The She-Wolf

by Maurice Druon

  He turned to Queen Isabella with an expression of gratitude and complicity, towards that beautiful profile framed in steel mail from which the eyes shone out like sapphires. But Mortimer saw that Messire Jean de Hainaut, who was riding on the Queen’s other side, was also looking at her, and his happiness immediately disappeared. He had a sudden feeling that he had already known this moment, that he was living it over again, and it disquieted him, for there are indeed few things more disturbing than the feeling that sometimes assails us of recognizing a road down which we have never been. And then he remembered the Paris road on that day when he had gone to welcome Isabella on her arrival, and Robert of Artois riding beside the Queen, as Jean de Hainaut was doing now. The similarity of his reaction had aroused in Mortimer this false sense of recognition.

  And he heard the Queen say: ‘Messire Jean, I owe you everything, and especially my being here.’

  Isabella was also much moved at riding over the soil of her realm. But Mortimer scowled, and turned sombre, distant and abrupt during the rest of the journey; and he was still in the same state of mind when they reached the monks of Walton, where some of them were lodged in the Abbot’s lodgings, some in the guest house, and the men-at-arms mostly in the barns. Indeed, so much was this so, that when Queen Isabella was alone with her lover that evening, she said: ‘What has been the matter with you all afternoon, sweet Mortimer?’

  ‘The fact, Madame, that I thought I had well served my Queen and my lover.’

  ‘And who has said, my sweet Lord, that you have not done so?’

  ‘I thought it was to me you owed your return to your kingdom, Madame.’

  ‘And who has said that I do not owe it to you?’

  ‘Yourself, Madame, yourself. You said so in my presence to Messire de Hainaut and thanked him for all that has been done.’

  ‘Oh, Mortimer, my dear friend,’ cried the Queen, ‘what umbrage you take at the slightest word! What harm can there be in thanking people who have served you?’

  ‘I take umbrage at the facts,’ cried Mortimer. ‘I take umbrage at words as I take umbrage also at certain glances which I had hoped, in all loyalty, you owed only to me. You’re a flirt, Madame, which I did not expect. You flirt!’

  The Queen was tired. Three days on a rough sea, the anxieties of an adventurous landing and, on top of all the rest, a ride of four leagues, had been a sufficient ordeal. Were there many women who would have borne as much without ever a word of complaint nor even causing anyone a moment’s anxiety? She was expecting compliments on her courage rather than jealous remonstrances.

  ‘I ask you, my love, what flirtation?’ she said impatiently. ‘The chaste regard Messire de Hainaut has for me may be laughable but it comes from a kind heart; and don’t forget we owe to it the troops we have with us. Allow me, therefore, without encouraging him, to make some little response; for you have only to compare the number of our English with his Hennuyers. It is also for your sake I smile at this man who irritates you so much.’

  ‘One can always find excuses for behaving badly. Messire de Hainaut is serving you out of love, I admit it, but not to the point of refusing the gold he is paid for it. You have therefore no need to smile so tenderly at him. It humiliates me for your sake to see you descend from that high pedestal of purity on which I had placed you.’

  ‘You did not seem hurt, dear Mortimer, the day I descended from that pedestal of purity into your arms.’

  It was their first quarrel. Did it really have to take place on the very day for which they had longed so much and for which they had united all their efforts during the last three months?

  ‘My love,’ the Queen went on more gently, ‘is not your anger due to the fact that I am now less far from my husband, and that our love will be less easy?’

  Mortimer bowed his head, his rough eyebrows made a bar across his forehead.

  ‘Indeed, Madame, I think that now you are on the soil of your kingdom, you must sleep alone.’

  ‘That is what I was going to ask of you, dear love,’ replied Isabella.

  He left the room. He would not see his mistress’s tears. Where were those happy nights of France?

  In the corridor of the Abbot’s lodgings, Mortimer found himself face to face with young Prince Edward. He was holding a candle and it lit up his thin white face. Was he there to spy on them?’

  ‘Are you not going to sleep, my lord?’ Mortimer said.

  ‘No, I was looking for you, my lord, to ask you to send me your secretary. On this night of our return to the kingdom, I should like to send a letter to Madame Philippa.’

  2

  The Shining Hour

  ‘TO THE MOST POWERFUL and excellent Seigneur Guillaume, Count of Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland.

  ‘My very dear and beloved Brother, I salute you in the name of God.

  ‘We were still in process of organizing our banners round the port of Harwich, and the Queen was staying in Walton Abbey, when the good news reached us that Monseigneur Henry of Lancaster, who is cousin to King Edward and commonly called here Lord Crouchback, because his neck is all askew, was marching to meet us with a whole army of barons, knights and men-at-arms raised on their lands, and also with the Bishops of Hereford, Norwich and Lincoln, all to place themselves at the service of the Queen, my Lady Isabella. And Monseigneur of Norfolk, Marshal of England, has also declared his intention of doing the same together with his valiant troops.

  ‘Our banners and those of the Lords of Lancaster and Norfolk met at a place called Bury St Edmunds, where there happened to be a market in the streets that day.

  ‘The meeting took place amid indescribable joy. The knights leapt from their horses, welcomed each other and embraced, Monseigneur of Kent and Monseigneur of Norfolk held each other breast to breast and shed tears like real brothers who had been separated for a long time, and my lord Mortimer was doing the same with my lord Bishop of Hereford, and Monseigneur Crouchback was kissing Prince Edward on both cheeks, and all running to the Queen’s horse to welcome her and place their lips to the hem of her dress. Had I come to the Kingdom of England merely to see so much love and joy surrounding my Lady Isabella, I should have felt sufficiently repaid for my trouble. All the more since the people of Bury St Edmunds, abandoning their stalls of poultry and vegetables, joined in the general rejoicing, while people were continually arriving from the neighbouring countryside.

  ‘The Queen presented me with great kindness and many compliments to all the English lords; and I had the distinction of having our thousand Dutch lances behind me, and I was proud, my much loved Brother, of the noble appearance our knights made before the foreign lords.

  ‘Nor did the Queen fail to declare to all the members of her family and party that it was thanks to Lord Mortimer that she had been able to return so strongly supported; she praised his services highly and ordered that Lord Mortimer’s opinion should prevail in all things. Besides, my Lady Isabella herself never issues a decree without having first consulted him. She loves him and shows it; but it can be only a chaste love, whatever the ready tongue of scandal may say, for she would take more care to dissimulate were it otherwise, and I also know full well, from the way she looks at me, that she could not make eyes at me as she does if her troth were plighted. I was rather afraid at Walton that their friendship, for some reason I do not know, had grown somewhat colder; but everything goes to show that it was nothing and that they are as united as ever, for which I am glad, since it is natural to love my Lady Isabella for all the good and fine qualities she has, and I would wish everyone to have the same love for her as I have myself.

  ‘My lords Bishop brought sufficient funds with them, and promised that more would be collected in their dioceses, and this has reassured me as to the pay for our Hennuyers, for I feared that Lord Mortimer’s Lombard subsidies would be too quickly exhausted. This all happened on the twenty-eighth day of September.

  ‘From that place we set out on the march again, and it was a triumphal advance through the tow
n of Newmarket, where there are many inns and lodgings, and the noble city of Cambridge, where everyone speaks Latin so that you wonder at it, and where there are as many priests in a single college as you could assemble in the whole of your Hainaut. The welcome of the people, as that of the lords, is everywhere sufficient proof that the King is not loved, and that his wicked councillors have made him hated and despised. Our banners are greeted with the cry of “Deliverance!”

  ‘“Nos Hennuyers ne s’ennuient pas,” as Messire Henry Crouchback said and, as you can see, he speaks a graceful French. When this remark was repeated to me, I roared with laughter for a quarter of an hour on end, and I still laugh whenever I think of it. The English girls are gracious to our knights, which is a good thing to keep them in the proper humour for war. As for me, if I indulged in dalliance, I would be setting a bad example and lose the power a leader needs if he is to call his troops to order when necessary. Besides, the vow I made to my Lady Isabella forbids it, and if I broke it, the fortunes of our expedition might be imperilled. And if the nights fret me a little, our daily rides are nevertheless so long that sleep does not fail me. I think I shall get married when I return from this adventure.

  ‘Talking of marriage, I must tell you, my dear Brother, and also my dear Sister, the Countess your wife, that my lord the young Prince Edward is still similarly disposed towards your daughter Philippa, that no single day goes by without his asking me for news of her, that all the leanings of his heart seem still to be directed towards her, that the betrothal which has been arranged is sound and advantageous, and that your daughter will, I am sure, always be happy. I have become very friendly with the young Prince Edward, who seems to admire me very much, though he speaks but little; he often remains silent as you have told me did the mighty King Philip the Fair, whose grandson he is. It may well be that he will one day become as great a sovereign as King Philip was, and perhaps even before the time he would normally have had to await his crown from God, if I am to believe what is said in the Council of the English barons.

  ‘For King Edward has cut a sorry figure in face of these happenings. He was at Westminster when we disembarked, and at once took refuge in his Tower of London to put himself in safety; and he had the following announcement cried by all his sheriffs, who are governors of counties, throughout his kingdom, in all public places, squares, fairs and markets:

  ‘“In view of the fact that Roger Mortimer and other traitors of the King and his Realm have made an armed landing at the head of foreign troops with the intention of destroying the Royal power, the King hereby commands his subjects to oppose them by every means in their power and to destroy them. Only the Queen, his son, and the Earl of Kent are to be spared. Everyone taking up arms against the invader will receive a high reward, and anyone bringing the body of Mortimer, or merely his head, to the King shall receive a reward of one thousand pounds sterling.”

  ‘No one has obeyed King Edward’s orders; but they have been of great service to my lord Mortimer’s authority by showing the high price that is set upon his life and designating him as our leader even more than he was before. The Queen has replied by promising two thousand pounds sterling to anyone bringing her the head of Hugh Despenser the Younger, placing that price upon the wrong that lord has done to her husband’s love for her.

  ‘The people of London have shown indifference to the safety of their King, who has remained stubborn in his errors to the end. It would have been wise of him to dispense with his Despenser, who bears such a suitable name, but King Edward has determined to keep him, saying that he has learnt from past experience, for similar circumstances once arose concerning Piers Gaveston, whom he agreed to send away, but that this had not prevented him being killed, while he, the King, had imposed on him a charter and a Council of Commissioners, of whom he had had great difficulty in ridding himself. Despenser encouraged him in this opinion and, so it is said, they wept many tears on each other’s breast, and Despenser even cried that he preferred to die on the breast of his King rather than live in safety and apart from him. And, indeed, it is to his advantage to say so, for that breast is his only rampart.

  ‘And so, abandoned by everyone to their wicked love, their entourage consists now only of Despenser the Elder, the Earl of Arundel, who is a relation of Despenser, the Earl of Warenne, who is Arundel’s brother-in-law, and finally of the Chancellor Baldock, who has no alternative but to remain loyal to the King for he is so generally hated that he would be torn to pieces wherever he might go.

  ‘The King ceased to be satisfied with the safety of the Tower, and fled with his small following to raise an army in Wales after publishing, on the thirtieth day of September, the Bulls of excommunication the Holy Father the Pope had given him against his enemies. Do not be disturbed, beloved Brother, by this announcement if the news should have reached you; for the Bulls do not concern us; King Edward asked for them against the Scots, and no one has been taken in by this misuse of them. We are admitted by everyone to Communion as before, and the bishops are the first to do so.

  ‘On flying so ignominiously from London, the King left the Government in the hands of Archbishop Reynolds, Bishop John de Stratford and Bishop Stapledon, Diocesan of Exeter and Treasurer to the Crown. But, faced with our rapid advance, Bishop Stratford came to make submission to Queen Isabella, while Archbishop Reynolds sent to ask for pardon from Kent where he had taken refuge. Only Bishop Stapledon remained therefore in London, thinking that by means of his thefts he could bribe a sufficient number of defenders. But the anger of the city rose against him and, when he did decide to fly, the populace pursued him, caught him, and killed him in the suburb of Cheapside, trampling his body till it was no longer recognizable.

  ‘This happened on the fifteenth day of October while the Queen was at Wallingford, a town surrounded by ramparts of earth, where we delivered Messire Thomas de Berkeley who is brother-in-law to my lord Mortimer. When the Queen heard the news of Stapledon’s end, she said there was no cause to weep the death of so wicked a man who had done her great wrong; and my lord Mortimer declared that all their enemies would be treated in the same manner.

  ‘Two days before, in the city of Oxford, which has even more priests than the city of Cambridge, Messire Orleton, Bishop of Hereford, went into the pulpit before my Lady Isabella, the Duke of Aquitaine, the Earl of Kent and all the other lords, to deliver a great sermon on the text “Doleo caput meum”, from the sacred Book of Kings, to signify that the body of the kingdom of England suffered in its head and that it was there the remedy must be applied.

  ‘This sermon made a profound impression on the whole congregation. It heard all the evils and harsh sufferings of the realm described and enumerated. And though, in an hour’s sermon, Messire Orleton did not once mention the King by name, he was in everyone’s mind as the cause of these misfortunes, and at the end the Bishop cried that both the lightning of Heaven and the swords of men must fall on the proud disturbers of the peace and the corrupters of kings. The said Monseigneur of Hereford is an extremely intelligent man, and I often have the honour of talking with him, though he generally seems to be in a hurry when he converses with me; but I always cull some clever remark from his lips. For instance, he said to me the other day: “Each one of us has his shining hour in the events of his century. On one occasion it may be Monseigneur of Kent, on another Monseigneur of Lancaster, some other on a previous occasion and yet another on a later, whom the event illumines because of the decisive part he plays in it. Thus is made the history of the world. And this actual moment, Messire de Hainaut, may well be your shining hour.”

  ‘Two days after the sermon, and as the result of the great effect it had on everyone, the Queen issued from Wallingford a proclamation against the Despensers, accusing them of having despoiled the Church and the Crown, unjustly put to death a great number of loyal subjects, disinherited, imprisoned and banished some of the greatest lords of the realm, oppressed widows and orphans, and crushed the people by taxes and extortions. />
  ‘At the same time we learnt that the King, who had first fled to take refuge in the town of Gloucester which belongs to Despenser the Younger, had gone to Westbury, and that his escort had split up. Despenser the Elder had retired to his city and castle of Bristol, to hold up our advance there, while the Earls of Arundel and Warenne had gone to their domains in Shropshire; this was so as to hold the Welsh Marches both in the north and the south, while the King, with Despenser the Younger and his Chancellor Baldock, went to raise an army in Wales. To tell the truth, we no longer know what has become of him. There is a rumour even of his having embarked for Ireland.

  ‘While several English banners under the command of the Earl of Charlton set out for Shropshire to defy the Earl of Arundel, yesterday, the twenty-fourth day of October, precisely a month after our leaving Dordrecht, we entered without difficulty the town of Gloucester amid great acclamations. Today we are going to advance on Bristol, in which Despenser the Elder has shut himself up. I am to take command of the assault on this fortress and shall at last have the opportunity, which has so far been denied me owing to the fact that our advance has hardly been opposed, of doing battle for my Lady Isabella and of displaying my valour before her eyes. I shall kiss the pennant of Hainaut which floats from my lance before going into the attack.

  ‘I confided my will to you, my dear and beloved Brother, before leaving, and I know of nothing which I wish to add to it or to alter. If I must die, you will know that I have done so without displeasure or regret, as a knight should in the noble defence of ladies and the unfortunate and oppressed, and for the honour of you and Madame, my dear sister, your wife, and of my nieces, your beloved daughters, whom God keep.

  ‘Given at Gloucester the twenty-fifth day of October 1326.

  ‘Jean.’

  But Messire Jean de Hainaut had no need to display his valour the next day, and his very proper preparation of spirit was vain.