The Confession of Piers Gaveston (24 page)
Read The Confession of Piers Gaveston Online
Authors: Brandy Purdy
Lancaster and the others were appalled. A condemned man’s dying speech should be solemn and repentant!
“The Gascon seemed to laugh right in the face of Death!” Geoffrey the guard averred. “God’s teeth, he was an audacious rascal!”
“Well sit down then!” Lancaster shouted, waving his arm in the prearranged signal.
It happened then, quicker than it takes time to tell. A powerfully built Welsh soldier stepped forward and, without an instant’s hesitation, thrust his dagger into Gaveston’s heart.
He gasped softly, all the color draining from his face, as he sank to his knees, gracefully, like a flower wilting. Then a second Welshman leaned over, grasped his hair, and pulled him forward so that his head lay upon the stone. He rested his head there, as if it were a pillow, his eyes closed, his lips murmuring softly, and then the broadsword fell, severing his slender neck in a single, swift stroke, and the warm redness of his blood gushed out to forever stain the white stone. So ended the life of Piers Gaveston.
Only in death would any show pity for the despised Gascon Favorite. When both Lancaster and Warwick refused to take responsibility for his remains, some shoemakers reunited head and body with a strong steel needle and black thread, and, with a ladder serving as a makeshift bier, bore his body away to the Dominican Friars at Oxford where it was embalmed most skillfully. But since Gaveston had died excommunicate Christian burial was denied him.
Dressed in an elaborate gold brocade robe liberally spangled with diamonds and pearls to symbolize Edward’s tears, with a skullcap of delicate gold mesh embellished with seed pearls covering his dark hair, Piers lay in state in the chapel at Langley for two years while everyone with any influence tried to persuade Edward to allow the funeral to take place. Even in death, Edward could not let Piers go. Preserved with balsam and spices, as beautiful as he was in life, and looking as though he was but sleeping, Piers had in death truly become the dragonfly in amber.
In the end, upon Edward’s orders, a magnificent tomb was constructed. He was so grateful to the Dominican Friars for preserving Piers’ beauty that a new monastery was built for them adjoining the sepulcher. At all hours, day and night, the clock around, he charged, twelve monks must be in the chapel praying for the soul of Piers Gaveston, and for this service each would receive the sum of 100 marks per annum. And to this day, when Edward can spare the time from dancing attendance on chaste and cold Hugh Despenser, and trying to connive and lure him into bed, to Langley he hastens to weep and lavish kisses upon the life-like alabaster effigy that crowns Gaveston’s tomb. With one hand upon a cold, unyielding alabaster thigh, he sits and dreams of the past and vows “I will love you till my dying day!” then weeps floods of guilty tears because he has fallen in love with Hugh Despenser. And he has grown a beard, short, gold, and curling, which he proclaims is a testament to his grief. Of this book he never speaks; he has forgotten what he has no wish to remember, so his illusions will never perish, and reality need never intrude upon his memories.
In his grief for Piers, which would forever run the gauntlet betwixt lust, sentiment, melancholy, and anger, Edward and Isabelle drew closer—for a time at least—and produced four children, a pair each of sons and daughters, before Edward’s passion for Hugh Despenser permanently estranged them.
For the entire two years Piers lay in state, Agnes sat nigh constantly in the chapel beside his coffin. Slowly she wasted away. On the day Piers was finally entombed and the alabaster effigy set in place she stood beside Edward and was among the last to look upon his face. Then she turned to Edward and hissed one word “Murderer!” The next morning a maidservant found her dead. Of old age or a broken heart; who can rightly say?
I do not know what became of Dragon, he simply disappeared. Perhaps he took to the roads and wanders still a vagabond once again?
For six years Meg wore widow’s weeds and grieved for Piers, faithful to his memory, preserving tenderly all his possessions at Wallingford, and cherishing the daughter, parrot, and spaniel he gave her. All the suitors who came calling she turned away, vowing that she would never take another husband. Edward tried to wed her to his new Favorite, but, in the end, it was her sister Eleanor who stood with Hugh Despenser before the church doors and was showered with silver coins by a jubilant and smiling Edward.
Then Grunella the midwife died and Meg was prevailed upon to take the child Amy into her household as Guillaume Gaveston, her reputed father, had perished in the same year as Piers in the aftermath of a drunken fall in which he tragically mistook a window for a door.
One day, while Meg, Joan, and Amy sat embroidering in the rose garden, Meg asked the precocious dark-haired child if she had any memories of her parents. Of her mother she had none, Sarah having died giving birth to her, but she remembered her father quite well. And in the child’s words Meg recognized her husband; no one, not even a child, could confuse Piers and Guillaume. And she remembered that he always wore a sparkling brooch shaped like a crescent moon and a ring set with a red stone that was big and round like an enormous cherry.
The truth nearly destroyed her, and, for a time, madness seemed to claim her. All of Piers’ possessions were brought together in the courtyard in an enormous bonfire, Joan and Amy were sent to separate convents, and even the parrot and the spaniel were dispatched to the marketplace and sold and the money given to the Church. Meg knelt in the courtyard and wept as her love for Piers went up in smoke and flames. Then she dried her tears, put aside her widow’s weeds, and married the most persistent of her suitors—Hugh Audley. They have a daughter now, named Margaret after her mother. To the details of their married life I am not privy, though to Hugh Audley’s love I can attest; it is there in his eyes every time he looks at Meg, he worships and adores her. Piers hoped that she would forget him, and I pray that she will also forgive him someday.
Sequestered behind the convent walls at Amesbury, Joan died of a fever at the start of this year. As for Amy, over the years I have watched her grow from child to woman. Every year I find some excuse to visit the convent though I find it so disquieting that afterwards I leave shivering in a cold sweat with my knees wobbling, swearing that this time is the last, yet I always go back. The sensuous curves of her body show through the shapeless novice’s habit and a ringlet of black hair always manages to escape from the modest white coif. Though I have never spoken a word to her, when I am there her eyes follow me everywhere, quizzical, mischievous, and inviting. They are Gaveston’s eyes, and her smile is Gaveston’s smile.
Edward now entirely relies on Hugh “The Indispensable Despenser.” He will not make a single decision without the approval of the man they call “the King’s right eye.” He is an able man, honesty compels me to admit, but a colder, more ruthless one I have never met. He might do much good if his ambitions were for England and its people and not himself alone. He uses his power to take everything he can, he bullies, threatens, and intimidates people until they agree to sell him their lands at greatly reduced prices, and if these tactics fail he is not above resorting to violence, devious and cunning manipulations of the Law, or even blatant and outright fraud. He will do anything to get what he wants and will let no one stand in his way; anyone who tries to thwart him faces ruin, imprisonment, and disgrace. But Edward is blind to his beloved’s vicious streak; anyone he loves can do no wrong, he just smiles and says to his darling: “Do what thou wilt; my heart and kingdom are yours to command!” And Hugh takes him at his word. He and his father rule the realm and leave Edward free to dig ditches, thatch roofs, trim the hedges, and dream of Piers Gaveston.
But hatred more venomous than the poison from a serpent’s fangs is the greatest of the rewards Hugh Despenser has reaped from Edward’s favor. And by the memory of Piers Gaveston he is cursed. In England now it is often declared that Despenser is “thrice worse than Gaveston was ever!” And all wait now with bated breaths to see how Edward’s second great passion will end. I cannot think it will end happily for any.
At the time I write this I am summoned by Edward’s wringing hands and anxious tears from the shadows of disgrace where the Despensers banished me. Fealty was due to the King of France for England’s dominions across the sea. Edward would not travel without Hugh, nor would the French King welcome the man who has made Isabelle’s life “a greater Hell and torment than The Gascon ever did,” so Edward, famous for his radiant health, claimed sickness and cancelled his voyage. This was taken as an insult, and now across the sea is sent “Pembroke the Peacemaker.” Whether Death will spare me long enough to render this one last service to England I can only pray!
Writ by John, valet to the Earl of Pembroke
On this day, the 23
rd
of June in the year of Our Lord 1324, my master, the Earl of Pembroke, arrived in Paris. While at table dining, he went suddenly statue-still and sat with his eyes agog, staring intently at the open doorway. Slowly, he stood up, his body all atremble.
“Is it really you?” he asked, but neither I nor the other servants saw anything but an empty door.
With quivering limbs he walked unsteadily round the table, bracing himself against the backs of the other chairs. As he approached the threshold, he smiled and reached out his hand as if to welcome a newly arrived guest, and in that instant the years and infirmity seemed to peel away from him. And then, upon the threshold, he collapsed.
I ran to him and knelt and supported his head in my lap while the others went to summon help—a doctor and a priest—but he died before either could arrive. May he rest in peace!