by Jean Plaidy
England rejoiced. It had a strong king again. Henry was determined to keep his country rejoicing.
With great glee he had discovered that Eleanor was pregnant again. She had deplored the fact.
‘What am I then?’ she demanded. ‘An animal whose sole purpose in life is to breed?’
‘It is the fate of women,’ retorted Henry with a smirk.
‘I tell you this. I shall have a long rest after this one.’
‘Three boys would be a fair tally,’ he conceded.
She hated to see him there - younger than she was, full of health and vigour, off on his travels again, looking for young and beautiful girls who would think it an honour to be seduced by the King and if a child resulted from their dalliance, well, who knew the King might allow it to be brought up in the royal nursery. Hadn’t he taken the harlot’s Geoffrey and done just that?
She hated him for being free and young.
It was like him to rise early in the morning and only then let it be known that he was ready to start on his peregrinations. What a bustle there was in the castle! Servants would hastily rise from their beds and the grooms, bleary-eyed, would hurry to the stables. The horses themselves, catching the mood, would grow frisky; the cooks and stewards and all the members of the domestic household who travelled with the King quickly gathered together the tools of their trades, for the King was on the move and he was impatient with delay.
Eleanor watched from her window. They feared him; yet there was not one of them who would wish to be left behind. His terrible rages made them tremble, but his rough words of friendship enraptured them.
She had to admit grudgingly that he was indeed a king. There he was bawling instructions while they ran frantically round him. There was his bed being taken out. Who would share that with him? she wondered angrily. Fresh straw in case it could not be procured on the way. His platters and his drinking cups. There would not be any great banquets, she thought ruefully. His pleasure lay in the bed rather than the table.
He looked up and saw her at the window. He bowed ironically. No regrets now as there used to be in the old days. Then she would have been down there. She would have begged him to return quickly, to think of her as she would of him. That was changed. She knew him better. He had betrayed himself as the lecher he was. He could not even be faithful in the days when they had been at the height of their passion.
Let him go to his whores and harlots. She was glad to be rid of him.
And he had dared dismiss Bernard de Ventadour. Why? Had he really been jealous as he had pretended to be? There was much that she did not understand about him. Perhaps that was why she could not stop thinking of him.
And now here she was - she, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the elegant lady of good taste and culture, the patron of arts, a woman who must await the pleasure of the King’s visits to her bed, which she was beginning to suspect were for the sole purpose of getting children. Was this the romance of which her poets had sung?
There was consolation in her children, and particularly Richard.
He was a wonderful boy and very soon there would be another. It was not a year since his birth and here she was heavy with a child again.
She took Richard in her arms and put his smooth young face against her own.
‘The King has gone, Richard,’ she said.
The child crowed with delight as though he understood.
She laughed aloud and hugged him tightly. In this fine boy she could forget her disillusion with her husband.
Chapter VII
FAIR ROSAMUND
Henry made his way to Shropshire. On his accession he had ordered the demolition of any castle which had been erected as a stronghold from which the pillaging of the countryside took place. This had aroused the enmity of many of those who had owned these castles and Henry knew that if he did not continue to have the country patrolled either by himself or his trusted friends these castles would be erected again.
He had heard that this was what was happening in the area of Shropshire and the news had been sent to him by a certain Sir Walter Clifford who himself was having a disagreement with the son of one of the chieftains of Wales.
Henry therefore decided that he would make for Sir Walter’s castle in Shropshire and settle this dispute.
When he arrived at the castle he was welcomed by Sir Walter who according to custom came into the courtyard to present him with the traditional goblet of wine, which he himself first tasted to assure the King that it contained no poison, and he himself held the stirrup while the King dismounted.
Then he led the King into the castle hall where the Clifford family were waiting to welcome him. He must forgive their awkwardness, whispered Sir Walter. They were overawed at the prospect of having the King under their roof.
There was the Clifford family, Lady Clifford and her daughters - six of them. Some were married and their husbands stood behind them, but the youngest of them took the King’s eyes for she seemed to him the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
He paused before her and said, ‘You have a lovely daughter, Sir Walter.’
‘She will remember your royal compliment all her life, my lord.’
‘Nor shall I forget such beauty in a hurry. What are you called, maiden?’
‘Rosamund, Sire.’
‘Rosamund,’ he mused. ‘The Rose of the World, eh?’ Then he passed on, and was conducted to the bedchamber which was hastily being prepared for him.
All the cooks in the castle were set to work for even though the King’s eating habits were well known, every one of his hosts would want to produce the best feast of which they were capable. The King would expect it even though he did not wish to over-eat. Every acknowledgement of the honour done to them must be clearly shown.
A banquet was prepared and carried into the great hall. Sir Walter gave up the head of the table to his royal guest as he had done his bedchamber for only the best in the house was good enough for the King. For once Henry sat down to eat and he was in a more thoughtful mood than was usual. He commanded that Sir Walter’s daughter should sit beside him at the table.
She came. He was struck further by the beauty of her fair complexion, and realised he was comparing it with Eleanor’s darker one. This girl was indeed rose-like, a little fearful to have caught his interest - which he liked in her - and yet eager to please.
‘Why,’ said Henry fondly, ‘I never saw a maiden whose looks please me more.’
He took her slender white hand and held it in his for a while and then he laid out his own beside hers and laughed comparing them.
‘There you see a hand, my child, that holds the strings that lead a nation. A strong hand, Rose of the World, but not so pretty a one as yours, eh?’
‘It would not be right, Sire, for your hand to be other than it is.’
‘The right answer,’ he cried. ‘You should always think thus of your King. He is right … whatever he is. Is that what you think, my Rose?’
‘Yes, Sire. ‘Tis true, is it not?’
‘Your daughter pleases me,’ said the King to Sir Walter. ‘She hath a rare grace and beauty.’
He kept the girl with him during the evening and when night fell he said to her: ‘Hast ever had a lover, maiden?’
She blushed charmingly and said she had not.
‘Then this night you shall have one and he shall be the King.’
He stayed at the castle. Rosamund was enchanting. She had been a virgin but her father had been willing that she should be given to the King. Nor had Rosamund been reluctant; she must rejoice that the King had found her to his liking.
Sir Walter soothed his wife who would have wished their daughter to have been found a husband that she might settle down in respectable matrimony as her sisters had done.
‘Nay,’ said Sir Walter, ‘Rosamund will bring good to herself and the family. And if there should be a child, the King will care for it. To refuse our daughter to the King would anger him. They say his rages are terrible.’<
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‘We should have hidden our daughters.’
‘Nay, wife. Fret not. Naught but good will come of this.’
Rosamund was in love with the King. That aura of power had completely bemused her. She was an innocent girl and fearful that she lacked skills to please him, but he told her that her very innocence was at the root of her charm for him.
He found it difficult to tear himself away. He said: ‘I shall always remember my stay at your father’s castle.’
‘I shall remember it too,’ she answered.
‘You must not think of it sadly,’ he replied.
‘When you are gone I could not be anything but sad.’
How charming she was. How different from Eleanor. Was that why he was so enamoured of her? Her great quality was her gentleness, her acceptance of his masculine superiority. She was not without education but she lacked Eleanor’s erudition; she adored him and it was very pleasant for one who was surrounded by adulation to sense the complete disinterestedness of this beautiful girl.
‘I would I need not go,’ he said. ‘I would give a great deal to stay here and dally with you, my sweet Rose.’
But the Welsh were rising. He sent out an order that every archer in Shropshire must join his army and he went into battle against Owain Gwynnedd. The fighting was desperate and there were losses on both sides.
He had heard how his grandfather Henry I had often gone to Wales and how he had loved a Welsh princess Nesta, more it was said than any other of his numerous mistresses. Henry had often gone to Wales to see her, and his Queen was the last to hear of his infatuation with that woman. One of their sons, Henry after his father, was fighting with them now on his side against the Welsh.
During that battle Nesta’s son Henry was killed, and Henry the King came very near to losing his life. But for the bravery of one of his loyal soldiers he would have been killed, but the man had stood between him and his assailant and had run his sword through the Welshman’s heart before he could attack the King.
This was violent warfare and the King was determined to subdue these Welshmen. Finally he succeeded in driving them back and fortifying several castle strongholds. But he had to remind himself that it was not Wales alone that he must defend. He must return to London for how could he know that while he was engaged in Wales, trouble would not spring up in some other corner of his territories? Thus it had always been since the days of the Conqueror.
But first he would spend a little while with Rosamund. He had been thinking of her when he was not bitterly engaged in the battle. Other women had lost their appeal for him, but desperately he wanted to see this beautiful girl again.
There was great rejoicing in the castle when he arrived, and he exulted to see how pale Rosamund turned when he told the story of his exploits on the battlefield and how but for the bravery of his men - and one in particular - he would not be alive to tell the tale.
That night when Rosamund lay beside him in his bed she told him that she believed she was to have his child. He was exultant.
‘Rosamund,’ he said, ‘I love you dearly. I am a man who has known many women but have never loved - or perhaps only once - any as I love you. Think not that ours will be a light relationship and that you will see me no more. I shall come back to you … again and again.’
She was trembling with delight and he was more charmed with her than ever. She did not beg or plead or ask for favours either for herself or for her child. She was different from other women, he was sure. He thought of the demanding insolence of Hikenai and of Eleanor’s arrogance. This was indeed his Rose of the World.
‘I will find a place for you to live,’ he said, ‘and I will visit you often. I will be your husband in all but name and you will have our child there. Would you like that?’
‘If I could but see you now and then I should live for those times and thank God for them,’ she answered.
‘I shall come whenever I have the opportunity and you may be sure that I shall make many, for I am content with you, Rosamund, and you shall be as my wife to me. Had I not already a wife I would defy all to marry you and your child should be my legitimate son … or daughter. But I have a wife, a jealous wife, and I would not wish her to know of your existence, for she is rich and powerful and might do you harm. Have no fear though, I shall protect you. I shall find for you an abode which shall be a secret one and only you and I will know that it is my haven of peace and joy for therein will live my own true wife.’
He had not been sure when he had first left her that he would feel as he did now. He made promises easily and often forgot them. But Rosamund was different. He could not forget her. He was as much in love with her as he had been with Eleanor at the beginning of their acquaintance - more so for Rosamund had no rich lands to offer him and he could never quite see Eleanor without the golden shadow of Aquitaine behind her.
He decided that he would find a home for Rosamund near Oxford for he was often in or near that town, and finally he chose Woodstock.
Henry knew that there was constantly going to be trouble in his overseas possessions. If he and Eleanor were in England then there would be trouble in Normandy or Anjou or Maine or even Aquitaine. Subjects did not care that one land should be of more moment to their ruler than another. He was first King of England. That was his greatest title. He must rule England, but he was also Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Anjou and Maine. Those monarchs who had preceded him had had the same difficulties.
Henry therefore looked about him for some means of making allies who could strengthen his position and there was one man whose support could be of the utmost use to him. This was Louis, the King of France.
He was not sure how the King would feel towards a man who had taken his wife but perhaps since Louis himself was now married he would no longer bear resentment against him. In any case Louis was a king. Petty grievances must not stand in the way of State affairs.
Louis had daughters. Oh, yes, he had two by Eleanor, Marie and Alix, and of course there could be no alliance with them. But he also had a daughter by his second marriage and Henry saw no reason why this girl should not be affianced to his son Henry. At least there could be a betrothal. If he should decide when the children were older that he did not wish the marriage to go forward he would have no compunction in cancelling it. But an alliance now when they were more or less in their cradles - Henry was three, the girl one year - would be beneficial to both him and Louis. But would Louis see this?
Louis was a man whom he despised - a weakling. Eleanor had told him much about Louis, and if he had been as eager to keep Eleanor as she implied he had been, he must have been very foolish to let her go. Louis would see reason if the case was presented to him in the right manner.
It was difficult for Henry to go to him and put the proposition before him. The man who had displaced him with Eleanor was hardly the one to come along with the proposition. He would send an emissary. He knew the very man. His Chancellor. He respected that man as he respected no other in his kingdom. He trusted Leicester and Richard de Luci, but Becket he admired and had a real affection for. Becket he often thought of as a man of genius. For a delicate matter such as this might prove to be, he was the man.
He would send for Becket and while he was in France he, Henry, would slip down to Woodstock where he was having a bower built in a wood, a haven where he planned to install his fair Rosamund and where their child should be born.
Henry never wasted time. As soon as the idea had come to him he sent for Chancellor Thomas Becket.
Chapter VIII
THE RISE OF BECKET
It was not only the King who had a growing regard for Thomas Becket. The Primate Theobald had recognised a quality in the man from the moment he had come into his service.
Thomas’s origins were unusual. His father, Gilbert, had belonged to a family of merchants whose home had been in Rouen but after the Norman invasion, like so many of his kind, he had seen greater prospects in England and had come to s
ettle in London.
During Gilbert’s childhood he had lived in the village of Thierceville and one of his childhood playmates had been a certain Theobald who had always talked of his desire to go into the Church. This he eventually did, by first entering a monastery, and later as he rose to become Archbishop of Canterbury the early friendship had some influence on the life of Gilbert’s son.
Gilbert prospered in the city of London and as he became one of its leading citizens he kept open house for visiting noblemen who were pleased to find a night or so’s shelter under his roof. There was no question of the house being an inn, but favour was given for favour, and the fact that rich and influential people were often entertained at his house meant that he was not the loser and reaped rewards for his hospitality, and with a son and two daughters Gilbert realised how beneficial this could be.
Gilbert himself was a romantic figure. Some years before the birth of his eldest child - his son Thomas - he had, like so many men of his times, decided to make a journey to the Holy Land and had set out with only one servant, a faithful man named Richard who had always served him well. After much tribulation and many hardships they reached their destination, had prayed at the tomb of Christ and feeling purged of their sins prepared to make their way back to England.
The homeward journey was to prove even more adventurous than the outward one and they had not gone very far when the party in which they travelled was surrounded by a company of Saracens, and Gilbert with Richard was taken prisoner.
It was unfortunate for him that he should have fallen into the hands of the Emir Amurath, who was said to be one of the cruellest men of his race. He enjoyed making Christians his slaves but when Gilbert and Richard were brought before him he was immediately struck by Gilbert’s appearance. There was a nobility about the man which was apparent to one even as alien as Amurath and he could not help feeling interested in him.