The Queen from Provence (30 page)

Eleanor could not but find some glory in the grandeur of the occasion. On the surface there was no hint of the King’s pecuniary difficulties. All along the route people had gasped at the splendour of the royal entourage for accompanying the King were a thousand knights and each of them appeared to have attempted to outdo the others by the magnificence of his garments. Gold and silver ornaments adorned their persons and everywhere was the glitter of jewels.

None looked more splendid than the Queen, her beautiful hair gathered into a golden net, the trailing skirts of her quintise gown held lightly in her hand so that the skirt might not impede her progress.

The young King of Scots and his attendants were less elegant, but his six hundred knights, though slightly less grand than the English, made a fine spectacle.

People crowded the streets of York and there was talk of nothing but the coming wedding. Everywhere there was excitement; the only two who did not seem to share in the excitement were the two little principals.

Henry and Eleanor though were very much aware of their daughter’s ordeal and what worried them most was the fact that she must leave them.

Henry said: ‘If they make her unhappy I will wage war on them. I will make them regret it if they hurt our daughter in the smallest way!’

Eleanor put her arm through that of her husband and for a moment he was afraid that she was going to ask him to call off the marriage. It would be impossible now … even to please Eleanor.

He said suddenly: ‘The marriage must take place early in the morning, before the people realise it. Otherwise the press will be disastrous.’

Eleanor thought this a good plan. She had a feeling that once Margaret was married she would begin to accept her fate as inevitable and feel better about it.

So early in the morning of that grey December day, Alexander and Margaret were married by Archbishop Walter Grey of York and as she walked through the southern transept, which was the pride of Archbishop Grey’s heart because it had been built by him over twenty years before, she felt as though there was a dead weight where her heart should have been and she prayed for another thunderstorm to shatter the Archbishop’s transept so that the ceremony would not be able to take place.

Alas, if it did not now, it would at another time.

There was no escape.

She had to say good-bye to home – to her beloved parents, to Edward, Edmund, Beatrice and all the cousins. She had to go to a strange bleak land with this boy who had become her husband.

The ceremony over, the feasting began.

The King of England must show the Scots how powerful he was and what a happy day it was for them when their King made an alliance with his daughter.

The wedding celebrations had coincided with those of Christmas so the feasting was doubly lavish. They would pay for it afterwards, Henry promised himself. Were there not all those rich Jews? And the merchants of London could always find money for what they wanted and why not for their King?

Royalty should not be bothered with such mundane matters as paying for its fancies. This, however, was a matter of state. Was not the daughter of England marrying the son of Scotland? Were not the two countries being united and did this not mean peace between them which was to the benefit of all?

He crowned the occasion by knighting Alexander. A fine boy. He would make Margaret a good husband in a few years’ time.

At the ages of ten and eleven they were scarcely ready yet; but it was an understood thing in royal marriages that the ceremony should take place and after that the young pair wait for a suitable time for the consummation.

When he had knighted Alexander, a ceremony which was loudly applauded by the Scots, he said: ‘My dear son, this is indeed a happy occasion. I know you will make my daughter happy. To complete this momentous occasion you should pay me homage for your kingdom.’

Alexander was young but he had been brought up to regard himself as a future King and his advisers warned him to be very careful in his dealings with the King of England.

He hesitated, but only for a few seconds. Then he said:

‘I have come here peacefully and for the honour of the King of England, that by means of the marriage tie I might ally myself with him. But I could not deal with such a solemn matter until I had held deliberation on this matter with my nobles, or taken proper counsel as to so difficult a question.’

Henry realised that the boy had wisdom beyond his years and it would be no use trying to take advantage of his youth, so he waved aside his request.

At length the time came for farewells.

Margaret clung to her parents and the Queen wept with her daughter.

‘All will be well, my love,’ whispered Eleanor. ‘Alexander will be kind to you and anyone who is not will have to answer to your father.’

How bleak the country seemed as they rode north! The wind was keener and wrapped up as she was in her cape lined with vair she still felt the cold. Beside her rode her husband – a boy of ten, his face stern set and she knew that he, like herself, was trying to make the best of this thing which had happened to them.

In the company were a few of her attendants but she knew they would not be allowed to stay with her. The Scots were different from the English. They were dour, hardly ever smiled, and were far more serious.

She thought of home – and the games they used to play and how Edward lorded it over them all and how he was constantly quarrelling with the de Montfort cousins who were always telling everyone they were as royal as the King’s children. They had the Conqueror’s blood in their veins too, they maintained. King John was their grandfather just as he was Longshanks’ and Margaret’s and the rest. And the elder Henry, son of Uncle Richard, had always tried to make the peace. He used to say that there were so many of them with royal blood that they shouldn’t boast of it to each other. How she longed to be with them!

She tried to talk to Alexander as they rode along but he was as suspicious of her as she was of him.

We at least ought to be friends, thought Margaret.

She spoke of the English Court, her mother and father and the brothers and sisters. He listened attentively and politely but he said little of himself.

Onward they rode through the bleak countryside.

‘It is so cold,’ said Margaret, ‘is it always like this?’

‘Only in winter.’

She shivered and thought longingly of Windsor with the glowing fires and the children all playing games and their parents coming to watch them and sometimes join in.

Then she remembered the thunderstorm at Windsor and that moment when she lay on the floor clasped in her mother’s arms.

‘An omen … An omen …’ she whispered. And she was sure of it then.

The castle stood high on a hill, granite walls grey and forbidding.

Slowly they rode up the incline and through the gateway.

Her limbs were numb with the cold but her spirits were lifted a little when she entered the hall and saw the blazing fire.

‘We’re home,’ said Alexander.

They were surrounded by dour-looking men and women. One of them in flowing black robes of mourning came to Margaret and said she would take her to her chamber. There she could rest awhile and food would be brought to her, for she had had a long and irksome journey and would be weary.

It was a cheerless room with thick stone walls, stone floor and the barest necessities of furniture.

‘I am Lady Matilda de Cantalupe,’ the woman told her, ‘and I am to act as your governess … until such a time as you are ready to join the King.’

It was what her mother had said. ‘You will not be a wife immediately. They will wait until you are of an age … and Alexander too, for he is but a boy. They will give you a governess whom you will love and who will help and advise you.’

But there was something forbidding about Matilda de Cantalupe.

Margaret said she would rest awhile, for she was tired, and Matilda covered her with a fur rug to help her get warm. Afterwards she ate a little and in due course went down to the great hall where Alexander, similarly fed and rested, awaited her.

He had come to say farewell. He was leaving her with her guardians Robert le Norrey and Stephen Bausan. They, with Matilda, would be in charge of her household until such a time as she was ready to be a wife.

She wanted to cling to Alexander. At least he was young and if not exactly frightened, apprehensive. There was a fellow feeling between them. If he could have stayed she would have felt better. But he was going away. He was going to leave her with these solemn people.

She was frightened. She wanted her family … and desperately she wanted her mother.

Alexander gave her a cold kiss on the cheek.

‘I will come back for you,’ he said.

She nodded dumbly and she stood in the courtyard wrapped in her fur-lined coat with Matilda de Cantalupe and the two formidable men who were to be her guardians standing behind her. She watched Alexander ride away with his attendants.

Then, in the company of those whom she was beginning to think of as her jailers, she went back into the castle.

Chapter XII

THE KING AND SIMON DE MONTFORT

S
imon de Montfort had returned to England.

He was weary and disillusioned. He had constantly asked Henry for help to govern but Henry seemed to think that funds for this were not necessary. He himself was in constant need of money to govern his kingdom; that Simon de Montfort should ask for it in Gascony seemed an affront.

It was Henry’s nature that if he had wronged someone he could not like them again. He had a conscience of a kind which reproached him and while he tried to pretend it did not exist it continued to worry him. He would not admit the real cause of his grievance against a man or woman which was of course that he had wronged them and this made him uneasy so he always tried to find fault with their actions so that he could give himself another reason for disliking them.

Thus he began to criticise Simon’s governorship of Gascony and although Richard pointed out that no one could govern any place without the necessary finance, still he found fault with Simon.

Simon at length found the position impossible. The Gascons were rebellious and he had no means of quelling them. Dispirited, realising that he could not carry on unless he was able to get support from England, he came home to plead in person with the King.