The Prince of Darkness

Chapter VII THE CROWNED QUEEN OF ENGLAND

When the King of Portugal heard that even while the embassy from England had been on its way to arrange the marriage of his daughter, John had married Isabella of Angoulême, he was furious. This was an insult. There had been no warning. They were preparing to receive the embassy with all honour when the news had come. At first it had seemed incredible; but when it became obvious that it was indeed true, the King decided that there was nothing to be done but send the embassy back with all speed. He would not lose his dignity by complaining of this insult to himself and his daughter but he would not forget.

Hugh de Lusignan was stunned when he returned and found that Isabella had been taken away. Ralph explained to him that he had received a request from her parents which did not seem an unreasonable one. Surely it was natural for parents to wish to see their child from time to time.

Hugh had to admit that had he been at the castle he would have acceded to the request.

‘Did you not know that that lecher was there waiting for her?’ he demanded.

‘How could I know this?’ cried Ralph. ‘Had he not been here and sent for the Count of Angoulême to come here to save himself the journey to Angoulême?’

‘We have been deceived by both the King and the Count of Angoulême,’ cried Hugh in anguish. ‘Was not Isabella solemnly betrothed to me?’

‘There can be no gainsaying that.’

‘Then this cannot be.’

‘Alas, brother, it is.’

‘And he has married her already! But she is only a child.’

‘Methinks that she was older than her years.’

‘Oh God in Heaven! To think of her with that lecher!’

‘Brother, you must put her from your mind.’

‘What can you know of this? She is so exquisite. I had treated her with tenderness and care … I had put off the marriage solely because of her youth. I did not want her to be frightened. I loved her dearly, Ralph. I had planned our future together … and now to come back like this and find her gone … and gone to him. You know his reputation. How think you he will be with her?’

‘You must put her from your mind, I tell you,’ repeated Ralph. ‘She is lost to you. She will be going to England soon to be crowned Queen.’

‘She was snatched from me!’ cried Hugh.

‘You must face the fact, brother, that she may have gone with the utmost willingness.’

‘How could that have been?’

‘There is a certain glitter about a crown. I’ll tell you this, Hugh, there was a wantonness about her. You were bemused by her. God knows she is an exquisite creature. I never saw a girl or woman to compare with her. It may well be that you will have reason to rejoice that it has turned out as it has.’

‘You talk of what you do not understand,’ said Hugh shortly. ‘Isabella was betrothed to me. I love Isabella. I shall never love another woman as long as I live, and that’s the plain truth.’

Ralph shook his head. ‘Would to God it had been any but myself who let her go.’

‘Nay, Ralph, anyone would have thought it well to let her go to her family. We have been thoroughly deceived. But I shall not let it pass. I shall tell you this, Ralph, I am going to be revenged on John.’

‘What can you do?’

‘I shall kill him,’ declared Hugh.

‘Nay, do not act hastily. Do not speak without caution. Who knows what may be carried to him.’

‘I hope my words will be carried to him. I loathe him. I despise him for a cheat, a liar and a lecher. He should never have been given the crown. That should have been Arthur’s. And by God I swear I shall never forget this foul deed. He shall die for it and I shall send someone without delay to him to take him my challenge for mortal combat.’

‘You think he will agree to meet you?’

‘He must … in all honour he must.’

Ralph shook his head. ‘You cannot talk of honour to one who has none and knows not the meaning of the word.’

‘I have made up my mind,’ said Hugh. ‘I shall challenge him to mortal combat.’

His servants did not dare disturb John in his bedchamber, and it was dinner time each day before he emerged from it and then with great reluctance.

He was living in a world of sensuality where nothing was of the least importance to him but Isabella.

He had found that he was not mistaken in her. She was sexually insatiable even as he was and on this ground they were completely in tune. He had recognised this quality in her; it was at the very essence of her tremendous attraction. She was indeed the most beautiful creature he had ever seen; her immature child’s body was just beginning to blossom into womanhood and could be compared with the most perfect piece of sculpture except that it was living. He delighted in her. To guide her, to teach her in erotic arts was the greatest joy; and she scarcely needed tuition. Such was her sensuality that she reacted instinctively. For some time she had been trying to force open the floodgates of her voluptuous desires. She had tried with Hugh whose honourable instincts had restrained him; John had no such scruples and for a while she was glad of this.

So they retired early and rose late. The marriage bed was more important than anything during those first weeks.

John said during those days of his honeymoon: ‘I now possess everything that I could desire. The crowns of England and Normandy … and my most cherished possession of all: Isabella.’

One day when he emerged from the bedroom to take dinner which was awaiting his arrival at the table and which was served after midday, he was told that messengers had arrived from Hugh de Lusignan.

‘Hugh de Lusignan?’ he cried. ‘What does that fellow want with me?’ He grimaced. ‘Can it be that it has something to do with the Queen? I’ll send for him when I am ready to see him.’

He went back to Isabella who had risen languorously from the bed and was wrapped in a gown of blue lined with fur, her beautiful hair in disorder about her shoulders.

‘There’s a fellow to see me,’ he said. ‘He comes from Hugh de Lusignan. What insolence to send him.’

‘What does he want?’ asked Isabella.

‘That we have to find out.’ He lifted her face to his and looked into her eyes. Then he slipped the robe from her shoulders and marvelled at her beauty. She studied him through veiled eyes and she was thinking of Hugh who was so tall and handsome, and she was angry with him because he had resisted all the indications she had given him. She wondered briefly what would have happened if he had not.

She was a queen though and it delighted her to be a queen.

John pulled the robe up over her shoulders. He took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

‘I’ll not look at you now, my love, or it will be no dinner for us. I see that. You are more attractive than a thousand dinners.’

He went to the door and called: ‘Bring the Lusignan’s messenger to me now.’

Then he turned to her and drawing her to the bed sat with her upon it. He held her hand pressed against his thigh as the messenger entered.

‘So you come to disturb me when I am engaged with the Queen,’ he said. ‘What is your message?’

‘I come from Hugh de Lusignan, who challenges you, my lord, to mortal combat.’

Isabella said involuntarily: ‘Oh no.’

John pressed her hand. ‘Your master is insolent, my man, and you brave to bring such a message to me. I like not such messages and I like not the people who bring them. Has it struck you that I might decide to make you so that you could carry no further messages?’

Isabella saw the sweat which appeared on the man’s brow. She remembered him as one of Hugh’s esquires in the castle.

She said: ‘’Tis no fault of his that he brings such a message.’

John smiled. Everything about her delighted him; even her interference. She didn’t want the man punished. Therefore he should not be.

‘Nay,’ said John, ‘the Queen is right. The insolence comes from your master. You but obey your orders. Go and tell him that if he is so eager for death I will appoint a champion to fight with him.’

The man, delighted to get away, bowed his head and John waved a hand to dismiss him.

When he had gone John turned to Isabella. ‘Insolent fellow!’ he said. ‘He would invite me to mortal combat. Does he think that I would demean myself by fighting with him? Nay, he shall have his fight. There’ll be plenty who will be glad to do me the honour.’ He pulled the robe from her shoulder and buried his face against her flesh. ‘Think you he will report to his master that he saw us thus? ’Tis what I trust he will do.’ John began to laugh loudly. ‘Master Hugh will mayhap be more eager than ever for mortal combat when he realises all that he has missed in life.’

There was no responsive laughter from Isabella. She was thinking of Hugh – whose good looks had been such a delight to her – lying cold and still with blood on his clothes. But that would not happen. She felt that in combat it would not be Hugh who was the vanquished.

But she had lost temporarily her appetite both for dinner and sexual excitement.

When Hugh received the message he was filled with fury.

‘The coward!’ he cried. ‘Of course he is afraid of combat. He knows full well what the result of that will be. Does he think I’ll be satisfied with some mercenary captain whom he will pay to take his place? Did you see the King?’ he asked the messenger.

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘And the Queen?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Together?’

The messenger nodded.

‘How looked the Queen?’

The messenger looked puzzled.

‘Contented with her lot?’ suggested Hugh.

‘Yes, my lord.’

Such a child, he thought, and he wondered what would become of her.

He went to his brother and told him that the King had refused to meet him in person.

‘Did you expect him to?’ asked Ralph.

‘No. I always knew he was a coward.’

‘Such men always are. The best thing, brother, is to forget this insult. Find yourself a bride – a good and beautiful woman who will give you sons. There are many who would be happy to mate with the Lusignans.’

Hugh shook his head. ‘No, brother,’ he said. ‘At least not yet. There is one thing I am pledged to do and that is to take my revenge on John of England.’

‘How so?’

‘You ask that? You, a Lusignan, who understand the state of this country. The King of France has entered into a truce with him but it is an uneasy one. The Duke of Brittany – and he has many to support him – believes himself to be the true heir to all that John has seized. Rarely was a crown so precariously poised on any head. I am going to do all in my power to dislodge it. I swear this to you, Ralph, that ere long Normandy will not belong to its present Duke but to the King of France whose vassal I shall be. Richard was a friend to our family. John is an enemy. I shall not rest until I have taken my revenge on this voluptuary who has robbed me of my bride.’

‘Bold words, brother.’

‘And meant, Ralph, meant from the bottom of my heart. You will see.’

Even John had to realise that it was time he was on the move. Moreover, Isabella was ecstatic at the prospect of being crowned Queen of England. She was thrilled at the thought of crossing the sea because she had never yet seen the sea. Her excitement about her new life added zest to John’s days. He began to see things afresh through the eyes of a young girl and he found the experience exhilarating.

Thus they set out on their journey.

They called first at the Abbey of Fontevraud where the Queen Mother received them.

She was enchanted by Isabella. She saw in her son’s young bride something of what she had been so many years ago. A freshness, a youthful outlook on life and that overpowering sensuality which was at the very root of the secret of her power to move John so deeply.

The young girl made Eleanor feel her age more acutely. The journey to Castile had been too much for her and she had been glad to get back to Fontevraud where she could daily visit the graves of her husband, her son Richard and her daughter Joanna.

‘My life is over,’ she told Isabella. ‘Sometimes one can live too long. Perhaps the fates would have been kinder to me if they had taken me when Richard died.’

There were some pleasures left to her, though. Thinking over the past was one; and sometimes she could throw herself back so clearly that everything became as vivid as though it were happening at that moment.

‘Live fully, child,’ she said, ‘that is the secret of it. I used my time … every minute of it; and now I can look back and remember. There were years when I was imprisoned and even then I made the most of every hour.’

She thought a great deal about John and was uneasy doing so. She knew him well and she felt that it had been the greatest tragedy that Richard had died when he did. How ironical it was that, just as he had come home from the Holy Land and had been released from his incarceration at Dürenstein, that wicked man had shot an arrow at him that had killed him, so that there was only John.

She knew what John had done. He had taken Isabella from Hugh de Lusignan by a trick, for they would never have let Isabella go if they had known she was going to the King. Did John think that that would be forgotten? There would be retribution, she knew. Was John, uxorious, living in a state of euphoria, thinking only of bed and Isabella, unable to realise what a storm his actions might well have aroused, or was he simply ignoring this? The Lusignans would be against him. He might have gained the Count of Angoulême as an ally but that was not much of a gain to be set beside the enmity of the Lusignans. What of the King of Portugal nursing his wounded dignity? And there were Arthur and his mother with her new husband Guy de Thouars, just waiting for a chance to rise. And more important than all, Philip of France. What was he thinking at this moment? Laughing no doubt to think how recklessly John was gambling with a kingdom.

But I am too old to concern myself, thought Eleanor. My day is done. And what could I do in any case? I could warn John. As if he would listen! He hears nothing but the laughter of that child of his; he sees nothing but her inviting person and he cannot see the jeopardy in which he has placed himself while he is bemused by dreams of new ways of making love.

She could warn the girl perhaps. Voluptuous she certainly was, and knowledgeable with a knowledge such as her kind were born with. Eleanor knew, for she had been like that herself. But what did Isabella know of the world outside the boudoir?

‘The King is deeply enamoured of you now, but it may well be that he will not always be so,’ Eleanor warned her.

Isabella looked startled. She could not believe that anyone would fail to be in love with her.

‘Men like change, my dear,’ said the Queen.

‘You mean John will no longer love me?’

‘I did not say that. He will always see in you the beauty that you have; it is a beauty which is always there. Age cannot destroy it. You have that sort of beauty, Isabella. I will dispense with false modesty and tell you that I have it. When I married John’s father he was enamoured of me. It was an unsuitable match in many ways. The reverse of you and John, I was his senior by some twelve years. That did not stop us. We were lovers … even as you are now. But scarcely had the first year of our marriage passed when another woman was carrying his child.’

Isabella drew back in horror.

‘’Twas so. I did not discover it until he brought her child into my nurseries. I never forgave him, and that set up a canker in our hearts … both of us. Our love turned to hate. Now had I been wiser I might have said to myself: It is the way of men. He must go forth to his battles and we were parted, and so he took his women. Had I realised that his dallying with the light women he met on his journeys did not alter what he felt for me, we would not have been such bitter enemies. Perhaps then our children would not have learned to hate him and fight against him. I think a great deal about this now I am old. I go down to his grave and talk to him as though he were there. I go over our life together and say to myself: Ah, had I done this … or that … we might have gone in different directions. We might have been friends instead of enemies, for there was always something between us. Often we called it hate but with people such as we are, love is near to hate. Ah, I see I tire you. You are asking yourself what this old woman is talking about. Why, you say, does she tell me this? Have I not a husband who adores me, who thinks me the most perfect being in the world? Has he not said he possesses all he could desire? Yes, so it was with Henry and with me in the beginning. My child, what shall you do if John betrays you with other women?’

She thought a while then her beautiful eyes narrowed. Then she said very deliberately: ‘I shall betray him with other men.’

Eleanor said gently: ‘I trust it may never come to pass.’

How excited Isabella was to see the sea! She wanted to run into it and catch it with her hands.

She stood gazing at it in wonder. John watched her indulgently.

‘Such a lot I have to show you, my love,’ he said.

They went on board their ship and he found it hard to draw her away from the deck, so enthralled was she. She was excited beyond words when she beheld the white cliffs of her new kingdom.

‘You shall be crowned ere long,’ John told her. ‘The most beautiful queen England has ever known.’

He was excited to be in England which always seemed more home to him than any other land. England had accepted him when some of those who lived in his overseas dominions had been prepared to take Arthur. It was because England would never have accepted Arthur that men such as William Marshal had come down in his favour. So he owed a lot to England; and now he was going to honour that land by giving it the most beautiful woman in the world to be its queen.

He called together a council at Westminster and there, glowing with pride, he presented Isabella to them. They could not but be moved by such charm and beauty and the unfortunate affair of the Portuguese embassy seemed to have been forgotten, as was the manner of his snatching Isabella from the man to whom she was betrothed. After all, the troubles of Hugh de Lusignan were scarcely something for the English to worry about.

There would be a coronation for the Queen and the people loved a coronation. They had wondered why the King’s previous wife had not been crowned with him. There had been rumours then that he was thinking of casting her off. They might have been sorry for her, but here was a new bride and there would be rejoicing in the streets, dancing, bonfires and perhaps free wine. Therefore, it was a matter for rejoicing; and when the people saw the exquisite child who was to be their new queen, they were enchanted by her. The cheers for Isabella resounded through the city.

Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, came to Westminster to perform the ceremony. The King had given orders that the Abbey was to be strewn with fresh herbs and rushes on the great day and a certain Clarence FitzWilliam received thirty-three shillings for doing this. There was one chorister whose voice was considered the most beautiful heard for many a year. He was known as Ambrose and the King ordered that he should be given twenty-five shillings to sing Christus vicit.

John wanted his people to know that this coronation was as important to him as his own had been. He wanted the whole country to welcome Isabella, to see her in all her youth and beauty and to applaud their king for possessing himself of such a prize.

They were willing and so Isabella, amid great rejoicing, was crowned Queen of England.

No one could doubt John’s joy in his queen and his determination to honour her.

They were happy – John and Isabella. She continued to delight him; he was sure he would never tire of her, nor look at another woman only to compare her with Isabella to her great disadvantage. Isabella was supreme, with her child’s body and the deep sensual appetites of an experienced woman, and he thought little of anything but the times when they could be alone together. As for Isabella, everything that happened was so new to her; and apart from her sensuality she was an inexperienced child of twelve. Novelty delighted her and she had plenty of that; to be the centre of an admiring circle was not new to her but it never failed to delight her; and to find that English strangers were as surely delighted with her as the people of Angoulême was a delicious discovery. Sometimes she thought of poor Hugh the Brown and she wondered if he were very sad. She hoped so for she could not bear him to forget her. Sometimes she thought of what it would have been like if she had married him. How different he would have been from John. Hugh was very handsome and he had never understood what she was really like as John had from the moment they met. Something within her still hankered after Hugh, but life was too exciting for brooding. She loved her golden crown and the homage of the people. The coronation had delighted her. She could have endured a great deal to win the title of Isabella the Queen, so she enjoyed travelling through the country with John which they did immediately after her coronation.

She loved fine garments – so did John; she could not hope to wear such splendid jewel-encrusted clothes as those which belonged to him, but he gave her rich presents. For travelling in the winter he ordered for her a pelisson with five bars of fur across it to keep out the wind. After her coronation five ells of green cloth and another five ells of brown were sent to her so that she might command her seamstress to make it into a gown for her. The King gave her jewels too and how she enjoyed appearing with him at the head of a table while all others looked on with amazement at her sparkling gems and beauty.

She could regret nothing while life promised such excitement.

Their journey through the country was leisurely, for they stayed in the castles of the nobility and there John would receive the homage of his barons which would be extended to Isabella.

By Christmas they reached Guildford and the feast of Christmas was celebrated with much feasting and merriment. Games were played in which the Queen took the central part and for once John was prepared to stand aside and let the limelight fall on someone else. They danced, they sang, they feasted and they drank; and the King would not leave his bed until dinner time.

Up to the north of England they travelled, through Yorkshire to Newcastle and Cumberland right up to the borders of Scotland. By March they had reached the Pennines and greatly daring they battled their way through this range of wolf-infested mountains. Life was full of adventure for the young Queen who until she had met John had never been very far from Angoulême – the only journey she had made being that to the castle of those whom she had then believed would be her new family.

It was Easter time when they reached Canterbury. Here they were greeted by Hubert Walter the Archbishop, and during Mass in the Cathedral he placed the crowns on their heads in accordance with an old custom so that it was like being crowned again.

After this ceremony they went to the Archbishop’s palace where a banquet had been prepared for them. John was delighted.

‘It is rare,’ he told Isabella, ‘that a King of England is on such fair terms with his Archbishop.’

They would return to Westminster, he told her, and there they would hold Court and she would learn more of what it meant to be Queen of England.

She was delighted with the country – although the winter had been more rigorous than that to which she was accustomed but she was young, her blood was warm and she had her pelisson with the five bars of fur to protect her from the fierce winds.

Alas, their pleasurable meanderings through England were coming to an end.

The Easter festivities were no sooner over when a messenger arrived from Eleanor. It seemed that it was impossible for her to retire from life, for she could not resist watching closely what was happening in her son’s dominions. She had been more aware than he was of the trouble he was stirring up when he more or less abducted the betrothed of Hugh de Lusignan.

Now she had disquietening news for him. If he were wise he would prepare to leave England immediately. In short, what had happened was that after John’s marriage the Lusignans had naturally been infuriated with the Count of Angoulême, whom they considered had deceived them cruelly by being a party to his daughter’s marriage with the King after they had pledged her to marry Hugh, and that feud, healed by the betrothal, burst out again. John must remember that Hugh’s brother Ralph was Seneschal of the castle of Eu in Normandy so that the trouble could spread into the duchy.

The Lusignans, filled with hatred towards John, had declared they had thrown off their allegiance to him and had approached the King of France, asking him to accept them as his vassals. Philip, like a wily spider, sitting in his web watching for unwary prey, was congratulating himself on the turn events had taken.

‘There is only one thing to be done,’ wrote Eleanor. ‘Gather together an army and come at once.’

John was a little petulant at the prospect of having his pleasure spoilt, but his mother was insistent and in his heart he had known something of this nature would happen soon.

While he was digesting his mother’s news another messenger arrived.

This one came from the Count of Angoulême who had the same story to tell.

The Lusignans were on the march, vowing vengeance. Moreover, Arthur’s stepfather, Guy of Thouars, was proving himself a clever strategist. In Arthur’s name he was amassing an army. There was trouble then not only from the powerful Lusignans and the King of France but from Arthur.

Arthur must not be victorious.

John made up his mind. He must prepare to leave England. He would need a big army so he sent envoys throughout the country commanding his barons to come with all speed to Portsmouth with their followers, for he planned to cross to the Continent without delay.

There followed the first clap of thunder from a storm which was to grow big.

Many of the barons had been consulting together and were recalling the good old days before the reign of Henry II when they had indeed been rulers of their estates. None of them could remember that time but the stories had been handed down through their grandparents and parents. In the days of Stephen a baron was a baron. He was the king of his own lands and held jurisdiction over those who passed through them. They forgot that during that time it was not safe for travellers to go on to the road and that many of those who did were captured by cruel and avaricious barons and either held to ransom or robbed and tortured for the sport of other baron guests. This was a situation which to all decent men was intolerable and the rule of Henry II had wiped it out, much to the relief of almost every inhabitant of the country apart from those unscrupulous men who had profited from this barbarism.

Henry II’s stern but just laws had made the country safe again and that King was such that none would have dared to go against him; but when Richard had come to the throne and had enforced taxation in order to pay for his crusade the people had grown restive. But the knowledge that he was engaged in the Holy War made them little inclined to revolt against such taxes because they superstitiously feared they would offend Heaven by doing so and would consequently suffer more harm than if they gave up their money. So they paid up: and when Richard was taken prisoner and came back a hero they were proud of him. All who saw him declared that even towards the end of his life he had the appearance of a god.

And then he had died and there was John. In the first place John lacked those impressive good looks, that kingly bearing and world-wide reputation. John’s image was tarnished before he came to the throne. They had all heard of his exploits in Ireland and when, as Count of Mortain, brother of the King, he had ridden through their villages, they had hidden their daughters. It was well known that when Richard was away he had plotted against him without much foresight and wisdom and consequently been forced to humble himself and crave pardon when his brother returned. They knew that that pardon had been given and Richard had been heard to say that his young brother had been led astray, and in any case he was not to be feared because he would never be able to make a conquest and if by good fortune a kingdom fell into his hands he would not be able to hold it against a foe.

That clearly indicated Richard’s contempt for John. It may well have been why, the barons now reasoned, he had at one time named Arthur as his heir.

And now, there was trouble on the Continent. The barons cared little for the Continent. They were English now, for though many of them had Norman ancestors, Normandy now seemed far away; it was their estates in England which they cared about and they had no desire to pay with their money and perhaps with their lives to help the King hold territories on the Continent while their affairs in England were neglected.

Some of the more bold of them now called together all those who had received a summons from the King and they met at Leicester where they decided they would make a stand against the King’s orders.

They would not accompany him in his proposed war unless in return he did something for them. They wanted the old privileges which their baron ancestors had enjoyed returned to them.

John was in Portsmouth awaiting their arrival when he received the message. Immediately he flew into a rage. Isabella was with him and this was the first time she had seen one of his rages. He had been so delighted with his marriage, so absorbed by Isabella that nothing irked him at all; he had been content to put aside anything that was unpleasant and give himself up entirely to enjoying his marriage.

But this was too much. They had dared defy him as they would never have defied Richard or his father! They refused to come, unless he complied with their conditions.

‘I’ll see them in hell first!’ he screamed and threw himself on to the floor.

Isabella watched him, round-eyed, as he rolled back and forth clutching the rushes, tearing at them with his teeth and spitting them forth as he kicked out madly.

‘John!’ she cried. ‘Please … please do not do that. You will do yourself an injury.’

For once he did not hear her. He lay kicking violently at anything which came within range and when, frightened, she ran out of the room, he did not even notice her going.

When his fury had abated a little he sent for the messenger. The man came pale and trembling, for the news that the King was in one of his raging tantrums had reached him.

‘Go to these rogues,’ shouted the King, ‘and tell them that if they are not in Portsmouth within the week I will seize their castles and lands, and what shall be done to them I leave them to guess.’

The messenger made off with all speed, his one desire being to put as great a distance between himself and John as possible.

‘Now,’ cried the King, ‘which is the nearest castle of these rebel barons?’

He discovered it belonged to a certain William of Albini.

‘They shall see that I mean what I say,’ he declared. ‘We will take this castle, raze it to the ground and hang all those who stand in our way as a lesson to the others.’

John was on the march, Isabella temporarily forgotten. His mouth was set in a firm line; his eyes were slightly bloodshot; there was a strength of purpose in him which all those about him recognised and they wondered whether they had misjudged John.

That was victory, for before they had reached the target castle, William of Albini sent out a body of men with his son offering him to John as hostage until he, William of Albini, could gather together his forces and present himself to the King at Portsmouth.

John laughed aloud. He had won the day. This, he thought, is the end of these barons’ petty revolt. This will show them who is their master.

All believed he was right, for the barons were now arriving at Portsmouth with their men and the money he had commanded them to bring.

Being John he must have his sly joke with them.

He collected the money they had brought which was to keep them and their soldiers during a long stay on the Continent. His eyes glistened as it was counted.

Then he said: ‘You have disappointed me, gentlemen. You show me that your hearts are not in this fight. You live smug and content on your lands here … lands which but for my noble ancestor known as William the Conqueror would never have been yours. You forget the land of your fathers which has been in my family’s possession since Great Rollo came and took it from the French. It is in peril, gentlemen, and you would rather stay behind and live in ease and comfort. The curses of the Conqueror on you! Stay behind. Do you think I want chicken-hearted men serving with me? Go back to your lands. I will take but your money. It will buy me soldiers whose profession it is to fight and will serve me better than you.’

With that he dismissed them.

He laughed aloud in high good spirits. He felt strong, invincible; and in such a mood he crossed the Channel.

Philip was considering the new turn of affairs. Never for one moment had he diverged from his ultimate goal which was to bring back Normandy to France and not only Normandy. Every acre of land which was in the possession of John, Philip was determined to bring to the crown of France. Politically nothing could have pleased him better than the accession of John, though he would always think of Richard with sadness in his heart. He would never forget their friendship, for nothing had been quite so important to him in his life as that; but now Richard was gone he could devote himself to his great task which he had always made clear was to make France as great as it had been under Charlemagne.

John was a weakling. Oh, he could strut and swagger but at heart he was not a bold man. He was a bully and bullies were cowards; he was vain in the extreme; he was no strategist. All Philip’s hopes lay in John. So he would forget his regrets for Richard and rejoice that fate had given him John to deal with.

He did not at this time want to indulge in another war. Wars were rarely decisive and with a man like John it should not be impossible to get the desired result without a great deal of unnecessary bloodshed and destruction.

Timing was all-important and at this particular moment it was better to go along with John and not let his true intentions be known.

Of course it was clear that this foolish act of John’s in abducting Hugh Lusignan’s bride was one which should be exploited to the full. The Lusignans, feeling themselves to have been shamefully injured, were yearning to take revenge. That was good. But not just at this time. He would keep the wound open and festering; but he was not yet ready to go to war against John. That time would come. Then he would go to the aid of Arthur and his supporters; Arthur should swear fealty to him; he would offer him his little daughter Marie as a bride. True, she was not yet six years old and Arthur had been affianced by Richard to the daughter of Tancred of Sicily; that was of no account. Then he, Philip, would have his hands on Normandy and John’s possessions on the Continent and, who knew, perhaps he could in due course stretch out to the crown of England. After all William the Conqueror had done just that when he had been only a Duke of Normandy.

But not yet. As the true strategist he was, Philip had always known when to wait and when to act. Some might say he had been overcautious, but wise men knew that he was invariably right.

Therefore, when John reached Rouen he was met by placatory messengers from Philip who informed him that the King of France had urged the Lusignans to end their rebellion until he and the King of England had met and come to some agreement.

Puffed up with pride after his recent triumphant skirmish with the barons John mistakenly believed that Philip was afraid of him and agreed to meet the French King at Les Andelys.

When the meeting took place Philip was gracious and invited John and his beautiful bride to Paris.

How Isabella revelled in the luxury of the Court of France. Philip was very courteous and determined to make them accept his friendship.

‘You must have the best of all lodgings,’ said Philip. ‘Yes, I will hear of nothing else. My brother John and his beautiful bride shall have my royal palace and I with my Court will move to one of my other residences.’

This delighted John. He was eager to show Isabella off to his rival, who professed himself enchanted by her charms. The Queen of France – of whom Philip was deeply enamoured since he was braving the wrath of the Pope for keeping her – seemed to John a poor creature in comparison with Isabella, though without that bright star she was fair enough.

Isabella, basking in the admiration of the French, seeing new sights every day, leading a life of complete excitement, ceased to think of Hugh the Brown, only to remember now and then how dull life would have been had she married him.

She loved Paris with its grand buildings, its river, its people who were not unlike those of her native Angoulême. There were banquets in the palace almost every day; and she danced and sang to the applause of all concerned.

The King of France flattered her and complimented John on acquiring such a beautiful bride. John preened himself and laughingly told how he had duped the Lusignans and having seen her in the forest had determined to marry her.

‘’Tis clear,’ said the King of France, ‘that you have not been disappointed.’

‘I never knew a woman capable of such skills,’ John told him. ‘Young as she is … and a virgin when I married her … yet she is as well versed in the art as an experienced whore – but with a fresh innocence, if you understand.’

‘We all understand,’ replied the King of France, ‘that it must need exceptional skill to keep you abed till midday.’

John laughed aloud.

‘So they are talking of that, are they?’

‘It reached my ears,’ said Philip.

‘Why not? I know of no better way to spend the time.’

Philip nodded and he thought: How long will you hold your possessions, John? I’ll prophesy not many years. Then you will learn, brother, that a king must have other ways of spending his time than in his bed.

Philip was delighted. He could see his goal nearer every day.

At the table he talked to John of serious matters. Isabella was there and John was conscious of little else, holding her hand one moment, stroking the soft fair flesh … flashing messages to her with his eyes to which she responded in a langourous manner.

Good, thought the King of France. I’ll have it all my way. He’ll not care as long as he can go to bed with his wife.

‘’Tis a mistake,’ he said, ‘to go into battle against the Lusignans. Unnecessary wars should be avoided.’

John nodded sleepily. He said: ‘They have risen against me.’

‘With reason,’ said Philip. ‘You could hardly expect them to remain passive when such a prize was snatched from them.’

John laughed. ‘Such a prize would be wasted on Hugh the Brown.’

‘That may well be,’ said Philip. ‘Why should you not submit the Lusignans to trial? They have stirred up rebellion. They have opened up their quarrel with Angoulême. Ralph has made trouble in Normandy. Bring them to trial for forgetting their oaths of allegiance to you and causing trouble which could have resulted in war.’

John hated to be told what he was to do. He was capable of ruling without Philip’s help and he’d have him know it. But to go to war was not what he wanted. It would mean Isabella wouldn’t be able to accompany him. That was unthinkable.

So he would agree with Philip; and when he had the Lusignans on trial he would see that they were found guilty of treason and he would sentence them to prove their innocence by fighting in a duel with opponents who should be chosen for them. This was a perfectly legal method of settling disputes. It was believed that if a man was innocent, God was on his side. If he were guilty, then he would be defeated because God would be on his opponent’s side. John kept a company of expert duellists who had never been defeated and if he wanted to rid himself of an enemy he contrived to sentence him to one of these duels knowing that it was invariably a good way of getting rid of him, for however skilled he was with a sword it seemed hardly likely that he could do better than a man who had spent all his time practising the art in the King’s cause.

The duel sentence was preserved for men of high rank. There were other less aristocratic methods of carrying out the same principle – such as plunging the accused’s hand in a pail of boiling water to retrieve some object which had been placed at the bottom of the pail. If the damaged hand later festered, the man was considered guilty. There was another punishment in which a naked man whose hands and feet were tied together was thrown into a river or any water that was handy. To float in such circumstances meant that he was supported by the devil and he was immediately rescued and put to death; to sink meant that he was receiving no such aid and he was rescued. If in time, all well and good; if not, well, he died anyway. These punishments had been in existence since the old pagan days but no one had at this time seen fit to change them.

Thus, when John agreed with the King of France to bring Hugh the Brown to court where he himself would stand with him that their cause might be judged, he had no intention of appearing himself; and had decided that he would sentence Hugh and certain members of his family to meet duellists who should be chosen for them.