“My lady,” said Agnes, “you will make your own decisions. You are the Queen Mother now. It will be different from being Queen. There will not be so many duties.”
Joanna Troutbeck took my hand and kissed it. “We felt for you so much,” she said. “When we heard the news, we wished that we were with you.”
“It was so sudden…such a shock,” I told them. “Who would have thought that Henry could…just die like that?”
“He seemed different from other men…immortal,” said Agnes.
“And now he is proved to be as all men are. They must go when they are called.”
“We will do anything …” said Joanna Belknap.
“We want to help all we can,” they told me.
“I thank God I have my baby. Do you think they will take him from me?”
“If they try to, you must protest.”
“He is the King…and kings are the property of the State, they say. Oh, how I wish he were not a king! When I think of that little head weighed down by a crown …”
“Doubtless,” said Agnes, “he will hold it dear. Most men do.”
“It was a crown which killed his father…or the determination to hunt for it.”
They looked at me in amazement; and I went on, “Oh yes, he was killed in war as much as any man. Had he not wasted his youth and strength on the battlefield, he would be alive today.”
There was a brief silence and I thought: I must not talk thus. I have come here to forget…to be with my child…to make a new life.
I went on: “You must tell me what has been happening while I have been away.”
“The biggest news is the marriage of the Duke of Gloucester,” said Joanna Troutbeck.
“Is that so?”
“To the Lady Jacqueline of Bavaria.”
“But I thought she was married to the Duke of Brabant. How can she therefore marry the Duke of Gloucester?”
“The marriage was annulled. Or so she claims. The anti-Pope obliged and she was free. So she has married Duke Humphrey.”
“There will be trouble surely?”
“It would seem that neither of them cares very much for that.”
“But Brabant is the cousin of the Duke of Burgundy. They are connections of mine. As for Jacqueline, she was once my sister-in-law.”
“They are snapping their fingers at all those who object,” said Agnes. “The Duke of Bedford, we have heard, is furiously angry. Burgundy is not the man to brook interference and he naturally had his eyes on Jacqueline’s possessions. The Duke of Bedford fears he may lose Burgundy as an ally through this. There is a great deal of gossip about it at Court.”
“They have been very rash,” I said. “Are they very much in love?”
“As was said before, I think the Duke is very much in love with Hainault, Zealand, Holland and Friesland,” said Joanna Troutbeck.
“And Jacqueline?” I asked.
“She is in love with the belief that he, as her husband, will fight with her to get her possessions back.”
“So it is a love match between them both and these possessions rather than that of Jacqueline and Humphrey for each other?”
“Well,” said the cynical Joanna Troutbeck. “Is it not for such reasons that marriages are often made?”
I nodded sadly. “As mine was. Was I not fortunate to marry a man like Henry?”
“And he to marry you, my lady.”
“Yes, it was a good marriage. We were happy together…when we were together.”
They began to talk of other matters. I could imagine their whispering to each other when I was not there as to how they could turn my mind from those happy days I had spent with Henry and stop my repining.
· · ·
I had not been in England more than a week or so when messengers arrived from France. I knew they brought news of some calamity, and waited with trepidation for what they had to tell me.
They hesitated for a little while until I begged them to speak. Then one of them said: “It is the King, your father, my lady.”
“My father? What of my father?” He had been a source of anxiety for so long. What more could there be to fear?
“He is dead, my lady.”
I was silent, thinking of my first glimpse of him when I was a child. Vividly I remembered the wild-eyed man who thought he was made of glass. I could remember the bleak despair in his eyes.
“The people of Paris mourn him deeply.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“And now he has gone to his rest, my lady, the rest for which he had so much longed.”
“So…he was in Paris?”
“Yes, my lady. The people cheered him when he came to the city. It warmed his heart to hear the shouts of ‘Noël.’ The people always loved him…even when he could not come among them…even when he was shut away from them.”
Love and pity were very close, I thought.
“He lay in state, my lady, for three days…his face uncovered that all might take a last look at him. He was in the Hôtel de St.-Paul, and crowds went in most devotedly to pay their last respects to him.”
“Yes,” I murmured. “He was well loved.”
“You should have heard the prayers, my lady. The people knew him for a good man. He was sadly afflicted. They said how different the fate of France might have been if he had been well enough to lead the country. They prayed to God for the soul of their dear prince. They said they would never again see one as good as he was. ‘Now it is all wars and trouble,’ they said. ‘Prince, go to your rest. We must remain to our tribulations and sorrows.’ They likened their plight to that of the children of Israel in captivity in Babylon.”
I listened impassively; and suddenly they were covered with embarrassment. They had been thinking of me solely as my father’s daughter and then had realized that I was the conqueror’s widow. I had left my own country and adopted his. It was an awkward situation in which they found themselves. They would have liked to say more, I knew, but they had said as much as they dared.
“How did he die?” I asked. “Was he at peace at the end?”
“They say so, my lady. They say he welcomed death with open arms. He was tired of life. Fate had illused him.”
I thought: Yes, he had always wanted to go. There was nothing for him here but those long periods of darkness followed by brief lucid periods when he would know that it was during his reign that France had been lost, and his own son, the Dauphin, had been deprived of his inheritance. He had had to stand aside and see another proclaimed King of France. What did they think of me? Where was my place in all this? My little son was usurping the rights of the Dauphin.
“They took him to St.-Denis, my lady. The Duke of Berry made a speech over his open tomb. He said: ‘Lord have mercy on the soul of the most high and excellent Charles, King of France, sixth of the name.’”
I nodded…he was King until the end. Henry had agreed that he should retain the title until his death. I was glad that Henry had not robbed him of that, empty as it was.
“Immediately after the Duke of Berry had spoken, there followed a cry of ‘Long live King Henry, by the grace of God, King of France and of England!’”
I felt I could bear no more, so I thanked them for coming and dismissed them. I wanted to be alone.
There were so many memories…and all sad ones. I wondered about my mother. What was she doing now? She was no longer Queen of France. That was no loss to France. I was filled with a deep resentment toward her. Much of the tragedy which had befallen my father and his country was due to her. And now where was she? I doubted not that she would be looking after herself. She would have her luxuries…her pets…her lovers. And she would not shed a tear for that poor tragic man whose life and whose country she had helped to bring to disaster.
But what was the use of recriminations, of brooding on the past? I had to go on with my life. I was in a new land. I had become a widow. Perhaps they would send me back to France. But I was the mother of their King, so they could hardly do that. I must think of my son. Therein lay my future. I must forget my tragic past. My allegiance was to my new country.