‘You, a traitor! That’s quite impossible. You are so wise … so strong. You always do the right thing.’

He smiled at her fondly. ‘I know that whatever I do I shall have the support of my wife.’

‘But that is only right and natural.’

He took her hand and kissed it.

‘I have something to tell you,’ she said.

‘Eleanor. You are with child?’

She nodded and he took her into his arms. ‘This time,’ he said, ‘let us pray for a boy. I’ll have prayers said throughout the churches.’

‘Not yet, I beg of you. It is too early. I am always afraid when I speak of it too soon that something will go wrong.’

‘My dearest, why should it?’

‘There was John and the little one at Acre.’

‘My dear lady, many children die. John was delicate. Some children are born that way. As for the little one at Acre, that was not to be wondered at after all the hardships. And what of young Joanna, eh? She was always lively enough though Acre was her birthplace.’

‘I wish she were with us.’

‘Your mother will not willingly part with her. And you will have this new one. We have our darling Eleanor. What a handsome girl she is becoming! And little Henry …’

The Queen was grave. ‘I worry about him a great deal.’

‘I thought he seemed better.’

She shook her head.

‘Oh come, my love, he is a bright little fellow.’

‘He is so breathless and he always seems to have a cough. Edward, I don’t care for the Tower of London. It’s so cold and draughty and there is an atmosphere of gloom about the place.’

‘It was built as a fortress of course,’ said Edward. ‘And it seems like it.’

‘The Palace of the Tower depresses me, Edward. I do not think that Henry will thrive while he is there. I want to find a place which is more healthy for the children and with the new baby I want to be especially careful. I keep thinking of little John and wondering whether if I had been here …’

‘Pray do not let my mother hear you say that. She dotes on the children and as you know will scarcely let them out of her sight. She is half elated, half apprehensive, about Beatrice’s news. She would love to have them all here under her care.’

‘I know of course that she did everything possible for young John and I don’t suppose there was anything I could have done to save him. But I do want to choose a home for the children and I want it to be a healthy place. Somewhere in the country.’

‘I will tell you what we must do,’ said Edward. ‘When all the coronation ceremonies are over we shall go down to Windsor. I have a fancy that that will be the place you will choose.’

‘Oh Edward, you are so good to me.’

Edward again took her into his arms and stroked her beautiful long dark hair. He compared her as he often had with his mother and thanked God for giving him such a wife.


* * *

The excitement of the coronation had not improved little Henry’s condition. Or it might have been that the disease which was robbing him of his strength was moving towards its climax. In any case there was an obvious decline in his health.

The Queen Mother was thrown into a state of great anxiety – even more so than the Queen, whose pregnancy seemed to have endowed her with a certain serenity. But the Queen Mother had now convinced herself that Margaret had not looked as well as she should, and she confided in the Queen that she had had a talk with Alexander who shared her anxiety.

The treatment Margaret had received when she had first gone to Scotland as a child bride had had an effect on her health from which she had never fully recovered. And now that little Henry showed signs of growing weaker the Queen Mother feared that God had turned His face from the royal family.

Death did not come singly, she said. Little John had been followed very quickly by her dear husband and ever since then she had been fearful for her darlings.

Edward ordered that several sheep should be freshly slaughtered so that the little boy could be wrapped in their skins. This was considered to be good for those who suffered from shivering fits because the animal heat was calculated to supply the warmth a sick person lacked.

More wax images of his body were made and taken to various shrines to be placed there and burned in oil. A hundred poor widows were engaged that they might perform vigils in the churches praying for his recovery. The physicians were on constant attention and either the Queen or the Queen Mother kept vigil at his bedside.

They talked of what it could be that ailed him. Little John had suffered in the same way. The child seemed to shrink and grow more and more listless every day.

‘Why does this happen to the boys?’ demanded the Queen.

‘It is almost like a curse,’ the Queen Mother said. ‘I wonder sometimes whether it has anything to do with the de Montforts.’

‘Why be so cruel to a little boy?’

‘Because that little boy could one day be King perhaps.’

‘I hate the Tower,’ said the Queen. ‘It fills me with dread. I cannot bear to think of my children living there. Edward has said I may choose where I like and we shall have our home there, but of course the King must move around and I believe it is well that we should all be together. I think I shall choose Windsor. Do you think that would be healthier for Henry?’

‘I am sure of it, my dear. Have you visited Windsor recently?’

‘No, but I mean to. It has been so necessary for us to be here in Westminster for the celebrations.’

The Queen Mother’s eyes were momentarily glazed as she recalled her own coronation. She had been brought to the Palace of the Tower and she had not noticed that it was gloomy; perhaps that was because her coronation had been more splendid than any and she had been well aware of the shining approval in her husband’s eyes. Oh, to be young again, to go back to all that glory, with the knowledge that she was clever and above all so beautiful that her husband adored her! This mild little creature – good as she was – could know nothing of the happiness which had come to Eleanor of Provence.

And now anxieties beset her. Edward was her dear son but he was stern with her, reprimanding her for spending a little money. Edward had no idea how to live graciously. She did hope he was not going to develop parsimonious ways. And she was worried about little Henry who was going exactly as young John had gone, wasting away, and she knew that wherever they moved would make no difference. And what of Margaret who had never fully regained her strength; and Beatrice was pregnant, and she was always afraid when they had children. She was growing sick with worry.

She let the Queen talk about the advantages of Windsor over Westminster. There was no point in frightening the poor girl with her own fears.

She herself talked of Windsor and how her husband had loved it.

‘He strengthened the defences,’ she said, ‘and rebuilt the western wall. You must see the curfew tower, my dear. He had that built. He had a genius for architecture and how he loved it. If the people had not been so foolish and made such a nuisance of themselves whenever he wanted to spend a little money in beautifying castles, he would have done so much more.’

‘I like Windsor,’ said the Queen, ‘I like the river and I think the air will be fresh and good for Henry.’

‘I doubt it not. My husband always said it was. I think it was his favourite place. How we talked and grew excited about the changes he made there! He insisted on murals and they were always of a religious nature. He was a very pious man. Oh so good he was! He loved the colour green. He liked blue and purple too. You soon realise that when you go into those rooms. It was just after our marriage that he made such changes to the castle. “For you, my dear,” he said, “and if there is something you do not like you must tell me.” He made chambers overlooking the cloisters and he had a herb garden made for me … Oh yes, my dear, you will be happy at Windsor.’

‘I feel that I shall be. As soon as I feel that Henry is strong enough for the journey I shall take him there.’

Alas, each day the child seemed to grow weaker and the Queen was in a quandary. Should she take him away to the country or would it be wiser to leave him where he was? In the meantime she engaged more widows for the vigils and more images were burned in oil.

The journey to Windsor would be so long but the Queen felt the need to take the child away from London so she arranged to go with him to Merton Priory and there prayers could be offered up for his recovery. ‘It might be,’ she pointed out to Edward, ‘that if they are in a holy place God might listen to us.’

So she took the little boy to Merton Priory, which being not far from Westminster, meant that the journey was not too strenuous. As for the child, he was quite happy to go as long as she was with him.

‘There,’ she told him, ‘you are going to get well. You are going to grow into a big strong boy.’

‘Like my father?’ he asked.

‘Exactly like him,’ she assured him.

But she wished that she had taken him to Windsor. How pleasant for the little boy to have been in those rooms made beautiful by his grandfather. She could have told him the stories of the pictures which adorned the walls. A priory was by its very nature a quiet place.

‘As soon as you are well,’ she told him, ‘we are going to Windsor.’

‘All of us?’ asked the little boy.

She nodded. ‘Your father, your grandmother, your sister and myself … we shall all be there and soon there will be another little brother or sister to join us. You will like that, Henry.’

Henry thought he would and he was clearly happy to be with his mother. He had never forgotten the long time she had been away from him.

‘When you are well …’ She was constantly using that phrase to him but each day when she rose, and even during the night, she would go to his little bed and assure herself that he had not already left them.

As the days passed she knew that Merton had nothing to offer him.

Perhaps, she thought, we should go back to Westminster.

But Henry never went back. One morning when she went to his bed she realised that the vigils of widows, the images in oil and the skins of the freshly killed sheep had been of no avail.

The little Prince had gone as his brother John had before him.


* * *

Her spirits were buoyed up by the child she was carrying.

Edward said, ‘It will be a boy, you see. God has taken Henry but he will give us another boy. I am sure of it, my love.’

Edward was upset but not as deeply as she and the Queen Mother were. A deep depression settled on the latter.

‘Nothing goes right for me since the King died,’ she complained.

Those about her might have said that nothing had gone right for others while he lived, but they dared not to her.

It was almost as though she had had a premonition of disaster for, shortly after the death of the little Prince, a messenger came from Scotland with the news which she had been dreading.

Alexander had sent him to tell her that Margaret was very ill indeed, and that when they had returned to Scotland after the coronation her health had taken a turn for the worse.

The Queen Mother, frantic with grief, was ready to start immediately to her daughter, but Edward restrained her.

‘Nay, Mother,’ he said, ‘you must not go. Stay awhile. There will be more news later.’

‘Not go? When my own daughter is ill and needs me? You know that when Margaret was a prisoner in that miserable castle of Edinburgh I urged your father to leave at once that we might go to her. Do you think he tried to detain me?’

‘No, dear Mother, I know he did not. But this … this is different.’

‘Different! How different? If a child of mine needs me that is where I shall be.’

He looked at her sadly and the horrible truth dawned on her.

‘There is something else,’ she said slowly. ‘They have not told me the truth …’ She went to him and laid her hands on his chest. ‘Edward,’ she said quietly, ‘tell me.’

He drew her to him and held her fast in his arms.

‘There is something else. I know it,’ she cried.

She heard him say what she dreaded to hear. ‘Yes, dear Mother, it is true that there is something else. I wanted it to be broken gently.’

‘So … she is gone … my Margaret … gone.’

‘Alexander is heart-broken. He had summoned the best physicians, the most noble prelates to her bedside. There was nothing that could be done. She went peacefully – our dear Margaret. She is at rest now.’