Harlot Queen

by Hilda Lewis

  Inch by inch, the valiant men of York gave way. They had lost the day; yet they had won it. They had done the thing they had set out to do—the Queen and her children were safe on their way to Westminster.

  The Scots had no more use for York; now, by the Bruce’s command, they were for Pontefract, Lancaster’s stronghold. A master-stroke to bring Lancaster home at a run—home with his men behind him. And many a baron, fearing a like attack, followed Lancaster’s example. Each man for himself!

  Now the King of England must make what peace he could. An inglorious truce; immediate evacuation of Berwick town. England that had marched in such glory must return in shame.

  The King was the worse for the Scottish venture—a man indifferent to everything, to loss and defeat in Scotland, indifferent to the disapproval of Parliament and Council alike; indifferent, Isabella thought sickened, to everything but his light pleasures. But she, herself, had gained. She knew it. She had proved to herself her own courage, her own strength.

  A word from her and a man had gone to his death; his deserved death for slander of the King. She had faced that responsibility when the King had failed. She had washed her hands in a man’s blood, and, so the cause be right, would not fear to do it again. She had faced dire danger—danger of being carried prisoner into Scotland; the threat of ignominy and shame. She had kept her courage and her head. Before fleeing with her children she had asked for proof, weighed that proof. She had not been the Queen that foolishly ran away.

  Not to be afraid to command a man’s just death; not to panic in the face of direst danger—these were her triumphs.

  XX

  Pembroke had lost face over the Scottish campaign—and for the second time. What now? Isabella considered the matter. She did not think he would easily regain it. Nor was Lancaster likely to come back to power; certainly not for the present. The man was unpopular, and his treachery, though not proven, suspected; the aura clung.

  Edging into the seat of power—the Despensers.

  No-one now to curb the King.

  Isabella could not see the sun for the Despensers. Her hatred of them darkened her whole world. It seemed to her that, like spiders, they forever spun their web; were she not wary she, herself, must be caught therein. The King, that willing captive, had long been caught; they held him fast with sweet flatteries, they turned his head with their clever, lying arguments.

  For they were clever; so much she must ruefully admit. They might have done the country some good—save that they sought no good but their own. They were liars, they were cheats, they were utterly untrustworthy. Some dishonesty one must expect in a statesman—that she knew, but those two went beyond all decency, all belief. Men that had done them no hurt they fleeced and cast into prison there to rot. They extorted unjust dues; they would seize upon everything a man had so that he must beg his bread or sell himself—a bond servant. They accused innocent men of such evils that the poor creatures were excommunicated or executed or both; robbed of body and soul alike.

  And bewitched by his passion for the son, the King said nothing; not though the people cried aloud their hatred—and some of it for the King himself. The Despensers had no friends—least of all the Queen; and that they knew well. Beyond the poison of their tongues they could, at the moment, work her little harm—she was beloved by barons and common folk alike. But patience—they could afford to wait. Meanwhile they treated her with open insolence; and the King allowed it—as he allowed them everything.

  ‘How long must I endure the poison of their spite?’ Isabella, goaded, cried out to Madam de St. Pierre. ‘Harsh, corrupt and cruel, both of them—and the son worse than the father! He’s cast in a meaner mould; more vicious, more spiteful, even. Cruelty for its own sake—the man’s not human—a wasp to sting because he must, to sting a victim to his death!’

  ‘Madam, I think he’s not a full man! That pink-and-white, those fair curled locks, that body rounded where it should not be. The waist so pinched, the hips so padded! He’s neither man nor woman—a thing we must despise. Such men know it and it makes them spiteful!’

  ‘His wife knows the truth of that, poor wretch! He has no use for women—the King’s mignon!’

  Even did the King desire it, he could not free himself from those two. They had lent him money; and though they had repaid themselves a hundredfold, the debt, it seemed, was unpaid still. But the King did not desire it; he loved his fetters. When Gaveston fell foul of the barons, those two had stood by the King, those two alone. When Gaveston died, young Despenser had truly wept—they had been palace boys together; that grief the King could never forget… not though the tears were quickly dried. So they went on, father and son piling fortune upon fortune—one made out of offices seized by themselves, one out of offices sold, a third the rake-off of the King’s domestic expenses.

  But if the King was a poor judge of men Pembroke was not. Why then had he admitted those two to his party, allowed them seats on the Council, appointed the son High Chamberlain? Why had he given them a chance to thrust great Pembroke from power?

  When she asked him his answer was clear. ‘Because I thought through them to win the King; I thought myself strong enough to keep them in check—as but for Berwick I should have done.’

  ‘Liars and cheats! You are not overnice my lord.’

  ‘In the game I play I use any piece to protect the King.’

  ‘It is a lesson, sir, I shall remember; but I shall see to it that it’s a piece I can handle; a lesson it would seem hard to learn. There’s Badlesmere. You made him the King’s Steward. His insolence to me is intolerable—and so I have told you. But still it continues. He’s another piece you chose and cannot handle. He’s no longer your man but my uncle of Lancaster’s.’

  ‘Enemies always! That they are friends now, I cannot believe.’

  ‘It is a thing you may have to believe. That two men hate each other doesn’t make either your friend.’

  ‘Madam, you are a wiser teacher than I!’ He bowed low but whether he spoke in jest or earnest she could not tell.

  She had not bargained for this supreme elevation of the Despensers; with them she would have no truck, mutual hatred lay between them. Now she must consider the future once more. Their power hung upon the King; upon the King, alone. Let the barons press—and those two would end like Gaveston. Her future, then, it was clear, must lie with Pembroke or with Lancaster. Pembroke was the better man. But his defeat in Scotland had cost him too much; and his very moderation had led him to make too many mistakes. Lancaster? Not to be trusted… unless he saw her interests as his own. And that she could make him see; she was cleverer than he! Lancaster was her man.

  Down Pembroke. Up Lancaster.

  She was glad, now, that she had shown her uncle no coldness; now she must seek to win him with assurance of love; lure him from Pontefract where still he sulked, coax him back to Westminster. It would take time. He was a slow thinker and cautious with it. Dear God, let him not consider too long! Lancaster rubbed the Kiss of Peace from his cheeks. He thanked Madam his niece for her kind thought of him; to Westminster he could not come… at present. Of Pembroke he made no mention—the man was clearly on the decline. He could not, he said, breathe the same air as the Despensers. They ate up the country between them; and their insolence to Madam the Queen was such that flesh-and-blood could not tolerate. What he did not say she understood very well. The Despensers ride too high for the moment. Give me time.

  Until that time he was sitting quiet in Pontefract. But he was busy; he was very busy. He was in constant communication with Badlesmere—a man of no importance save as a mischief-maker; and, kept sweet with Lancaster gold, he was making all the mischief he could. He spied on the King and the Despensers; he ran with his tales to the barons. He was playing his part in Lancaster’s return.

  Isabella passed through the Queen’s apartments into her closet. In the anteroom her ladies, sitting over their work, rose to their curtsey. As she passed, the Queen noted without surpris
e—she had grown used to such slights—the jewel in Eleanor Despenser’s coif. It had been her own; part of her father’s wedding-gift. The King had taken it for Gaveston, and thereafter for his sweetheart the Despenser. But he, slighting the gift as not sufficiently fine, had thrown it to his despised wife. Jeanne Mortimer, too, the Queen noticed for her coif. It stood out from the bejewelled headgear of the others by its simplicity, its perfect freshness; there were some to think that a jewelled chaplet atoned for soiled linen.

  Of all her women the Queen might have liked these two best. Eleanor with her high look, her elegance and her charm was a true Clare; she was so like young, dead Gloucester that, coming upon her unexpectedly, your heart turned over. Wed to another, she would have been the Queen’s choice for friend and confidante… but she was Hugh Despenser’s wife. Love him she did not—she had no cause; yet she gave him perfect loyalty. She told him everything—every word the Queen let fall, every gesture the Queen made. She had been set in her place as a spy; in the early days, when she had not sufficiently reported, the thing being repugnant, there had been bruises upon cheeks and wrists. Once she had been a laughing girl; now there was little to be read in the pale oval of her face. She walked in dignity aloof from life… a dead girl walking.

  Sometimes the Queen would talk with Mortimer’s wife; she would say nothing important, waiting to see how true this new lady might be, how discreet. The appointment of Jeanne had been a surprise; but the Queen had her reasons. It was because this new lady of hers was Mortimer’s wife and in constant communication with him—a man like Mortimer, an ambitious man, needed to know what went on in court. Such a man, ambitious, knowledgeable, powerful, the Queen would know how to use! Between them Jeanne, born de Joinville, a house faithful to the Capets, was an essential bond. She was older than the others, with a clever monkey-face; that this plain yet not unattractive woman should be wife to the fascinating Mortimer was not surprising. Marriage is a matter of business; the Queen knew it better than most.

  Now, passing, she called to Madam de St Pierre to dismiss the others and then to come bringing with her my lady Mortimer of Wigmore. When they were settled about their work in the Queen’s closet, Théophania said, ‘The lord Despenser’s wife is not happy to be excluded. She will be punished for it no doubt, by her husband.’

  ‘Would to God they were at the bottom of the sea—the Despensers! Not Despenser’s wife; I must not trust her yet I wish her no harm. But the father and the son! They may yet plunge us into civil war!’

  ‘My husband fears it too!’ Jeanne said. ‘The people will no longer endure to be sucked dry!’ She bit off the end of silk with sharp, white teeth. Her husband hated the Despensers and she spoke like a good wife. ‘All those lands and revenues, all those licenses to sell and to buy, all those dues from markets and fairs, they’ve got enough, wouldn’t you think? And the son—he’s got the best part of the Gloucester inheritance as well. And still he’s not satisfied!’

  ‘Gloucester’s death was one of the tragedies of the Scottish war,’ the Queen said. ‘Not only because he was a man such as we can ill spare, but because he died without a child to inherit. The business of the Gloucester inheritance may yet drown the whole land in blood!’

  ‘But that business was settled.’ Théophania was puzzled. ‘As I remember the land was divided among the three sisters. Despenser got the lion’s share because his wife’s the eldest.’

  ‘He got the whole of Glamorgan to say nothing of half South Wales; and, because he’s what he is, he’s not satisfied,’ Jeanne said. ‘He wants the rest. He wants Newport—so my husband writes; and that belongs to Audley who married the second sister. And he wants Usk and that belongs to Damory through the youngest. He wants, in fact, the whole of the Gloucester property.’

  ‘He wants more!’ the Queen said, very slow! ‘He wants to be—Gloucester!’

  ‘It isn’t possible; even he must know it!’ Jeanne said. ‘He’s not born Clare!’

  ‘Only too possible—if he press the King hard enough!’ the Queen said. ‘The title died with Gloucester; he’s pressing the King to revive it. Gloucester’s royal title to fall so low! By God’s Face!’ she spoke with sudden passion, ‘I could love the man that puts a spoke in that wheel!’

  ‘There’s one man could do it!’ Jeanne lifted a thoughtful face, ‘and that’s the lord my husband. He leads the marcher lords—and this concerns them. And he hates the Despensers—both. Yes, he could do it but it means bloodshed, as Madam the Queen says; civil war!’

  ‘Send to him!’ the Queen commanded quick and urgent. ‘Bid him make an end of those two. For let us sit with folded hands and they’ll make an end of England. Tell him he shall have the Queen’s love.

  ‘I will tell him, Madam.’ Mortimer’s wife smiled, she took the Queen’s hand and kissed it. He shall have the Queen’s love. Later she was to remember the words; and then she did not smile.

  XXI

  Earl of Gloucester. Hugh Despenser marched steadily towards his glorious goal. The Queen watched with anger and she watched with fear. Already he ruled in Glamorgan with rights more sovereign than ever royal Gloucester. He had forced Audley to give up Newport in exchange for poor land; he had got both hands on Lundy Island… and both eyes on the lordship of Gower. The old lord was failing; Mowbray the natural heir could go bury himself with his father-in-law! Bristol he meant to have also; Bristol that fine city with the rich estuary lands of the west.

  And still Lancaster sat tight in Pontefract. Though he had estates in Wales that might also be threatened he made no move. This was Mortimer’s affair: to challenge the leadership of the marcher lords would be foolish. When his time came he would need all the support he could get.

  When will Mortimer move? The Queen asked herself night and day. But from Mortimer also—no sign.

  ‘Despenser looks to make himself King of Wales!’ she told the King and she was sharp and bitter.

  ‘Why not?’ He sent her his charming, lazy smile.

  ‘Because’—and she forgot the need for caution in the surge of anger, ‘because the people hate him!’

  ‘You mean you hate him?’ and he was smiling still.

  ‘This could cost you your crown!’ she told him, anger still driving.

  ‘My crown?’ And now his eyes were bitter above his smiling mouth. ‘As long as my loyal wife seduces my Londoners and charms my barons, I’m safe enough. I can always hide beneath her skirts.’

  ‘It is no laughing matter, sir!’ she cried out, stung.

  ‘If it were not I’d have you in the Tower. You speak sedition, my dear!’ And for all the lightness of his tone there was warning behind the words.

  Despenser’s time had come. The old lord of Gower was dead; Mowbray his son-in-law sat in the old man’s place.

  ‘Ned,’ the younger Despenser told the King, ‘Gower is forfeit. Mowbray took possession without consent or homage.’

  ‘Then we put it in more loyal hands. Gower, my sweet, is yours.’

  ‘Now Mortimer must move; surely, he must move!’ the Queen cried out.

  Jeanne Mortimer lifted her troubled head. Certainly her husband must move to protect the rights of the marcher lords; he had no choice. But, move directly against the King! It was treason.

  ‘The marcher lords will take it ill,’ Jeanne said. ‘They are not subject to this law. Mowbray takes possession through his wife; he has the right. The undoubted heir takes possession without the King’s consent—it has been their privilege and they’ll not let it go. They’ll fight to the death.’

  The marcher lords were gathering—Mortimer had sent a secret message to his wife. Now that civil war threatened the Queen lost some of her complacency. This could mean a torn and bleeding country. It could set father against son and son against father. It could mean hunger and sickness and poverty—utter devastation; and in that devastation all, all must suffer.

  Should she speak to the King, warn him of the deep, stubborn anger of the marcher lords and the threat
of civil war? Yet, surely he must understand this for himself! While she hesitated the King sent for her. Despenser’s wife in the anteroom had caught here a word and there a word and had done her duty.

  She found the King in his closet fondling his sweetheart.

  ‘Madam,’ he said unsmiling, ‘do not presume to question my wisdom. And watch your tongue. I tell you once and for all—and you may spread the good news—Mowbray is at fault. Gower is Hugh’s.’

  ‘If he can take it!’ she cried out and, too late, bit upon her tongue. To answer so was the act of a fool; but his rudeness, his stupidity, together with the Despenser’s intolerable triumph, and above all fear of trouble to come, drove her beyond reason.

  ‘Sir,’ she said and ignored the insolent look Despenser cast upon her. ‘Consider; I beg you to consider!’ And held out her hands as though she prayed. ‘Do not tread upon border privilege nor yet upon Welsh privilege. The pride of these lords you should know—you were Prince of Wales. Do not press that, in this, they are subject to English law!’

  ‘They are subject!’ Despenser broke in, insolent.

  She ignored him. ‘Sir, I beseech you, pause. It is wiser to hold by the spirit of the law than by the strict letter; and especially in this case. Mowbray is the natural heir; he inherits by right of his wife. Sir, this friend of yours…’ and she cast a look of contempt upon Despenser triumphant and smiling, ‘shall make great trouble for us all.’

  ‘You talk like a fool!’ the King said, contemptuous, forgetting that she and she alone had reconciled the barons at Leake. ‘As for that other fool—Mortimer’s wife—send her packing or it will be the worse for her! I’ve no doubt this nonsense of yours is of her making. Madam, I warn you again, guard your tongue!’

  ‘Queens have found themselves in prison for less than this!’ the Despenser said.

  She deigned no answer; but the insolence drove the colour from her cheeks.

  ‘He speaks truth; mark it well!’The King put back a lock of Despenser’s hair; arm about his friend he went laughing from the room and left her standing there.