She did not have long to wait. On October 13th, the day on which the Prince was seventeen, the feast of the English royal saint Edward the Confessor, a letter arrived from the Earl of Warwick. Someone told Anne what her father had said. ‘The whole kingdom is now placed under the obedience of the King my sovereign lord, and the usurper, Edward, driven out of it.’ The usurper Edward and his brother had fled, taking ship from the port of Lynn, presumably for Burgundy, though no news had been heard of their arrival there yet.
King Louis, brandishing his letter from Warwick, summoned Margaret of Anjou, and Anne’s mother, immediately.
‘Madame,’ he said, ‘Monseigneur de Warwick has won England for you more quickly than I had hoped, with no blood spilt. Did I not tell you that my friend M. de Warwick could achieve things other men could not?’
‘The wheel of Fortune turns very swiftly,’ said Queen Margaret. ‘I think we must wait to see if it will turn again, and throw M. de Warwick down to damnation, where he undoubtedly belongs. I hope for the sake of my poor husband the King, and for my son, that he will not be punished by God just yet.’
‘Humph,’ said Louis. ‘Madame, I hope to see you return to England by Epiphany at the latest, and to have attended to my lord Prince’s marriage before then.’
‘When I am sure that it is safe for my son to do so, I will go back, not before. As for the marriage, that is scarcely my concern, as you forced me to agree to it.’
To show his delight and confidence in Warwick’s achievement, King Louis ordered three days of public rejoicing in France. He himself went off on a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Celles in Poitou, which he had vowed to do in thanksgiving if his plans and Warwick’s succeeded. When he came back, he told Anne’s mother that he had urgently requested the Bishop of Bayeux to procure the dispensation for Anne’s marriage, and had backed his request with a large sum of money borrowed from a doth merchant of Tours. Louis had begun to dwell upon how expensive it was to maintain Queen Margaret and her son, her fellow exiles, and Warwick’s wife and daughter. He estimated that this had already cost him nearly 3000 livres, and he thought they would probably be staying more than another month. The sooner Margaret took herself and her son back to England, the sooner Warwick might see his way to helping Louis attack the Duke of Burgundy.
The King now began to plan this war with enthusiasm. In mid-November, at a meeting at Tours, it was declared that the Duke of Burgundy had, by his treason and aggression against his sovereign lord, forfeited his title and lands, which might be duly seized. The Prince of Wales signed an agreement with King Louis, promising to assist in waging war, and, when he returned to England, to persuade his father to declare the nation openly at war with Burgundy. By this time, they knew that Duke Charles had allowed King Edward to stay in Zeeland, and had provided him with some money, but had not yet received him at the Burgundian court. Louis wanted to attack as soon as possible and deprive Edward of a safe refuge. Ambassadors were to be sent to England with suggested plans for a campaign, for Louis was sure Warwick would give him the help he wanted. And if the ambassadors sent a good report of affairs in England, Queen Margaret would take her son home.
Before the Bishop of Bayeux left on this embassy, the dispensation for the union of Anne and the Prince arrived. The first reports from the French ambassadors in England confirmed that Warwick was firmly in charge of the kingdom. There was now no impediment to the marriage.
Anne was married to Edward of Lancaster in the castle chapel at Amboise on a grey day in early December. It was an event which made little impression on the world. Everyone seemed impatient to get it over. Indeed the day itself was so dreary and unmemorable that Anne could scarcely remember afterwards which end of the week it was. Some things, however, she did remember.
On her wedding day she woke out of fitful sleep and found her heart beating at a wild running pace, and nothing she did to try to calm herself would slow it down. She found that the women who washed and dressed her looked at her archly, in a way she did not like at all. It was like silent sniggering, as if they said behind their hands: you don’t know what we know, but you soon will! They were squeezing her into a gown of palest blue silk, with a very deep neckline, which showed up her neck like a chicken’s wish bone. It slithered over her head and snaked down her as if it were frost lined. The sleeves had to be sewn up on her, and were so tight she could bend her arms only a little. The cuffs covered all but the very tips of her fingers. Her hair hung down her back, as a bride’s should. They had to keep smoothing it, because the cold made it fly about and crackle. Round her neck they hung a swan jewel, in white enamel, gold and rubies — the Prince’s device. King Louis’ dogs wore collars round their necks bearing his badges.
King Louis, as usual at this time of year, rode out early to hunt the deer. When he came back, his nose reddened with cold and a blob of mud still on one eyebrow, he took the place of a father and gave away Anne to a husband she did not want. When the Grand Vicar of Bayeux joined her hand with that of the Prince, she thought they would be able to feel the racing of her heart. Little birds felt like that, when picked up in human hands. Once long ago she had cried because a bird had died in her hand, its heart beating itself out in fright. All the young Prince felt was a small childish hand as cold and unresisting as a dab in a net. Anne promised to love and obey her husband, in French, so faintly that her voice could scarcely be heard. Margaret of Anjou fretted in impatience and anger. King Louis would not have been surprised if she had broken in on the ceremony and tried to stop it, even at that last moment. But she did not. The candles smelt, as if they were not made of best quality wax, and guttered so, the chapel must be full of draughts.
After it was all over, a banquet was held in honour of the Prince of Wales and his new wife. Anne could not eat. The tenderest meat was like sawdust. The golden wines of Touraine had lost their glow of summer sunshine. King Louis thought of the new alliance with England, previously so unimaginable, and was content with his policy. Now that his aim was accomplished, he was not disposed to be deliberately unkind. He was aware that Anne was neither stupid nor spiritless, for all that she sat there like a mouse crouching under a chair. In order to lighten the atmosphere at the banquet, he had commanded his players to enact the story of Le Maître Pathelin, which at any rate made him roll about with laughter, and should give all the guests similar enjoyment, even if the married couple did have their minds on other things.
Anne watched the players with as little comprehension as she would have shadows jumping about on a wall. When the one who was supposed to be a shepherd began bleating like a sheep, she gave up altogether and shut her eyes.
Unfortunately, her husband noticed her sitting there with her eyes shut. He was beginning to feel very apprehensive about what was to come afterwards. He would have felt more confident if he were sure that his bride was shy out of mere modesty and inexperience. But this girl did not want to go to bed with him, he was certain. This fact was a blow to his considerable pride and vanity, and made him resentful. In spite of his mother’s contempt for Anne, and her insistence that if events went wrong in England he would be saddled with a wife of no usefulness to him, he would have liked to feel that he had made a conquest. His mother had wanted the marriage to remain unconsummated until they were safely back in England and she could judge for herself how secure Warwick’s victory was, but King Louis had insisted, because he would not allow his friend the Earl to be undersold in his absence. Old Louis would be there, behind the bed curtains, to make certain the bride did not get up a virgin; he was a thorough and practical man. This contributed much to the Prince’s apprehension. To make matters worse, Pierre Robin, his physician — or rather his grandfather King René’s physician — hovered over him, inspecting everything he ate, as if he had an old man’s digestion. Ever since he had been very ill with measles when he was fourteen, his mother had set Robin to watch him, as if he were still ailing, which he was not.
King Louis escorted the couple to their
bed chamber like a sardonic guardian angel from the realms of darkness. He was distressingly good humoured, and cracked jokes which embarrassed the Prince and made Anne blush. She had not previously disliked the King, even though she had realized he took no account of the feelings of women. He was very matter of fact, however, and it would have been much worse if he had been personally salacious. He supervised everything as he might have a mating of valuable hounds. A lot of other people were indulging in licentious talk and behaviour because they were very drunk, but this always happened at weddings. Anne did not make the effort to hear what they said, except when it was so loud and rude as to make her blush. She felt as if her skin was shrinking. She found the idea of getting into bed naked with a young man so strange; she knew what he would do, but had no notion of what it would be like. Edward was looking sulky, and this frightened her. They could not even comfort each other in their separate plights.
Queen Charlotte’s sisters put Anne to bed, giggling, while the King looked on dispassionately. The girl in that white shift affair had about as much shape as a choirboy; he thought that, unlike the Duke of Burgundy, the Prince of England’s taste did not run in that direction. He was concerned only that the Prince should perform his duties adequately, not with the boy’s disappointments. Whether or not the girl became pregnant was immaterial; there was plenty of time for that when they got back to England.
The Prince, who had been instructed exactly in what he should do by the gentlemen in his mother’s retinue, thought that they had forgotten to tell him one thing, and that was how to get things started when the bride sharing your pillow looked about ten years old and was staring frozenly up at the tester as if you did not exist. His only experience had been with one or two clean and compliant whores selected by his mother, and who had not left him to initiate the operation. Everything had been so easy and pleasurable. He stared down at Anne, whose brownish hair trickled all over the place, making it difficult to lie beside her without tugging on it. Her soft, little girl’s lips were firmly closed.
‘Are you comfortable now?’ he asked in a stilted way; he meant, are you ready? He wanted to see her lips move.
‘Yes, your Grace.’ This had the effect he wanted, her teeth were neat and even, but the words sounded chilling.
‘I am your husband. My name is Edouard.’
She said, ‘Yes,’ again, and her shy grey eyes slipped him a glance before resuming their stare at nothing.
He wondered if he should kiss her. When he did so, her lack of response made him clumsy, and he missed the place he was aiming for, and skated off her cheek towards her ear, and got a mouthful of long hairs. Anne turned her face slightly away from the feel of his saliva. He smelled of wine recently drunk, though otherwise he was perfectly wholesome, scrubbed and scented as much as she had been. The tiny movement revealing her involuntary distaste turned his uncertainty into hostility, and made him hurry into the action he had hoped would happen at their mutual wish. Even then, not forgetting to be considerate, Edward remembered to take the weight of his athletic young body on both arms, instead of squeezing the girl’s breath out. But he found the business more awkward than on the previous occasions because he was not too sure of where to go, for lack of helpful guidance, and in any case he had not realized how narrow was the margin of error. She was small, virgo intacta, and uncooperative. This made him rougher than he had intended. He felt her go rigid as a board, but she made no sound. What made things worse was that just when he thought himself home and beginning to be in command of the situation, King Louis outside the bed curtains burst into raucous coughing. This had the effect of creating an unfortunate hiatus, which only increased the Prince’s feelings of damaged pride, and led him to seek a hasty end.
Anne was left sore, and sick. It had hurt a great deal. No one had ever touched her roughly before. She desperately wanted to get up and wash. Prince Edward was lying on his stomach with his face squashed against the pillow, and his muscly legs were still against her own. She did not like to edge away from him, for she sensed that he was neither pleased nor satisfied. Tears scalded her eyes and fell off her face with, to her, almost audible plops, onto the pillow.
Then Edward spoke, his words muffled by plump down pillow and bolster. ‘Did you like it?’ he asked, half curiously, half resentfully, as if he had hoped she might say yes, but thought that she would not. She was taken aback. She could not say — no, I hate you, for that would not be entirely true. It had been horrible, but imagine how much worse it could have been if he were old, ugly, or smelly. His skin felt not unpleasant, smooth, and very warm.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, stupidly, then could not help letting out a snuffle. That was a mistake, because it told him that she was crying. He turned his back with a flouncing movement and moved away in the bed with exaggerated care. She was left feeling that the performance had been a dismal failure, and that this was her fault.
King Louis stuck his head in between the bed curtains. ‘Eh bien, mes enfants?’ he enquired. At any other time his extraordinary and unpretty profile peering through curtains would have been funny. Anne went red with shame. The Prince’s efforts had bunched up her shift round the top half of her body, and she huddled under the sheet, holding it under her chin. King Louis showed no embarrassment at all. ‘Well?’ he said.
The Prince, his sullen, handsome face the same raspberry colour as Anne’s, nodded. The King grunted approvingly and withdrew his head. Anne cowered, thinking that he might ask her to reveal the evidence. But they heard the long toes of his shoes flap away across the floor. After he had gone, they both retreated into opposite corners of the enormous bed and pretended to sleep.
In the morning there was no time for even the beginning of a conversation. The women came to dress Anne, to peer at the bottom sheet which had to be sent by special messenger to King Louis, while the Prince’s grinning servants whisked him away. When she saw her mother later, it was only to be told that after the first night, she would not be sharing a bed with the Prince; Queen Margaret insisted upon this. The Countess seemed both doleful and evasive, as if she felt herself to blame for having a daughter who had proved so unsatisfactory. Anne felt so relieved that she did not care what anyone thought. Secretly, she had made a mark on the calendar in her Book of Hours, on a certain day two weeks previous to her wedding. She now counted off four weeks from her mark, and made another, in red. She then began to count the days to safety or disaster in a little table of neat spots, five in a row. She marked one in carefully every day, and each time she kneeled down afterwards with her beads and prayed desperately for deliverance.
A day or two after the marriage, Queen Margaret, her son, Anne and her mother set out for Paris, on the first stage of their long journey to England. Paris, the greatest city in all France was not inviting either to the eye or to the nose in the winter season. In the flat plain, the long range of walls could be seen from far away; the towers and turrets might have looked fair on a blue-skied, sunny day, but against a sky of lead they might have belonged to any unremarkable city in the world. Closer at hand, the walls could be seen to be of light grey stone, old and unclean, the marks of ancient rains making long greenish brown streaks down to the ground, like the outflows, of garderobes. The town fields were mostly under plough, herringbones of water lying in the furrows, the pastures soggy and unoccupied. Rows of colossal dung heaps steamed and fumed along the roadside and under the walls.
The Prince was holding forth about how he would lay siege to Paris, which was something he did every time he came to a new city. This did not seem very tactful, when he was about to be greeted by its citizens.
‘When Fabius Maximus took Capua, he laid waste to all the growing corn in the countryside, and then withdrew until the fields were sown again and the Campanians had used all their stored grain, then laid a siege and starved them out. Of course, with a big city like this, which receives all the goods of the world along the Seine, it would be important to blockade the river. And no one sh
ould begin this sort of campaign in France too late in the year — the rains can come in September. My grandfather King Harry found that out. He was King, but he had to live off green apples and walnuts, like everybody else.’ The Prince knew and treasured every legend of the Agincourt campaign.
‘Your father was crowned King of France here,’ his mother said, pointing to the great towers of Notre Dame. ‘It did him no good. While King Louis lives, the English will make no more wars on France. I hope that the old enmity will soon be forgotten, though it will not be easy. The English are so obstinate and prejudiced.’
The part of Paris the Queen pointed out was built on a long island, behind a high wall, the cathedral one end and the old royal palace the other. In front of the walls were gravel walks beside the Seine, and worn out, dog-scratched patches of grass which might in spring be lawns, and a row of willow trees, bare and spiky like up-ended besoms.
Just before they crossed the first arm of the Seine, there was a tableau of Our Lady, and St Anne welcomed the daughter of René, King of Sicily and Jerusalem, the Prince of England her son — and his wife — to the Île de la Cité. On the bridge itself, a group of young men pressed forward rather frighteningly and yelled, ‘Go home, English!’ which seemed unjust, as the Prince was three-quarters French, and the only English person was Anne herself. The Prince became red and angry, and it was explained to him that they were students from the University, and always rude or causing trouble.
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