The Agincourt Bride

by Joanna Hickson

  ‘Oh, not just music; he has read widely as well – much more than I have – but we share an admiration for the meditations of St Gregory. I told him that I thought for a pope St Gregory was a very down-to-earth individual and he laughed and said he had never looked at him that way.’ She halted in the dappled shade of an oak tree and fiddled with her betrothal ring, a giant sapphire that had belonged to Eleanor of Provence, an ancestor common to them both. She studied it so intently that I suspected her thoughts were actually elsewhere, but where they were took me completely by surprise. ‘Even when we are alone he is still very formal, though.’

  ‘Formal?’ I echoed with a frown. ‘How do you mean?’

  Catherine blushed. ‘Well I suppose it does not matter, but he never really touches me, even in bed. Oh, he takes me often enough, but it is very brief and perfunctory. I worry that I will not become enceinte if he is not a little more … er … assiduous.’ Sheepishly she raised her eyes to mine. ‘It is probably foolish of me, Mette, but I believe that I will not fall pregnant unless I feel more than I do. You are the only person I can talk to about this. Should I not feel some – how shall I put it? – some sense of union?’

  I frowned, not entirely sure that I understood precisely what she was getting at, but aware that even mentioning the subject indicated that she was very concerned. ‘That is a hard question to answer but I am glad that you feel able to ask me, Mademoiselle.’ I paused, searching for a way to help her without embarrassing us both. ‘I am no farmer, but I do know that if crops are to germinate it is important that the seed is planted in the right conditions and at the right depth in the soil.’

  She thought about that for a minute then clearly decided she did not like my analogy and tossed her head dismissively. ‘I do not think that planting is the problem, Mette. As I said, I am probably being naive, thinking that there should be more to the act of love than there is.’

  She suddenly strode on in a rather agitated manner, as if the subject made her restless and I had to break into a jog to keep up with her. ‘It is early days, Mademoiselle,’ I said breathlessly. ‘You hardly know each other. You may be worrying unnecessarily. Give it time.’

  I almost cannoned into her as she stopped and rounded on me. ‘But time is what I do not have, Mette! The treaty made King Henry the Heir of France and his issue will be his heirs. He needs a son and it is my duty to provide him with one sooner rather than later, do you not think?’

  I looked at her anxious face and felt a surge of compassion. She was only eighteen and yet so much was expected of her. I nodded sympathetically. ‘Yes, I do, but it has been but ten days. For all you know you may already be pregnant.’

  Her face crumpled at that. ‘No. I am not. I suppose I should send a message to King Henry that my courses have come. He will not visit me now, I expect.’

  She looked so crestfallen that I impulsively laid a consoling hand on her arm. ‘I will see to the message,’ I said. ‘But perhaps he will come anyway.’

  He did not, which sent a message of its own, and when King Charles and Queen Isabeau and the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy joined them in Sens, that did not please her either.

  ‘It is bad enough having to share my honeymoon with a siege!’ she fumed. ‘Now my entire family has arrived. I married the enemy to get away from them!’

  However, partial relief was not far off. After the service of thanksgiving in Sens, the French king and queen stayed on with the archbishop, while Catherine and Michele travelled to the Burgundy stronghold of Bray on Seine, a few miles upriver from the crucial town of Montereau which had been held by the dauphin’s forces ever since Jean the Fearless had been murdered there, and which King Henry and Duke Philippe intended to take back. Several of the knights involved in the murder were believed to be still holed up there and were high on the list of Philippe’s wanted men.

  During the journey to Bray, tension built between Catherine and Michele because the latter seemed unable to talk of any subject other than her husband’s mission to find his father’s body and bring his murderers to justice, a topic Catherine tried constantly to avoid since it always included robust criticism of Charles. At Bray, unfortunately, although comfortable and well situated among gardens and hunting parks, the castle was not large and the sisters were much thrown together. Nor did their husbands visit very often, being anxious to oversee every aspect of the siege at Montereau. So Catherine was almost relieved when a thousand knights and archers rode in as reinforcements for King Henry’s siege army, because travelling under their protection was the Duchess of Clarence, the lady who was to introduce her to English ways.

  Margaret of Clarence turned out to be a tall, beautiful woman in her mid thirties and possessed of a warm and gracious manner. She had brought her young daughter Joan with her, a copper-blonde cherub of a girl of fourteen who reminded me vividly of Catherine when she had emerged from the convent. During their introduction in the great hall at Bray, Catherine made her first attempt at speaking English but became so frustrated at not being able to make herself understood that she soon lapsed into French, which both ladies also spoke.

  ‘Forgive me,’ Catherine said, red-faced. ‘I promise to work harder at my lessons and perhaps Lady Joan will help me. But, Madame, I understood from your husband that there were no children from your marriage, so naturally I am surprised to meet your pretty daughter. Were you married before then?’

  Margaret of Clarence laughed. ‘Yes, your grace. I was married at fourteen to the Earl of Somerset, one of King Henry’s Beaufort uncles, and we had six children in the ten years before he died. Two of my sons are knights in the retinue of their stepfather, the Duke of Clarence, and my youngest son, Edmund, is one of King Henry’s body squires. I am surprised you have not met him.’

  ‘I have probably seen him, but the king does not introduce his squires by name,’ Catherine said. ‘And where are your other two children, Madame? Have you had to leave them in England?’

  A shadow crossed the duchess’ face. ‘My eldest son Henry died two years ago at the siege of Rouen and little Margaret is too young to travel with me. She is living with my sister in England.’ I got the impression that these were emotional matters for the duchess, who quickly changed the subject. ‘But we cannot talk solely of me, your grace. I have not congratulated you on your marriage. I am sure you will make the king very happy.’

  Catherine shrugged. ‘I think his sieges make him happy, Madame. But they take a terrible toll. I am so very sorry to hear about your eldest son. May God rest his soul.’ She turned to the young girl. ‘You must be a great comfort to your mother, Lady Joan. I was not jesting when I said you might help me with my English. Do you like music? Perhaps you could teach me some English songs that I could sing to King Henry. If you would like to, you could join me and my ladies and we could all make music together.’

  Young Joan blushed. ‘I can sing, your grace, and will willingly teach you the songs I know, but I play badly, I am afraid.’

  Duchess Margaret nodded ruefully. ‘She is right. We have tried numerous instruments but Joan is all fingers and thumbs.’

  ‘I can play tennis though!’ protested Joan defensively. ‘I beat Edmund once.’

  ‘That is settled then,’ laughed Catherine, charmed by the rosy-cheeked indignation of the girl. ‘You can teach me tennis and English songs both at the same time! That is if your lady mother agrees.’

  The duchess looked a little embarrassed. ‘Tennis is not really considered ladylike, your grace. Joan plays because her brothers have taught her, but at court it is the preserve of gentlemen.’

  ‘But we are not at court!’ cried Catherine. ‘The king has a portable tennis pavilion which his carpenters erect for him when he stops long enough to use it. I will ask him if it can be erected here, then we could all use it.’

  Despite the Duchess of Clarence’s warning that tennis was a male preserve in England, Henry agreed to Catherine’s request and allowed his portable tennis court to be erected in the g
arden at Bray. As what Thomas of Clarence called ‘good siege weather’ continued throughout June, Catherine declared the outdoor life greatly preferable to the stuffy heat of the castle rooms and the tennis court was well used. Under Lady Joan’s lively guidance, she became passably adept at tennis and rather less so at English, but an added attraction was the fact that Michele stayed away. The Duchess of Burgundy disapproved of ladies playing tennis and hated the sun and the summer insects, which together made her hot and irritable.

  I divided my time between my usual duties for Catherine and helping Alys and Jacques in the quarters they had been allocated in a small row of houses built against the wall of the huge castle barbican. Their neighbours were other craftsmen and their families, who were travelling with the royal entourage; armourers and blacksmiths, saddlers and grooms, cobblers and joiners. It was a busy enclave of workshops with living quarters above and there were always children playing around the doorways and running errands for their parents. Catrine was now a bonny baby of five months old, who slept less and less and enjoyed being carried on my hip to watch the craftsmen at their labours. She particularly liked me to stand outside the forge to watch the blacksmith make sparks fly from his anvil. I loved the fact that the noise and the heat did not frighten her and she would wave her hands with delight and giggle and wriggle in my arms. I became a split personality; at one moment a besotted grandmother and the next a courtier and confidante.

  In late June Catherine and the two duchesses were sharing the high table at dinner in the great hall when a squire came from Montereau with a letter from King Henry. It was handed to Catherine, but I could see Michele fuming with impatience as the Duchess of Clarence smiled upon the squire and said to Catherine, ‘This is my son, Edmund Beaufort, your grace. As I told you, he has the honour to be one of King Henry’s squires.’

  Catherine glanced down at the good-looking lad in royal livery who was kneeling before her. ‘Greetings, Edmund,’ she said, taking the letter from him. ‘You must have ridden like the wind. I declare that the wax is still soft on the king’s seal!’

  Edmund’s cheeks burned and he could not tear his gaze from Catherine’s face. Even from the lower trestles you could sense the awe of a youth struck by beauty. ‘It is not so far, your grace,’ he muttered bashfully. ‘The king said it was urgent.’

  At the other end of the table Michele was drumming her fingers loudly. ‘In God’s name, sister, if it is urgent let us hear the news!’ she exclaimed. ‘Has the town fallen? Is my father-in-law’s grave discovered?’

  Catherine did not look up until she had perused the entire text of the letter, then she smiled. ‘You will be happy to hear that the town has surrendered, sister. The king requests my presence in a victory procession tomorrow.’

  ‘But surely that is not all!’ cried Michele. ‘Does he say nothing of the murderers of my lord’s father? Have they been apprehended? Has his grave been found?’

  Catherine waved the letter and shook her head. ‘No. There is nothing here about that. Perhaps the duke has sent you news separately and his squire does not ride as fast as Edmund here.’ The squire blushed anew as she bestowed another beaming smile on him.

  Michele could not hide her frustration. ‘I suppose that may be so. I expect at least to be invited to join the procession.’

  And indeed, only a few minutes later, a messenger arrived in Burgundy livery bearing a letter addressed to her.

  Michele scanned it swiftly. ‘King Henry did not give you the full story, Catherine,’ she boasted. ‘One side of the town has opened its gates, but the castle holds out and has closed off the other side. The murderers are believed to have taken refuge there. Duke Jean’s grave has been discovered in the abbey church of St Nicholas and Masses are already being said for his soul, but King Henry still has to reduce the castle to bring the killers to justice.’

  ‘Which I am sure he will do,’ responded Catherine calmly. ‘Although I think having Masses said for the late Duke’s soul is rather like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.’

  It took a few moments for Michele to comprehend the exact meaning of Catherine’s remark, but when she did she erupted from her chair and spat angry words at her sister. ‘Have a care, Madame Queen of England! Precedence may put you above me now but it does not allow you to slight the honour of Burgundy. Be sure that my lord will hear of this!’ And with that she turned on her heel and swept from the hall.

  The Duchess of Clarence coughed into her hand. ‘Your sister is very loyal to her husband’s family,’ she observed neutrally, ‘which can be an admirable quality in a wife.’

  Catherine sighed. ‘She and I view Burgundy from opposite sides,’ she said. ‘We will never agree.’

  ‘You are not obliged to venerate your sister’s family or your brother’s,’ pronounced the duchess. ‘In fact, to do either would be unwise – now that you are, as she so forcefully reminded you, England’s queen.’

  Despite the victory procession there was still much business left to do in Montereau. The town straddled the confluence of the rivers Seine and Yonne and the castle stood in the middle of the long bridge which spanned them both, blocking access from one bank to the other. The men who were responsible for the duke’s murder on that very bridge remained at large, probably in the castle but possibly in disguise on the north bank. The siege was not yet over and to reduce their chance of escape, Henry wanted to end it quickly.

  He and Catherine were honoured guests at the Abbey of St Nicholas, which provided a victory dinner of sorts in the great refectory. We all sat at the polished wood tables where the monks usually sat and I could see King Henry and Catherine discussing something at length as they ate. I learned what it was when she came to prepare for bed in the abbot’s chamber, which the abbot had obligingly vacated in their honour.

  ‘Several prominent burghers have been taken prisoner, whose families took refuge in the castle,’ Catherine explained. ‘The king says that the constable of the garrison will surrender tomorrow when these prisoners are sent to beg him to do so. He wants me to be there to witness the arrest of the murderers when they emerge.’

  ‘Must you do this, Mademoiselle?’ I asked earnestly. This was a duty about which she was bound to have mixed feelings because the men her husband called murderers were those who had rid her of the evil threat of Jean the Fearless.

  ‘Yes, I must,’ she told me solemnly. ‘But Henry says they are knights whom Philippe will treat according to the rules of chivalry. They will have a fair trial and he believes they will be proved innocent because there is only one man who is responsible for the devil duke’s death and that is Tanneguy du Chastel.’

  ‘Does he know that?’ I asked, thinking that surely Tanneguy had not admitted as much to anyone.

  ‘He says he has read the witness statements and come to that conclusion. And really, knowing what I know, it would not surprise me if it were true, Mette.’

  However, King Henry had not revealed precisely how he planned to use the burghers to get the castle gates opened. After hearing Mass the next morning he and Catherine stood on the river bank, out of range of the archers on the castle battlements, as one by one the guns and arbalests of the siege army fell silent all around the emplacements. Then, at his signal, the prisoners were sent out onto the bridge under a white flag of parly, ten burghers in chains and with nooses hung about their necks.

  ‘What are they wearing those for?’ Agnes whispered to me, appalled. ‘That is what condemned prisoners wear.’

  I shook my head, my heart heavy with foreboding. We were there as Catherine’s female support, which as a queen she was entitled to wherever she went. Above us the sky mirrored my dark thoughts; black clouds were piling up on the eastern horizon, heralding the end of an unbroken month of dry weather. King Henry’s Windsor Herald, resplendent in his leopard tabard, cried out the king’s demands to the castle garrison, but the wind carried his words to them and not to us, so we could not hear them.

  The rain h
eld off as we all stood in fraught silence, listening as the mournful wails of women and children drifted faintly down from the battlements, where we could see the veils of the burghers’ wives blowing in the wind. The white flag flapped over the heads of their men-folk, huddled together on the bridge, waiting for the constable of the garrison to order the surrender.

  ‘He will surrender,’ King Henry assured Catherine loudly as the noon deadline drew near. ‘Even the pretender will not expect his constable to hold out against such impossible odds. There is no reason to do so.’

  Minutes went by and the sun disappeared behind the bank of gathering cloud but everyone knew that it had reached its zenith. Then the bell began to ring from the abbey for the Hour of Sext, the monks’ noonday office. We all listened intently for the sound of surrender; a trumpet blast or a shout from the battlements or simply the noise of the portcullis being raised in the gatehouse of the castle. But as the bell stopped ringing not a sound broke the silence.

  King Henry turned and gave a signal to men in the mass of troops behind him and slowly but surely they began to push a high-wheeled platform forward, such as might be used to scale a wall or protect an attack; except that on the top of this particular platform there was erected a ten-man gibbet.

  ‘What is that for, my liege?’ Catherine almost shouted at King Henry in alarm. ‘You are not going to hang them?’

  ‘I am showing the constable that I am a man of my word,’ replied the king, his face set like stone. ‘He will open the gates when he sees that I mean what I say.’

  Then the wailing from the battlements began again, piteously loud as the gibbet was anchored in full view of the prisoners’ families and the men themselves were hauled back by their chains, desperately protesting, and pushed one by one up the ladder. The rope tails of their nooses were thrown over the gibbet and fastened to the platform. It was then that I saw there was a lever at the end of the platform which would release the hatch on which the men stood. The gibbet was purpose-built.