The Passionate Enemies

by Jean Plaidy

  ‘Stephen,’ she said, ‘how can you know who is faithful?’

  He turned to her then and took her face in his hands. ‘There is but one I know of,’ he replied.

  ‘On that one,’ she answered, ‘you can always depend no matter what should befall.’

  He laid his head against her breast then and she comforted him as though he were a child. He was ashamed of his subservience to the Empress; he realized fully how foolishly he had acted, for she cared only for herself, the gratification of her senses and her ambitions. She had no love to offer him, only a searing passion which they both found irresistible. It was this Matilda, his wife, who stood with him and would support him no matter what happened. He was a fool. This was where his loyalty lay, with this woman whose cause was his, who loved him selflessly. And he had betrayed her and risked his crown for the sake of a sensational encounter with his beloved enemy, the Empress. No doubt she was laughing at him now, telling Robert of Gloucester of her victory, and with what ease she had tricked her cousin the King into letting her escape.

  ‘Oh, my dearest Matilda,’ he said, ‘my Queen, don’t leave me. Stay with me.’

  ‘I will always serve your cause,’ she told him, ‘but it may well be that I cannot always stay with you.’

  He was alarmed. He raised himself to look at her and a fierce delight filled her heart because the prospect of losing her terrified him. He loved her; she was the steady rock on which he built his life. He could not do without her, and yet he could not be faithful to her.

  ‘Stephen,’ she said, ‘there may be little time left to us. A mighty battle is about to break out. There will be civil war in this country. Let us face the truth. Robert of Gloucester is amassing an army. When the Empress meets him she will find men rallying to her banner. They will march on . . . who knows where? Winchester? London perhaps? And you will have to be ready to meet them.’

  ‘Why did they make me King,’ cried Stephen angrily, ‘if they did not want me?’

  ‘They wanted you, Stephen, when they put the crown on your head. Men’s minds change.’

  She thought sadly: They would never have changed had you, my dearest husband, acted as your uncle Henry would have done, as your grandfather the great Conqueror would have done, and you would not now be in this miserable dilemma.

  But she said nothing. Reproaches would help not at all. It was not brooding on the past which was necessary but planning for the future.

  ‘The people are fickle,’ cried Stephen.

  She put her arms about him. ‘When they see that you are strong, Stephen, they will support you.’

  ‘Then I will show them,’ he said.

  And she thought sadly: You will not do that by giving way to the Empress, by allowing your enemies to escape.

  But she said: ‘You are a brave fighter, Stephen. All know that. None who have seen you in battle can doubt your courage.’

  ‘I have never doubted it,’ he told her. ‘I will fight to the death, if need be, for my crown.’

  She was silent and he turned suddenly to her and took her by the shoulders. ‘They blame me, Matilda, for letting the Empress go.’

  She could not look at him.

  ‘You blame me, Matilda.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘She is my cousin, Matilda. We were children together . . . I could not make her my prisoner. What was I expected to do? To put her in some dungeon?’

  ‘Nay,’ she said, ‘you should not have done that.’

  ‘I remembered when we had played together as children.’

  She raised her eyes to his and tried to read what those memories were.

  ‘My cousin,’ he went on. ‘It is not good to make war on one’s own kith and kin, Matilda.’

  Matilda replied: ‘It may be necessary if they make war on you.’

  He nodded and his eyes as they met hers were crestfallen. She felt protective, as she might have felt towards their little boys, Eustace who was now four years old, and baby William.

  ‘Stephen,’ she said, ‘let us not think of what is past but plan for the future which indeed we must. The Empress with the help of her brother Robert – and let us not underestimate him – is raising her standard at Bristol. It is certain that soon they will be marching against you. You must be prepared.’

  ‘I will vanquish them,’ he said, ‘never fear. And then, my Queen, you and I will live in harmony and peace for the rest of our lives. I want to show you how I love you, how I depend on you, what you mean to me . . .’

  She smiled. They were so clearly the protestations of a husband with a need to satisfy his conscience.

  ‘You are fond of me, I know, dear husband,’ she said. ‘And we have our children to consider. The Empress has a son, young Henry, and the fact that this boy exists will make her fight the harder for the throne. She will be fighting not only for herself but for her son.’

  ‘The Empress would fight as fiercely for herself as for any other.’

  He was bitter, yet even when he spoke of her in anger there was a lilt in his voice which none other could put there.

  ‘We have a son too, Stephen. Our Eustace. William, too. We shall be fighting not only for ourselves but for our children. It is a matter of who shall inherit the throne . . . your son or the son of the Empress.’

  He lowered his eyes. She must not read that particular secret. She knew as so many did that there was a passionate attachment between himself and the Empress. She would guess at what had passed between them when she had so successfully prevailed on him to release her and so place his crown in jeopardy. But what she must never know was that Henry of Anjou, that bright and lusty boy, who had been the pride of his grandfather’s heart, could well be his.

  My two sons then, thought Stephen. Henry . . . Eustace. Was Henry his son? Who could say? Perhaps even the Empress was not sure.

  He was filled with a sudden hatred towards the Empress. He thought of her always as the Empress because his Queen was Matilda. Her son should not inherit the crown. That must be Eustace.

  ‘Eustace shall have the crown,’ cried Stephen. ‘I will stake my life on it.’

  He meant it. He had a resolution. He would never again be tempted by the Empress. He knew who were his true friends. The love his gentle wife had for him was worth everything; his passion for that other Matilda was but a destructive force and it always had been.

  ‘We must think ahead, Stephen,’ the Queen was saying. ‘There is Normandy to be considered. We should consider placating the King of France. If he were our ally, Normandy would be safe and you could give all your attention to England.’

  ‘You should have been a statesman, Matilda.’

  ‘We learn what we have to. I shall be as your first minister, Stephen, for whom else can you trust and our position is desperate. I have thought long of this. We have a son, a fine boy who will one day be King of England. If the King of France would consider a betrothal between his young daughter and our son that would be the best alliance we could hope for. Such an alliance would strike fear into your enemies.’

  ‘You are right. But how can I leave England now to parley with the King of France?’

  ‘You can send an ambassador.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The only one who, you can be sure, has your cause at heart. Your wife.’

  ‘You, Matilda?’

  ‘None other. I will go to France taking Eustace with me. I will persuade the King of the good this alliance will bring us both.’

  He stared at her.

  ‘Why, my beloved Queen has indeed become a statesman,’ he said.

  Those were bitter months which followed. Stephen had never wanted to fight. He was no coward; he was ready enough to face death if the need should arise, but he had always liked to be on good terms with all men; and it grieved him that there should be some who hated him and wanted to take the crown from him.

  If it were not for his cousin Matilda, they would have been content with his rule. He was not like his un
cle and grandfather. They had been harsh men. They did not care whether their subjects loved them; they only cared that they obeyed them.

  There were so many happier ways of passing one’s time than fighting.

  And Matilda his Queen was in France where she was proving herself to be a worthy ambassador. She had been received with honours at the Court of France and indeed it was to be expected that she would be, for she had taken with her a large dowry which she would pay to the King of France for his daughter. This was custom in reverse since it was the bride who usually brought the dowry to her husband; but the situation was desperate. Matilda knew that the fact that Stephen and the King of France had become allies would be worth many a soldier and his arms to her husband’s cause.’ Robert of Gloucester and the Empress Matilda would receive the news with dismay; and the Queen was determined that they should receive such news.

  The King of France believed that Stephen would defeat his cousin because he could not conceive that any country would accept a woman as its ruler. The bargain was made. Eustace, son and heir of King Stephen, had become the son-in-law of the King of France through his marriage with Constance, the French King’s daughter.

  Stephen was heartened by the news. The Empress and her followers were dismayed by it.

  In his palace Stephen thanked God for his clever and faithful wife.

  It seemed impossible that it was but six years ago that the stern Lion of Justice had reigned over England. Then it had been possible for travellers to walk the roads after dark unharmed. Their purses were safe enough, for any who dared rob them and be discovered in the deed had suffered the terrible penalty of mutilation. The law of the Conqueror had prevailed and with it came justice. A purse of gold was not worth the loss of a man’s ears, his nose or his eyes; he did not want to have his feet cut off for the sake of the contents of some traveller’s pocket.

  The Conqueror had declared he would restore law and order to the land by severe penalties for those who defied those laws, and so terrible were these penalties that few incurred them.

  Henry had followed the rule of his father. But now Stephen was on the throne.

  He had shown by the treatment he meted out to his enemies that he was no Conqueror. There was no need to fear Stephen it was said. A man who allowed those who had taken up arms against him to escape and come back to plot against him once more could not very well inflict a harsh punishment on a mere thief.

  The customs had changed. Castles were springing up all over the land. Every man who had the means to do so built himself a castle and this he defended against all comers. Those who had enough money to build themselves strongholds did so and from these fortresses they ravaged the land about them. They would take any man they found on the roads and bring him to the castle that he might be forced to work there. Those who had goods and lands were captured and tortured until they gave them up.

  New methods of torture were invented; and not only to extort but to give a fearful sadistic pleasure. The roads had become unsafe. Unwary travellers were captured and taken to the castle to be made sport with; and if a man had a quarrel with another he might well be taken from his home one night and within the cruel walls of some fortress meet his lingering painful end.

  No one was safe; the most terrifying instruments of torture were devised such as the sachentege which consisted of an iron collar attached to a beam of wood. This collar was fitted with hideous spikes. It fitted round a man’s neck so that he could not move without bearing its weight. There was the crucet house, a short narrow shallow chest in which a man would be forced; sharp stones would be crammed in on top of him and great weights put upon the chest so that the man’s limbs were crushed.

  Men were hung up by their feet and fires were lighted beneath them; knotted rope was twisted about their heads and pulled until it entered their brains. They were thrown into dungeons full of toads, rats and snakes. Nothing was too fearful for these sadists to do to their victims.

  The orderly land of which William and Henry had been so proud was now the home of anarchy.

  The Queen had sent mercenaries from Boulogne to fight for the King and what had at first seemed a blessing proved the reverse for these men roamed the country pillaging the land.

  Civil war, the greatest evil which could befall a country, had broken out.

  The good old days of the late King Henry were over.

  More and more of the knights and barons were turning from Stephen. He had proved himself to be a weak king, and because of his weakness law and order had been lost and its place taken by anarchy. But Stephen was determined to fight for his crown or die in the attempt. Often he thought of his Queen Matilda who had stood by him so staunchly and even at this time had arranged the match for their son which had done so much good. He roamed the country and laid siege to those castles the owners of which had gone over to the enemy. At least he proved himself to be a valiant general.

  He did achieve certain successes and it seemed that the war was going in his favour; and it was not until Stephen and his army came to Lincoln on Candlemas Day of the year 1141 that the decisive battle was fought.

  Rannulf, Earl of Chester, hearing that Stephen was marching on to Lincoln and realizing that his intention was to lay siege to the town and castle, decided that he must immediately get help, so he left the castle in the charge of his young wife and brother.

  Rannulf knew that Robert of Gloucester would come immediately to his aid because his wife, whom he had newly married, was Robert’s youngest and much loved daughter.

  The situation was desperate, for Stephen, although his popularity had waned considerably during the last months, was still the King and possessed of a well trained army; and although his opponents had stood out against him with some success, their efforts so far had been confined to minor forays. By the time Rannulf was able to reach Gloucester where Earl Robert was with the Empress Matilda, Stephen was already encamped on the outskirts of Lincoln.

  Both Robert and Rannulf were anxious as to the fate of the young woman who was daughter of one and wife of the other. They gloomily discussed what an effect the siege could have on the inmates of the castle, and they were thinking of her. They pictured her growing emaciated, her beautiful golden hair growing lustreless – worse still, she might contract some fearful disease which many did in such circumstances, or even die.

  Matilda listened to Rannulf’s account of Stephen’s army and cried: ‘We must defeat him here. This is our chance. I want him brought to me in chains. Then he will see what it means to take the crown from me.’

  Robert replied: ‘You will not be so lenient with him, my lady, as he was with you.’

  ‘I am not a fool, brother,’ she answered shortly.

  ‘We must somehow raise an army,’ said Robert. ‘If we can trap him in Lincoln we have a fair chance. What have we now – a handful of desperate men.’

  ‘They will fight well,’ said Rannulf. ‘They have everything to gain and nothing left to lose.’

  ‘Except their lives,’ replied Robert grimly. ‘Before we march on Lincoln we must raise an army.’

  Rannulf looked alarmed, and Robert knew what he was thinking. How long would that be? Would the castle hold out? And what of his bride who was a prisoner there in the castle?

  Robert understood his son-in-law’s fears and indeed shared them. This would not only prove to be a vital battle in the campaign for the Empress, it must be won – and speedily – for the sake of his beloved daughter.

  The Empress watched the two men leave at the head of their followers. Her eyes glittered. She was glad that girl was a prisoner in the castle of Lincoln. Those two men would fight for her more fiercely and determinedly than they would for a cause.

  She smiled briefly. Something told her that victory was near. What a triumph that would be when Stephen was her prisoner!

  She felt a sharp pang of fear. They must not kill him. That she could not bear. A world without Stephen would be robbed of its savour. Even a crown could not
compensate for that. She wanted to hold him her prisoner, to inflict indignity upon him; she wanted to show him what a fool he had been to think he could triumph over her. Never, never – even during their passionate interludes – had she submitted to him. Always he must be the suppliant. He had made her so happy when he had allowed her to escape. Not because she was free to go to Bristol but because he had shown her and the world what a fool he was. Never had he been so completely hers as that moment when she rode out of Arundel and rarely had she been so happy.

  And now this fight after which he should fall into her hands. It must be so. So she was thankful that those two men who had left grim-lipped to raise an army had that added incentive of a loved one in danger.

  She waited impatiently for news. Each day she would be at the turret watching for that messenger who would bring it to her. Stephen, her prisoner.

  Robert of Gloucester with his son-in-law at his side had greater good fortune than he dared hope for. The state of the country had sickened so many people. It had been brought home to them that Stephen was not as his uncle had been. They had complained about the harsh laws of Stephen’s predecessor; now they saw how their very harshness had preserved the peace. England needed a strong king and it was clear that she had a weak one in Stephen.

  The alternative was a woman but she was guided by Robert of Gloucester who was a man of courage and integrity. He would be beside the Empress when she became Queen; and even the King’s brother, Henry of Winchester, had shown that he was ready to desert Stephen for Matilda and Robert.

  Men fell in readily behind Robert and by the time he approached Lincoln he had amassed a considerable army.

  It was the end of January and the rainfall had been heavier even than usual. This was the marshy district and when they reached the River Witham it had become so swollen that they could not cross.

  Stephen meanwhile had forced his way into the town and was encamped about the Cathedral and the siege of the castle had begun.

  On the second of February, Candlemas Day, Stephen, knowing that the battle must soon begin, went to the Cathedral to hear mass. Here there occurred one of those incidents which men such as the Conqueror could turn to their advantage. Not so Stephen. During Mass the candle which he was holding broke suddenly in his hand. There was a deep silence as Stephen stood looking at the stump he held in his hand while the lighted portion rolled on the floor.