Jean Plaidy - The Plantagenet Prelude

She could not hate the child in the nursery, but Henry, to subdue her, made much of the boy. He had made it clear that he was to be treated no differently from Henry or the baby Richard or young Matilda. It would be a different matter when they grew up. Young master Geoffrey would learn the difference then between the heirs of the King and his bastards. She knew that Henry made much of the boy chiefly to annoy her and refused to let him see how much it did.

Her baby Richard was a great comfort to her. He was going to be handsome. Already he showed signs of his spirit, screaming for what he wanted and charming everyone in the nursery at the same time. Henry ignored the child. Sometimes she thought Richard was aware of it, for whenever his father came near him he yelled in anger.

Henry, too, considered their changed relations. She was a virago, he decided, and all kings should have meek wives who obeyed unquestioningly. Stephen had been lucky with his Matilda, for although she had been a clever woman, quite a strategist it had turned out, and had done so much to further her husband’s cause, she had never criticised him and always wished to please him. Had he married my mother, thought Henry, he would have noticed the difference. Henry laughed remembering the fierce quarrels between his father and mother. Whenever they were together there had been conflict. He could remember hearing the shouts of abuse which they had flung at each other. What hatred there had been between those two! His mother had been ten years older than his father. And he was twelve years younger than Eleanor. Was it a pattern in their families - young husbands, older wives, and stormy marriages?

But he could not compare his marriage with that of his parents. Theirs had been one of pure hate and contempt from the start. How his father had ever got his mother with three sons was hard to imagine. But they had done their duty and here he was - thank God the eldest, for he had little respect from his brothers Geoffrey and William.

And his feelings for Eleanor? Well, he did not regret his marriage. She had brought him Aquitaine and she was a queen to be proud of. No woman ever looked quite as elegant as Eleanor. She knew what clothes she should wear and she knew how to wear them. Wherever she was she caught people’s eyes and that was what a queen should do. The people of England were wary of her as they would be of all foreigners but they liked to look at her and she was well worth looking at.

But she was a proud woman. A meek man would be overawed by her. He thought of poor Louis of France. All those years she had been married to him she had treated him badly and still he had been reluctant to let her go. He laughed to himself to picture her arriving at Antioch and setting eyes on her handsome uncle. And in a short time she was sharing his bed and that of an infidel it seemed! He had much to hold against her if ever she questioned his behaviour.

Life with Eleanor would henceforth be a battle. He was excited by the prospect, so he could not regret his marriage. Moreover she had brought him Aquitaine. How could he ever regret Aquitaine?

Eleanor was fitted to be a queen in every way providing she had a husband who knew how to subdue her. When she had learned that the King’s will was law he would be happy enough in his marriage. They would have more children. She had proved she could get sons and he would not be adverse to a daughter or two. They made such excellent counters in the game of politics. A marriage here and there could cement an alliance far better than any written contract.

But she had to realise that he was the King and that he would be obeyed. She was his Queen and a certain amount of respect was due to her, but what was given her came through his grace, and she must be grateful to him for it.

To expect that of Eleanor was asking a good deal and that was what made the battle between them exciting.

Child-bearing had had its effect on her. Although she did not feed her children herself, fearing to impair her beautiful high firm breasts, the bearing of so many children in so short a time had slightly changed her figure. She had borne him four children and then there were Louis’s two girls. A woman who had given birth to six children could scarcely be the sylph she had been when a young girl. She no longer attracted him physically as she had done. The intense desire he had experienced when he first knew her was replaced by a passion which had its roots in the desire to subdue her.

Yet deep within him there was hope for a different sort of relationship. The ideal woman would have been one who adored him, submitted to him, was faithful to him in every way, whose personal egoism was overlaid by her desire to serve him. There were such women. The late King Stephen had found one. To such a woman he would have been kind and tender. He would not have been faithful to her. Had Stephen been faithful to his Matilda? It was a well-known fact that he had not. Yet her feelings had never swerved and she had proved herself a clever woman in her desire to serve her husband. There were very few women in the world like Matilda of Boulogne, and Eleanor was certainly not one of them.

He was glad that Eleanor realised he had no intention of being faithful to her, that he was going to live like a king taking his pleasure where he would and that all his subjects - be they his Queen or his most humble serving-man - must realise that this was the King’s way and none should dare question it.

He could never rest anywhere for long. When he was in the South he must wonder what the people of the North were doing. He had made a habit of travelling about the country without warning which way he was going. This meant that everywhere they must be prepared for him to descend on them at any moment and woe betide any of them who were not carrying out his orders. This habit was applauded by the ordinary people, who had seen the immediate effect it had had on law and order. No robber baron now dared to carry out his cruel tricks. The King would hear of it and his word was law.

England rejoiced. It had a strong king again. Henry was determined to keep his country rejoicing.

With great glee he had discovered that Eleanor was pregnant again. She had deplored the fact.

‘What am I then?’ she demanded. ‘An animal whose sole purpose in life is to breed?’

‘It is the fate of women,’ retorted Henry with a smirk.

‘I tell you this. I shall have a long rest after this one.’

‘Three boys would be a fair tally,’ he conceded.

She hated to see him there - younger than she was, full of health and vigour, off on his travels again, looking for young and beautiful girls who would think it an honour to be seduced by the King and if a child resulted from their dalliance, well, who knew the King might allow it to be brought up in the royal nursery. Hadn’t he taken the harlot’s Geoffrey and done just that?

She hated him for being free and young.

It was like him to rise early in the morning and only then let it be known that he was ready to start on his peregrinations. What a bustle there was in the castle! Servants would hastily rise from their beds and the grooms, bleary-eyed, would hurry to the stables. The horses themselves, catching the mood, would grow frisky; the cooks and stewards and all the members of the domestic household who travelled with the King quickly gathered together the tools of their trades, for the King was on the move and he was impatient with delay.

Eleanor watched from her window. They feared him; yet there was not one of them who would wish to be left behind. His terrible rages made them tremble, but his rough words of friendship enraptured them.

She had to admit grudgingly that he was indeed a king. There he was bawling instructions while they ran frantically round him. There was his bed being taken out. Who would share that with him? she wondered angrily. Fresh straw in case it could not be procured on the way. His platters and his drinking cups. There would not be any great banquets, she thought ruefully. His pleasure lay in the bed rather than the table.

He looked up and saw her at the window. He bowed ironically. No regrets now as there used to be in the old days. Then she would have been down there. She would have begged him to return quickly, to think of her as she would of him. That was changed. She knew him better. He had betrayed himself as the lecher he was. He could not even be faithful in the days when they had been at the height of their passion.

Let him go to his whores and harlots. She was glad to be rid of him.

And he had dared dismiss Bernard de Ventadour. Why? Had he really been jealous as he had pretended to be? There was much that she did not understand about him. Perhaps that was why she could not stop thinking of him.

And now here she was - she, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the elegant lady of good taste and culture, the patron of arts, a woman who must await the pleasure of the King’s visits to her bed, which she was beginning to suspect were for the sole purpose of getting children. Was this the romance of which her poets had sung?

There was consolation in her children, and particularly Richard.

He was a wonderful boy and very soon there would be another. It was not a year since his birth and here she was heavy with a child again.

She took Richard in her arms and put his smooth young face against her own.

‘The King has gone, Richard,’ she said.

The child crowed with delight as though he understood.

She laughed aloud and hugged him tightly. In this fine boy she could forget her disillusion with her husband.

Henry made his way to Shropshire. On his accession he had ordered the demolition of any castle which had been erected as a stronghold from which the pillaging of the countryside took place. This had aroused the enmity of many of those who had owned these castles and Henry knew that if he did not continue to have the country patrolled either by himself or his trusted friends these castles would be erected again.

He had heard that this was what was happening in the area of Shropshire and the news had been sent to him by a certain Sir Walter Clifford who himself was having a disagreement with the son of one of the chieftains of Wales.

Henry therefore decided that he would make for Sir Walter’s castle in Shropshire and settle this dispute.

When he arrived at the castle he was welcomed by Sir Walter who according to custom came into the courtyard to present him with the traditional goblet of wine, which he himself first tasted to assure the King that it contained no poison, and he himself held the stirrup while the King dismounted.

Then he led the King into the castle hall where the Clifford family were waiting to welcome him. He must forgive their awkwardness, whispered Sir Walter. They were overawed at the prospect of having the King under their roof.

There was the Clifford family, Lady Clifford and her daughters - six of them. Some were married and their husbands stood behind them, but the youngest of them took the King’s eyes for she seemed to him the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

He paused before her and said, ‘You have a lovely daughter, Sir Walter.’

‘She will remember your royal compliment all her life, my lord.’

‘Nor shall I forget such beauty in a hurry. What are you called, maiden?’

‘Rosamund, Sire.’

‘Rosamund,’ he mused. ‘The Rose of the World, eh?’ Then he passed on, and was conducted to the bedchamber which was hastily being prepared for him.

All the cooks in the castle were set to work for even though the King’s eating habits were well known, every one of his hosts would want to produce the best feast of which they were capable. The King would expect it even though he did not wish to over-eat. Every acknowledgement of the honour done to them must be clearly shown.

A banquet was prepared and carried into the great hall. Sir Walter gave up the head of the table to his royal guest as he had done his bedchamber for only the best in the house was good enough for the King. For once Henry sat down to eat and he was in a more thoughtful mood than was usual. He commanded that Sir Walter’s daughter should sit beside him at the table.

She came. He was struck further by the beauty of her fair complexion, and realised he was comparing it with Eleanor’s darker one. This girl was indeed rose-like, a little fearful to have caught his interest - which he liked in her - and yet eager to please.