“You make a mockery of me yet again, going behind my back as you did in that business over Passelewe!” he bawled, his face crimson with fury. “You make me look weak, a chinless ninny to be jeered!” Angrily he hurled a bowl of fruit across the room; little round apples bounced over the reed-strewn flagstones. “Women’s arrogance runs high if it goes unchecked; I should take my hand to you! I will not have you shame me, Eleanor! You interference is too much!”
I tried to calm him with pacifying words but I could not—he thrust me aside and stormed from the hall to seek his own apartments. The entire castle had heard his shouting and I was mortified. What must they think of me?
I was also in a predicament. I could not just cast William out; he had been legally appointed in his position.
I would have to go to court.
Against Henry, my husband.
My King.
The court ruled in my favour! I was surprised but my pleasure on William’s behalf was tempered by my fear of how Henry would react. He had taken the news with glowering silence but I feared a terrible explosion of rage later. I thanked Bishop Grosseteste of Lincoln for assistance on my behalf, and then sought out Henry’s sister, Nell. I needed help against my husband’s anger and Nell had certainly felt the brunt of that wrath in the past.
Nell was sitting in the solar of her manor house, reading her prayer book. She glanced up as I entered; then gracefully rose from her stool and curtseyed. I noticed how attractive she was, her neck long like a swan’s, her eyes pale blue against skin like snow. No wonder Simon has desired her so much, despite the oath of chastity she had sworn. And what a waste it would have been had she retired to a convent, although her veiling would have saved much fighting and grief.
“Nell, I need your assistance.” I tried to sound serene and confident but my voice wobbled.
Alarmed, Nell looked at me. “Your Grace, what is wrong?”
“Call me Eleanor while we are alone, I beg you. It is Henry I am having problems with. He is sore wroth with me. He glares and we do not speak, let alone…” I swallowed, ashamed to reveal our unhappy situation, where he did not come to my chamber anymore.
“How may I help you?” Nell’s brow furrowed. “Tell me, Eleanor, that I may help if I can.”
“You have known him far longer than I, grew up with him. You have felt his anger too. Tell me how to win him back. I have given him two sons and two daughters. I have supported him in all his endeavours…yet I have failed and am ostracised just because I wished to give my chaplain a gift!”
“Henry is generous,” said Nell slowly,” but he hates being made a fool, or thinking that others may deem him so. That is why he reacted so badly to my marriage to Simon…egged on by Richard, of course, who thought it a matter of the family’s honour. Henry really did not mind so much; as you know, Eleanor, he even allowed us to use his private chapel to wed. But when the barons objected, he was made to seem weak and his whole manner changed. He became unreasonable, even dangerous.”
“So you think I should have allowed Henry’s chaplain to have the church living instead of William? Even though he was granted it first, and all was proper and in order? It was truly a matter for the courts to decide once it had reached that point.”
Nell sighed. “I would have ceded to my husband, Eleanor, even if you were legally in the right. You could have found another position or some other fitting gift for your chaplain, I am sure.”
“Will you speak with Henry? You are his sister, and you have become good friends with him in recent days. I am so fearful, Nell. I do not want to lose my husband’s love. Not over a matter as trivial as this.”
Nell smiled, patted my arm as if we were both just two matrons, not royalty. “I will do my best, Eleanor. Henry can be a stubborn man. Both our parents were the same…only worse, much worse. When my father and mother fought, I thought they would murder each other! Henry can be stubborn and temperamental…but at least, unlike father, Henry has a heart.”
Nell spoke to Henry but still my husband did not come to my chamber. However, when I saw him, he had at least ceased to scowl at me. I judged I was undergoing some kind of a punishment for my presumption over William’s living, and that soon the ice that had touched Henry’s heart would melt. He would surely return to my bed before long. He would realise how much he missed me, needed me, and how this quarrel was foolish and needed to be put into the past.
And then, unthinking, I made another dreadful mistake, and it was all the fault of Henry’s half-brother, Aymer, the bishop of Winchester. Once again, it was over a church living. Aymer had granted the living to one of his own, when my Uncle Boniface wished to grant it to one of his servants. I thought Aymer a grasping sort—I disliked all of Henry’s Lusignan half-siblings, finding them fractious, pushy and rude—and therefore supported Boniface wholeheartedly against Aymer.
Henry went mad.
I was in my garden, surrounded by my sweet herbs and flowers, when I heard him coming. I say, heard him, because he was shouting and screaming, his voice echoing down the halls. A cold flush rushed over me, turning my blood to ice. I froze, the beauty of the day fading away.
Craning my head around, I could see Henry storming towards me across the manicured lawns, his robes blowing out in a great red cloud, a haze of blood. I swore I could see foam upon his lips, like that around the muzzle of a mad dog.
“Henry! My lord!” I cried, seeking to break his crazed charge.
My ploy did not work. He grasped my arm and shook me as a terrier shakes a rat. My ladies stared in horror; some began to weep. “Get you gone, you bitches!” he spat between gritted teeth and they scattered like roses thrown about by an ill storm-wind.
He shook me again. “Nell nearly had me fooled!” he hissed. “Saying you were sorry for your meddlesome ways. And what have you done? Shamed me again! God’s teeth, woman, have you gone mad? Well, you will not get away with it this time!”
“What will you do, husband? Please do not be rash!” I clung to his arm, praying he would come to his senses. He flung me off; I staggered and nearly fell amidst a bed of lavender. “I meant no harm. Aymer was in the wrong…”
“That is not for you to say, Eleanor!” Henry screamed, spittle from his lips blasting into my face.
Grasping my arm, uncaring that his fingers bruised my flesh, he dragged me across the garden. My women were still lurking, running hither and thither, hiding from Henry’s wrath behind the shrubbery but not willing to leave me altogether.
“I have had enough!” He waggled a finger in front of my face. Sparks seemed to leap from his eyes. “You will be punished as you deserve for this new interference.”
“I beg you, do not imprison me,” I begged. I thought of his grandmother of Aquitaine, and her long imprisonment on Sarum’s windy cone. “Please do not beat me!”
“I don’t want to touch you!” he snapped, seemingly even angrier that I thought he might lay hands on me. “But I am removing all your lands, Eleanor…confiscating them. So you learn what is like to lose face and be humiliated. I will do exactly to you what you have done to me. Maybe I will give your lands away to those more loyal and true. Leave you in penury. A queen with nothing.”
Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. “You do me wrong. There is none more loyal than I. Mistakes have been made and I am sorry…”
“You did it twice!” he raged, sticking up two fingers before my face. “Twice within a short time, you silly trull! Anyway, it matters not now. Pack your things.”
“Pack my thi…”
“You heard me. Get your robes, jewels, everything. I am banishing you from London.”
It was a harsh sentence but at least I was still free…though destitute without my lands.
I did not dare argue.
Heart hammering, tears brimming, I ran for my quarters with my ladies running after me, many of them weeping with fear in the aftermath of Henry’s wrath. Helplessly I stood in the middle of the room as the tapestries and linens wer
e stripped, my jewels boxed, my garments flung haphazardly in a chest then carried out of the room on the brawny backs of male servants.
I was bundled into a covered chariot and driven at a great speed out of London and into the countryside.
I ended up in Marlborough, at the stern, thin, castle keep on its tall, strange hill. I had enjoyed my former visits there, near the deep forest of Savernake and the winding River Kennet, but I had never dwelt anywhere for long without my children or my husband. It was lonely, and it seemed to me the household there now gazed on me with suspicion…even mockery.
I had been at Marlborough for a month when I was suddenly summoned to London. I received no personal letter, just a summons from the King brought by a solitary rider in a cloak bearing no device. Rattled and distressed, I was sick in the chariot as it rolled at unnatural pace over the rutted roads towards the capital.
When I reached Westminster, I was perfunctorily handed out of the carriage and without preamble or any ceremony, escorted straight to Henry’s private closet. As he saw me nervously approaching, he rose from his bench, dismissed his squires of the body and other attendants with a word, and motioned me to come before him.
Shivering, my arms folded across myself, I gazed at my husband with mournful expression, not certain why he had called for me in this manner after driving me forth mere weeks ago. Was I to be castigated further? Would he even seek some kind of ending to our marriage? The spectre of imprisonment loomed in my tortured mind yet again.
To my surprise, though, Henry’s face bore no signs of anger. In fact, he looked near as distressed as I did. “Eleanor, Eleanor, forgive me,” he murmured. “I am so glad you are here.”
“Your…your Grace?” Startled, I blinked at him.
“I was rash. Too rash. Sometime we Plantagenets cannot control our emotions. I should never have sent you away. I need you.”
“You…you do, your Grace?”
His cheeks were burning red above his luxuriant coppery beard. “You are beautiful, my Queen, but there is more to you than beauty. In your absence, I have considered many things. I know I need you to help me…to help me rule this country justly and well. You are a brilliant negotiator and of high intellect; you remind me of my grandmother, the other Eleanor of great esteem.”
“Henry…” Relief flooded me. I sank to my knees, not so much from respect for the King, but because they suddenly they felt weak and wobbly. “I have missed you so, husband. And the children.”
“I have missed you too, more than I ever believed possible.” He suddenly gathered me up, lifted me as if I was weightless, just like a hero in one of my romances. It was most unlike the Henry I knew. “We must never let anything come between us again. You must promise me, Eleanor, to confer with me when you make grants of livings or give out other appointments. You must not be seen to be contradicting me, the King. Cruel harmful rumours may start. A wife should not undermine her husband…especially a King’s wife. Hard times are coming, I fear, and we must stand together. Do you understand, my dearest?”
“I understand!” I murmured weakly. “I hope we never quarrel so again.”
He took me to his large bed with its quilts bearing the Royal Arms. “Your lands will be returned as soon as possible,” he murmured into my ear.
“Lands be damned,” I murmured back. “I care nothing for them, only for the love of my husband.”
But in my secret heart, I was glad to have them back.
Chapter Four
Simon de Montfort had left Gascony. Unable to recover his dignity after being dragged back to England for trial, he at last resigned his position, and galloped for Paris in a wild temper. My son Edward was now put forward to claim his birthright. He was only thirteen.
As war-like as my tall, fair son was becoming, he was far too young to go and attempt to quell the rebellious Gascons.
Henry knew not who to trust amongst his men…so he decided to fare to Gascony himself and assess the situation. Fuelled by wrath, he would have happily sailed within days, but my husband had a serious problem that prevented such action—money.
As ever, England’s coffers were notoriously empty and the barons were grumbling darkly into their beards, unhappy at the thought of foreign conflict. They gazed shiftily at Henry, even when parliament sat, and insisted he swear new oaths upon the Great Charter signed by his sire, John. It was humiliating, and Henry insisted he would do it only if he could make a grand spectacle of the act—and so the Archbishops of Canterbury and other bishops appeared in droves, milling about in their pontifical robes, bearing lighted candles and threatening excommunication on any who transgressed the charter of common liberties. “Let all who incur the sentence of excommunication stink in Hell!” they had cried, flinging down their candles, while Henry, with mild and tolerant expression, swore that as man, knight and anointed King, he would never dream of defiling the charter’s terms. From the looks the Barons gave him, no one much believed him.
Not only did the nobles grumble about the possibility of foreign war, the commons groaned when fund-raising initiatives took place. The people of Winchester even said he ruined their Christmas celebrations by demanding 200 marks. I could not understand their reticence to assist. Surely, they did not want to see their monarch lose Gascony and be shamed before all the crowned heads of Europe? They had to cease their constant moaning and opposition. And if they did not, to hell with them. We must not lose Gascony, not at any price.
In August, Henry was finally ready to depart. The royal army marched to the harbour of Portsmouth; Edward and I rode with them to say our farewells. Banners fluttered and clarions blared as we entered the thriving town that had been founded by Jean de Gisors in the last century. The local people swarmed the streets, cheering and throwing flowers; despite the increased taxes to pay for these expeditions these folk remained loyal to their monarch; their charter had been granted by Henry’s uncle, the Lionheart, on one of his rare visits to England, and that was not forgotten.
We journeyed to Domus Dei, the House of God, an almshouse and hospice that stood on the green overlooking the torrential waters beyond and prayed for safe passage and for victory in the church of St Nicholas. Then it was on to the harbour, where Henry turned to us to say his farewells before taking his ship.
He wept, uncaring that many saw his sorrow, and embraced Edward, who was now fourteen. “I will hold Gascony for you, my son,” he promised. “Your birthright will not be lost to evil, grasping men.”
Tall and striking in his tabard with the arms of England on it, Edward began to weep too, tears tracking down his smooth young face. “Father, take me with you! I am old enough! I beg you! I can use a sword!”
“You are too young, my son!” Henry put his hand on Edward’s shoulder and shook his head. “One day you will be a great warrior, no doubt about it…I have heard that already you excel in horsemanship and in the joust. But that time is not now.”
Edward looked crestfallen, wept some more as the company of noble youths who always followed him shuffled their feet and looked embarrassed.
“I need you to stay here, Ned,” Henry said kindly, still seeking to pacify. “You must remain to take care of your mother the Queen…and the small brother or sister she carries beneath her girdle.”
It was true. I had fallen pregnant again. I put my hand to the small swell of my belly. After a gap of several years, I had wondered if my childbearing days were over. But no….The pregnancy was one of the reasons I would not be accompanying Henry to Gascony. I had not felt well since becoming with child, and the memories of the fraught delivery of Beatrice while Henry was on campaign would not leave my mind.
Edward wiped his steely blue eyes on his sleeve. Now that his lord-father had given him a task, he seemed slightly happier, although I knew that his nature was not one inclined to tending to the gentler sex. “I will do as you bid,” he said bravely to Henry. “I will aid my mother the Queen and see that neither she nor England comes to harm in your absence.”
Henry turned to me; our eyes met. “I will be victorious; I promise you before man and God that Edward’s inheritance will not be compromised. And while I am on the continent I will also seek allies by offering our son in marriage; the king of Castile I have heard has great armies…and a marriageable daughter.”
I nodded in agreement. A princess of Castile would be a fitting match for Edward…though how strange to think of my eldest wed! Somehow, it seemed even more alien than Margaret’s wedding to the young Scots king. Meggie was a girl, born for such alliances. Edward…he was everything to his parents, and to his country.
Then Henry said his last farewells and boarded his ship with clarions blowing and kettledrums rattling, and his flotilla of three hundred English war-ships sailed out of Portsmouth harbour with a clean wind in their sails.
Edward’s mood turned sour as the ships passed the harbour wall and swiftly hastened out to sea. Pulling away from me as if I were an old doddering crone that held him back from glory, he paced like a trammelled beast upon the salty flagstones and strained his gaze into the distance, watching as the last sail, flaring red as the sunlight caught it, drifted over the horizon.
Once the flotilla was gone beyond view, his earlier weeping resumed with extra fury, an angry sorrow that became a harsh grinding sob in his throat. His face was the angry red of a screaming baby.
“Edward, you must not take on so,” I chided, “not here in front of the entire entourage. Remember that you are a mighty prince!”
“I do not forget, Madame!” he cried, using a tone of voice far colder than any I had heard from him before. “And that is why I weep! Not because I cannot bear to be parted from my father the king or fear for his safety…but because I want to go to war with him, to raise my sword to claim what is mine! And you don’t understand that…you are just a woman, despite that you are my mother and the Queen of England!”
MY FAIR LADY: A Story of Eleanor of Provence, Henry III's Lost Queen Page 11