Isabella: Braveheart of France

by Colin Falconer

  She does not want to be here, in this cold castle, so far from the Palais de la Cîté and her father and everything she knows. But I must win him over and make my father proud of me, she reminds herself. This is her duty.

  She climbs back into the cold bed and listens to the wind moan down the chimney and watches the log crumble to ash in the grate.

  Chapter 5

  Two weeks later Isabella prepares to become a queen. “How do I look?”

  “You look beautiful, your grace,” Isabella de Vescy tells her. She is much older than her other ladies and has taken her in hand, as if she thinks she needs a mother. Perhaps she does.

  “Do I look regal?”

  Even in the polished steel mirror she sees the frown of hesitation. “Very regal,” the younger one, Eleanor, tells her and earns a frown of rebuke from de Vescy that she thinks Isabella does not see.

  Well of course I do not look regal. I look like a twelve years old girl, over-primped and overdressed; if not for these ribbons and artifices I would disappear inside this gown and my uncles would have to hack a way through the taffeta and velvet with their swords to free me.

  “Will Gaveston be there?”

  De Vescy shrugs with all the eloquence that a mature woman can muster.

  “Why does no one want to talk about him?

  Valois bursts in. Her uncle comes and goes as he pleases, it seems, immune to Madame de Vescy’s cold stares. He still treats her as a child, they all do.

  He regards her gown and sighs. He had done much sighing since arriving in England. “Are you ready to become queen of England, your grace?”

  She takes a deep breath and nods her head. She is ready for no such thing.

  * * * * *

  A timber pathway has been laid through the mud and is strewn with herbs. Bells peal along the misty river from Saint Paul’s to Saint Stephen’s. Every church in London joins in. Their procession is announced with pipes and drums.

  Edward strides beside her, appearing faintly bored with it all. He looks glorious in a scarlet and gold surcoat over a snow-white linen shirt. There is a cape of glory on his shoulders, a jewelled crown on his head.

  They walk from Westminster Hall to the Abbey, the barons of the Cinque Ports carrying an embroidered canopy to keep the drizzle of rain off the royal heads.

  Every citizen of London is pushing and shoving for a better look at them, their guard is heavy-handed in their duties but it does no good, they are forced to enter the Abbey by the back door and Isabella feels herself jostled. Edward has to step in himself to protect her and she smiles up at him, grateful for his gallantry. Her uncle Lancaster, walking ahead of them, looks as if he would like to use Edward the Confessor’s blunted Sword of Mercy on some ruffian with no teeth who tries to pinch her arm.

  Warwick shouts at the bodyguard to use the butt end of their lances but it does no good as the crush is so great that those at the front cannot retreat even if they wish it. The hem of her gown is spattered with mud. Edward mutters a curse.

  Another baron - she sees now it is the one she caught staring at her at the banquet - strides ahead, with the royal robes. He glances over his shoulder at her and nods. Perhaps the gesture is meant to reassure; she raises her chin to let him know she is not in the least intimidated by the crowd. It is bravado. She is terrified.

  But at last they come to the coronation. Inside the abbey it is no less crowded but there is not the jostling or the stink. Isabella looks up and sees the bishops waiting for them by the thrones.

  And then she sees Gaveston.

  He wears silver and imperial purple, a vision in silk and pearls. He has come down from heaven to anoint us perhaps. He bears the crown of England on a velvet cushion.

  Isabella’s own robes are made from twenty-three yards of gold and silver cloth, edged and decorated with ermine and overlaid with mother-of-pearl lace. On her head she has a crimson velvet cap, adorned with Venetian gold and pearls.

  Yet beside Gaveston she feels underdressed.

  Her uncle Lancaster, standing somewhere behind her, mutters a curse. “Look at what he’s wearing,” he hisses. “I should like to spill his guts with the Sword of Mercy!”

  The Lord of Lincoln reminds him of Isabella’s delicate presence.

  She looks to Edward for explanation but he is beaming at Gaveston, who grins back. One of the earls shouts something but Mortimer steps in and warns him to silence. It was Warwick. Gaveston seems oblivious to them; he has eyes only for the king.

  It is overwhelming. There are thousands crammed inside, monks, soldiers, bishops. The choir and sanctuary are ablaze with hundreds of candles, there are banners and flags everywhere, a riot of colour. Two massive wooden pavilions, hung with winter roses either side, soar either side of the steps leading up to the sanctuary.

  The crowds surge forward; one of her ladies shouts in alarm. Isabella looks around for Isabella de Vescy who gives her arm a reassuring squeeze. There is so much smoke from the candles and thuribles of incense that it is hard to breathe. She thinks she is going to faint.

  Finally Edward ascends the platform to the painted coronation chair that his father had made to house the stone of Scone, a sacred relic he stole from the Scots to gall them. But just as the Confessor’s crown is placed on his head, a wall behind the altar collapses and there are muffled screams from beneath it. The bishops look in exasperation at Gaveston. The ceremony continues, while some knights and officials haul at the rubble. It seems someone is trapped underneath.

  “I have a man who mucks out my horses could have done a better job of managing this occasion than Gaveston,” Warwick says.

  “I can hear the Bruce laughing all the way from Dunbar,” Lancaster says.

  * * * * *

  The coronation banquet is held at Westminster Hall. The food arrives late and is cold, the grease settled. Her uncle Lancaster stands up with a mouthful of goose and shows the assembly that the meat is raw before hurling a haunch of seared and bleeding beef at an usher.

  There is no shortage of wine and the several of the guests become bawdy. Her brother Charles approaches her with her uncles and indicates that it is time to leave. Edward has his arm around Gaveston, and their fingers are intertwined. They have no eyes for anyone else. Gaveston kisses his cheek.

  “Have you not a care?” the Earl of Lincoln shouts at him and has to be restrained. The King hardly notices.

  They retire to an antechamber. Valois has a servant fetch him wine.

  “I was once on crusade in Outremer,” Evreux says. “I was lost in the desert among some brute Germans who could do no more than grunt at each other and because we starved we ate one of the camels raw. Even so, the company and the food was better than it was tonight.”

  Valois props himself in a window seat and stares at the river, in a sulk.

  She hears it described how the king allowed Gaveston to prepare both the coronation and the feast. They all count both a disaster. “Did you see the tapestry he prepared for the occasion?” Charles says to Valois. “It had Gaveston’s arms beside the king’s. It should have been my sister’s arms placed there. He has insulted our entire family!”

  The door bursts open and Lancaster stamps in. “He couldn’t organize a fuck in a barrel full of whores.” Valois nods towards Isabella and Lancaster’s face turns pink. “Your grace,” he says and bows. “I did not see you.” But he is only off his stride for a moment. “Did you see what he wore?”

  Isabella stares at the floor. She has never heard language as ripe as this. This has been altogether an interesting day. “I need to get out of this damned country.” Evreux mutters.

  “Why is everyone so angry?” Isabel asks him.

  “No one is allowed to wear purple but the king!” Lancaster shouts at her before remembering himself and lowering his voice. “Look at me! Is gold not good enough for him as well? And he dares hold the Confessor’s crown! Is he high born? Is he noble? The privilege should have been mine or Warwick’s!”

  �
�We sympathize with your plight,” Charles says. “But let us desist. We are upsetting my sister.”

  “He has insulted her as well.”

  “I agree.”

  “Are you not vexed?”

  “Vexed? I am ready to do murder. But one wonders if that would be a wise course. This is not our realm.”

  Lancaster stamps across the room and pounds a fist against the wainscoting. It causes it to dent and splinter. “Did you see them sitting there, staring at each other?”

  “Will you all please explain to me what is happening?” Isabella says.

  They all look at her. The child can speak. But how can she understand? There is a long and difficult silence. They all wait for one of the others to do the talking.

  Finally Charles sits down beside her and picks up her hand. “We are shamed that he pays his favourite more attention that you”

  “Who is this Gaveston, where he is from?”

  “He is a Gascon, a squire in the former king’s household. They grew up together. They became close friends.”

  “Close!” Lancaster snorted.

  “I heard his mother was burned as a witch,” Valois said, still looking out of the window.

  “There is no truth in that rumour,” Evreux says. “The plain facts about him are bad enough without making up falsehoods.”

  “Why does he favour him above anyone else?” Isabella asks them.

  More looks. Charles waits for Valois to help him but he joins Evreux by the window. Lancaster shrugs and turns away. “Do not fret, Isabella. This shall not stand. He shall give you the respect that is your due.”

  “I shall go to my knees tonight and ask the Virgin for guidance in this,” Isabella says.

  “Then you shall not be the only one on your knees when the candles are out,” Lancaster says and walks out, leaving behind an embarrassed silence.

  Chapter 6

  My dread and very dear Majesty,

  I commend myself to you as humbly as I can. You have heard from my dear brother of affairs here in England. I am hard pressed at present to meet my expenses, my husband tells me that his Treasury cannot even afford to pay his own.

  I do not know how I shall run my household unless the King endows me with those estates he has promised me.

  Now that my good uncles have returned to France I am in lack of good counsel. Edward has provided me with my own retinue of ladies and one of them, Lady Mortimer, the wife of one of Edward’s barons, is unfailingly kind to me.

  I shall do my best to be faithful to you and to France in all things though I find this present circumstance difficult to bear.

  May the Holy Spirit keep you always

  Given this day at London

  Isabella

  She wakes to a sound as chilling as any she has ever heard. She puts on a fur-lined mantle and goes outside. Lady Mortimer is already in the hall, hurrying to attend her.

  “What manner of beast is that?” Isabella asks her.

  “It is one of the king’s lions, your grace. He has a private menagerie in the Barbican. His father brought these creatures back from the Holy Land, or so they tell me.”

  Isabella dresses in furs and sturdy leather boots and goes outside to walk in the garden, pursued by Eleanor and other of her ladies. It is just after dawn, there is mist on the river and frost on the grey roofs of the king’s apartments. A crocus pushes its way through the brown earth.

  The portcullis is raised. The stench of the river is stunning and she reels back. Torches flare in the fog. A barge pulls up at the steps, and soldiers run to meet it, their voices echoing around the Watergate.

  She returns to her chambers in St Thomas Tower and sees Mortimer going out as she is going in. He seemed embarrassed to find her awake and on the stairs so early. “My Lord Mortimer.”

  He bows. “Your grace.”

  “I did not expect to find you here. You have been visiting the Lady Mortimer?”

  He nods his head. He seems uncomfortable in her presence.

  “Did you hear my lord’s lions? They woke me.”

  “Was that what it was? I thought it was Lancaster.”

  She had not imagined him to have a sense of humour and she giggles. But this is unseemly and she quickly composes herself. “The smell is overpowering close to the wall.”

  “Definitely Lancaster then.”

  He had seemed so fierce in the church and at the banquet but now he seems almost charming, if not diffident. He is certainly embarrassed at being caught sneaking from his wife’s bedchamber. She likes having him at her advantage. “What are they doing at the Watergate?”

  He looks over her shoulder and sees the barge and the torches. “They’re unloading weapons.”

  “Weapons?”

  “Bows, halberds, shields. The king is preparing for war.”

  “Against who?”

  He shrugs as if it is common knowledge. “Against his earls.”

  She tries not to appear shocked. Having nothing more to say she bids him good morning. “Your grace,” he murmurs and hurries away.

  Civil war? Does my father know about this?

  And if it’s true, what will happen to me?

  * * * * *

  They do not stay long in one place; the royal households are large and even the most well appointed castle turns foul soon enough, especially in the winter. There are parliaments to attend, Scots to be harried, Welshmen to be hanged.

  Every time they move it is like a small army decamping.

  Edward’s favourite retreat is at Langley. He mentions casually that this is where he met Piers Gaveston - or Perro as he calls him. Is this why it is so special to him?

  Her treasurer, William de Boudon, begs audience. “Your grace,” he mumbles in the studied tones of a man who shudders to raise the subject of such a vulgar thing as finance in the presence of royalty, though that is what he was hired to do. “I count one hundred and eighty persons in your household, and all must be fed and clothed and adequately compensated. Your wardrobe must be maintained. Yet I do not have an adequate purse for the purpose.”

  “We have no money.”

  “Precisely.”

  She has one of the inadequately compensated ladies-in-waiting call for her steward. She tells him to fetch a horse, the Queen wishes to go riding. Ask the Lady Mortimer if she will accompany me.

  She goes in search of the king, who has responded to the threat of revolt among his barons by offering to help one of his gamekeepers repair his roof. When she finds him, he looks so happy she feels a pang of misgiving at disturbing his labour.

  He looks like an overgrown boy. She watches him for a while; he has with him several of the lads of the estate, all of them on the roof, clambering over the thatch. He is a neat hand with a shearing hook. He is down to his peasant hose, his body all wiry and hard muscled. It sends a shiver through her. She hears him laughing, sharing some bawdy joke with the men. Gaveston is asleep in the straw below, looking decorous.

  The lieutenant of her guard holds the reins and she slides from her horse. She lifts her skirts clear of the dew. Edward sees her and waves.

  He slides half way down the ladder, jumps the rest of the way, landing easily on the balls of his feet. “Isabella.”

  “Dread lord.”

  A servant hands him a cup of wine. Not quite a commoner yet then. The dregs leave a glistening residue in his beard. “Is everything well?”

  “Passing.”

  “I trust you have all you require.”

  “My lord, what are you doing?”

  He spreads his hands, puzzled by the question.

  “A king does not work alongside commoners. Next you will tell me you have been digging trenches.”

  “Should they need digging, why not?”

  “This is not what a king does.”

  “Not the king of France perhaps. But it is what I do. I can disport myself as I wish.”

  “I meant no offence, your grace. I am just ... startled.”

  “Wi
ll here is my groundskeeper and has been since I was a boy. His roof is in need of some new thatch and the kingdom may spare me for a morning.” He hectors her much as her father does. She feels so stupid here in England, everything must be explained to her. “Is there something I might do for you?” he asks her.

  She gathers her courage, this needs saying and she has no one to do it for her. “Your grace, I hope you do not think me impertinent, but I am in dire need of money. I have nothing with which to maintain my household.”

  Edward laughs. “Madam, it shall be forthcoming.” He turns for his ladder. He is missing the straw already.

  “Forthcoming will not do, Edward. I need money at this moment.”

  He stares at her. He looks shocked. “I am not accustomed to being addressed in such a manner by a girl.”

  “I am the daughter of the king of France. I have never been a girl.”

  Gaveston is awake now. He leans on one elbow watching this exchange with interest, as do the lads on the roof. Edward says, through gritted teeth: “Well, I should like to assist you in this matter, but the Treasury is unfortunately sorely depleted - at this moment.”

  “So you have told me. But as part of my dower I was promised the Duchy of Cornwall. The rents from the patronage would assist greatly.”

  “I have given Cornwall to my Lord Gaveston.”

  She lowers her eyes as she had been taught. She waits, does not move, listening to the beating of her own heart. “I shall see what might be done,” he says and returns to the problems of a good thatch.

  Isabella lets out her breath. She has never confronted a grown man before. She would not have dreamed of taking issue with her father, or either of her uncles, on any matter; today she has surprised even herself.

  She returns to her riding party and the Lady Mortimer assists her back onto her horse. She thinks she hears her whisper: “Well done, Isabella!” but then she might have imagined it.