I think I knew at that moment of victory that all was lost.
c
I stayed in Poitiers. I must if I were to hold the country together. I knew that they were going to reject John. Philip Augustus would know it too. John might have Arthur but he was on the way to defeat, and he did not seem to be aware of his precarious position. He was so enamored of Isabella that he stayed in bed with her until dinnertime. This passionate relationship between them was the talk of the Court. At least, I thought, there will be children.
John neglected his duties—and Philip Augustus was one to take advantage of that. He felt his way cautiously. He made leisurely progress through the country, taking castles as he went. There was little opposition. Nobody wanted to be ruled by John. There was nothing I could do. While I remained in Poitiers, Aquitaine would be faithful to me as long as I lived, but that would not be forever.
And then...?
I had to watch events and see John plunge farther and farther into disaster.
The Lusignans offered a heavy ransom for Hugh le Brun, and foolishly John accepted it, so freeing him and adding to his dangerous enemies.
There was Arthur. What became of Arthur is a mystery. There have been many rumors. There is one story that Hubert de Burgh, the castellan of the castle, was ordered by John to castrate him and put out his eyes and that Hubert found himself unable to perform this dastardly deed. He hid Arthur and told John that he had died while the foul deed was being done and that he had buried him in the precincts of the castle. John, it seemed, was satisfied.
The subject of Arthur would not die down. Where was he? people were asking, including Arthur’s immediate family and the King of France. Suspicion turned on John. Rumor was rife, and John began to be worried. Arthur had disappeared. He was presumed dead, and John was the suspect.
John affected great sorrow, and Hubert de Burgh, not knowing how to deal with such a situation and wondering how he was going to keep Arthur concealed forever, confessed to John that he had not carried out his orders and that Arthur still lived in a secret room in the castle. John assumed great delight, congratulating de Burgh, and Arthur appeared on the streets of Falaise.
Everyone was satisfied.
But, of course, John would not allow Arthur to remain at liberty. He was taken to the castle of Rouen and never seen again.
I think I can guess what happened: John murdered him there and threw his body into the Seine. That is the most likely solution, and I fear there must be truth in it.
I despaired of John.
One by one those places which Henry had been so proud of were falling into the hands of Philip Augustus: Le Mans, Bayeux, Lisieux ... and others.
It had happened so quickly that I could scarcely believe it possible. All that Henry, with my help, had built up, to crumble so soon. It would not be long before all our French possessions passed out of our hands.
Rouen itself was in danger. Messages were sent to John in England. Reinforcements were needed. There must be no delay. But John was reveling with his worthless friends; he was spending his nights and half his days in bed with Isabella. That was more important to him than the Plantagenet Empire.
I was helpless. What can an old woman of eighty do? If I had been younger, I would have done everything possible to rid the country of my son John.
I think the final humiliation was the loss of Chteau Gaillard—Richard’s castle, built to hold out against the enemy for centuries. “I will hold it,” Richard had said, “were it made of butter.”
When it fell to the French, I knew that was the end.
I went to Fontevrault. What was there to do now but wait for my departure to another life? So I shut myself away. I follow the quiet life of the nuns; and I am reliving my life by writing of it as I remember it from all those years ago.
I often think of Henry and his dream of possessing the whole of Europe. Women influenced his life more than men; there had been Rosamund, Alais and myself. But for his relationship with the three of us how different would his life have been? And with me it had been men: Louis, Raymond of Antioch, Henry and Richard. All the King’s women and all the Queen’s men—how much had they shaped the course of history?
Looking back, I see that what I had always wanted was love. I had been born into the Courts of Love and all my life I had been trying to return to them—not as they had been in my grandfather’s day but of my own making. With Louis it had been impossible; with Raymond there had been that blissful interlude which was necessarily transient; with Henry I believed I should find what I sought, and how bitterly disappointed I had been; Richard I had loved selflessly, and perhaps that is the best way to love.
But it is all over now. That which Henry had so painstakingly built up is being lost, and soon there will be nothing left but England.
John has done this. John, who should never have been born. Nor would he have been if I had learned of Henry’s perfidy earlier. John was not conceived in love, and all the time I was carrying him I was obsessed by my hatred of his father. It all comes back to me clearly now.
So he was born, this monster, this sadist who tortures and torments, who must know that an empire is disintegrating while he sports in bed with the woman he took from Hugh le Brun.
What more is there to say?
So I lay down my pen and wait to pass out of a life which I have, I think, lived to the full. I am glad to be going at this time for I know my son John will plunge further and further into disaster. What will become of him? What will become of England, which is all that is left to him now?
I shall never know.
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