Isabella- She-wolf of France

by Georgiana Grier

  The atmosphere fairly crackled with the tension of men seeking to mark their own spots in the proceedings. What petty things men were, Isabella thought, and was shocked by her own perception. They could never endure womanhood and the travail that accompanied the members of the opposite sex.

  She was a queen, born to her royal status and yet treated as if she were no more than a maidservant or a brood mare. However, she was the mother of the boy who would become king, and the lords of England would learn that her son was not to be played with by puppet masters.

  “Bloody siege,” complained Sir William Trussell. “We could be in the grave before it ends.”

  “No,” Mortimer said confidently. “Bristol will fall. There is no hope for Despenser. The city will fall, and he will be in our hands.”

  “And he will die,” the Queen added. Her face was set in such an expression of firmness that she could have been posing for a portrait. As the English lords looked upon her, they saw that only punishment by death would satisfy King Edward’s wife. Despenser the Elder would be the first to face her virulent enmity, but no one present could deny that the right was hers.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Lancaster agreed. “He will die, and his son, as well.”

  No one mentioned the king. But every man present was thinking of him and wondering what fate would befall a superfluous king.

  Isabella alone was not thinking of Edward. For herself, she asked no mercy. She was a faithless wife and a stalwart mother; she would pray to the Blessed Virgin that her actions should bear joyous fruits for her son.

  25 October 1326

  Bristol, England

  11:22 AM

  The city is about to fall, and when it does, Hugh Despenser the Elder will meet his fate at the hands of a vengeful queen and the nobles of England, who are eager to make him pay for his actions. But the nobles of England realise that they must not rid themselves of one favourite for another, and they meet in secret to discuss the dangers of the ambitious Mortimer and his influence upon the queen.

  The army would sleep well that night. It was obvious that the city could not hold out any longer. Hugh Despenser would not be able to stave off the queen’s army. Henry, now confidently taking the title of Earl of Lancaster, that was his due and that, he was sure, the queen would grant him, walked through the camp. The men were inside their tents, the banners of their liege lords outside as a signal of their allegiance.

  Lancaster, the hood of his cloak pulled low over his forehead, passed through the gathering without being noticed. An army camp had an atmosphere that could be read as if it were script, and Lancaster knew that the men were anticipating victory upon the morrow.

  They were the fortunate ones, he thought as he walked swiftly to his destination. They fought, lived or died, bandaged their wounds or celebrated their triumphs, and went on their way to the next war or home to their fields.

  Not for them was the next stage that would follow; after the battlefield came the council chambers. This was a different form of battle, one fought not with blood but with one’s wits. The past was ever present, as the heroes of one generation became the traitors of the next. It was nimbleness that was required. As long as a man managed to keep his head attached to his neck, Lancaster thought, he would thrive.

  He saw movement ahead in the grove of trees on the edge of the city. They were early. Nonetheless, even though he knew the men who waited, he kept his hand on the hilt of his sword. Caution was always necessary.

  His dark cloak blended easily into the trees. The others, like himself concealed by their dark clothing and the trunks of the clustered trees, were familiar to him. He was related by marriage or ancestry to any number of them; their heritage was an incestuous mélange of titles, babies, and graveyards. Their unity made them of one mind.

  “Mortimer,” said Norfolk.

  “Yes.”

  “He means to rule.”

  “Of course he does. A besotted queen in his bed, a boy king dependent upon him for guidance. . . Who would not, in his place, expect to wield the reins of royal power?”

  “We do not rid ourselves of Despenser merely to leave an opening for the next favourite.”

  “No, we do not. But we must proceed judiciously. Edward II still reigns. Despenser the Elder remains in Bristol. Despenser the Younger is with the King. Prince Edward is a youth. It will do no good to be rash. First Despenser the Elder. Then Despenser the Younger. Then the King.”

  “But not the same fate, surely?”

  Lancaster frowned. Some things were better left unsaid. One did not speak of the murders of anointed kings. Whether or not that was to be Edwards fate was yet to be decided.

  “There are some matters that Mortimer will, no doubt, attend to,” he replied. “Perhaps it will be in our own interest to wait and see.”

  “Allow Mortimer to have all that power? Have you lost your wits?”

  “Mortimer can be of service to us for a time. He may attend to matters that, ultimately, will be his undoing. Mortimer fancies himself the power behind the throne.”

  “The power between the queen’s legs, more like,” one of the men said, sniggering.

  “There has been too much power lost and claimed in royal beds,” Lancaster declared with impatience. “Are we servants, to tangle ourselves in bed sheets? I think not. We have the opportunity to serve a king, the grandson of Edward of esteemed memory. But in order to set Edward of Winsor upon a clear path, someone else will need to clear away the refuse. Why should we soil our hands, when Mortimer is likely to be more than willing to do it for us?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m merely saying that we must be patient. If Mortimer sees his way to power for a time, we must bide ours. The Prince will not be docile for long; nor will he be a minor forever. The chronology may be a trifle out of sequence, and we will have a king who is not yet deemed ready to rule, but what of that? The queen and Mortimer will dispose of their enemies as fate allows, and none of us need sully our hands. When Edward sits on the throne as his own man, we will be, in truth, his faithful lords and servants.”

  Lancaster allowed the import of his words to sink in. Although all of the men gathered in the woods were known to one another, no one referred to anyone else by name. It was wiser to remain anonymous in such an enterprise.

  “Are we followers or leaders?” asked a man.

  It was a fair question.

  The English barons had suffered at the hands of feckless kings who ruled by whim rather than wisdom, but it would have been false to claim that the lords were above reproach. Powerful men who controlled their own lands were ill-suited to meekly follow the edicts of injudicious kings, and for every strong, shrewd Edward I, there had been a John. The problem lay in the fact that a lord of his land was both follower and leader, owing fealty to the king and demanding it of his own knights. That blurred the lines, Lancaster supposed. But he was not a philosopher, and it was not for him to define the hierarchy by which England was governed.

  “Both,” he answered without hesitation. “We follow the king. If he leads us well, we follow. If he does not, we must lead, else all England falls.” He knew that it was a flawed response, but nonetheless a diplomatic one that recognised allegiance and explained rebellion. So it was to be an Englishman.

  “We’re not de Montfort,” he went on, swiftly cutting off that line of thinking, lest any of the men covet a role that would doom them. “We have a king to follow.”

  “Which one?”

  Lancaster cursed silently. Too many questions, too much thinking. Why could they not see that the easiest path was the patient one? The Queen had invaded the realm, and by doing so, had conjured a rebellion against the King. The king’s subjects, weary of the Despenser greed and illegal acquisition of power and possessions, had flocked to her banner. She travelled with her lover, an overly ambitious, proud Marcher lord, and her son, the legitimate heir.

  The Queen was competent enough, Lancaster acknowledged, but she w
as a woman, and England, which had rejected Matilda generations before, would not accept a woman on the throne. Nor, though the lady likely did not realise it, would her lover, who plainly had aspirations beyond the queen’s bed.

  But the only obstacle to the Prince’s rise was his age, and that would be remedied with every day he lived, provided that he was given proper instruction. To Lancaster, the road was plainly marked. Let the Queen reveal the weakness of her sex; let Mortimer overreach himself; let the Prince mature. In the end, the Queen’s inexperience and Mortimer’s arrogance would solve the messier problem of the King’s continued existence, and when the Prince came into his own, he would be ready, and his nobles would support him.

  “Wisely and cautiously, my lords,” Lancaster advised. “Return to your men and wait for the morrow. The downfall of the Despensers begins.”

  “The Queen will be given credit for it,” grumbled one lord, averse to a woman taking precedence in matters that were better suited for men to master.

  “Let her. The lady has been greatly wronged by the Despenser father and son. Why should she not claim her victory over them?” Lancaster asked magnanimously. “Would any of you who have daughters begrudge your own her revenge against such a monster? They must be destroyed.”

  “And the King?”

  Stupid fool, Lancaster thought. Why speak of what everyone inwardly knew? There was safety in silence.

  “We mean no harm to the Lord’s anointed monarch,” Lancaster said piously. “We seek the safety and good wealth of England. Our forefathers demand no less than our loyalty.”

  It was a good answer. It said nothing, but it did so magnificently.

  27 October 1326

  Bristol, England

  10:15 AM

  With no hope of rescue and no chance of escape, the city has surrendered, and Hugh Despenser the Elder is in the hands of the queen’s forces.

  There would be no clemency. The verdict was known in advance, and no one would stand in the way of the queen’s determination to punish Despenser.

  There was no interlude between the acceptance of the city’s surrender and the arrest of Hugh Despenser the Elder. Still wearing his armour, he was brought into the room where his trial would take place.

  Isabella watched as her enemy was led to face his accusers. His helmet was taken off to reveal the features of a man, no longer haughty and brutal, but old. That surprised the Queen; she had not thought of him as old. He had only been her tormentor, ageless as sin.

  She smiled. Despenser met her eyes and then looked away, for her triumph was so apparent that every man in the room recognised it.

  She did not trouble herself to conceal her pride; this was no time to be demure. All the humiliations that she had suffered in the past might have been invisible to others, but to Isabella of France, the daughter, sister, and wife of kings, the offenses mounted a tower between the two of them, and as she looked at him, she saw his violations. And he knew what she saw and knew that the die was cast.

  “Hugh Despenser,” intoned Sir William Trussell, “Earl of Winchester, you are on trial. You are forbidden to speak just as Thomas, earl of Lancaster was when he sat before you to be judged. Your transgressions against the Crown and its subjects have brought you to this point.”

  Despenser, encased in his armour, looked tired and pale, almost frail, as if, were it not for the metal he wore, he would have had nothing to support him. Isabella had wanted to see him punished immediately, and the nobles had agreed. What point was there in waiting? He was going to die, of that there was no doubt and the sooner the better.

  No one needed to say that Despenser the Elder was not the only quarry they would be hunting. He was but the first one to be captured.

  One by one, his accusers named his crimes. It was a long list, and nothing was omitted.

  They were sentencing a man to death, and justified though they knew his death to be, the judgment could not be flawed. The law was the arbiter of his fate, not the lords; they were merely the vessels by which the judgment would be delivered and carried out.

  The lords of England were ruthless by nature and pious by creed, a peculiarly effective mix of characteristics for the dispensing of legal justice.

  Queen Isabella, watching and listening, did not care if they were fair or not. She knew his guilt. There had been a time when she and her husband had truly been as one. Edward’s flaws and his favourites had not been the mechanism that had sought to rob her of her place as Queen of England. The Despensers had done that, and while the father was not the vile fiend that his son had proven to be, he was an enemy nonetheless.

  “In her mercy, the queen has ruled that pardons will be issued . . . ” Sir Trussell paused. Despenser’s face revealed a glimmer of interest, as the suspense of the sentence and the inevitable hope that life would go on exposed his apprehension. “…to all those who were falsely accused by you of crimes that they did not commit. But you, Hugh Despenser, Earl of Winchester, are sentenced to death. To be hanged.”

  Hanged.

  To die, in full view of his accusers. Isabella nodded. But not merely hanged.

  He must know his punishment so that there was time, while he still had his head and the wits within it, to dread his fate. His fear was as vital to her as the ultimate end, for she had known such fear for so long that it seemed there was not enough time for him to experience what she had endured. Therefore, the sentence must be that much worse so that, as he was taken to the place of execution, he would suffer the anticipation of horror, knowing that every step brought him closer to pain beyond bearing and humiliation past tolerance.

  “To be cut into pieces,” Sir Trussell spoke solemnly in the silent room as each man absorbed the sentence that had already been agreed upon, “and fed to the dogs.”

  Eagerly, the queen watched Despenser’s face, and then she saw it - the first flicker of mindless apprehension as he considered what this meant. The human body, whole and complete, was easily understood. But who could comprehend the concept of his own dismemberment, his body cut into sections, limbs and torso dripping blood onto the ground beneath? At what point did the senses feel the pain of the noose? What would it be like to face the hangman, knowing that when life was gone, one’s body would be severed, one’s blood would flow from the gaping hole where flesh had only moments before contained the force of life? When, as the noose tightened, did the mind cease to think? As life ebbed, would his final thoughts be of what was to come? Would he imagine the grotesque destruction of his body? Would he regret what he had done? Would he plead with God for forgiveness?

  Their eyes met again. The queen did not know how she looked to him, but she knew that at last, he feared her. Hugh Despenser had met his fate in the form of a woman, and Isabella of France was his judge.

  The lords had no qualms about watching as the noose was fitted around Despenser’s neck. They were men of battle, hardened to death. They had inflicted it with their swords and spears, and they were familiar with the body’s capitulation in the grip of mortality. Still in his armour, Despenser’s body fell out of life and into the vast, open absence. His body surrendered its fluids, and the smell of his excrement filled the cool October air.

  The lifeless body was laid flat. Where once there had been a man, there were now sections of flesh, the ragged seams of skin split by the unerring slicing of the executioner’s sword.

  There was blood, so much blood that even warriors blanched. But Isabella did not. She watched without a tremor as the man who had transgressed against her royalty and interceded in her marriage was expertly separated from his earthly body and his life.

  The head, removed from the broken body, was raised by the executioner and held up to the crowd. The tyrant was dead. Isabella’s gaze was unflinching as the head was positioned on a spear.

  “The head of the tyrant will be taken to Winchester for public display, to warn of the fate that befalls those who sin against the laws of the land,” Sir William Trussell said and thus conclude
d the execution.

  It was a wise gesture to make, but it was also one that Isabella made from her own heart. The Despensers had treated England like a Christmas goose, to be plucked and stabbed and devoured for their own satisfaction, and many people had lost more than they could afford to do without, merely so that the father and son could profit.

  How could Edward, who was not in his heart an unkind man, have been so cruel? How could he have turned his back on his duty and given into his own desires at the expense of others? The queen felt as if the man she had married and the man he had become could not be the same.

  “My love,” Mortimer murmured when they were alone again that night, their private celebration of the victory they had achieved lasting long hours. The wine had flowed freely, and it was not a night for abstemiousness. “We are invited to Hereford, to stay with the bishop. I have heard that my cousin Arundel is there.”

  “Does it matter?” Isabella asked, distracted from her thoughts. “We must put our minds to capturing the remaining Despenser.”

  “Arundel has been a supporter of the King; he must be punished.”

  “Many lords have supported Edward, but that does not mean all are traitors.”

  Mortimer’s hands on her shoulders were firm, a grip that seemed almost oppressive. “Arundel is a traitor, I know it, and he will pay.”

  “My beloved, we cannot do away with everyone who has not joined us. When we are in control of the kingdom and my son is crowned, then we will expect allegiance.”

  His fingers dug into her shoulders. “We must expect it now. Arundel must acknowledge us.”

  “Will he not accept my son as king?”

  Mortimer didn’t answer. For a moment, she wondered if Mortimer at times forgot that there would soon be a third Edward on the throne, and that Edward’s son would be king. Of course, he would need guidance, and who better to guide him than Roger Mortimer?

  Mortimer would protect her son, she told herself.