The Battle of the Queens Read online

  ‘You are teaching me much, my lady.’

  ‘Experience is the best teacher,’ replied the Queen, ‘but can be a harsh one. Yet it is so much easier to learn from one’s own experiences than from those of others.’

  On they rode through Castile towards the mountain barrier of the Pyrenees. There the passes were narrow and the cold intense. Blanche became anxious about her grandmother, for the old lady was clearly feeling the strains of the journey.

  Blanche was already fond of her and looking forward with immense pleasure to their conversations. She was growing up fast; she was no longer a child; and she realised that what her grandmother was doing was preparing her for her new life.

  On one occasion they stayed in a small dwelling in the mountains; the snow was falling and it was necessary for them to stay there for several days. There Blanche noticed how the cold exhausted her grandmother and how difficult it was for her to breathe.

  Eleanor did not seem disturbed as long as Blanche was at her side.

  ‘You must not fear for me, child,’ she told her. ‘My end is not far off. I know that well. Why, bless you, I have been close to my end – so it was said – for the last ten years, and as I go on, still it recedes and will not let me catch up. I shall finish this journey. I shall go back to Fontevrault. There I have to pray and be pious for I have many sins to expiate. Nothing would have brought me from my refuge except the needs of my family. I fear for my family, Blanche, oh, I fear greatly. But since I lost my son … my beloved son … there is not so much to live for.’

  ‘Pray, Grandmother, do not speak thus.’

  ‘Ah, there is something between us two, is there not? ’Tis a pity I am so old and you are so young. The gap is too great for that understanding between us to grow big. Still, ’tis a hardy little plant and it gives me pleasure to contemplate it. Blanche … you are indeed of my blood. But Richard is gone for ever. My son … the son I loved best in all the world. I wish you could have known Richard, Blanche. He was so beautiful. The Lion Hearted they called him. He had no fear of anyone … not even his father. Henry knew it. But he always hated him. It was not only because I loved him better than anyone in the world. Henry couldn’t forgive that either. No one must come before him. But he had taken the Princess Alice … daughter of my first husband Louis … He had had her sent over when she was a little more than a baby to be brought up in the court and to be Richard’s bride. But that lecher … my husband, the King, Henry Plantagenet, took that child to his bed, defiled her and would not give her up. He kept her … his secret mistress while she was betrothed to Richard and he hated Richard and flouted him in every way … because he wanted to keep Alice for himself. There, I have shocked you now. But you will know of these things in time. That was my husband. The man I hated … and loved … and who felt similarly for me. The man who captured me when I would have led my sons against him and made me his prisoner … for years and years.’

  ‘My poor poor grandmother.’

  ‘Poor! Don’t use that word to describe me, child, or I shall say you have learned nothing. Say poor Henry! Poor Louis! But not poor Eleanor. I always got the better of them … as a woman will … for see I am alive to tell the tale … and they are dead … cold and dead in their tombs. Henry lies at Fontevrault … and Richard with him … at his feet. And one day I shall lie there with them. And when I return to the Abbey which I shall do when I say good-bye to you, I shall go to their tombs and look at their effigies and I shall speak softly to them both and it will seem as though they answer me.’

  Blanche took her grandmother’s hand and kissed it.

  ‘And perhaps,’ went on Eleanor, ‘there is enough time left to me to see you crowned Queen of France. That is what I should like. Though Philip Augustus is not an old man – he is hale and well, I believe, and may live for years. But bide your time. It will come, I promise you. And because you have my blood in you, when your time comes, you will be a great queen.’

  The weather improved and they were able to leave the mountains and take the road north towards the Loire.

  There were many conversations between them and when Eleanor talked and Blanche listened the girl knew that her grandmother’s aim was to prepare her for the great role she must play; and the fact that she had been chosen in place of Urraca made her determined not to disappoint the old Queen.

  Sometimes Eleanor was very sad.

  ‘I fear,’ she said, ‘I greatly fear for my family. There is too much conflict. My grandson Arthur … my son John … both claim the throne of England.’

  ‘Who should have it, my lady? asked Blanche.

  ‘John has it and must keep it. How could young Arthur be King of England? He is but a boy … he speaks no English and is unknown to the English. They would never accept him. Yet … some would say he has the greater claim.’

  ‘But you say John, my lady.’

  ‘John is my son. He was brought up in England. I tremble to think what conflicts there would be if Arthur took the throne. Half the people would not accept him … a boy and foreigner. I never could abide his mother – and we should have her setting herself up as queen. No, it had to be John.’

  ‘And it is, my lady.’

  ‘Yes it is. But the people of Brittany will not accept it. There is going to be war … when has there not been war … and I fear the King of France may well support Arthur. Then you and I would be on different sides, my dear.’

  ‘I should never be against you, my lady.’

  ‘Nay, child, you will be on the side of your husband and he being but a boy must support his father and his father ever had his eyes on Normandy as has every King of France since one of them was forced to give it up to Rollo, the invading Norseman. You can be sure, child, that while Normandy belongs to the King of England no King of France is going to be contented. That is something we must accept. Let us hope that John can keep a hold on his continental territories as his predecessors managed to do. If only Richard had lived, he would have held everything together.’

  ‘You told me that he was scarcely ever in his realm.’

  ‘That was so. He had this urge to win Jerusalem for the Christians. He never did but he came near to it. Even so he made a reputation as the finest soldier in the world … the greatest warrior that ever was. How the Conqueror would have been proud of him, but he would have chided him for not staying at home, I doubt not, to look after his own kingdom. And then there was the time when he was prisoner in Austria and we did not know where he was until Blondel de la Neslé discovered him through a song they sang together … and we ransomed him and he came home. Oh, those days are past and now there is John – and I greatly fear what will come to England … and I not live to see it. So I shall go back to Fontevrault and there commune with my dead husband whom I came to loathe and my dead son whom I shall always love better than anyone; and I shall wait there for the end …’

  ‘Unless …’ began Blanche.

  And Eleanor laughed. ‘Unless something happens to take me from my refuge. Unless my family need me.’

  ‘Then, dearest Grandmother,’ said Blanche, ‘you would be there.’

  ‘As long as these poor limbs could carry me,’ she answered.

  They went on northwards and the spring was beginning to show itself. Buds in the hedgerows and clustered blossoms on the elms, the small pink petals of the crane’s bill and marsh marigolds by the brooks showed that the spring was coming and the harsh winter was being left behind. But the clear light showed up the furrows on the old Queen’s brow and her skin seemed yellowish in the sunshine. It was clear that the rigorous journey had had its effect on her and while the change of season invigorated Blanche it tired Eleanor.

  And so they came to the Loire and here the road divided – one way went to Fontevrault, the other to Paris.

  They rested in a castle close by the river where the castellan was delighted to receive such honoured guests, knowing that the beautiful young girl was the future Queen of France and the old one the red
oubtable Eleanor, Queen of England.

  It was here that Eleanor came to a decision. She had heard that the Archbishop of Bordeaux was in the neighbourhood and she asked him to come to the castle as she had a great desire to see him. While she was awaiting his arrival she sent for Blanche.

  Blanche came and kneeling at her feet took her hands and kissed them. The affection between them had grown with each passing day and Blanche now felt that she knew her grandmother better than she had ever known anyone – even her parents and her sisters. In the Court of Castile life had been easy and comfortable with only the bold Saracen to haunt them now and then, and he was like a ghost on the stairs, talked of but never seen and therefore without reality. It had been a happy childhood; she appreciated the love and care of her parents, the comradeship of her sisters. But it had been like looking at a picture with what was unpleasant blotted out and the rest coloured up to make it prettier than it actually was. With her grandmother she had seen real life … life as it would be lived by people like herself. There would be occasions when she would have to face the truth and that might be unpleasant.

  Her grandmother had prepared her for that. It was as though she had given her a suit of armour – such as knights wore – so that when she went out to face the world, her protective armour would be the knowledge she had acquired from a lady who had lived more adventurously than most.

  ‘My dear child,’ said Eleanor, ‘I have much to say to you, for we are soon to part.’

  ‘We are not yet there, my lady.’

  ‘Nay, but I shall leave you here.’

  The dismay in the girl’s face both hurt and pleased the old Queen. She was aware of how much Blanche had come to rely on her. Bad for the child, but pleasant for the old woman, she thought, but I am glad all the same, for this child has brightened my last days.

  ‘You see me thus,’ said Eleanor. ‘I am too old for such journeys. I have seen nearly eighty winters, child. Can you imagine such an age? I am weary. My old bones demand their rest. I cannot travel with you to Paris for if I did I should die on the way back. I must go now to Fontevrault, which is not far from here, and when I reach that place of refuge I shall take to my bed and there rest until I am revived or leave this world altogether.’

  ‘Pray do not talk so, my lady.’

  ‘We must always face the truth, child. I came to you because I wanted to see the bride who would be Queen of France. I am glad I did. For if I had not it would be your sister who was on her way to Paris … and I knew as soon as I saw you that it must be you. But now, all is well. You are almost there. I have sent for the Archbishop of Bordeaux and I shall put you in his charge. He will take you to Paris and look after your interests. And I shall say farewell, my dearest granddaughter, and go to Fontevrault.’

  Blanche lowered her face and wept; and there were tears in the old Queen’s eyes too.

  ‘Do not grieve,’ she said, ‘that which has passed between us has been good. I shall think of you for as long as I am on earth and when I die – if I go to Heaven, which is uncertain, I admit – I shall look down on you and guide you if that is possible, for I know this, that Queen Blanche of France will make her mark on the history of France and be remembered as a great good queen.’

  ‘If she is it will be due to the wise tutoring of her grandmother.’

  ‘Nay, she has much to learn. She will grow in wisdom. I promise you that. All I have done is set her feet on the path along which she should go. Remember me for that. Now I hear sounds of arrival. It may be that the good Archbishop of Bordeaux is here.’

  The next day Eleanor said good-bye to her granddaughter, and the old Queen and her party went on to Fontevrault while Blanche, in the care of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, rode north towards Paris.

  Chapter VI

  BLANCHE AND LOUIS

  Blanche was now desolate. She missed her grandmother even more than she had believed possible and the Archbishop of Bordeaux was no substitute for her. His sermons and his heavy advice were very different from the colourful homilies on life presented by her grandmother.

  She now began to think with great trepidation of what lay before her. Very soon she would meet her bridegroom – the one with whom she was to spend the rest of her life. He was six months older than she was, she had heard, having been born in September 1187 while her birthday had been in March 1188. So they were both twelve years old. To think of his age comforted her a little, for it seemed possible that he might be dreading meeting her as much as she was dreading meeting him. She would remember her grandmother’s words about women being as important as men in the world, for after all if she had been selected for him he had been selected for her and he had had no more say in the matter than she had.

  So perhaps she should not be afraid. They would both have to obey the King of France, and she imagined him benign and like her own father. She would come through her ordeal and it might be that she was unduly anxious.

  It was a few days since they had parted from the old Queen’s company when the Archbishop told her that they were not going first to Paris, They were travelling to Normandy where she would be met by her bridegroom.

  ‘But that will lengthen our journey surely,’ cried Blanche.

  ‘It is the orders of the King of France,’ answered the Archbishop.

  ‘It is very strange,’ she said blankly. ‘I understood I was to go to France … to Paris and be married there. Surely the future Kings of France are married in Paris.’

  ‘It is the King’s wish that the ceremony should take place in Normandy.’

  She was very puzzled and uneasy. How she wished that her grandmother was with her. There was something strange about these arrangements and she began to wonder whether the King did not wish her to marry his son after all.

  The Archbishop was silent for some time. Then he said: ‘You need have no fear. The Queen, your grandmother, put you into my charge, and you may rest assured that having given her my word, I will look to your welfare as certainly as she would herself.’

  Blanche nodded but she continued uneasy and at length the Archbishop seemed to come to a decision.

  ‘There seems no harm in telling you for you will know soon enough. The marriage cannot take place in France because the country is under an Interdict from Rome which means that no church ceremonies can be performed while this state of affairs exists.’

  ‘You mean he has displeased the Pope.’

  The Archbishop nodded. ‘He has put away the wife he married and taken another woman to his bed and the Pope insists that this woman is no true wife to him. The King defies him declaring that she is and that his marriage to Ingeburga of Denmark was no true marriage.’

  Blanche was aware of what the Interdict from Rome could mean. She had heard it spoken of in Castile as one of the worst calamities that could befall a man or woman; but in the case of a king it would apply to the whole of his kingdom.

  ‘And why has the King put away his wife?’

  ‘The church says because he has no fancy for her. He says because she was too nearly related to his first wife and therefore the marriage is null and void on the grounds of consanguinity.’

  ‘And where is she now?’

  ‘She goes from castle to castle and convent to convent while the King lives with Agnes, the woman he calls his wife, and is so deeply enamoured of her that he will not listen to the Pope, and so the country continues to suffer under the Interdict.’

  Blanche was silent. It was disconcerting to learn that if a King did not like the bride who had been chosen for him, he could put her away from him on grounds of consanguinity. Royal families had inter-married throughout the centuries and it seemed it would hardly be an impossible task to discover blood ties between any of them. She was thoughtful as the cavalcade made its way into Normandy.

  At last they had come face to face. He had ridden out to meet her and eagerly they had taken stock of each other.

  He was not tall, nor was he short; his features were good and his expressi
on kindly. He was fair and there was about him an air of delicacy which immediately won her heart and filled her with a determination to protect him.

  She was about his height, fair and strong, with a hint of her Norman ancestry in her looks which had no doubt been noted by her grandmother when she had been certain that Blanche must be the future Queen of France. That strength in her appealed to Louis; it was reassuring to his own weakness; and from the moment they met there was a harmony between them which augured well for the future.

  They rode side by side to Port-Mort and he told her how he had looked forward to her coming and that the marriage would be celebrated without delay so that they could return to Paris together.

  It was easy to talk to him and in the castle close to the Abbey they sat side by side at the top of the table while the company feasted and he told her a little of what she must expect.