The Fatal Crown (73 page)

IN JANUARY OF
the new year, 1150, Maud sat in the ancient chair that had belonged to the Dukes of Normandy since time out of mind. Geoffrey stood behind her. Henry, elated as a result of his recent triumphs, marched into the ducal palace and up to the dais.

“Despite the fact that I consider you headstrong and disobedient and foolish,” Geoffrey of Anjou said, with a severe look, “one cannot deny that you have proven yourself a leader of men and a courageous soldier.” A proud smile briefly warmed his cold, handsome face.

Henry watched his beautiful russet-haired mother echo the smile.

“In consequence,” Maud said quietly, “I have agreed to withdraw my official claim to the duchy of Normandy.” She paused. “To withdraw my claim in your favor, my son. As soon as you swear homage to your overlord, the King of France, you will become Duke of Normandy.” The hint of a tear glistened in the corner of one gray eye.

To Henry’s astonishment, Geoffrey, in an unprecedented gesture, briefly touched his wife’s shoulder. Henry bowed respectfully to his father, then threw himself on one knee before his mother. Seizing her hand, he brought it to his lips, kissing the slender jeweled fingers with passionate devotion, so choked with emotion he could barely speak.

“I will be worthy of you, Madam my mother. I swear it upon the head of my great-grandfather, the Conqueror, on the head of my grandfather Henry, that I will be worthy of this great honor you bestow upon me.”

Henry had always known the depths of his mother’s ambition; he understood only too well what this gesture had cost her. Before God, he vowed, he would see to it that she never regretted her decision. But inside he was bubbling over with a wild anticipation: Normandy was his. Next—England.

I
T WAS EIGHTEEN MONTHS
before Henry was officially recognized as Duke of Normandy by Louis of France. During that time, to Maud’s dismay, the French king, aided by Prince Eustace of England, marched on Normandy’s borders. Maud feared a full-scale war was unavoidable, but when Louis suddenly fell ill, hostilities ceased immediately. Peace terms were arranged by Bernard of Clairvaux, who claimed divine intervention had avoided bloodshed. An incensed Eustace, threatening vengeance, was persuaded to return to England.

Accompanied by Geoffrey, Henry left for France to pay homage to King Louis, his nominal overlord. As they were expected to be gone as long as ten days, Maud agreed to stay behind and keep an eye on Normandy. In truth she welcomed the brief respite. Ever since Matilda’s death Stephen had been almost constantly on her mind. Now that he was a widower did he ever think of her, she wondered, ashamed of the ridiculous thought. She was still married to Geoffrey and Stephen’s avowed enemy. Holy Mother, would this tragic conflict ever end, she thought despairingly, a conflict now continued by Henry and Eustace, who were also half-brothers.

The homage ceremony was held in Paris, and still Geoffrey and Henry did not return. Disquieting gossip filtered back to Maud that Henry had become enamored of Louis’s wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. A woman of rare beauty and strong will, the French queen held in her own right the wealthiest fief in all France. It had long been rumored that as Eleanor had failed to give France an heir, Louis, with the blessing of Holy Church, was going to have the marriage annulled on the grounds that he and his wife were too closely related—third or fourth cousins.

When Henry did return it was without the Count who, he informed Maud, had decided to visit Anjou and see how his second son, Geoffrey, was managing the Angevin estates in his absence. As he sat in her solar the morning after his return, Maud noted that her son, lolling in a wooden armchair, booted feet stretched out to the charcoal brazier, looked like a self-satisfied tomcat. So the rumors were probably true. She dismissed her women, then resumed work on the square of embroidery in her lap.

“I hear you have become very friendly with Louis’s wife,” she said, coming right to the point.

“Not Louis’s wife for long—but mine.”

Maud gasped, pricked herself with the needle and drew blood. “So there
will
be an annulment.”

“And a wedding shortly thereafter. Do you disapprove?”

With an effort of will Maud concealed her shock. “Would it matter? It is not for me to approve or disapprove. But I do understand Eleanor’s appeal. With Aquitaine added to Normandy and, one day, Anjou, you will rule over more land than the King of France—and become the most powerful prince west of the Rhine.” She paused. “Most important, of course, you will have all the resources needed to invade England.”

Henry gave her a broad grin. “I knew you would immediately grasp the essential point. Louis will not like my acquisition of Eleanor’s duchy, but …”He shrugged.

“My son …” Maud’s voice faltered. Henry had every reason to be jubilant for it was a golden opportunity, yet she could not deny her doubts about this sophisticated woman, eleven years Henry’s senior. “Do you love her?”

Henry looked amazed. “What an extraordinary question. Does it matter? We suit each other in every way. She will make a fine consort who will bear
me
sons. In any case there is nothing I would not do to gain England. You of all people should understand that. After what we have been through—the struggles, the battles, the losses—now the crown is almost within reach.”

For a moment Maud was silent, remembering that brief period of glory at Winchester when she had believed herself to be invincible, a heartbeat away from the throne, the crown virtually within her grasp. Was everything Henry said true, including the unimportance he gave love? asked a voice in her head. It was a question she could not answer.

Barely a week after Henry had returned from Paris, a herald from Anjou entered the great hall in Rouen Castle where Maud and Henry were seated at supper shortly after Vespers.

“My lord, Countess,” the herald gasped. “I bring sad tidings from your sons in Angers. Count Geoffrey is dead.”

Maud sat frozen to her seat in shock.

“Dead?” Henry rose to his feet.

“On his way back to Anjou, overheated from the journey, he bathed in the cold waters of the Loire. By dawn he was in a high fever. The next day he died.”

Try as she might Maud could not believe he was dead. She had never loved Geoffrey of Anjou, never much liked him in fact. Her heart had been given elsewhere. But she had borne Geoffrey two children, grown to respect his prowess as a cunning campaigner, and admired his unexpected astuteness as a ruler of both Anjou and Normandy. Without him the duchy would not now belong to Henry. For more than twenty years their lives and purposes had been intertwined. She could not weep for him, but she deeply regretted that he had not lived long enough to see Henry become Duke of Aquitaine and herself Queen of England.

Maud and Henry arrived in Le Mans to find plans for an impressive funeral already under way. It was rumored that hundreds from Anjou and Maine would flock to Le Mans to see their popular lord buried. The day after their arrival, Geoffrey’s will was read. A surprising clause in the will stipulated that Henry, as eldest son, would inherit Anjou and Maine—unless he became King of England. Then he would forfeit the county, which would pass to the second son, Geoffrey. Furthermore, the Count’s body must remain unburied until all three sons swore an oath to fulfill their father’s wishes. The funeral was immediately postponed.

The will’s contents shocked everyone. Henry, throwing one of his famous temper tantrums, flatly refused to swear the oath, causing immediate trouble between himself and his brother Geoffrey. Maud was forced to watch her sons quarrel violently over their inheritance.

But in the end, at her insistence, Henry grudgingly swore to abide by his father’s wishes. Under no illusions about her son, Maud knew that her ambitious Henry would never give up Anjou when he became King of England. In the unprincipled tradition of his Norman forebears, he would seize power whenever and wherever he could, regardless of the cost. He wanted it all: Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, as well as King of England. Would he ever have enough? she wondered.

Geoffrey of Anjou was buried in the church of St. Julien, the same church in which he had been married, on a warm September day, brilliant with sunshine. Inside the church someone had surrounded the bier with armfuls of the golden broom Geoffrey had so loved. Maud noticed tears running down the cheeks of those who passed by his coffin. Despite his years in Normandy, Geoffrey had lived and died a true Angevin and was deeply mourned by his subjects. A black veil concealing her face, Maud gazed down at her husband’s body. Geoffrey was dressed in his favorite blue and green, a blue cap with its sprig of broom perched on his head. His love for the bright yellow flower, the
planta-genesta,
had caused him to adopt it as his surname—Plantagenet. The lions upon his mantle, tunic and shield were made of gold. Precious gems adorned his belt and collar. The very picture of elegance, in death Geoffrey the Handsome looked exactly as he would have wished.

Still dry-eyed, Maud wondered why Geoffrey had never discussed his will with her. He must have known the unexpected clause would cause an uproar, setting his sons against each other. What could have possessed him to insert it? It was almost as if—no, impossible, Maud reasoned, yet the niggling thought would not be stilled. Suppose, yes, suppose Geoffrey had always wondered if his eldest son had sprung from his own loins. Had, in fact, half-suspected Stephen of being the father? Then the clause made sense: If Henry attained his own father’s throne of England, then Geoffrey wanted his natural son to inherit his own county of Anjou.

Maud would never know; her husband had taken his secret with him. Was it remotely possible he had surmised the truth and kept silent all these years? Never revealing, by word or gesture, what must have been a stunning blow to his pride, always behaving as a devoted and dutiful father to his rival’s son? A tear splashed down on Geoffrey of Anjou’s comely features, remote and cool in death as in life, as Maud wept, at last, over the dead body of her husband.

M
AUD AND HENRY REMAINED
in Anjou until the new year, 1152, when they returned to Normandy. In April Henry received word that the marriage of the King and Queen of France had been annulled and Eleanor had returned to her own lands of Aquitaine. Henry immediately made plans to join her.

Maud stood in the courtyard of the ducal palace in Rouen watching Henry’s last-minute preparations for his journey to Aquitaine.

“Such haste is unseemly. After all, the annulment is only weeks old,” Maud told her son. “Your time would be better spent making plans to invade England.”

Henry gave her an exasperated look. “What else am I doing? My marriage to Eleanor gives me unlimited credit to finance the English invasion. Really, Maman, I’m not such a fool as you seem to think.”

“Indeed? You know there will be trouble if you marry Eleanor without Louis’s consent,” Maud continued.

“We have been over this matter countless times,” Henry retorted. “The marriage is annulled. It’s no affair of Louis’s if I marry his former queen.”

“Not as Eleanor’s ex-husband, no, but as Duchess of Aquitaine, Louis is her overlord, and no heiress can marry without her overlord’s consent. You know perfectly well what Louis’s reaction will be when he discovers he’s about to lose his wealthiest fief to Normandy.”

“Well, he mustn’t find out until we’re already married. I don’t want to find the entire French army between me and Aquitaine.”

Maud gave him a steely look. “Then why do you take such a retinue of knights, squires, and sumpter horses? Go quietly, make no show, call no attention to yourself in any way. You’ll put the wolf off the scent.”

“You’re right,” Henry said. “I should have thought of that.” He gave her an impudent grin. “But then I have you to do half my thinking for me, don’t I?” He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. “All of it, if I allowed.”

Maud could not help but smile. Henry could be so disarming when he chose—just like his father, she thought. Sometimes, when she least expected it, he reminded her so much of Stephen that she could hardly bear it.

When Henry had gone, Maud’s thoughts continued to dwell on Stephen. Eagerly following events in England, Maud knew he was beset by difficulties on all fronts: trouble with the vicious Eustace; his barons, if not in open rebellion against him, went their own way; and the church condemned almost all his actions. Backed by Rome, Theobald of Bee continued to refuse to crown Eustace. Enraged by his refusal, as well as that of the other bishops who supported Canterbury, Stephen had had the bishops locked up in Oxford Castle. Maud’s heart ached for his dilemma. Reason told her Stephen was making a disastrous mistake in this harsh treatment of his prelates, yet, she thought with a sigh, what would we not do to see our children crowned?

A fortnight later Maud heard that Henry and Eleanor had been married quietly, and without incident, at Poitiers on the eighteenth of May.

No sooner had Henry returned to Normandy, leaving Eleanor behind to follow at a later date, than all that Maud had feared came to pass. Louis of France, incensed by the marriage, and calling it unholy and unlawful, ordered his vassal, Henry, Duke of Normandy, to appear before his court to answer for his disgraceful conduct.

“By God’s splendor, I would be safer in the court of the devil,” Henry grumbled.

“I warned you,” Maud said, not without a twinge of satisfaction. Perhaps in future he would pay her more heed.

“I’m Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou, and now Duke of Aquitaine,” Henry responded with an arrogant toss of his head. “Strong enough to defy Louis in this matter. Let him rant and rave and threaten. I have no intention of going to France.”

“Adding insult to injury,” Maud said. “He will be beside himself.”

As Maud predicted, Louis of France was furious at Henry’s refusal to obey his summons. She knew he would retaliate but even she did not expect him to join forces with Prince Eustace of England and, to her horror, her own son, Geoffrey of Anjou.