by Jean Plaidy
‘Nay, Warren,’ he said. ‘The Empress upsets me. I like not her overbearing ways. I can find it in my heart to be sorry for her husband – as I would for any man married to such a virago.’
Warren was silent. It was not good policy to share in criticism of one who might very soon be the ruler.
The King lay on his bed and wished Adelicia was in Normandy. He could talk to her as he wished and she would give him comfort. He supposed he had been fortunate in his marriages. When he thought of what marriage to one such as his daughter Matilda would be like he shuddered. Then he laughed at himself. When he was a young man he would have known how to deal with her. It was merely that now he was an old man and he was tired and he no longer looked for conflict. He wanted peace.
Warren hovered to see if there was anything he could do.
There was a time when Warren had hated him. They had been rivals for Matilda, his first wife. His thoughts were back at the Abbey where she had been under her stern and harsh Aunt Christina who had wanted to turn her into a nun. And he, a penniless Prince, had come courting her. Warren, his nephew, had been there on the same mission. In those days Warren had been rich and he, Henry, had been poor, with nothing but his prospects to recommend him. But his dear Matilda had taken one look at him and loved him. He had been a handsome man in those days with his plentiful dark hair, of which he had been so proud, worn long and hanging about his shoulders. And he had known how to charm a woman, having had so much more experience at that art than most men.
Warren had hated his uncle because he was the successful suitor. And he had mocked him when he had hunted in the forest with King Rufus. Rufus had laughed at his impecunious brother and they had called him Deersfoot because he had had to follow the hunt on foot not being able to afford a horse.
Readily had he forgiven his nephew those early insults. When one was successful one forgave. It was only the failures who found that difficult. Now Warren was his man, his good nephew, one of those whom he could trust.
How was it that when a man was old and sick he found a certain sad joy in delving back to the past? He did it so frequently now that he seemed to be as often in the past as the present.
He kept to his bed for a few days after that scene with Matilda and when he rose it was to learn that his daughter had left the castle. She was joining her husband and had taken her sons with her.
When troubles lay heavily upon them it had always been the custom of the King and his family to hunt. There in the forests they could cast aside their cares and for a few moments indulge in their favourite pastime; afterwards pleasantly tired from their exertions they would feel rejuvenated and better able to tackle their problems.
‘We will go to Lyons-la-forêt,’ he said, ‘and from there will hunt.’
So accordingly on a misty November day the Court set out.
The King led the chase and he declared that it was one of the best day’s sport he had enjoyed for a long time. In good spirits – in spite of the troubles which were hanging over him – he returned to the Castle of Rouen.
‘I am hungry,’ he cried. ‘It is always thus after the hunt. It restores my spirits and my appetite. I fancy a dish of stewed lampreys.’
His nephew Warren said: ‘My lord, your physicians have said that this dish is not good for you. It always upsets you.’
‘Doctors will always blame something when they cannot find the true cause of ailments. How could anything which I so much enjoy be bad for me?’
Warren looked dubious and the King shouted for his chief cook to be brought to him and when the man came he said: ‘Lampreys! A goodly dish of them for my hunger is keen and I have a mind to enjoy them.’
That dish of lampreys was to be remembered for years to come. The King ate of it voraciously but almost immediately afterwards became ill. He was helped to his bed and his physician sent for.
The doctors shook their heads when they heard of the lampreys. Had they not advised the King against them? Why had his cooks prepared such a dish when they knew that it always disagreed with the King’s digestion?
The cooks protested that they had acted on the King’s orders and there were many to verify this. It was reckoned that this was another bout of that indigestion to which in late years the King had become a victim.
But it was not so, for the King did not recover. He had gone out to hunt on a Monday and by Thursday it had become apparent that he was very ill indeed.
He was sixty-seven years old . . . a great age. Few who led such active lives lived so long. Robert his brother had been eighty; but the Conqueror had died through an accident and so had William Rufus. They were a long-lived family – or would have been but for accidents.
It was obvious now that the King’s end was near. Robert of Gloucester hurried to Rouen and Henry’s delight in seeing this beloved son was clear.
‘My dear Robert,’ he said, ‘stay near me. I have need of you.’
Robert thought he should send for Archbishop Hugh of Rouen. ‘It has come to that, then,’ said the King. ‘I have known for some time that the end could not be far away.’
The Archbishop arrived and urged the King to repentance. Henry was only too eager to do as he asked.
When a man was on his deathbed he remembered sins which seemed to him at the time of committing mere acts of justice.
He saw his nephew William Warren, Earl of Surrey, there with the Count of Perche who had married his illegitimate daughter – she who had been drowned in the White Ship. He was glad to have these near but chiefly Robert.
‘I loved you, Robert,’ he said. ‘You were indeed my son. How many times have I said to myself “I would he were my legitimate son”. Your mother was my dearest love. Many happy times did I spend with her and you have always been a constant reminder of her.’
Robert knelt by the bed and the tears were in his eyes.
‘It is good to die lamented,’ said the King. ‘I would the Queen were here. She has been a good and faithful wife to me. I trust that good care will be taken of her when I am gone. She is a young woman yet and has many years left to her.’
Robert said that he would carry out all the King’s wishes and that he hoped God would strike him dead if he did not.
‘Make no strange oaths, my son,’ said Henry. ‘It is not always easy to keep them. I see trouble ahead, Matilda . . . Where is Matilda?’
‘She is with her husband, my lord, and knows not yet of your illness.’
The King frowned. ‘I have made her the heiress to the crown. My knights and churchmen have sworn fealty to her. Sometimes I wonder . . . Was it a mistake? A woman, Robert, and such a woman . . .’
‘Your daughter, my lord.’
‘Ay, my daughter. If my son William had not died . . . if you, Robert, had been my legitimate son . . . Then I would die happy. Sometimes I thought I should have left the crown to my nephew Stephen. He is a good man. He is easy and affable and is loved dearly. I believed he would have been accepted by the people as Matilda will not be.’
‘You disturb yourself, my lord. Should you not make your peace with God?’
‘Ay, son. I will confess my sins again for when I look back old forgotten ones come back to mock me. Let me have the Holy Communion and a last anointing. Robert, you have custody of my treasury at Falaise. I wish you to take from it £60,000. Pay my servants and those who have been hired to fight with me and for the rest give it to the poor. Ask all to pray for my soul. Do this for me, Robert, my son.’
‘I will, my lord.’
And so after reigning over England for thirty-six years and over Normandy for twenty-nine, Henry I closed his eyes on the world for ever.
Hugh Bigod
RIDING IN FROM the hunt, Stephen, who was in Boulogne with his wife, saw a man on horseback galloping towards the castle.
Stephen paused and waited. There was one piece of news which had been expected for some time and he had been on the alert for these many weeks. The purposefulness of the rider, the speed with which he galloped and the
fact that he was making straight for the castle implied that he had news of the utmost importance for Stephen.
Could it be? The King had been ill for some time. The news had been that he was visibly declining. His breathlessness had increased; and his temper deteriorated day by day as did his desire for penitence. The number of good deeds he had performed in the last year was ominous. The messenger was slowing down. He had recognized Stephen.
‘My lord,’ he gasped. ‘The King is dead.’
‘You are certain of this?’
‘I have been sent to you by those who have seen his corpse. He died of a surfeit of lampreys.’
‘Ay,’ said Stephen, ‘but it was more than that. He has been slowly dying these last months.’
‘The lampreys finished him, my lord. His base-born son Robert of Gloucester was with him at the end. He has given his orders to him.’
‘I thank you,’ said Stephen. ‘You shall be rewarded. Now go and refresh yourself.’
Stephen went at once to his wife’s apartments. She was pregnant, a fact which delighted him.
‘The King is dead,’ he said.
Matilda looked at him with dismay; she could see the excitement in his eyes.
‘What will you do?’ she asked slowly.
‘I must go to England at once.’
‘To support Matilda?’
He was silent.
His wife looked at him sadly. She had been at peace in Boulogne; she could never be happy when that other Matilda had been near. She thought of the arrogant handsome Empress and how pleased she had been when she had left England with her young husband and her children had been born. She knew of course that Stephen had been bemused by the Empress; she suspected that they had been lovers; she knew that there was some close tie between her husband and his arrogant cousin but she did not quite understand what it implied though she did know that it was stronger than any other relationship either of them felt – Matilda for Geoffrey, her husband, or Stephen for her, his wife.
And his first thought was that he must go to England; he must stand beside Matilda. He must be at her side when she claimed the throne.
But Matilda did not understand her husband. Nor did he entirely understand himself.
A wild exultation had seized him and it was not because he was going to help Matilda take and hold the crown.
His wife said: ‘You are eager to go back to England. You want to be with your cousin Matilda. You want to serve her. I have understood for so long your feelings for her.’
Stephen looked at his wife intently; then taking her by the shoulders he said: ‘I am going to England not to put my cousin Matilda on the throne, but to take it myself.’
She reasoned with him. ‘But, Stephen, how can you? Matilda is the King’s daughter, the rightful heir. Her father named her so.’
‘Nay,’ he said, ‘she is a woman and the people do not want a woman to rule them.’
‘You have sworn fealty to her.’
‘She is no longer in England. She has a husband. Geoffrey of Anjou cannot be King of England.’
‘Nor would he. She would be Queen and he would be her Consort.’
‘Nay,’ said Stephen, ‘the people do not want them and it is the people who decide.’
She had shaken her head; she had wept and entreated, but in Stephen’s eyes there was a look of ecstasy. He saw himself with the golden crown on his head. Why was it that a crown should change men’s minds? Stephen who had been kindly and gentle, amiable and well loved had become an ambitious man. But perhaps he always had been.
He was going to take the crown although he had sworn fealty to his cousin Matilda and as she was not of a nature to allow herself to be swept aside there would be bitter fighting and bloodshed.
Oh, what happened to a man when he dreamed of fitting a crown on to his head?
‘I shall send for you, Matilda, as soon as I am safe on the throne, he said. He embraced her. Then he took a few men with him and rode down to Wissant where he took ship for Dover.
Lightning shot across the sky, followed by deafening claps of thunder. The rain fell so heavily that it threatened to overturn the ship. Men groped about on deck in darkness horrifically illumined by the flashes of forked lightning.
‘There never was such a storm,’ said one.
‘It is the end of the world,’ added another.
Stephen stood staring defiantly up at the sky, looking for portents. What did this mean? A great king had passed on. He had made one great mistake and that was in leaving his kingdom to his daughter. No man wanted to serve under a woman. But Stephen was about to take the crown although he had sworn an oath of allegiance to Matilda. Was this God’s answer to a man who was ready to break his oath? Was the ship going to be overturned? Was he, with all those who had supported him in his planned enterprise, to be drowned?
He muttered prayers asking forgiveness of his sins, but he did not mention the proposed usurpation of the throne. He had not yet committed that sin. God would know what he was planning to do though. Why should he have hastened back to England if not for this purpose?
But one thing he could not do; he could not promise not to take the crown if he were spared to do so. No matter what happened to him now he was taking no oaths under that threatening sky to relinquish his dreams and hopes.
He stood therefore almost defiantly while the storm raged round him. He was in terror of fearful reprisals but such was the lure of the crown that he could not give up his hopes.
The storm abated; the ship had come safely through it and the white cliffs of Dover loomed up before him.
What a joyous moment when he stepped on English soil. He had faced the fury of the heavens and emerged safe; now he must face the verdict of the English people and in time the fury of the Empress.
He, with his men, climbed the hill to Dover Castle. Battered by the storm, drenched to the skin, they were cold and hungry.
But the castle gate was not opened to them and they were challenged from the keep.
‘Who comes here?’
‘Stephen, the King’s nephew,’ was the answer. ‘Come from Boulogne to claim what is his. Open up and let me in.’
‘What do you come to claim?’ was the answer.
‘The crown,’ answered Stephen.
‘We are loyal here to the rightful Queen Matilda. The castle will not be opened to you.’
Stephen was depressed. Was this an example of the kind of reception he would get throughout England? One of his men whispered to him. ‘The castle belongs to Robert of Gloucester. He has placed himself on the side of Matilda.’
‘A curse on him,’ muttered Stephen.
‘My lord, it just happens that we landed at Dover. It would have been different elsewhere. There will be many to rally to you, for Matilda was never loved as you are.’
Stephen looked up at the castle. Impregnable! And he was in no state to make siege.
‘We will march on to Canterbury,’ he said.
Alas, when he reached Canterbury there was a troop of men at the gates, those who supported Robert of Gloucester; and they refused him entry into the town.
‘A pleasant homecoming,’ said Stephen; but he hastily reminded himself that he was in Robert of Gloucester’s country.
They refreshed themselves at an inn and after resting they marched on to London.
Here it was a different story.
The news had reached the city that the King was dead of a surfeit of lampreys and that Stephen, his nephew, was coming to claim the throne.
Many knew Stephen – the generous, affable man who for years had lived at Tower Royal near the Chepe and Watling Street. He had endeared himself to the people and his bonhomie was for the poor as well as the rich.
Stephen had come to claim the crown. They had feared that the King’s daughter would take it. They had seen her too – a haughty arrogant woman who when she had ridden through their streets had never shown the slightest interest in them.
Did they want a wo
man and that woman Matilda? No. They would rather see in her stead kind, benevolent, handsome Stephen.
Stephen rode acclaimed through the streets of London.
He called together the leading citizens.
‘My friends,’ he said, ‘King Henry is dead. It now is for you to elect your future King. There are some who would set up the King’s daughter on the throne. A woman, my friends, who has spent the greater part of her life on foreign soil, who has no great love for the people of this country.’
‘We’ll not have Matilda,’ cried a voice.
‘Ay, we’ll not have Matilda.’ The cry was taken up.
‘Then, my good citizens of London, will you take me?’
‘We will take Stephen,’ they cried.
One man said: ‘There should be conditions.’
‘Indeed there must be conditions. The people who elect their Sovereign must know what he will bring to them. Tell me, good people, what you would ask for me?’
‘Peace,’ said the man who had first talked of conditions. ‘Peace that we may live in quiet.’
‘That I grant. It is my great wish to live in peace.’
‘And you will swear to pacify the kingdom for the benefit of us all?’
‘I swear,’ said Stephen.
‘Then while you live we will support you with all our strength.’
Stephen replied: ‘Then I thank you, good people of London for without your support no man can hold the crown. I must now to Winchester that I may present myself to the people there; and if they are as good and wise as you then we may look forward to a peaceful reign.’
What did he care for Dover and Canterbury when he had London with him?
As he rode towards Winchester he thanked God that his brother Henry had been brought to England and after making a very favourable impression as abbot of Glastonbury had been elected to the See of Winchester.
Stephen knew that he could rely for support on Henry and he was not mistaken. As he came to the gates of the city he was met by his brother and an assembly of the leading men of the town.
They had come to proclaim Stephen King.
Amid acclamation Stephen entered the town and his brother took him to his palace which was called the Castle, that there Stephen might be refreshed and what was more important, discuss with Henry the next method of procedure.
