by Jean Plaidy
The treatment Margaret had received when she had first gone to Scotland as a child bride had had an effect on her health from which she had never fully recovered. And now that little Henry showed signs of growing weaker the Queen Mother feared that God had turned His face from the royal family.
Death did not come singly, she said. Little John had been followed very quickly by her dear husband and ever since then she had been fearful for her darlings.
Edward ordered that several sheep should be freshly slaughtered so that the little boy could be wrapped in their skins. This was considered to be good for those who suffered from shivering fits because the animal heat was calculated to supply the warmth a sick person lacked.
More wax images of his body were made and taken to various shrines to be placed there and burned in oil. A hundred poor widows were engaged that they might perform vigils in the churches praying for his recovery. The physicians were on constant attention and either the Queen or the Queen Mother kept vigil at his bedside.
They talked of what it could be that ailed him. Little John had suffered in the same way. The child seemed to shrink and grow more and more listless every day.
‘Why does this happen to the boys?’ demanded the Queen.
‘It is almost like a curse,’ the Queen Mother said. ‘I wonder sometimes whether it has anything to do with the de Montforts.’
‘Why be so cruel to a little boy?’
‘Because that little boy could one day be King perhaps.’
‘I hate the Tower,’ said the Queen. ‘It fills me with dread. I cannot bear to think of my children living there. Edward has said I may choose where I like and we shall have our home there, but of course the King must move around and I believe it is well that we should all be together. I think I shall choose Windsor. Do you think that would be healthier for Henry?’
‘I am sure of it, my dear. Have you visited Windsor recently?’
‘No, but I mean to. It has been so necessary for us to be here in Westminster for the celebrations.’
The Queen Mother’s eyes were momentarily glazed as she recalled her own coronation. She had been brought to the Palace of the Tower and she had not noticed that it was gloomy; perhaps that was because her coronation had been more splendid than any and she had been well aware of the shining approval in her husband’s eyes. Oh, to be young again, to go back to all that glory, with the knowledge that she was clever and above all so beautiful that her husband adored her! This mild little creature – good as she was – could know nothing of the happiness which had come to Eleanor of Provence.
And now anxieties beset her. Edward was her dear son but he was stern with her, reprimanding her for spending a little money. Edward had no idea how to live graciously. She did hope he was not going to develop parsimonious ways. And she was worried about little Henry who was going exactly as young John had gone, wasting away, and she knew that wherever they moved would make no difference. And what of Margaret who had never fully regained her strength; and Beatrice was pregnant, and she was always afraid when they had children. She was growing sick with worry.
She let the Queen talk about the advantages of Windsor over Westminster. There was no point in frightening the poor girl with her own fears.
She herself talked of Windsor and how her husband had loved it.
‘He strengthened the defences,’ she said, ‘and rebuilt the western wall. You must see the curfew tower, my dear. He had that built. He had a genius for architecture and how he loved it. If the people had not been so foolish and made such a nuisance of themselves whenever he wanted to spend a little money in beautifying castles, he would have done so much more.’
‘I like Windsor,’ said the Queen, ‘I like the river and I think the air will be fresh and good for Henry.’
‘I doubt it not. My husband always said it was. I think it was his favourite place. How we talked and grew excited about the changes he made there! He insisted on murals and they were always of a religious nature. He was a very pious man. Oh so good he was! He loved the colour green. He liked blue and purple too. You soon realise that when you go into those rooms. It was just after our marriage that he made such changes to the castle. “For you, my dear,” he said, “and if there is something you do not like you must tell me.” He made chambers overlooking the cloisters and he had a herb garden made for me … Oh yes, my dear, you will be happy at Windsor.’
‘I feel that I shall be. As soon as I feel that Henry is strong enough for the journey I shall take him there.’
Alas, each day the child seemed to grow weaker and the Queen was in a quandary. Should she take him away to the country or would it be wiser to leave him where he was? In the meantime she engaged more widows for the vigils and more images were burned in oil.
The journey to Windsor would be so long but the Queen felt the need to take the child away from London so she arranged to go with him to Merton Priory and there prayers could be offered up for his recovery. ‘It might be,’ she pointed out to Edward, ‘that if they are in a holy place God might listen to us.’
So she took the little boy to Merton Priory, which being not far from Westminster, meant that the journey was not too strenuous. As for the child, he was quite happy to go as long as she was with him.
‘There,’ she told him, ‘you are going to get well. You are going to grow into a big strong boy.’
‘Like my father?’ he asked.
‘Exactly like him,’ she assured him.
But she wished that she had taken him to Windsor. How pleasant for the little boy to have been in those rooms made beautiful by his grandfather. She could have told him the stories of the pictures which adorned the walls. A priory was by its very nature a quiet place.
‘As soon as you are well,’ she told him, ‘we are going to Windsor.’
‘All of us?’ asked the little boy.
She nodded. ‘Your father, your grandmother, your sister and myself … we shall all be there and soon there will be another little brother or sister to join us. You will like that, Henry.’
Henry thought he would and he was clearly happy to be with his mother. He had never forgotten the long time she had been away from him.
‘When you are well …’ She was constantly using that phrase to him but each day when she rose, and even during the night, she would go to his little bed and assure herself that he had not already left them.
As the days passed she knew that Merton had nothing to offer him.
Perhaps, she thought, we should go back to Westminster.
But Henry never went back. One morning when she went to his bed she realised that the vigils of widows, the images in oil and the skins of the freshly killed sheep had been of no avail.
The little Prince had gone as his brother John had before him.
Her spirits were buoyed up by the child she was carrying.
Edward said, ‘It will be a boy, you see. God has taken Henry but he will give us another boy. I am sure of it, my love.’
Edward was upset but not as deeply as she and the Queen Mother were. A deep depression settled on the latter.
‘Nothing goes right for me since the King died,’ she complained.
Those about her might have said that nothing had gone right for others while he lived, but they dared not to her.
It was almost as though she had had a premonition of disaster for, shortly after the death of the little Prince, a messenger came from Scotland with the news which she had been dreading.
Alexander had sent him to tell her that Margaret was very ill indeed, and that when they had returned to Scotland after the coronation her health had taken a turn for the worse.
The Queen Mother, frantic with grief, was ready to start immediately to her daughter, but Edward restrained her.
‘Nay, Mother,’ he said, ‘you must not go. Stay awhile. There will be more news later.’
‘Not go? When my own daughter is ill and needs me? You know that when Margaret was a prisoner in that miserable castle of
Edinburgh I urged your father to leave at once that we might go to her. Do you think he tried to detain me?’
‘No, dear Mother, I know he did not. But this … this is different.’
‘Different! How different? If a child of mine needs me that is where I shall be.’
He looked at her sadly and the horrible truth dawned on her.
‘There is something else,’ she said slowly. ‘They have not told me the truth …’ She went to him and laid her hands on his chest. ‘Edward,’ she said quietly, ‘tell me.’
He drew her to him and held her fast in his arms.
‘There is something else. I know it,’ she cried.
She heard him say what she dreaded to hear. ‘Yes, dear Mother, it is true that there is something else. I wanted it to be broken gently.’
‘So … she is gone … my Margaret … gone.’
‘Alexander is heart-broken. He had summoned the best physicians, the most noble prelates to her bedside. There was nothing that could be done. She went peacefully – our dear Margaret. She is at rest now.’
‘But she was so young … my little girl … just a child.’
‘She was thirty-four years old, my lady.’
‘It is too young to die … too young … too young … They are all dying … yet I am left.’
‘And will be with us for many years to come, praise God,’ said Edward. ‘I understand your grief. I share it. Pray let me take you to your chamber. Shall I send the Queen to you? She has a rare gentleness for times like this.’
‘First tell me.’
‘I know only that she had been ailing for some weeks. She was never really strong.’
‘I know that well. They undermined her health, those wicked men up there. I shall never forgive the Scots for this. She should have stayed with me. We should never have let her go.’
‘She had her life to live. She had her husband and her children. She loved Alexander dearly and he her. She was happy in Scotland once they grew up and were together. Let us thank God that she did not suffer. Alexander says her death was peaceful in the castle of Cupar. They had gone to Fife for a short sojourn, and there she had to take to her bed. Alexander says that she was buried with great ceremony in Dumfermline and that the whole of Scotland weeps for her.’
‘My daughter … my child …’ mourned the Queen. ‘I loved her so much, Edward. She was my favourite child after she went to Scotland. I shall never forget the anguish we suffered when we heard of her plight. And now she is dead … Her poor children! How they will miss her … And Alexander … He loved her I know. Who could help loving Margaret …’
‘I will take you to my wife,’ said Edward gently. ‘She will know how to comfort you better than I.’
While the Court was mourning the death of Queen Margaret of Scotland Beatrice gave birth to a daughter.
It was a difficult confinement and the physicians thought that the shock of her sister’s death had affected Beatrice adversely, and for this reason her own health began to fail.
Fortunately for the Queen Mother she could be with this daughter, but this brought little comfort to her because she realised that Beatrice seemed to be in the same kind of failing health from which Margaret had suffered.
Beatrice coughed a great deal; she was easily fatigued and a terrible premonition seized the Queen Mother.
‘Has God truly deserted me?’ she asked her daughter-in-law.
The Queen replied that she must not despair. Beatrice had her dear little daughter whom she had named Eleanor as she said she would and very soon she would recover. She had had five children before the new baby and had come satisfactorily through the ordeals.
But Beatrice’s health did not improve and her husband grew more and more concerned.
The Queen Mother warmed to him when he talked to her of his fears. He truly loved her. That much was obvious and she knew then that that was something for which she should be grateful. All her children had made happy marriages, and they were rare enough, particularly in royal circles, and she believed it was clue to the example she and their father had set them. ‘One thing we taught them,’ she told Lady Mortimer, one of her closest friends, ‘was the joy of family life and how when it is ideal there is nothing on this earth to compare with the happiness it brings.’
But what John of Brittany had to say to her gave her no comfort.
‘My lady,’ he said, ‘Beatrice’s health was impaired in the Holy Land. She should never have gone, but she insisted and maybe she will be blessed for it, but I am deeply concerned for her. The dampness of the climate here aggravates her chest. I want to take her back to her home in Brittany and that without delay.’
The Queen Mother was silent. Her heart cried out against this. Beatrice was her great comfort now that she had lost Margaret. In looking after this daughter she could find some solace. But if she went away, how lonely she would be! And yet, she had seen her daughter’s health deteriorate, and it might well be that John was right. Certainly he was looking at her now with such poignant pleading that she found it impossible to protest.
‘She longs to be with her children,’ said John. ‘She is torn between you and them. She often reproaches herself for having left them to accompany me on the crusade. I believe that if I took her to our home she might recover.’
Whatever the Queen Mother’s faults she had never failed to do what was best for her children.
Sorrowing, she took her farewell of her remaining daughter.
She tried not to worry about Beatrice. John had assured her that he would send frequent messengers to her with news of her daughter’s health. She would let herself believe that a rest in her own home would be good for Beatrice although she believed in her heart that if Margaret had stayed in her care instead of going back to that bleak Scotland she would have nursed her back to health.
She turned her attention to her granddaughter Eleanor who had to be comforted for the loss of her little brother Henry. Young as she was they would soon have to consider her betrothal in some quarter from which good could come to England. Then there was the Queen who was growing larger every week and must soon give birth – pray God a son this time. If she had a boy that would lift the spirits of them all. It would show that Heaven had not completely turned against them. For with so many cruel deaths one began to wonder. ‘Oh God, send us a boy,’ prayed the Queen Mother; and being herself she could not help adding: ‘You owe that to us.’
Edward was deeply involved in matters of state. He was concerned about possible trouble on the Welsh border and these matters occupied him so much that he seemed to feel the family bereavement less than the Queen Mother expected.
‘He is not like his father,’ she mourned. But then who could be like that beloved man? Henry would have forgotten everything in his grief for his daughter. He never allowed state matters to come before his love of his family.
Her son Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, was preparing to leave for France. When he came to say goodbye to her she could scarcely restrain her emotion.
‘It seems as though you are all going away,’ she mourned.
Edmund was of a merry nature. Light-hearted and popular with his friends – perhaps because he was notoriously generous – he lacked his brother’s seriousness. Of course he had not the responsibilities.
‘I shall be back ere long, dear lady,’ he assured her. ‘Back with my bride.’
‘Oh, Edmund, I trust she will be a good wife to you.’
‘I am sure of it,’ he said with characteristic optimism.
She looked at him with affection – the slightly stooping shoulders which had earned him unfairly the name of Crouchback endeared him to her. He was so much more vulnerable than Edward, and she was beginning to feel a certain resentment towards Edward because he showed so clearly that he did not need her and was not going to listen to her advice. That affair of the bridge had made a rift between them. He would always be her beloved son, of course, her firstborn, the most handsome young man she had ever seen
– but he was showing clearly that he did not need her and she had always been at the very heart of her family. It is well for him, she thought, that he has a meek wife without a thought in her head but to say ‘yes, yes, yes’ to everything he wants. That suits him well. He would not tolerate a woman of spirit.
She smiled, thinking of her husband’s pride in her, how he would never have thought of acting without her. Oh Henry, Henry, if only you were with me now!
‘My dear son,’ she now said to Edmund, ‘be wary of the French. My sister married the French King and I have received help from them – mainly through her – but I would say be wary of them.’
‘Never fear. I shall be able to look after myself and my interests.’
‘There is nothing that can bring more comfort to the family. Tell me of Blanche, your wife-to-be, this daughter of Robert of Artois.’
‘And through him royal. As you know, her first husband was Henri Count of Champagne, and King of Navarre.’
‘She is a beautiful woman, I hear, and has already proved she can bear children.’
‘She has a daughter of her first marriage – Jeanne. I trust she and I will have sons and daughters.’
The Queen Mother nodded. ‘I remember Robert well. I was in France when my sister married the French King. That made a bond between France and England when I became your father’s bride. But although they said that my sister’s husband was a saint and indeed called him Saint Louis, I never trusted them. Your father was to learn many a bitter lesson through them.’
‘This will be a good marriage, dear Mother. Through Blanche, Champagne will come to me until Jeanne, her daughter, is of an age to inherit or to marry.’
‘And you will live there … away from us all?’
‘I shall travel back and forth. Do not imagine I shall be content to live in exile. I am going to bring my wife to England as soon as they have celebrated our marriage there. Rest assured you will be seeing me soon.’
