by Anne O'Brien
Since there was no arguing against the King’s decision, we retired to Ned’s manor at Berkhamsted to settle into married life together in luxury befitting our station, discovering anew the shared pleasure in spending the vast sums of money at our disposal. The manor became a treasure house of furnishings for the rooms which we traversed in robes stitched from the finest tissue and fur. The jewels Ned gave me to replace those I had loaned to the King were of inestimable value and quality. Our affection was strong, our enjoyment in each other’s company a delight to discover.
All that was needed to fill our cup to overflowing was that I should quicken. An heir for England would call forth an angelic throng to laud the achievements of King Edward and his family. My future would be secure for all time through our children.
What of my memories of Thomas? They would never fade. But with Ned my mourning could be put aside.
I did not tell Ned. One of those strange incidents to intrude on my pleasure. Not that I believed it. It caused me no anxiety for were we not awash with heavenly signs? But, irritatingly, that moment at Westminster continued to haunt me, casting a blight over the bright days when we enjoyed the fruits of our extravagance at Berkhamsted. It had been Sir Bartholomew Burghersh, one of the ageing knights of Edward’s court, sitting on a bench in the sunshine, entertaining Philippa’s damsels with tales of his past exploits, of ghosts and demons and all such nonsense.
‘We have a book…’ he was saying, enjoying the moment when they sat and listened. ‘It is believed to be the prophecy of Merlin. And do you know what it says?’
There was a chorus of ignorance. Of laughter. They were not beyond encouraging a foolish old man, and the mention of Merlin always drew a crowd. I made to walk on.
‘The King should be wary of it. And the Prince his son. It may be old magic, but it is a grave prediction for the future.’
Which caught my attention like the snap of a trout to gobble up a mayfly. I stopped.
‘The Crown of England will not pass to the Prince of Wales.’ His eyes travelled round the group, now suitably intrigued, but did not rest on me. ‘Nor will it rest on the head of his brothers, even though they are princes of the blood royal and the sons of Kings.’
‘So who will rule England?’ I asked.
‘Merlin predicted that it will pass to the House of Lancaster, my lady.’
Which side-stepped a number who might think that they had a stronger claim to the throne than John, Duke of Lancaster.
‘Do you say that some yet unborn son of Duke John will rule?’
‘Not I, my lady. Merlin himself so decrees.’ His eye sharpened in recognition. ‘It will have a bearing on your life, my lady.’
‘Only if we believe in such nonsense. You should know better than to tease the damsels, Sir Bartholomew.’
I walked on. It was disturbing, but not unduly so. I had no thought for portents. I looked back over my shoulder.
‘Perhaps you should tell him my lord the King, Sir Bartholomew.’
‘Perhaps I should, my lady. But I doubt he’ll wish to hear it.’
No, there was no truth in it. Merely an old man, meandering in his memories. What possible truth could there be? Or from the mythical Merlin with his magical powers in the reign of the long-distant King Arthur. What need to burden this bright morning with myths and legends, as empty as the birdsong that filled my ears with silly chirrupings that suddenly irritated me beyond words. Ned would rule, followed by our sons.
Ignore the scribblers, the self-important soothsayers. Ignore the gossips too.
It worried me that I did not quicken. It was becoming imperative that I did.
Chapter Thirteen
August 1363: The Bishop’s Palace in Bordeaux
We had settled into the Bishop’s palace at Bordeaux, where we were breaking our fast as was our wont in the airy chamber that gave views out over town and harbour. Ned, stretching as if he had been confined in a cage for far too long, was in expansive mood. I saw the change in him since the day when we had disembarked, an excitement about him, a new energy, while I was struggling to keep abreast of his line of thought. Dressed in my customary damasks and linen, I found the layers of my garments oppressive, even so early in the day when the heat had not yet built to its full power. On that morning I was not as appreciative of the southern delights of Bordeaux as I might have been.
But Ned was more than appreciative.
For therein had lain the problem of our new life together at Kennington and at Berkhamsted, as Prince and Princess of Wales. There was, to his mind, so little for Ned to which he could set his hand. There was no war for Ned to descend on, full of enthusiasms and planning and military fervour. True, the Treaty of Brétigny had run into difficulties since the King of France had still not formally renounced his claim over the territories agreed on in the original discussion of the Treaty. On the strength of this being decided, Edward agreed to relinquish his claim to the French throne, in return for complete sovereignty over all the territories he had inherited as a vassal as well as those he had obtained by conquest. It remained a festering sore between England and France, which Thomas might have taken the trouble to heal, but such negotiation to set the wound to rights was not to Ned’s taste. Nor did I think he would excel at such affairs. Ned was short on patience when arguments did not go his way.
For a number of months, back in England, he had ploughed his energies into the rebuilding at Kennington, adding a great vaulted hall with pantry, buttery, kitchens and other chambers necessary to the lifestyle to which we both aspired. Carved fireplaces, painted floor tiles, glowing tapestries were bought and enjoyed.
But such cosmetic enhancement could not satisfy for long.
We would, I supposed, travel round Ned’s manors and my own, taking on matters of government that Edward saw fit to delegate. These would increase as the years passed, but the King’s hold on the width and depth of his authority was as strong as ever in his fiftieth year. And so the future had held a strange incompleteness, without structure, without form. After the energy of campaigning years Ned had no specific task, being above the routine affairs of state except as a member of the King’s Council. Yet retiring to the country, as a great magnate might do to lavish attention on his estates, was not in his character or demanding of his talents.
And my own restlessness? I had no role either, in all those months in England, and thus there was as much of a disappointment in me as there was in Ned. I had advised a morose King Edward, to draw him out of his melancholy. What would I suggest for Ned and myself? The building of the new rooms at Kennington was almost complete. Another palace to rebuild, to add glamour suited to our status and wealth? I did not think that it would keep his interest for long.
‘If I have to mediate between another two barons who lay claim the same stretch of river, I’ll take a club to their heads.’
‘There is at our gate,’ I warned, ‘a deputation of merchants from the town who are angry at –’
Ned had grimaced, not stopping to hear the cause, but marched off to deal with the matter.
It was my cousin Edward who had come to our rescue in true Plantagenet style, with grace and wide-ranging power. So we had sailed from Plymouth on the ninth day of June in the year of 1363, leaving behind us one of the chapels we had vowed to build to repent of our sin almost complete in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral. A blessing from Edward and Philippa had been given, Edward proud, Philippa resigned but unstinting in her love. I gave a brisk kiss and much maternal wisdom to my Holland sons Tom and John, who were to remain in England to continue their education under royal care. The first they accepted reluctantly as in the manner of adolescent youths, and the second probably ignored, while Ned was embraced by his brother John of Lancaster, whose family ambitions had come under my scrutiny after Sir Bartholomew Burghersh’s questionable delving into Merlin’s prophesies.
‘If you face any opposition, I’ll come and rescue you,’ John offered.
‘I need no resc
ue from you, little brother.’
‘I am consumed with jealousy, you know. To have a principality all of your own.’
How alike they were despite there being ten years between them. Both tall with the agile but well-muscled build of a jouster and swordsman. Both with the pride of Lucifer. Both intolerant of fools, but John made enemies faster than friends, perhaps a symptom of youth. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, won over by his abundance of easy charm when he was prepared to use it.
‘Don’t cause too much havoc while we are away,’ I advised.
‘I will not, if you take pity on the Gascon lords who have not been under the thumb of an English ruler living among them. I dare swear they will not enjoy the experience.’ There was an unusual seriousness behind John’s cynicism.
‘They will soon learn,’ I said, for why would they not?
I was given a fraternal hug.
‘Take care of my sons,’ I added.
‘I’ll teach them a few good passes with a sword and lance. You won’t know them when you see them next.’
‘Well, don’t spill too much blood. Don’t teach them rabid intolerance. And keep an eye on Mistress Perrers.’
I was reluctant to leave the woman in her increasingly avaricious role but had no power to rectify it. While I was away in distant Aquitaine, doubtless the rat would play.
John shrugged as if his father’s mistress was of no account. Sometimes I found it difficult to trust the Duke of Lancaster.
Before us stretched a new beginning, a new province to rule. For Ned had paid homage to his father for this new principality over which we, on the strength of the Treaty of Brétigny, had complete autonomy. We were Prince and Princess of Aquitaine, rulers of the provinces of Aquitaine, Gascony and Guienne, for the token payment of one ounce of gold as tribute to my cousin Edward each Easter. Our power was supreme, without restriction from England or France. It was exactly what Ned wanted, what he needed.
‘Next week it is my thought to make a progress to Angouleme,’ Ned was now explaining, placing one document on top of the next with one hand as he drank from a fine gold cup embellished with a geometric pattern of gems, held in the other. ‘I’ll hold court there and take the oaths of fealty to bind these Gascon lords to me and then…’
Sipping ale from a similar cup, both of them parting gifts to us from John of Lancaster, I could find no enthusiasm for this plan. As the newly styled Princess of Aquitaine I should have been aglow, my anticipation of witnessing our power in action matching Ned’s, rather than drawn down into a dark sea of unease.
‘We will make a splash of gold and patronage,’ Ned explained. ‘That should bring any rebels, who still feel an allegiance to the French King, to heel.’
Ned was exhilarated, while all I could think of was that, around me, our household was awash with chatter. So had been the court in England before we left. I had absorbed it with disfavour, but what could I do? The Prince was being sent to Aquitaine by his father, the King, as a punishment for a marriage which was a misalliance, ruining all the royal plans for a brilliant foreign connection. The Prince and I were being dispatched to Aquitaine to remove me from the court so that rumours could die down and we could remake our lives far from the public eye. We were an embarrassment. I was an embarrassment. I was the wrong wife and the King, accepting of me in public, in private would never forgive his son. Just as there had been no celebrations after our marriage, so the King was expressing his continuing displeasure by sending us to a distant province.
Out of royal sight, out of mind. Out of England.
Thus wrote the chroniclers, their words dripping with their perennial poison.
‘Do you hear what they are saying?’ I interrupted Ned.
Ned swept the matter away with an admirable lift of his chin: ‘What do they know? They have not been privy to what has been spoken between my father and me. My ruling this province was being discussed long before we shocked everyone by our nuptials.’
‘It is difficult to be sanguine,’ I said, ‘when conversations halt when I appear in doorways.’
‘Well, don’t listen. Ignore them. There is no truth in it. I was destined to be Prince of Aquitaine when you were still wed to Holland.’
Which I knew, but found it difficult to rise above those dark lapping waves of innuendo. Where once I would have done with ease, on that morning I was drowning under their weight. I pushed the cup of ale and the plate of fine wheat bread aside.
Ned continued unabashed, striding to the window and back, his concentration wholly on Aquitaine. ‘That’s my plan – unless there is any outbreak of dissention to hamper our royal progress – and then we’ll simply change our route and I’ll bring some force to bear.’
I gripped the edge of the table at which we sat, marvelling at the light in his face. He was enjoying every moment of this, in spite of the attendant frustrations of rebel lords and an uncertain situation in France where King John, the most chivalrous man I could imagine, who had been released from his captivity in England on payment of the first instalment of his ransom, had dutifully returned to his captivity in England when the rest of it could not be raised by his stricken country. The French had still to renounce their claim on Aquitaine, even though we were sitting here in Bordeaux as de facto rulers. Ned was not deterred. Were we not in possession? Meanwhile I kept my gaze far from the dish of glazed fowl that he was now eating his way through when not expounding on his plans. Or perhaps it was rabbit, for which the Gascons appeared to have an inordinate fondness, which I did not. I must speak with my cook about it.
‘If you will order your women to start the packing of your coffers, I thought that we would complete a circuit of Poitiers and Périgueux, then on to Saintes and perhaps Agen for Christmas. Unless we decide to return here to Bordeaux. I can take homage of the Gascon nobles and they can bow to you. And then after Christmas –’
I stood.
‘Jeanette…?’
‘If you will excuse me for moment. There is something that I need to do…’
His brows arched. ‘You don’t have to start quite yet. You have women to do that for you.’
I turned from the table and walked with measured footsteps towards the door, governed by a determination to preserve my dignity.
‘Joan…?’
‘One moment,’ I managed. ‘I will not be gone long.’
‘It was not my intent to leave before next week… !’
I heard no more. All my senses were turned inwards, as was my self-control. It had become imperative, urgent, that I take refuge in my chamber. I spent an uncomfortable hour there during which my women fluttered and commiserated and smiled with sly enjoyment.
After a cup of wine laced with honey and soothing lemon balm, returning to the chamber two hours later with a more spritely step and a clearer mind, the poison of the gossip effectively banished and the dark sea in fast retreat so that I was more myself, it was to discover Ned was long gone, the remains of his meal and mine fortunately removed.
‘Where is the Prince?’ I asked a passing servant.
‘In conference with his goldsmiths, my lady. In the treasury.’
They were, as I knew they would be, discussing coinage, when I joined them there in the chamber that contained chests and coffers. On the workbench before Ned were tools and moulds, a scattering of bright coin.
‘Come and look at this.’ He had forgotten my hasty departure. ‘Tell me what you think. It is like my father’s, so I can say no more in praise, but what do you think of this as a motto?’
I took the coin, weighing it in my hand, admiring the craftsmanship, the words that ran around the rim.
God is a righteous judge, strong and patient.
I decided it was necessary to look closely at the small coin to make out the lettering.
‘It is quite small. Could it not be bigger? If you wish to impress.’ I picked up a larger coin that lay gleaming importantly on the black cloth. ‘Now this one is superb. It is a t
rue symbol of your authority.’
‘Yes, I agree.’ There was a tinge of regret as Ned, frowning, took it from me, tossing it so that it caught the sun along its rim, before turning back to the goldsmith whose work it was. ‘It’s good. They both are of the best quality, but I choose this one.’ Discarding the large coin, he once more picked up the smaller one, rubbing the image with his forefinger. ‘I need to do this rapidly, and with less gold. Do you agree?’
He did not wait for my agreement or for the goldsmith’s. That was what he wanted, that is what he would have. It was one way to get his own way I supposed, to ride over any opposition with whip and spur. I felt a hush of irritation stealing in to undermine the return of my good mood, like a cool breeze to rob a spring day of its promise.
The goldsmith bowed his way out.
‘A good morning’s work.’ Ned leaned back against the bench, testing the edge of one of the tools against his thumb.
‘Yes.’
The heat in the room pressing down on me, I found a need to sit on the nearest stool.
‘Are you quite well?’
‘I am perfectly well.’
He frowned. ‘Did you eat? I don’t recall you eating anything this morning. I don’t recall you saying much either…’ He was tossing the two coins in his hands as if still torn between the two. ‘Perhaps I should have chosen the larger one after all.’
His total preoccupation sharpened by temper, unsettled as it was.
‘I’m surprised you recall anything. You were too taken up in your plans to go to Angouleme and after that a circuit of the whole of Gascony.’
A quick step and Ned was standing in front of me.
‘What’s wrong, Joan?’
‘Nothing’s wrong.’
‘Tell me the truth.’
‘The truth is that I will not be going to Angouleme with you.’
‘Why not?’ His frown was quick to descend as I shattered his vision of how we would proceed. ‘I need you with me. It is what we had envisaged when the Gascon lords convene in their Assembly.’
