The Courts of Love: The Story of Eleanor of Aquitaine

by Виктория Холт

  So ... though I was close on eighty years old, I rode forth.

  We had come to the chteau of Mirebeau on the borders of Anjou and Poitou. It proved a bad choice for it was not strongly fortified, and I had not been there very long when news came that Arthur and his army, with that of the Lusignans, had had word of my arrival and were marching on the castle.

  I laughed and said: “Whenever these Lusignans are about we can expect an attempted abduction. They seem to make a habit of it ... with me as their intended victim.”

  I sent a message to John at Le Mans telling him he must come to Mirebeau with all speed. We then set about fortifying the castle.

  It was a horrifying experience to see the armies approaching, because I knew that we could not hold out for long. They would be triumphant, knowing that I was inside the castle and that it would be a simple matter to take me.

  Night was almost upon us when the armies encamped outside the castle walls. From a top turret I could see them clearly. I saw Arthur for the first time. My own grandson! He was a handsome boy. I was moved, as I always was by members of the family. I might have been fond of that boy. What a sad thing it was that he was there now, plotting to take me prisoner.

  For my own fate I felt little concern. Perhaps one does not care very much when one gets old. My life was finished. What did it matter to me if they killed me in the attempt to take me? It would be that I reached the end a few months ... perhaps a few weeks ... before I should at Fontevrault.

  What good fortune that they decided to delay the attack until morning! So are great events decided. They had marched through the day and were weary. There was no hurry, they thought. The prey was in her trap and there could be no escape with the army surrounding the castle, and in the morning it would be an easy matter.

  I found myself looking forward to an encounter with my grandson. From what I had seen of him, he was a little arrogant, a little imperious. Well, he was but a boy and when too much respect is shown to the young it is not good for their characters.

  I slept not at all and that was a long night. I lay on my bed waiting for the morning.

  What hope was there that John would come? When had anything John did been a success? I had tried for so long not to see his faults, but of course I had been aware of them. Here I was ... surrounded by the enemy ... about to be abducted. Held for ransom, I supposed. How much would John think his mother was worth? It was not the money which was important. The Lusignans did not want the people of Poitou to know that I was coming to them. They wanted them to think of me as an old woman dying at Fontevrault. Then they would say: Here is Arthur. Is he any better than John? Why bother to remain under the rule of foreigners?

  It was a clever idea to prevent my reaching my people, and we should have found a stronger fortress than Mirebeau. But there was nothing to do but wait for morning.

  Life is full of surprises. For once my son John acted as his father would have. When he received the message that I was at Mirebeau, he rode with his army all through the night and arrived at the castle at dawn. Arthur and the Lusignans were taking a leisurely breakfast before beginning what they would look upon as the easiest conquest of their military careers.

  With John was that military genius William Marshal. The timing was perfect, with Arthur and the Lusignans feasting, prematurely celebrating their victory: they were unarmed and when John arrived they were surrounded.

  There was no real battle. It was all over very quickly and Arthur and the Lusignans were John’s prisoners.

  John came into the castle, his eyes alight with triumph. He embraced me. I was so surprised and delighted that I reciprocated warmly.

  “I heard you were in danger,” he cried. “I rode through the night. And see! We arrived just in time. There was no battle. We caught them unprepared.”

  I had been mistaken in him. I thought in that moment: He is Henry’s son, a true Plantagenet.

  c

  I wish that could have been true. I think that is the only time I can recall when John acted with good sense, for it is no use winning if one does not know what to do with victory.

  He forgot that those men he had captured were noblemen. They had been defeated in battle and it was the mark of a good general that he treat honorable enemies with respect. In war a good leader is fierce; in victory he is magnanimous.

  How elated John was to survey his prisoners: Arthur who would take his throne; Hugh le Brun who would have taken his bride. His great desire was to humiliate them.

  He acquired farm carts in which cattle were carried from place to place. He chained and fettered his prisoners and forced them to stand in the carts with their faces close to the beasts’ tails as an added insult. John was sadistic by nature. I had long realized that. These prisoners, who were of the noblest families, including his own nephew, were to be paraded through the streets and taken to various places selected for them.

  The two he must have had a special delight in humiliating were Arthur and Hugh le Brun. Hugh was tall and handsome; John was far from that. And this was the manner in which he treated his rivals.

  He was foolish. He did not see the disgust on the people’s faces or, if he did, ignored it. He did not realize that these people were making up their minds that they would not willingly have such a man to rule over them if he could behave so to their noblemen—many of them members of their own families.

  Hugh le Brun was sent to Caen; many others were sent to England and imprisoned in Corfe Castle. Arthur was taken to Falaise.

  I had tried to reason with John. He smiled and nodded but I knew he was not listening. I could not warn him; others had tried to. I knew that William Marshal was completely shocked by this treatment of the prisoners and had tried to instill in him the folly of such conduct.

  I think I knew at that moment of victory that all was lost.

  c

  I stayed in Poitiers. I must if I were to hold the country together. I knew that they were going to reject John. Philip Augustus would know it too. John might have Arthur but he was on the way to defeat, and he did not seem to be aware of his precarious position. He was so enamored of Isabella that he stayed in bed with her until dinnertime. This passionate relationship between them was the talk of the Court. At least, I thought, there will be children.

  John neglected his duties—and Philip Augustus was one to take advantage of that. He felt his way cautiously. He made leisurely progress through the country, taking castles as he went. There was little opposition. Nobody wanted to be ruled by John. There was nothing I could do. While I remained in Poitiers, Aquitaine would be faithful to me as long as I lived, but that would not be forever.

  And then...?

  I had to watch events and see John plunge farther and farther into disaster.

  The Lusignans offered a heavy ransom for Hugh le Brun, and foolishly John accepted it, so freeing him and adding to his dangerous enemies.

  There was Arthur. What became of Arthur is a mystery. There have been many rumors. There is one story that Hubert de Burgh, the castellan of the castle, was ordered by John to castrate him and put out his eyes and that Hubert found himself unable to perform this dastardly deed. He hid Arthur and told John that he had died while the foul deed was being done and that he had buried him in the precincts of the castle. John, it seemed, was satisfied.

  The subject of Arthur would not die down. Where was he? people were asking, including Arthur’s immediate family and the King of France. Suspicion turned on John. Rumor was rife, and John began to be worried. Arthur had disappeared. He was presumed dead, and John was the suspect.

  John affected great sorrow, and Hubert de Burgh, not knowing how to deal with such a situation and wondering how he was going to keep Arthur concealed forever, confessed to John that he had not carried out his orders and that Arthur still lived in a secret room in the castle. John assumed great delight, congratulating de Burgh, and Arthur appeared on the streets of Falaise.

  Everyone was satisfied.

 
But, of course, John would not allow Arthur to remain at liberty. He was taken to the castle of Rouen and never seen again.

  I think I can guess what happened: John murdered him there and threw his body into the Seine. That is the most likely solution, and I fear there must be truth in it.

  I despaired of John.

  One by one those places which Henry had been so proud of were falling into the hands of Philip Augustus: Le Mans, Bayeux, Lisieux ... and others.

  It had happened so quickly that I could scarcely believe it possible. All that Henry, with my help, had built up, to crumble so soon. It would not be long before all our French possessions passed out of our hands.

  Rouen itself was in danger. Messages were sent to John in England. Reinforcements were needed. There must be no delay. But John was reveling with his worthless friends; he was spending his nights and half his days in bed with Isabella. That was more important to him than the Plantagenet Empire.

  I was helpless. What can an old woman of eighty do? If I had been younger, I would have done everything possible to rid the country of my son John.

  I think the final humiliation was the loss of Chteau Gaillard—Richard’s castle, built to hold out against the enemy for centuries. “I will hold it,” Richard had said, “were it made of butter.”

  When it fell to the French, I knew that was the end.

  I went to Fontevrault. What was there to do now but wait for my departure to another life? So I shut myself away. I follow the quiet life of the nuns; and I am reliving my life by writing of it as I remember it from all those years ago.

  I often think of Henry and his dream of possessing the whole of Europe. Women influenced his life more than men; there had been Rosamund, Alais and myself. But for his relationship with the three of us how different would his life have been? And with me it had been men: Louis, Raymond of Antioch, Henry and Richard. All the King’s women and all the Queen’s men—how much had they shaped the course of history?

  Looking back, I see that what I had always wanted was love. I had been born into the Courts of Love and all my life I had been trying to return to them—not as they had been in my grandfather’s day but of my own making. With Louis it had been impossible; with Raymond there had been that blissful interlude which was necessarily transient; with Henry I believed I should find what I sought, and how bitterly disappointed I had been; Richard I had loved selflessly, and perhaps that is the best way to love.

  But it is all over now. That which Henry had so painstakingly built up is being lost, and soon there will be nothing left but England.

  John has done this. John, who should never have been born. Nor would he have been if I had learned of Henry’s perfidy earlier. John was not conceived in love, and all the time I was carrying him I was obsessed by my hatred of his father. It all comes back to me clearly now.

  So he was born, this monster, this sadist who tortures and torments, who must know that an empire is disintegrating while he sports in bed with the woman he took from Hugh le Brun.

  What more is there to say?

  So I lay down my pen and wait to pass out of a life which I have, I think, lived to the full. I am glad to be going at this time for I know my son John will plunge further and further into disaster. What will become of him? What will become of England, which is all that is left to him now?

  I shall never know.

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