Epitaph for Three Women (40 page)

So the journey began as they had arranged it should. From Kennington to Canterbury where the people came out to cheer the little King. They remained there over Easter and all thought it was a good omen that Henry should set sail for France on St George’s Day.

It was exciting to land in a new country. It seemed he was its King as he was in England. His father had won it. Henry was always a little disturbed when people talked to him of his father because the admonition usually followed that he must learn to be like him; and Henry was beginning to think that it was not going to be very easy to do that.

They rode across the country which was rather flat and not unlike England in many ways except that the people did not seem to love him so much. They came out of their houses to look at him but they did not cheer as they did in England and some of them looked as though they would rather he had stayed away.

He heard a good deal of talk about Joan the Maid. The servants were always whispering about her. ‘Who is Joan the Maid?’ he asked. ‘She is a witch,’ he was told.

A witch! His eyes were round with horror. Where was she now?

She was where she should have been long ago. In prison. They had caught her. Now she would have to pay for her wickedness.

He thought about her a great deal. That was because she seemed to be in everybody’s mind.

She had used her witchcraft against the English, it seemed, and consequently they had lost some battles. They had taken that very badly. Battles, Henry had always thought, were won by the English. He was constantly being taught about Crécy and Poitiers and Harfleur and Agincourt. Nobody could withstand the bowmen of England – unless it was by witchcraft.

They were going to Rouen and soon he saw the towers of the capital city of Normandy which had been for so long the dominion of the English. William the Conqueror had made it so when he came to England; Henry had learned that years ago.

His uncle Bedford was at Rouen. Henry was greatly in awe of him. He was always so stern and never failed to remind him of his wonderful father. The Duchess was different. She was kind and friendly and seemed to remember quite often that although Henry was a King he was also only a boy.

Henry realised that they were all very concerned about Joan of Arc. They seemed to talk of nothing else. There was a sort of trial going on and his uncle Bedford was in close conference with the Bishops of Winchester and Beauvais and other men; they were all very grave.

They told him little. All he knew was that there was a wicked woman who was a witch and she had come to some arrangement with the Devil to crown the Dauphin of France who thought the crown of France was his although it really belonged to the English through the conquest of Henry’s great father and something called the Salic law which the French followed and was no true law at all apparently.

Well, he had to prepare himself for his coronation and there was a great fuss about that too. The Kings of France were crowned at Rheims and owing to the witchcraft of Joan of Arc Rheims was now in the hands of the French and as the Dauphin had been crowned there it was hardly possible for Henry to be crowned there as well.

His uncle fumed about it. He had heard him cry out: ‘The woman must be proved to be a witch.’

So then Henry knew that it had something to do with Joan of Arc.

He asked one of his squires about the witch. It was exciting

– and frightening too – to contemplate that she was actually a prisoner in this very castle. Sometimes he would wake up in the night and wonder whether witches had special powers and that they might break out of their prisons. Surely that was a small thing to do. Suppose she came to him? She would be particularly angry with him because, as he had learned, it was due to her that the Dauphin had been crowned. She wouldn’t like the true King very much.

One day his squire said to him: ‘There is an aperture in her prison. People watch her through it. Would you like to take a peep?’

He hesitated. He was afraid of what he would see. He imagined an ugly old woman with warts all over her where the Devil had kissed her.

But he wanted to see. He wanted to be frightened and horrified.

He accompanied the squire into the tower and up a flight of stairs.

The squire lifted him and he put his eye to the aperture. He was looking into a dark room, bare as far as he could see of all furniture except a straw pallet. Seated on this, her eyes on the window high in the wall, which was the only place where any light came through, was a woman. She was not old. She was pale and her eyes looked large and luminous. He could not help staring at her. There was a quality about her which even he in his youth must recognise.

He could not have described her. The only thought that came into his mind was: She is not like a witch. She looks good.

Then he saw that there was another table in this room, which he had not seen at first. Seated at it were three men whose appearance was so rough and cruel that they made an outstanding contrast to the girl seated on the bed.

As he looked there he felt suddenly a wretchedness which he could not understand. He signed to the squire to lift him down.

He wanted to burst into tears.

He said nothing as he was taken back to his own apartments, but he could not forget the sight of her. She haunted his dreams as she had before, but differently. Previously he had thought of an evil witch breaking into his apartments and putting some fearful spell on him. Now he thought of her quiet and sad … staring up at the light as though she were talking to God.

There must be good witches as well as bad ones, he thought and he was convinced that she was a good one.

There came a day when the excitement in the town of Rouen had reached fever point. It was impossible to shut it out of the royal apartments. They were whispering together – from the highest to the lowest. Everybody wanted to be out in the streets on that day.

‘It is the day when they will burn Joan of Arc at the stake,’ he was told. ‘You are not to go out to see it.’

He did not want to. He clenched his hands together. He did not want to see her burn.

But the tension had permeated the castle. One might not be there to see … but one could feel.

The English were burning her. His uncle Bedford had said that was what must be done because she was a witch. She brought great harm to the English and had changed the course of the war. There would be no hope for England if she were allowed to live and lead French armies.

He could smell the acrid odour of burning wood and the oil they poured on it to make it burn the faster. And she was in the centre of it. The girl he had seen through the aperture in the wall.

He wondered if he would ever be able to forget her.

Uncle Bedford was brisk and obviously relieved. So was the Bishop of Winchester. Now they could go ahead with the coronation.

But it seemed that was not easy. It was all due to the fact that traditionally Kings of France should be crowned at Rheims and because of Joan of Arc the French were now in possession of that town and they believed that the true King was the French one who had already been crowned, once more due to Joan of Arc.

His uncle Bedford came to him one day and told him that shortly he would be leaving for Paris. He was going to be crowned there. It was a great pity that it had to be Paris but they could not wait until they had recaptured Rheims so he was to be crowned there and return to England for the people there would not want him to stay away too long.

He was glad that his aunt Bedford was there too. He liked her; she reminded him of his mother. She was kind and seemed the only one to understand what an ordeal a coronation could be to a boy of nine. That was it; she thought of him as a boy while these important men thought of him as the King. He was able to tell her that he had looked through the aperture at Joan of Arc.

‘They should never have taken you to see her,’ said the Duchess.

‘But I was glad they did. I wasn’t frightened after that. I used to dream that she came into my room at night and she was old and ugly and cast wicked spells on me. Then I saw her and I didn’t dream after that … except to be very sad because they were going to burn her.’

‘Hush,’ said the Duchess. ‘You should not speak of her to your uncle or to any.’

‘People do speak of her,’ he said. ‘I heard someone say she was a saint.’

‘No … no … no. That is treason.’

‘Treason,’ said Henry solemnly, ‘is to speak and act against the King and the country. I am the King, so I can’t speak treason against myself, can I?’

‘Oh,’ laughed the Duchess, patting his hand, ‘you are going to be a clever one, I can see. Listen. It would be better now if you did not disturb yourself with these matters.’

But try as he might he could not forget Joan of Arc, even when they rode to Paris, that wonderful city of towers and turrets which enchanted him. He wished that he was going there to stay with his mother as they used to at Windsor and there were just the two of them with Alice and Joan and of course Owen Tudor. Then there had not been the anxieties of what he would have to do and whether he would perform it to the satisfaction of these solemn old men.

The people had hung out flags and banners for him, and they cheered him as he entered by the Porte Saint Dennis, but they were the English conquerors of course. The French remained silent and sullen. He felt that he wanted to say to them: It is not my fault that I am here. I am the King but I still have to do what I am told.

He was to be lodged at Vincennes until the coronation, which, said his uncle Bedford, should not be delayed. The situation had been uneasy since the coming of Joan of Arc and now she was dead her influence remained. She was a martyr now and Henry had heard it said that martyrs were as much to be feared as the greatest generals.

Two days before the coronation he was taken to the Hôtel de St Pol to visit his grandmother.

It was an alarming experience. Isabeau, ravaged by the violent life she had led, was still beautiful but her grandson was repelled by her. She put down a hand which he thought was like a claw and drew him to her. He stared at her with solemn eyes. Her face was painted and she looked like some powerful goddess who would have the power to turn him into stone if he displeased her.

‘So, grandson,’ she said to him, ‘you are to be crowned King of France. That is well … that is well.’

‘I am not sure that the people of France think so,’ he answered.

She laughed. ‘You are a clever boy, I see that. Stay clever, little one. There are two things which will bring you what you want … beauty and cleverness. Once I had them both.’

He did not know what to reply so he looked at her steadily thinking she was magnificent although somewhat grotesque.

‘Tell me of your mother.’

‘She is well,’ answered Henry.

‘They have taken you from her care.’

Henry agreed that this was so.

‘Tell me, grandson, did you know the Tudor squire?’

‘Owen?’

‘Was that his name?’

‘Yes, he was Owen Tudor, grandson of Sir Tudor Vychan ap Gronw, and his father, Meredydd, was an outlaw accused of murder.’

‘You concern yourself greatly with the affairs of a squire.’

‘Well, this was Owen …’

‘A rather special squire I believe. Did your mother think he was a rather special squire?’

‘Oh yes. She said there was none like Owen.’

His grandmother began to laugh.

‘Your mother was my youngest child,’ she told him. ‘She became the Queen of England and the mother of its King! That is good … considering the condition we were in. Beaten to our knees by your father, grandson.’

‘Yes, I know about Harfleur and Agincourt.’

‘I’ll swear you do. The English boast of their successes. As all do. Now tell me more of your mother. Tell me of life at Windsor … when you were with her. Tell me about Owen Tudor …’

She made him talk a great deal and although she smiled kindly at him he was very glad when the visit to the Hôtel de St Pol was over.

Two days later he was crowned at Notre Dame by Cardinal Beaufort. It was not a happy ceremony. There was a brooding atmosphere of discontent throughout the proceedings and the people of Paris complained that there were too many English present. Surely, thought Henry logically, this should have been expected since the King was English, but the French did not like it. Moreover Kings of France should be crowned at Rheims and there
was
a King of France in any case. There was further complaint because many of the customs that accompanied a coronation were ignored. Certain prisoners usually received an amnesty and money was distributed to the needy. All this was forgotten by the English, so it was an odd kind of coronation from every point of view and one calculated to bring little comfort to the French.

The Duke of Bedford was aware of the discontent. He was a very worried man these days. He had been shaken by the exploits of Joan of Arc; and his alliance with the Duke of Burgundy was far from sound. The Duke blamed him for the loss of Orléans. If he had allowed the people to surrender to Burgundy the town would not now be in the hands of the French. It had been a great disappointment to Bedford that Henry could not be crowned at Rheims. In fact the position in France had not been so uneasy from an English point of view since before Agincourt. And to think it was all due to a peasant girl who had heard voices infuriated the Duke. He would not have been nearly so infuriated if it had been due to superior fighting strength and strategy, but this was incomprehensible and even now that the Maid had been burned at the stake he was still bemused and uneasy.

He said to the Bishop of Winchester: ‘The King should leave for England immediately. I cannot rest in peace while he remains in France.’

The Bishop agreed. ‘But you will see that everything will change now. The witch is no more. Her influence has gone. It will be as it was before she came to disturb us all. Charles is a weakling – no Maid of Orléans can alter that. He is lazy, indecisive, not meant for war.’

The Duke nodded. ‘I think of Burgundy …’