The Traitor's Wife

by Susan Higginbotham

  Margaret stared. “You do not think Hugh has ever been unfaithful to you?”

  “No—why should I? I have never seen the least sign of another woman.”

  Margaret turned her stare to Elizabeth. “Good God, Elizabeth, she is more of a fool than I ever thought possible. Can it truly be—”

  “Ladies!” A servant ran into the chamber where the sisters were standing. “Hurry. It is the end.”

  “He was conscious just long enough to give you all his love, and to hope that you return to harmony with each other,” said Bella. Eleanor smiled wanly, thinking of her stepfather's words when she and her sisters had entered the sickroom. “It is good to see the three of you together again,” Ralph had said. “Though I would much rather not have been the cause of your reuniting.”

  Bella, making an obvious effort to keep her composure, continued, “He is to be buried in Salisbury, at the Grey Friars' house.”

  “Not with our mother?” said Margaret suspiciously.

  “He requested Salisbury and the Grey Friars in his will, my lady.” Bella brushed at her eyes. “He always had a special fondness for that order. I hope you will be able to attend his funeral.”

  “No,” said Margaret. “I must return back to my home.”

  “And my children will be missing me,” said Elizabeth.

  “As you wish,” said Bella. She said, more to herself than anyone else, “It shall be a simple tomb and a simple funeral, anyway. Ralph never did like a lot of pomp.”

  She began to weep. Eleanor put an arm around her. “Come, Bella. You are exhausted. You need to rest. I will take you to your chamber.”

  Bella obeyed. Soon she was seated in a warm bath, where she sipped wine while Amie braided the hair that Ralph had enjoyed so much. “I suppose they are leaving because Hugh and Papa will be at the funeral. Am I right, Nelly?”

  “Yes, Bella.”

  “I am sorry for it, but I want them there.”

  “Of course you do, Bella.”

  “Ralph did not entirely approve of Hugh, I think, but he would never hear him ill spoken of in my presence.”

  She sighed and let Amie and Eleanor help her out of the washtub. They slipped a smock over her head and helped her into her bed, where the sleeping aid that Eleanor had judiciously laced the wine with soon took effect. “My poor lady,” said Amie. “She loved him very much, didn't she?”

  “Yes, Amie.”

  “Better than her other husbands?” Amie had inherited her father's dark hair and eyes, though she was merely pretty, not overwhelmingly good-looking as he had been. She had also inherited, Eleanor had found, her father's famed tactlessness. But there was no malice in her.

  “I think Bella loved all three of her husbands, Amie. She has the gift of loving. But Ralph was her own choice, whereas the others were picked out for her by her father, so perhaps her love for him went a little deeper.”

  “Your husband was picked out for you by your mother, Lady Hastings told me, and by the former king. But she told me you love him very dearly too.”

  “I do, Amie.”

  “So does Lady Hastings, I know. But why do so many dislike him? I have heard that my father was disliked in the same way. It is why I ask.”

  “Your father was very close to the king, Amie, as my husband is now, and that always breeds jealousy. And the king is a generous man. He was generous to your father—he even made him an earl—and he has been most generous to my husband. That also has led to envy and malice.”

  “So that is why your sisters are so cool to you and Lady Hastings,” said Amie thoughtfully.

  Eleanor's innate honesty surfaced. “It is not only that, Amie. My sister Elizabeth and my husband had some land dealings that were not satisfactory to her, and there were disputes between my husband and Margaret's husband over their lands in Wales. And, of course, Margaret is still required to stay in Sempringham, and her husband is still a prisoner. It has not been easy for them. I'll hear of nothing against them.”

  “Of course, my lady.” Amie hoped that Lady Despenser would say more about her rather scandalous husband, but Eleanor instead rose and headed toward the wardrobe. “Has Lady Hastings enough black robes from her last husband's death, Amie? If not, we must have more dyed or made for her.”

  “Thought about my proposals, Lady Comyn?”

  “Your threats, you mean, Lord Despenser?”

  Hugh shrugged. “Call them what you wish, it all ends with Goodrich Castle and Painswick.” He settled into a window seat. “Option one is, you marry my eldest son.”

  “That puppy!” Elizabeth Comyn, niece of the late Earl of Pembroke, was a good eight or nine years older than Hugh's son. “I'll not marry a seventeen-year-old boy.”

  “Why not? He's a brave lad, very agreeable, and good-looking to boot, in my opinion. And he'll inherit my father's estates, my own, and my wife's Clare estates. But have it your way. Now let us reflect on option two. You sign over Goodrich and Painswick, see no more of me, and enjoy an inheritance which is still substantially more than it would have been had I not exerted myself on your behalf and that of little Laurence de Hastings. Really, I think of Goodrich and Painswick as a commission of sorts. You didn't complain, after all, when the division favored you and Laurence over Pembroke's other heirs.”

  “And what happens to my cousin Laurence de Hastings?”

  “He will be contracted to my daughter Nora. They're alike in age, and my wife reports that they are already quite fond of each other. It should be a happy marriage. Still not too late to say yes to option one, Lady Comyn.”

  “Is there an option three?”

  “Of course. You remain here, at my pleasure. It's a comfortable enough life.”

  Elizabeth looked around at her chamber in Pirbright manor, the Despenser property in which she had resided for some time after the death of Pembroke. Hugh indeed kept her there comfortably—she had servants, and ladies, and ample provisions and furnishings—but she was not free to leave, and she knew it. “I will make a decision shortly.”

  “I won't rush you,” said Hugh, who was unfailingly polite to Elizabeth and those similarly situated ladies he visited in person. He never raised his voice, never used vulgar language, never menaced them sexually. He even brought gifts, usually venison or sturgeon, when he paid his calls. “There is plenty of time.”

  Lady Comyn watched Hugh as he bowed and headed toward the door of her chamber. “Just how much does your wife know of these options of yours, Lord Despenser?”

  Hugh's eyes widened and his mouth tightened, and for a moment Lady Comyn feared something more than losing her land. Then his face relaxed.

  “Very little,” he said, turning on his heel. “If I were you, though, Lady Comyn, I wouldn't unburden yourself to her. I would strongly advise that.”

  While Elizabeth Comyn was mulling over her options—by late April, she had chosen option two and conveyed Goodrich Castle and Painswick to Hugh le Despenser and his father, with Hugh graciously sending a clerk to her to sign the necessary papers—the queen was residing in Paris at the palace of the Bois de Vincentz, where, between her own funds and the gifts given to her by Charles, she lived as comfortably as one could during Lent, when each meal featured a fish of some sort or another. Her pleasure in her new residence increased even further by the end of April, when she was joined by her good friend Joan of Bar, Countess of Surrey.

  Unwanted by her husband, who had tried every legal means to get shed of her, Joan, after some initial bitterness, had accepted this situation graciously and had determined to enjoy herself thoroughly on the ample allowance the Earl of Surrey was forced by honor to give her. Untouched by the troubles that had plagued Edward's reign, she nonetheless found England a rather dreary place and had spent much of the last few years in France. She had been delighted to find her friend the queen there, sans Edward. Isabella, who did not trust most of the people in her household, all of whom had been screened most carefully by Edward and Hugh, dismissed her ladies and settled
down for a pleasant gossip with Joan.

  “I hear you have been hard at work, your grace. Have you and Charles reached an agreement?”

  Isabella nodded. “Of sorts, but how it will go is anyone's guess. My brother still wants the king to perform homage.”

  “And will he?”

  “Not if Nephew Hugh has his way.” The queen was quite right; only days before, Hugh had informed the king's council that anyone who advised the king to go to France was a fool or a traitor. Not surprisingly, the council members had not been free with their opinions after that. “And he will, and all my trouble here will have been for nothing. Though I have had a pleasant time of it here at least.” She glanced at the exquisite embroidery on her robes, paid for by her brother. “Charles keeps me most comfortably, unlike my husband and his dear nephew.”

  “I don't see how you have endured it, dear. Shall you be going back soon? For your sake, I hope not.”

  The queen shook her head. “My letter will have not yet reached the king, and once he gets it, he and dear Nephew Hugh will have to discuss it, and then Edward's council and Parliament will no doubt discuss it, and then Hugh will talk Edward out of anything that the council and Parliament have decided, and so forth. It could take months.” She yawned. “Though I miss my children, it is good to be at home.”

  “Have you seen many of our countrymen here?”

  “The Earl of Pembroke's wife—Hugh has been holding up her dower, needless to say. Fortunately, she has lands here on which she can stay. The Bishop of Norwich and the Earl of Richmond. And Roger Mortimer has been pressing me to meet with him.”

  “Roger Mortimer! The escapee from the Tower? Surely you do not intend to see him. The king would be furious.”

  “I don't know if I will see him or not,” said the queen. “In any case, he is not here; he is in Hainault, for Edward would not agree to send me here if he were at the court. But he writes to Charles regularly, and Charles tells me that he wishes to see me alone, outside Paris.”

  “He can only mean bad news for you. Don't see him, darling.”

  “I will make that decision myself,” said Isabella loftily. She had seen Mortimer but twice that she could recall, after the Bannock Burn and from a distance when he had been hauled to the Tower, but his good looks, admixtured with a hint of menace, were the sort that appealed to her. “He has one merit; he is the enemy of the Despensers. Joan, do you know the half of what they have done? After Boroughbridge, they detained William de Braose's widowed daughter in prison until she signed over her reversion to the Earl of Winchester. Nephew Hugh imprisoned Lancaster's wife at York until she surrendered most of her inheritance. Mother of God, the poor woman was separated from Lancaster! She had nothing to do with his rebellion, if you may call it that. Elizabeth de Burgh has lost her Welsh lands to Despenser. Margaret d'Audley remains at Sempringham. The Countess of Pembroke I told you about just now. And these are just the noble ladies one hears about. God knows what has happened to those at a lower level. And he has even forced the Earl of Norfolk, the king's own brother Thomas, to sell him the lordship of Chepstow at a ridiculously low price!”

  “Does the Earl of Winchester have no influence over his son? I always thought of him as an honorable enough man.”

  “The Earl of Winchester wouldn't stop him if he could; since the destruction of his lands and his exile, he has changed. And Hugh's no fool; much of what he does appears on paper to be quite legal. I knew not the half of it before I came here and heard from men such as the Bishop of Winchester what was going on.”

  “Surely the king must see the danger in all of this.”

  “The king! Hugh le Despenser helped him revenge himself on the men who killed Gaveston, and he has become Edward's lover. For those two reasons, the king will neither see the danger nor do anything about it if he did see it. Don't look so shocked, Joan. It has become common knowledge that the king and Nephew Hugh are sodomites. Pages do talk. Only one adult person in England seems unaware of it, and that is Hugh's fool of a wife.”

  “Your grace! Lady Despenser is my cousin.”

  “And my niece by marriage, and a fool. She has been besotted with Hugh since the day she married him, and always will be. No one would dream of telling her the truth about him, and she would not believe anyone if he did tell her. After all, she bears Despenser's brats regularly; in her last letter to me about my son John she mentioned that there is another on the way. As if I cared!”

  “First Gaveston, and now Hugh le Despenser. You have borne this nobly, darling.”

  “Oh, don't mistake the situation, Joan. Edward has never shunned my bed, and at least his exploits out of it won't produce a string of bastards to be given lands and titles. I was willing enough to overlook his perversity. But when Hugh le Despenser seized my lands, dismissed my own servants…”

  “But are not the lands in the king's hands?”

  “Yes, and whatever goes to the king goes to Hugh, directly or indirectly. He is waxing fat now. But someday…”

  She got up and gazed out the window. “Roger Mortimer has the right idea. He knows that there will be no good government in England until the Despensers are separated from the king. And he is willing to risk all to make that happen.”

  “Your grace, how do you know this?”

  “Because, Joan dear, he has told me so. Through my brother.”

  “And how does he plan to separate them from the king?”

  “That,” said Isabella coolly, “he has not decided upon yet.”

  Seventeen-year-old Hugh le Despenser, his first cousin Hugh de Hastings, and his young uncle Edward de Monthermer watched the breakers from the ramparts of Dover Castle, to which they had taken their dice and their boredom on a hot August afternoon. “Think this will be the day?” asked Hastings.

  The three young men, along with many others, were awaiting the king, with whom they were to sail for France, for Edward, rather to the surprise of Isabella, had agreed to pay homage to Charles. While his would-be entourage had gathered at Dover Castle, and an advance party had headed to France, the king had settled at the nearby monastery of Langdon.

  “I hope so, because I can't afford to lose any more money at dicing,” said Monthermer. “What do you think, Despenser? Will he go or back out? What does your father advise?”

  Hugh le Despenser winced, for he was always uncomfortable when the subject turned to his father, even in sympathetic company like that of Hastings and Monthermer. He loved his father and enjoyed spending time with him, but he had been in the wider world too long not to know that his father was disliked and that there was some justification for it. How much Hugh did not know, for his father was no more forthcoming about his darker activities with his eldest son than he was with his wife. “I've no idea,” he said a bit irritably. “Father doesn't discuss the king's business with me, nor should he.”

  Hastings, who as nephew to Hugh le Despenser the younger and grandson to Hugh le Despenser the elder also had ambivalent feelings toward his relations, understood his cousin's discomfiture. Quickly, he said, “I'm in no hurry to go to France anyway, for I've a bride to meet. Did I tell you, Hugh? My mother has arranged with the king to purchase the wardship of Margery Foliot. Edward here already knows; he stood surety for Mother. Margery's quite pretty, I hear, and will bring Elsing manor with her. She has been a ward of the crown and staying in the Tower, but soon she will be coming to live with my mother at Marlborough, and then I shall see her. But I can't marry her until next year. Mother says she needs time to develop.”

  “Or you do,” said Edward amiably. “Get that tavern maid you are always going on about to show you some things before your wedding night, will you, please? Or otherwise it will be a sad occasion.”

  “I don't go on about that tavern maid!”

  Despenser consulted an imaginary memoranda book. “First of August, 1325. Went to Black Chicken. Saw tavern maid; mentioned her to friends. Second of August, 1325. Spoke to tavern maid; mentioned her to friends. Thi
rd of August. Tavern maid talking to blacksmith. Greatly cast down; mentioned her to friends. Fourth of August. Tavern maid accepted hair ribbon. Elated; mentioned her to friends. Fifth of August—”

  “Well,” said Hastings mildly, “she is a natural blonde.”

  Despenser's page hurried toward them. “Beg pardon, sir, but a messenger just arrived downstairs. The king has changed his mind. He will not be going to France.”

  “Why?”

  “He says he is ill, sir.”

  Not a person at court could ever remember having seen the king ill; he did not even have head colds. As the friends glanced at each other, the page added, “I hear that he will be sending his son Edward in his place.”

  “You wished to see me, sir, and I have agreed. But I am rather surprised at your coming to Paris, when you are not supposed to be in France at all.”

  Roger Mortimer smiled at the queen. “As some who are supposed to be in France are not in France, perhaps that is an excuse, your grace?”

  “Perhaps. What is your business with me?”

  “I shall get to that. Tell me, your grace, now that your son Edward will be coming to France as Duke of Aquitaine, what shall you do after he pays his homage?”

  “Why, return to England, what else?”

  “Yet you have tarried here long enough this summer.”

  “I have expected all of this time to be joined by my husband, sir. And I might have been needed for other negotiations.”

  Mortimer laughed. “The truth is, your grace, you've been in no hurry to return home. And who blames you? Not I. What, after all, have you to return to? A husband who can't win a war, who can't command the respect of his barons, who is fair game for any man willing to bed him.”

  “How dare you speak of these things to me?”

  “I dare quite a bit of things, as you shall see. And I only speak the truth, and you know it. But the list goes on. Your estates have been seized, your servants banished, yourself put into the keeping of Hugh le Despenser's little wife. Is that what you wish to return to, your grace? If so, you are a fool.”