Crown in Candlelight

by Rosemary Hawley Jarman

  ‘See them bow down!’ said Henry, as they rode into London from Blackheath plain where the mayor and aldermen and citizens had assembled wearing white cloaks and red caps, and flanked by their Guild banners. Henry rode close to her, proudly protective, as the roaring acclaim of the city swirled about them. Great statues of St George and the Virgin had been built and towered, holding out the keys of the City. The narrow streets had been made narrower by elaborate wooden castles filled with knights. Below, boys and girls shimmered in silver and gold paint, men pranced in jewelled mummery. Falcons, tigers and elephants, angels, prophets, martyrs and virgins; children wearing green leaves danced about the procession like a living forest. A gold lion with a dozen men inside its skin capered by Katherine’s horse and rolled its eyes, and she laughed in joy, riding under a canopy of evergreen and tapestries strung across the street, darkening the sky. Someone freed a shower of white doves. Bells battered her ears. When she reached the Tower of London to be prepared for her coronation, she was dizzy and trembling. She had felt the love of the English people—a love for their king which rebounded on her in generous measure. A sense of destiny and tremendous rightness took hold of her, supporting her throughout the long ceremony which passed without a flaw.

  The ensuing feast lasted all day. As it was Lent no meat was served, but a variety of fish. Stewed eels, fish jelly coloured with columbine flowers, a cream of almond soup thick with bream, sole, chub and barbel. All delicious, all so salt that deep draughts of wine were needed for accompaniment. The wines of Champagne and Gascony and the Loire; Burgundy wine and the light red wines of Gloucestershire; the mead of Kent and Sussex. There was carp, turbot and tench in cream, perch with gudgeon sauce. Roast porpoise and crab in its shell. Fresh sturgeon, dressed with whelks.

  She sat upon the King’s bench in Westminster Hall. A thousand people occupied the benches on either side of the great chamber. Music played. The table damask was dressed with early violets and coils of greenery. Snowdrops had been mixed with the floor-rushes. Whatever her feelings about Humphrey, he had organized the feast to perfection. Yet there was one dish she knew Henry had ordered especially, remembering how she had enjoyed it on their wedding-day. The Crustade Lombard, with fish and fruit in pastry. It stood nearly a foot high before her place, decorated with hawthorn leaves and berries, the pastry sculpted with the arms of Henry and Katherine and the SS collar of Lancaster. Another subtlety showed a pelican on her nest with St Katherine and her wheel. A scroll, held in the saint’s hand, read:

  C’est signe et du roy

  Parer tenez joy,

  Et tout sa gent

  Elle met sa content.

  as if to emphasize the joy and contentment she had indeed given him. There was also a pastry image of St Barnabas with robes of spun sugar and a legend reading:

  It is written,

  It may be seen for sure,

  In marriage pure,

  No strifes endure.

  Behind Barnabas was a marchpane tiger with a mirror in its paws and a knight fully armed, holding a tiger cub. The tiger’s face was that of her brother the Dauphin, and the knight was unmistakably Henry. By legend the sight of a mirror tamed a wild beast. In a savage way the image pleased her; it was the final closing of the door on an old, bad life.

  Henry was filled with tenderness and relief that she was safely crowned. Now I must keep her in secure contentment, he thought. She sat, radiant in her white gown, relishing the banquet. The greatest in England waited on her: Lord Audley, the Duchess of York, the Countess of Huntingdon, Margaret, Duchess of Clarence, and the Countess of Kent, who sat at Katherine’s feet, ready with the finger bowls. The Earl of March held the priceless gold sceptre Henry had given her for her coronation. Sir Richard Neville poured her wine and Sir James Stuart served her food. Lord Clifford acted as pantner, with the loaves balanced on his arm. Lord Grey of Ruthyn held the pile of surnapes. At her right hand sat the Archbishop of Canterbury, Chichele, and next to him, Bishop Henry Beaufort. On her left, King James of Scotland. He was at liberty, through Katherine’s intercession. Henry thought: I could not resist her plea, and she was right: I will make him a good soldier when I return to France. He shall marry Joan Beaufort, and God send them happy as we are!

  And, standing respectfully before the Queen throughout the banquet, was Humphrey of Gloucester. Henry was not pleased with Gloucester. The reports of his conduct in England had been far from encouraging. The constant enmity between him and Beaufort was no longer to be taken lightly as Humphrey’s mere grudge against high-risen bastard blood. It was a festering hate that might one day break out and do grave harm. Henry thought: I wish I had left him in France, after all. Rather let him expend his energies controlling the territories there than stirring up this aggravation in England.

  But my good brother, Clarence, had to be given his chance. Clarence was so disappointed when he was shipped home sick from Harfleur. He missed all the glory. So let him remain in France as my regent. I have promised Philip and King Charles I shall return by midsummer. Let Clarence hold my gains till then.

  As for Queen Joanna, she is safely immured in the manor of Rotherhithe, and her fellow necromancers in the Tower. And God is on my side. There is the proof, that delicate, dark-eyed, loving face talking so charmingly to King James. God is with me. God will protect us both for ever. Amen.

  Katherine, attuned to his thoughts, leaned to look at him. Praise be, he is well, he is happy. Tonight we shall lie together in this friendly palace of Westminster. Peace and the joys of the night shall be with us. Her glance strayed along the table-decorations, the glazed and gilded fish, the sweets and flowers. Nearly every item bore the raison that stretched, repeated, in a silken banner raised the length of the board. Worked in gold and sugar and green leaves, it printed itself upon her heart. UNE SANS PLUS! Henry’s raison, and therefore hers. One alone.

  Dress warmly, she was told. The North of England is a wilderness, swept by barbaric winds, where spring comes late. Henry had gone on ahead to greet his people, jesting that in the northern territories it was rumoured he had died in France! She fancied his smile was a little strained and found his wit incomprehensible. Although at Windsor, where he had left her to prepare at leisure for the journey, he confided the threefold purpose of his progress north. First, he needed to address the corporation of as many towns as possible, telling them of his gains abroad and his need of further funds to return and consolidate these triumphs and establish the condominium with Burgundy. His finances were straitened. Most of the battle-ransoms had been exhausted. There were fresh armies to finance for what he hoped would be the final return to France. And then would come his life’s true work: the crusade against the Infidel, the fateful, inevitable journey East. Philip of Burgundy would be with him in Jerusalem. He had sworn it upon the most sacred relics, in Melun. The debt would be repaid.

  Secondly, in the north there were rumours of fresh Lollard heresies. Leicester, for example; this was the womb of Wyclif’s teachings; he had been rector of Lutterworth for some years. And even the burning of Oldcastle had rebounded unsettlingly upon the True Faith. Folk had gathered about his stake in ungodly fervour to rub his ashes into their eyes.

  Lastly, Katherine was to be shown to the people. The, proof! the prize! By now it was a tender jest between them. They would kneel together before the Easter candles, kindled to lighten the northerners’ dark souls led astray by the voice of heathen. And before he departed, he had shown her some other candles. A hundred candles burning before the tomb of King Richard in Westminster Abbey. In the side aisles, monks tongued a constant liturgy, echoed by the arching stones and undulating like the shadows cast about the King and Queen as they stood where Richard had been interred anew by his murderer’s son.

  ‘The candles must never be allowed to go out.’ Henry wept, fresh tears from an old well, and she knew better than to offer comfort, for this was part of the forbidden, undying past. Yet she thought of Belle, and sighed at the complex mysteries of it all
.

  ‘Richard!’ he murmured. ‘I’ll light another candle for you in Jerusalem!’

  She was in fair spirits when he left for the North. They would not be parted for long, and she was surrounded by servants and retainers and a hierarchy of nobles. John of Bedford was increasingly kind to her. Humphrey of Gloucester she contrived almost to ignore. Bishop Beaufort was there to attend to her spiritual needs. Her ladies: her cousin Anne of Burgundy, Bedford’s betrothed; Margaret, Duchess of Clarence; Philippa, Duchess of York. Jacqueline, so full of gratitude that to please Katherine, she managed to refrain from speaking too much of her beloved Humphrey. A host of servants of wardrobe and bedchamber. Dames Belknap, Troutbeck and Coucy, who cherished her tirelessly, at bed and bath. A strange little tiring-woman named Guillemot, who from the first had looked at her with childlike adoration. Katherine learned that their wages were paid, like Jacqueline’s maintenance at court and Dr Boyars’s salary, out of the estates of the disgraced Queen Joanna. She knew this to be Henry’s punishment, and pitied those who crossed him.

  She learned more of Henry as the chariot, drawn by the eight white horses, bore her north. With her travelled Margaret of Clarence, who at one time had been married to John, the brother of Bishop Henry Beaufort. She seemed to love to dwell in the past. Old feuds Were dredged up for Katherine’s bewildered ear. How the Bishop, years ago, had cheated her of her late husband’s estate. How Thomas of Clarence and Henry fell out over it. Also there was some strange story of Beaufort hiring an assassin to hide in Henry’s chamber. How subsequently Arundel was made Chancellor in place of Beaufort. And Thomas of Clarence had worsened things by persuading his father to dismiss Henry from the Privy Council and appoint him, Thomas, instead.

  ‘Thomas was always impetuous,’ she said. ‘All the brothers squabbled when they were young. Once my husband was sent to France on a campaign that should have been Henry’s. Your noble lord was bitterly upset.’

  ‘Yet he bears no grudge.’ Katherine thought: he was determined to let Clarence have his chance in France this time.

  ‘Yes, impetuous,’ said Margaret, looking worried. ‘He resented his absence from the Agincourt affair. God grant he will not try to make conquests alone. He boasted before he left that he could have won that battle without the English bowmen!’

  She began to tell her rosary. The entourage rumbled over the flat fields of Leicestershire and the town, a welcoming party at its gate, came into view. Katherine saw Henry’s standard. Old dead feuds fled her mind, as if Margaret had never embarked on the telling of them. Her carriage halted, and maids congregated to dress her hair, Master Feriby’s minions came running to drape her in fresh, scented furs. A man with thick golden hair knelt to clothe her feet in sweet soft leather. Then Henry’s horse bore him boundingly towards her and Leicester seemed the comeliest town in Christendom, Lollards or no Lollards.

  Owen, uncaring in the deathly sickness of his love, raised his eyes to watch the royal embrace. I have touched her feet. I could have kissed them, and have had my lips cut off. No punishment. There’s no heart in me ever to kiss again.

  I must somehow get over this. It is only because she is unattainable, because I can’t have her. It is nothing of the kind. I love her. Am byth. For ever.

  Pontefract, rising starkly from the frigid moor, seemed even more forbidding than Nottingham’s gloomy rock, where they had travelled soon after Easter. Their welcome continued, but more discreetly. People shouted less in the north. Near-foreigners themselves, continually harassed by Scottish raiding parties, they regarded anything foreign with some suspicion. Yet she smiled, bowed, did all that Henry advised, and warmth, more genuine for its initial reticence, eventually surrounded her. She prayed at countless holy shrines, gave and received gifts, listened to the recital of Henry’s conquests on every city street and village green. She lay one night at the Augustinian priory of Nostell, then made her way to Pontefract, Henry continuing northwards. Immured in this fortress was someone she wished to see. It crossed her mind that it would be easy to secrete funds and information to this important captive: her own cousin and brother-in-law Charles of Orléans. It was in her power to betray Henry of Armagnac. And by his trust, she knew that he paid her the greatest compliment of her life.

  As he embraced her farewell, there was an extra dimension in his concern, shared as yet by a secret few. Then he lectured her physicians, to see that she was warm and watched and rested, and rode away with backward looks, lovingly mystified as at the sight of a miracle.

  She was escorted up a stone spiral, passing by round pillars strictly functional and lacking in ornamentation. She entered a well-furnished room that took her back instantly to the tragic castle at Blois. Everywhere there were the devices of Orléans, the peacock feathers and broom on the hangings, the pineapple and the porcupine, spiked, nervous, arrogant. A great fire burned in the hearth. Charles sat in the window. He had put on weight. She would not have recognized him as the keen youth who once wooed Belle with such tenacity. His secretary, Antoine l’Astisan, looked much as on that ride to Blois years ago; time had merely turned him grey. Charles rose, bent his knee, then embraced her. He did not seem overjoyed to see her, unlike l’Astisan, who shed tears at sight of her. Plagued by memory, he thought: Grâce à Dieu, she is happy at last! Would that my master could be also …

  ‘Well, Kéti,’ said Orléans. ‘By St Denis, you are fine.’ He stroked the sleeve of her rose velvet gown.

  She hardly knew what to say. She asked if he were content at Pontefract.

  ‘Well enough. Windsor bored me, and the Tower is fiendishly hot in summer. The north suits my mood. This place is full of ghosts, to howl with me in my dolour. I have my faithful Antoine, my servants, my chaplain. What should I lack?’ His laugh was like a dog’s shrill aggression. He was changed.

  Don’t ask me to intercede for you, she thought, wondering if he had heard of her success over James of Scotland’s liberty. You are different. You would be only too ready to lead Armagnac once more against my lord. She looked about at the flamboyant peacocks and the quilled stormy emblems.

  He said: ‘Have you made a tour of this place? Shall I summon my guard and have them show it to you? There is a room at the base of this tower where Henry Bolingbroke had Richard done to death. What irony that both husbands of Madame should end their lives in this fortress!’

  ‘Your life is not ended, Charles.’

  ‘It might as well be. Marshal Boucicaut and the Duke of Bourbon are also here. We never meet. Boucicaut is half-mad, and the Duke unwell.’

  ‘Do you still write poetry?’ Katherine said uncomfortably. His face was glazed with melancholy. She thought of James of Scotland—captivity seemed to breed verse.

  ‘Yes. Mostly of Madame. I wish I were with her in Paradise.’ He sat down heavily at the table and Katherine joined him. ‘Night and day my thoughts never stray from her. And you, your Grace?’ he said, with an edge of malice. ‘Where is your great lord? Why is he not here with you?’

  ‘He has gone on, to pray at York, and to St John at Beverley.’ She pronounced it Bevair-lee, and Charles’s malice stretched into a smile.

  ‘You are quite the Englishwoman. And yet the conqueror leaves you here alone. Doubtless he visits his paramours in the North.’ This was so ridiculous that Katherine burst out laughing. Even if Harry had the inclination, he certainly had no time.

  ‘No, Charles. I do not ride with him. Je suis enceinte, tu sais.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said gloomily. ‘A child, Madame died from a child. My daughter, widowed herself now. Death blew his stinking breath upon my princess. My love killed her.’

  ‘I shall not die from a child,’ said Katherine.

  ‘A child can kill,’ he said. ‘I loved Madame. Now she lies in the Célestins, lapped in quicksilver and fine linen, but still mine!’

  He began to weep. L’Astisan filled a cup with spiced ale and set it before him. With a sweep of his hand Charles knocked it away. It spilled over some sheets of manus
cript on the table. The coloured inks ran and shreds of gold leaf floated on top of the liquid. L’Astisan looked despairingly at Katherine.

  ‘Shall I leave you?’ But Charles caught her hand and held it. They sat silent.

  ‘Do you remember how we met in the Sainte-Chapelle?’ His head was bowed over the ruined illuminations. ‘She was always my love and I was hers.’

  ‘She loved King Richard,’ Katherine said. She did not intend to hurt him. It was the truth.

  ‘It was a child’s love,’ he said. ‘She was maiden when she came to me. Richard loved only Anne of Bohemia.’

  ‘I wonder …’ said Katherine softly.

  ‘She will be mine in Heaven!’ He rose violently and went to the window, looking out on the wild sweep of moorland. ‘What do you care? These old passions do not touch you. You have betrayed your own country!’ She looked at his bowed shoulders, portly as those of an old man, and said, in angerless pity:

  ‘What did my own country bring me but fear and strife? As for love, and Paradise, I have thought on these things, and if it’s true there will be no taking or giving in marriage, neither will there be ownership! Charles …’

  ‘Then who shall have whom in Heaven?’ he asked sadly.

  ‘We shall all be one love, having expiated our sins.’ She went and laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘Charles, remember her words—I have never forgotten them. Love is the only candle in this dark old world.’