower of London since Agincourt, a battle that took place some twenty years ago. She trembles at the thought of René sharing his fate. Oh dear God, why am I so punished?
The only sliver of light on the horizon is the news that Anjou’s allies, the Genoese navy, have defeated and captured Alfonso V of Aragon, the claimant to what is now René’s throne of Naples, and the monster who sacked Marseilles. But it gives little enough comfort: when the ambassadors from Naples arrive at the end of that same year, 1434, it is Isabelle, René’s wife, whom they crown in his stead. Yolande, now to be known as the Old Queen of Sicily, attends the ceremony at Nancy with her youngest son Charles, Jean Dunois and Pierre de Brézé. Together they write to René with an account of what should have been his coronation. Watching this event of which her son has been deprived, Yolande swears she will never find it in her heart to forgive Philippe of Burgundy.
Yolande notes with pleasure that René was right when he wrote to say Isabelle is not unlike her – that she too has steel in her veins. Isabelle acts at once to grasp this opportunity to regain their Italian kingdoms. Leaving their eldest son, ten-year-old Jean of Calabria, in her stead in Lorraine, she has gathered her other children, her ladies and entourage, and is on her way west across France to Chinon. There she will ask for the king’s blessing – and Yolande’s – before heading south to Marseilles to take ship for Naples and claim René’s throne.
The newly crowned young Queen of Sicily arrives at Chinon escorted by her brilliant train and her ladies; she intends to set up her court with as much elegance as possible, even if she cannot have her much-loved husband beside her yet. Yolande feels a surge of pride in her daughter-in-law as she studies her court. What style she has, and what courage! Isabelle is her younger self – as tall as Yolande, with her long golden hair entwined high with red ribbons. She wears a long robe of scarlet and gold damask covered with a short, tight crimson velvet jacket. At her neck are the wonderful pearls Yolande gave her. Her blue-eyed gaze is firm and the sweetest of smiles belies the strong set of her jaw. Yes, Yolande thinks to herself,she is very like me.
The gentlemen accompanying her suite come from Lorraine, Anjou and other French duchies loyal to the king. They are a fine sight – young, elegant and unmistakably intent on adventure. Yolande hopes that among them there are some more serious contenders for administrative posts. René has written that a number of the older and more experienced courtiers will remain in Lorraine to govern on his and Isabelle’s behalf and to train their heir. Isabelle’s is a young court, but then so are its principals. Her ladies and demoiselles are equally stylish and come from all over the country. Yolande can see they have been well trained by their mistress and appear both modest and capable. She has chosen only a small number – the rest must remain behind for the time being, at least until her son can leave for his kingdom. Yolande knows from her correspondence that Isabelle went to considerable trouble to choose for her retinue those demoiselles she felt would be the most suitable. One by one, at her request, they are presented to the Old Queen of Sicily, by the new queen. There are ten of them, all fair-haired and on the tall side, with laughing eyes and quick to smile – it is important that their approach to the local people shows this court to be warm and friendly, especially in a new country. None is hesitant, all advance willingly. They are a delightful sight, all dressed in pastel colours, with tight bodices and modest necklines. They wear their hair tied back in the same fashion as their mistress, and each curtseys with grace and a lovely open smile.
‘Tell me, my dears,’ the awe-inspiring Queen Yolande says to the group nonchalantly, ‘what do you expect to find in Naples?’ And she looks at the eldest of them.
‘Madame, first and foremost we are all aiming to make the life of our young queen as agreeable as possible, to serve her in every way and befriend the existing household if Queen Isabelle decides they should remain.’
Yolande turns to another of the older demoiselles. ‘I understand you have all been taking lessons in Italian since you became aware of the plan to travel to Naples. How are you getting on?’ And there is a burst of gentle but merry laughter.
‘Oh madame, we are making some progress, but the gentlemen of the court accompanying us tease us so, it is hard! We all have lessons daily, first five of us followed by the other five, and then our teacher asks us to hold conversations entirely in Italian. It is very amusing, though not for him! He scolds us in Italian – which, I am afraid, is even more amusing! I think we have learnt scolding in Italian best of all since we hear the words so often!’ And they all laugh with good humour. How I wish I could go with them she thinks – just for a moment. Perhaps when René is freed, we can go together. Happy day dreams for another time . . .
One of the young ladies adds, ‘Oh, but madame, we do take it seriously, I assure you, and by the end of our sea journey we
intend to be quite fluent.’ But their happy light laughter does not entirely convince her.
Among these demoiselles, Yolande catches sight of a strikingly beautiful young girl – a quiet, intelligent-looking maid who has kept her place in the background. She turns to the obvious leader among them, and whispers to her, ‘Remind me of the name of the youngest among you?’
‘Why, that is Agnès Sorel, and she is indeed our youngest at fourteen years old.’
Yolande thanks her, and becomes aware that she is not alone in noticing Agnès, as she sees the king’s eyes stray in her direction. Agnès keeps her own lowered and fixed to the ground as a maiden should. Charles’s interest intrigues his mother-in-law – normally he never takes note of anyone among the very young at court unless they are important.
As she watches him, an idea is slowly forming. Ever since Pierre de Brézé surprised her some time ago by confiding that he thought the reason for the king’s debauchery was his search for someone younger but as remarkable as his bonne mère to love, she has turned this over and over in her mind. She realizes she has been his image of perfect womanhood since he was ten years old, and yes, strange as it seems, this could indeed be the cause of Charles’s dissipation and lassitude. Flatterers he has in abundance, and even some friends. But she would be among the first to hear if he has ever fallen truly in love, that purest of emotions. She has long ago ceased to delude herself that his feelings for Marie will ever extend beyond friendship.
Even for the sake of the kingdom, would it not be a cruel betrayal of her darling daughter if she condoned her son-in-law’s relationship with a younger version of herself? And where could she find such a girl and, once found, would she be willing to be trained by Yolande to thwart the deviousness of the king’s mind? How to hold him to persuade him to heed her advice? Marie is so sound and could be such an excellent councillor, but he ignores her advice; her job is to breed children. Since the death of her husband and then her darling son Louis, Yolande has been aware that she herself is perhaps the only truly steadying influence on Charles, the only voice of reason that he still heeds. Aware, too, that since she will not last forever, she has been looking carefully at the young ladies of Marie’s entourage, as well as ladies who come to court as guests for one occasion or another. As yet, she has not encountered anyone with whom she believes he could fall in love. Such a young lady must not only be beautiful – he has such an admiration of beauty – she must be intelligent, cultivated, and yet not inspire the kind of envy among the court that caused the downfall of Jeanne d’Arc.
Queen Of Four Kingdoms, The Page 31