‘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.’