Harlot Queen

by Hilda Lewis

  Had she loved the child with passion she still could have had no time for him. She was sworn to her husband’s service—to cover his weakness, his vacillations; no mean task. And she must keep her image constant in the public eye—the good Queen, the peace-making Queen. But, above all, she must woo the barons. The pardon they had been forced to ask, did not make them love the King more or distrust him less. Nor could she blame them! He was not one to keep a promise against his inclinations. She must forever with soft words and gentle smiles soothe their angers.

  This was her work. That it was formidable she knew but not beyond her powers; none but she could carry it through.

  So far so good. But now the King was to be removed from her influence. Trouble with ever-troublesome Scotland had broken out afresh. Early in February they had the news. Robert the Bruce had broken the sworn oath. He had crossed the border; with utmost savagery he had destroyed crops, burnt houses great and small, put to the sword men, women and children. Now, back in Scotland, he was raiding towns and castles that stood by their rightful lord, the King of England. Already Perth had fallen—town and castle; now Stirling, that great stronghold looked to fall also. Mowbray, the governor, had sent his urgent messengers to Westminster.

  ‘We march for the north!’ the King cried out, glad of any change, even though it involved the discomforts of war; and called upon his barons.

  But it was not to be so easy. The Lords Ordainers, so long silent, lifted their voices. The lord King must not make war without consent of Parliament.

  ‘Much good your advice!’ he cried out white and raging, to Isabella. ‘Now you can see where pardon has led! One party, you said! One party! My friends are still my friends and my enemies my enemies. My friends will come, and willing; my enemies will not stir until Parliament give them the nod. By God I’ll not be held back! I’m no child to be constrained.’

  ‘The man that takes you for a child’s a fool!’ she said, shameless. ‘The child acts without thinking; the wise man acts with caution—and such a man are you! You will—I know you well—make a show of consulting the barons; thereafter you’ll do as you think right!’

  ‘Let those that will not come rot in Hell!’ And he was not to be mollified. ‘I’ll not wait upon their yea or nay. There’s enough to march with me—Gloucester, Pembroke and Hereford! Clifford and Beaumont stand ready, yes and many another. By God’s Face I’ll not stand to lose Scotland for any man’s spite!’

  To march at once was right; she’d say no more. Already he blamed her for his pardon of the barons. He did not ask her, as she had hoped, to go with him. A pity!Yet, staying behind she might do much—smooth down the angered Ordainers, woo the laggard barons, stir up the common people to the King’s cause. In the cold and frozen north she could do little; she was no captain of forces.

  May, in the year of grace, thirteen hundred and fourteen, the King rode out; those friends he had named rode with him. Pembroke had been sent ahead with sufficient men to deal with any ambush. A very great force had been mustered, forty thousand at the least and well-equipped. So through the early summer countryside went the great procession—wagons lumbering, high-stepping cavalry, infantry at the ready, fife and drum sounding, banners and pennants flying.

  From a high window the two Queens watched them go. ‘The King shows himself his father’s son,’ Isabella said. ‘And I thank God for it. There are over-many to twit him with playing at soldiers.’

  He is over-hasty. It was ever his way. Over-hasty to begin, over-hasty to make an end. Margaret bit back the words.

  The army was making its steady way north. By the end of the second week in June it had reached Berwick. It had crossed the Tweed no man offering to bar the way. The King was in high spirits, he and his captains in good accord.

  The King had confiscated the estates of two Scots lords and given then to the young Despenser. First breath of discord upon general good humour.

  That last piece of news set Isabella thinking. Why? Despenser had done nothing for the King except to weep with him in the matter of Gaveston. But Despenser was a handsome fellow—if you admired those fair girlish looks. Could it be possible…?

  The sickness at her heart warned her that it could! The friendliness the King had shown the young man was warming into something quite other!

  Was the Despenser boy destined for Gaveston’s shoes? In that case it was out of the frying-pan into the fire for those that had slain Gaveston. Gaveston had been greedy, but it had been a poor man’s greed, fear of known penury; and he could be, at times, generous. The greed of Despensers, father and son, was quite other; it was a cold and calculating greed; greed of rich men who could never have enough. They were careful, those two, they were cautious, and above all they were able; able as Gaveston had never been to devise policies—and always for their own good. There was no heart in them, no warmth. What their elevation could mean to herself she dared not think. Gaveston she had won—though, alas, too late. This father and son she could win—never! Now she must watch them both, seizing her every chance. If they were clever, she must be cleverer yet. Never would she lay down her hard task—but they made it so much the harder.

  And now it was the third week in June. In Edinburgh the King made a short stay to replenish food, to overhaul weapons, to look to shoes of horses and men. And then no stop until Falkirk twenty-six miles away.

  Daily the messengers rode in to kneel before the Queen.

  ‘Madam, the King has left Falkirk for Stirling; he takes the Roman road. The Scots are few in number; some say six thousand, none puts it above ten. And we with our forty thousand; who can doubt the victory?’

  The next news was not so reassuring.

  ‘Madam, the Bruce guessed our men would take the Roman road. He ordered potholes to be dug to the depth of a man’s knee and well-hid by branches. Down the road our vanguard came marching, Sir Humphrey Bohun at the head… and there the Bruce met them. Madam, he wore a crown upon a helmet all of leather; a crown as though he were King of Scotland. He! The sight enraged my lord Bohun—and can any man wonder? He went spurring forward to his death. For the Bruce, old as he is and a leper, with one blow felled him.’

  ‘And then?’ She gave no thought for Bohun save as it might affect the cause.

  ‘His men fought on. Madam, they were brave! Yet they were but a small part of the army and their captain dead! In the end they must give way. So, Madam, they turned at last; and, as they fled, they stumbled into the accursed pot-holes. And some escaped and some were taken… and those that were taken were at once put to the sword.’

  ‘How many?’ She was less concerned for those that were dead than for the number of those that were left to fight.

  ‘Almost the whole contingent. But let not Madam the Queen lose heart! It is but the beginning. We left the Roman road to cross the river further down—the Bannock, Madam. The upper course runs wild and swift through rocks; the lower course is quiet; it runs through pool and marsh and none the less deadly for that! And still we outnumber the enemy three to one; Madam, be of good cheer.’

  But of cheer she could find little. The Bruce, for all he was old and sick, was a warrior; her husband, for all his youth and strength, was not. The Bruce had a firm purpose—to free Scotland and to rule it, her independent King. But Edward? Who knew how long his purpose would stand? But even were he firm of purpose, he did not know the terrain; he was, besides, too little patient, too careless, too confident to trouble about such a thing! On the other hand he out numbered the Scots three to one at the least; that must surely count for victory.

  ‘Madam, we crossed the river a mile below the Bannock village; when we left each man was busying himself for the morrow.’

  ‘The morrow?’

  ‘Yes, Madam; to meet the Scots in battle.’

  The morrow! Then already the battle was fought; already lost and won. It had taken these messengers above a week riding in relays, day and night to reach her today!

  ‘Tomorrow, or the next day, M
adam the Queen shall have the news!’

  Tomorrow? How does one live till tomorrow? Her anguished eyes turned to Queen Margaret.

  ‘We can pray.’ The older woman said.

  We can pray. And pray she did—if one can call it praying, the bargain she sought to drive with God. She knelt offering masses, offering jewels, offering plate to God’s service, offering a chapel, offering a church; offering, offering. The half of the kingdom could scarce pay for it; yet still she went on offering. Such offers surely God could not refuse! God had refused.

  The English had been routed; the great army drowned or dead or fled.

  ‘Madam,’ and the messenger could not lift his eyes, ‘God be thanked the lord King is safe!’

  Yes, he would be safe! But how far did he shame himself and me… and me?

  She could not ask but she must know; she must know!

  He felt the pressure of her will upon him; he said, unwilling ‘Madam, the King left the field…’

  He left the field, oh God he fled!

  ‘Madam, there was no other way. He returns by way of Berwick and thence by sea!’

  ‘Tell me of the battle.’ And if he showed some spark of valour, in God’s name let me hear it …

  ‘They fought, Madam, where the river turns north. It is all black marsh; evil ground. The Bruce drew up his men in four close squares; their pikes stuck out like bristles of a hedgehog—full eighteen feet in all directions. Such a thing was never seen. Impossible to get near them.

  ‘The most part of our captains, Madam, urged the lord King to wait one day at least—the men were weary with the long, forced march. But he would not listen. Then my lord of Gloucester urged further, but still the lord King would not listen. He called the earl a coward…’

  She drew in her breath. Gloucester had spoken good sense. He was no coward nor ever had been. It was the King that was the coward; he had feared to wait until his courage should cool, the King that had fled the field!

  ‘At that, Madam, the lord Gloucester rushed into the battle; he threw himself against those murdering pikes. and so he died…’

  Gloucester killed. Driven to his death by the foolishness of the King; dead in his springtime, the brave young man. She felt tears prick in her eyes.

  On and on the dreadful tale, the appalling slaughter.

  ‘Again and again our men flung themselves against the murdering pikes. The lord Robert de Clifford died upon them, so also the lord Beaumont and many another. Gone all of them to join dead Gloucester. Hereford they took; he struggled like a lion in the net. They took also the lord bishop of Lichfield together with his clerks and all the records…’

  ‘And the seal; the privy seal? Lichfield had it!’

  ‘That, too, Madam, in Scottish hands.’

  She closed her eyes. Shame upon shame!

  ‘Madam, the men—the common soldiers—they fought; they went on fighting. Heroes all! The King was gone, the leaders dead or fled; but still they went on fighting. But it was all useless; it was worse than useless. Our cavalry could not move; it was caught between their deadly pikes and our own archers. Nor could our archers shoot; for then they must wound our own cavalry in the back. Madam, it was horrible!

  ‘And there was no stopping the Scots. They pressed on in solid blocks screaming their warcry—a wild sound to curdle the blood. They forced our men back—riders and footsoldiers; back, back, …into the marsh. And the marsh, the evil marsh took them. And that, Madam, was the most horrible sight of all. In battle a man expects to die—by sword or spear or arrow; a clean death. But this! Madam, Madam… the fine men sinking down into the mud, choking and suffocating in the mud… dying their fearful death…’

  He stopped, sickened on the thought; and she sickened, no less than he. She wished to hear no more; the rest she knew. And wished to God she did not know.

  He guessed her thoughts—as how could he not? Unwilling to leave her to shame as great as misery, he said—but he kept his head low, ‘Madam, the lord King could do no other. Those whose place it was to advise him, besought him to leave the field.’

  How much beseeching did he need? She sat stiff in her place; she could not take this easy comfort.

  ‘Madam—’ and it was as though he asked pardon for his own fault, ‘at first he would not go. But they entreated him saying, When the King is lost, all is lost. So then he did quit the field. Then such lords as were left, when they saw the King leaving, the standard carried before him, followed him. But—as I have told Madam the Queen—the men, the common men of England, still stood to the enemy. And some died in the marshes, and some in the river, and some upon the pike; and some few, by the especial grace of God, escaped. Madam there were no cowards.’

  Was there not one coward?

  The thought beat upon her sick heart.

  XV

  Madam Queen Margaret said, and she white as a bone, ‘At Berwick, at Dunbar, at Falkirk, my husband carried the day. Had he not done so they had brought him home on his shield. If the dead know aught he is shamed this day!’

  It was the first time she had faulted the King—and he not there to hear. She had, at need, spoken outright to his face; but she had allowed no criticism behind his back—not from herself, nor from any other, not even from her niece the Queen.

  Isabella said, shocked, ‘If you, Madam Aunt, allow yourself such words, what words shall they use that do not love the King? What shall Lancaster say? What Warwick?’

  Margaret said, ‘You are right, my child. There’s no word of mine can alter by one hairsbreadth what has been; or shall be!’

  Long before the last of the news came through they were to learn both of them, what the barons thought, what the country thought and what Christendom thought. Edward of England, son to great Edward, was branded coward; a fainéant that, through easy living, had lost Scotland, chiefest jewel of the crown.

  And now the last of the news came through. It was not Scotland alone that was lost; it was the flower of England’s manhood. To the great names of the dead were added other names—knights and high officers of state together with names of simple folk beyond counting. Now it was not only the loss of Scotland that England mourned, nor yet the death of her chivalry; in countless homes men wept for their dead… uselessly dead.

  Isabella felt herself spotted with the King’s disgrace. Her last, lingering regard had turned to contempt—contempt the world must never see, not for his sake but for her own. She would scant no sign of respect, nor fail in any duty as a wife. But if, his eye wandering to the young Despenser, he did not call for wifely duties, so much the better! She had borne a son; no further need to prove her womanhood. Now she would never willingly give herself to her husband nor shed one tear if he deserted her for a mignon’s bed. She had rather sleep with the Bruce himself—old and leprous as he was than with her fainéant husband.

  ‘Now the Bruce is the hero of Christendom!’ she told her aunt. ‘And well deserves it, the sick, indomitable old man!’ No need to add that, by so much as Bruce of Scotland’s honour grew, Edward of England’s honour lessened. ‘All England shall rue Bannockburn… and I think the King will rue it most!’

  The King was home again. And now he was at the mercy of his barons as never before; defeat had delivered him up bound hand and foot. Pembroke, captain of his forces, sharing the blame for Bannockburn, lost much of his influence; a pity, he was a moderate man. Now Lancaster openly led the ever-growing ranks of those that neither liked nor any way honoured the King. Friends and servants in state and household were put from their places; Archbishop Reynolds himself, the chancellor, sent packing.

  ‘My friends dismissed, my household broken up! By God I’ll not endure it!’ the King cried out.

  But endure it he must, and a good deal more.

  It was not only the high officials centred at Westminster that were driven out. All over the country, lesser officials—mayors, sheriffs, magistrates and judges, even, were put from office and men obedient to Lancaster put in their place. />
  First of the King’s friends to go were the Despensers, father and son. Able men, both, that might have been good servants to the state but for that greed to which honour and reason were alike sacrificed. It was the most popular thing Lancaster had ever done: he was the best-loved man in England. When he rode through London bonnets waved, cheers rose in the air. All England hated those two that with their extortions had made the country poorer; and especially they hated the younger that looked to take Gaveston’s place in the King’s love.

  And to all Lancaster’s decrees the King was forced to submit; for Gloucester was dead, and Hereford and many others prisoner in Scotland and Pembroke’s power diminished. The most part of the barons—and especially bitter Warwick whose hand was hot yet with Gaveston’s blood; the most part of the princes of the church together with the common folk of England looked to Lancaster, Guardian of their rights. It was Lancaster that gave instructions to the new officials himself had chosen—to Chancellor, Treasurer, Keeper of the Wardrobe; and to him they held themselves responsible. It was Lancaster that issued commands for the conduct of the realm, that gave or withheld pardons, that decided upon life and death. It was Lancaster that spoke for the barons with the King—and spoke like an equal prince.