by Jean Plaidy
Now he had been called to his mother’s bedside and it occurred to him that if this marriage into Wales could be brought about and Llewellyn became King of England, the fortunes of the de Montforts would be reversed. His sister Queen of England! Proud Edward deposed! What a glorious prospect. And Merlin had prophesied that a Llewellyn should be a King of England. If it were this Llewellyn …
His mother’s breathing was becoming more difficult. He wondered if he should call the priest.
His sister came in and when she looked at the bed her beautiful eyes were sorrowful.
She knelt by the bed, and her mother sensing her presence stretched out a hand.
Eleanor took it.
‘I am here, Mother,’ she said.
‘Go … and be happy,’ said the Countess. ‘Almeric …’
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘Take care of your sister. Promise me. Take her to her bridegroom. Start afresh … Do not grieve.’
She closed her eyes, smiling. Perhaps, thought the young Eleanor, she was thinking of her own marriage; those days when she, the bold adventurous princess, widow of an old man, had met and loved the handsome Simon de Montfort – the man who was to make his mark on history – the one whom they called the adventurer.
They had adventured together and the adventure was coming to an end. She was dying and Simon de Montfort had met his end long ago on the battlefield of Evesham.
A gentle reminiscent smile was on the lips of the Countess de Montfort as she slipped away from this life.
There was no reason why they should delay, said Almeric when news came that Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, had sent two ships to escort his bride to her new home.
The Countess was buried in the nunnery of Montargis in accordance with her wishes and after this had been done the young Demoiselle with her brother as escort made her way to the coast where the ships were waiting to take them to Wales.
Those ships were good to look on. Llewellyn had clearly sent of his best and they were equipped with everything for his bride’s comfort. He had sent a company of knights and men-at-arms to protect her should the need arise.
And so they set sail. As the coast of France faded from sight the crew grew apprehensive. It was to be hoped that news of the journey might not have reached English ears but this seemed unlikely as there were always spies to betray such news and the discovery of Merlin’s prophecy had naturally been blazoned throughout the country. It was good from the Welsh point of view for the English to know this. There was nothing like a prophecy of this nature to strike terror into the hearts of enemies. If the English believed that supernatural powers were working against them they were halfway to defeat.
It would be a long journey, for the party dared not land in England or be seen by the English ships. Therefore the passage through the English Channel would be hazardous indeed.
Fears increased as they caught sight of the coast of England. The navigator dreaded a strong wind which might blow them close to the land and worst of all force them to take shelter. Great was their elation when they saw that the end of the land was in sight. Once they had rounded the tip known as Land’s End they could sail straight up to Wales.
Alas, as they changed course preparing to sail northwards, four merchant vessels were seen bearing down upon them.
The two Welsh ships had no chance against them.
Proudly the English captain escorted his captives back to Bristol and immediately sent a message to the King that his mission had been successfully accomplished.
Llewellyn ab Gruffyd Prince of Wales was mad with rage when he heard that his bride had been captured by the English.
What of this fine prophecy! Was he always to be beaten by the English? He, Llewellyn ab Gruffyd, the elect – if Merlin’s prophecy did indeed point to him – to be failed once more by the English and just as his Demoiselle was to be brought to him!
He had dreamed of her for many years. He would marry no other. He would never forget her – a beautiful child with eyes that had shone with admiration for him when she had heard that she was to be his wife. That had been years ago when her father Simon de Montfort had been a great power in England and it had appeared that he would depose the King. If only the tide had not turned against Simon, the Demoiselle would long since have been his wife.
The disaster had been due to Edward who had escaped from captivity and beaten the de Montfort army – Edward Longshanks, who looked like a conqueror and was one.
Edward had inspired the faith which leaders demanded – the sort of faith which a prophecy by Merlin could produce. Edward had the looks, the manners, the strength of a king. Only the supernatural could come against him. And Merlin had prophesied …
Llewellyn had never believed that Edward could outwit him and take his bride from him, and it had shaken him to realise that the first move in the attempt to make Merlin’s prophecy come true had failed.
Life had not been easy for him. When had it ever been for a Prince of Wales? If he was not harried by the English on his borders it was trouble in his own family.
In the first place it had been bad luck to be born the second son of Gruffydd ab Llewellyn; not that he had not overcome that difficulty for Owain, his elder brother, was now in safe custody, his prisoner.
But family conflict was not good and he would have preferred to have had loyal brothers – providing of course he had been the eldest. A series of adventures had brought him to his present position.
Wales was a constant anxiety to England but no more so than England was to Wales. The Celtic Welsh were different from the English. That mixed race, made up of some of the greatest warriors in the world, like the adventuring Vikings, and with the blood of the Angles, Saxons and Romans in their veins, were born to be rulers and conquerors. The Welsh like the Celts of the North and those who lived in the extreme south-west corner of England were of a different breed. They liked to sing and play the lute or harp, for music meant a great deal to them; they were poetic and they had vivid imaginations which bred superstition in them. They were full of fancies; and it had seemed that they were no match for that hybrid race which now called itself the English.
To sally forth from the mountains and make war on the English could be disastrous. Llewellyn thanked God for the mountains. They had saved his country from being overrun by the invading English many a time.
William the Conqueror had known he could conquer the Welsh but even he could not conquer their mountains. He it was who had established the Marcher Barons – great Normans headed by lords like the FitzOsborns and Montgomeries. For two hundred years the Marcher Barons had ruled that no man’s land.
Now there was Merlin’s prophecy. Llewellyn believed that he must be the chosen one. He did wonder why the Llewellyn in the prophecy had not been his grandfather, a mighty warrior to whom many had looked for the deliverance of Wales from the English persecution. He had been known as Llewellyn the Great because it was said he was the greatest ruler Wales had known in all her history up to that time.
There must be a greater … Merlin’s chosen.
Looking back it seemed there had been too much fighting among themselves. No country could make progress when brother fought against brother. But that was how it was now and had been in the days of Llewellyn the Great.
Men of Wales sang of Llewellyn the Great, son of Iorwerth who in his turn was the only son of Orwain Gwynedd who could call himself legitimate. They were a wild and roving lot those rulers of Wales – loving to sing and make love wherever they went. And as a consequence, boys learned of the exploits of their ancestors through the songs which were sung at their mothers’ knees and those mothers were rarely the wives of their fathers.
Llewellyn’s own father, Gruffydd, was the result of a liaison between Llewellyn the Great and one of his many mistresses. Llewellyn had had a wife though and she was a daughter of King John of England. Her name was Joan and though illegitimate the King accepted her as his daughter and she, being a woman of character, ha
d tried to bring about peace between Wales and England. After the death of King John she had continued to work for friendly relations between her husband and her half-brother Henry III; in the meantime she produced a son Davydd who naturally thought he had a greater claim to succeed his father than Gruffydd had.
Wales more than most countries had need of a strong man and old Llewellyn was certainly that. He it was who laid the foundations of a great power and showed the English that Wales was a country to be reckoned with. He was also a man who could act forcibly in his domestic relations as he had shown over his wife Joan’s love affair with William de Broase. This was still sung of in ballads.
William de Broase had been captured by Llewellyn and held as his prisoner. To obtain his release he offered to pay a ransom and to give his daughter Isabella as wife to Llewellyn’s son. This offer had tempted Llewellyn greatly for he saw in de Broase a rich and powerful ally. However, while de Broase was in captivity it had been the habit of Llewellyn’s wife Joan to visit him in his prison chamber and they found a great mutual interest in songs and stories of England, for Joan could not forget that although she was the wife of a Welsh ruler she was the daughter of an English king. Broase and Joan fell in love and when these visits of his wife to his prisoner’s chamber were brought to Llewellyn’s ears he decided to lay a trap for the lovers. This he did and they were caught. Llewellyn’s indignation was great but he did not punish his wife, nor did he stop the arranged marriage. He merely brought William de Broase from the prison chamber, announced his crime and hanged him publicly at the town of Crokeen in the presence of many witnesses.
This act was applauded. He had punished the adulterer and at the same time lost none of the advantages which his heir’s marriage to de Broase’s daughter would bring.
That was the present Llewellyn’s grandfather, Llewellyn the Great. Gruffyd, his father, was a man of great girth and equally strong ambition. As the eldest son of Llewellyn he had always believed he had the greatest claim to his father’s dominions even though Joan had had that legitimate son, Davydd. On the death of their father the trouble between them started, and Davydd, who had the greater power on account of his legitimacy, had very soon seized Gruffyd and put him under lock and key.
But Gruffyd had the support of many Welshmen, and the Bishop of Bangor after excommunicating Davydd went to England to see the King and attempt to interest him in Gruffydd’s cause. If the King would help to reinstate him, said the Bishop, Gruffydd’s friends would be prepared to pay a tribute to the King. Henry could never resist the offer of money; he invaded Wales and forced Davydd to hand over Gruffydd who was brought to the Tower of London and kept there while the King made a show of judging his case.
Although Gruffydd was not ill-treated still he was a prisoner. He realised that Henry would attempt to extract all sorts of conditions from him before giving him his freedom and one night he made a rope from his linen and attempted to escape through a window. He made a fatal mistake; the rope was too long and he was a very heavy man. He was discovered lying on the ground with his neck broken. And that was the end of Gruffydd.
The death of their father meant that Llewellyn and his brother were heirs to Wales which was now ruled by their Uncle Davydd, their grandfather’s legitimate son; but two years after Gruffydd’s death, their uncle died. The Welsh, who had suspected that Davydd had become too friendly with the English, welcomed the brothers, Owain and Llewellyn, and they divided certain lands between them. It seemed an amicable solution and the people looked forward to peace. Moreover King Henry invited them to Woodstock where he publicly pardoned their rebellion of the past and made an agreement with them to keep the peace; but this involved signing away much of the Welsh lands so that only Snowdon and Anglesey were in the hands of the brothers.
However, peace was maintained – although an uneasy one, for Llewellyn’s ambition was great. Owain was less aggressive and would have preferred to shrug aside what they had lost and settle for a quiet existence without perpetual war.
But Llewellyn was not one to remain passive for long and he was soon at loggerheads with Owain who sought the support of their younger brother Davydd. Their forces met in battle and as might have been predicted Llewellyn was victorious; he captured Owain and put him under lock and key; Davydd, unfortunately for Llewellyn, was able to make his escape to England.
Llewellyn was then bent on bringing back to Wales all that land which had been in the possession of his grandfather, Llewellyn the Great. He had seen his great opportunity when the barons, under Simon de Montfort, rose against the King. He declared for them and what great triumph there had been throughout Wales when it was learned that the King and his son Edward were prisoners of Simon de Montfort!
It was at Hereford that Llewellyn had met Eleanor – the Demoiselle, an enchantingly beautiful girl with a look of the Plantagenets inherited from her mother, the King’s sister – Eleanor, like herself.
The marriage of Simon de Montfort had been one of the romances of the times. But of course Simon de Montfort was the sort of man who would distinguish himself in whatever he undertook, even marriage. What a man to snatch the King’s sister from under his nose! Although in a moment of weakness Henry had agreed to the marriage however much he had tried to deny it afterwards.
The Demoiselle, they called her. He wanted her. No other would do for him. He could imagine his old grandfather looking down from Heaven and nodding his head in approval.
A wife who was the niece of the King of England! A prophecy from Merlin!
‘What are you waiting for?’ old Llewellyn would have said. ‘Go in and take what is offered to you.’
King of England! That was what the prophecy said. Llewellyn the First. A greater title than that of his grandfather. When they sang their ballads they would sing not of Llewellyn the Great who had hanged his wife’s lover. No, they would sing of Llewellyn the First of England and his beautiful bride the Demoiselle Eleanor.
But he had had bad luck. Edward the new King of England was not like his father. He was a man of action. There was no dallying with Edward. The Demoiselle was coming from France to marry Llewellyn and there was a prophecy given by Merlin that a Llewellyn should become King of England. Edward had determined to stop that as soon as he could. So he had captured Llewellyn’s bride and made her a prisoner, and the first move to bring about the prediction of Merlin had failed.
But that was but the beginning.
In the meantime the Demoiselle was somewhere in England and Llewellyn was in Wales. He had refused to attend the coronation of Edward and swear fealty to him. Was this Edward’s revenge?
Llewellyn had to rescue his bride. He had to show the people of Wales that he was that Llewellyn mentioned in Merlin’s prophecy.
But how?
The weeks passed and still the Demoiselle remained the prisoner of the English.
Edward was delighted with his Bristol seamen who had intercepted the ships bound for Wales.
He strode into the Queen’s chamber, his face shining with delight.
‘Merlin’s prophecy indeed!’ he cried. ‘Why wasn’t Merlin off the Scilly Isles when the ships passed by? Why didn’t he raise a storm and sink our craft?’
‘God forbid,’ cried the Queen. She was pregnant once more and was hoping for a boy as they all were – she, Edward and the Queen Mother. They had not mentioned it to each other, but they were all aware that two-year-old Alfonso was not as healthy as they would have liked. He was bright enough, but there was a certain delicacy about him. Thus it had been with John and Henry. The Queen thought: I could not go through that anxiety again.
Now Edward was not thinking of the boy but of this victory at sea which had brought him what was more desirable than a load of treasure.
‘They will bring our prisoners to land with all speed,’ he said.
‘Poor Demoiselle!’ said the Queen. ‘She will be most unhappy.’
‘Poor Demoiselle indeed! If she had reached Llewellyn we should have been
hearing that Merlin had come back from wherever he is to help them. Now that, my dearest, is the last thing I want. This Merlin prophecy is nonsense. I have to prove that to the Welsh … and perhaps some of the English.’
The Queen shuddered. ‘How can it be true?’ she said. ‘But I am sure the Demoiselle is desolate and perhaps a little frightened.’
‘She shall not be harmed,’ Edward promised.
‘Except that she is taken from her husband.’
‘He is not her husband. Nor shall he be unless he is ready to bargain for her. By God and all His saints, this is a happy day for us, Eleanor. He has given me the best possible bargaining counter for my dealings with the troublesome Welsh.’
‘How I wish they would keep within their mountains and we could live at peace.’
‘We never shall, my love, until we are all one. If Wales and Scotland were in my hands …’
‘You have enough to control, Edward.’
‘That control would be easier with loyal subjects everywhere.’
‘You think this will ever be so. Alexander is your brother-in-law but he has always been determined not to swear fealty to you.’
‘And now that Margaret is dead he will doubtless marry again and there will be new loyalties. No, my love, I want to see Wales and Scotland under the English crown. Then we might hope for peace.’
‘I doubt we should achieve it even then. There will always be rebels.’
‘You are right. How fares the little one within?’
‘Kicking heartily.’
‘As a boy would kick?’
‘How can I know? I can only pray that this time it will be a boy.’
‘Well we could do with one.’ He frowned. He was thinking of delicate Alfonso but he would not mention his anxieties to the Queen at this time. She must not be upset while she was carrying the child. He had a fine daughter – she was the apple of his eye, that proud and beautiful daughter of his. His eldest … eleven years old, strong in body and mind. A Plantagenet beauty. Nothing of Castile in her. He should not rejoice in that. It was a slight to his Queen, his dear Eleanor, in whom he rejoiced because of her gentle looks and her gentle ways and that quiet strength which was only exerted to bring good to him. He had Joanna too in Castile. He wished they had never agreed to let her stay, but they would have her back before long. And then Alfonso. But Alfonso was not showing the rude health of his sisters – for there was news from Castile that Joanna was a spirited and vital child. Why was it that his sons should be weak? John, Henry and now Alfonso. He might have had three healthy boys in the nursery. And one little daughter buried in Acre. Well, it was understandable that born thus in such surroundings she might not survive. But the Queen was fruitful. Pray God that this time there was a healthy boy.
