by Anne O'Brien
It was as if I stood in icy water that was rising, inch by inch, until eventually I would be submerged it it. I forced myself to ask.
‘How?’
I recognised him now. He was one of Thomas’s own men.
‘A great malady, my lady.’
My lips were dry, my throat closed so that I could barely get out the words.
‘Did he suffer?’
‘No, my lady. It came fast to him. A fever. A sweating sickness. I know not its name. It struck him down three days before the close of the year.’
What had Thomas been doing? I had to imagine it, since there was nothing else for me. I tried to bring the formal audience chambers at Rouen into my mind, where before the turn of the old year Thomas had been given the delicate diplomatic task of carrying out the provisions of the Treaty of Brétigny. I could imagine him presiding over the discussions, the attempts to bring concord after all the years of war and broken truces between England and France. He would be forthright and outspoken, contemptuous of procrastination and flowery terms. He would be strong in precision and a need for speed. His days as King’s Captain had given him a forceful turn of phrase when required. I knew that he would be listened to, by men from both sides of the divide, as he would listen to them.
Who would have ever envisioned that the man who had bellowed across the river at the French in a fit of helpless rage should have found such depth of authority, demanding respect from French and English alike? His battle scars were regarded with awe. His experience was admired.
Because the fighting was over, I had lapsed into a false sense of serenity and pride. Beware such falsehood. Peace brought no man safety and long life. Yet Thomas had been, at last – at long last – endowed with the title of Earl, to strengthen his presence at the diplomatic table where he had learned such skills, of patience and calm speaking, of weighing the rights and wrongs of a case, in the presence of the erudite lawyers at Avignon. He had learned the ability to persuade. Edward had seen the gifts he had, and at last rewarded him, his most loyal of knights, in fitting manner. In the end it had taken no badgering from me, nor even sweet persuasion. Finally Thomas had enjoyed the distinction of being Earl of Kent. Perhaps I had appreciated it more than he, but there had been a marvellous dignity in him as he knelt before King Edward to receive the accolade.
I would never forget that moment when Thomas had kissed me and I had rewarded the King with a smile of true gratitude. And now I was rent with desolation, closing my eyes as if I might bring him close into my mind. I could not.
‘Where is he?’ I asked the reluctant courier who was shuffling before my silence. ‘Have you brought him home?’
‘No, my lady. He is buried in Rouen.’
‘Buried?’
‘It was thought best, my lady.’
‘But why?’
Who had taken it upon himself to order this? I would never look on his face again. I could not accept that he was already sealed in his tomb, and I not be aware of it or present to witness it.
‘It was not my doing, my lady. My lord the Earl was buried with all honour in the cathedral. There was no disrespect.’
‘Disrespect!’
The courier had taken a step back, which warned me of the effect of my ire which would achieve nothing. Or perhaps it was my appearance that unsettled him. I thought about this, taking off the mask that I still wore, crushing its golden strings, realising how ridiculous I must have looked receiving such desperate news behind the calm, silvered visage of an angel. I had not even noticed that my voice echoed with emptiness behind the moulded buckram. What had the courier thought of me? But I did not care. My mind seemed to be taken up with trivialities which the terrible news could not pierce. Thomas did not appreciate court games. He preferred the reality of battle. Perhaps he would have enjoyed court life more as old age touched him. Now it never would.
He would have been forty-six years old in this new year of 1361.
I tried to recall the last time I had seen him before bringing the children home to England. It was expected that Thomas would follow soon, when the signatures on the Treaty of Brétigny were dry. I had left him to complete the business alone.
Had I kissed him? Had we confirmed our love together in intimate embrace? I was sure that we had, but I had no sense of it. Perhaps we had merely parted with the brisk farewell engendered by a relationship of long standing, I preoccupied with organising travel with four young children, Thomas summoned by some demanding baron.
How I wish that I had known. But that was not how it happened in life. Death came hard and fast and without warning.
I breathed in, casting the mask from me, where, as it fell at my feet, it was pounced on by a small child, perhaps one of my own. All my thoughts with Thomas, I did not even notice. Yet in that moment it baffled me that I had had no sense of impending loss. How could I with the children noisy around me, but no more boisterous than the courtiers indulging in masked flirtations. But here was the Queen approaching. What had she read in my face now that my mask was removed. What had she seen in the set of my shoulders to bring her to my side?
One thought came clear into my mind as if written in gold, one event that I must set under way. We had been apart for so many years in our marriage. We would not be apart in his death. I must do it before the Queen came to fuss and set free my loss in disproportionate emotion. Now was not the time for uncontrolled outbursts.
My breath caught on what would have been an inappropriate laugh. I had never felt further from tears as I did with the destruction of my life writ large in the words and in the face of the courier. I had been waiting for Thomas to come home. I had been longing to see him again. But not like this.
I addressed the courier with stern orders. ‘I wish you to return to Rouen tonight. I wish my husband’s body to be disinterred from wherever it rests, however magnificent it might be. I desire his body to be returned to England, with all due honour and respect. He will be buried here in England. I wish you to arrange that for me. I will give you appropriate moneys before you go, and I will meet you when you bring the Earl’s body back to England.’
He blinked. I thought it was in his mind to tell me of all the difficulties.
‘It is my wish, and my wish is paramount.’
‘Yes, my lady.’
He had not expected it. Strangely it pleased me to do something that many might think outrageous. I would have Thomas buried where he would wish. It would not be in Rouen.
‘I will furnish you with an escort. I wish it all to be accomplished with grace and dignity, a soldier’s entourage and befitting the Earl of Kent. There will be no expense spared.’
How little time he had enjoyed the title. I would ensure that it was acknowledged at his death.
‘Yes, my lady. I will see that it is done.’ Then as he bowed, and turned, he stopped to open the scrip at his belt and remove a small item that fit in his hand so that I could not see it. ‘I have been instructed to give you this, my lady. It was found in the Earl’s possessions. We thought that you might wish it to come to you rather than be buried with him.’
He placed it in my hand, bowed, and departed to fulfil my demands.
And I?
I opened my fingers to disclose the silk band, discoloured now through age and use, that Thomas had worn to proclaim his dedication to his cause of England and England’s King. It shocked me that something so personal should be returned to me. Enclosing it within my fingers again, I hoped for some essence of him, but there was none.
And there at last, when my power to order my thoughts and my actions was fast waning, was Philippa, her hand on my shoulder, knowing what had happened.
‘Come with me. You need solitude for grief.’
I had no grief. This rock lodged in my chest did not allow for grief.
I looked around the festive court, which Thomas would never see again, the declaration of victory after the successful culmination of the French wars. Edward resplendent in a coat of black sa
tin, embroidered in gold and silver thread, a magnificent woodbine enhancing the whole, twining round a support. A recognition of his love and loyalty for the staid woman at my side. How I envied her. There would be no more twining for me.
You did not twine anyway!
I might have done.
Philippa touched my hand with such love and compassion in her face, and I realised that I had not yet spoken to her. I could not. What could I say that would heal this wound that had created a hole where my heart had been.
Solitude?
Yes, I did need solitude, but the grief was far from me. Rather I would curse and rail at what fate had stripped from me. I still could not grasp the sense that he had gone.
It struck my mind that the Queen looked strained, almost anxious. Her fingers wound again and again through the beads of her rosary as if she had some greater worry that compromised her own peace of mind. I put it out of my thoughts. I could not think of her. Later, when I was mistress of my emotions once more, but not now.
I met the body of my husband at Dover and travelled beside the coffin to Stamford. It was in that long cold journey in those final days of January where at last it was brought home to me that it was Thomas’s earthly remains that I accompanied, covered with a cloth bearing his own Holland heraldry because that is what he would have wanted. The silver lion proudly rampant against its blue background powdered with lilies. The emblems of the Earl of Kent were too new to do justice to this final journey.
Again my mind took flight from such a grim loss. Instead I forced it to concentrate on what I must arrange. Mourning would be put off until all was done to my satisfaction.
Why Stamford?
Where else? Thomas had no loyalties to any other place. It was a church well-loved by his Holland family and Thomas, in his heart, was never one for magnificence and splendour. There in a chapel adjoining the Greyfriars church, he was laid to rest beneath a plain slab which did no justice to his adventurous life. I watched as the deed was done. I would build a sumptuous chapel there to contain and embellish his tomb, whether he would approve or not. A finer memorial would be created than this plain script. He would be well remembered by all who stopped to read.
I shed not one tear. As the cold hemmed me in I considered how unfeeling, how indifferent, I must appear, if any man was interested enough to note. I had wept at John’s death, soaking Thomas’s tunic, yet Thomas went to his grave with no weeping from his wife.
Later. Later I would weep when I acknowledged that my world had lost its keystone. I stood, stern-faced, a hand on the shoulders of my two sons who were as silent as I, intimidated by the incense-laden solemnity and a morose King Edward. For at the last, my cousin the King had travelled north to mark the Earl of Kent’s passing, standing beside me beneath the grim northern stonework, draughts freezing our feet, his garments adding a touch of royal splendour to the dour occasion. I wondered why he had come.
‘Thank you, Edward,’ I said. ‘My lord the Earl would be honoured.’
I did not feel like praising him overmuch. Thomas had borne the title for a mere three months. Edward eased his weight from one foot to the other under my displeasure, which was no less cold than the stone paving.
‘He will always be Holland to me, charging across the field at Crécy,’ he said, voice thickening with emotion as the clergy began to disperse. ‘The silver lion shining fiercely, always in the thick of the fray. He was one of the most valiant of my knights. We had our differences, of course.’
‘It took a long time for you to get over them.’ I was not of a mind to forgive Edward.
‘I regret his passing. Mortality touches us all.’
An uncomfortable silence that I would not break.
‘He made you a fine husband, Joan.’
‘I never thought to hear you admit that!’ Oh, I was unforgiving of past intolerance.
‘I don’t wish us to be at odds over this. I doubt Thomas would have wanted it.’
‘You should have allowed him the title long before this.’
‘You cared about it far more than he did.’
‘But it would have been a sign of royal approval. In the cut and thrust of holding together your lands in Normandy it would have been inestimable.’
‘Well, I did it, didn’t I?’ Edward was gruff. I was not won over.
Before I left Stamford, I left money to employ three priests to pray for Thomas in never-ending petition for the progress of his immortal soul. He would need their intercession. A sword would be of no use to him now, but I would ensure that the image on his tomb included a fine example, as well as his armour. There would be no doubt that here lay a knight of renown.
I could not believe that he had left me again.
This time it had not been his choice, and I had no power to stop him.
At the last I had the silk band placed in Thomas’s coffin, folded neatly against his heart that no longer beat. It seemed to be the best gesture I could make. I had always understood his dedication even though it had taken him away from me.
Spring 1361
‘One day, Joan, you will wed again,’ my cousin the King had observed when he escorted me south from Stamford.
‘I have no thought of doing so,’ I had replied.
I had thought him being ruggedly compassionate, taking my mind from my loss, encouraging me to look ahead to my future life and that of my children.
‘It will be good policy,’ he had added with callous unconcern, ‘for me as well as for you.’
Upon which pronouncement I saw the truth.
When none of the Lenten fair tempted me, this one indisputable fact gave me food for thought; too much food, and little of it pleasant. Much like a surfeit of salted fish, indigestible after the first mouthful.
Returned to Woodstock, because I was not moved to go elsewhere and where I had left my two girls under the Queen’s care, I viewed my situation, as if it were a painted image, vivid and detailed, from Philippa’s Book of Hours. This is what I saw.
Myself, buffed and polished like a damascened blade, the most valuable of widows.
Of course Edward would see my value, as would many others with an eye to their own ambitions. I was a widow, an influential and undeniably wealthy widow, titled in my own right. My Plantagenet blood in itself was of inestimable value to an ambitious lord. I was thirty-two years old, with proven fertility, and not yet beyond childbearing years. I had the ear of my cousin the King. Occasionally. And certainly of his wife, the Queen. I had four healthy children, two promising sons to uphold the name of Holland, two daughters to be wed into the aristocratic families of England or Europe.
I was, therefore, a woman of some consequence, an object of desire like a fine jewel without flaw, set in a mount of pure gold.
I inspected my reflection in my mirror. The ivory surround had become worn over the years but the face that looked back at me was little changed. If anything the years had given my features more clarity, more strength. My hair, now in seemly order beneath my mourning veil, was untouched by time. I was still the Fair Maid of my early years.
I put the mirror away.
There should be much to please me here, but there were also, growing strongly through the hard carapace of my daily existence, the seeds of future uncertainty. The path of my life would take an unforeseen direction. I might be a widow of a bare three months, but it had been made known to me that there was already a handful of men close to the King, or who would desire to be so, men who were widowed or unwed, who would seek me out.
I was not so naive that I could not expect this.
So there would be offers for my hand. I had already seen the speculative gleam in Edward’s eye after we buried Thomas in Stamford. Why wait? he was thinking. I could see it in his mind as he escorted me back to Woodstock. Here is the perfect wife – if one could ignore the taint of past scandals and a wilful disposition behind the beautiful exterior – to tie some influential man to the English throne, or reward a good friend for services
rendered. Who will be the fortunate man?
Edward had been generous in his care of me on that journey, considerate of my sadness; I had been forgiven; I was his dear cousin again. Now that I was aware of the tenor of his thoughts I could feel him assessing my worth as a bride on every occasion that our paths crossed. Perhaps a bride to be sent beyond the sea. He might see it as an advantage to remove an uncomfortable presence and make a strong alliance at one and the same time. My new husband, whoever he might be, would not have to wait long to attain the honour of my title, of that I was certain. He would not have to wait well-nigh eight years, as Thomas had. My title and my wealth would be just another jewel to dangle before a mighty foreign lord.
So I must remarry.
Ah, but would I be allowed my own free choice, or indeed any influence at all, in Edward’s choice of ally?
More unpalatable food for thought to land on my platter.
Edward would want his own way in this, but, I decided, I would fight against his royal command if that choice proved disagreeable to me. I could fight not to wed at all. Had not my mother remained unwed through all the years after my father’s death? Had she ever been sought as a wife, and refused? I did not know.
Yet did I wish to remain isolated, unwed for the rest of my life, a femme sole, a nun in everything but life behind walls and locked doors? I had had quite enough of that experience, brief as it had been, at Bisham. There were advantages to having a powerful husband, for a woman who might interest herself in the world beyond her solar. I had ambitions. I had always had ambitions, and I would have them again. But now I was desolate, ground down by what must be a grief I could not express, one that kept me company from sunrise to sunset as well as through the dark hours. Yet I hid it well at court where it was easy to fill the moments of time with the habitual cycle of attendance on the Queen, a daily appearance at Mass, the donning of a fair face for any audience when my presence was demanded and I could make no excuse. I did all this with unyielding demeanour, rejecting any pity, hiding my melancholy until I was behind the closed door of my own chamber, my women banished. Even there, empty of all emotions, tears did not come.
