Epitaph for Three Women (17 page)

Now his great desire was to be with Eleanor and to spend their time exercising their considerable talents in bed – and that came first – and then in political intrigue.

It was true in some measure that he had won the battle with his uncle; but it had had the result of bringing brother Bedford to England, and that was not so good. He could very well do without the presence of his brother. John took command and everyone held him in such high respect that whatever John said they were inclined to agree was right.

John criticised Humphrey’s rule generally. To be at the head of government was a task not to be taken lightly, he reiterated. One must dedicate oneself to the needs of one’s country. One must subdue one’s own personal desires, one’s greed. That was the burden of John’s song. Let him live up to it. It was not brother Humphrey’s way. ‘Let my brother govern as he will while he is in the land,’ he said to Eleanor. ‘For after his going over to France, I will govern as seems good to me.’

Eleanor agreed.

‘You can be sure,’ she said, ‘that as soon as John feels he can safely leave, he will be off.’

Appeals were constantly coming from Jacqueline. It was no use, he told himself. She should give up. How could she stand out against Philip of Burgundy? If he could not send troops, she wrote frantically, could he send her money?

He approached certain members of the Council. If they would grant her a little money it would ease his conscience. He was not sure whether it was his conscience which bothered him or the desire to harry Burgundy.

John came to see him. Very soon now he would return to France. ‘For which mercy let us be thankful,’ Humphrey had said to Eleanor.

‘You have asked the Council for money to send to Holland,’ he said. ‘This is madness.’

‘Madness … to consider a request from my wife?’

‘Do you want to anger Burgundy still further?’

‘Burgundy! Burgundy! Burgundy!’ sang out Humphrey. ‘He has become your patron saint, has he not, brother?’

‘I do not have to explain again, do I, the importance of his friendship to us?’

‘If you did it would have been for the ten thousandth time.’

‘The need to hold that friendship is more important now than it was when you first heard it. Now, give me your promise. Your adventures in that direction are at an end. Be thankful that they were not even more disastrous.’

When brother John talked in that way it was wise to put up a semblance of agreement. John was the most powerful man in England as well as France.

Never mind, the field would be clear when he went back with his precious Burgundian wife.

‘I shall not allow my brother to dictate to me,’ he told Eleanor.

John left for France and as soon as he had gone Humphrey approached the Council again and asked for five thousand marks to send to Jacqueline.

It was refused. Humphrey shrugged his shoulders. He had done what he could, Jacqueline’s was a hopeless case. This was confirmed when one day a message came to him from the Pope. His marriage to Jacqueline had been annulled.

‘Burgundy’s work,’ he said to Eleanor.

She was pleased. There was a sly expression in her eyes. Why not? She would enjoy being the Duchess of Gloucester. For once she applauded Burgundy’s action. She would not suggest it just yet. She would wait and shrewdly implant the suggestion into his mind, so that he thought it was his own idea. However, nothing must be done hastily. Divorces were tricky. She did not want to go through a form of marriage with Humphrey and then to have someone prove that it had been no marriage at all. And what if by that time he would have outgrown his desire for her company? One could never be sure. Men who had indulged as freely and consistently as Humphrey could become suddenly satiated. Eleanor was cunning, and one of the lessons she had learned was never to come to too hasty a conclusion to important matters.

The delegation was being discussed everywhere. In some it aroused amusement, in others concern.

‘They say it was made up of very respectable women.’

‘All very well dressed, I heard.’

‘That was so, no rabble. They came in orderly fashion. Well, it
is
a scandal.’

‘He used to be so popular with the Londoners, remember.’

‘Yes, they showed clearly that they preferred his rule to that of the Bishop. But what they strongly object to is that woman, of course. She is so blatant and he takes her everywhere. He remains besotted by her. They say he has never been faithful to one woman long.’

So the gossip continued.

Humphrey was annoyed. Eleanor was more so, for really it concerned her most.

The fact was that a body of merchants’ wives had presented themselves to the Council and announced that they were deeply shocked by the conduct of the Duke of Gloucester. He had abandoned his wife and was now flaunting his harlot Eleanor Cobham who was beside him wherever he went. Her manners were bold and she proclaimed with every gesture the nature of her relationship with the Duke. The wives of the merchants demanded more propriety in their rulers.

The women were graciously received by members of the Council. Nobody wanted to offend the merchants and they guessed that to offend their wives might be even more disastrous. It was pointed out to them that the Duke’s morals were really no concern of the Council and that the Pope had actually annulled his marriage.

This the women had to accept; but it did show the growing unpopularity of the Duke and when he rode out into the streets of London boys who could quickly dodge out of sight before they could be caught called after him.

The Council told him that his authority must be curbed. He could not expect the same power as that extended to his brother. He protested but that was little use. The housewives of London had had their effect. Before he had relied largely on his popularity with the Londoners. That that had waned considerably was obvious.

While he was grinding his teeth over his encounter with the Council the Earl of Warwick came to see him.

He had never liked Warwick. One of those honourable upright gentlemen, friend of John, loyal to the crown, not a man to diverge one little step from what he considered to be his duty. He had been a close friend of Henry the Fifth and very highly thought of by the late King.

Warwick characteristically came straight to the point. ‘My lord, I come to tell you that I have been formally committed to the task of guardianship of the King.’

Gloucester narrowed his eyes.

It was his place to have the guardianship of the King. Was he not his uncle? Who should have charge of the child but his nearest relative – and it was understood that he could not indefinitely be left to the charge of his mother. John was the elder brother, it was true, but Humphrey was here on the spot.

But to appoint Warwick was an insult to him.

‘And who has bestowed these powers on you?’ demanded Gloucester. ‘I have not been consulted.’

‘The Council, my lord, but you will remember that the late King, your noble brother, named me as guardian of his son. He bequeathed the care of his education to me and now that the King is of an age for serious education I would fulfil the promise I made to his father.’

Gloucester ground his teeth in dismay. But what could he do? Those housewives of London had unnerved him more than anything else. He felt as though the ground was moving under his feet.

‘The King is now seven years old,’ went on Warwick. ‘He should have his own household and a body of knights and squires whom we shall choose for him.’

‘I see that the matter has been decided,’ said Humphrey shortly.

‘It is as you would expect, my lord Duke. I have sworn to teach him to love, worship and dread God. I shall develop his character along virtuous lines and let him know that God favours righteous Kings.’

‘Does He?’ asked Gloucester.

‘My lord, I believe virtue to be the true way to happiness and that no joy can come to a ruler or his nation through avarice and ill doing.’

‘I hope your wisdom matches your piety, my lord Warwick.’

‘I have been commissioned to teach him, nurture him, to give him a good grounding in literature, language and all other arts and to chastise him when he does aught amiss.’

‘Take care with the cane, Warwick. Kings have long memories.’

‘I shall not allow such a consideration to cloud my actions. Also, my lord, I am to have the power to remove from him any persons who I consider shall be harmful to him.’

‘Great powers are yours, my lord.’

‘I shall do my best to use them wisely. The castles of Wallingford and Hertford have been chosen for him during the summers and Windsor and Berkhamsted for his winter residences.’

‘I can see that it has all been well planned. And his mother?’

‘He will see her frequently.’

‘Perhaps then she will emerge from her widowhood. It has been a long one.’

‘I am sure the Queen will never cease to mourn her husband.’

‘Maybe. Maybe. I wish you well of your task. I think you are going to need all the good wishes you can get.’

‘I am well aware, my lord Duke, of the gravity and importance of my task.’

Warwick left the Duke. It had been easier than he had hoped. Gloucester was angry that the care of young Henry had been passed to him; but he was still smarting too strongly from the signs of his unpopularity in the city of London to raise objections as he might otherwise have done.

‘Warwick has the King,’ Gloucester told Eleanor. ‘I don’t grudge him the task. Henry is not the meek boy some think him.’

Eleanor said: ‘You should take care not to lose your influence with him.’

‘Nay, I’ll be favourite uncle. Moreover tutors who are stern – and Warwick may well be – don’t always keep their pupils’ affection. The cane is a good way of beating out future favours. I imagine Warwick is too upright to consider this axiom. He’ll not spare the rod and that may well spoil his future chances.’

They laughed together. The appointment of Warwick was nothing more than a minor irritation.

So Henry had passed out of his babyhood. He must no longer stay under his mother’s influence. She should be grateful, she supposed, that they had allowed him to stay so long.

She thought: It will be easier now. There will be less attention focused on me. Perhaps I can live now like a humble country lady. That would suit her very well, for the most important part of her life was those hours she spent with Owen.

What an ecstatic relationship was theirs! Perhaps the more so because it was to be carried on with secrecy. Now that the King had left, important people had left with him. If she could go on living in obscurity in the country she must be thankful for this. She had contrived that Owen visit her bedchamber when the household was asleep, and he had climbed up and in at her window. But that could not go on for ever. It had been the happiest night of her life. Then she had been able to cast aside all pretence – for they had both pretended for many years; she that he was just a good squire; he that he was not in love with the Queen.

‘I love you,’ she told him twenty times during that first romantic night; and he had left her in no doubt that he shared her feelings.

She had come alive at last – alive as she had never been before. A fervent passion possessed her and she knew that it would be deep and abiding. She was not a girl any more to love romantically and this emotion had built up between them over the years. They had both tried to deny it, knowing that it would present difficulties, insurpassable difficulties they had seemed, but nothing was insurpassable before this torrent of love. It swept all aside. What cared she if he were a humble squire? What cared he if she were a Queen? They were lovers, meant for each other from the first moment they had been together. Now this love would not be denied. Her love for Henry had existed. But it was not to be compared with what she felt for Owen Tudor.

It was inevitable that those about her should notice the change in her. They saw the expression in her eyes when they alighted on the Tudor; they heard the inflection of her voice when she spoke of him.

Dame Alice and Joan Astley shook their heads together. They would not remain long, they knew, for their task was done. Their little one had been taken from their care and they were two sad women. When they were not talking of him and hoping that the Earl of Warwick would not be too harsh with him, they were wondering about the web the Queen was weaving about herself.