MY FAIR LADY: A Story of Eleanor of Provence, Henry III's Lost Queen

by J. P. Reedman

  I frowned. “Why do you not play with your cousin Brito?” I asked him.

  He drew his cloak around him. “The wind is cold, grandmama. And I am tired.”

  “Did you not sleep last night, Hal?” I looked into his thin face; ivory skin, dark eyes. No colour, like an effigy on a tomb.

  “I did, grandmama.”

  I glanced at Amicia. “He did, your Grace. It was hard to rouse him this morning, but I thought the Lord Henry should take the air with your Highness. I thought it might brighten his cheeks.”

  I glanced over the short, pruned hedge as a laughing screech came from Beatrice’s boy, Brito. I could see him bounding haphazardly through a herb-bed to the dismay of my imported Provencal gardener, with a couple of puppies racing at his heels, yapping and snapping. His tunic was smudged with mud, his cheeks flushed with exertion and good health.

  So different from the little pale boy next to me on the marble bench.

  “Henry, come to me,” I ordered.

  Shyly, slowly, Hal released Amicia’s hand and walk towards his grandmother. He was small for his age and seemed so wobbly, like a newborn calf trying to find its legs. As he stood before me, I took his little hands…so cold, frail as bird bones. His grip was weak, and as I looked down, I could see, where his loose sleeve had slipped up, a series of dark, ugly bruises.

  “What did you do to get these?” I cried, horrified. “Tell me, Hal!”

  He shook his head. “They just come, grandmama.”

  “Amicia? Why is my grandson thus marked? Has his master beaten him at lessons?” I rounded on his nurse, who burst into tears, fearing she might be blamed for her charge’s malady.

  “No, never! The Lord Henry is a most biddable and polite child. I myself noticed the marks a few weeks back but thought little of them. Children often trip and fall, hurt themselves in play.”

  “But when does Henry ever play? This cannot be right.” My brow creased. “I will send for two noted physicians, Hugh of Evesham and William la Provencal, to attend Henry immediately.”

  The physicians, sadly, were as perplexed as I was. The considered bleeding him but I did not like the idea in so small a child. They thought that maybe a dispensation could be obtained so that young Hal could eat meat even on Fridays. I thought that might work, help to make him robust.

  Yet worry gnawed at my heart and I slept so ill at night I had dark rings beneath my eyes—black as the bruises marring Henry’s pale flesh.

  When would Edward return from crusade? The child needed his father, and with my husband now gone, I wanted my son’s strength behind me, supporting me whatever befell.

  Chapter Twelve

  King Henry had died upon November 16 1272; almost two years passed before Edward and his wife, Eleanor of Castile, returned to England. But return they did, alive, if a little battered by their long adventures.

  Edward showed me a white scar upon his arm and a smaller blemish on his brow. “See these marks, my mother? I was attacked one night by a member of the secret order of the Hashashin.”

  “Who are they?” I asked; the name was unfamiliar, ominous sounding.

  “A Saracen order of Assassins,” he replied. “Known for their deadly stealth. It is said that if they wish you dead, you might as well dig your own grave.”

  I shuddered. “Obviously this assassin failed, praise be to God.”

  Edward nodded. “The wound-be killer rushed into my tent one night after silently dispatching my guards. I was drowsing, not yet fully asleep; I caught the flash of a blade in the gloom and sat up as he struck at me. The dagger aimed at my heart struck my arm instead. We grappled and he smote me in the face … but as I fell back, unbalanced, I grasped a nearby stool and clouted him with all my strength. He lost his deadly dagger…and then, once I had pinned him down, his misbegotten life.”

  “But the wound was poisoned.” It was Edward’s wife, Eleanor of Castile, who spoke. She was in the solar with him, and with their children, Henry, Leonor and a baby I had only just seen—Alphonso, who had made his appearance when his parents were in Gascony on their way home. There was a new daughter too, Joan, born while her parents were in Syria, but Edward had left her with his maternal grandmother, the Countess of Ponthieu. “I was terrified, I thought Edward would surely die. He writhed on the floor and had terrible visions of demons.”

  “But you saved me, did you not?” Edward looked at his wife lovingly. To see his devotion pleased me; my stern, martial son could be hard of heart, even towards me, his mother…but he loved his Castilian bride dearly and valued her opinion far more than most husbands did. “You fell upon your knees and sucked the venom from my wounds until the physicians could devise an antidote!”

  “A miracle!” I whispered, stunned. “God bless you, your Grace Queen Eleanor.” I saw a look pass between the couple and was not quite certain if the story of sucking poison was some kind of ribald private jest…but I would not pursue the subject.

  “Now…” Edward swung round and suddenly picked up young Henry, lifting him up before him, “we must prepare for my Coronation. How do you feel about that great day, my young prince?”

  Hal just hung there, limp as a rag doll, clearly overawed by this giant of a man with his loud, hard voice and decisive actions. I could see vague disappointment on Edward’s face, and felt pity for my sickly little grandson. He was not the kind of son a warrior king might desire.

  “Never mind.” Edward thrust Hal back towards Eleanor of Castile, who in turn thrust him towards Amicia at the back of the chamber. “No more time for niceties. Preparations must be made!”

  The Coronation day came, not without some drama. Edward and Edmund had fallen out; Edmund had insisted that, as steward, he should have the right to carry the great sword Curtana in the procession. Edward has disagreed, wishing to give the honour of carrying the sword to the Earl of Gloucester for his faithful services.

  “I followed you on crusade—what greater service do you wish for, brother?” Edmund had snarled, and he retired to his estates to sulk and be comforted by his young wife Aveline, who he appeared to have grown to love dearly.

  Edward clearly did not care. “Edmund could always act the child when the mood took him,” he said breezily. “His absence will not spoil my day.”

  And, I must admit, it did not. Crowds were out and in a celebratory mood, and wine sprang from the conduit at Cheapside that any man might stop and drink a toast to the new King and Queen.

  In Westminster Abbey, the royal couple knelt, were undressed, anointed, robed again and then crowned. Eager to impress that his reign would be different to that of his forebears, Edward took off his crown mere seconds after it had been placed on his head by Archbishop Kilwardby, and vowed that he would not wear it again until he won back the English lands lost in recent years.

  Listening I cringed, my face burning with embarrassment; to me, it felt as though Edward was criticising his father, who lay so near in the Confessor’s Tomb.

  Then it was on to the banquet, a splendid affair, though I thought, with a lingering sense of sadness, more for the young than for an aging widow. The nobles of the realm and the King of Scotland rode into Westminster Hall, each followed by a hundred knights on horses. Once they had assembled before Edward, they dismounted their steeds…then set them free.

  “Any man here may take these horses for his own!” it was announced. “Just let him catch them!”

  Once the excitement of the horse-chase was over, we sat down to feast. I had a position of honour, naturally, but it was far from the glittering table of the king, with its samite canopy and golden flags and huge silver saltcellar shaped like a turreted fortress.

  Eating only small portions of swan from the trencher before me, I let my gaze drift down the lines of guests at the high table and the rest of the trestle tables. So many faces missing, gone forever, though I was gladdened to see my daughters Margaret and Beatrice, both now in their thirties, and so radiant that all who gazed upon them remarked at their gr
eat beauty. I also cast my eye towards little Henry, the heir apparent, sitting in his newly-made tunic of fine green Ypres silk, with his food lying untouched before him. Looking even more tired and weak that usual.

  By midnight, I wish to retire. The child needed to leave too; he was half-sleep, his shoulder shaken every few minutes by a worried-looking Amicia. Approaching the King, I curtseyed—how strange that felt—and asked permission to leave for the palace at Guildford with the young prince.

  For a few long moments, Edward stared appraisingly over my shoulder at Hal, and then nodded. “Yes, take him, take him from London. I do not think the air here agrees with him.”

  It is not just the air that ails the child, I thought, but said no more. It was clear to me that Edward had had already given up on this small son he hardly knew and was not bothered if he were present or not. Hal was, at present, his heir…but if he were to perish by some mischance, he had another boy, Alphonso, waiting in the wings to take his place. It seemed heartless, but it was the way of the world, the way of Kings. Children died too easy; it was not good to become too attached, as I had learned with Katharine.

  I took Hal from the hall and we rode for Guildford, both of us sharing the same chariot. As the carriage wobbled along the rutted road, I gazed out from behind the rich velvet curtains at the risen moon and drank in the night air. I was glad to be away. For the first time, I felt alien at court; because it was no longer my court but Edward and Eleanor’s. They were the future, I was the past….

  Little Hal yawned on the seat across from me. “Father looked so tall in his crown…but the crown looked so heavy. Do you think I will find it heavy when I grow older and become king?”

  “I hope you will not,” I said and stared up at the moon, a white, unfeeling eye. Nightwind kissed tears from my cheeks

  “Why are you crying, grandmama?” asked little Hal in concern.

  “I am not, it is only the brightness of the moon that makes my eyes water,” I lied.

  Little Henry’s illness worsened in the days that followed the Coronation. As late summer gripped England, bathing it in an unusual heat, he lay abed in his chamber at Guildford, the doctors fussing over him but unable to do more than give him a few moments of temporary relief.

  I was frantic as he weakened day by day. I purchased mensurae, candles that were measured to Henry’s own height, and sent them to various shrines about the country, including one to St Edward’s at Westminster and one to the grave of his grandfather. I prayed to God not to take this grandson who had become dear to me.

  He did not listen. When the summer burned itself out and the first sullen skies of October descended, and the geese flew in V-shapes across the lowering sky, little Hal passed from this life and into the next.

  Edward and Eleanor of Castile did not come to his bedside, even at the last.

  I held Hal’s hand as its usual coldness became even colder.

  The days that followed were blurry and drear. I founded a House of Dominicans in Guildford in Prince Henry’s name, and bestowed upon them my grandson’s heart in an ornate urn. His body was sent to Westminster for burial near his grandfather and my much-mourned daughter Katharine.

  His death hurt me the most, but it was not the last. The next year was one of nothing but tragedy and pain for me. Edmund’s wife Aveline had become pregnant, but died in birthing twins, aged but fourteen. Edmund was mad with grief, almost to the point that I feared for his own life. Then in February, messengers came from Scotland, dressed in mourning garb—my eldest daughter, dear sweet Meggie, had succumbed to a winter fever. A month after that Beatrice was also dead; she had delivered a daughter, Eleanor, and all looked to be well; then, without warning she had collapsed, unable to breathe, and swiftly died.

  Guildford, which had seemed a haven of peace, now felt more like a prison. A prison of unhappy memories. After sorting out a pension for Hal’s loyal nurse Amicia, I gathered my household and headed to Wiltshire, staying between my dower castles of Ludgershall and Marlborough. Whilst there I tried to interest myself in earthly things, such as the running of my estates; I visited Gloucester where the monks of Lanthony priory allowed me to build a bridge to access their gardens from my castle, and toured King’s Cliffe, Havering and Gillingham—a journey I did not much enjoy. At Gillingham, a vile greasy smoke rose into the air at evening and assailed my nostrils, turning my stomach and ruining my appetite. It must have been something foul that the locals burnt upon the hearth fire.

  I wrote letters regarding the Milton Regis gaol, a market for Pevensey and a meeting at Marlborough. I also evicted a Jew, Jacob Cok, from Andover town, with the blessing of my son the King, who had issued a statue that forbade Jews to practice usury. It did not quite go as I wished, however; for when my steward, Guy of Taunton, evicted the Jew, Cok turned around and sued Guy for robbery! The court case dragged on for ages.

  Edmund finally remarried, taking Louis IX’s niece, Blanche, as his new bride. I prayed to the Virgin that they would be blessed with healthy children. Soon they were parents to a fine son they named Thomas.

  I looked with hope to a better future.

  I heard via my network of spies that the King and Queen would be making a journey to Glastonbury, where the monks were planning to rebury the bones of King Arthur in a tomb before the high altar. I had visited Glastonbury briefly with Henry not long after we were wed, and I was consumed with a desire to journey there again, one last time. From youth onwards, I had loved the Arthurian legends—Geoffrey of Monmouth, Marie De France, Chretien de Troyes, the tale of Tristan, the Lancelot Proper. As a young girl, I had dreamed that I was another Guinevere, albeit a loyal one who did not dishonour my marriage vows. I had seen Henry as another Arthur, leader of chivalry, or I had wanted to see him that way. We had failed to replicate the valour and nobility of those great ones from the past, but we had tried. We had wished to make England as great as France, to turn it into a country of power and great importance within Christendom. It had not happened in Henry’s reign but perhaps Edward would be more successful. Perhaps striving for greatness upon this earth is the best any mortal can do.

  I went to Edward, and in all humility asked if I could accompany him and the Queen to Glastonbury. He did not seem pleased; his gaze, heavy with his drooping eyelid, drifted to Queen Eleanor, who sat with demure composure, staring down at her folded hands. “I do not think it will be possible…” he began.

  I would not beg, and with a sigh made to turn away and retreat to my apartments. However, the Queen suddenly raised her head and spoke, “It would be a kindness, your Grace. It is little enough for the Dowager Queen to ask.”

  Edward paused. He listened to Eleanor of Castile more than most men listened to their wives.

  “It means making adjustments,” frowned Edward. “The monks will not be expecting the Dowager Queen.”

  “Your Grace…my son…” I turned back to Edward. “I gave you the knowledge of Arthur the King, placed books about his deeds into your hands when you were but a small boy. I went to Glastonbury when your father and I were first wed and I prayed for Arthur’s soul then and for all his brave knights—Lancelot, Tristan, Gawain, Percival, Galahad. But I did not see his gravesite or his bones; time did not permit it, the King was on business. Would you not grant an old woman one small pleasure? I will not come as Queen Mother, only as a pilgrim. None would know.”

  Edward was still scowling but said in a sullen voice, “If it is your wish.”

  I would go with my son, but dressed only as a woman of the court with no adornments and no rich gems to mark my status.

  The King came to Glastonbury to great acclaim. Furled in a cloak, I walked behind the Queen, unrecognised. In a great procession, we wended our way through the heart of the town toward the abbey, one of the wealthiest in England since the finding of Arthur and Guinevere’s bones. The roof of the great church veered up, shining like gold in the aftermath of early rain. Beyond, rose the hill known as the Tor, a green finger that prodded the
sky, its eminence capped by the ruins of St Michael’s church, which fell in a terrible shaking of the earth some three years previously. The common folk said the hill was haunted, that otherworldly palaces resided within, and that Arthur lay there, sleeping…but I did not want to believe that the King slept, caught in some unnatural world of faerie glamour. I imagined that he had died like other men, and had his reward for his valour at the throne of God (I thought not so much of Guinevere’s fate, for she had been adulterous…but I hoped forgiveness was hers, and that prayers of those who loved her had saved her sinful soul as one day prayers would save mine.)

  The abbey gates reared up before us, opening slowly as if they were the gates to heaven. The abbot, John of Taunton, emerged to greet the party, with the lay brothers gathered close about him, and ushered us into the grounds and then to the doors of the abbey church.

  It was one of the largest churches I had ever visited, containing amongst its many chapels, one dedicated to Joseph of Arimathea, who had visited Britain with the young Christ-child and planted the Holy Thorn upon a Glastonbury hillside. Tall windows let light in through panes of coloured glass and the smell of incense and tallow was sweet balm to the senses.

  Abbot John was speaking to the King. “In the last century, whilst digging foundations for a new building, a grave was found many feet below the surface of the land. In the pit lay a coffin wrought from a gigantic oak tree, rough and rude but imposing. Upon opening it, the brothers found the bones of a mighty man, surely a warrior of great renown from some elder age of the world. Beside him lay the bones of a slender woman, presumed to be his wife; about her skull lay hanks of hair that still shone as gold as wheat in the field. An air of great majesty and sanctity cluing to these mortal remains, and learned men pronounced that surely they must be the bones of the puissant King Arthur and his wife Guinevere.”