The Follies of the King (35 page)

‘True enough, my lord,’ answered Isabella and appeared to reflect. ‘But it seems to me that I am on a difficult mission. I have to get good terms for my husband from my brother and if Mortimer speaks truth he is on friendly terms with Charles. I shall need all the friends I can get. It would not be wise to alienate Mortimer.’

Lord John agreed with this. ‘But I would not trust him too far if I were you, my lady, if you will forgive my mentioning the matter.’

‘You are forgiven, Lord John. I know that you are faithful to me and to the King.’

‘The Mortimers were always a wild family, my lady. They ruled the Marcher land and it is in them to rule.’

‘I agree with you. Trust me, I shall be careful.’

How she laughed when that night she lay in Mortimer’s arms.

The reunion had been one of complete satisfaction. The fact that it had been planned with care gave it an added delight. They talked in whispers through the night for before dawn he must be gone. It would never do for any to guess at this point that she had come to France to join her lover.

‘I shall never go back without you,’ she told him.

‘When we go back it will be with an army. We shall succeed.’

‘Of course we shall succeed.’

‘Gentle Mortimer, it must be so. You and I together and Edward with us― my young Edward. We must find a way of getting him here.’

‘How does he feel about his father?’

‘Bewildered. He is but a boy. But a clever one― one who knows his destiny. He hears gossip of Hugh le Despenser. It disturbs him.’

‘Oh, my love― my love,’ cried Mortimer. ‘What a happy day when I was sent to the Tower!’

‘In the gardens that day I knew I had been waiting for you all my life.’

‘None ever loved as we do.’

‘And none ever planned such a great project as they lay in their bed of love.’

‘How long till dawn? I would I could hold back time.’

‘The future is for us, my love.’

‘Ah,’ he answered, ‘for us.’

‘The day will come,’ she said, ‘when you will not have to creep away before the first streaks of light appear in the sky.’

He wondered then if she meant she would marry him. Could the Queen of England marry a Mortimer? He had a wife. She had a husband. But such obstacles could be removed.

Ambition. Love. How glorious when these two walked together. To make love! To make plans! Life was good. Never had either of them dreamed of such bliss as life now offered them.

‘Would we could stay like this for ever,’ said Mortimer.

‘Nay, my dear love,’ answered the Queen. ‘This is but the springtime of our union. Glorious summer lies before us.’

‘And autumn and winter?’ he said.

‘Autumn will come with the fruits of our endeavours,’ she said. ‘And if there is winter we shall know how to keep each other warm. What talk for lovers; let us make talk when we cannot make love. Do you agree, dear Mortimer?’

Mortimer agreed.

THERE was a royal welcome for Isabella at her brother’s court.

Charles did not look in good health and as soon as she saw him she thought of the curse of the Templars. He possessed those outstanding good looks which came here and there in the family. Isabella herself had them, so had her father, and they had appeared again in Charles. Now there was an air of fragility about him.

He immediately gave her a private audience for he was very eager to hear whether rumours he had heard concerning the King of England were true.

Isabella began by telling him how delighted she was to be in her native land.

She had had a most unhappy life in England and it was all due to the warped nature of the King.

‘He is abnormal, brother,’ she said. ‘You will know that his great favourite was Piers Gaveston. He has been followed by Hugh le Despenser. They were always together. I scarcely saw him.’

‘You have four children,’ said Charles.

‘I insisted that we try to get children and we succeeded.’

‘So he was not with his favourite then.’

‘Can you imagine my humiliation? Daughter and sister to Kings of France to be so treated.’

‘It was well that you had your children― and two sons among them.’

Charles spoke bitterly. The curse of the Templars implied that the line of Capet would end with them. It was all very well to snap one’s fingers at the curse but it was working out. Louis and Philip had gone and left no heirs. If they had children they were sickly. They desperately needed a male heir for the Salic law reigned in France and this decreed that the crown of France was of such noble estate that it could not come to a woman.

Charles could not help being envious of his sister’s two sons. There had been great rejoicing when his wife the Queen had become pregnant. But what bitter disappointment when she had given birth to a girl. People talked of the curse again, and it did seem that the kings were doomed. What would happen when he died without heirs he did not know. He supposed his father’s younger brother Charles of Valois or his cousin Philip would take the throne. It would then be the end of the direct line of the Capets when the House of Valois took over.

But he was not dead yet. There was still hope. But for the miserable curse― Isabella guessed what her brother was thinking but she was little concerned with the affairs of France. Those of England absorbed her.

‘I seized this opportunity to get away,’ she said, ‘so great was my longing to see France and to leave the husband I have learned to despise.’

‘He is a fool,’ agreed Charles. ‘Roger de Mortimer has told me much of English affairs. Now there is a man of vitality. Edward was a fool to let him escape. A fool to make a man like that a prisoner. He should have had his head while he had the chance.’

‘Edward will always make the wrong decisions. He was foolish to send Kent here to deal with important affairs. Kent is too young.’

‘I had thought he would have sent Pembroke.’

‘Pembroke died before he could send him. Ah, yes, it would have been different if Pembroke had come. His old friends are either dying or deserting him. Edward loves the Despensers but no one else does.’

‘He readily gave his consent to your coming here?’

‘Oh, the Despensers were glad to be rid of me, so I was allowed to come.

You see the people like me. They cheer me in the streets. It infuriates Edward because when he rides out they can be very sullen.’

‘And the Despensers?’

‘They would tear them limb from limb if they had a chance.’

‘Not a very healthy state of affairs.’

‘A diseased one I should say, brother. Oh how happy I am to be here.

Everything is so much more elegant. I am going to summon some of the French dressmakers to court. No one makes clothes as they do. See how unbecomingly we dress in England. I look unworthy of you, brother.’

‘I have heard several comment on your beauty. They say you are looking radiant. Not as though you have been ill-treated in England.’

‘It is because I have come home. I wish to have French clothes. You will have no objection to my summoning the seamstresses?’

‘Do so if you will, sister.’

‘Then I shall give orders immediately. Then I must talk with you of state matters. You know I am here to plead for Edward.’

‘I know it well. Can you plead for one whom you so assuredly dislike?’

‘I have a son, Charles. I plead for him. He is young yet, but he is a clever boy. I want him to have a kingdom when the time comes for him to take it.’

Charles alternated between indignation at the manner in which his sister had been treated, amusement at her ability to think of her appearance at such a time, gratification that the King of England had had to send the sister of the King of France to plead for him, pleasure at having the sister for whom he had always had some affection restored to him, and certain doubts in his mind as to whether there was something behind all she said and did.

* * *

Now she was exquisitely gowned. She had summoned the finest Paris dressmakers; she had chosen the most magnificent materials and indeed she looked like a queen. Never, even in the days of her early youth had she been so beautiful. She glowed with that inner radiance which had come to her when she had found Mortimer. She was deeply in love; and she was full of plans for success. Never had she lived so fully, so dangerously and so excitingly as she did at this time.

She became the centre of a little court. She discovered her latent fascination.

She lured people to her by her glowing beauty, her wit, her vitality and her charm. It was said that she was the most beautiful woman in Europe.

Mortimer adored her and she was entirely Mortimer’s. But others fell in love with her. There was her cousin Artois for one. He grew more and more indignant at the manner in which she had been treated in England; he told her that his great desire was to serve her.

Those Englishmen whose duty had brought them to France formed a coterie about her. Mortimer was of course at their head, and joining him and Artois were the Bishops of Winchester and Norwich who were acting as Edward’s ambassadors in Paris. Others who were disgusted with Edward’s way of life and despaired of England’s future under him paid homage to his Queen. They guessed that there was something more to her being here than to plead with her brother for her husband. Young Edmund Duke of Kent who was feeling very depressed because of his failures in France came to her and she comforted him, assuring him that what had happened was no fault of his. There was no respect for Edward abroad, she said, and any mission of his must fail while this was the case. She spent several hours with Kent placating him, winning him to her side.

He was one of those who was half in love with her.

‘It is good,’ said Mortimer, ‘to have the King’s brother with us.’

Others like the Earl of Richmond and Henry de Beaumont were in constant attendance. All useful adherents, all enemies of the Despensers who had offended them too often.

So the plan progressed well.

But of course she must appear to be doing the task which she had come out to do.

At length Charles agreed that he would send no more troops into Gascony and would consider returning the conquered provinces to England if Edward came and paid long overdue homage to him for his French possessions.

She had many opportunities of talking to Mortimer because he formed part of that little court which surrounded her and if she could talk in private with her cousin Artois and the Bishops of Norwich and Winchester so could she with Mortimer.

‘What if he comes?’ she asked.

‘The Despensers will persuade him against it.’

‘He and they are eager for peace.’

‘Yes, but they are not going to let him come without them and would they be welcome at your brother’s court? There is an alternative.’

‘I know,’ she said. They looked at each other and marvelled at the manner in which they even thought alike.

‘Do you think he would allow it?’ asked Mortimer. ‘He is fool enough to.’

‘If we had the boy here, we should be half way to victory.’

‘We can try it,’ said the Queen.

‘With the utmost care. Let him think you but do it to ease him and because you think it is time the boy began to realize his obligations.’

‘I will do it,’ said Isabella. ‘But first I must get my brother to agree.’

‘First,’ said Mortimer, ‘let us wait and see what Edward’s answer is. We must by no means seem over-eager for the boy to come in his place. We have to tread very warily, my dear love.’

‘How well I know it,’ replied Isabella.

When the Despensers heard the terms the King of France had set, they were, as Isabella and Mortimer had guessed they would be, very disturbed.

The matter had been before the Council and there it was agreed that Edward should go to Paris. The Despensers were worried. They discussed the matter earnestly together and came to the conclusion that the King must on no account be allowed to go.

‘Without his protection,’ said the elder to the younger, ‘there would be some excuse to seize us. Then I would not give a penny for our chances.’

‘Edward would never allow them to harm us.’

‘My dear son, they would not wait for Edward. Look how they treated Gaveston and even Lancaster was hurried to his death. Once they had us, depend upon it, we should be dead men before Edward could do anything to save us.’

‘To go is the only way he can save his French possessions.’

‘To stay is the only way he can save us. No, Hugh my son, the King must not go to France. You must persuade him against it. He must remain here.

Without him, with the country in the mood it is in, we are lost.’

‘Is it really as bad as you think, Father?’

‘My dear son, you are constantly with the King. You divert him. You are his greatest friend. I have time to look around at what is happening. I happen to know that Henry of Lancaster has been writing to that Adam of Orlton who I am sure had a hand in Mortimer’s escape from the Tower. He had put up a cross to his brother’s memory at Leicester and is circulating more stories about more miracles at Lancaster’s tomb. No, Edward must not go. You must seek means of detaining him. Do not let him give a direct answer.’