by Jean Plaidy
She felt half dead with fatigue and longed for hot food and a warm bed but Brian said it would be unsafe to stop as it might well be that their escape had been discovered so they must press on to Wallingford.
He did manage to get horses at Abingdon so that the journey to Wallingford was made in a little more comfort although the blizzard raged about them and the horses threatened to slip at any moment.
At last they reached the castle of Wallingford and there Matilda was helped from her horse. Her feet were numb, her hands so cold that she could not feel them, but hot food was brought to her and a great fire was kindled that she might rest before it.
She ate voraciously and almost immediately fell into a deep sleep.
When she awoke it was afternoon; the fire was blazing and outside the snow was still falling.
She could hear voices in the castle. She called: ‘Who is there?’ And in a few moments a boy came into the hall.
For a few seconds she looked at him; and then she stood up and cried: ‘Henry, my son.’
He came to her and a sudden and rare tenderness swept over her. Her first-born! The boy who had so delighted her father. Her nine-year-old son Henry!
‘Mother,’ he said, ‘I am here to fight for you.’
She embraced him.
What triumph. She had escaped from Stephen by crossing the icy Thames; she was free and her son Henry had come to fight for her.
Robert of Gloucester came into the hall.
He knelt before her.
‘News was brought to me that you were here and we came with all speed.’
‘I escaped on the ice,’ she cried.
‘I know it. Brian has told me.’
‘Stephen was encamped round the castle. He was unaware of us.’
‘It was a clever idea. You completely foiled him.’
‘You were coming to our aid?’
‘As soon as I had gathered an army.’
‘That would have been too late. Is Geoffrey here?’
‘No. He would not leave Anjou. He sent your son instead.’
‘Henry will be a greater help to me than my miserable little husband ever would be.’
She turned to her son and laid her hand on his shoulder.
‘Together, my boy, we will regain the crown of England,’ she said.
Departures
MATILDA’S HOPES WERE not realized and although the weak rule of Stephen was deplored and the evil practices which the rapacious barons had set up continued, it seemed to many the lesser of two evils. Matilda’s arrogant nature, her immediate attempt to levy taxes on the people of London, had made the country feel that it would not have her at any price.
Yet under Robert of Gloucester the young Henry sought to win his mother’s cause. He was a boy of great energy and it was seen that he had inherited many of the Conqueror’s characteristics, so while Matilda had such a fine general as Robert of Gloucester she was a formidable force.
Civil war progressed and the years of wretchedness continued. The roads were unsafe for travellers; the robber barons could not be controlled. The country needed peace and while Matilda with her son and Robert of Gloucester attempted to gain the crown and Stephen with his Queen were determined to hold it, the strife would go on.
Stephen could not forget what his Queen had done for him and his affection for her grew. He marvelled at her statesmanlike quality and he wondered that he could have known so little of her that he could have thought of her as merely a pleasant but somewhat ineffectual woman.
Soon after their reunion another child was born to them. They called her Mary.
If only the war could be brought to a conclusion, the Queen believed that she would be completely happy. She had ceased to fret about Stephen’s absorption with the Empress. She heard that she was becoming more and more ill-tempered and that even her faithful adherents like Robert of Gloucester and Brian Fitzcount were often so exasperated that those in their circle believed they would desert her. They never did; and such was her magnetism that however intolerably she behaved they still adhered to her.
But surely, thought the Queen, Stephen must realize that she could bring nothing but evil to him. That lesson must have been driven home.
The Queen was deeply involved in the war; she advised Stephen and he was only too ready to listen to her. At the same time there were occasions when they could be with their family and these were the happy times. Eustace was ambitious; and Stephen and the Queen were ambitious for him.
Stephen said: ‘Rest assured. I shall remain King until I die and only then shall I pass on my crown and it will be to Eustace.’
They would plan together. England for Eustace, William should inherit the earldom of Boulogne through his mother. And little Mary. She was too young to be planned for.
And then in the midst of their happy domestic circle a messenger would arrive to say that the Empress’s army was attacking some stronghold which for the sake of the crown it could not be allowed to take.
That would be a reminder that the war still continued.
The Empress was weary. The years passed by; she was growing old and nothing was achieved. She blamed those about her; she tried to urge them on to action; but in spite of the fact that she had one of the best generals in Robert of Gloucester, there was no success. There were those occasions when Stephen’s army was defeated but then the tide would turn again. There was no decisive battle for either side and the wretched war dragged on.
There was one consolation for her and that was her son Henry; he had spent three years under the guidance of Robert and was learning to become a soldier. He would need to be if he were to defend his dominions, for there was Eustace who was as determined to hold the crown of England as Henry was to take it.
Her husband the Count of Anjou was getting restive. It was three years since he had seen his eldest son and he sent messages to his wife that he wished Henry to return to Anjou.
Matilda raged against him. What had he ever done for her? What was he but a profligate upstart? She was ashamed to own him as husband. What a bitter mistake they had made when they gave her to him. What did he ever do but swagger round with a piece of broom in his hat calling himself Geoffrey Plantagenet?
But he was her husband and he had some say over Henry’s future. He wanted him back in Anjou. What was the use of the boy frittering his years away in a hopeless cause?
Robert thought that young Henry should go back to Anjou. ‘He has learned a great deal about warfare,’ he said, ‘and that will stand him in good stead in the years to come. There is little he can do here and he can return when he is older. He might bring with him then an army from Anjou. Let him go.’
So Robert accompanied the twelve-year-old Prince to Warham where a party of Angevin nobles was waiting to escort him across the Channel.
They took an affectionate farewell of each other, for Henry had become very fond of his uncle and he was grateful for all that he had taught him.
He was however glad to be going back to Anjou; his mother, although she had fierce and possessive love for him, was difficult to live with.
‘Uncle,’ said Henry, ‘when I come back it will be with my army. Then we will fight together and put an end to this war.’
‘So be it,’ said Robert. They embraced and Robert stood watching until the cavalcade was out of sight.
Robert of Gloucester was a disappointed man. He knew that the Empress would never be accepted by the English and he now admitted to himself that it was entirely her own fault.
If she had been benevolent as Stephen was, or just as her father had been, strong and determined mainly on the good of England, he believed she would have succeeded in taking the crown. She was the true heir. There could be no doubt of that since she was the daughter of the son of the Conqueror who had no other legitimate children. And Stephen, although the Conqueror’s grandson, had descended through his mother and was not even her eldest son. Stephen was a usurper and a weak king and because of this the good laws
of William I and Henry I were gradually being lost.
What we need now, he often thought, is a strong king.
His great hope was in young Henry whom he had come to know well. A lusty youth, dedicated, wise beyond his years, too fond of pleasure, but that was a fault of the young.
It was because of Henry that he, Robert, had had the heart to continue the fight. He saw Henry following Stephen and bringing back that law and order which most men now realized was the way to prosperity.
Eustace he believed to be weak, over-ambitious; he even lacked the charm of his father, the tolerance and good sense of his mother.
Robert, who was more than a soldier for he was a statesman and scholar, believed that England’s salvation would be under the Plantagenets and if Prince Henry of Anjou could become the second Henry of England all his efforts would not have been in vain.
And as he watched the dwindling figures in the distance he was thinking that there at their head rode the hope of England.
He made his way back to Bristol where the Empress was staying, there to report the departure of her son.
She talked with pride of young Henry and with distaste of her husband; but she no longer railed against the delays in putting her on the throne. She had come to realize the hopelessness of her position; but her obsession to battle with Stephen still smouldered, ready to be kindled.
What she wanted more than anything, it seemed, was to have him brought in chains before her.
‘The next time,’ she would say, ‘there shall be no escape for him.’
Robert doubted that there would ever be a next time.
That autumn he caught a chill which developed into a fever, and it soon became clear that he was very ill indeed. His widow and their six children were at his bedside when he died. They mourned him sincerely for he had been a good father and husband.
It was not only his family who grieved for him, for he had been a good man and had never ill-treated those whom he conquered. In fact their conditions had often improved when they fell under his rule – except of course that he imposed taxes on them that he might build castles for his defence and provide means to carry on the war.
To the Empress his death was disastrous, and she now realized that she had not fully appreciated his genius. Her mainstay had been removed and she and her cause immediately began to totter. She had lost not only a faithful brother but her general, her adviser and the man whose skill and wisdom upheld her cause.
Very soon after Robert was laid in his green jasper tomb in the Benedictine Priory he himself had founded outside the walls of Bristol, Matilda saw that she had no recourse but to leave England to Stephen.
With great reluctance she left the country to join her husband in Anjou.
There was great rejoicing in the household of Stephen and his Queen. Bells rang throughout the country. It was peace at last. The enemy was vanquished.
At Lincoln that Christmas they celebrated Christmas with great pomp and splendour.
‘At last,’ cried Stephen, ‘the enemy has flown. Now I can begin to govern my realm.’
In Arundel, Adelicia had followed the civil war with great concern. Her husband was constantly away fighting in the cause of Stephen and the strain of constant anxiety had sent her more and more to religious meditation.
During the years she had given birth to seven children. William and Reyner were followed by Henry, Godfrey, Alice, Olivia and Agatha. She was devoted to them but even her affection for them made her wonder how long it would be before her elder sons joined the fighting.
William her husband was a faithful adherent to Stephen’s cause and when Matilda went back to Anjou he looked forward to spending his days in peace with his family.
For some years Adelicia’s favourite brother, Henry of Louvaine, had had a desire to go into a monastery. He had visited his sister at Arundel and they had talked often of the meaninglessness of the pomps of the world and how the only life worth living was that spent in seclusion.
Henry was determined to become a monk and Adelicia listening to him felt a great desire for such a life.
‘I am very weary,’ she told her brother, ‘of the stresses of the world. When I was the King’s wife I was tormented by inability to bear children. I believed that I would find peace with William. He has been a good husband to me. I have a great love for him and for my children, but I am beset by fears. When he goes away I never know when I am going to hear that he has been killed or is suffering torture in captivity. I fear that my sons will spend their lives in fighting, for that would seem the lot of the noblemen of this country. Then I long to shut myself away from the world and devote myself to prayer and to God.’
It was only with her brother that she could talk of these things.
William returned when Matilda went back to Anjou, but he sensed the change in his wife. She was loving and kind but remote and he often wondered what had happened to change her.
In the year 1149, two years after Matilda’s departure – years of peace from the civil war but during which the terrible outrages imposed by the barons on any who fell into their hands continued – Henry of Louvaine wrote to his sister that he had become a monk and was in the Monastery of Affigham at Alost in Flanders.
Adelicia knew the monastery well for it was one which her father had founded.
Her husband was with her when she received the news and he saw how her face lit up.
‘Henry has become a monk,’ she cried. ‘How happy he must be!’
‘Why,’ William had replied, ‘you speak as though you envy him.’
‘Think!’ she answered. ‘He will know perfect peace. All the troubles of the world will pass over him; he will come closer to God and the saints. Would you not envy a man who had that blessed experience?’
‘Adelicia,’ replied William, ‘I believe the sequestered life would make you happier than you are here with your family.’
‘I love you all dearly,’ she answered, ‘but I have longed for peace. It has never been mine. Always there are anxieties. This country is in a troublous state. The King is too weak to rule. Each day I expect trouble. You will be called from me to defend this castle or that piece of land. I am fearful that William will soon be old enough to join you. In the courtyards they practise with swords and their lances. I can hear them at their archery. War will come again.’
‘So you would be happier in a convent?’
‘It is not possible for me to leave you all.’
‘I want you to be happy,’ said William.
He knew that her health was impaired. It was for this reason perhaps that she found the stresses of life harder to bear.
It was William who made the decision for her.
Why did she not go into a nunnery for a while, to rest, to see if she could find that peace she sought?
So not long after her brother entered the monastery of Affigham, Adelicia herself entered a nunnery of a similar foundation.
She died there nearly two years after her entry.
With the Empress returned to Anjou, Queen Matilda looked forward to a life in which she could enjoy domestic peace.
Stephen could not express his gratitude to her enough; he insisted that she accompany him on all State occasions and that as much honour was done to her as to himself. He wanted to make up to her for his obsession with the Empress which now that imperious lady was far away seemed to him incredible. He believed he had been under some spell. Matilda was an enchantress; she had summoned up powers of darkness. How else could he have been so foolish as to have allowed her to escape him and for his folly paid the bitter price of humiliation and discomfort in a prison dungeon?
Now he was happy with his beloved wife and their three children.
‘We must make up for all the years of separation.’ said Matilda. ‘We have come through a great ordeal and God has been good to us. He would wish us to show our appreciation of His goodness by enjoying that which He has given us.’
The manner in which thanks to Go
d were shown was invariably in the building of some monument to His glory; and what better monument could there be but a religious house in which He could be eternally praised?
Faversham was the site chosen and Matilda herself decided to preside over the building of an Abbey. For this purpose the Court moved to Canterbury where she would be close at hand to supervise the work in person for, as she pointed out to Stephen, it was not enough to provide the means of building such a place; they must take a great interest in it and be in actual fact concerned with its construction.
The work was put in progress and she and Stephen were happy discussing the plans and going to the site to see how the building progressed.
In spite of her new won contentment Matilda was feeling easily tired and was forced to admit to herself what a heavy strain the last years had put on her. So assiduously had she worked in her husband’s cause that she had been unaware of the tensions. It was now that there was a respite from them that their effect began to be felt. She was conscious of a breathlessness, a tendency to catch colds from which she could not easily recover; she felt limp and was attacked by giddiness.
Her nature was such that she tried to hide these disabilities from Stephen and it was only her intimate attendants who were aware of them and watched her with increasing concern.
She was a little anxious about Eustace who was growing into a headstrong boy. He had inherited none of his father’s attractive qualities; he completely lacked the ability to make friends for he was inclined to be arrogant. Matilda often thought of how Stephen, in the days when he was merely the son of the Count of Blois, had endeared himself to the servants by his affability.
Eustace had heard stories of the young Henry of Anjou when he was in the country. There was a boy who was wild perhaps but had a way of attracting people to him. Even those who were fighting against his faction would tell stories of his exploits and there would be a grin of amusement on their faces.
Henry of Anjou had made a good impression – young as he was. He was reckless but a boy should be reckless; he was quite a fighter too; moreover people could not forget that he was in the direct line of succession being the son of Matilda, the Conqueror’s only legitimate child.