The Courts of Love: The Story of Eleanor of Aquitaine Read online

  Perhaps I had given him the impression that if I could have sons all would be well. I had been obliged to do that, for the only excuse I could give for wanting a divorce was the fear that our close relationship displeased God. Louis, I gathered, had said that he longed for us to be in harmony together, that he loved me and never wanted another for his wife.

  What happened would have been farcical if it had not been so distressing for me, because it put me into a situation from which I could not escape.

  Eugenius behaved like a nurse to two bewildered children. He thought he knew what was necessary to make us happy and he determined to do his best to give it to us.

  He had a room prepared in which there was a great bed. This room he hung with relics and he sprinkled the bed with holy water. First I was led to it, then Louis. We were to share it.

  We all knelt down and Eugenius prayed to God to bless us and to give us proof of His goodness and mercy toward two children who had lost their way. He saw us in bed together and then left us. I was both amused and despairing. I could see no way out of this. I thought cynically: I wonder he did not wait to see the act and to have anthems sung while it was being performed.

  Louis was in earnest. He did his best. I was passive. What else could I do?

  In the morning Eugenius greeted us with immense satisfaction. He thought he had solved our problem and saved us both from the ignominy of divorce. He was so pleased with himself for having dealt as he believed so satisfactorily with the matter, and with us for supplying him with a problem which enabled him to show his skill. He showered blessings on us. He told us how high the kingdom of France stood in his esteem. He prayed there would always be complete harmony between us.

  And then we made our journey to Paris. There was no great welcome for us. Our crusade had done nothing for France. It had cost too much in lives and property. There was murmuring throughout the realm.

  Suger, however, was delighted to see us back. He had, as we had known, ruled the country well during our absence; but it would take the people a long time to forget husbands and sons who had set out full of zeal and met death on the way to Jerusalem.

  I had my own troubles. The Pope’s bed had proved fruitful and I was pregnant.

  That winter was harsh. I had little to comfort me except my daughter Marie, now a child of five. It was wonderful to see her again and to find her charming and intelligent. She scarcely remembered me but we were soon good friends.

  It was difficult to go on with my plans for divorce now that I was expecting Louis’s child. The Pope had been rather clever after all and I had to admit to a certain awe and uneasiness that perhaps God had concerned Himself with our affairs as I had actually conceived among the relics and holy water. I had less respect for those symbols than most because I had been brought up in my grandfather’s Court where they had been of little account. But I did wonder now.

  I was desolate and, strange for me, listless. I half wanted the child and half did not. I had some maternal instincts, as Marie had shown me; but on the other hand this new child was an impediment to my divorce, of which I was thinking more and more.

  The Seine was frozen over; people were saying it was one of the coldest winters in living memory.

  So I lived through that dreary time, and in the early summer of the next year my child was born. To the dismay of Louis and his ministers I produced another daughter. For myself it mattered not. I loved little Alix just as much as I should a boy . . . perhaps more. I did not care for the future of France.

  My great desire was to escape from it.

  I continued to think of the divorce.

  A Royal Divorce

  Life continued to be unsatisfactory. I had two children now, and if I separated from Louis I should lose them for they were “Daughters of France.” For a time my maternal instincts battled with my desire to be free, but I discovered that above all things I wanted to escape from Louis, to live my own life, to find someone who would be to me what Raymond had been and stifle this yearning for him which beset me. I knew I could only escape from it if I found someone to take his place.

  Louis was disappointed by the cool reception he had received from his subjects. We learned that there might have been a rebellion but for the wisdom of Suger, who had kept a firm hand on affairs and had reigned cleverly during his term of regency. Some anxious moments had occurred when Louis’s brother Robert had decided to make a bid for the throne. It naturally seemed to him that Fate had been unkind in making him a younger son when, in his own estimation, he would have made a much better king than his brother. Perhaps he would have. While we were facing death on our crusade, he had gone about the country trying to rally people to his banner. His case was that the King had been brought up in the Church. It would be well for him to go into a monastery when he returned and let Robert take the throne.

  It might have seemed a sensible idea to some. Not, however to Suger. God had made Louis King and, if he had been unfortunate, he was a man of God, the chosen of the Lord, their anointed King, and so he must remain. When Louis returned, although the people of France did not welcome him warmly, they made it clear that they wished him to remain their King, and Robert’s hopes foundered.

  Suger was against the divorce. I believed his reason might be that it would remove Aquitaine from France, for Louis owned it only through me, and if I went, I would take it with me. It was that thought which had sustained me ever since I made up my mind that I must leave Louis.

  So we went on. Louis had brought some cedars from the Holy Land, and these he himself planted in Vitry on that spot where the church had been, thus he believed laying to rest the ghosts of all those people who had perished there. I think he felt a relief from guilt after that.

  We had reverted to our old pattern of life. I rarely saw Louis at night. We had separate bedchambers. He found it embarrassing to share one with me. I kept assuring myself that divorce was the only answer and whatever the Pope did or Suger wanted, I must be free to live my own life.

  After a while I think Louis was beginning to realize this. He was undoubtedly anxious because there was no male heir. He would do his duty but I guessed he was reluctant to endure more of those embarrassing couplings when perhaps he imagined what my torrid love-making with Raymond must have been like. But it might be that his imagination would not stretch so far, as he had had little experience. There were people who could bring forth children of one sex only, and what if, after the unpleasant intimacy, I did the same again? I wondered if it occurred to him that he might have better luck with another partner and the offensive ritual need not be performed very often.

  He was a man who would regard duty as a serious matter. It was God’s will that a king should bring forth heirs. There could be civil war if, on his death, he did not leave a son to follow him.

  I really believed that Louis was growing a little more responsive to the idea of divorce.

  If we both wanted it, the Pope could surely give it for reasons of consanguinity.

  I was hopeful. Then a situation arose which drove all thought of divorce from Louis’s mind. It was the prospect of war.

  It came from Anjou. Geoffrey of Anjou interested me. I had seen him on rare occasions when he had come to Court. He was an extremely handsome man. In fact, he was known as “Geoffrey le Bel,” as well as “Geoffrey Planta Genesta” because he made a habit of wearing a sprig of the plant in his hat. The soldiers called him “the Plantagenet.”

  He had become important through his marriage to Matilda, the daughter of the King of England, because she had brought him Normandy. Her grandfather, known as William the Conqueror, had taken England in the year 1066 and as Duke of Normandy and King of England had made himself as important as—and perhaps more so than—the King of France. The second William, who had followed him on the throne, had not been the ruler his father had been but, fortunately for England, he had soon been followed by another son of the Conqueror, Henry, who was now seen to have been a very wise ruler. He had had, a
nd this was unfortunate for England, only one son and a daughter. This son, another William, had at the age of seventeen been drowned in the wreck of the White Ship, a tragedy which would never have happened but for the drunken state of the sailors who were manning it. It was a great sadness for the King for he had lost his only legitimate son—although he had several who were illegitimate, for he was a very sensual man; and the matter of inheritance was immediately of the utmost importance. But for the accident to the White Ship, the strife which comes from civil war would have been avoided.

  When his daughter Matilda had borne a son, King Henry must have been delighted, for if he took after his mother, he would be a very forceful character. It was soon after the boy’s birth that the King died, through eating too many lampreys, so they said. Poison was not suspected for, though he had been a stern ruler, he had been a wise one. His people had called him “the Lion of Justice” for he had brought back law and order to the land which it had not known since the days of the Conqueror.

  But on the death of the King trouble started. It was an indication of what happened when kings did not leave a male heir. Now there were two claimants to the throne of England: Matilda, wife of Geoffrey of Anjou, and Stephen, son of Adela, the Conqueror’s daughter. So it was a question of the late King’s daughter or his nephew. There should have been no doubt, for Matilda was in the direct line, but because she was a woman, before she could claim the throne, Stephen swooped down and, with the support of many of the barons, took it. Matilda was not the woman to stand aside and let someone else take what was hers by right. Hence the trouble.

  Stephen was affable and pleasant of manner but, it turned out, a weak king. Not that Matilda would have been much better. She was a formidable woman, strong-minded, very arrogant and over-bearing—characteristics which made her unpopular while the easy-going Stephen, ineffectual as he was, won the people’s affection.

  Strife had continued on and off in England over the years. At one time Matilda was in the ascendant, at another Stephen.

  It was at this time, while I was wondering how I could obtain release from my intolerable marriage, and just as I was beginning to think that Louis might agree that it was best for us both, that trouble with Geoffrey of Anjou arose.

  It was always a matter for concern when one of France’s vassals began to gain too much power. The people of England might reject Matilda for their monarch, and Matilda had a promising son. He had joined his mother’s forces in England and had already shown himself to be a good soldier. If this boy was ever King of England—and he could be and, incidentally, Duke of Normandy as well—he would be far too powerful for Louis’s comfort. Stephen was the younger brother of Louis’s one-time enemy Thibault of Champagne but those old grievances had been forgotten now. Petronilla and Raoul were no longer at Court. The ban of excommunication had never been lifted, but as it did not seem to worry them, no one thought of it now. They had three children, a son and two daughters, and were quite resigned to the quiet life. Poor Raoul was very ill and not expected to live. I saw very little of them now. The affair had made a rift between us.

  Louis was growing more and more worried about Geoffrey of Anjou. The man with his aggressive son seemed to have little respect for anyone; and Matilda, though she despised her husband, doted on her eldest son—she had two others—for it was on young Henry that she pinned her hopes. If she could not have the throne of England for herself, she was determined that it should be bestowed on her son.

  Trouble was brewing and matters came to a head when Geoffrey of Anjou captured a castle on the borders of Poitou and Anjou which belonged to Gerald Berlai, whose duty it was to guard the frontier. Not only did Geoffrey take the castle but he made Gerald and his family his prisoners, treating them with some severity.

  It was sufficient provocation for Louis to take up arms. He was ranging himself beside the Count of Champagne, who naturally supported his brother Stephen and wished to see Stephen’s son, Eustace, inherit the crown after his father. And that was something which Geoffrey of Anjou and his son Henry were determined should not happen.

  I was surprised that Louis allowed himself to be drawn into war. Suger was against it, and although Suger was getting old, he still influenced Louis more than anyone. But Louis could not, even now, forget Vitry. The planting of cedars, the building of a new church on the site of the old . . . none of these things could expunge that terrible memory from his mind. He still thought of it. The crusade which had been meant to lay the ghost to rest forever had not entirely done so—probably because it had been such an outstanding failure.

  I talked to him about the proposed campaign. The situation between us was growing more and more embarrassing. He knew I desperately wanted that divorce and was ready to face anything to get it. He was wavering, but the subject was unpleasant to him. But I did discuss this conflict with him.

  I asked him why he, who so hated war, was now ready to undertake it again.

  “It is my duty,” he said, with that stubborn look which I knew so well. “The Plantagenet has ill-treated Berlai. I cannot allow that. Moreover, these Angevins have to be taught a lesson. They are the Devil’s breed. That is a well-known fact. The Devil came to them in the shape of a beautiful woman who bore them sons and who would never go into church until she was forced to. Then, when confronted with the Host, she turned back into the spirit she had always been—and was never seen again.”

  “Louis, you don’t believe such a tale!”

  “I believe it,” he said.

  I would have laughed him to scorn but I remembered what had happened when my father had been confronted by Bernard carrying the Host.

  “Vitry belonged to Thibault of Champagne,” he said. “I want to help him now.”

  “Will you never forget Vitry?”

  “Sometimes I fear not.”

  “So you are going to war. Is this a further penance?” Louis was silent.

  “Suger thinks it unwise,” I went on. “He says you are fighting King Stephen’s battles for him.”

  “Suger does not understand.”

  What a fool he was! How I longed to be rid of him.

  He had another grievance. Young Henry Plantagenet had not, as his vassal, sworn fealty to him for Normandy. It was almost as though he were saying: I owe no fealty to France. I am the heir to the throne of England.

  Such arrogance, Louis had decided, must be curbed.

  Thus it was that he found himself marching to the borders of Normandy.

  Louis’s war-like efforts were almost certain to come to nothing. He had not even made camp when he was overcome by a fever, and it was necessary for him to return to Paris. He did not come alone. He brought his army with him. I thought the fever might have been brought on by his extreme distaste for the action he was about to take. But he was certainly ill when he returned and the doctors said he must rest in bed.

  Suger was quite pleased. He visited the palace and told Louis that this was God’s way of preventing a war which should never have been contemplated. What had he hoped to do? Wrest Normandy from Matilda’s son? He would never have done it. The English would never have allowed it, and even though that country was busy with its own problems the thought of losing Normandy would have aroused them to action.

  Suger said he would ask Bernard to come and they would summon Geoffrey of Anjou and his son to Paris, where a truce could be arranged.

  Louis was quite pleased about this. It was a great relief to him when his doctors said he must keep to his bed. So the conference had to be conducted by Suger and Bernard.

  Bernard arrived. His antipathy to me was obvious. He would know about my desire for a divorce. I had a sneaking feeling that it would not displease him. He was different from Suger. For all Bernard’s saintliness he lacked Suger’s single-minded devotion to France. Suger thought a divorce would not serve the country well. For one thing France would lose Aquitaine. Suger believed that, if Louis and I would continue together, God would relent in time and give us a s
on.

  Bernard felt differently. Bernard was a man of the Church. I wondered if scandal concerning myself and Raymond had reached his ears. If it had, he would feel I was unworthy to bear the heir of France. He would, I was sure, like the King to have a more amenable wife. Bernard believed I had put a spell on Louis and that spells came from the Devil. Bernard might well help me in achieving my ends. As the days passed, my desire for release from this intolerable marriage grew greater.

  Geoffrey of Anjou arrived in Paris with his son. I was mildly interested to see these two about whom there had been so much talk.

  Geoffrey I had seen before and I remembered him vaguely. The son I had never seen. He was very young—seventeen, I had heard. I wondered what it was about him that made him so often the object of people’s attention.

  I was told that they had brought Gerald Berlai with them—in chains.

  “It is a most ignoble way of treating a noble lord,” said one of my ladies.

  “They want us to know that he is their prisoner,” said another.

  “What has he done . . . but defend his castle?”

  “They say he sent forays into their land and made a nuisance of himself. They would tolerate it no more and have taken his castle and made him their prisoner.”

  I had been feeling so bored and listless that I was quite looking forward to the confrontation.

  I was seated beside Louis who had left his bed briefly to be present. He looked pale and wan. There was no doubt that he had been genuinely ill, but I was sure the illness had been brought on through his hatred of war. In any case, it had stopped that, so doubtless it was a blessing in disguise . . . certainly to those men who would have been killed in a foolish cause.

  It was an amazing scene. The man in chains before them and, on either side of him, his captors. Geoffrey of Anjou stood there, legs apart, defiant. He was still a very attractive man, though he was reaching for forty. But it was the son who caught my attention. So this was Henry Plantagenet . . . the young man who was astonishing everyone with his military gifts. He was by no means handsome—quite the reverse, in fact—but one was aware of an intense vitality. He was not tall—stocky rather; he had reddish hair and a very high color; he looked excessively healthy. He did not seem to be able to stand still; he looked as though he found that irksome; his legs were slightly bowed as though he had lived most of his life in the saddle. I noticed his hands were red and chapped.