Harlot Queen

by Hilda Lewis

  Gossip was growing louder. Isabella did not care. This was not England; this was France where such things were better understood. Meanwhile there was the business on which she had been sent. Charles was willing enough to be reasonable—he was not a quarrel some young man; but that would settle the affair far too soon to please his sister. ‘The King of England is bound to pay homage for his French lands,’ she told him. ‘If of your courtesy you spare him this, how shall it go with the other lords great and small that hold land of you?’

  Yes, he saw the wisdom of that! To England went his letter.

  The King of France, your suzerain, agrees that all your possessions in France… shall be restored to you as soon as you, yourself, come to pay homage. Until that homage be paid, the King of France holds them in charge. Out of love for our very dear sister we grant you until the first day of the eighth month of this year, thirteen hundred and twenty five.

  Four months; four months to enjoy her love. In four months much could happen!

  Edward, they heard, had fallen into a fine Plantagenet rage. And the Despensers encouraged him. If the King of England cross into France his armies shall pay homage for him! they declared.

  ‘Oh,’ Isabella said and she was laughing—she laughed easily these days, ‘men he may collect and ships make ready—and there they’ll stay, his side of the Channel. Fighting; he loathes it. And even had he a mind to it the Despensers would not trust him out of their sight. Stay in England without the King? They dare not. Without his protection they’d not live a day. The barons would see to it. And let the barons delay, the mob would tear them in pieces. I tell you he’ll not come!’

  She was right. The Despensers spoke. They would not again permit the King to leave England. And more; any man that should advise him to cross into France they would hang—a traitor.

  ‘Is my brother of England so weak as to allow it?’ Charles asked. ‘Has he no shame in the eyes of Christendom?’

  ‘He’ll find the way to save his face!’

  August. And the King of England ill; too ill to cross the sea.

  She had expected it; she knew her man. Her plan was ready; a plan simple, reasonable, excellent.

  ‘Brother,’ she said, ‘the King of England is ill. But, well or ill, you’d get no good of him. His word’s not worth the breath with which he speaks. But… suppose he agree to send my son in his place? Suppose he send the Prince of Wales? Ned’s a boy; but he stands to his word like a man!’ And waited, breath indrawn, for the answer.

  ‘Only the man that holds the land can pay homage,’ Charles said. She had known the answer; the only answer. She was ready.

  ‘Suppose my lord husband agree that you grant the lands not to him, but to my son; would that suffice?’

  ‘It would suffice.’

  She had won. With wile and guile she had won. Her body could scarce contain its triumph. She knew well that whatever her husband might feel about letting these lands pass to his son, the Despensers would force him to it. They would move heaven and earth to keep their protector in England… they had not forgotten the fate of Gaveston!

  XXVIII

  The Prince should come; her husband had agreed.

  ‘We shall have the prince in our hands!’ she told Mortimer. ‘Now we shall make our own terms with my lord husband!’ And she made of those last words an insult. ‘God has been good, my love! He sent me back to France, He gave us to each other; and now He sends me my son that we may set the King and his accursed friends dancing to our tune.’

  Mortimer’s lips lifted in a grin; it gave him the wolfish look that excited her. ‘It is like a woman to besmirch her husband’s honour, to enjoy her love—and then to proclaim it from God! It is like a woman to plot with her lover to dispose of her husband—and thank God for it.’

  ‘Dispose of the King! I have never said it!’ Nor, indeed, had she. By making terms she had meant little but staying in France and enjoying her paramour; or, at most, bringing him back pardoned that she might enjoy him still.

  ‘Do you play innocent?’ Mortimer cried out. Rough with disappointment that ambition had leapt too far, he pulled her down upon the bed. She gave herself up with ecstasy—an ecstasy forever tinged with melancholy—he was a man soon to tire; the longer she could satisfy his ambition, the longer he would satisfy her body. That ambition she must feed little by little; for ambition satisfied he’d make no bones about leaving her. She was more than ever aware, that let him be never so deep in love—which was not likely—he would never lose sight of the claims of wife and family. He was of great family and that family, in the end, must come first. But she? For love of him she would sacrifice husband and children. But not the crown; not the crown. Even in her moments of ecstasy she knew it; that was a treachery her royal blood could not allow.

  The Prince’s first journey from home. The King was concerned as to how the boy would bear himself; he gave his instructions and his warnings. The Prince listened with respect; but when the younger Despenser sought to add his lessons, the boy turned away with scant ceremony.

  He was thirteen. He did not perfectly understand the relations between those two, he fancied, though, it might not stand to his father’s credit. But he knew perfectly well what all England knew—that the Despensers, father and son, commanded the King; and for that he hated them. He loved his father; as a little boy he had delighted in the presents—the hound, the horse, the little ship carved by the King’s own hand. Now, at thirteen, he loved his father still—the handsome man, generous and loving to his children, skilled in every sport, kindly to all, save when his Plantagenet rage took hold of him—a failing the boy knew he must look to in himself. But most of all he hated the Despensers because they had insulted his mother; they had caused her great unhappiness, they had made a division between her and his father. He loved his parents equally; and that love the Despensers had tried to corrupt. With them, as far as was in his power, he’d have nothing to do!

  He was overjoyed to be journeying into France; he had never left home before and he was, besides, half a Frenchman. He had heard from his mother of the glories of France, the gaiety of the court; and above all he longed to see his mother again. And he wanted to see Mortimer—there was a hero if you like! Mortimer had escaped the Tower—how nobody knew; that would be a tale worth hearing! He was Prince of Wales and heir to the throne; but he was only thirteen and ready as any boy to hero-worship.

  He was to sail on the twelfth day of September; Stapledon, good bishop of Exeter and one of the few men the King could trust, should have him in charge.

  Isabella pulled a face when she heard that last. ‘This Stapledon the prim-prude—he never liked me! When I think of the tales he could carry back, I tremble.’

  ‘He may not live to carry them!’ Mortimer said, amiable.

  ‘God is good; but not, I doubt, so good!’

  ‘Then we must help Him a little.’ At her surprised look his lips lifted in that wolfish grin.

  The Prince had arrived at Boulogne. He had been met by his mother and a great retinue; now he was on his way to Paris and his uncle. He was charming everyone with his young courtesy, his grave bearing; and then, suddenly, by his boyish pleasure, his clear young laughter. He had not the handsome look of the Capets nor yet of his father; but he was so fresh, so honest, so ready to please and be pleased. Isabella presented her charming well-mannered boy to her brother with pride. Young, honest and innocent; gossip lowered its voice as he went by.

  He was surprised to find that he did not like Mortimer; he had come prepared to hero-worship; and he smarted with disappointment. He no longer wanted to hear of the wonderful escape; unlike his mother he was not taken by that wolfish grin. He was surprised, also, to find the man so often in private conversation with her. Nor did he like the way Mortimer carried himself towards his mother, Madam the Queen of England. The man had a way of touching her—shoulder or hand; and once it was her breast. That she did not countenance such behaviour was clear in the quick flush of her ch
eek and the sharp glance of her eye. She bore with it, the boy supposed, out of her courtesy. But—could she not see it?—Mortimer was, in his way, no less disrespectful than the Despensers themselves.

  ‘I do not like this Mortimer,’ he told Stapledon, ‘neither the man nor his manners. I would to God he were still fast-locked within the Tower!’

  ‘You must make some allowance for the manners of France!’ He tried to calm the boy; but for all that the good bishop was troubled. The Queen of England’s behaviour did not, to say the least of it, consort with the dignity of the throne; he must indeed condemn it—a mortal sin.

  Young and guileless the boy might be, but he was no fool. He had caught a scrap of conversation between his mother and Mortimer and, puzzled though he was, knew how to put two-and-two together.

  ‘My lord bishop,’ he said, and was careful how he chose his words, ‘I think you are… perhaps… safer in England.’

  Stapledon looked up sharply. The King’s friend, he had been looked upon sourly by Madam Queen Isabella. ‘You know something, sir?’

  ‘I know nothing; but I fear much. You should leave France, my lord, as soon as you may. Would to God I might go with you!’ Walter Stapledon asked no more question; he would put no further strain upon the boy’s loyalty. He, himself, had felt some malice—and the boy was neither a mischiefmaker nor a fool. Stapledon was not one to waste time. Leaving his retinue behind he travelled post haste through the night. By daylight he had reached the coast and found, by good fortune, a ship on the point of departure.

  The King of England listened to my lord bishop with dismay.

  That the Queen had cuckolded him with Mortimer he did not for a moment believe. Royal pride forbade such belief! But that she had been indiscreet was only too clear; foolish, she had smeared her honour and his own. For the first time he began to question whether there had not been something between those two—his enemy and his Queen? The Despensers had thought so; he remembered their suspicions. Had her hand, after all, been in the fellow’s escape? He could not forbear mentioning it to Hugh the Younger, asking his question and himself answering it. ‘No, no! It could not be! And why should it be? They have set eyes upon each other once and once only!’

  ‘Once is enough for mischief between men and women!’ Despenser said.

  Despenser had planted the barb; and the King could not withdraw it. The Queen was a snake, a serpent. She must not be left where she could work her mischief. She must be commanded home at once.

  Twenty-first day of September, in the year of grace thirteen hundred and twenty-five, the Prince of Wales, handsomely attended, went in procession to Bois-le-Vincennes to pay homage for Gascony. Proud, yet somehow humble, high upon the great white horse, he made a gallant showing; and as he went, there were cheers and blessings for the boy from England, so courteous and so debonair.

  Isabella’s pleasure in the longed-for event was spoilt. This homage, this peace was of her making; others had failed but she and she alone had brought it about. And now, the weak-willed fool her husband that had not lifted a finger in the matter, had dared summon her home; home to the insults—and worse maybe, that the Despensers chose to put upon her. He had commanded her to leave this court where she was treated with all a Queen’s dignity, where she was happy; this court and her lover.

  ‘Sir,’ she told her brother when, somewhat unwilling, he reminded her of her wifely duties, ‘I am not truly married; nor any way a wife. Marriage is a joining together of man and woman—a sharing of flesh and spirit. These wicked men, these Despensers have come between my lord and me. It is they, not I, that break the bond. The father sows his discord so that my husband is divorced from me in spirit; as for the flesh, I am banished my husband’s bed. Shame it is to say it, yet the thing must be said—the son takes my place therein. They have made me a widow, flesh and spirit.’

  Something of this he had known, and had shown her the more kindness. Now, when he questioned her she said, ‘Brother, I fear the Despensers; I fear them for my life. Since they could not break my marriage one way, they mean to do it another. They have it in mind to put me to death; and they will do it, too. They hate me because I would stand between them and the King to protect him.’

  Edward wrote courteously requesting the return of his wife; Charles made a reluctant stand.

  The Queen came here of her own will and may freely return if she chooses. But, if she choose to remain, she is my sister and I refuse to send her away.

  And, Edward writing more urgently, Charles replied,

  I cannot permit her to return to you unless she is guaranteed from evil that is meditated against her by the Despensers…

  Isabella awaited the next move. What she had told her brother was true. She did fear the Despensers—and with good cause. But what she had not told him was equally true. Were the impossible to happen; were Edward to dismiss the Despensers and seek his wife again, she’d have none of him. ‘Share his crown, I would!’ She told Théophania, breast heaving, eyes aflame ‘Share his board—that also if I must. But share his bed—never!’

  No need to say it. Théophania understood perfectly. The Queen belonged to Mortimer. She was a woman in love for the first time; and, Théophania would swear, for the last. One could grieve at such folly, such fall from grace; one could disapprove. But one could not blame. Her husband despised her, her lover lusted after her, both alike insulting her womanhood. Between husband and herself—a gulf no woman could cross. Between lover and herself some human warmth, a giving and a taking. For so long spirit had starved with flesh. Was it not possible that, satisfying flesh, she might feed spirit also; through mortal sin to come at last to some excellence of soul? Théophania sighed. The matter was beyond her.

  Isabella explained to her son why she dared not return home. She must, she knew, be careful what she said; he disliked Mortimer and made no secret of it.

  ‘It is the Despensers; accursed father, accursed son. Let me return and nothing would save me from death! Your father promises me safety; but in his heart he sees no need of such a promise. A foolish woman’s whim he thinks it. Well I cannot blame him; a man must trust his friends!’ And she was too clever to belittle father to son. ‘But let him turn his back a moment, let him but close his eyes—and goodbye Queen!’

  He saw that she was shivering a little and put a comforting hand upon hers. ‘I hate them, also. When I am older—let my father do what he will—I will make an end of them for you. And Madam, dear mother, till there’s no more danger stay in France, I beseech you; come home no more.’

  Edward was bewildered by his wife’s accusations. Danger to her life! What nonsense; none but a foolish woman could have thought of it. She had been angry with his two Hughs—and, perhaps, not unnaturally. But beyond sequestering her lands and cutting down her incomes—and both dictated by needful economy—they had done nothing to her hurt. All this he must make clear to his brother of France.

  …You have been told, dearest brother, that our companion the Queen of England, dare not return to us, being in peril of her life from Hugh le Despenser. Certainly, dearest brother, she cannot have fear of him, or any other person in our realm. By God, if Hugh or any other man alive in our dominions would wish to do her ill and it came to our knowledge, we would chastise him in such a manner that it would be an example to all others…

  ‘But it would not come to his knowledge,’ Isabella told her brother.

  ‘They would see it did not; they are sly and secret as the grave.’

  Charles nodded. He went on reading.

  We beseech you, dearly beloved brother, that you will be pleased for your honour and ours and more especially for that of our consort, to return her to us with all speed, for certainly we have been ill at ease for want of her company in which we have such delight…

  ‘Such delight!’ she cried out. ‘By God he is forsworn!’

  … And if our surety is not enough…

  ‘It is not enough!’ she cried out.

  …then le
t her come on pledge of your good faith in me…

  ‘There is no faith. Brother, be warned. There’s no pledge can stand against the lies of the Despensers!’ And she wrung her hands.

  ‘My brother of England asks also for his son; with that you can have no quarrel. Listen.

  …and we pray you suffer him to come to us with all speed for we have often sent for him and have great need of his counsel…’

  ‘His counsel—and he but thirteen!’ And now she was openly mocking both writer and letter. ‘Need of a hostage; more like, a hostage to bring me back! I take this to be further proof—if proof were needed—of Despenser perfidy and his own great foolishness.’

  Letters. Letters. Letters.

  Autumn gave way to winter, yet still there was no respite. Isabella had come to dread the arrival of the messengers; she wondered how long her brother would endure the perpetual bombardment.

  And still it went on.

  Edward, King of England, to Isabella Queen and consort.

  Lady we have often informed you of our great desire to have you with us; and of our grief at your long absence. You do us great mischief by this. Therefore we will that you come to us with all speed and without further excuses. Before the homage was performed you made that your excuse. Now you will not come for fear of the Despensers…

  Again, again the Despensers! Again the protestations that never had they shown her aught but honour. Aught but honour! And they daring their reproof in the King’s own presence; and all the time Edward sitting there and nodding and smiling. Had either of those two lifted a hand to strike her, still he would have gone on smiling. What safety if she were fool enough to return? She struck upon the letter with the flat of her hand. What safety?

  And now it was the Prince’s turn.

  From Edward King of England to Edward Prince of Wales.

  Very dear son, as you are young and of tender age we remind you of that with which we charged you at your departure. You answered then, as you know, with goodwill, that you would not disobey any one of our injunctions at any point, for anyone. Since your homage has been received by our dearest brother the King of France, be pleased to take your leave of him and return to us with all speed in company of your mother. If she will not come then come you without further delay. Stay not for your mother nor for anyone else on our blessing.