There was loud applause and the King was engrossed for days after deciding how the order should be presented and of what it should consist.
It was decided that the installations should take place in the Chapel at Windsor and that the badge of the Order should be a gold medallion representing St George and the Dragon suspended on a blue ribbon. The garter should be of dark blue velvet and worn on the left leg just below the knoc. Chief of all was the inscription.
And the revelries of the Round Tower were remembered from then on not because of the champions of the joust or the great feasting that had ensued but because the Fair Maid of Kent had dropped her garter at the King’s feet and so established the finest order of chivalry.
While the Court was revelling in its pleasure, tragedy was preparing to strike the Royal family.
The Princess Joanna was awaiting the summons to leave Bordeaux for Castile; she expected this every day and suffered a certain apprehension. She had already learned what it felt to be far away from home, to miss her family, to find that there was not the same warmth to be expected from others as there had been from her beloved parents.
Sometimes she heard her women whispering and she knew it was of her future husband. Every night she used to pray that she would not have to go to Castile. Something would happen as it had in Austria and she would be returned to her parents.
Marriage sometimes seemed to be elusive. Look what had happened to Isabella. She had been within a week of becoming a bride and her future husband had run away. There was a hope, of course, that some obstacle would prevent her own marriage. She had heard that there were people at the Court there who did not want her.
Perhaps this time next year I shall be back in Windsor, she thought wistfully.
She found great comfort in her needlework. How soothing it was to watch the silken pictures grow. She loved the soft colours and chose them with care. Her women liked to work with her and they talked as they worked.
They were all happy here in Bordeaux; the trees were so beautiful during the summer months and they had watched them bud and blossom. Joanna said that she would like to embroider a picture of the scene from the castle window so that when she looked at it, when she was an old woman, she would remember the time she had spent in this enchanting spot.
‘One day,’ she said, ‘I shall look out of this window and see messengers arriving. They will bring commands from my father. Then I shall leave here and this period will be over ...’
‘You must not be sad, my lady,’ replied one of her women. ‘You will become a great lady.’
She did not answer. A shiver ran through her. If it had not been for her experiences in Austria she might have been hopeful. She thought of Isabella’s going to her marriage. How excited she had been. But then she had been quite happy to return home.
A messenger had come to the castle. Joanna was aware of a certain activity below. Almost immediately one of the attendants appeared.
‘My ladies, you must prepare to leave at once. The plague has come to Bordeaux.’
With a few of her women Joanna left the castle for the little village of Loremo.
It had been decided that villages were safer than towns and in any case Bordeaux would be a stricken city in less than a week.
The ladies were subdued. They thanked God for their escape. They tried to settle to their needlework but all the time they were thinking of the dreaded pestilence which people were beginning to call the Black Death because the victims were covered in big putrefying black spots which continued after their death.
It was not easy to work on these beautiful silks and not see the horrors of reality. People stricken with the disease died so quickly that those who remained were unable to bury them and they had to be thrown into pits. To come within sight of a person dead of the plague was the height of danger.
Thank God, said her women, that we had good warning and left Bordeaux.
But one day when Joanna sat over her embroidery a certain lassitude came over her. The brilliant blue of her silk turned dark; the tapestry receded and slipped from her hands.
Her women were bending over her. She heard the voices that seemed to come from far away.
‘Our lady is unwell.’
Then the piercing cry: ‘Oh, God in Heaven, it cannot be, Oh no ... no ... It must not be.’
They carried her to her bed. They stared at her in horror for there was blood on her lips and the black patches were beginning to form.
The plague had come to the village of Loremo and its first victim was the Princess Joanna.
Philippa was overcome with grief when the news reached her. She shut herself into her chamber that she might be alone with sorrow.
Her little daughter, her beloved Joanna who had always been so loving and affectionate ... dead. She had been uneasy about her for she had heard whispers of the nature of the young man who was to be her husband and young though he was, she had heard people were beginning to speak of him as Pedro the Cruel. Joanna had suffered enough in her very early childhood when she had been sent to Austria. Poor Joanna, she seemed ill fated. Something told Philippa that the child would be better dead than the wife of Pedro the Cruel.
But perhaps she was merely trying to comfort herself.
Edward came to her and they mourned together. Edward loved his children as devotedly as she did and he had a special love for his girls. Joanna had never been quite such a favourite with him as Isabella but he had loved Joanna dearly and her death had shaken him deeply.
‘We must remember that we have others, my love,’ he told her. ‘We have been singularly blessed in our family.’
She bowed her head. It was true. They had their family. She had been a fruitful wife to Edward and she was glad of that. Edward was thinking the same thing as he put h is arm about her.
Dear Philippa who had been so unswervingly good to him. He loved her dearly but he was finding that his attention was being attracted more and more by younger women.
The constant child-bearing had made its mark on the Queen. She was becoming so plump that she was finding it less easy to move about. In the past she had been at his side whenever possible. Now there were occasions when she was unable to make long journeys.
He had always been a man of strong desires and they did not diminish because he was getting older and his good wife was no longer young. He loved Philippa; he was grateful for philippa; he would have chosen no other if he could do that now. She was his dear wife and the mother of his children; but that did not prevent his attention straying to other women.
He believed in the sanctity of marriage; he wanted to be a faithful husband; but even though he was no longer young, he was as virile as ever. He was outstandingly good-looking; he was undoubtedly the leader of any gathering he happened to be in; his love of magnificence only added to his attractiveness; and of course there was the aura of royalty. It did not make it any easier for him to suppress his natural desires when it was clear that there would be little opposition from the objects of them.
He was gentle and tender with Philippa, the more so because of these faithless thoughts which were becoming more and more difficult to suppress.
But in a week or so after the news of Joanna’s death there was little time or inclination to think of anything but the terrible affliction.
The Black Death had come to England. It first attacked in the west of the country on the coast of Dorset, brought by a sailor from the Continent. It spread rapidly and in a week had come as far as Bristol. It was only a matter of time before it reached London.