Georgette Heyer (17 page)

His foreign policy resulted only in the prolongation of the truce between England and Scotland; and if this was a tame ending to the affair it was at least preferable to a state of open hostility, for by the time the truce was concluded the King’s attention was called to his other Border.

For this he was largely indebted to his old friend, Reginald Grey, Lord of Ruthin, in whose person loyalty was combined with some less amiable attributes. He was not much older than his royal master, but in temperament he belonged to an earlier and more predatory generation. In the belief that might was right he had appropriated lands which were alleged to belong to one of his neighbours, a Welsh gentleman of startling lineage, who, failing to obtain redress by such methods as he had learnt during three years’ study of the law in London, resorted to a course more in accordance with the tastes of his tenants, and embarked on a systematic harrying of the Lord of Ruthin’s lands. Neither his legal studies nor his exalted birth – he claimed to be a descendant of Cadwallader – were enough to subjugate more primitive instincts: the veneer of London was lost in his first taste of Border warfare, and he imprudently sanctioned the murder, under rather nasty circumstances, of a number of men of the Lord of Ruthin’s household. Reginald Grey was not the best kind of Marcher baron, but such savagery as this roused him to just, if implacable, wrath. Matters went from bad to worse in North Wales. On the eve of his departure for Scotland, King Henry, uneasy at the bickering in that part of his dominions most well affected towards the late King, wrote to urge better government in Wales, and an appeasing of riots. The Lord of Ruthin’s answer, directed during the King’s absence in Scotland to the Prince of Wales, showed how far from appeasement his thoughts ran. One of his foe’s supporters, whom the Lord of Ruthin apostrophised as the strongest thief in Wales, had swooped upon the park at Ruthin Castle, slain several men, and borne off a number of my lord’s horses. My lord promised him ‘a rope, a ladder, and a ring, high on gallows for to hang,’ and wrote to the Prince demanding ‘a plainer commission.’ He made no mention of his arch-enemy, perhaps because the theft of his horses at that time loomed largest in his mind; perhaps, as was suggested by the Court fool, because he could not spell his name. Cadwallader’s descendant was one Owain ab Gruffyd, Lord of Glyndyfrdwy, but he was not destined to be widely known by this title. Englishmen had their own ways of dealing with outlandish names; and in much the same spirit as they had altered the Eschevinage at Calais to the Scunnage, and the Rue des Béguines to Bigging Street, they changed the Lord of Glyndyfrdwy to Owen Glendower.

When King Henry returned from his Scottish expedition, he was in no mood to listen with a believing ear to Owen’s excuses for not having responded to the summons to follow his King to war. Owen said that Reginald Grey had of malice withheld the summons from him until it was too late for him to join the King’s muster. But the Lord of Ruthin swore that the Welsh robber lied; and King Henry issued new writs; and in the autumn marched for Shrewsbury, taking the Prince of Wales and Sir Harry Percy with him.

King Henry was not destined to be lucky in war. Inclement weather made the progress of his force difficult; Owen had been declared a rebel, and as a rebel he sought the protection of his mountains, sallying forth only on harassing raids. The King penetrated some way into Wales, but except for the confiscation of Owen’s estates on the English side of the Border the expedition achieved less than the Scottish one. All over England Welshmen were deserting town, university, and Inns of Court to rally to the side of one who declared himself to be the true Prince of Wales. The other Prince of Wales the King left on the Marches, in the charge of Sir Harry Percy.

5

In October, the princes were saddened by the news of the death of Master Chaucer. It was something to know that he had ended his days comfortably, often visited by a new poet, Thomas Hoccleve, who wrote a touching verse in his praise, and, it was to be hoped, brought the companionship to his old age which was denied him by his son. Thomas Chaucer, the King’s Butler, was a flint-faced person, bent of self-aggrandisement, and desiring nothing less than to be known as the son of a disreputable poet who had deserted his wife, figured in a scandalous law-suit, and had been forced to eke out a bare existence on a series of pensions.

All the King’s children were at Eltham Palace that Christmas-tide, and there were tournaments held in honour of a distinguished visitor to England. This was none other than Manuel Paleologus, Emperor of Constantinople, who was making a tour of Western Europe in the endeavour to interest even-Christians in the fate of his capital. It was closely beleagured by the Turk Bajazet, whom Sigismund of Hungary had failed to crush at Nicopolis. Marshal Boucicault, with twelve hundred lances, had undertaken the defence of the city; but he was forced to retire; and the Emperor, accompanied by a large retinue, composed of priests, nobles, and his Varangian guard, went with him to Paris. In December, he crossed the Channel, and journeyed in a stately fashion to Eltham Palace.

After one look at his guest, the King, acting with great presence of mind, told Sir Hugh Waterton that he should hold him responsible for the demeanour of his hopeful family during the Emperor’s stay. To this Sir Hugh replied that he preferred to be relieved of his high duties, since no man alive, in his opinion, could vouch for the behaviour of the noble lordings in the face of such a collection of oddities as the Emperor and his Court.

‘Well, what’s to be done, Hugh?’ demanded the King, abandoning the regal manner. ‘Once those whelps of mine clap eyes on them – ! You may beat them, of course.’

‘Well, and so I do,’ said Sir Hugh. ‘Much they will care for that!’

However, he promised to do his best to preserve decorum amongst his charges, and went back to the princes’ apartments, arriving there in time to witness a spirited pageant, in which Prince Henry figured as the Emperor; Thomas, with a silver charger reversed upon his head, as that worshipful scholar, Manuel Chrysoloras; and John and Humfrey, draped in napery stolen from the Buttery, and wearing beards made from the stuffings of several cushions, impersonating two of the priests in the Emperor’s train.

6

The year 1401 passed uneventfully for John at Berkhampsted. Blanche, whose hand in marriage was being sought by the Emperor Rupert, titular Duke of Bavaria, and Elector Palatine of the Rhine, for his eldest son, remained at Windsor throughout the year. This match was progressing more smoothly for King Henry than his proposal to his cousin of France that Harry should espouse the widowed Queen Isabelle. All the previous year the French had evaded giving him a direct answer; but in the New Year a demand had been received for her restoration to her own country, together with one for her dower, her jewels, and the revenue due to a Queen Dowager of England.

King Henry, who had maintained the little Queen in state at Havering Bower, was so much exasperated by this that he made no attempt to recover her plate and her jewellery from his children, amongst whom he had distributed it, and told the envoys that her dower should be subtracted from the sum owing to him for King John’s unpaid ransom of so many years ago. As for her revenue as Queen Dowager, his Council were unanimous in declaring that she was not entitled to it.

Since Madame Isabelle’s heart remained faithful to King Richard, only a Paynim could have kept her in England. King Henry made arrangements for her return to her loving father, and told his heir snappishly that if he had shown more address in wooing her things might have gone otherwise.

But Harry, in his fifteenth year, was not interested in brides; he was learning his trade under Sir Harry Percy, and learning it well, Hotspur reported. When Madame Isabelle was brought to London to take leave of the King he was recapturing Conway Castle, which had been snatched from the English on the day that the old Earl of Warwick died. The new Earl, Richard Beauchamp, was with Harry on the Welsh Marches: Harry said that he had not altered a whit, though he was twenty now, and had been two years married.

When Madame Isabelle stood before the King she would not unclose her pouting lips. The King was so kind that even her French attendants rebuked her for discourtesy. But Isabelle had been betrayed by her childhood: she had not meant the expression of her mourning heart to appear as the sulkiness of a little girl.

In the spring Archbishop Arundel’s zeal resulted in the passing of a statute against Lollardy, and the burning of a priest tainted with heresy. John knew that Lollardy was serving as a cloak for much treasonable activity, but he was less interested in it than in the reports that came from Wales; Harry had a place on his father’s Council, but no official title, the reins of government in North Wales being held by Hotspur. It was estimated by the grutching Commons that he and his father Northumberland between them had received more than forty thousand pounds from the Exchequer since King Henry’s accession, but neither of them let a week pass without petitioning the King for further monies.

There was no end to the calls on the King’s purse, or to the troubles gathering about him. Hardly had the Earl of Worcester delivered Madame Isabelle into the hands of the Count of St Pol than the Council was obliged to accept open war with both France and Scotland; while the unrest in Ireland was such that in August the King sent Thomas there, as his representative. Thomas would not be thirteen until September but he was a well-grown, handsome boy, with the easy manners of all his family, and a rueful grin that endeared him to his fellows. He was the least witty of King Henry’s sons, and he was inclined to let his impetuosity rule him. King Henry, preparing for yet another Welsh campaign, hoped that the Irish, also impetuous, might take Thomas to their hearts.

The King journeyed west again with yet another care upon his shoulders. He had contrived to send Hotspur more money, but Hotspur complained that it was only half what was needed for his costage, and had begged leave to relinquish his command. His uncle, Thomas of Worcester, took his place as Harry’s guardian; and Edward of Rutland was installed as Warden. Hotspur himself accepted a commission to negotiate a peace with the Scots, so that on the surface at least amenities were preserved. Only the Percies and King Henry knew how delicately balanced was an old friendship. The King had let his biting tongue hint to Hotspur that with better government less gold would have been required in Wales, and Hotspur had too proud a stomach to digest rebuke.

Four

The Red Rigs

1

Christmas-tide was spent at Windsor that year, not so gay a Christmas as the last. The autumn campaign against Glendower had been ruined by bad weather; there had been an attempt to murder the King in September; and when he rode through the streets to attend the christening of John Beaufort’s first-born, to whom he stood sponsor, he rode through silent crowds. Only a man who had been used all his life to wave his cap in acknowledgement of cheers could understand the meaning of the bitter smile that curled the King’s lips.

He missed Thomas, who was in Ireland, and none too comfortably placed. Everyone missed Thomas, even Harry, who so often quarrelled with him. Thomas might exasperate his brothers by his elvishness, but the royal residences seemed empty without him; and when they no longer heard his whistle, or could see his grin, the princes remembered only his warm heart, and forgot his temper, and his fits of jealousy.

Blanche was also in a pensive mood, inclined to shed tears when she recalled that this must be the last Christmas-tide she would spend with her family. It was not, in fact, very likely that she would behold any of them again. It was the common fate of royal ladies to be sent to be wedded to strangers in a strange land; but the thought of the coming separation kept Blanche wakeful at night. ‘They say he is handsome,’ she confided to Harry. ‘If only he will be kind!’

Harry tried to console her with tender jesting. ‘Send me word if he is not!’ he said. ‘I will come at the head of an army to rescue you!’

She smiled, but said: ‘Oh, Harry, I shall miss you so much!’

‘Nay, Louis will bring you to visit us! You won’t care a leek, I daresay! Don’t you remember what the envoys told us? Louis is so handsome that you will love him more than all of us together!’

Harry, in his sixteenth year, was a man grown. He was tall, not as large-limbed as John, but well-proportioned as his father. Months of campaigning had hardened his muscles, and tanned him berry-brown. The life seemed to suit him; he had never looked so well, and his energy was inexhaustible. He and John spent much time together, hawking in the Park; and once Harry started a buck, and ran it down on foot for sport. His chest was heaving when John caught him up, but as soon as he had got his breath he was ready to mount his horse again, not in the least exhausted by a race that would have made another man burst his lungs.

John had so often heard his father speak in the most despitous terms of the Welsh that he was surprised to find that Harry liked them. He chastised them rigorously, but bore them no ill-will. Harry, who was merciless to traitors, did not see the Welsh as traitors; and was urgent with the King to pardon penitents. He said that the King mishandled the Welsh, and he said it impatiently, his beautifully curved lips hardening.

‘You can’t blame Father for having rancour at his heart,’ said John. ‘Wasn’t Glendower one of his own people?’

‘One of Arundel’s men, and three parts wood!’ Harry exclaimed. ‘Must all Welshman suffer for his sins? They are a wild, sely people: conciliation would serve us better than this policy of Father’s! As for these raids of his – ! Owen boasts that the Severn fights for him. I could make it fight for me – had I the means!’

‘What of Hotspur? Did you like him?’ John asked.

‘Well, he knows how to handle Borderers. He taught me much I’ll take heed I don’t forget. And some things he taught me which he never knew I marked!’ Harry said, with a choke of laughter. ‘Do you remember what a lurdan we thought him, when we first met him?’

‘Yes – but I don’t love any Percy!’

‘A grasping race,’ Harry agreed. ‘I liked Sir Harry more than I like his uncle Worcester, though I know Worcester better, because when I was – when I was page to Cousin Richard, he was his Chamberlain. And holding that office of trust – Well, let that sleep! I like Rutland best of all who are set over me.’

‘Edward!’ John said. ‘What a dodipoll! Unfaithful, too!’

Harry laughed, but shook his head. ‘No, no! He may be cozened into setting his name to another bond, but he won’t mean us any harm! You can’t help liking him, you know! He understands nothing but war and the chase, but he’s no dodipoll in war, and I never knew anyone more skilled at the chase. The man I mistrust is young March’s uncle, Sir Edmund Mortimer. If he is not on better terms with Glendower than he’d have me think, believe me never!’

‘Is he the man who is said to have played with swords in his cradle?’

‘Oh, a greater ferly than that!’ Harry said. ‘At his birth, the horses in the stable stood up to their hocks in blood! He is very proud of it, too!’

‘Is it true?’ John asked, blinking.

‘I don’t know. The Welsh are full of such tales. I think he’s dangerful, for if he trafficks with Glendower he might draw Hotspur in. Hotspur is married to his sister, and they are close friends.’

‘What, Hotspur throw in his lot with a Welsh rebel?’ exclaimed John incredulously. ‘What profit lies in that?’

‘None, but Hotspur is just the man to do it.’

‘Holy Virgin!
Why
does Father like him?’

‘Oh, because they have been comrades in arms!’ Harry answered unhesitatingly.

‘Harry, you can’t like everyone with whom you’ve been a comrade in arms!’ objected John.

‘No, but when you’ve camped with a man, and ridden knee to knee with him, and fought at his side, as I have done with Richard Beauchamp, and Gilbert Talbot, and Jack Oldcastle – ’

‘Hotspur and Father have never fought side by side,’ interrupted John. ‘Unless you mean at those jousts, and jousting is not real fighting. Harry,
was
Otterburn the great victory we always thought it?’

‘I don’t believe it was a victory at all!’ Harry said, his voice trembling on the edge of laughter. ‘Scrope of Masham told me that the Scots count it as a victory to them! Hotspur has described it to me, and I may be unlearned in war, but Christ it me forbid that I should so order a battle!
But
he knows better than Father how to handle Marchers!’

2

Hardly were the Christmas revels done than a celestial wonder burst on men’s sight. A new star, with flames ascending from it, appeared in the west. The redeless folk called it the Blazing Star, and signed themselves when they saw it; scholars named it
Stella Comata
, and asserted that the like had been seen before, but few persons paid any heed to them, because it was well known that learned men loved nothing so much as saying that what any man with the least mother-wit could perceive to be a heavenly sign arose from natural causes.

‘A portent of prosperity,’ King Henry said, but confided to his unimpressionable son John that he wished the Blazing Star otherwhere.

He confided another matter both to John and to Harry. He was going to take a second wife.

Yes, the lady was Joanna the Dowager Duchess of Brittany, a dame of thirty-three summers, and surpassing beauty. He had been asotted of her since first he had seen her, but until her son had attained his twelfth year she would in no wise entertain his suit. But in March of the old year young John of Montfort had been invested with the ducal habit, and his mother considered herself free to follow the counsel of her heart.

‘
March
, sir!’ interpolated Harry.

He had not mis-heard his father: March it was, the delay in announcing the alliance having been due to the circumstance of the Duchess’s belonging to the Communion of the rival Pope, at Avignon. Nothing was more unlikely than that Benedict XIII would grant a dispensation for the marriage of Dame Joanna to an adherent of Boniface IX in Rome, whom he had frequently stigmatised as Anti-Christ. But the Dowager Duchess was none of your hen-witted women: without allowing the Holy Father at Avignon to suspect the identity of her suitor she had contrived so cleverly that at any moment now she expected to receive a general dispensation to marry anyone within the fourth degree of consanguinity.

King Henry told his sons that their new mother would be found to be as virtuous as she was beautiful. She was a daughter of King Charles the Bad of Navarre; and she seemed to have had a trying life. When scarcely more than a child she had been wedded to the aged Duke of Brittany, who had already been the death of two wives. She had borne him eight fair children; and never, said King Henry, had she given him the least cause for a display of his lamentable jealousy. It was her fate to be so lovely that men made the most unseemly advances to her. It would be the privilege of himself and his sons, said King Henry, to treat her with the consideration she had never yet known.

They were married by proxy in April; but if the King expected his bride to arrive in England hard on the heels of this ceremony, he was doomed to be disappointed. The French Court, alarmed by the marriage of one who, besides being King of England, was brother and half-brother to the Queens of Portugal and Castile, to a Navarrese Duchess of Brittany, hurriedly begged her royal uncles of France to represent to Dame Joanna the unwisdom of her choice. They found her meek, but (she said) helpless to rectify matters. Since she was only a female, with no understanding of problems of state, it was sleeveless to point out to her how useful a close alliance with Brittany would be to a grandson of Edward II; but when it became known that the Duchess proposed to transport all her children with her to England her most astute uncle, Philip of Burgundy, announced his intention of paying a state visit to his beloved niece. The Duchess thought it would ill beseem her to sail for England before she had entertained her uncle with all the honour due to him; and as affairs of state demanding Burgundy’s presence in Paris continually intervened to oblige him to postpone his visit the year wore on without bringing any immediate prospect of the arrival of the King’s new wife.

Meanwhile, King Henry, not long after his proxy wedding, received unwelcome tidings from Harry, in Wales. His old friend, Grey of Ruthin, had been captured by Glendower, who was holding him to an enormous ransom. This news more than counterbalanced any pleasure the King may have felt in the proposals he had received for the hands of Harry and Philippa.

These came from the far north, where the old Queen of Norway was planning to marry her adopted heir and his sister Catharine to their best advantages. Eric, King of united Denmark, Sweden, and Norway would be no bad match for King Henry’s younger daughter; King Henry was not so well pleased with the alliance planned for Harry; but he received the ambassadors with courtesy; and, in May, took them to Berkhampsted, where, with more aplomb than Dame Hervey could approve, the eight-year-old Philippa announced that the proposals for her hand pleased her well. She was much too young, of course, to be sent to her marriage-bed; and before King Henry would set his hand to any contract he sent ambassadors to King Eric’s Court, and charged them to take note of all they saw there. As for the offer of Catharine to be the Prince of Wales’s consort, King Henry, whom the Emperor Manuel Paleologus had declared to be the wiliest and wittiest of men, uttered a number of fair words which committed him to nothing.

June brought King Henry a grandiloquent challenge from the Duke of Orleans. He treated it with dignity; but after a further exchange of missives Orleans launched an attack on Guyenne, which, while it achieved little, was another anxiety added to King Henry’s burden. Reports of riots were brought to Westminster; there was a rumour that a pretender, resembling the late King, was being fostered by the Franciscans; and on the seventeenth of the month Sir Edmund Mortimer was taken prisoner by Glendower. Harry, who came to Windsor to bid farewell to Blanche before she departed for Almaine, told his father that there was reason to suspect that the ambush into which Sir Edmund had fallen had previously been concerted between him and his captor. Harry brought no cheering tidings from Wales: he needed money, and had already spent most of his personal grant in paying to his soldiers a moiety of their long overdue wages.

‘Christ’s Wounds, can no one enter my presence without demanding money of me?’ exclaimed the King, letting his sorely tried temper ride him. Harry stood stiff and silent. ‘Well, well, I will do what I can!’ the King said, waving him away.

He was much affected by the parting with Blanche, and shed tears when he gave her into the care of John Beaufort, who was the chief of the Councillors appointed to escort her to Cologne. He had contrived to scrape together the first instalment of her dowry, but he was sending her to her bridegroom with fewer jewels and less costly plate than befitted the wardrobe of the King of England’s daughter.

Harry went back to Shrewsbury as soon as the Lady Blanche left Windsor; and it occurred to the King, in the midst of his own bale, that his son John was also out of spirits. Humfrey was at Oxford, and Sir Hugh Waterton’s son was entered as a page in a noble household. It was thought that perhaps the Lord John was lonely; so the King, bethinking him of two other lonely lads, decreed that the young Earl of March and his brother should join him at Berkhampsted. March was only two years younger than John, but since he was backward for his age they were not well suited to one another. However, John was kind to both the Mortimers, good-naturedly allowing them even to handle his hawks. John, whose first hawk had been an eyas-musket of his own manning, had acquired more hawks and falcons (said Sir Hugh) than he knew what to do with. Nor did his passion for birds stop at falcons. He had a raven, which he had taught to speak; several small birds kept in an enclosure built for them in the curtilage; a pair of peacocks; and a flight of doves, which would take corn from between his lips. His favourite bird, a fierce-eyed gyrfalcon, went everywhere with him. He had a pair of silver bells from Milan for her; and when he took her upon the fist he scarcely troubled to hold the jesses between his fingers. She would allow him to handle her as he pleased, but she was capricious, and if Sir Hugh attempted to touch her she would bate instantly. The King had promised to make John the Master of his Falcons; he was already well known to the astringers at the Royal Mews by Charing Cross, and had picked up from them an astonishing amount of knowledge of the characteristics, needs, and ailments of the various species of hawks in their charge.