‘I don’t think she ever got over the deaths of her daughters. It was so strange that Beatrice should die so soon after Margaret.’
‘I think she loved Margaret better than any of them. She could never forget that affair of her marriage when they almost starved her and kept her from her husband. Oh Eleanor, do you think we are ever going to get husbands? You are quite old and I am no longer young.’
‘We did not want to be sent away … I to Aragon and you to Germany. We had our wish.’
‘I know. But now that Edward is here it is different. I think we should marry soon. I should like to marry in England. Would you?’
Eleanor smiled secretively. ‘I think that is what our father wants.’
‘Then,’ added Joanna, ‘since his mother is no longer here he might have his way.’
‘That is not fair. He always had his way … and always will.’
‘But you must admit he took a great deal of notice of his mother. Look at Mary. Do you think he wanted her to go into a convent?’
‘He did not care very much and he thought it would serve him well in Heaven. Had Mary been unhappy he would not have allowed it.’
‘Well, sister, you are twenty-two years of age. If you are ever going to marry you will have to do so soon.’
‘And you are fourteen.’
‘A babe in arms compared with you.’
Eleanor sighed. It was true.
‘The gentleman of Aragon is still in his kingdom. It may well be those negotiations will be renewed.’
‘I don’t want to go to Aragon.’
‘Well, sister, even our father would not prevent it if it was necessary to state affairs.’
‘It was necessary before, but he prevented it.’
‘Oh, I thought that was God with the Sicilian Vespers.’
‘Our father took the opportunity that was offered.’
‘Oh, he loves you truly. You are his favourite and always will be. But alas, in this world we live in, a boy is a boy and therefore of greater importance than we are.’
‘Yet our grandmother loved her daughters and so does our father.’
‘Oh yes, but that is a private loving. But I like it well when a woman comes into her own.’
‘Oh yes, a woman queen … Queen in her own right … not simply because she is married to the King!’
It was strange, but very soon after this conversation an event took place which was to have a great effect on the crown of England.
It concerned the Scottish succession. There was one thing the Queen Mother had always been grateful for and that was that her daughter Margaret had been spared the suffering she would have undoubtedly endured had she lived to see the death of her two sons – those little princes David and Alexander on whom she had doted. David had died when he was only eleven years old and Alexander, the elder, having just made a good match with the daughter of the Earl of Flanders, had died a few years ago. That meant that only one of Margaret’s children was living and that was the girl, named Margaret after her mother, who had been born in England and for whom the Queen Mother had a very special affection. The Princess Margaret was beautiful and for the Queen Mother heartbreakingly like her mother; she was clever too and King Eric of Norway had asked for her hand in marriage. The Princess herself had been most unhappy at first and had implored her father not to send her to Norway.
Politics, however, decreed that she should go. There had long been a dispute between Scotland and Norway over the sovereignty of the Western Islands and the marriage would be of immense help to both sides. So Margaret set aside her prejudices and went to Norway as the bride of Eric. The marriage turned out better than might have been expected and this was due to the gentle and gracious manner of the young Princess of Scotland. In due course a child was born. She was known as Margaret, the Maid of Norway.
Alexander had been a widower for nine years. He had dearly loved his wife and had felt no desire to replace her, but on the death of his two sons, remarriage became a political necessity. He had, therefore, chosen as his second wife Yolante, daughter of the Earl of Dreux, and they were married.
At the wedding a masque was performed and many declared that, among the masked dancers, there appeared one of an unearthly shape who beckoned to Alexander. Later it was said that this was the angel of death who had come for the King.
It did indeed seem that Alexander was ill-fated. Less than a year after the marriage – and there was no sign of a child so far – he decided to give a banquet at Edinburgh Castle. Rumours had been in circulation that the end of the world was approaching and was, in fact, destined to end on the very night fixed for the banquet. Instead of depressing the company this appeared to make them all the merrier, as though they were determined to eat and drink as much as they could before they came face to face with their Maker.
By a strange coincidence a violent storm arose and the darkness was intense.
Queen Yolante had not attended the banquet but had stayed in the castle of Kinghorn, where the King had promised to rejoin her that night.
All the members of the company protested when he said his farewells to them. He could not ride out on such a night, they told him. He only had to listen to the wind and the rain to know why.
‘I have promised the Queen,’ replied the King, ‘and I shall keep my word. If anyone is afraid to ride out tonight then he can stay behind.’
One of the knights replied, ‘My lord, it would ill become me to refuse to die for your father’s son.’
‘The decision is yours,’ replied the King.
So Alexander left Edinburgh in the company of a small band of his most devoted friends. Safely they crossed Queen’s Ferry and reached Inverkeithing.
‘See,’ said the King. ‘Here we are and what harm has befallen us?’
‘My lord,’ said one of the King’s men, ‘you must see that far from abating the storm grows more fierce. The roads are flooded ahead. Our horses cannot ride on paths such as these and there are danger spots on the coast road to Kinghorn.’
‘I see you are afraid,’ replied the King. ‘Very well, I shall go on alone. I will take two men to show me the way and that is all I ask.’
‘My lord, my lord,’ cried one who was very near to him in friendship, ‘this is unwise. The road to Kinghorn is very dangerous. The Queen will not expect you on such a night. You know the precipice close to which you would have to pass. In the most clement weather that path must be trodden with caution.’
‘Enough,’ replied the King, and there was a light of fanaticism in his eyes, and afterwards some wondered whether he had deliberately challenged death that night. ‘I am bent on going.’
So he set out. The road of which they had spoken lay along the top of the rocks from which there was a sheer drop down to the shore of Pettycur. In the darkness and driving rain the King’s horse stumbled and he and his rider went hurtling down onto the rocks below.
So the King of Scotland went to his death – willingly some said, for he had wanted to join his first wife Margaret, and the story went that on that steep cliff path the angel of death had appeared again as it had at his wedding feast and this time he had followed it to death.
This was a fanciful legend such as the Celts loved. The King of England was sceptical about the angel of death. What struck him immediately was that the little girl in Norway was now the Queen of Scotland, and he had seen a way of uniting the two kingdoms without the disastrous bloodshed which had been necessary in Wales.
* * *
Eric of Norway was delighted that his daughter should be betrothed to the heir of England and young Edward was told by his mother that he was to have a bride.
He was mildly interested, but when he learned that it was not to be just yet, he was ready to forget the matter. ‘It is a happy state of affairs,’ said Edward to his Queen. ‘Fortune is smiling on me. Wales in my hands and if Edward becomes King of Scotland when he comes to the throne the two kingdoms can be united. You see how much more peaceful we
shall be when we stand together.’
‘I do, Edward. And the people should be grateful to you. I hope they appreciate what you have done for them.’
‘They applaud what I have done when all goes well,’ he answered. ‘If all did not go well they would be quick to blame me. There is a certain luck required in kingship.’
‘Good judgement often results in what seems like luck.’
‘Aye, my Queen, and good luck as often looks like good judgement. By God, if I can be successful with Scotland as I have with Wales, if I can make us one nation, then I shall achieve that which even the Conqueror failed to do.’
‘You will do it, Edward. I know.’
It seemed that he might. Several of the Scottish lords came to see him and when he realised that they were by no means averse to the marriage between the heiress of Scotland and the heir of England, he was jubilant.
‘They are over-young yet,’ he said. ‘But we shall not wait long. We will have the child sent over from Norway and she shall be brought up here in your nursery, my love. There she will get to know and love Edward long before they can be married.’
It was an excellent plan.
So good that Edward felt he could make a long-postponed and very necessary trip to the Continent. There were several matters which demanded his attention. He needed to be in Aquitaine for one thing; he had been away too long from this stronghold. It had been a great disappointment when his brother Edmund’s stepdaughter had married the son of the King of France. Edward had hoped that marriage of Edmund’s with the Comtesse of Champagne would bring Champagne to England. King Philip of France had been too wise to allow that. It was why he had offered the dazzling prize – his own son and heir – to the heiress of Champagne which made it certain that that rich territory should come to the crown of France.
There was another matter. Edward could no longer shut his eyes to the fact that it was time his daughters married. Eleanor was well into her twenties. The match with Aragon could still be made and it was a good one. He had to overcome his repugnance to her leaving England and take up negotiations once more with Aragon.
He would have to leave his beloved girls and go to France. There was one consolation, he could take his wife with him.
Preparations for the King and Queen to leave for France were set in motion.
Before they left Edward paid a visit to his mother at Amesbury.
He found her peevish. She was not well, she said. She was restive. The monastic life was not for her although she realised the need to undertake it. She spent long hours lying on her bed and thinking about the glorious past. She wanted to talk about it to Edward when he came.
So he was now going to France. How well she remembered when she and his father had gone. And there had been that dreadful time when she had gone alone … a fugitive from those wicked men who held Henry a prisoner. ‘And you too, my son. Forget not that.’
He did not forget, Edward assured her. He remembered well how she had worked to raise an army.
‘Which you did not need because you escaped and went to rescue your father.’
‘Ah, but it was a brave effort you made. You are an unusual woman, Mother.’
She was pleased. ‘What days they were! Tragic days … but glorious somehow.’
‘We want no more such tragedy,’ said Edward.
‘Your father was a saint … a blessed saint.’
Edward could not agree to that so he remained silent.
‘There is something I must tell you. A man came to me not long ago. He was blind and one day when praying at your father’s tomb his sight was restored to him. Edward, your father was a saint. That proved it. I think we should have a church built for him … a monastery …’
‘My dear mother, this is nonsense.’
‘Nonsense! What do you mean? I tell you this man came to me. “I was blind,” he said, “and now I can see. Oh glory be to Saint Henry.” Those were his words.’
‘He has deceived you, my lady. He is looking for rewards, depend upon it. I’ll warrant he wants some shrine set up and he will be in charge of it, eh? And many will come and lay offerings at this shrine, much of which will find its way into his pocket.’
‘I am amazed. I tell you your father was a saint. Have not people been cured at the tomb of St Thomas à Becket?’
‘My father was not à Becket, Mother.’
‘You shock me. You disappoint me. You … his son.’
‘It is because I am his son that I know this to be false. We loved our father. He was good to his family, but he was not a saint and this man seeks to deceive you.’
‘So not only will you deny your father’s goodness but you insult me too. Please leave me. I wonder you trouble to come to me … since my opinion is so worthless you but waste time in conversing with me.’
‘My dear lady …’
‘Pray go,’ she said.
He shrugged his shoulders and, king though he was, he bowed and left her.
As he strode angrily from her apartment he met the Provincial of the Dominicans whom he knew to be a man of piety and learning and with whom he was on terms of friendship.
‘You have heard this tale of a man cured of his blindness at my father’s tomb?’ he asked.
The Dominican admitted that he had.
‘I tell you this: that man is a self-seeking scoundrel. There has been no miracle. As for my father I know enough of his justice to be sure that he would rather have torn out the eyes of this rascal when they were sound than to have given sight to such a scoundrel.’
The Dominican agreed with the King.
‘He is a man taking advantage of the Queen Mother’s piety,’ he replied.
Edward, however, could not leave the country on bad terms with his mother. He went back to her before he left.
She was delighted to see him, for she could no more bear to quarrel than he could.
‘Dear Mother,’ he said, ‘I am sorry for my abrupt departure.’
She embraced him. ‘We must not part in anger, my son. That is something which would be intolerable to me. You were in my thoughts all through the night. My little flaxen-haired baby! How proud I was of you. Your father too. Our firstborn and a beautiful son. Even the hateful Londoners and the Jews loved us for a while when you came.’
‘I like it not when any of our family are not on happy terms with each other.’
‘Dear Edward, I know I am an old woman now. The days have gone when I was listened to. Oh, when your dear father was here how different it was!’
‘Life must change for us all, Mother.’
‘But to have lost him … and then your dear sisters … Oh, I am a lonely old woman … of no account now.’
‘You will always be of account.’
‘To you, Edward?’
‘Always to me.’
He began to tell her of his plans for his daughters’ marriages and what he hoped to achieve in France. He had to stop her going over those incidents from the past which he had heard hundreds of times before.
But he was pleased to part on terms of affection. The bond between them was too firm to be broken because he had grown into a strong-minded man who would have his own way and say what he thought to be the truth and because she was a selfish old woman who could not believe that she had had her way because she possessed an uxorious husband who could deny her nothing, but thought it was because she was always right.
How did either of them know how long he would be away and what would happen in the meantime and whether they would ever see each other again?
* * *
Now that their parents were out of the country and the Queen Mother was in Amesbury the Princess Eleanor was the undoubted head of the family. She was twenty-four years of age and so a mature woman. There was such a difference between her age and that of the rest of the family for Joanna the next was sixteen and Margaret thirteen; poor ten-year-old Mary was in Amesbury; Elizabeth who had been born in Rhudlan was only six and Edward four.
It was true that Mary of Caernarvon, Edward’s Welsh nurse, guarded him like a dragon and put him right outside the Princess’s rule. He was a spoilt little boy anyway and thought the whole world had been created for him. Eleanor was angry that so much fuss should be made of him because he was a boy. And she would never forget either that merely by arriving he had ruined her dreams. It was true he was a handsome child – fair and tall for his age, very like his father had been. He was bright enough but already showed signs of indolence. Eleanor wondered what her father had been like when he was young Edward’s age. One day she would ask her grandmother, but the Queen Mother was a great romancer and coloured all stories from the past so glowingly that one was never sure how far one could believe her.
Elena, Lady de Gorges, who had been their governess for years was with them in the schoolroom still. Not that the Princess Eleanor was in the schoolroom, but now that her parents were absent she was a great deal with her sisters and brother and in that respect could say she was part of the establishment. She had her own of course and grand it was, for when her father was really looking on her as a possible heir to the throne she had been treated accordingly and he could hardly ask her to relinquish her state when Edward was born. Far from it. He was eager to show his darling that she was still as important to him – if not to the country – as she had ever been.
It was very rare, of course, for the daughter of a king to have reached the age of twenty-four without marriage. She doubted whether she would remain in a single state for ever. She knew that her father would see Alfonso of Aragon while he was away and it was very likely that some agreement would be reached.
She hoped not – fervently she hoped not. She wanted to stay in England, and she knew her father wanted her to.
‘I must see the King of Aragon,’ he had said when they parted. ‘But it may well be that nothing will come of it. My child, it would be a hard wrench if you ever had to leave us.’
She had clung to him and he had told her what a blessing she had always been to him.
How she wished he would come back. It would be terrible if anything should happen to him on the Continent. Then Edward would be King … a little boy of four. Oh how stupid people were to set such store by the sex of a king’s heirs.
The Hammer of the Scots Page 18