The Battle of the Queens

Chapter V A CHANGE OF BRIDES

It was the first year of the new century; King John had been on the throne of England a year and Philip Augustus reigned in France. The affairs of these Kings seemed of little concern to the three girls who chatted together in their father’s court of Castile where the sun shone throughout the long summer days and the greatest excitement was the arrival of a troubadour who would enchant them with new songs which in a short time they would all be singing.

Their father, King Alfonso VIII, and their mother Eleanor, daughter of Henry II of England, were a well-matched pair. They loved the sun and music, and delighted in their court which under their influence was becoming one of the most cultivated in Europe. They enjoyed the company of their daughters, Berengaria, Urraca and Blanca, and took a great interest in their education. All the girls were handsome and intelligent; they were graceful, elegant and because music was of the greatest importance at the Court of Castile they were well versed in that art.

Contrary to the custom of the times Alphonso and Eleanor spent as much time as they could with their children; and they liked to pass their days in merriment and singing, dancing and the telling of tales.

Eleanor had much to tell and she was determined that her children should not be brought up in the manner she herself had. Life in the nursery of Westminster, Winchester and Windsor had been fraught with tension and it had been no different in Normandy or Poitiers. Wherever she had been her life had been overshadowed by the conflict between her parents and she had quickly learned that this was due to her father’s infidelities and her mother’s forceful nature which would not allow her to accept these with equanimity. When her father had brought his bastard into the nursery that had really been the end of harmony between him and her mother.

Eleanor remembered their shouting at each other and the culmination of their quarrels when her mother had roused his sons against the King their father and as a result had herself been imprisoned for many years.

She was determined that her children should know a happy home and the Court of Castile should be far away – and not only in miles – from those in which she had passed her childhood.

The girls always wanted to hear stories of her childhood and she had thought it good for them to hear that they might appreciate the happiness of Castile and their kindly parents.

Alphonso was proud of them and there was little he liked better than to be in their company. His fond eyes would follow them, admiring, loving and he would smile affectionately at his wife and say God had been good to them.

It was scarcely possible that such a paradise should not have its serpent. When she was very young Blanca thought this was the Saracens, because there was a great deal of talk about them and the name was spoken with awe and fear. Her father had constantly to leave them to fight the Saracens – and alas, he was not always successful. Then there would be gloom in the palace and the sisters would talk about the wicked Saracens and wonder whether they would ever invade the palace and carry them off to be slaves.

None of this happened and when she was nine years old Blanca realised that there could be as great a threat to the peaceful days as the advent of the Saracens.

She was nine years old when, one day, as the girls were at their lessons a message came for Berengaria, the eldest, to go to their parents who had something of importance to say to her.

Urraca and Blanca were a little put out, for usually the girls shared everything. They knew that visitors had arrived at the castle and that their parents had given them a very warm welcome and Blanca immediately said that the summons for Berengaria must in some way be connected with the visitors.

What it could be, they could not imagine, but they were not left long in doubt.

Berengaria came into the schoolroom, her face blank as though something very bewildering had happened and she could not understand what it meant.

Her sisters immediately demanded to know whom she had met and what she had seen and why it was they were not invited to the meeting.

Berengaria sat down and blurted out: ‘I have been seeing the emissaries.’

‘What emissaries?’

‘Of the King of Léon.’

‘But why do you see them and not us?’

‘Because I am the eldest.’

‘But why … why?’ demanded Blanca who, although younger than Urraca, usually took the lead.

‘A terrible thing has happened. I … I’m going to be married to Alfonso of Léon.’

‘Married!’ cried Blanca. ‘You. How can you? You’re not old enough.’

‘They think I am.’ Berengaria flung herself at her sisters, clinging to them. ‘Oh, I have to go away … right away from here. I shall never see you again.’

‘Léon is not so very far away,’ said Blanca.

‘We’ll all come to see you and you must come here to see us,’ consoled Urraca.

‘You won’t be here. It’ll happen to you. You’ll both have to marry too.’

Urraca and Blanca looked at each other in dismay. It would happen, of course. It happened to all. Their long carefree days would cease and their enchanted childhood would end.

‘At least your husband has the same name as our father,’ said Blanca soothingly, ‘so he can’t be so bad.’

‘I wonder what the names of our husbands will be,’ said Urraca.

At which Berengaria cried out: ‘You are so young … too young to understand. What do names matter? I’m going away … right away … It’s never going to be the same again.’

Nor was it, for understanding had come to them. Like Adam and Eve they had eaten of the tree of knowledge, and they were now aware that life could change.

In due course Berengaria went away and married the King of Léon. Their parents pacified her and told her that all would be well. She was going to be a queen and that was a very pleasant thing to be. She would help to rule with her Alfonso. Think how exciting that would be. And there would be occasions when the King and Queen of Léon would visit the King and Queen of Castile.

But Berengaria could not be easily appeased. She was going to a strange land and leaving the happy home of her childhood.

Her parting words were ominous. ‘Your turn will come.’

They missed Berengaria but after a while they became accustomed to being without her and for three years nothing was said of marriage, but it was inevitable that it must come sooner or later.

This time both girls were summoned to their parents. Eleanor looked a little sad and as she drew them to her and held them close, a foreboding touched them, because what had happened to Berengaria had warned them.

Each girl was afraid – Urraca because she guessed it was for her the next husband had been found, and Blanca because she believed she would be the one to be left behind. They had missed their eldest sister, but at least there had been two of them – now she would be alone.

‘This is really very good news,’ said Eleanor. ‘There could not be a grander match for you.’

She was looking at Urraca who began to tremble.

‘Don’t be afraid, child,’ went on Eleanor. ‘Your father and I assure you that unless this was the best for you we would never consider it. But we should be foolish indeed were we to refuse such an honour. Few princesses could receive a greater. Urraca, my dearest, the King of France has sent messengers to your father. He wants you as a bride for his son, Louis. We shall tell him that we are conscious of this great honour and when the settlement has been arranged there need be no delay in uniting our families.’

Urraca looked as though she would burst into tears and her mother took her hands and cried: ‘Why, my child, you should be rejoicing. Do you realise what this means? Berengaria is the Queen of Léon and that is very fine, but you will be the Queen of France. There is nothing better I could wish for you.’

‘But I must go away and leave you all …’

‘Dearest Urraca, it is the lot of all princesses. You have been fortunate. You have learned how to make a happy home for the family you will have. I know, my dear daughter, that you are going to be so happy.’

‘I’m not, I’m not,’ sobbed Urraca. ‘I want to stay with you and our father and Blanca.’

‘I don’t want her to go,’ cried Blanca. ‘I shall be all alone.’

‘Not for long, my dear. Very soon a husband will be found for you and if he is as suitable as those of your sisters, your father and I will be proud and happy. Now listen to me. Your grandmother is so pleased with the match that she is coming here. She will take you, Urraca, to the Court of France and stay with you until you are safely married – so eager is she for the match and so important does she find the matter.’

‘My grandmother!’ cried Urraca in even greater dismay. It was bad enough to have to face a husband but in the company of that formidable lady it would be an even greater ordeal.

The redoubtable Eleanor of Aquitaine – eighty years of age though she was – made the long journey from Fontevrault, where she had hoped to spend her last days in peace and, it was whispered, repentance for a scarcely blameless life.

Great preparations were in progress at the Castile castle for Eleanor of Castile was in awe of her mother now as she always had been; and Urraca and Blanca wanted to hear everything their mother had to tell about their grandmother.

They knew already that she had gone to the Holy Land with her first husband – another Louis who had been a King of France – and how she had come near to death in the midst of battles between Christian and Saracens. She had divorced Louis and married Henry, the King of England, and then had lived that wild and adventurous life with him which had culminated in her becoming his prisoner.

Their mother warned them. ‘You must take the greatest care in your manner towards her. If you offend her she will let you know it. Her temper was often a little uncertain and now she is suffering a great tragedy. Your Uncle Richard has died so lately and I can imagine what great sorrow this has caused her.’ Their mother’s eyes grew misty as she looked back over the past. ‘Richard was always her favourite. How she doted on him. He was very handsome. She taught him to hate our father and he learned his lesson well.’

‘That was not right, was it, my lady?’ asked Blanca. ‘Should a son be taught to hate his father?’

‘My mother did what she considered right for herself. She never obeyed rules. Nay, my child, it would have been better for all if she had taught him tolerance. But she is a proud woman, the proudest I ever knew. She is very old now. Yet she comes here. I tremble fearing that she may not survive the journey. But when her family need her she will be there.’

‘Why do we need her?’ asked Urraca. ‘Cannot the marriage be made without her?’

‘It is a very important marriage.’ Their mother lowered her voice. ‘Far far more important than that of your sister. Your grandmother is eager that nothing shall go wrong, so she will take you to the Court of France and see you married herself.’

‘Does she think the King will not let me marry his son if she did not insist?’

‘In these matters, certain details can go wrong and this may spoil arrangements. Your grandmother wishes nothing to go wrong. She is very eager for this match. Therefore she will take you to the Court of France and see the ceremony performed perhaps … or at least make sure that it will be performed.’

‘So I shall travel with her,’ murmured Urraca.

‘Be of good cheer, my child,’ said her mother. ‘Life will become wonderful for you. You are going to a great country. You have a wonderful destiny before you.’

Blanca asked: ‘Shall I have a great destiny too, my lady?’

‘I doubt it not, my love,’ answered Eleanor. ‘But Urraca’s bridegroom will be the King of France and there are few greater destinies than that.’

Each day they watched from the castle turrets for the coming of their grandmother.

When she came she was every bit as formidable as they had imagined.

She came riding at the head of the party and she called out as soon as she entered the courtyard: ‘Where is my daughter?’

Eleanor the younger was there. The old Queen had dismounted and taken her daughter into her arms. She held her tightly and would not release her for some time. Then she drew back to look at her and declared she seemed in good health and turning to Alfonso she said in a loud ringing voice: ‘And I should have wanted an answer from you, my lord, if my daughter had not been well cared for.’

‘My lady mother has not changed,’ said Eleanor; and she kept the old Queen’s hands in hers as they came into the castle.

What feasting there was! Each day the hunters had brought in fine bucks and they had been baking in the kitchens in readiness for the arrival of the old Queen. Her daughter wished her to rest awhile but she would not hear of it; and she sat at the table while the troubadours played and sang their songs and she took a lute too and with the minstrels sang the songs she had sung as a girl; and it seemed she was very happy to be with her daughter.

It astonished the girls that she could be so tender; they had thought such a formidable old woman would never look so lovingly on any as she did on their mother.

She had eyed the girls rather sharply, and when they had both kissed her hand, they felt awkward under her scrutiny. She had asked of their mother: ‘You have brought them up well, have you? Their manners must be graceful. You know the French.’

My mother said that she did not think even the French would have aught of which to complain.

At which their grandmother turned her attention from her granddaughters and gave herself up to contemplating her daughter.

That night the two girls lay on their pallets and talked about the future. They were both sad, yet excited. It was hard to imagine life without each other – yet Berengaria had gone and they scarcely missed her now.

‘I wish,’ said Blanca, ‘that we did not have to grow up.’

‘And there are years and years ahead of us,’ sighed Urraca, ‘if we are going to be as old as our grandmother.’

Then they talked of what they thought it would be like at the Court of France and Blanca was sad for she said that all the excitement would be Urraca’s and it is easier to accept change when it is exciting.

‘But your turn will come, Blanca. I wonder whom they will find for you?’

‘Of one thing we are certain: it cannot be such a grand match as yours.’

In the next few days they saw a great deal of their grandmother, who made a point of being with them and drawing them out. Blanca had always been quicker than her sisters to grasp a point; her mother had told their father that it was because of her youth and she felt the need to keep up with her sisters. However she had often surpassed them and this sharpness of wit quickly became apparent to Eleanor of Aquitaine.

When she walked in the gardens she would select Blanca on whose arm to lean. ‘Come and walk with me, child,’ she would say. ‘I need an arm on which to lean.’

Then she would ask about life in Castile and what their tutors taught them; and she would shoot questions at Blanca and sometimes was amused at the answers she received. After supper when the candles with their cotton wicks flickered in the sconces she would ask Blanca to sing for her; and sometimes she would join in the song. She had a firm voice which belied her years.

‘Your mother has taken a great fancy to Blanca,’ said Alfonso to his wife.

As the days passed it was clear that the old Queen grew very thoughtful. She would sit watching the girls, her brows knit, a strange expression on her face, as though she were trying to solve some problem.

It was late one night, after the household had retired, that she went to that chamber shared by her daughter and her husband and told one of the guards in the passage outside that she wished to speak to the King and Queen of Castile. She would go to them; all she needed was for them to be prepared for her coming.

Her daughter was not as astonished as she might have been.

‘My mother has never acted as others did before,’ she explained to Alfonso. ‘Many considered her actions strange. But it must mean that she has something important to say to us, since she comes thus by night.’ She then ordered the servants to light more candles and she and Alfonso, wrapped in night robes, awaited the coming of the Queen.

She came in, as though there were nothing unusual in this nocturnal meeting.

‘I have the solution,’ she said as she seated herself on a stool. ‘It has been puzzling me almost since the day I arrived here, because it was clear to me that the future Queen of France should be Blanca.’

‘But how can that be …’ began Alfonso.

The old Queen held up her hand and said: ‘It can well be. Instead of my taking Urraca to France, I shall take Blanca.’

‘But it is Urraca …’

‘The French King will welcome my granddaughter to France to marry his son. There is no stipulation as to which granddaughter. The girl’s name is of no importance … yet in a manner it is of the utmost importance. That is my point. The French will never accept Urraca. What can they call her? With a name like that she is doomed to remain a foreigner all her life. Blanca. That is different. They will call her Blanche and make her one of them – and with her wit and drive she will be a worthy Queen of France. That is what I have come to tell you, my son and daughter. Blanca shall go to France. We must find another suitor for Urraca.’

Alfonso said: ‘My lady, we understand well your thoughts and intentions, but we should need time to think of this matter.’

‘There is not much time,’ retorted the old lady brusquely. ‘But you may have two days in which to decide and I shall now make my preparations to leave with Blanca. I think from now on we should begin to call her Blanche.’

The weeks that followed were quite bewildering to Blanca – or Blanche as she must now think of herself.

She had been summoned to the presence of her parents and grandmother and briefly informed that plans had been changed. She, not Urraca, was to go to France in the care of her grandmother in order that she might marry the son of the King of France.

Poor Urraca had been quite shocked; and, although she had wept at the thought of leaving her home, she now wept because she was going to stay in it a little longer. Blanche understood her feelings and tried to comfort her.

‘My grandmother has done this,’ cried Urraca. ‘She did not like me from the start. You were her favourite.’

Blanche shook her head. ‘How could anyone know to whom such a person would take a fancy? Oh, Urraca, I don’t want to go. I don’t like any of it. It is so … undignified … it makes us so unimportant … don’t you see? Just like counters. You can have one of them … this one or that one … it doesn’t matter which.’

‘If you can change your name, why couldn’t I have changed mine?’

‘Mine is not really a change. It’s just the translation. You can’t translate Urraca.’

‘I wish our grandmother had never come here. I’m not surprised her husband put her into prison.’

‘Poor Urraca,’ said Blanche. ‘Don’t fret so. It may well be the time will come when you will see this as a stroke of great good fortune for yourself.’

Urraca looked solemnly at her sister and then threw herself into her arms. ‘I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, sister.’

‘Perhaps it won’t. In any case I shall do my best to stop it.’

Urraca looked at her sister intently. ‘I think you will,’ she said. ‘I believe I understand now why our grandmother chose you to go to France.’

The old Queen rode much of the time in her litter, for the journey was long and arduous, and even her indomitable will could not command her bones not to ache or the exhaustion not to overcome her. Blanche rode close to the litter on her white palfrey; and there were frequent halts for rests. They stayed at inns and castles and the Queen would lie on her pallet and have her granddaughter sit beside her that they might talk together.

It was an education for Blanche and she was sure she learned more about the world in those weeks of travel than she had done during the whole of her childhood. Queen Eleanor awakened her to a new world, a world of excitement, adventure and danger; far far away was the sunny court of Castile where her fond parents had guarded her and her sisters from the world.

Eleanor talked of her own childhood when she had graced her father’s court with her sister Petronilla. What a court that had been! The prevailing passion had been music and the greatest poets of the day and finest composers and singers had flocked there to delight the company. Eleanor remembered summer evenings in the scented gardens while the strains of music filled the air and all listened entranced to accounts of unrequited or fulfilled love – whichever it was the poet’s fancy to indulge. And at this court Eleanor had reigned supreme. There, she had been the most beautiful of women – that was credible, for in spite of the ravages of the years she retained that exquisite bone structure which even time could not change; and as she talked she glowed with an inner fire so it was not difficult to imagine that her picture of herself was not entirely without foundation.

‘There are women in this world,’ she said, ‘who are meant to rule. You are one, Blanche. I saw it in you from the first day. Urraca! A pleasant creature – she has some beauty, grace, charm … yes. But not the power to rule. How angry I used to be, how frustrated to have been born a woman. When I was young I used to fear my father would remarry. If he had got a son that puling infant would have come before me. Before me! I, who ruled that court. And I did, Blanche, I do assure you. I ruled that court and because I was a woman, if my father had had a son … who would have been years my junior … he would have come before me. He did not. But that made me none the less resentful. Why should a woman be debarred from rule when she has all the qualities to make a ruler?’

Blanche agreed that there seemed no logical reason for this.

‘I have made it my affair to learn something of your future husband. I have a feeling that he is not unlike his grandfather and if that be so I can tell you much about the boy who is to be your husband, for his grandfather was once my husband. Yes, I was Queen of France and my husband was Louis VII. Yours will be Louis VIII. My Louis … oh, I was fond of him in the beginning. He was a good man, but good men can exasperate, granddaughter. He should have been a churchman. He was made to have been a churchman; he studied for it and would have been if his brother had not been killed by a pig. Yes, a pig, who ran under his horse and threw it so that he died … and that left my Louis to be King. How small things affect the fate of nations. Never forget that, my child. A pig changed the fate of France! Poor Louis, God was unfair to him … He gave him France and me.’

‘But you loved him at first, my lady.’

‘Oh yes. I loved him because I could do what I wished with him. Then we took the cross and went to the Holy Land – for as I said Louis was a very religious man.’

‘And you too, my lady, for you went with him … you a woman.’

‘I have told you, child, that a woman is capable of doing most that a man can, and I did not go for religion but for adventure. And adventure I had. Oh, I could tell you … but I will not … not now. There are more important things to discuss. And I am tired now and would sleep.’

Blanche was disappointed. She would have liked to hear her grandmother’s account of those fantastic adventures in the Holy Land.

On another occasion Eleanor told of her marriage to the King of England.

‘He was younger than I … a fact he never let me forget when there was a conflict between us. It was good in the beginning though. He was so young … different from his father. Geoffrey of Anjou was one of the handsomest men I ever met. Henry didn’t take after his father … in any way. All he had from him was his name, Plantagenet. He had much of his great-grandfather, William the Conqueror, in him and a bit of his grandfather too – perhaps a dash of his mother, Matilda, for he could rage in his fury at times as she could. But he was a king … You knew that as soon as you met him. It seemed then that he was the right mate for me … and so he was … in a way. If only he hadn’t been such a lecher … Now, my child, you have to grow up fast. There is a feeling in the world that it is fitting for a man to roam from his marriage bed and take what mistresses he will, but if a woman should likewise stray that is criminal. I never did accept these differences. I pray that you will have a faithful husband. It may well be. My first, Louis, was a faithful husband. My second, Henry, the biggest lecher of his day. Odd that I cared more for Henry. You will take Louis as a boy for he is no older than you … perhaps a month or two but that is nothing … and if you can keep him a faithful husband you will have achieved much, for it is in bed at night that promises are given and sometimes kept. Try to make sure that those promises are given to you. I talk to you beyond your understanding perhaps, but you will learn in time.’

‘You are teaching me much, my lady.’

‘Experience is the best teacher,’ replied the Queen, ‘but can be a harsh one. Yet it is so much easier to learn from one’s own experiences than from those of others.’

On they rode through Castile towards the mountain barrier of the Pyrenees. There the passes were narrow and the cold intense. Blanche became anxious about her grandmother, for the old lady was clearly feeling the strains of the journey.

Blanche was already fond of her and looking forward with immense pleasure to their conversations. She was growing up fast; she was no longer a child; and she realised that what her grandmother was doing was preparing her for her new life.

On one occasion they stayed in a small dwelling in the mountains; the snow was falling and it was necessary for them to stay there for several days. There Blanche noticed how the cold exhausted her grandmother and how difficult it was for her to breathe.

Eleanor did not seem disturbed as long as Blanche was at her side.

‘You must not fear for me, child,’ she told her. ‘My end is not far off. I know that well. Why, bless you, I have been close to my end – so it was said – for the last ten years, and as I go on, still it recedes and will not let me catch up. I shall finish this journey. I shall go back to Fontevrault. There I have to pray and be pious for I have many sins to expiate. Nothing would have brought me from my refuge except the needs of my family. I fear for my family, Blanche, oh, I fear greatly. But since I lost my son … my beloved son … there is not so much to live for.’

‘Pray, Grandmother, do not speak thus.’

‘Ah, there is something between us two, is there not? ’Tis a pity I am so old and you are so young. The gap is too great for that understanding between us to grow big. Still, ’tis a hardy little plant and it gives me pleasure to contemplate it. Blanche … you are indeed of my blood. But Richard is gone for ever. My son … the son I loved best in all the world. I wish you could have known Richard, Blanche. He was so beautiful. The Lion Hearted they called him. He had no fear of anyone … not even his father. Henry knew it. But he always hated him. It was not only because I loved him better than anyone in the world. Henry couldn’t forgive that either. No one must come before him. But he had taken the Princess Alice … daughter of my first husband Louis … He had had her sent over when she was a little more than a baby to be brought up in the court and to be Richard’s bride. But that lecher … my husband, the King, Henry Plantagenet, took that child to his bed, defiled her and would not give her up. He kept her … his secret mistress while she was betrothed to Richard and he hated Richard and flouted him in every way … because he wanted to keep Alice for himself. There, I have shocked you now. But you will know of these things in time. That was my husband. The man I hated … and loved … and who felt similarly for me. The man who captured me when I would have led my sons against him and made me his prisoner … for years and years.’

‘My poor poor grandmother.’

‘Poor! Don’t use that word to describe me, child, or I shall say you have learned nothing. Say poor Henry! Poor Louis! But not poor Eleanor. I always got the better of them … as a woman will … for see I am alive to tell the tale … and they are dead … cold and dead in their tombs. Henry lies at Fontevrault … and Richard with him … at his feet. And one day I shall lie there with them. And when I return to the Abbey which I shall do when I say good-bye to you, I shall go to their tombs and look at their effigies and I shall speak softly to them both and it will seem as though they answer me.’

Blanche took her grandmother’s hand and kissed it.

‘And perhaps,’ went on Eleanor, ‘there is enough time left to me to see you crowned Queen of France. That is what I should like. Though Philip Augustus is not an old man – he is hale and well, I believe, and may live for years. But bide your time. It will come, I promise you. And because you have my blood in you, when your time comes, you will be a great queen.’

The weather improved and they were able to leave the mountains and take the road north towards the Loire.

There were many conversations between them and when Eleanor talked and Blanche listened the girl knew that her grandmother’s aim was to prepare her for the great role she must play; and the fact that she had been chosen in place of Urraca made her determined not to disappoint the old Queen.

Sometimes Eleanor was very sad.

‘I fear,’ she said, ‘I greatly fear for my family. There is too much conflict. My grandson Arthur … my son John … both claim the throne of England.’

‘Who should have it, my lady? asked Blanche.

‘John has it and must keep it. How could young Arthur be King of England? He is but a boy … he speaks no English and is unknown to the English. They would never accept him. Yet … some would say he has the greater claim.’

‘But you say John, my lady.’

‘John is my son. He was brought up in England. I tremble to think what conflicts there would be if Arthur took the throne. Half the people would not accept him … a boy and foreigner. I never could abide his mother – and we should have her setting herself up as queen. No, it had to be John.’

‘And it is, my lady.’

‘Yes it is. But the people of Brittany will not accept it. There is going to be war … when has there not been war … and I fear the King of France may well support Arthur. Then you and I would be on different sides, my dear.’

‘I should never be against you, my lady.’

‘Nay, child, you will be on the side of your husband and he being but a boy must support his father and his father ever had his eyes on Normandy as has every King of France since one of them was forced to give it up to Rollo, the invading Norseman. You can be sure, child, that while Normandy belongs to the King of England no King of France is going to be contented. That is something we must accept. Let us hope that John can keep a hold on his continental territories as his predecessors managed to do. If only Richard had lived, he would have held everything together.’

‘You told me that he was scarcely ever in his realm.’

‘That was so. He had this urge to win Jerusalem for the Christians. He never did but he came near to it. Even so he made a reputation as the finest soldier in the world … the greatest warrior that ever was. How the Conqueror would have been proud of him, but he would have chided him for not staying at home, I doubt not, to look after his own kingdom. And then there was the time when he was prisoner in Austria and we did not know where he was until Blondel de la Neslé discovered him through a song they sang together … and we ransomed him and he came home. Oh, those days are past and now there is John – and I greatly fear what will come to England … and I not live to see it. So I shall go back to Fontevrault and there commune with my dead husband whom I came to loathe and my dead son whom I shall always love better than anyone; and I shall wait there for the end …’

‘Unless …’ began Blanche.

And Eleanor laughed. ‘Unless something happens to take me from my refuge. Unless my family need me.’

‘Then, dearest Grandmother,’ said Blanche, ‘you would be there.’

‘As long as these poor limbs could carry me,’ she answered.

They went on northwards and the spring was beginning to show itself. Buds in the hedgerows and clustered blossoms on the elms, the small pink petals of the crane’s bill and marsh marigolds by the brooks showed that the spring was coming and the harsh winter was being left behind. But the clear light showed up the furrows on the old Queen’s brow and her skin seemed yellowish in the sunshine. It was clear that the rigorous journey had had its effect on her and while the change of season invigorated Blanche it tired Eleanor.

And so they came to the Loire and here the road divided – one way went to Fontevrault, the other to Paris.

They rested in a castle close by the river where the castellan was delighted to receive such honoured guests, knowing that the beautiful young girl was the future Queen of France and the old one the redoubtable Eleanor, Queen of England.

It was here that Eleanor came to a decision. She had heard that the Archbishop of Bordeaux was in the neighbourhood and she asked him to come to the castle as she had a great desire to see him. While she was awaiting his arrival she sent for Blanche.

Blanche came and kneeling at her feet took her hands and kissed them. The affection between them had grown with each passing day and Blanche now felt that she knew her grandmother better than she had ever known anyone – even her parents and her sisters. In the Court of Castile life had been easy and comfortable with only the bold Saracen to haunt them now and then, and he was like a ghost on the stairs, talked of but never seen and therefore without reality. It had been a happy childhood; she appreciated the love and care of her parents, the comradeship of her sisters. But it had been like looking at a picture with what was unpleasant blotted out and the rest coloured up to make it prettier than it actually was. With her grandmother she had seen real life … life as it would be lived by people like herself. There would be occasions when she would have to face the truth and that might be unpleasant.

Her grandmother had prepared her for that. It was as though she had given her a suit of armour – such as knights wore – so that when she went out to face the world, her protective armour would be the knowledge she had acquired from a lady who had lived more adventurously than most.

‘My dear child,’ said Eleanor, ‘I have much to say to you, for we are soon to part.’

‘We are not yet there, my lady.’

‘Nay, but I shall leave you here.’

The dismay in the girl’s face both hurt and pleased the old Queen. She was aware of how much Blanche had come to rely on her. Bad for the child, but pleasant for the old woman, she thought, but I am glad all the same, for this child has brightened my last days.

‘You see me thus,’ said Eleanor. ‘I am too old for such journeys. I have seen nearly eighty winters, child. Can you imagine such an age? I am weary. My old bones demand their rest. I cannot travel with you to Paris for if I did I should die on the way back. I must go now to Fontevrault, which is not far from here, and when I reach that place of refuge I shall take to my bed and there rest until I am revived or leave this world altogether.’

‘Pray do not talk so, my lady.’

‘We must always face the truth, child. I came to you because I wanted to see the bride who would be Queen of France. I am glad I did. For if I had not it would be your sister who was on her way to Paris … and I knew as soon as I saw you that it must be you. But now, all is well. You are almost there. I have sent for the Archbishop of Bordeaux and I shall put you in his charge. He will take you to Paris and look after your interests. And I shall say farewell, my dearest granddaughter, and go to Fontevrault.’

Blanche lowered her face and wept; and there were tears in the old Queen’s eyes too.

‘Do not grieve,’ she said, ‘that which has passed between us has been good. I shall think of you for as long as I am on earth and when I die – if I go to Heaven, which is uncertain, I admit – I shall look down on you and guide you if that is possible, for I know this, that Queen Blanche of France will make her mark on the history of France and be remembered as a great good queen.’

‘If she is it will be due to the wise tutoring of her grandmother.’

‘Nay, she has much to learn. She will grow in wisdom. I promise you that. All I have done is set her feet on the path along which she should go. Remember me for that. Now I hear sounds of arrival. It may be that the good Archbishop of Bordeaux is here.’

The next day Eleanor said good-bye to her granddaughter, and the old Queen and her party went on to Fontevrault while Blanche, in the care of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, rode north towards Paris.

Chapter VI BLANCHE AND LOUIS

Blanche was now desolate. She missed her grandmother even more than she had believed possible and the Archbishop of Bordeaux was no substitute for her. His sermons and his heavy advice were very different from the colourful homilies on life presented by her grandmother.

She now began to think with great trepidation of what lay before her. Very soon she would meet her bridegroom – the one with whom she was to spend the rest of her life. He was six months older than she was, she had heard, having been born in September 1187 while her birthday had been in March 1188. So they were both twelve years old. To think of his age comforted her a little, for it seemed possible that he might be dreading meeting her as much as she was dreading meeting him. She would remember her grandmother’s words about women being as important as men in the world, for after all if she had been selected for him he had been selected for her and he had had no more say in the matter than she had.

So perhaps she should not be afraid. They would both have to obey the King of France, and she imagined him benign and like her own father. She would come through her ordeal and it might be that she was unduly anxious.

It was a few days since they had parted from the old Queen’s company when the Archbishop told her that they were not going first to Paris, They were travelling to Normandy where she would be met by her bridegroom.

‘But that will lengthen our journey surely,’ cried Blanche.

‘It is the orders of the King of France,’ answered the Archbishop.

‘It is very strange,’ she said blankly. ‘I understood I was to go to France … to Paris and be married there. Surely the future Kings of France are married in Paris.’

‘It is the King’s wish that the ceremony should take place in Normandy.’

She was very puzzled and uneasy. How she wished that her grandmother was with her. There was something strange about these arrangements and she began to wonder whether the King did not wish her to marry his son after all.

The Archbishop was silent for some time. Then he said: ‘You need have no fear. The Queen, your grandmother, put you into my charge, and you may rest assured that having given her my word, I will look to your welfare as certainly as she would herself.’

Blanche nodded but she continued uneasy and at length the Archbishop seemed to come to a decision.

‘There seems no harm in telling you for you will know soon enough. The marriage cannot take place in France because the country is under an Interdict from Rome which means that no church ceremonies can be performed while this state of affairs exists.’

‘You mean he has displeased the Pope.’

The Archbishop nodded. ‘He has put away the wife he married and taken another woman to his bed and the Pope insists that this woman is no true wife to him. The King defies him declaring that she is and that his marriage to Ingeburga of Denmark was no true marriage.’

Blanche was aware of what the Interdict from Rome could mean. She had heard it spoken of in Castile as one of the worst calamities that could befall a man or woman; but in the case of a king it would apply to the whole of his kingdom.

‘And why has the King put away his wife?’

‘The church says because he has no fancy for her. He says because she was too nearly related to his first wife and therefore the marriage is null and void on the grounds of consanguinity.’

‘And where is she now?’

‘She goes from castle to castle and convent to convent while the King lives with Agnes, the woman he calls his wife, and is so deeply enamoured of her that he will not listen to the Pope, and so the country continues to suffer under the Interdict.’

Blanche was silent. It was disconcerting to learn that if a King did not like the bride who had been chosen for him, he could put her away from him on grounds of consanguinity. Royal families had inter-married throughout the centuries and it seemed it would hardly be an impossible task to discover blood ties between any of them. She was thoughtful as the cavalcade made its way into Normandy.

At last they had come face to face. He had ridden out to meet her and eagerly they had taken stock of each other.

He was not tall, nor was he short; his features were good and his expression kindly. He was fair and there was about him an air of delicacy which immediately won her heart and filled her with a determination to protect him.

She was about his height, fair and strong, with a hint of her Norman ancestry in her looks which had no doubt been noted by her grandmother when she had been certain that Blanche must be the future Queen of France. That strength in her appealed to Louis; it was reassuring to his own weakness; and from the moment they met there was a harmony between them which augured well for the future.

They rode side by side to Port-Mort and he told her how he had looked forward to her coming and that the marriage would be celebrated without delay so that they could return to Paris together.

It was easy to talk to him and in the castle close to the Abbey they sat side by side at the top of the table while the company feasted and he told her a little of what she must expect.

‘You know that I am twelve years old as you are. We have still to study; and for me life will go on much as it did before … except that I shall have a wife.’ He smiled charmingly, implying that this fact pleased him; and she glowed with pleasure which was partly relief. He told her how he lived in his father’s castles and palaces; how he had to study for a number of hours a day and his tutors had told him that when he married his wife would share his lessons. He wondered what subjects she had studied in Castile. Those she studied in France would probably be the same. They would ride a great deal. Did she enjoy riding? He meant really enjoy it apart from the fact that it was a necessary part of one’s life. He loved horses. He glowed with enthusiasm when he talked of his stables and he discussed his favourite horses as though they were human. She had not cared for them so much, but determined to from henceforth.

She would not be lonely at the French Court, he told her, apart from the fact that she would always be with him once they were married, for there were so many people there. There were his little half-brother and sister and the sons and daughters of noblemen of whom his father was the guardian.

‘You must not be afraid of my father.’ He frowned slightly. ‘People do not always understand him. But he really does care about young people … particularly his family. He will love you as he does the others, for he is very eager to see me married.’

Louis looked a little embarrassed and conversation with her grandmother enabled her to realise the reason which would have escaped her before her encounters with the old lady. Now she knew that Louis meant the King of France wanted them to produce an heir to the throne.

The thought would have alarmed her but there was something entirely reassuring about Louis and she dismissed the matter.

She asked him questions about little Philip and Mary, his half-sister and brother and discovered that they were the children of Agnes, the lady on whose account the King had been excommunicated.

She told him of Castile and her sisters and how she had believed, almost until it was time for the journey to begin, that it would be her sister who was coming to France.

Louis touched her hand lightly.

‘I am glad,’ he said, ‘that it was you who came.’

A few days later the marriage ceremony took place in the Abbey Port-Mort. It was as grand an occasion as it could be, considering that the King of France was not present to see his son married. Many people thronged the Abbey however and although there was much shaking of heads over the quarrel of the King of France with the Pope, all agreed that the bridal pair looked suitably matched – a good-looking youthful couple with a look of happiness in their faces which indicated that, young as they were, they were happy to be united.

There was to be no consummation. The King of France had indicated that that was to come about naturally which it would if the young people were often together.

And so Blanche of Castile was married to Louis of France and together they left Normandy for Paris.

As they rode along by the Seine, Blanche was conscious of a silence in the villages and little towns. It would have been natural to suppose that when the heir to the throne passed through with his bride there would have been some sign of rejoicing; it was surely customary to ring the church bells to announce such a joyous occasion.

‘It is the Interdict,’ said Louis. ‘The people feel it deeply. All church services and benefits are forbidden by the Pope. They are longing for it to end, but it can’t end until my father gives up Agnes and that is something he will not do.’

‘So it will go on and on and there will cease to be a church in France.’

‘They say it cannot go on, that no one can hold out for long against the Pope. The people fear that God will turn against them. As you see there is a certain sullenness in their manner. They blame all their ills on the Interdict and say that it is my father’s lust for Agnes which has brought them to this state.’

‘And he loves her dearly.’

‘He loves her dearly,’ repeated Louis. ‘As you will see.’

‘It is a terrible position for him.’

‘They would say he should never have put Ingeburga away, for he did so before he saw Agnes. None of us know why he so turned against Ingeburga. He married her and they say seemed content enough and then the next morning he was pale and trembling – so I heard – and declared he would have no more of her.’

A faint twinge of fear came to her then. He had liked his bride before the mysterious happenings in the bedchamber. Louis liked her now but what if he should later feel towards her as his father did towards Ingeburga?

She had a momentary vision of herself being sent from convent to convent, castle to castle, without ever knowing in what way she had offended; and Louis taking another wife and her family appealing to the Pope and the Pope’s saying: ‘I will put the Interdict on your kingdom until you take back Blanche.’

That was folly. Louis liked her. She liked Louis. She did not know how she would come through the bedchamber ordeal, but when it came she would exert all her powers to make it a success. She was relieved that she had time to find out something about it. In the meantime she rode on through a France which resentfully suffered under the Pope’s Interdict.

At last they crossed the Seine and came to the Isle of the Cité which Caesar had called Lutetia – the City of Mud – because he declared there was more mud to be found there than in any city he had known.

Louis grew voluble as he regarded the city. It was clear that he loved it and greatly admired his father.

‘My father has done much for Paris,’ he said. ‘It has changed more in the years of his reign than it did in centuries. He told me once that when he was at the window of his palace looking down on the town – which he loved to do – he saw some peasants riding below in their carts and as their wheels churned in the mud there rose such a fetid smell that my father was sickened. The idea came to him that if the streets were paved with stone there would be no mud, so he called together the burghers of the city and told them it would be his endeavour – and they should join him in this – to rid Paris of the name of Mud Town by paving the streets so that the mud would disappear and he needed their help in the matter. They saw how right he was, for there was much disease in the city and the people had begun to realise that it could be due to the obnoxious mud, the smell of which attracted flies and other vermin. There was one rich merchant – I have heard my father speak of him often – he was Gerard de Poissy and he contributed eleven hundred silver marks to the making of pavements, and now as you will see Paris is a most agreeable city.’

‘The people must be grateful to your father.’

Louis smiled. ‘Ah, you know how it is. When it is first done they can talk of nothing else but the change in their city and after a while they forget the foul mud and cease to be grateful for their stone pavements. My father cares greatly for his kingdom. His one dream was to enrich it and bring it back to what it was in the days of Charlemagne. So you see how he loves Agnes when he says that he would rather lose half his dominions than lose her.’

‘I like him the better for loving her so much,’ said Blanche.

‘When you meet him you will not realise the kind of man he is. He does not show his feelings but they are there … for all his family. He has ever been a kind father to me. He can lose his temper quickly but he can as quickly forget his rage. And he is a great king, I tell you that. He has been to the Holy Land.’

‘I know. He was there with my uncle Richard,’ replied Blanche. ‘My grandmother told me that at one time there was a great friendship between them.’

‘That is true. He ever had a fondness for Richard, although they were natural enemies – as all kings of France and England must be … while England holds territory which once belonged to France.’

‘Perhaps they will not always be enemies.’

‘They will be until all these possessions come back to the French crown. That is something we must accept, Blanche. Look at the wall of the city. My father had that built before he went off on his crusade. He wanted to fortify all his cities and particularly Paris. When we take our rides I will show you what he has done for the city.’

They came to the Palace of the Cité and there Blanche met for the first time her formidable father-in-law.

He was tall with a fine figure and an air of great dignity so that she would have known him immediately for the King. There was a russet tinge to his hair and beard; it showed in his eyes and suggested quick temper. There was a look of hardness about him which, she imagined, would have made anyone think twice about displeasing him.

He regarded her steadily and seemed to like what he saw. Then he embraced her and calling her daughter said he welcomed her to the Court of France. He said that he believed she would be a good wife to his son and if she was she would have nothing to regret.

Beside him was his Queen – Agnes, the gentle and beautiful young woman for whom he had placed himself and his country in a precarious position. She greeted Blanche warmly but Blanche could see that although she adored her husband she was too sensitive not to realise that she was at the core of the uneasy state of affairs which existed.

Because there were no church ceremonies it seemed a strange introduction to her new home; but the King was determined that she should receive a good secular welcome.

In the great hall he had her sit on one side of him and Agnes on his other, Louis was seated beside his wife and showed by his manner that he was eager to look after her.

The table was full of dishes of food, some of which she had never seen before; the serving men and women hurried to and fro; while minstrels played soft music throughout the feast.

Among the dishes was that rich delicacy, lampreys, in which her ancestor Henry I had fatally indulged; they were served differently here from the manner in which they were in Castile. The French used rich sauces containing herbs unknown to Blanche; there were also salmon, mutton, beef, venison and great pies the contents of which she could only guess at. Much flavouring of onions and garlic was put in the food which was new to her. She liked the cheeses and the sweetmeats and all these were washed down with wines – some drunk sweet, some dry. ‘None can make wine as the French can,’ Louis told her.

King Philip made much of her and talked constantly to her of the customs of his country and made it clear to everyone present that he was greatly pleased with his new daughter.

She quickly adjusted herself to life at the Court of France where Louis was her constant companion. They were in the schoolroom together for Philip was a firm believer in education and was constantly reminding his son that a king must study history above all subjects, for he would in due course play a part in it; geography must be mastered too, for events in various parts of the world might well be his concern some day. Literature and music must also not be neglected, for a king should be able to express himself not only with skill but with grace.

Because they learned together they learned quickly. They were two children growing up side by side and Louis supplied the companionship which she had enjoyed with her sisters. She heard from home frequently, for her parents were eager for her to know they thought of her constantly; Berengaria also wrote to her; and she was pleased to learn that Urraca was going to marry into Portugal where she would in due course become Queen.

‘I am proud of my three girls,’ wrote her mother, ‘and one day I know I shall be even more proud.’

There were many young children in the palace. Philip liked children and the sons and daughters of many a noble were brought up there, for the King called them his godchildren and they lived under his roof. There was not a nobleman in France who did not consider it the highest honour for his children to be brought up at court and beside Philip’s two by Agnes, there were one or two illegitimate sons of his. He liked all children and was particularly fond of his own. It was easy to see that he doted on Louis and once when he was alone with Blanche he said to her: ‘You will have to take care of Louis. He was never very strong. When he was two years old we nearly lost him. I left the crusades before I intended to because I feared he would die. I have always had a watch kept on his health since.’

Blanche assured him that she would look after him well.

They rode a great deal together; she allowed herself to be drawn into his enthusiasm for horses and the King said to Agnes that it was always wise to let the children grow up together rather than thrust them into bed when they were strangers.

The method seemed to be working well with Blanche and Louis for each day they grew more and more fond of each other.

He liked to show her Paris. He would take her through those streets – paved at his father’s orders – past the silent churches up the narrow alleys where the dyers and tanners were at work. People watched them covertly and cheered them now and then. They could not visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, they said. It was not the fault of those innocents that the land was under the Interdict and there was no church comfort to be had for love or money.

He took her to the cemetery of Paris close by the Church of the Holy Innocents and the street of St Denis. It was enclosed by a high wall and there were gates which were shut every night.

‘This is my father’s work,’ Louis pointed out. ‘He saw that the burial grounds were treated without respect. At one time this was open land and the traders used to come here and set up their stalls between the tombs. It seemed to him profane, so he had the wall built with the gates which were shut up every night. Then there could be some privacy and respect for the dead.’

‘Your father is a very good king,’ said Blanche.

‘I pray to God I shall be as good when my time comes, but I fear not.’

‘Why should you not, Louis? You are good and kind and more gentle than your father.’

‘I lack his kingly qualities.’ He looked very sad, then brightened suddenly. ‘But I shall have you to help me.’

‘And I will help you.’ She stood there in the cemetery among the graves of the dead and raised her hand. ‘I swear it, Louis. I will stand beside you and when the time comes we shall rule France together.’

He looked at her with great love and said: ‘The thought of reigning had always frightened me until you came.’

There was nothing he could have said which could have given her more delight.

They rode on through the town and Louis showed her Les Halles, the great market place enclosed by walls and again with gates which shut at night.

‘My father, while he is a great commander of armies and wins many battles by clever diplomacy, has an eye for the life of the ordinary people. He thinks constantly how best to make life easier for them. He has now allowed all bakers to have their own ovens, for before he made this law the ovens which were used by the trade belonged to certain large establishments, many of them religious. The people do not fully realise what a great king he is.’

‘People never recognise a great king until he is dead and they have a bad one,’ said Blanche. ‘And I tell you, Louis, they will have such another good king after Philip.’

‘I pray so, and that it will be many years before they have a new king. My father is not old. He has perhaps thirty years left to him.’

‘Thirty years!’ cried Blanche. ‘It is a lifetime. Just think of us in thirty years’ time.’

‘Does it alarm you?’

‘Not now I am married to you.’

They came back again and again to that satisfactory state of affairs. Those about them noticed that they were falling in love. Soon, they said, they will be lovers in truth.

The King noticed. Some members of his court thought they should be lovers in fact. Thirteen years old. Why not? And they were both mature for their ages.

‘Nay,’ said the King. ‘When they are ready it will come. Let us not disturb their innocent pleasure in each other.’

So the weeks passed – lessons, riding to the hunt in the forests, riding quietly through the streets of Paris, watching the progress of the mighty church which Philip was building and which would be Notre Dame de Paris, and then going to the Louvre to see how the builders were getting on with the improvements to that palace where a fine strong tower was being added.

‘My father is altering the face of Paris,’ said Louis, ‘and who can say it is not for the better?’

Blanche, who had loved her own parents devotedly, took Louis’s affection for his father as natural, not realising how rare it was. It was true her grandmother had told her of the terrible conflict which had raged between her grandfather, Henry II of England, and his sons but she had thought that was a regrettable infrequent state of affairs.

She was learning at a great rate but she still wondered why a king like Philip Augustus who was so concerned for his people that he built walls about their markets and studied their needs should have let them suffer as they did from the Pope’s Interdict, which they must endure because of his actions.

Two young people had come to the court. This was the very interesting handsome young Prince Arthur who was the same age as Louis, and Arthur’s sister Eleanor who was a few years older.

Arthur was that Count of Brittany, son of Geoffrey, elder brother of John, about whom there was a great deal of controversy because many people believed that he, instead of John, should be the King of England. Philip was very anxious to have him there, and Louis told Blanche that his visit was in a way political and far more important than those of the King’s wards who played and learned to joust and ride in the courtyards and the gardens.

‘My father does not trust John,’ he told Blanche. ‘He may decide to help Arthur to the throne. So much depends on what happens.’

Blanche liked to hear everything that was going on and she rarely forgot anything. She told her little maid Amincia, who had come with her from Castile and acted as her personal attendant, that she too must keep her ears and eyes open and let her know what was said throughout the court. If she was going to help her husband she must know everything that happened.

So she was particularly watchful of Prince Arthur and compared him with Louis – to Louis’s advantage. Arthur might be said to be more handsome; he was indeed princely; but he was a little arrogant, a fault of which no one could accuse Louis. He might joust more flamboyantly, but she did not think he was as clever as Louis.

Arthur was a little boastful, certain that he was going to be King of England before long. He used to talk to Louis and Blanche about his prospects and he believed that he had the greater claim being the son of an elder brother of John who had assumed the crown.

‘It is all due to certain men in England who have supported him,’ he told them. ‘But the people do not like him and they would be glad to be rid of him.’

Blanche was not so sure. Her grandmother had been in favour of John. It was very disconcerting for her to know that Philip supported Arthur’s cause while her grandmother was on the side of John.

She was able to talk over her dilemma with Louis who was always fair and ready to see another point of view.

‘It is not an easy matter to decide,’ he granted her. ‘John is the son of the late King of England, Arthur his grandson. Of course if Geoffrey had been King, there would have been no doubt that Arthur was next. But Geoffrey was never King and died before his elder brother Richard came to the throne. It is therefore difficult to give a ruling. But father has no difficulty. He would like to bring Normandy back to the Crown of France and Poitou too. Therefore he does not think of what is right but what is best.’

‘And you, Louis?’

‘I must think with my father if I am to be a good King of France.’

‘And if I am to be a good Queen of France I must agree with you.’

It was obvious of course that Philip’s motives and those of her grandmother were in direct opposition, for Eleanor was anxious to hold all that had come to the Plantagenets through conquests and alliances, while Philip wanted to bring back everything to France.

It was difficult at first to know what she should do; but of course she was married now and what was advantageous to France was so to her.

She was uneasy though when Philip took possession of several castles which belonged to Arthur with the purpose he said of guarding them for his young protégé; that was not all. He declared that Arthur was ready to receive a knighthood at his hand and because he believed that Arthur was the true heir to the crown of Richard he would invest him not only with Brittany, but Anjou, Poitou, Maine, Touraine and Normandy.

As it was only to be expected Hugh de Lusignan, whose bride John had taken, immediately joined in the campaign against the King of England.

‘I fear,’ Louis told Blanche, ‘that there will be war.’

‘And if there is, will you go?’

‘My father has always been anxious that I should not engage in war, partly because of his concern for me, partly because he fears I might be killed in battle and France die without an heir.’

They looked at each other covertly. The moment when they must consummate their marriage was growing nearer.

It was due to this conflict that Blanche and Isabella first became aware of each other. Philip had invited King John to Paris that they might confer together and thence he came with his bride.

Blanche would always remember that first meeting with the young Queen of England and the effect she had had on all present. As she entered the great hall by the side of her husband it was not on John that every eye came to rest. She was sumptuously clad; she glittered with jewels; but it was not that. There was something in the bold wide eyes fringed with heavy black lashes, the languorous manner, the graceful catlike movements which proclaimed Isabella apart from other women. Only to look at her was to understand why John having seen her was ready to discard poor Hadwisa of Gloucester, his longsuffering wife, to abandon his honour and give himself no rest until he had abducted Isabella and she became his wife.

She displayed great pride, a certain haughtiness which demanded homage for her rare qualities. Blanche had never seen a member of her sex quite like her.

During their stay at the palace, the King feted the pair from England with great pomp and ceremony, because he was eager to placate John and to lull his suspicions that Philip would one day rob him of his possessions.

Isabella showed an interest in Blanche and that meant that now and then she sought the company of the girl who would one day be Queen of France.

Isabella made no effort to hide the fact that she was a little contemptuous of Blanche. Blanche was handsome enough to claim her attention but Isabella showed clearly that she was aware of her virginity and despised it.

The story was that John was unable to drag himself away from Isabella’s bed and that he was restless and bad-tempered when he could not be with her even for a short time.

It seemed incredible that Isabella was but a year or so older than Blanche for she seemed wise in the ways of the world and Blanche suddenly realised that she did not want to understand what this was that Isabella managed to convey.

‘You are very very young,’ Isabella told Blanche. ‘Yet you have a husband.’ That fluttering of the eyelids, that sly secret smile, what did it mean? ‘How is Louis?’ asked Isabella.

‘He is well, thank you, and no longer delicate you know.’

At which Isabella laughed.

‘I did not mean his health. Of course he is but a boy. John is very … experienced, very skilled. Far more so than Hugh would have been, I am sure.’

‘Skilled … in ruling. Well so should he be. He is a king.’

‘You follow me not. You are a child yet, Blanche.’

‘Louis does not think so. We discuss affairs and even the King talks to me sometimes of state matters.’

Isabella nodded mockingly. ‘And do they so indeed. Then forsooth I am wrong and you are no longer a child … in all matters.’

She turned to Louis. She embarrassed him with her languishing looks and her beautiful white hands which she would lay on his arm while she stroked him gently.

‘Why, Louis,’ she would say, ‘how very handsome you are! I trow they will call you Louis the Handsome some day.’

‘I hardly think so,’ replied Louis uneasily. ‘They would not call me so, for I should not merit it. I would rather be the Brave … or the Good.’

‘Perhaps you will be all three. Who knows?’

She laughed a great deal and made allusions to matters which they did not entirely understand. She talked of her husband and how he would be seeking her this moment. ‘If he saw me touch your arm like this, my lord … yes, even your arm … he would be ready to kill you.’

‘Then he would be possessed of madness,’ retorted Blanche, ‘and he should save his anger for his enemies.’

‘He would count your husband one if he saw my interest in him.’

That she was goading them in some way, they both realised. Blanche thought she was trying to tempt Louis, and that she wanted him to admire her.

She said to him when they were alone: ‘I think she wanted you to say that she was beautiful … more beautiful than I am.’

‘That I should never say.’

‘Well, she wanted you to think it.’

‘I couldn’t, Blanche, because you are my wife.’

She smiled at him tenderly. ‘Will you always think that, Louis?’ she asked.

‘Yes, I always shall,’ he vowed.

He took her hands suddenly and kissed her in a manner which he had not used before. It startled her and yet in a way she had expected it.

The presence of Isabella, her innuendoes and her sly allusions had changed them in some way, had awakened something in them.

It was while Isabella and John were visiting the court that they became lovers.

Now they were no longer children. The magnitude of their new relationship absorbed them. Philip and Agnes watched them indulgently.

‘They have fallen in love,’ said Agnes.

‘It is perhaps over soon to expect an heir to the throne,’ said Philip.

‘And they perhaps are over young to be parents as yet,’ replied Agnes.

‘My dear Agnes,’ said the King. ‘Princesses are old enough as soon as they are able.’

Agnes herself was sorrowful. When she rode out she saw the silent looks of people and she knew that they blamed her for bringing upon their country this evil state of affairs. To be denied the Church was a great hardship for them; and if there was war, she wondered how Philip’s armies would fare.

And there would be war. How she detested the King of England and his precocious little bride. John was a wicked man, she sensed; he was capable of any cruelty, any treachery. The manner in which he had behaved to Hugh de Lusignan was unforgivable and as for his bride – she was ready to give herself wherever there was the greater advantage.

Hugh would raise his friends against John, and Philip had always been a man to seize his opportunities. She could see war coming close. Philip had told her that he had little respect for John. ‘He is a man who will find it hard to keep a grip on a slippery crown,’ he said. ‘His father did not find it an easy task and he was a great soldier and clever ruler. He had had his faults and they had betrayed him. His family was against him and in particular his wife … and it was largely these personal relationships which undermined him. If he had had the good sense to remain friendly with his wife and sons his story would have been different. But they were a treacherous band … except Richard.’ His face softened always when he spoke of Richard. ‘Richard was never false. Yea and Nay, we would call him, for if he meant yea it was yea and if nay it was nay and he told you straight. Richard was a fool in many ways but a braver man never lived. I remember him when we were young. By God, there was a handsome man! I never saw a finer. But it is all long since and what have we now but this brother of his … this evil man who was not worthy to unlatch his shoe. If Richard had lived … Richard should have lived … But now we have to deal with John.’

‘You think he will make war?’

‘He will have to defend his claims to the throne, because Arthur is going to find men rallying to his cause and Hugh de Lusignan will stand beside Arthur, I can promise you.’

‘And you, Philip … ?’

‘When the time comes I’ll not stand aside. You know it has always been a dream of mine to bring Normandy back to France where it belongs. I would make my country great as it was under Charlemagne.’

Agnes said, ‘I know.’

He took her hand and smiled. ‘And talk of war disturbs you, and I will not have you disturbed. Come, we will be happy. I will make you happy as you have made me.’

And she thought: But not France. Our happiness in each other has not been the contentment of France.

She brooded a great deal and without telling the King she sent a message to the Pope in which she pleaded with him to withdraw the Interdict. ‘I love my husband,’ she wrote, ‘and my love for him is a pure love. When I married I was ignorant of the laws of the Church. I believed that I was truly Philip’s wife. I beg of you, Most Holy Father, to raise the Interdict and give me leave to remain at the side of the man I call my husband.’

Innocent replied that he believed in her innocence, and that he had sympathy with her, but the truth was that Philip was in fact married to Ingeburga and for that reason while he lived with Agnes the Interdict could not be lifted.

Agnes was in despair. She wrote again to the Pope that she had two children, her young Philip and Marie, and if she left Philip she would be acknowledging those children as illegitimate. That was something she could not do. She would die with all her sins on her rather than harm her children.

The Pope’s reply was prompt. He believed her to be a good and pious woman who had been caught up in all innocence in this matter. He understood her loyalty to her children and if she would leave the King and go into a convent, he would declare her children legitimate since she had believed them to be so when they were born.

But remove the Interdict he would not, until Agnes and Philip had parted.

The palace was plunged in gloom. The King shut himself in his apartments and would not speak to no one. Agnes had left Paris.

She had made up her mind that she must save France from the disaster which she was sure the continuance of the Interdict would bring her to. War was imminent. No army could believe in victory when the approbation of Heaven was turned against it.

Agnes had made the great sacrifice.

Philip pacing up and down his bedchamber knew that she had done that which was best for France. He had dreaded going into battle with an army which would have decided before the fighting began that it was defeated. And yet … he had lost Agnes.

He cursed his fate. He was doomed to lose those he loved. Had he loved Isabella of Hainault, Louis’s mother? Not greatly but she had been an amiable spouse – a lovely creature; sometimes Louis looked very like her. She had been sixteen years old when he was born – not much older than he was now and she had died when the boy was two. So theirs had been a brief married life; and he had mourned her. He had lost Richard Coeur de Lion, whom he had loved more passionately than he had loved Isabella. He often thought of Richard now … moments of tenderness, moments of anger. Love and hatred had played strong roles between them. And he had lost him … But perhaps when he had almost lost his son he had suffered most. It was shortly after Isabella’s death when the child had come near to dying too and he had come home from the Holy Land, leaving Richard for the sake of his child. Louis had been preserved and how he had loved the boy. He still did. He could not explain what joy it was for him to be near this son of his. That Louis was gentle both delighted and dismayed him. He often wondered what sort of king he would make. He was like his grandfather really, too sensitive for kingship. But he was a lovable boy and Philip thanked God that Blanche showed signs of strength. He would talk to Blanche some time. He would make her understand how she must grow stronger and always support Louis, for Louis would need her. Thank God they had taken to each other. He had not wanted to spoil it. That was why he had let them live innocently together until that time when they should mate naturally. If it was, as it appeared, that the time had come, he rejoiced. It would mature them both and then he could talk to Blanche and make her understand.

But now he had lost Agnes.

The Interdict would be raised and there would be rejoicing throughout the land, but to gain the contentment of France had cost him Agnes.

He supposed he could have ridden to Poissy whither she had gone, could have implored her to come back, and he knew that she would not have been able to resist him.

But a king is a king, he told himself.

He had not thought that in the heat of his passion for her. Had he not known that he was in truth married to Ingeburga and because she was a princess the Pope would not allow her to be set aside.

Ingeburga. He shivered. Never never again …

Then he thought of Agnes and wept. But there would be war.

He was going to finish John – that foolish, reckless braggart. Brother of Richard … son of great Henry! God in Heaven, how did Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry Platagenet get such a creature?

But thank you, God, for bringing him into this world. Thank you for making him King. This is my chance. I shall bring back all that France has lost. I shall be as great a king as Charlemagne. And Agnes, dearest Agnes, I could not have done it without you beside me.

And while the King of France made plans for war, in the convent of Poissy Agnes wept and tried to forget the past. This was the best … for the King her lover, and for their children. This was the sacrifice demanded of her.

She grew listless. She could eat nothing. She spent hours in prayer.

There was no happiness left in life. She longed for the peace of Heaven. She prayed for it.

‘Oh Holy Mother of God, my life is over. There is nothing left to me now. In your mercy let my sorrows pass away. In death I shall find peace.’

Her prayers were granted. A few months after she had entered the convent of Poissy, Agnes was dead.

The Interdict was lifted but Philip refused to have Ingeburga back. That was one thing he stood firmly against. The Pope might have parted him from the woman he loved but he could not make him live with one he loathed. So Ingeburga continued her peregrination from castle to castle, convent to convent; she might go where she pleased as long as it was not where Philip was.

To soothe his unhappiness he plunged into preparations against John, for John was gathering enemies fast which was a matter for rejoicing; and the prospects for France had never looked so bright. Philip was not an old man – not yet forty. He had time before him and he wanted to leave a flourishing country for Louis.

He liked to talk with his son, to train him, as he called it, for future kingship, and at the time of Agnes’s death he grew closer and closer to his son.

He walked with him in the gardens and there he would speak to him as he said in secret, which made a pleasant intimacy between them.

He studied Louis anxiously. Ever since that terrible illness he had been concerned for his health. He set his doctors to watch his son without letting Louis know it. ‘For,’ he said, ‘I do not wish him to imagine he is ill, which he is not. But in view of the fact that he has a delicate constitution, I want to be absolutely sure that if he should need attention it be promptly given.’

It was important for France that the heir be strong, he was often telling himself. And if anything should happen to Louis he could see great conflict, for Agnes’s boy would not be accepted by some even though the Pope had made him legitimate. He knew in his heart that one of the factors in the case from Agnes’s point of view had been the legitimisation of young Philip, for if she had remained with him, it was certain that the Church would have upheld the point of view that the child was a bastard.

Philip was angry with fate, the Pope and the circumstances which had led to his marrying Ingeburga before he had found Agnes. But it was no use. Louis was left to him and he had to guide him in his role; and he fervently hoped that before long Louis would give him grandsons and he could thankfully know that the line was secure.

Now, in the gardens, he talked to his son of the need to recapture all that France over the centuries had lost.

‘We shall never be truly at peace,’ he said, ‘until Normandy is ours. William the Conqueror brought it to England … or England to Normandy which you prefer. But before his day there was strife between us. The Franks should never have given that part of France to the Norsemen. It happened centuries ago and who knows it may be our glory to bring it back. We have a heaven-sent opportunity in John. Think of him. You have seen him. What is your opinion of him, Louis? Would men ever follow such a one? Only those who sought their advantage … and a few to whom loyalty to the crown is a way of life. Nay, son, there never was such an opportunity as now lies in our hands and we shall take it.’

Louis listened intently, but he was not a warrior; that much was clear. He reminded Philip very much of his own father … another Louis, and a good man, a man who was pestered by his ability to see two sides to every question, a man who was haunted by the cries of innocent men and women slaughtered during the course of a battle. Philip respected such men, but did they make good kings?

He went on: ‘The time is at hand. The Lusignans are ready to rise against him. He took Hugh’s bride.’ Philip laughed. ‘There is a woman for whom men would go to war. I thank God that our dear Blanche is not of her kind. Isabella will bring John to ruin, I don’t doubt. Though his own nature will do that and it will only be necessary for her to help the process. The Lusignans are a powerful clan. They are waiting to get at him. Then there is Britanny. Arthur and his adherents believe that he should be on the throne.’

‘Do you believe that, father?’

‘I shall support Arthur, my son, because he is against John and my eyes are on Normandy. Your wife Blanche has a strong claim to the English Crown, you know, Louis.’

Louis smiled. ‘But John is the King and he will have children.’

‘From what we hear he is making every effort to get them,’ retorted Philip. ‘Kings lead precarious lives, Louis. If John should die in battle and Arthur too, why then who would be next in the line of succession? What of Blanche, daughter of Eleanor, sister to John and Richard – the Kings of England?’

‘There is of course the connection but it is unlikely that John will die before he gets an heir and then there is Arthur. And do you think the people would accept Blanche?’

‘With France behind her – yes. Think of it, Louis. The whole of France in our hands – and the Crown of England thrown in.’

‘How should we hold such vast territory?’

‘That is what we would think of when the time comes. It is a king’s duty to take the events as they arise, but if possible to be prepared for them and to act one step ahead of his enemies. You will work with me closely on this campaign.’

‘You mean I am to go into battle.’

‘God forbid. You are far too young. I would not dream of allowing that. But this will be a war of strategy – as all wars are; and it is the man who is cleverest at that wily game who is more likely to defeat his opponent, even though the latter has the bigger army. That is something Richard Coeur de Lion never realised. He was the greatest, bravest fighter in the world but no strategist. If he had been, with his courage and generalship he would have brought Jerusalem back to Christendom and, given time, conquered the world. Now I never cared for battle as I did for strategy. It is a wise policy, for countries perpetually at war grow poor, the people dissatisfied and prosperity elusive. So we should try to let others fight our wars.’

‘Is that what you propose to do?’

Philip nodded. ‘As far as I can. I want John brought low, and because he is as he is, I do not think it will be an impossibility. His enemies are numerous. The Lusignans are raring to get at him. Arthur believes he is the rightful King of England. I shall give them my support – my moral support. Though of course if necessary I shall have to offer practical help. But let them work for us first. I am going to offer your half-sister as a bride for Arthur.’

‘Marie. She is but a child.’

‘That’s true. But she is legitimate. The Pope has agreed on that. Marie is not ready for marriage. As for Arthur he is but a boy … your age, Louis. He can wait for Marie – and if he has the Crown of England by that time I shall be happy to see my daughter Queen.’

‘Does Arthur know?’

‘I have whispered to him that I propose to offer him my daughter. He is beside himself with joy. It means that I give my support to his claim.’

‘He will be going soon.’

‘Any day. The time to strike is now, Louis. Talk of these matters to Blanche. It is well that she should learn with you how affairs of state are conducted.’

‘I will talk to her,’ said Louis.

Arthur and his sister Eleanor were in mourning, for their mother had died. Eleanor shut herself away to brood in solitude, but Arthur was constantly conferring with the King; messengers were coming to and from Paris and there was always something to discuss, some preparations to be made that there was little time for grieving.

Blanche, aware of what was going on, saw how the excitement of coming events helped Arthur over his sorrow, just as plunging himself into the affairs of his country had helped Philip in his anguish over the loss of Agnes. It was a good lesson learned.

With rulers, she inferred, the good of the country must come first, and personal grief could be and must be set aside for the sake of duty. She wondered how she would fare if she lost Louis whom she was loving more every day; and she thought of the deep affection which had been so obvious with her own parents and she was sure meant more to them than anything on Earth – and it had indeed made a happy home for their children. Her mother wrote to her regularly telling her what was happening at home in Castile and spoke often of her father’s health. The bond between them all would never be broken, but she had a new life now. Louis was more important to her than anyone, and France was her home.

Arthur rode off to place himself at the head of an army and it was with dismay that Blanche heard that her grandmother had left Fontevrault to go to the aid of John.

Louis tried to soothe her.

‘But,’ she cried, ‘your father, you, and therefore myself, are supporting Arthur, and my grandmother is against Arthur and for John.’

‘It happens so in families sometimes,’ Louis answered.

‘But this is different. You see we travelled together. We became very close to each other … we understood each other.’

‘Then she will understand now that you must be on different sides.’

Blanche shook her head in grief.

And this was intensified when the news reached the court that Arthur and his supporters had attacked the castle in which the old Queen was staying and had actually dared take her prisoner; but John had arrived, rescued his mother and captured Arthur as well as Hugh de Lusignan.

‘It was a bitter defeat for Arthur and victory for John,’ declared Philip and he doubted not that the result had been brought about by the old Queen for little success could be expected from John.

But it was a temporary setback. Moreover Arthur was in the hands of John and who could say what the outcome could be.

John gave expression to his venom and derived great pleasure from humiliating Hugh de Lusignan by forcing him to ride in chains in a bullock cart while Isabella, his lost love, witnessed the spectacle; but then he released him, much to the astonishment of all. It was just a sign of John’s unpredictability; and as all his emotions at this time were governed by his feelings for his queen, it appeared that in releasing Hugh he was showing her his contempt for him as an enemy.

But he was not so foolish as to release Arthur, and that was the end of the young Prince. It was not certain what exactly had happened to him, but in a few months he was to disappear from the world, leaving behind him a mystery which added to the rapidly growing evil reputation of his uncle.

Blanche often thought of her grandmother during the next two years. She knew how desolate she must be living out the last months of her life in gloomy speculation.

She would have loved to go and visit her, to tell her that although they were on opposing sides the affection between them was in no way diminished and she would never forget their journey from Castile to the Loire when they had forged the bond between them which nothing could sever.

Eleanor had conveyed to Blanche how proud she was of the Plantagenet line, how deeply she had loved Richard and how greatly she had feared for John. And rightly so, for if ever a king brought about his own ruin that king was John. Now he was losing those possessions which had belonged to his family since the days of great Rollo. One by one the castles were falling into the hands of his enemies. There were constant murmurs of ‘Where is Arthur?’ and gruesome stories were told of the young man’s end. That he had been murdered by his wicked uncle seemed evident and his enemies – chief of them Philip of France – were not going to allow that to be forgotten.

When Château Gaillard was lost to him that seemed the end of his hopes of holding Normandy, for the castle was the gateway to Rouen and had been known as the strongest fortress of its time.

If he could lose that, he could lose everything.

While the court rejoiced, Blanche could not do so wholeheartedly for she must think of the sorrowing old lady in Fontevrault.

At least she could send messengers to the Abbey to enquire about her grandmother and it was thus that she heard of Eleanor’s decline.

It seemed that she had grown listless when she had heard of the continual defeats of her youngest son and that when Gaillard fell they tried to keep the news from her. But she was imperious to the end and realised that some major catastrophe had occurred so she insisted on being told. And when she had, she covered her face with her hands that none might see her grief.

‘It is the end,’ she said.

And they were not sure whether she meant of John’s hopes or her own life.

She took to her bed and when a fever overtook her she did not seem to care whether it left her or not.

She lay in bed, sometimes murmuring of the past and it was noticed that Richard’s name occurred very often.

She died quietly in her bed and in accordance with her instructions was buried in Fontevrault beside the husband whom she had hated and the son she had loved.

Blanche’s grief was great; she could not forget her grandmother; and although the people around her were rejoicing at the manner in which the King of England was losing his dominions and gloated on the importance of this to France, she was filled with melancholy, knowing full well that that which delighted those around her had brought great sorrow to the old lady whom she had learned to love.

Then something happened to divert her thoughts from her grandmother’s death.

She discovered she was pregnant.

The King was delighted. Blanche was not yet seventeen and there were years ahead of her for childbearing. Philip congratulated himself that it had been wise not to hurry them. They were in love and it was charming to see them together; Blanche was growing into a beauty and a woman of good sense, and that she was also going to be a mother was a matter for the utmost rejoicing.

Everything must be done for her ease. Her parents and sisters wrote of their delight and pleasure on her account and from her mother came advice on how to care for herself.

Great preparations were made throughout the court and when the time came for the child’s birth it would seem as though, as Blanche said, no one had ever had a child before.

But this child was the heir to France.

There was a certain disappointment that it should be a girl, and a delicate one, and when all the preparations, all the care, all the taken advice had proved futile, for within a few days, the child was dead, Blanche was desolate. Louis consoled her. ‘We are young,’ he reminded her. ‘There will be others.’

‘There must be,’ declared Blanche. ‘I fear that the King’s disappointment will be great.’

She was right; but he did not allow her to see how great. He comforted her and told her that it often happened so – in royal families particularly.

‘I believe,’ he said, ‘that so greatly do we desire heirs that perverse fate denies them to us. But this is but the first. Perhaps you are too young, my daughter, for you are young, you know. It has ever astonished me how a chance encounter with a woman who has pleased for a day or so will result in a healthy child. There is my own Peter Charles whose mother was a fine young woman I found in Arras and there is Philip whom I named Hurepel because of the way his hair stands up. Where would you find two more sturdy boys? And bastards both! But you will have healthy sons … great sons. I know it. You were made to be a mother of kings.’

Blanche thanked the King and told him that he had done much to soothe her melancholy; but in her sadness memories of her grandmother came back – she who had outlived all her sons, save John, and had little joy brought to her by him.

She would have another child soon and when she did this would become just a sad memory.

In the gardens Philip walked with his son. He wanted him to promise him something.

Louis was a little puzzled until his father went on: ‘I do not want you to take an active part in a joust, and I wish you to promise me that when you attend these tourneys you will go as a looker-on.’

‘But, my lord, how can I?’

‘You can do so by making sure that you do not attend in armour. If you are simply present in a light mail jacket without a helmet, all will know that you have no intention of riding in the lists.’

‘It will be noticed that I do not enter, Father. It will be said that I am a coward.’

‘Let them say that to me! None shall say it twice, I promise you. And you and I will know that you are no coward, for it may well be that it will need greater courage to abstain from the lists than it would be to enter them.’

‘Do you mean that I am not to joust ever …’

‘I mean that for a while I do not wish you to.’

Louis understood. He and Blanche had had a daughter who had not lived. He was the heir to the throne – the one on whose rights to inherit the crown none could throw a doubt; and until he had produced a son, he must live.

Jousting could be dangerous, for although a tourney was supposed to be a mock battle it often became realistic. Poor sad Arthur’s father had ridden out to do mock battle but when he had been surrounded by his opponents he had fallen from his horse and been trampled to death. Yet it was but a mock battle.

Louis had always been aware of the responsibilities of kingship, but he had never realised them so thoroughly as he did at that moment.

Four years passed before Blanche was able to give France the hope of another heir. Meanwhile John was losing his grip even on his English possessions. His Barons despaired of him and there was a growing conflict between them; he was still enslaved by his wife Isabella but that did not prevent his infidelities. He became more and more cruel as his power was stripped from him; his enemies were legion and recklessly he added to their number with every passing year.

Philip had dreamed of recovering all the French territory. That was almost accomplished, and now he was turning covetous eyes on England itself. Why not? His daughter-in-law had a claim through her mother. There was no salic law in England; he did not see why Blanche should not one day be Queen of England and Louis King. France and England under one crown. Even Charlemagne had never been King of England.

And now Blanche was pregnant.

If this child be a healthy boy, it is an omen, said Philip. ‘Oh God, give me a grandson and I will be ready to depart in good heart and spirits when ever You see fit to call me.’

Great was the rejoicing when the child was born – a boy, a healthy heir to the Crown of France.

The King’s eyes shone with affection for his daughter-in-law and pride in his grandson.

‘There have been few days in my life happier than this one,’ he declared.

As he kissed her hand, Blanche said: ‘If it pleases you, I should like to call him Philip.’

Those were the years of triumph for France. Philip had his spies everywhere and nowhere were they more important than in England. That John was a feeble ruler, a man destined to fail, was becoming more and more obvious to everyone except John, who boastfully declared he would regain all that he had lost.

When John came into conflict with the Church he was excommunicated; and the Pope implied that the claims of France did not displease him.

Calling his son and daughter-in-law to him, Philip told them that the time had come to prepare for invasion. He believed that ere long Blanche would have her heritage.

Four years before, when Blanche was expecting her son Philip, Louis had been presented with his spurs by his father at Compiègne. This ceremony, which was always conducted with the utmost pomp, had been witnessed by even more than usual because on this occasion the heir to the throne would show the company his right to the honour and after that Philip could not longer prevent his son from taking part in the jousting tournaments. Moreover now he had his namesake and grandson who appeared to be growing into a healthy man; and although Blanche was a little slow in producing more grandchildren, the King always consoled himself with the observation that she was young yet.

At this time with four-year-old Philip a delight in the royal nursery, and King John excommunicated and clearly growing less and less able to hold his kingdom, Blanche was once more pregnant.

She was larger than was usual and Philip was convinced that she would be delivered of a fine boy.

She was twenty-five – no longer so young, but her intelligence delighted him; and what was most gratifying was that the affection between her and Louis did not wane as it grew more mature. Louis took after his grandfather, that other Louis, and he never looked at other women, which was very rare. Philip himself had had many loves in his life – not all women, but Louis was a serious young man; anxious to rule well, and with the aid of Blanche to win glory for his country, it never occurred to him to be other than a faithful husband.

When Blanche’s twins were born dead, the euphoria of the court was darkened for a while. It was not the first mishap which had befallen Blanche. It was true young Philip thrived in the nursery but recalling how easily young children were carried off by death, the King’s uneasiness returned.

Shortly afterwards however she became pregnant again and hopes rose high.

Philip heard it whispered that there could be no continued real good fortune at the court while his Queen, recognised to be so by the Church, was shut out and robbed of all her royal dignity.

Philip retired to his apartments and communed with himself and God. None knew what it was he so loathed in the woman he had married, and why he still shuddered to have her near him. It was a secret he was not going to divulge to any. But clearly in his private apartment he wrestled with himself. He was King of France, and perhaps more than anything he cared for France. His greatest desire was to make France great again. It seemed to him that God had answered his prayers by putting a reckless fool like John on the throne of England. Each week came news from England and he could see, perhaps more clearly than John could, the storms gathering over his head. His barons were in revolt against him and he had lost precious lands overseas. Very little of Normandy was left to him; and never had France been in a position so advantageous.

God had selected him to be his country’s saviour, but he was denying him what he wanted most – a safe nursery. He had young Philip – and his heart filled with joy at the thought of the child – but he lived in terror that some fatal illness would overtake him. He feared for Philip as he had feared for Louis. He did not want the boy to ride too frisky a pony; he was terrified of his taking part in rough games which could result in accidents. Philip would have been the first to admit that this was no way in which to bring up a boy.

Now if there were three, four or five boys in the royal nursery, it would not be so imperative to guard one.

Blanche had lost the twins. Poor girl, she was very sad. She must get boys. It was the only way.

And if God were punishing him there was only one thing he could do and that was bring Ingeburga back.

She came eagerly. Her peripatetic days were over and she was received at court with all the ceremony of a queen.

Philip watched her with smouldering eyes; the revulsion was as strong as ever. She knew this and instead of being hurt as she had been all those years ago there was a certain defiance in her attitude.

She had won the battle between them since he had been forced after all these years to take her back, and she was going to enjoy her triumph to the full.

Everywhere they went she was beside him. The people rejoiced for they believed that Heaven would smile on France now that its King no longer offended by exiling his queen. He showed the utmost concern for her in public but in private he rarely spoke to her; nor could he endure to have her near him.

It was a sad time for him, for she reminded him – by her very difference – of sweet Agnes, and he mourned her afresh.

His children by Agnes flourished and so did his two bastards whom he kept at court – Peter Charles and Philip Hurepel. He kept an ever watchful eye on that other Philip and prayed that Blanche’s next would be a boy.

That year was one of mingling joy and sorrow for Blanche. In April, her child was born and to the great delight of all, was a boy. They called him Louis after his father and he flourished.

‘I knew it would come,’ cried the King. ‘Now we have two boys whom God preserve. There shall be rejoicing throughout France. Te Deums shall be sung in all the churches. My dearest daughter, this day you have made me a very happy man.’

He believed, and so did most of his subjects, that having brought back Ingeburga and restored her to her rightful place, God was rewarding him with the grandson he so desperately desired.

‘Two of them now,’ Philip exulted. ‘Philip … Louis … King’s names for two little kings.’

He would not feel that they must be guarded quite so closely. Let them play their games, ride their horses, grow into strong men.

Blanche had been having news from Castile which filled her with apprehension. Her mother wrote that her father had developed a fever which had left him weak and which kept recurring. It gave her great anxiety for when he was in the grip of this, she greatly feared for his life.

Nursing her young son, Blanche would brood on what was happening in Castile and was constantly on the alert for news.

She would sit with Amincia, the baby in his cradle beside them, while they stitched on beautiful garments for him. Amincia could do the most beautiful Spanish embroidery and this adorned many of the baby’s garments. Together they would remember long summer days in Castile where the troubadours had played their lutes and sung their love songs. Amincia had a pretty voice and would sing some of them, taking Blanche right back to those days. Sometimes Amincia called her Blanca which was yet another reminder.

The singing of troubadours was something she greatly missed in France, for although there was much music at the court, it was not as it had been in the courts of Southern France and Spain. There was more talk of war and what was happening in England and what was about to happen there and the part France would play in it.

There came to her notice a boy who must have been some ten years younger than herself. He was handsome, a poet with a beautiful voice. He was proud of his royal blood for he was the grandson of Marie, a daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Louis VII. He had been one of those children who had played in the palace gardens and was under the patronage of the King’s household. He therefore considered himself as a member of the royal family and as such enjoyed certain concessions which meant a lapse of ceremony.

He was very attached to Blanche and many were amused by the young boy’s devotion. He had started to refer to her in the songs he wrote. It was all rather charming for he was such a handsome gracious boy.

So often he sat at the feet of Blanche while she with Amincia and others of her women stitched the garments they loved to make for little Louis. Young Philip often joined them; he was five years old, healthy and sturdy, the delight of the grandfather whose name he bore; and it was a very happy nursery over which Blanche presided.

The children, the satisfaction of the King, the harmonious relationship with Louis made up the happiness of that year. But sorrow was to come and was brought to her by messengers from Castile.

Her father had taken a turn for the worse. This time he had not been able to throw off the fever. He died in August when baby Louis was four months old.

Blanche shut herself away; she wanted to see no one. She was back in the past in that happiest of families where there was only the Saracen to threaten them. She remembered the occasions when her father had come home from the wars and what rejoicing there had been through the castle. She remembered the joy in her mother’s face and the warm glow which had wrapped itself around them all. She and her two elder sisters with their mother would be down in the courtyard to welcome him, and he would seize first their mother and cling to her as though he was never going to let her go. Their turn came next. Happy, happy days – far away but never to be forgotten and to be relived again and again throughout her life.

‘My mother will be quite desolate,’ she said. ‘The love between them was their life. She will be heart-broken. All her daughters have gone and there is no one. Louis, I must go to her.’

Dear kind understanding Louis, who always wanted to make her happy, said she must go at once. Would it help if he came with her? He understood the relationship between them for did he not enjoy a similiar one with his own dear wife?

They made preparations to depart but alas their journey was unnecessary. Two months after Alphonso of Castile had died, Eleanor followed him. They said that she died of a broken heart because she could not go on living without him.

It was discovered that they had left instructions that they were to be buried side by side and they chose the monastery of Las Huelgas which was one for which they had a particular fondness as they had founded it together.

Thus, said Blanche, they who were so close in life will not be parted in death.

The memory of them haunted her and even the happy nursery which contained her two fine boys, and the devotion of Louis, so like that her father had felt for her mother, could not entirely comfort her.

Chapter VII KING AND QUEEN OF FRANCE

Although the situation across the Channel was growing more and more disruptive, there were troubles enough for the French. Philip’s dream of invading England was baulked by one encounter at Boulogne where the English fleet, which was superior to his, sunk and captured more than half his ships. This had proved so costly that Philip had been obliged to put off thought of another attack for a while. It was not as though the field was clear. There were other commitments in Flanders and Poitou.

He had been inclined to imagine himself facing unwise and reckless John; but there were men in England who would remain loyal to the crown however worthless the wearer of it. Two such as these were William Marshal and Hubert de Burgh, and while such men worked for John his defeat would not be an easy matter.

But it was not long before the position changed.

The Barons of England had risen against John and had forced him to sign a charter at Runnymede, which restored rights to his people and mitigated the pernicious forest laws. There were sixty-three clauses, all designed to curb the power of the King and respect the rights of the people of England.

It was not difficult to imagine with what reluctance John had signed such a charter and how insecure his position must be for him to agree to do so; but it was hardly to be expected that he would not try to break his word, for more than a charter would be needed to make him mend his ways and behave with wisdom and justice. Even so Philip had not expected the English barons to play so completely into his hands. When the messengers came to him and told him what was in their minds he could scarcely believe him.

He sent at once for Blanche and Louis, for this was going to be of the utmost concern to them.

When they came he dismissed everyone that he might talk to them in the utmost secrecy.

‘There is a most unexpected turn of events,’ he said. ‘You know how matters are in England. John cannot keep the crown much longer.’

‘But now that he has signed the charter,’ began Louis, ‘the barons will keep him in order.’

‘It is not possible to keep such a man in order. He is rapacious, sly, untrustworthy and reckless. He has every quality to make him a bad and evil ruler and nothing will ever eradicate one of them. The barons know it. That is why they have made this extraordinary suggestion.’ Phillip looked at Blanche. ‘You have a claim to the throne, my dear, and Louis has through you. The English barons are offering you the crown of England if you will go and take it.’

‘Impossible!’ cried Louis.

‘Nay, my son, when you go you will be warmly welcomed. The barons want you there … they want a strong ruler who will rid them of John.’

‘Louis to go to England!’ cried Blanche aghast.

‘It is Louis who must go,’ said Philip firmly. ‘He will claim your inheritance and with you rule England. Who would have believed it possible that there should be a strong contingent of men in England who would actually welcome you to their shores?’

‘Could it be some trick?’ said Blanche anxiously.

‘I am assured it is not. These men are at war with their own king. They will have no more of him. They believe that the only way to make the country strong and bring about a return to law and order is to offer the crown to the next in succession.’

‘But there is a son,’ said Louis.

‘A child!’ retorted Philip. ‘Imagine. John deposed. A minor on the throne. Would that solve anything? No, the majority of the English Barons want John out of the way and this is the way they choose to do it. Do not look so puzzled. It is a wise decision. Almost the whole of their possessions in France have now been lost to them, and many of these barons see the possibility of the return of their castles and lands. It may well be a concession they will ask and we shall grant it. We want peace between our two countries – one ruler for both. What could be better? And we shall achieve little by harsh treatment of those who have made the way easy for us. They know this. They know my rule. They know you, Louis. They compare us with John and they are inviting us to rule them.’

After they had left the King, Louis and Blanche discussed the matter together. It made Blanche uneasy.

‘I like it not that you should be the one to go,’ she told him. ‘Would it not be wiser for your father to lead the forces?’

Louis shook his head. ‘Nay,’ he said. This crown comes to us through you. I am your husband. I shall be the King of England, you the Queen. My father is right when he decrees that I shall be the one to go.’

In the early part of the year 1216 Louis sailed across the Channel and marched on London, in which city he received the homage of those barons who were eager to displace John.

As it was natural that John, with a few who had remained loyal to him – among them those worthy men William Marshal and Hubert de Burgh – should not give way meekly, Louis had to expect resistance and it came. But the more towns he took the more people were ready to accept him. John was antagonising the entire country through his cruel manner of taking what he wanted from the towns through which he passed and showing no respect for the religious houses. Misfortune dogged him. Crossing the Wash his baggage, including his jewels, were lost; and coming to Sleaford he died somewhat mysteriously. Some said he had been poisoned by a monk from Swineshead Abbey, where he had stayed for a few nights, and where he had seen a nun whom he had attempted to ravish. Sickness, lassitude and the ingenuity of the monks had saved the nun, but afterwards John had died through eating fruit which it was suspected was poisoned.

So he died violently as he had lived and the nightmare which he had created passed with him.

When Philip brought the news to Blanche, they rejoiced together.

‘Now matters will run smoothly,’ said the King. ‘Louis will be crowned and we shall settle down to peace.’

‘But what of his sons? I believe there are two of them.’

‘Boys … nothing more.’

Blanche was thoughtful, thinking that if by some chance Philip and Louis both died and her own Philip, aged seven, was suddenly King, would she stand by and let a foreigner take the crown? Indeed she would not. She would have him crowned without delay.

Then she thought of Isabella whom she had met briefly soon after her marriage. Languorous, sensuous and very beautiful she had been then. Was she still? She had married John and had seemed to feel few regrets for Hugh, and when one considered the handsome, upright lord of Lusignan and John, surely any woman would have preferred Hugh?

The fact was that although John was dead, there remained Isabella. Would she stand aside and allow Louis to be crowned in place of her son?

She mentioned this to Philip, who shrugged it aside. ‘Isabella!’ Philip laughed. ‘If the tales one hears about her are true it would seem she would be more concerned with her lovers than her son’s inheritance. You know she was more or less John’s prisoner. He hung her lovers over her bed, so they say, which is characteristic of him. I do not think we need concern ourselves with Isabella.’

‘I have a strange feeling,’ said Blanche, ‘that we shall always have to concern ourselves with Isabella.’

‘Nay,’ replied Philip. ‘God is clearly with us.’ He was sober thinking of the price God had asked for his help. Take Ingeburga back. Well, he deserved the luck of being asked to come to England and John’s dying at precisely the opportune moment. Philip was sure that God had set the comely nun in John’s path and put the idea into the monk’s head to poison him.

But it was Blanche’s deduction which proved correct.

Isabella was concerned with her son. Isabella was a very ambitious woman and she was not going to have her rights thrust aside for a foreigner.

Moreover she had two strong men beside her, William Marshal and Hubert de Burgh.

In a short time after John’s death young Henry was crowned and it became clear that those barons who had invited Louis to come and rule them had only wanted to be rid of John. God had removed him and now they would have their rightful king on the throne and if he was but a boy of nine he had strong loyal men beside him.

It was obvious that Louis was no longer welcome in England. He had a choice. He could remain and fight a bloody war, and such a war fought away from home on foreign soil would be an almost certain failure – or he could go home.

He chose the latter.

So the English adventure was over. There was a young king on the throne and as strong men were there to support him, law and order was restored to England. True, John had lost most of his possessions on the Continent (‘And we must keep it so,’ said Philip) but at the time there was nothing to be done.

And while Louis had been away Blanche had given birth to another child – another boy to delight his grandfather.

He was called Robert.

Three boys in the nursery. That was a number to make a king happy.

While Philip was exulting in the possession of his three grandsons, tragedy struck the nursery. The eldest and the King’s namesake, who had been out hunting in the best of health one day, on the next was too sick to leave his bed.

At first it had seemed some indefinable childish ailment but as two days passed and the child developed a fever there was anxiety for his health and doctors were called from all over the kingdom.

The King sat by his bed with Blanche and Louis, and anxiously they watched together, but the child who had seemed so full of health and high spirits did not rally.

‘What more could I have done?’ Philip demanded. ‘I gave up Agnes, I took back Ingeburga.’ A cold fear came to him. Was God asking him to live with her as her husband? Oh no! That was asking too much. God could not be so cruel. And while he tormented himself he watched his beloved namesake die.

There was deep mourning at court. Young Louis was the important one now. He was a fine upstanding little fellow, a child of whom a King could be proud – but then so had Philip been. Alive and well one week and dead the next! It looked like the hand of an avenging God, for no one could suggest for a moment that the child had been poisoned.

As though in compensation Blanche almost immediately became pregnant and in due course gave birth to another boy. She wanted to call him Alphonso after her father, but this was not a French name. However, Philip was so delighted that there should be another boy in the nursery that he agreed providing the French form of the name – Alphonse – was used. He was delighted, he said, that she showed how deeply she cared for her father that she wished her son to be called after him.

Philip admitted to himself that few kings could be as content with their heirs as he was with his. He thought of his beloved Richard Coeur de Lion – who had had none – and Henry, Richard’s father, who had watched his sons – one by one – turn against him.

Louis would never do that. He could say without reservation that in Louis he had the best of sons. He remembered how, long ago, he had forbidden him to ride into the tourneys and not once had Louis disobeyed him; although the decree had put him into a difficult situation and might secretly have earned him the name of coward in some quarters.

Louis, Robert, Alphonse and then John all following each other and taking as little time as possible to do so. Four healthy grandsons. How Philip gloated! God could not have been displeased after all.

News reached the Court of France which astonished all those who heard it. Queen Isabella, widow of King John, had arrived in Lusignan with her daughter Joan who was betrothed to Hugh de Lusignan, but having set eyes on Isabella he had decided to marry her instead.

Philip laughed heartily.

‘I remember her well. When John made off with her they called her the Helen of the thirteenth century. To see her was to understand why. I believe quite a number of men were completely bewitched by her. John certainly was. As for Hugh de Lusignan he waited all these years for her. But I doubt not that he has married trouble.’

‘I doubt it not either,’ said Blanche.

Philip looked sideways at his daughter-in-law. She would be remembering her meeting with Isabella; and she would feel that natural antipathy to her which he supposed most women would feel towards one who must put them all in the shade.

He wondered whether Isabella had lost any of that allure. He doubted it. Women like that kept it to the end of their days and the fact that Hugh had taken her instead of her young daughter suggested that she still retained that potent power to attract men.

Blanche was uneasy yet she could not understand why the thought of Isabella’s being near should make her so. She had felt an inexplicable revulsion when they had met and in spite of what most people would think, it had nothing to do with envy of a blatant ability to attract men.

‘I trust Hugh will be happy with her,’ she said to Louis.

‘He has never married and it is almost as though he waited for her, so he must be sure of his feelings.’

‘I would suspect that she brought her daughter to Lusignan with the idea of marrying the bridegroom herself.’

Louis did not really believe that was possible, but then he was a very innocent man.

When news came to the court that Hugh refused to send her daughter back to England until Isabella’s dowry was sent out, the comment was that this would be Isabella’s doing. For all his valour Hugh was a quiet man.

‘Depend upon it,’ said Philip, ‘she will lead him by the nose.’

‘I wonder how she likes being the wife of a count when she has been a queen,’ murmured Blanche.

‘I’ll wager you she does not like it at all,’ said Philip.

‘Then,’ replied Blanche, ‘the chances are that she will attempt to do something about it.’

‘What can she do?’ asked Philip. ‘She married him of her own free will. She is back to what she would have been if John had not seen her riding in the forest. At least Hugh won’t hang her lovers over her bed.’

‘It is to be hoped that she will not take any and be satisfied with her husband.’

Philip shrugged his shoulders and Blanche’s uneasiness persisted.

For some time Philip had been plagued by the Albigensians against whom, because they were in the South of France, the Pope had commanded him to campaign. To go into battle with them was going into battle for the Church and it was an opportunity for a man to receive a remission of his sins where, before this sect has arisen, he would have to make the long, tedious and dangerous journey to the Holy Land to achieve the same purpose.

The Albigenses, so called because they lived in the diocese of Albi, were a people who loved pleasure, music and literature; they were by no means irreligious, but they liked to indulge in freedom of thought. Their great pleasure was to discuss ideas and examine doctrines and the Pope, recognising in this a danger, sent men of the Church to preach to these people and point out the folly and the danger of their discourse. The result was what might have been expected. The preachers were listened to at first and when it was discovered that they had not come to develop ideas but to prevent the discussion of them, were ignored.

The Church was watchful. It feared that irrefutable arguments might be put forward against it. Seventy or eighty years earlier Peter Abelard had been such a danger. His rationalistic interpretation of the Christian doctrines had caused him to be branded a heretic and St Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux, had thundered against him. His love affair with Heloise, who became Prioress of Argenteuil and Abbess of the Paraclete had been of use to Bernard and Abelard had been defeated.

St Bernard had visited Toulouse which was the centre of this unrest which had been brought about by the interference of the Church. The people of Albi had no wish to interfere with existing Church lore, merely to have the freedom to discuss and worship in their own way.

There had been attempts to carry out persecutions but these had come to little. Raymond, Count of Toulouse, was an easygoing man. He did not want trouble with Rome, nor did he wish to antagonise his subjects. When he died his son Raymond, the sixth Count, reigned in his place. He proved to be pleasure-loving, musical, cultured and was even more lenient than his father had been. At his court religion was freely discussed and he himself became interested in the new ideas.

With the coming of Innocent III to the Papal Throne the persecution of the Albigensians broke into a cruel war, out of which had grown what was known as the Holy Office or the Inquisition. The Church was determined to stamp out heretics and was prepared to go to any lengths to do this. Those who disagreed with the doctrines as laid down by the Church were tortured in various barbaric ways and if they refused to change their views – and sometimes even if they did – were burned alive at the stake.

Innocent had found a man useful to him in Simon, Count of Montfort-l’Amaury. This man had belonged to a family which, from small beginnings, had in a few generations enriched itself. The first Lord Montfort had adopted his name and title simply because he owned a small castle between Paris and Chartres. Marriage brought them wealth and standing and the earldom of Leicester, but the Count had quickly realised that the chances of advancing himself with John were not good and that he would be better under Philip of France, so he came to his Norman estates and lived there.

He saw a chance of making his name and fortune in the war against the Albigensians and as he had qualities of leadership and was also a fierce Catholic, he was soon renowned as the leader of the crusade.

In a short time he became the Captain General; and he was noted for his fierceness in battle, his genius for leadership and his fanatical cruelty.

Philip did not like de Montfort and deplored the campaign against the Albigensians. He was not deeply involved with religion and practised it out of a desire to placate the heavenly powers rather than out of piety. He had a strong sense of justice and from his father he had inherited a belief in moderation; and as the Counts of Toulouse were vassals of his he objected to the armies of the Pope fighting there.

Innocent had sent word to him that as a true Christian he owed it to his conscience and his God to fight with the army of the righteous.

‘The army of the righteous!’ cried Philip. ‘Who is to say which is the righteous? What harm have the Albigensians ever done to anyone but themselves if they are indeed heretics? And surely God is capable of dealing with those who defy His laws … if indeed they are His laws. But it may be that His Holiness has made a mistake in interpreting them.’

He wrote to the Pope. ‘I have on my flanks two terrifying lions – the Emperor Otho and King John of England – who are working with all their might to bring trouble upon the Kingdom of France.’ He had no inclination, he said, at that time to march against the Albigensians nor to send his son but he had intimated to his barons in the province of Narbonne that they might march against disturbers of the peace.

That was an oblique enough command, for who was to say who was disturbing the peace? It was more likely to be the foreign armies than the people of Albi whose simple determination to maintain their freedom was responsible for the trouble.

In the year 1213, Simon de Montfort won the battle of Muret and Philip sent Louis to look on while the crusaders took possession of Toulouse.

Louis came back horrified by what he had seen. The town laid waste was the smallest part of it. Every refinement of cruelty had been perpetrated on the citizens of the town.

Philip took Louis to his private chamber and there they talked. Louis was in his twenty-sixth year at that time – sensitive, brave enough, but liking war even less than his father. He said that he would never forget the fearful atrocities he had seen that day.

Philip clenched his hands and said: ‘I hope before long Simon de Montfort and his men will die at their work, for God is just and their quarrel is unjust.’

However, when the victories of de Montfort were decisive he was forced to accept him as his vassal in place of Raymond but when he died he refused to recognise his son. But by that time Raymond and his son had recaptured much of the territory lost to them and in the year 1218 (two years after the death of Innocent himself ) a shower of stones falling from the ramparts crushed de Montfort to death, when he was trying to recapture the castle of Toulouse.

So Philip was pestered by the Albigensian question, for like all kings he lived in some awe of the Pope and he knew from recent experience over the trouble with Agnes and Ingeburga how uncomfortable popes could make a king’s life.

Now he brooded on the matter. It was not that he was ready to endanger himself or his realm through a sense of righteousness; he had ever been guided by expediency and his discretion had always been a strong point in his favour. He had governed well, he could assure himself; there was evidence of that everywhere; he was a king to be respected, and this was due to his conduct over the years of his sovereignty. He had come to the throne young – a boy of fifteen. He had reigned for nearly forty years and during that time he had learned chiefly when to act and more important when not to act. This was one of the reasons why he had been able to keep moderately aloof from what he considered to be a barbaric war of dubious justice, and at the same time not offend the Pope enough to bring about reprisals.

He had begun to be affected by recurrent fever and his doctors did not know the reason for it. When it attacked him he found it necessary to take to his bed.

There he brooded on the state of the country and often he sent for Blanche that he might talk to her. He found he could do so with absolute frankness. He was concerned about Louis.

He loved his son. ‘He has never willingly caused me a moment’s anxiety,’ he said. ‘He is a good man, but good men can easily be the victims of evil ones, as you well know. My daughter, I rejoice in the day your grandmother brought you to us. It may well be that one day you will stand beside my son and rule this land.’

‘That day, I pray, is a long way off,’ said Blanche fervently.

‘Oh, I am a young man yet,’ replied Philip. ‘Perhaps I shall live for another fifteen years … and a few more … what is that? Young Louis shapes well. And there are the other boys. Young Robert loves his brother Louis well. I hope that affection continues through their lives. As for the others they are too young as yet to show us what they will become. But it rejoices me that you have filled our nursery with good strong boys. As I could not have wished for a better son I could also not have wished for a better daughter.’

Blanche was deeply moved. She said: ‘I have a feeling that once more I am to be enceinte.’

‘Praise God,’ said Philip. ‘And if this time it should be a girl we will bless our good fortune.’

In due course the child was born. He was called Philip, but because his parents were reminded of that beautiful boy who had died in his ninth year, they wished to distinguish between the newcomer and his dead brother and they added Dagobert to his name, so that he was always known as Philip Dagobert – it was considered to be an unusual name at this time though many kings had borne it in the seventh century. Blanche pointed out, so that it was a pleasant idea to revive it, while naming the child after his grandfather.

The King was feeling ill and in no mood to leave his bed when news was brought to him that the Pope had called a council which would take place in Paris.

Philip who was resting at his palace at Pacy-sur-Eure grimaced when he heard the news. The fact that the meeting was to be held in Paris meant, of course, that he was expected to be present. He would like to see the whole matter of this trouble cleared up, but was uneasy because the Church, deciding with great determination to stamp out heresy, was instituting this Holy Office which Philip felt was a dangerous invention. He foresaw that no man would be safe from it, and bearing in mind the Church’s constant need for money, he wondered whether those who possessed it might be selected as victims, as in addition to torturing the so-called heretic they confiscated his wealth which of course went into the coffers of the Church.

Trying to look ahead into a future which he was beginning to think he would not be there to see, he could visualise dangers in this Holy Office or Inquisition. He even wondered whether it would bring good – even if it brought gain – to the Church. He could see men of substance moving away to those countries where it was not upheld. Perhaps he would put these ideas forward at the conference. Perhaps not. It was not for him to concern himself with what went on outside France. It was because he had always followed that belief that France was now in a far better position than she had been when he came to the throne.

So he would go to the conference, speak discreetly, neither condoling nor condemning. He was adept at such manoeuvre.

He felt limp and weak, but nevertheless he was determined to attend. One so often feigned an illness and offered it as an excuse that when one was genuinely sick one was not believed.

He rode on but the heat was too much for him, for it was July and the sultry weather did not suit him.

When they reached Mantes he said he would rest for a while. He took to his bed and it occurred to him as he was helped there by his servants that he might never rise from it.

During the night he awoke and felt the fever was increasing. It had the effect of making his mind hazy and yet as he grappled to keep a hold on his consciousness he was aware all the time that this was the end.

His mind went back to those days which followed the capture of Acre when he had made up his mind to leave Richard and return to France. It was a great decision … the right decision. He had made it for the good of his country. He could remember vividly the excessive heat … the fearful plagues, the mud, the scorpions, all the discomforts on which Richard had seemed to thrive.

France first … that had been his motto. And it had brought rewards. He was leaving Louis a well-governed land; much of that which France had lost for years was now returned. One day, the English should have no claims in France. It was not quite so as yet … but that would come.

Wise government … that was what was necessary. War only when there is no other way. Justice for the people so that they would accept hardship when need be.

Oh, Louis, he thought, you will have Blanche to help you. I pin my hopes on Blanche, my son, for although you are the best of sons I doubt you will be the strongest of kings.

Ingeburga would not mourn very much. She would be a fool if she did. Now Ingeburga would come into her own. There would be nowhere where she would not now be received with honour. The Dowager Queen of France. He shuddered to remember that first night and only night with her. She had bided her time. In a way her methods were like his own. She had refused to relinquish her hold and had quietly submitted to indignity. He had paid dearly for that hasty marriage. It had cost him Agnes … dear sweet, uncomplaining Agnes. And it was Ingeburga who had won in the end.

Louis the King and Blanche the Queen. They were thirty-five years old, mature and with a fine nursery of sons. Young Louis was nine years old. Well, that was a good age with a father who was only thirty-five. Louis had a long life before him yet and Blanche would train young Louis in the way he must go.

Philip could close his eyes and say: ‘Lord now lettest thy servant depart in peace.’

He had arranged everything and it augured well.

Louis was bewildered. His father ill … possibly dying. He could not believe it.

He went into the death chamber and threw himself on to his knees. He took his father’s hands and looked at him appealingly as though begging him not to die.

Philip said: ‘All will be well, my son. Is Blanche there?’

She came to kneel beside her husband.

‘Blanche, dear daughter, I thank God for you. Look after Louis, the King of France … very soon now. Into your hands I commend him … and the young Louis … my grandson. And Louis, weep not, my son. My time has come as it must for us all. Beloved son, you never caused me grief. I marvelled that it should be so. God’s blessing on you. Blanche, Louis … my beloved children … I thank God I leave you each other. I have put France before aught else in my life. Perhaps I was wrong. But I served my country well and it was God who gave me the task when He made me the son of a King … as He now puts that burden on you, my dear Louis.’

They sat beside his bed and that contented him.

He was smiling as he died.

Blanche deeply regretted the death of the King. She loved her husband; he had never been anything but faithful to her and had shown her every kindness and consideration, but a woman as forceful as herself must know that he could never be a great king as his father had been. As a Prince of France, with his father to guide him, he had been admirable. She knew that it would be different when he stood on his own.

She was determined to bring up her sons herself so that when the time came for them to take the throne, they would be prepared. Had Philip faltered with Louis? Perhaps. That obsession with his health and safety was understandable, for he was the only legitimate son, but such coddling care was bound to have its effect. Louis was no coward but he was no strategist either. There was weakness in him, a lack of ruthlessness, which however pleasant in the personal character was no good for a ruler.

During that splendid ceremony at Rheims she was uneasy, although there was great rejoicing throughout the land and a prosperous reign was prophesied. When his father had married Isabella of Hainault who was in the direct line from Hermengarde, daughter of Charles of Lorraine, the last of the Carlovingians, the rival claims of the dynasties of Charlemagne and Hugh Capet had come together; and Louis was the fruit of this. No one now could dispute his absolute right to the throne.

All was set fair, said the people. It was a long time since France had been so prosperous. The English had been defeated as never before. Philip, that master of strategy, had held aloof from the Albigensian war. He had lived on affectionate terms with his son and they had never been anything but the best of friends.

‘Oh fortunate France!’ said its people.

Ingeburga had assumed a new importance. She was affable and kind and took a great interest in the royal children. The death of Philip had naturally brought her closer into the family circle and none could understand what had been the cause of Philip’s aversion to her. She lived in state and dignity and the children were fond of her.

For a few months after the coronation there was rejoicing, but if Louis believed this would continue, Blanche did not.

The first intrusion into their peace came from Lusignan.

Blanche immediately remembered the sly-eyed Isabella who had made such an impression on her when they had first met, the memory of which had been revived by her marrying the man selected for her daughter a few years before.

When the messengers arrived from Lusignan with letters from Hugh, Blanche guessed there would be trouble, and when they read them they were not surprised.

Hugh, who had, Blanche was sure, written at the command of his wife, pointed out that King John had assigned certain lands to Isabella and it was her right to reclaim that land.

‘I feel certain,’ said Blanche, that that woman will lead Hugh by the nose and if you would have him as your ally you must placate his wife.’

‘Nay,’ said Louis, ‘he is an ambitious man. He wants his wife’s land. I hear that Isabella has a son now – Hugh after his father.’

‘Let us hope,’ retorted Blanche, ‘that she is a better mother to him than she has been to her children by John.’

‘She was wise enough to get young Henry crowned with the utmost speed.’

‘Because it was to her own advantage to do so. With the same speed she took her daughter’s betrothed and married him. Louis, we must be watchful of Isabella of Angoulême.’

‘My dearest, we must be watchful of all.’

‘We are in agreement on that, but with such a woman we will need to exercise more than usual care.’

Louis smiled benignly but she knew that he did not understand.

It was necessary to go on a tour of certain towns and he would visit, with his army, those where he might expect trouble. Blanche had agreed with him that it would be well to show that while he was prepared to be reasonable, the people must not imagine that he was going to be any less strong than his father.

They travelled first to Lusignan for Hugh was a man too powerful to ignore either as an ally or an enemy and with all the unrest which invariably followed a new reign, Louis would have to be watchful. He was expecting the English to make an attempt to retrieve their losses in Normandy.

With them rode, among other vassals to the crown, Thibaud the fourth Count of Champagne, that very handsome though somewhat corpulent troubadour who considered himself royal because his grandmother was the daughter of Louis VII, the father of King Philip Augustus, thus making him a kinsman of the King.

He had never ceased to sing of his admiration for Blanche and had become known as Thibaud Le Chansonnier; and that royal arrogance he assumed sometimes disturbed her. There was often a suggestion in his looks which she refused to accept for what it was. None would dare insult the Queen, who was known to be as loyal to the King as he was to her; but there were some who noticed that the Count of Champagne was obviously enamoured of Blanche and would give a great deal to be her lover. A vain hope, said most; but there were some who liked to look wise and murmur that women were unaccountable, that Blanche was a strong healthy woman and Louis scarcely lusty. It was considered by some that a man who must absent himself from his wife as frequently as Louis did and be as faithful as he was, was in some way lacking.

As for Blanche she conveyed the impression that the Count of Champagne was nothing to her but a vassal and a connection of her husband’s through their grandfather.

The King and Queen and a few of their chosen followers were given a loyal welcome at the Lusignan castle and the King’s men were in the town or encamped in its environs.

It had seemed right to come thus, for it would show Hugh de Lusignan – if he was of a mind to be intransigent – that the King was ready to enforce his commands.

Hugh showed no sign of a lack of loyalty and Isabella did not curtsey but opened her beautiful black-fringed violet eyes and smiled at the King as she bowed her head. Blanche was watching, though hoping none saw how intently. The beautiful eyes had no effect on Louis.

Now it was Blanche’s turn. Isabella bowed, every gesture implying: If you are a queen, so am I, for once a queen always a queen and I was longer Queen of England than you have been Queen of France.

‘We are greatly honoured to receive you,’ said Isabella, and she and Hugh led them into the castle.

Hugh walked beside the King, Isabella beside Blanche.

‘How desolate you must be,’ said Isabella. ‘I know well how you loved the late King. And your responsibilities have become great.’

Her eyes were on Blanche’s gown of blue velvet which was becoming; it flowed to the ground and the sleeves were long and tight after the fashion of the day and over them she wore a super-tunic and a mantle; her wimple was made of fine silk, blue to match her gown. She was beautiful. But Isabella was complacent. Without effort she could outshine any other woman she had ever met.

Her own gown long flowing with similar tight sleeves was of scarlet – flamboyantly rich and demanding attention; her hair flowed about her shoulders and about her brow was a gold circle which glowed with a single ruby.

Blanche thought: She has changed very little. If anything she is more wily because she is older.

When the royal party was refreshed there was a feast in the great hall. On the dais was a table smaller than that in the main hall and at this small table sat Hugh with Isabella, Louis and Blanche. At the great table in the centre of the hall sat the most noble of the King’s followers and those of Hugh and below the great salt-cellar, those of lesser rank.

Blanche was conscious that Isabella was eager for them to realise that, although they were vassals of the King of France here in Lusignan, in England she had been a queen and if she returned to that country would be received as the mother of the reigning King.

The table was laden with good food – venison, beef, mutton and pies of all descriptions and the wine which was produced in the nearby vineyards was of the best.

As the company sat drowsy from good food and wine the jongleurs, or minstrels, arrived. These were those men who travelled the country and came in search of castles and great houses where their performances would be rewarded by food and a night’s shelter.

The company was always eager to see and hear them perform and they would pass judgment on the songs, which some of the minstrels had composed themselves, and pay accordingly. They were a sad company for they were despised as strolling players and it was not unknown that after having heard their performances the masters and mistresses of the big houses would begrudge their payment.

But this would not be the case on this night for they would sing before the King and in great castles such as this one, payment could be relied upon.

So it was a happy band of minstrels who performed for them.

They sang of their travels and stressed that they were poor minstrels in great company.But I know how well to serve a knight

And of fine tales the whole sum

I know stories; I know fables,

I can tell fine new tales.

The company listened to the tales and fables – mostly concerning the hopeless lover’s plaint for his mistress; and the applause was led by Isabella, whose beautiful eyes sparkled as she listened.I am a minstrel of the viol

I know the musette and the flute

And the harp and the chifonie

The gigue and the armonie

And the salteire and the rote

I know well how to sing a tune.

I know many fine table tricks

And from prestidigitations and magic

Well know how to make an enchantment.

Isabella clapped her hands and Hugh looked at her indulgently.

‘Good minstrel,’ she cried, ‘tell me how you make an enchantment.’

‘With my song, my lady,’ was the answer. ‘But not as sure as you can make them with your beauteous eyes.’

Then he made a song, on the spur of the moment he implied, and it could well have been one which he had in readiness for ladies whom he knew would enjoy it – which told of the fatal beauty of a lady which exceeded that of all others in the world.

Blanche looked on a little cynically and thought that here was one minstrel who would not go unrewarded.

Then Isabella declared that there had been enough of the minstrels and they should be taken to the kitchens and there given food for they had done their work well; and they would play the game of questions and commands and she would claim the privilege, as lady of the castle, of asking the first question.

She walked into the centre of the hall and called to one of her women to tie a silken kerchief about her eyes. Then she stood there with her arms outstretched looking so beautiful that none of the men – Blanche noticed – could take his eyes from her. Even Louis watched her with indulgence.

She put a white bejewelled hand to her lips as though she were thinking, then she said: ‘Alas ladies, our lords must often leave us and when they leave us are they faithful to us? We know their natures, ladies. Should we be blamed if we, sorely tempted and alone, fall into temptation such as they find irresistible?’

There was a hushed silence in the hall as Isabella began to move forward, her arms outstretched, feeling her way towards the tables. Ladies held their breath as she passed them and Blanche knew at once that she would be the one on whom Isabella would lay her hands and who, according to the rules of the game, must answer.

It was not a game. It meant something. Whatever peace should be made between their husbands, it was war between Isabella and Blanche.

Nearer to Blanche came Isabella and the outstretched white hands came to rest on the shoulders of the Queen of France.

This is the one who will answer me,’ said Isabella. ‘If she be a lady I trust she is wise for we hang on her words.’

Of course she could see, Blanche knew. She would have arranged that with her woman. She knew on whom she had laid her hands.

‘If whoever I have touched does not wish to answer,’ said Isabella, ‘that knight or lady must pay a forfeit.’

Blanche stood up and said coldly: ‘There is an obvious answer to such a straightforward question.’

Isabella tore the kerchief from her eyes and pretended to be overcome with embarrassment.

‘It is the Queen!’ she stammered. ‘My lady … I most humbly beg …’

‘There is no need to beg humbly or otherwise,’ said Blanche briskly. ‘The answer is that if the husband is so foolish as to ignore his marriage vows no good would come of his wife’s repeating the folly.’

There was applause throughout the hall. Blanche felt her usual calmness desert her. She did not know what it was about Isabella that affected her so strongly. It was as though all her senses warned her against the woman. The question was meant to imply that Louis was necessarily often away from her and could not be expected to be faithful and it was a sly way of asking whether she, Blanche the Queen, took the occasional lover. We know, thought Blanche fiercely, that Isabella Queen of England was not averse to the practice since her first husband was known to have hung at least one of her lovers on her bed tester.

She said: ‘I believe the rule of the game is that I am the next to be blindfolded. Pray bind my eyes.’

So she went to the centre of the hall and her eyes were bound as Isabella’s had been and she made sure that the kerchief was so loosely bound that she could see below and she made up her mind that she would grope her way forward until she came to a rich scarlet skirt and then she would lay her hands on the owner of it and ask her question.

She spoke clearly: ‘Should a parent put the welfare of his or her child before personal desire and pleasure?’

She was aware of the depth of the silence. Everyone would know this was a criticism of Isabella’s conduct in taking the man her daughter had come out to marry and sending the child back to an unknown fate.

All present shrank into their seats fearing to be asked such a question, for the obvious answer that self-sacrifice must be made would be a deliberate slight on Isabella who had thought differently.

But Blanche picked her way carefully and there was a deep sigh as her hands rested on Isabella’s shoulders.

Isabella burst into laughter. ‘Why, my lady, see whom you have chosen. How strange it is, for I picked you and you have picked me. I will not pay the forfeit for I will answer the question. My lady, there is only one answer. We must all do what is best for our children no matter what the cost to ourselves.’

Everyone applauded with relief and none dared smile behind their hands for Isabella had sharp eyes and she could be vindictive.

‘I shall ask no more questions,’ she declared, ‘so shall pass on the kerchief to another. Ah, Hugh, my husband, let me bind your eyes.’

The game went on – questions were asked and answered. Isabella smiled at Blanche. ‘A childish game, is it not?’ she said. ‘But it would seem to amuse some. I should like more singing and then we will call the jongleurs back to do tricks for us. If that is your wish, my lady?’

Blanche said that she thought the game somewhat childish and that the most amusing were usually the first questions; after that it could pall.

So Isabella clapped her hands and declared that she would name some of the knights to play for them and perhaps sing if they could and that she had heard that the Count of Champagne was a very skilful songster. Would he enchant them with his music?

The Count rose from the table and bowing low declared his pleasure.

He then sang of the beauty of one whom he had long admired from afar. She was beyond his reach but so fair was she that he could find joy in no other.

It was a song which, it was whispered, he had written to the Queen; but she being so virtuous had not been aware that it was written of her.

Everyone applauded when he had finished and none more fervently than Isabella.

‘A beautiful song, my lord,’ she cried, ‘and well sung. I am sure if your lady heard you sing with such feeling she would be unable to deny you.’

‘Ah, my lady,’ replied Thibaud, ‘if she did my song would have no meaning.’

‘Then you could write another,’ declared Isabella, ‘and I’ll swear it would be even more beautiful.’

She then called the jongleurs back and they performed acrobatic feats of great dexterity to the delight of all; and so passed the night.

In their bedchamber Isabella, her hair loose about her shoulders, her eyes blazing with excitement, was laughing with Hugh.

‘Dear, dear Hugh,’ she cried, ‘I believe I shocked you greatly tonight.’

‘My love,’ he replied reproachfully, ‘the Queen was put out.’

‘The Queen. I hate that woman. Haughty, cold, reminding all that she is the Queen.’

‘She is the Queen, my dear,’

‘She is the Queen of a few months. I have been a Queen for years. I will be treated as such. In marrying you I am but the wife of a count but I am a queen nonetheless.’

‘Blanche is a reigning queen.’

‘Poor Louis! He has to do as he is told. And poor little Louis, the son … and the rest of them. I tell you she is a woman who will be obeyed.’

‘Some women are,’ replied Hugh.

She laughed at him and running to him put her arms about his neck. She pulled him to the bed and lay down with him. She could always bring him to her way of thinking at any time … but it was easier thus.

‘They have different methods. Can you imagine Blanche and Louis like this?’

‘Never.’

She laughed. ‘My beautiful Hugh,’ she said, ‘you don’t know how often I thought of you when I was with that odious John. And you love me, do you not? You would do anything to please me. What should I make you do, Hugh? Go to the royal chamber and take a cushion and hold it down over that haughty face until, it is still and cold …’

‘Isabella, what are you saying!’

‘Nothing of importance. How could you do that? And to what purpose? But they must do what we want, Hugh. They are afraid of us.’

‘I think not, my love. Louis is the King, Blanche the Queen. You have seen the army they have encamped around.’

‘But why do they come here thus, if they are not here to placate you? Why should they come here … first to you. Louis is recently King and he says, “I must go and speak with Hugh de Lusignan.” They are afraid of us, Hugh. We must keep them afraid.’

‘Nay, I am but Louis’s vassal.’

‘Vassal! Say not that word to me. I hate it. I will not be married to a vassal. Listen to me, Hugh. We may have to pretend to pay homage. You may … I never will. But my son is the King of England. Do you not see what that means? We are in a powerful position. Henry will not desert his mother. He is a good and docile boy … and so young. Louis is afraid of you. No, Hugh, you and I will put our heads together and use them both. Do you understand?’

‘My dear, there could be war …’

‘Well, there will be war and if there is war Louis will be more than ever afraid of the Lusignans. Henry will want us to be on his side too. You see how well you did for yourself when you married the Queen of England. Hugh, will you leave this to me?’ He did not answer and she pouted. ‘I should be a little angry … even with you, Hugh, if you did not.’

He smiled at her and put his lips against her hair.

‘You looked beautiful tonight, Isabella.’

‘Do I not always?’

‘Always, but tonight there was something wild about you … something …’

‘Irresistible?’ she asked.

‘Always that.’

‘Except to two men … Louis and the Count of Champagne.’

‘Louis has little time for any woman but his wife.’

‘The virtuous husband! Are you faithful always to me?’

‘Always, but for far different reasons than Louis is to his wife.’

‘What reasons?’

‘After you none would do for me. Louis feels no strong impulses.’

Isabella laughed aloud.

‘And Champagne?’

‘He is fixed on the Queen. Poor fellow, it will do him no good.’

‘She is an icicle, that woman.’ Isabella sighed and opened her arms. ‘Very different from your Isabella.’

The Queen paced up and down the apartment which had been prepared for her and Louis.

‘I don’t trust that woman,’ said Blanche. ‘I don’t trust Hugh de Lusignan either … now that he is married to her.’

Louis said: ‘You have allowed her to upset you. The question you asked …’

‘I meant mine for her. I hope she remembered how inhumanly she treated that poor daughter of hers. I have heard that the child loved Hugh, who would be good and kind I am sure, were it not for that woman who seems to have bewitched him.’

‘It was strange that you should have picked her out after she had picked you.’

Blanche looked at him with fond exasperation. Louis was a very innocent man.

‘We must be watchful of them, of course,’ Louis went on. ‘They are going to ask for concessions. We must be very wary of granting them.’

‘The Lusignans have always been a family to reckon with. Don’t forget that Hugh is the head of a house which reigns over a large part of France from the valleys of the Creuse and the Vienne in the east to Lusignan in the west. They hold many castles in Poitou. They could be a danger …’

‘Either to us or to Henry should he decide to come over and try to regain that which his father lost. And Isabella is his mother.’

‘That woman would have no feeling for her son,’ said Blanche firmly. ‘I fancy she would use him – as she did her daughter – to suit her own ends.’

‘I am not sure. She is clearly in love with Hugh and he undoubtedly with her. It may have been that their emotions overruled their sense of duty.’

‘As expediency would do as easily as love,’ replied Blanche cynically. ‘So we must take care.’

‘Never fear, we shall. They are claiming Saintes and Oleron which Isabella declares were promised as her dower lands.’

‘And you will grant them possession of these, Louis?’

‘We cannot afford to have the Lusignans against us. Don’t forget, Hugh commands a large army. If he were with us, if he were our ally, we could leave the south in his hands and return to the north where we may well be needed.’

Blanche saw the wisdom of this. ‘If Hugh had not married that woman, I would trust him.’

‘He has ever been a man of honour.’

‘Now he is married to Isabella you will see a change in him.’

‘Nay, Blanche. You are obsessed by the woman. She is a very fascinating creature and it is clear that Hugh is bewitched by her, but he is a soldier and a man of honour, and nothing can change that.’

‘Isabella could change it.’

‘You attribute too much power to her.’

‘You say I am obsessed by her. She is obsessed by power. And if Henry of England should come against us … and she his mother …’

‘Henry is a boy yet. We must be prepared for action, yes. That is why we are here in Lusignan. If I can be sure of Hugh I can feel reasonably confident.’

‘To be sure of Hugh, yes …’

‘He is a man I trust.’

Blanche sighed wearily. What was the use of trying to explain to Louis? When he looked at Isabella he only saw the most fascinating of women. He did not see the calculating schemer who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted.

They left during the next day. Louis had promised Hugh possession of Saintes and Oleron, and had discussed plans with Hugh for the capture of Gascony and the whole of Poitou and promised Hugh the town of Bordeaux when it was in their hands.

Hugh and Isabella watched the royal cavalcade depart. Hugh would make ready for war to carry out his part of the bargain. He was gratified that the King had realised the wisdom of strengthening their friendship. Louis was pleased too. He was sure it was a move of which his father would have approved.

Only Blanche was uneasy as they rode away.