The Hammer of the Scots

by Виктория Холт

  The Queen was in a state of expectancy. She was optimistic by nature and at every pregnancy she was buoyed up by the thought that this time they would have their son; and even when she was disappointed she would say to herself, ‘It will be the next time.’ She was thankful that she could bear children easily – a gift some women had, but which was not always bestowed on queens. Edward always agreed with her that one day the longed-for boy would come. ‘And if not,’ he had said not long before, ‘we have our daughter.’ He was very upset at this time at the prospect of losing her. She really should have gone to Aragon years before. But it was a comfort to know that Edward so loved his daughters that he could not bear to part with them.

  Joanna would have to go too. She was afraid that would come to pass very soon for, although Joanna was eight years younger than her sister Eleanor, she was now ten years old, and this was an age when future brides were expected to be with their bridegroom’s families that they might grow up in their ways. How sad it would be when Eleanor went to Aragon and Joanna to Germany. But there seemed no help for it. Princesses were born to leave their homes and go to those of their husbands. She had had to do it; even the dominating Queen Mother had had to do it – although from what she had heard she had believed it was her choice.

  It was wonderful to be near Edward so that she could have news quickly about the progress of the war. Edward did not expect this one to last long. Welsh chieftains rising in their hills should soon be put in their places and this time, said Edward, they shall feel my wrath. They made a treaty with me. I shall have no mercy on those who break faith with me.

  And he meant it. Soft as he was with his family he was becoming a stern king. It was right of course. People only obeyed those who showed the strong arm.

  ‘Let it be a boy,’ she prayed. If it were, Rhudlan would be remembered as the birthplace of her son. There was Alfonso of course. They were inclined to forget that he was a boy and the eldest. Poor little fellow, did he know that there were whispers about him? He’ll not make old bones, they said. Edward was kind to him but he had no pride in him, and sometimes she thought the little boy knew it and lost the will to live. Because John and Henry had died they were expecting Alfonso to do the same. He was nine years now and had lived longer than either John or Henry. It could really be that like his father he would grow out of his delicacy.

  She prayed that he would but even so it would be advisable to have another brother – a strong boy who would be there to take the throne if need be.

  She liked Rhudlan. She immediately felt at home in a castle because as soon as she arrived she ordered her servants to hang up the tapestries she had brought with her. Then of course there were certain items of furniture which were carried from place to place – her bed, her cupboard, her chairs. So one castle was very like another.

  She was glad that the custom of hanging tapestries on the walls – a fashion she had brought with her from Castile – was appreciated here. More and more people were doing it.

  But Rhudlan was different, of course. The castle stood on a steep bank commanding a good view of the surrounding country. It was washed by the river Clweyd and was impressive with its red sandstone which had come from the neighbouring rocks. Her spirits had lifted when she saw its six massive towers flanking the high curtain walls of the King’s Tower above them. Edward had done a certain amount of rebuilding when he had been here. Edward could never resist improving his castles whenever he rested. He had his father’s talent for and love of architecture, only where Henry had beautified regardless of cost for the sheer joy of improving on the building, Edward was practical, never spent more than was necessary and was mainly concerned with strengthening the fortifications.

  Here she waited as she had waited so many times before. This would be her eleventh confinement. Out of them there had been only three boys and two of them dead and the other sickly. Surely God would be good to her now. Surely He would listen to her prayers.

  Her daughters came to see her for they were all here – even four-year-old Mary, although the Queen Mother had wanted to keep the child with her. She was determined that Mary should go into a convent. The Queen thought her daughter should be allowed to make up her own mind as to what she would do with her life. Everything would depend, the Queen Mother insisted, on how the child was brought up. She should be made aware from the first what was intended for her. It was necessary for one daughter to lead the secluded life and the Queen Mother had chosen Mary.

  The Queen was inclined to leave unpleasant matters until they had to be decided, and Edward had other affairs with which to concern himself, so Mary was left a great deal to the Queen Mother who had even on one occasion taken the child to Amesbury and, no doubt, implied to her that her future would be there.

  Her time was upon her. She felt the familiar signs. She was calmer than her women. She had after all gone through it so often.

  She called them to her and said, ‘We should now prepare.’

  A few hours later her child was bom. It was what everyone had come to expect. A daughter. But she thanked God that this one appeared to be a healthy child.

  Edward would not come to her immediately but news was sent to him.

  She recovered quickly as she always did. She sent for the children that she might show them the new baby; eighteen-year-old Eleanor, ten-year-old Joanna, nine-year-old Alfonso, seven-year-old Margaret, and four-year-old Mary.

  They examined the new baby in its cot.

  ‘She is going to be called Elizabeth,’ the Queen told them.

  The Princess Eleanor’s eyes were shining with an emotion her mother did not understand. Her sister Joanna did though. She smiled secretly, and when they left their mother’s apartment Joanna followed her sister to theirs.

  ‘Another girl,’ said Joanna. ‘Is it not strange that they who so urgently need a boy can get only girls? It is as though God is playing a trick on them. Eleanor, do you think God plays tricks?’

  ‘I think,’ said Eleanor, ‘that God has His reasons.’

  ‘We all have those,’ Joanna reminded her.

  ‘I mean He lets things happen in a certain way because it is all part of his plan. I used to think …’

  ‘I know what you used to think. Alfie would die and you would be the Queen.’

  The Princess Eleanor was about to deny this but when she looked at her sister’s knowledgeable eyes she changed her mind. No one would have believed Joanna was so young. She was too clever for her age; she listened at doors; she questioned the attendants in a sly quick way, which meant that they betrayed more than they intended. Joanna thus knew a great deal.

  Eleanor shrugged her shoulders. ‘I am to go to Aragon.’

  ‘And I to Germany.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to Aragon. If I do …’

  ‘Nothing will be as you want it. You will in time be the Queen of Aragon when you want to be the Queen of England. Queen Consort of Aragon or Queen in her own right of England. It is easy to understand.’

  Eleanor said angrily, ‘If God is going to send me to Aragon why does He give the Queen another girl? It would seem as though He is on my side … all those girls … and then He lets them send me to Aragon.’

  ‘And me to Germany,’ sighed Joanna. ‘Though I see that is not quite the same, for I could never hope to be Queen of England. You are the one our father wants, sister, but if God does not want it that is no good.’

  ‘We could pray for a miracle.’

  ‘What sort of miracle? That Alfie would die?’

  Eleanor cried out in dismay, ‘Don’t say it. It would bring bad luck. Of course I don’t want Alfie to die. I just want him to be too delicate to govern … so that they have a queen …’

  ‘Queen Eleanor,’ said Joanna, with mock respect.

  The Princess clasped her hands together. ‘I must not go to Aragon,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ repeated Joanna, ‘you must not go to Aragon. How shall we prevent it?’

  ‘Do you believe if yo
u pray hard enough you will something to happen?’

  ‘It has never been thus for me.’

  ‘Try it. It is all that is left to us. Pray with me that I shall not go to Aragon …’ She added as an afterthought, ‘… and you to Germany.’

  Joanna loved experimenting.

  ‘We’ll try it! Special prayers! We’ll really mean it. We’ll give our whole minds to it. To tell the truth, sister, I do not want to go to Germany any more than you want to go to Aragon.’

  The Princess Eleanor gripped her sister’s hand, her eyes shining with a fanaticism which Joanna found very interesting.

  * * *

  The Princess Eleanor and her sister Joanna were jubilant. Eleanor said she had never doubted her miracle would come to pass and it was for this reason that it had. It was what was called ‘Faith’.

  Joanna was impressed. Eleanor must be very important in God’s eyes if He could kill so many people just to gratify her ambitions, and that it had all happened so far away over a matter which was really no concern of theirs made it doubly interesting.

  It had taken place in Sicily, in that sunny island where people had loved to sing and dance before they were conquered by the French. The freedom-loving Sicilians, restive under the French yoke, had plotted in secret and earlier that year – on Easter Day to be precise – they had risen against their enemies. The signal to rise had been the first stroke of the vesper bell and the Sicilians had slaughtered all the French on the island – eight thousand of them in all.

  It was some time after it had happened that the news of the massacre reached England, and it never occurred to Eleanor at the time that this could be so important to her. It had far-reaching effects, however, and the Sicilians, having taken part in what had become known as the Sicilian Vespers, were almost immediately afterwards in terror of the powerful French. They had sought the help of Pedro of Aragon – the father of Eleanor’s husband-to-be.

  The reason they had turned to Aragon was because Pedro’s wife was Constance, the daughter of the old King of Sicily, and they thought that if the crown of Sicily were offered to Aragon that country would not hesitate to come to their relief. They were right and Pedro was received in Sicily with great rejoicing.

  It was hardly likely that the French would allow this state of affairs to continue. Charles of Anjou who had been the King of Sicily was very close to the English royal family because he had married Beatrice, the sister of the Queen Mother. Constance had been very anxious for the Princess Eleanor to come to Aragon, that she might forge a link with England which would be stronger than that already existing between England and France, on account of the relationship between Beatrice and the Queen Mother. Naturally the French were now extremely anxious that this betrothal should not take place.

  Charles of Anjou very quickly regained his lost possession and the Pope was induced to reconsider the dispensation regarding marriages of royal people, and among these was that of Eleanor and Alfonso of Aragon who on the very recent death of Pedro had become the King.

  The Pope therefore sent his envoys to the King of England with injunctions that the dispensation which had been granted for a marriage between England and Aragon was no longer valid; and the Pope added that he hoped the King of England would give up all intentions of forming an alliance with enemies of the Holy See who had joined with those who had used the bells of vespers as a signal for their uprising.

  The King had returned briefly to Rhudlan, and even before he saw his new daughter Elizabeth he sent for Eleanor.

  He embraced her fiercely.

  ‘Oh, my darling child,’ he said, ‘this is good news. There will be no Aragonese marriage. You are not to go to Aragon. You are staying here … with me.’

  The colour flooded her face; her eyes were brilliant with joy. She had always been the most beautiful of his children. He could not take his eyes from her lovely face.

  ‘It seems you are made happy by this news,’ he said.

  ‘Nothing could have made me happier. It is the miracle I have prayed for.’

  How they exulted! How they laughed together! ‘We must be serious,’ said the King. ‘We will pretend to be put out. How dare the Pope dictate to the King of England, eh? But the King of England is at war with the Welsh rebels and he would not risk a threat of excommunication at such a time, would he? Therefore we must do as the Pope wishes. This must be one of the few times a Pope’s orders have pleased a King of England.’

  She clung to him. She would not let him go.

  He stroked her hair and murmured endearments. There were many who would have been surprised if they could have seen the stern King’s expression of tenderness towards his eldest daughter.

  At length he left her and went to his wife’s bedchamber.

  He kissed her fondly. Dear Queen, who had given him the children he loved – and in particular her namesake, his eldest daughter.

  ‘Edward, another girl, I fear.’

  ‘Nay, my love, you should not grieve. I love my girls. And we have Alfonso. We must change his name e’er long. Alfonso is no name for a King of England. Shall we rename him Edward?’

  ‘No, Edward, no please …’

  ‘You do not like the name?’

  ‘I like it too well,’ she said earnestly. ‘I fear it might be unlucky.’

  ‘Then he shall stay Alfonso,’ and he thought, That boy will never mount the throne. And there is nothing wrong with a Queen of England.

  * * *

  By a strange coincidence the arrangements for Joanna’s marriage were brought to an abrupt termination.

  When earlier that year Prince Hartman, Earl of Hapsburg and Kyburg, Landgrave of Alsace and son of the King of the Romans, had announced his intention of coming to England to see his bride, and if he had come that would have meant a betrothal and Joanna’s returning to his country with him, his visit was delayed. His father had been at that time engaged in a struggle of his own and he could not consider sending his son to England without an adequate bodyguard of his best soldiers. The plain fact was that he needed those men to fight his battles and so the visit was postponed. It was of no great matter, wrote Prince Hartman; he would come as soon as he and his men could be spared and then the Princess Joanna should leave with him and would continue her education in the royal house of Hapsburg.

  There had been something ominous in that letter. He was determined to come and it was only a temporary postponement. Joanna did not see how she could escape her destiny. It was true that having been brought up in Castile and then sent to England she was not so averse to a change as her sister Eleanor had been. Joanna had the belief that wherever she was people would love and admire her. All the same she wanted to stay in England.

  It was at Rhudlan that the news was brought to her father.

  He sent for her, embraced her and told her that he had bad news for her.

  ‘There has been an accident,’ he said. ‘Prince Hartman was staying at the castle of Brisac on the Rhine and decided to visit his father. He set out and suddenly a fog arose. His sailors did not know where they were for it was so dense they could not see their hands when they held them before their faces. Their boat foundered on a rock. My dear child, Prince Hartman, your bridegroom-to-be, has been drowned. They have recovered his body from the river so there can be no doubt.’

  ‘Then there will be no marriage,’ said Joanna solemnly.

  ‘Well, you are but a child. We will find a husband for you as important, never fear.’

  ‘I have no fear, my lord, and I had no wish to go away.’

  The King smiled fondly. What delightful daughters he had! Joanna was almost as beautiful as her sister Eleanor.

  He said: ‘To tell you the truth, my child, I can feel no great sorrow in this for it means we are not going to lose you … yet.’

  ‘Perhaps when I marry it will be someone here … at home,’ said Joanna. ‘I know my sister hopes that she will.’

  He smiled at her, well pleased.

  ‘Who kn
ows,’ he said, ‘such good fortune may well be ours.’

  Joanna lost no time in going to her sister.

  They stared at each other wide-eyed.

  ‘So miracles do happen,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘If you will them to,’ replied Joanna.

  They smiled secretly, believing they had made a great discovery.

  Chapter VI

  THE PRINCE OF WALES

  Davydd had been right, Llewellyn told himself. He felt alive again. Only the prospect of regaining what he had lost could give him such an interest in life.

  About the same time as the Sicilians were rising against the French and awaiting the signal of the vesper bell, he had aroused the whole of that part of Wales which remained in Welsh hands.

  They were going to march against the English. The enthusiasm with which he was greeted amazed him. He was greatly admired. He was a man whom they could trust which was more than they could his brother Davydd. Davydd had been for the English at one time and then had done a quick change-about to the Welsh. He might be a good general but he was not a man to be trusted. It was different with Llewellyn. Llewellyn’s love story was recorded in song; the sad death of his wife had turned the idyll into a tragedy. Llewellyn was a popular romantic figure; and then there was Merlin’s prophecy.

  In the beginning there were a few victories for Llewellyn. He even took Rhudlan Castle and held it briefly. But when Edward began his march north Llewellyn knew he could not hold the castle and wisely retreated. But the initial success was inspiring.

  Edward’s wrath he guessed to be great, and he knew that it would be a powerful army which would be marching upon him, and the fact that it was led by the King himself would strike terror into all those who seemed to have endowed Edward with some supernatural power.