Виктория Холт - The Hammer of the Scots

Through the night … the miles passed by slowly. How long it took. He was frantic.

He thought of her. Yes, so many memories … The little girl they had brought to him. ‘She is to be your bride.’ How meek she was. How pliable! How easy to please! The little Princess from Castile. And when she grew older she was beautiful. The only time she had defied him was when she had said she was coming with him on his crusade. ‘A wife and a husband should be together,’ she had said. Thank God she had. He was sure he would have died from the poisoned knife of that murderous assassin if she had not been there. She had sucked the poison from the wound. The doctors had said it was the cutting away of the gangrenous flesh which had saved his life. But in his heart he had always believed this was due to Eleanor’s act.

Then the birth of the children. How sad she had been because again it was a girl! So many girls. He loved them all. His beloved daughters … his and Eleanor’s.

And now she was going to die.

It could not be. His daughter was frightened because her mother was ill. She was not going to die. Eleanor would never leave him. He needed her. He could not imagine his life without her. Always on his travels she had been with him … in the thick of the fight she had never been far behind.

He would take her in his arms. He would say: ‘My Queen, my love. You must be well … for me.’

So through the night. How far it was!

* * *

His daughter met him. Her face was pale, her eyes tragic.

He took her into his arms. His beloved daughter, the best loved of all his children.

‘My dearest …’

She could not speak. She could only shake her head. So he knew.

He went into the chamber of death. He looked at her lying there white and still … and beautiful. She had always been beautiful, in life … in death.

He knelt by the bed.

‘Too late,’ he whispered. ‘Too late to see her alive, to tell her once more what she has meant to me. If I could but bring her back, I would give anything … anything …’

The conquest of Wales, the coming conflict with Scotland … In this moment they meant nothing, because Eleanor was dead.

* * *

‘My lord,’ they said, ‘we should return to Scotland.’

He shook his head.

‘My place is with her.’

‘My lord, the Queen is dead.’

He turned away. He could not speak. He was mute in his misery.

I should have been with her. I should never have allowed her to slip away without me. I should have told her right at the end how much she has meant to me.

She knew of course. But he wanted her to hear it again. He wanted to beg her not to leave him. To tell her how much she meant to him.

But she was gone and now it was his duty to bury her. He would be with her on her journey to Westminster. Scotland, he did not care what happened in Scotland. Baliol; Bruce; Hastings. Let them come with their claims. He could not think of them because Eleanor, his dear Queen, was dead.

He shut himself in alone with his grief. He would speak to none save his daughter. Those who cared for him were glad that she was there. She alone could comfort him.

‘I will honour her,’ he told his daughter. ‘The whole country must mourn her. They will know that we have lost a good queen.’

‘They do know it, Father. Everyone knows it.’

‘I shall go with her to Westminster and she shall be at Westminster close to my father. I loved him dearly, almost as much as I loved her. It is fitting that they should be together.’

He ordered that she be embalmed and when this was done they set out on their slow journey to Westminster.

The King ordered that a cross be set up in Lincoln, and at every place where the procession rested there should a cross be set up to remind people of their beloved Queen.

At Grantham, Stamford, Geddington, Northampton, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St Albans, Waltnam, West Cheap and last of all close to Westminster. This last was the most beautiful of all and people called it the cross of the Chere Reine.

As the procession neared London the chief citizens came out to meet it. They wore black hoods and mourning cloaks, and they droned a doleful dirge as they passed along.

So they buried the Queen and people marvelled at the love the King bore her for he continued to mourn her. He ordered that a statue be made and set upon her tomb. It was cast in bronze and showed the Queen in all her beauty with her lovely hair rippling below the jewelled circlet on her head.

The King endowed the Abbey of Westminster with gifts and had masses said for the Queen’s soul. He ordered that the wax lights about her tomb should never be allowed to go out and dedicated a sum of money for this purpose.

People came to see the magnificent tomb carved from grey Petworth marble on which were embossed the towers of Castile and the lions of Leon.

The crosses were a constant memorial to her and that place where the last cross had been set up was called after her. Chere Reine Cross, soon to be known as Charing Cross.

The King was constantly with his eldest daughter. Only she could comfort him. They talked of the Queen, how good she had been and how they had failed to appreciate this to the full while she had lived. She had been so self-effacing, thinking only of the good of her family, and they had accepted her unselfishness as part of their lives and taken it for granted.

Gloucester and Joanna came to Westminster from Clerkenwell, and the four of them talked together of what the loss of the Queen meant to them.

Gloucester told the King that he could subdue his sorrow by throwing himself into his kingly duties. There was the matter of Scotland which had not grown less acute because of the Queen’s death.

The King agreed. He must drag himself away from his sorrow. He must continue that journey which had been interrupted.

Joanna, now quite obviously pregnant, was inclined to patronise her sister. As Countess of Gloucester, married to the most important baron in the country, rich, doted on and soon to become a mother, she made Eleanor feel that she was missing something in life.

When they were alone Joanna discussed the blessings of the married state.

‘Depend upon it,’ she said, ‘our father will soon be looking for a bride.’

‘Our father! He never would.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘He was devoted to our mother.’

‘My dear sister, how little you know of the world. Of course he was devoted to our mother. He loved her well. But she is dead. He is not an old man. He will want a wife, I tell you. He will want children.’

‘He has already had twelve and there are six of us still living. Joanna, do you think bearing so many children was what killed her?’

‘She was never worried about child-bearing.’

‘No, because she would think it her duty and would die in doing that. She knew how ill she was and she tried to keep it from us. Oh, Joanna, our father could never take another wife.’

‘Give him time,’ said the wise Joanna. ‘I’ll wager with you that soon there will be talk and our father will be persuaded to marry again. Ah, you like that not. My dear sister, you must not devote yourself so earnestly to our father. You must have a husband of your own. I assure you that if you find the right one there is a good deal to be said for the married state.’

Eleanor was beginning to think that too. She was no longer young. Twenty-six years old. Still time to marry and have children. Joanna was right. She must have a husband. But she was affianced to Alfonso of Aragon. She had set her heart against going to Aragon – and so had her father. He did not like Alfonso. But she must face the unfortunate fact that she had been affianced to him and that was tantamount to a betrothal. If she married anyone else she would need first a dispensation from the Pope and that might cause trouble with Aragon which was too important a country to quarrel with.

It seemed that she must either ask for negotiations to be opened with Aragon or make up her mind that marriage was not for her.

She consoled herself in comforting her sister Margaret who was greatly pleased when her bridegroom returned to Brabant without her. He was returning, it was said, to receive the congratulations on his marriage from his father’s subjects, but it was clear that he was no more unhappy at leaving his bride than she was to see him go.

As for the King, the connection had been made, so politics had been served. He never wanted to part with any of his daughters, so Margaret would be welcome to stay at his Court for as long as was possible in the interests of propriety.

Contemplating Margaret’s marriage Eleanor could be content with her single state. It was only when Joanna came flaunting the advantages which had come to her that she was dubious.

* * *

Edward tried to draw himself out of his grief and consider the Scottish question.

He called together his ministers and reminded them that this problem was of the utmost importance to them.

One suggested that perhaps he might reduce Scotland to the same state as he had Wales.

He shook his head. ‘Not so easy, my friend. Llewellyn and Davydd rose against me. They were captured and met their just deserts. With their departure went the claimants to the throne. In Scotland see how many there are. There are the three leading contenders and if these were removed we can be sure there would be others. We should be involved in costly wars lasting years and years. You know how difficult it is to fight in these mountainous lands, and how fiercely men will do battle on what they consider to be their own territory. Nay. What I aim at is to get them to select their ruler, but that he shall reign under me.’

He would therefore continue with that journey which was broken by the death of his wife. He would call together a conference and he would let the Scots know that they owed fealty to him as their superior lord. If they acknowledged this they would then be free to select their own king from those claimants who now clamoured for the crown.

But first he must have their acknowledgement of him as their superior lord.

His grief over the loss of the Queen was somewhat alleviated by this action and as he rode northwards he gave his mind to the Scottish matter with such complete concentration that he found it was only at odd moments that he had time to remember.

He had summoned the lords of Scotland to meet him at Norham and there the proceedings commenced.

Edward was anxious to prove to the Scots that through the past years Scotland owed homage to the Kings of England.

The Scottish lords, however, rejected this, at which Edward rose and standing before them towering above them all, with his stern countenance and voice to match, he cried, ‘By St Edward I will have the due right of my kingdom and the crown of which I am the guardian or I will die in the prosecution of it.’

There was an awe-inspiring quality about the English King. It seemed to the watching Scots that he was endowed with some supernatural power. There was a magic about him which had come to him through his great ancestor the Conqueror. He was another such. Coeur de Lion had had it. Henry II had had a touch of it. It never failed to strike fear into the hearts of those who beheld it.

A few days later when the assembly was meeting, the Scots acknowledged the King’s superiority and that they were ready to do homage to him.

Edward was pleased. They might then choose which of the claimants should be their King.

The matter should be left to them.

* * *

Joanna and her husband had travelled to the latter’s estates at Wynchcombe near Tewkesbury that their child might be born there.

The Earl was eager that everything that his beautiful young wife wanted she should have and Joanna was in her element. She was certain she was going to have a son. No one could deny Joanna anything … not even God.

Petted and adored, she prepared for her lying in. It was nineteen years ago that she herself had been born in the town of Acre. Now she was producing her first child. How different it would be from her own coming into the world. As she lay waiting and feeling the preliminary alarms and discomforts, she did spare a moment to think of her mother lying in that hot and arid land pestered by flies and even more obnoxious insects, missing the comforts she would have had in her English palace.