Czytaj książkę: «The Lily and the Lion»

1.
The January Wedding

FROM BOTH SIDES of the river and from every parish in the city, from St Denis, St Cuthbert, St Martin-cum-Gregory, St Mary Senior and St Mary Junior, from the Shambles and from Tanner Row, the people of York had been flowing for the past two hours in a continuous stream towards the huge but still-unfinished Minster that brooded heavily over the city.

The crowd completely blocked the two winding streets of Stonegate and Deangate which led into the yard. Boys, who had found perches above the crowd, could see nothing but a sea of heads covering the whole area. Burgesses, tradesmen, matrons with their numerous broods, cripples on crutches, servants, apprentices, hooded monks, soldiers in shirts of mail and beggars in rags were all crowded as close together as the stalks in a truss of hay. The light-fingered pickpockets were reaping a year’s harvest. Faces filled the upper windows like so many bunches of grapes. The damp, cold, misty twilight that enveloped the great building and the crowd standing in the mud seemed scarcely that of noon. It was as if the gathering was pressing close together for warmth.

It was January 24th, 1328, and, in the presence of William de Melton, Archbishop of York and Primate of England, King Edward III, who was not yet sixteen, was marrying his cousin, Madam Philippa of Hainaut, who was barely more than fourteen.

There was not an empty seat in the cathedral. They had all been reserved for the high dignitaries of the kingdom, members of the upper clergy and Parliament, the five hundred invited knights and the hundred tartan-clad Scottish nobles, who had come south to ratify the Peace Treaty. Soon the solemn mass would be celebrated, sung by a hundred and twenty choristers.

Now, however, the first part of the ceremony, the marriage proper, was taking place outside the south door of the cathedral in view of the people, according to the ancient rite and peculiar custom of the archdiocese of York, as a reminder that marriage was a sacrament between husband and wife, affirmed by mutual vows taken in public, to which the priest was merely a witness.

The mist had stained the red velvet of the canopy over the door with patches of damp, it had condensed on the bishops’ mitres, and had bedraggled the fur about the shoulders of the royal family assembled round the young couple.

‘Here I take thee, Philippa, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold, at bed and at board …’^{1 fn1}

Coming from the King’s young lips and beardless face, his voice was surprisingly powerful, clear and vibrantly intense. Isabella, the Queen Mother, was struck by it, and so were Messire Jean of Hainaut, the bride’s uncle, and the others standing near, such as Edmund, Earl of Kent, and Wryneck, Earl of Lancaster, Chief of the Council of Regency and the King’s tutor.

The barons had heard their new King speak with such unexpected force only once before – on a day of battle in the last Scottish campaign.

‘… for fairer for fouler, for better for worse, in sickness and in health …’

The whispering of the crowd gradually subsided; silence spread like a circular ripple and the royal young voice rang out above those thousands of heads, audible almost to the far end of the yard. The King slowly recited the long vow he had learned the previous day; but he might have been inventing it afresh, so clearly did he articulate each phrase and lend each word grave and profound significance. It was like a prayer said once, and destined to last a lifetime.

The boyish figure seemed endued with the mind of a man supremely sure of the vow he was taking in the face of Heaven, of a prince conscious of the part he had to play between his people and his God. The new King was taking his family, his friends, his great officers of State, his barons, his prelates, his people of York and, indeed, of all England, to witness the love he was vowing to Madam Philippa.

Prophets burning with the zeal of God and leaders of nations who are imbued with some unique conviction can infect the crowd with their faith. A public affirmation of love also has this power, and can make everyone share one man’s emotion.

There was not a woman in the crowd, whatever her age, whether she was newly married, was deceived by her husband, was a widow, a virgin or a grandmother, who did not feel herself at that moment to be standing in the bride’s place; and there was not a man who did not identify himself with the young King. Edward III was uniting himself to every woman among his people; and it was his whole kingdom that was taking Philippa to wife. The dreams of youth, the disillusionments of maturity, and the regrets of old age were all centred on the young couple – heartfelt offerings. And, when darkness fell in the ill-lit streets, the eyes of betrothed couples would glow brighter in the night, and husbands and wives, who had been long at enmity, would reach for each other’s hands when supper was done.

From the beginning of time people have crowded to the weddings of princes, in order to enjoy a vicarious happiness which, when seen in the highest, must seem perfect.

‘… till death us do part …’

There was a lump in every throat; a vast, sad, almost reproachful sigh rose from the crowd. At such a moment, there should be no mention of death. Surely this young couple could not be mortal or subject to the common lot?

‘… and thereto I plight thee my troth …’

The young King heard the people sigh, but he did not look at them. His pale blue, almost grey eyes, their long lashes raised for once, were gazing at the chubby, freckled little girl, wrapped in veils and velvets, to whom he was making his vows.

Indeed, Madam Philippa was not at all like a princess in a fairy story; she was not even very pretty, for she had the heavy features, short nose and freckles of the Hainauts. Nor was she endowed with any particular grace of movement; yet she had an attractive simplicity and made no attempt to assume an air of majesty, which would certainly not have become her. Without her royal adornments, she would have looked no different from any other red-headed girl of her age; there were hundreds like her in every one of the northern kingdoms. But this merely increased her popularity with the crowd. Though she was the elected of Fate and of God, she was essentially no different from the women over whom she was to reign. Every stout, red-headed girl felt that she had, somehow or other, been personally complimented and honoured.

Trembling with emotion, Philippa screwed up her eyes as if unable to bear the intensity of her bridegroom’s gaze. All that was happening to her was so incredibly wonderful: the coronets about her, the mitres, the knights, the ladies she could see within the cathedral, row on row of them behind the candles, like souls in Paradise, and all the populace there below her! Indeed, she was to be Queen and, what was more, Queen by a love-match.

Oh, how she would cherish, serve and adore her fair and handsome prince, who had such long eyelashes and such slender hands, and who had come so miraculously to Valenciennes twenty months ago with his exiled mother, seeking help and refuge. Their parents had sent them out to play in the garden with the other children; and they had fallen in love. And now that he was King, he had not forgotten her. How happy she would be to devote her life to him. Her one fear was that she was not beautiful enough to please him for ever, nor clever enough always to be a help to him.

‘Madam, put out your right hand,’ said the Archbishop.

Philippa at once put out her little dimpled hand from her velvet sleeve, holding it firmly, palm upwards, fingers spread.

To Edward it seemed an exquisite rose-tinted star.

From a salver held out to him by another prelate, the Archbishop took the flat gold ring, encrusted with rubies, which he had previously blessed, and handed it to the King. The ring felt damp to the touch, as did everything else in the mist. The Archbishop gently drew their hands together.

‘In the Name of the Father,’ said Edward, placing the ring just over the tip of Philippa’s thumb, ‘in the Name of the Son, in the Name of the Holy Ghost,’ he said, as he moved it to her fore and middle fingers. And then, as he slipped it home on the fourth finger, he said: ‘Amen!’

Philippa was his wife.

Queen Isabella, like every mother at her son’s wedding, had tears in her eyes. Though she was making a great effort to pray God to grant her son happiness, she could not help thinking of herself; and she suffered. It had become increasingly clear during these last few days that she would no longer take first place in her son’s heart and house. Not, of course, that she had much to fear from this little bundle of embroidered velvet who, at this very instant, was become her daughter-in-law; her authority over the Court could not be challenged, nor indeed her supremacy in beauty. Straight and slender, her fine golden tresses, framing her face, which was still so clear-complexioned, Isabella at thirty-six looked scarcely thirty. She had spent much time that morning before the looking-glass, while donning her crown for the ceremony, and had left it reassured. Yet today she was no longer the Queen but the Queen Mother. How quickly it had happened. How odd that twenty stormy years should be resolved like this.

She thought of her own wedding, exactly twenty years ago, on a late January day like this. It had taken place at Boulogne in France and there had been a mist then too. She also had believed, as she made her heartfelt vows, that her marriage would be happy. But she had not known to what kind of man she was being married in the interests of the State. How could she have known that her reward for love and devotion would be humiliation, hatred and contempt, that she would be supplanted in her husband’s bed, not indeed by mistresses, but by scandalous and avaricious men, that her marriage portion would be ravished from her, her lands confiscated, that to save her life she would have to go into exile, raise an army to reconquer her position, and in the end order the murder of Edward II, who that day had slipped the wedding ring on to her finger? How lucky young Philippa was to be not only married but loved.

First love is the only pure and happy one. If it goes wrong, nothing can replace it. Later loves can never attain to the same limpid perfection; though they may be as solid as marble, they are streaked with veins of another colour, the dried blood of the past.

Queen Isabella turned to look at her lover Roger Mortimer, Baron of Wigmore, who owed it as much to her as to himself that he was now master of England and governed in the name of the young King. Stern-featured, his eyebrows forming a single line, he stood with his arms crossed over his sumptuous robe; he met her eyes, but his held no kindness.

‘He knows what I’m thinking,’ she thought, ‘But why does he always make one feel that it’s a crime to stop thinking of him even for an instant?’

She knew his jealous nature so well; and she smiled at him conciliatingly. What more could he want than he already had? She lived with him as if they were man and wife, even though she was Queen and he married; and she had compelled the kingdom to accept the fact of their love. She had seen to it that he had complete power; he appointed his creatures to every post; he had acquired all the fiefs of Edward II’s old favourites; and the Council of Regency obeyed his decrees and merely ratified his wishes. He had even persuaded Isabella to issue the order for her husband’s death. It was due to him that she was called the She-wolf of France! How could he expect her not to think of it on this wedding day, particularly since the executioner was present? The long, sinister face of John Maltravers, lately promoted Seneschal of England, seemed to be hanging over Mortimer’s shoulder as if to remind her of the crime.

Isabella was not the only person who resented John Maltravers’ presence. He had been the late King’s warder, and his sudden elevation to the post of Seneschal made it only too obvious for what services he was being rewarded. To those, and there were many, who were now almost certain that Edward II had been murdered, his presence was embarrassing, for they felt that the father’s murderer would have done better to keep away from the son’s wedding.

The Earl of Kent, the dead man’s brother, turned to his cousin Henry Wryneck and whispered: ‘It seems as if to kill a king entitles one to rank with his family now.’

Edmund of Kent was shivering. He thought the ceremony too long and the York rite too complicated. Why could the marriage not have been celebrated in the chapel of the Tower of London, or in some other royal castle, instead of making a public show of it? He felt uneasy under the eyes of the crowd; and the sight of Maltravers made it worse.

Wryneck, his head tilted towards his right shoulder – the infirmity which gave him his nickname – muttered: ‘The easiest way to become a member of our house is by sinning. Our friend is proof of it. Be quiet, he’s looking at us.’

By ‘our friend’ he meant Mortimer, and it showed how much the feeling had changed since he had disembarked, eighteen months before, in command of the Queen’s army and been welcomed as a liberator.

‘After all, the hand that obeys is no worse than the head that commands,’ thought Wryneck. ‘And no doubt Mortimer – and Isabella too – are guiltier than Maltravers. But we must all share some of the guilt; we all put our hands to the sword when we turned Edward II off the throne. It could end in no other way.’

In the meantime, the Archbishop was presenting the young King with three gold pieces bearing on one side the arms of England and Hainaut, and on the reverse a semy of roses, the emblematic flowers of married happiness. These gold pieces were the marriage deniers, symbols of the dowry in revenues, lands and castles, which the bridegroom was giving his bride. An accurate inventory of these gifts had been made, and this somewhat reassured Messire Jean of Hainaut, the bride’s uncle, to whom fifteen thousand livres were still owing for the pay of his knights during the campaign in Scotland.

‘Kneel at your husband’s feet to receive the deniers, Madam,’ the Archbishop said.

The people of York had been waiting for this moment, wondering whether the local rite would be observed to the end, and whether it was as valid for a queen as it was for a subject.

But no one had foreseen that Madam Philippa would not only kneel but also, in the excess of her love and gratitude, embrace her husband’s legs and kiss the knees of the boy who was making her his Queen. This chubby Flemish girl could find means of showing the impulses of her heart.

The crowd cheered enthusiastically.

‘I’m sure they’ll be very happy,’ said Wryneck to Jean of Hainaut.

‘The people will love her,’ Isabella said to Mortimer, who had moved closer to her.

The Queen Mother felt the cheers like a wound because they were not for her. ‘Philippa is the Queen now,’ she thought. ‘My day is over. Yet, perhaps, I shall now get France …’

For a courier, with the lilies on his coat, had galloped into York the week before with the news that her last brother of France, King Charles IV, lay dying.