It became a campaign of brothers-in-law. Reinforcements were called up in the persons of Guy de Châtillon, Count of Blois, who was not a peer, and Count Guillaume of Hainaut, who was not even French, because they had both married sisters of Philippe. The great Valois connexion was already beginning to look like the true family of France.
Guillaume of Hainaut was at this very moment marrying off his daughter to the young King of England; there appeared to be no disadvantage in this. Indeed, it might well prove a useful match. But he had been well advised to be represented at the wedding by his brother Jean instead of going himself, for it was here, in Paris, that events of real importance were under way. Guillaume the Good had long desired the lands of Blaton, an inheritance of the Crown of France forming an enclave within his estates, to be ceded to him. If Philippe became Regent, he should have Blaton for some merely symbolic quid pro quo.
As for Guy of Blois, he was one of the last barons to have the right to mint his own coinage. Despite this right, he was disastrously short of money and crippled with debts.
‘My dear Guy, your right to mint will be bought back from you by the Regency. It shall be our first care.’
Robert had done some very sound work in a remarkably short time.
‘You see, Philippe,’ he said to his candidate, ‘how useful the marriages your father arranged are to us now. People say that a lot of girls are a misfortune to a family; but that wise man, may God keep him, knew very well how to use all your sisters.’
‘Yes, but we shall have to complete the payment of the dowries,’ Philippe replied. ‘Only a quarter of what is due has been paid on several of them.’
‘My dear wife Jeanne’s to start with,’ Robert of Artois reminded him. ‘But when we have control of the Treasury …’
The Count of Flanders, Louis of Nevers, was more difficult to win over. For he was not a brother-in-law and wanted something more than mere lands or money. His subjects had driven him out of his county and he demanded that it should be reconquered for him. The price of his support was a promise of war.
‘Louis, my cousin, Flanders shall be restored to you by force of arms, we give you our word!’
Upon which Robert, who thought of everything, hurried off to Vincennes once again in order to press Charles IV to make his will.
Charles was merely the shadow of a king now, and was coughing up what remained of his lungs.
Yet, dying though he was, his mind was obsessed by the thought of the crusade that his uncle, Charles of Valois, had put into his head. The crusade had been abandoned; and then Charles of Valois had died. Could it be that his disease and the pain he was suffering were a punishment for having failed to keep his oath? His red blood staining the sheets reminded him that he had not taken up the cross to deliver the land in which our Lord had suffered his Holy Passion.
In an attempt to win God’s mercy, Charles IV therefore insisted on recording his concern for the Holy Land in his will: ‘For my intention,’ he dictated, ‘is to go there during my lifetime and, if that proves impossible, fifty thousand livres shall be allotted to the first general expedition to set out.’
This was not at all what was required of him, nor indeed that he should encumber the royal finances, which were urgently needed for more pressing matters, with such a mortgage. Robert was furious. That fool Charles was being stubborn to the last!
Robert merely wanted him to leave three thousand livres each to Chancellor Jean de Cherchemont, Marshal de Trye and Messire de Noyers, the President of the Exchequer, on account of their loyal services to the Crown – and, incidentally, because they sat on the Council of Peers by right of their appointments.
‘What about the Constables?’ murmured the dying King.
Robert shrugged his shoulders. Constable Gaucher de Châtillon was seventy-eight years old, deaf as a post, and so rich he did not know what to do with his money. You did not develop a sudden love of gold at his age. The Constable’s name was crossed out.
On the other hand, Robert proved most helpful to Charles in the matter of appointing executors, for this would establish a sort of order of precedence among the great men of the realm. Count Philippe of Valois headed the list, then came Count Philippe of Evreux, and then Robert of Artois, Count of Beaumont-le-Roger, himself.
Having dealt with the will, Robert now turned his attention to the spiritual peers.
Guillaume de Trye, Duke-Archbishop of Reims, had been Philippe of Valois’ tutor; and Robert had had his brother, the Marshal, put into the royal will for three thousand livres, which he made ring to good effect. There would be no difficulties in that direction.
The Duke-Archbishop of Langres had long been a supporter of the Valois, as had also Jean de Marigny, Count-Bishop of Beauvais, who had even betrayed his brother, the great Enguerrand, to serve the hatreds of the late Monseigneur Charles of Valois.
There remained the Bishops of Châlons, Laon and Noyon; and these, it was known, would follow Duke Eudes of Burgundy.
‘As for the Burgundian,’ cried Robert of Artois, with a wide sweep of his arms, ‘he’s your affair, Philippe. I can do nothing with him; we’re at daggers drawn. After all, you married his sister and you must be able to bring some pressure to bear on him.’
Eudes IV was no diplomatic genius. But he remembered the lessons he had learned from his mother, Agnes of France, the last surviving daughter of Saint Louis, who had died the preceding year, and how the determined old woman had succeeded in negotiating, during Philippe the Long’s regency, the reuniting of the County of Burgundy and the duchy. Eudes had then married Mahaut of Artois’ granddaughter, who was twenty-seven years younger than himself, but he no longer complained of this now that she was nubile.
The question of the Artois inheritance was the first subject he discussed with Philippe of Valois, when they were closeted together on his arrival from Dijon.
‘It is quite understood, of course, that at Mahaut’s death, the County of Artois goes to her daughter, Queen Jeanne the Widow, with remainder to the Duchess, my wife, is it not? I must make a point of this, Cousin, for I well know Robert’s pretensions to Artois; he has proclaimed them enough!’
These great princes were as bitter in defence of their right of inheritance to a quarter of the kingdom as were the daughters-in-law of the poor in squabbling over cups and sheets.
‘Judgement has twice been given assigning Artois to the Countess Mahaut,’ replied Philippe of Valois. ‘Unless any new facts come to light supporting Robert’s claim, Artois will go to your wife, Brother.’
‘You see no impediment?’
‘None at all.’
And thus the loyal Valois, the gallant knight, the hero of tournaments, had now given two contradictory promises.
Nevertheless, honest in his duplicity, he told Robert of Artois of his conversation with Eudes, and Robert wholly approved it.
‘The main thing,’ he said, ‘is to acquire Burgundy’s vote. What does it matter that he should feel secure in a right which is not his anyway? New facts, you said? Very well, we’ll produce some, and I won’t make you break your word. Don’t worry, it’s all for the best.’
They had now merely to wait for one last formality – the King’s death. It was to be hoped it would not be long delayed, for this splendid conjunction of princes in support of Philippe of Valois might not endure.
The Iron King’s last son died on the eve of Candlemas, and the news of his death spread through Paris the next morning, together with the odour of the hot flour of pancakes.
Robert of Artois’ plans seemed to be working perfectly when, on the very morning the Council of Peers was to be held, a thin-faced, tired-eyed English bishop arrived in a mud-stained litter to urge the claims of Queen Isabella.
3.
A Corpse in Council
THERE WERE NO BRAINS in the head now, no heart in the breast, nor entrails in the stomach. He was a hollow king. But, indeed, there was little difference between Charles IV alive and now that the embalmers h
ad done their work. He had been a backward child, whom his mother had called ‘the Goose’, a cuckolded husband, and an unsuccessful father, for he had vainly, if stubbornly, endeavoured to assure the succession by marrying three times; he had also been a weak prince, first subject to an uncle and then to cousins, indeed but a fleeting incarnation of the royal entity.
On the state bed, at the far end of the great pillared hall of the Castle of Vincennes, lay his corpse, clothed in an azure tunic, a royal mantle about its shoulders and the crown on its head.
By the light of the massed candles, the peers and barons gathered at the other end of the hall could see the gleam of the corpse’s boots of cloth of gold.
Charles IV was presiding over his last Council, which was known as ‘the Council in the King’s Chamber’, for he was deemed to be ruling still. His reign would end officially only on the following day, when his body was lowered into the tomb at Saint-Denis.
Robert of Artois had taken the English bishop under his wing, while they waited for the latecomers.
‘How long did it take you to get here? Twelve days from York? You can’t have wasted much time saying masses on the way, Messire Bishop. You’ve made as much speed as a courier! Did your young King’s wedding go off well?’
‘I expect so. I was unable to take part in it, for I was already on my way,’ replied Bishop Orleton.
And was my Lord Mortimer in good health? Lord Mortimer was a good friend, and had often mentioned Monseigneur Orleton who had organized his escape from the Tower of London. It had been a great exploit on which Robert complimented the Bishop.
‘Well, you know, I welcomed him to France,’ he said, ‘and provided him with the means of returning somewhat better armed than he had arrived. So we are each responsible for half the business.’
And how was Queen Isabella, his dear cousin? Was she as beautiful as ever?
By his idle chatter Robert was deliberately preventing Orleton from mingling with the other groups, speaking to the Count of Hainaut or the Count of Flanders. He knew Orleton well by reputation and he mistrusted him. Was not this the man whose turbulent career had stirred all England, who had been sent by the Court of Westminster on embassies to the Holy See, and who was the author, so at least it was said, of the famous letter with the double meaning – ‘Eduardum occidere nolite …’ – by which Queen Isabella and Mortimer had hoped to avoid suspicion of having ordered the murder of Edward II?
While the French prelates had all donned their mitres for the Council, Orleton was merely wearing a violet silk travelling-cap with ermine earlaps. Robert noted this with satisfaction; it would diminish the English bishop’s authority when his turn came to speak.
‘Monseigneur of Valois will be voted Regent,’ he whispered to Orleton, as if confiding a secret to a friend.
Orleton made no reply.
At last the one missing member of the Council, for whom they had all been waiting, arrived. It was the Countess Mahaut of Artois, the only woman to be present. Mahaut had aged; she leaned on a stick and seemed to move her massive body with difficulty. Her hair was quite white and her face a dark red. She included all the company in a vague greeting and, when she had sprinkled the corpse with holy water, seated herself heavily beside the Duke of Burgundy. She seemed to be panting for breath.4
The Archbishop and Primate, Guillaume de Trye, rose, turned towards the royal corpse, slowly made the sign of the cross, and then stood for a moment in meditation, his eyes raised towards the vault as if seeking Divine inspiration. The whisperings ceased.
‘My noble lords,’ he began, ‘when there is no natural successor upon whom the royal power can fall, that power returns to its source which lies in the assent of the peers. Such is the will both of God and of Holy Church, which sets an example by electing the sovereign pontiff.’
Monseigneur de Trye spoke well and with a preacher’s fine eloquence. The assembled peers and barons had to decide on whom they would confer temporal power in the kingdom of France, first for the exercise of the Regency and then, for it was only wise to look to the future, for the exercise of kingship itself, should the most noble lady, the Queen, fail to give birth to a son.
It was their duty to appoint him who was the best among equals, primus inter pares, and also nearest in blood to the Crown. Was it not in similar circumstances in the past that the temporal and spiritual peers had entrusted the sceptre to the wisest and strongest among them, the Duke of France and the Count of Paris, Hugues I, the Great, founder of the glorious dynasty?
‘Our dead Sovereign, who is still with us this day,’ continued the Archbishop, slightly inclining his mitre towards the catafalque, ‘wished to direct our choice by recommending to us, in his will, his nearest cousin, that most Christain and most valiant Prince, who is in every way worthy to govern us and lead us, Monseigneur Philippe, Count of Valois, Anjou and Maine.’
The most Christian and most valiant Prince, who felt his ears buzzing with emotion, was uncertain what attitude to adopt. Modestly to lower his long nose might imply that he doubted both his capacity and his right to rule. But to hold it up proudly and arrogantly might prejudice the peers against him. He therefore sat perfectly still, not even a muscle of his face twitching, with his eyes fixed on his dead cousin’s golden boots.
‘Let each of us consult his conscience,’ concluded the Archbishop of Reims, ‘and give his counsel for the general good.’
Bishop Orleton got quickly to his feet.
‘I have already consulted my conscience,’ he said. ‘I have come here to represent the King of England, Duke of Guyenne.’
He had considerable experience of meetings of this kind, where the decisions to be taken had been secretly arranged beforehand, but where everyone nevertheless hesitated to be the first to speak. He was quick to take advantage of it.
‘In the name of my master,’ he went on, ‘I am to declare that the person most nearly related to the late King Charles of France is his sister, Queen Isabella, and that the Regency should therefore be vested in her.’
With the exception of Robert of Artois, who was expecting something of the sort, the Council was for a moment utterly astounded. No one had considered Queen Isabella during the preliminary negotiations, nor had anyone for an instant imagined that she would make a claim. They had quite forgotten her. And now here she was emerging from the northern mists through the voice of a little bishop in a fur cap. Had she really any rights? They all looked questioningly at each other. If strict considerations of lineage were to be taken into account, it was clear that she had undoubted rights; but it seemed sheer folly to claim them.
Five minutes later, the Council was in considerable confusion. They were all talking at once and at the tops of their voices, paying no heed to the presence of the dead King.
Had not the Duke of Guyenne, in the person of his ambassador, forgotten that women could not reign in France, in accordance with the law that had been twice confirmed by the peers in recent years?
‘Is that not so, Aunt?’ Robert of Artois asked maliciously, reminding Mahaut of the time when they had been violently opposed over the Law of Succession which had been promulgated in favour of Philippe the Long, the Countess’ son-in-law.
No, Bishop Orleton had forgotten nothing; in particular, he had not forgotten that the Duke of Guyenne had been neither present nor represented – no doubt because he had been deliberately informed too late – at the meetings of the peers at which the extension of the so-called Salic Law to the Crown had been so arbitrarily decided, and that in consequence he had never ratified the decision.
Orleton had none of the unctuous eloquence of Monseigneur Guillaume de Trye; he spoke a rather rough and somewhat archaic French, for the French used as the official language of the English Court had remained unaltered since the Conquest, and it might well have raised a smile in other circumstances. But he was adept at legal controversy and never at a loss for a retort.
Messire Mille de Noyers, who was the last surviving jurisconsult
of Philip the Fair’s Council and had played his part in all the succeeding reigns, had to come to the rescue.
Since King Edward II had rendered homage to King Philippe the Long, it was evident that he had recognized him as the legitimate king and had therefore, by implication, ratified the Law of Succession.
Orleton did not see the matter in that light. Indeed, it was not so, Messire! By rendering homage, Edward II had merely confirmed that the Duchy of Guyenne was a vassalage of the Crown of France, which no one denied, though the terms of this vassalage still remained to be defined after more than a hundred years. But this was irrelevant to the validity of the procedure by which the King of France had been chosen. And, in any case, what was the question in dispute, was it the Regency or the Crown?
‘Both, both at once,’ said Bishop Jean de Marigny. ‘For, as Monseigneur de Trye so rightly said: it is wise to look to the future; and we do not want to be confronted with the same problem again in two months’ time.’
Mahaut of Artois was trying to get her breath. Ah, how infuriating this ill-health was, and the singing in the head that prevented her thinking clearly. She disapproved of everything that was being said. She was opposed to Philippe of Valois because to support Valois meant supporting Robert; she was opposed to Isabella whom she had long hated because, in the past, Isabella had denounced her daughters. After a while, she managed to intervene in the discussion.
‘If the crown could go to a woman, it would not be to your Queen, Messire Bishop, but to none other than Madame Jeanne la Petite, and the Regency should be exercised by her husband, Messire of Evreux here, or her uncle, Duke Eudes, here beside me.’
The Lily and the Lion Page 3