The Heart of the Lion Read online

  ‘It must be understood,’ she said, ‘that this clemency comes from King Richard and while he wishes those who have been condemned under unjust laws to go free, he cannot countenance the release of those who have committed crimes against other laws.’

  A great cry of approval went up and Eleanor knew that the freeing of those who had offended against the game laws had been a wise move.

  ‘I command now,’ she said, ‘that every freeman of the kingdom swear that he will bear faith to King Richard, son of King Henry and Queen Eleanor, for the preservation of life, limbs and terrene honour, as his liege lord, against all living; and that he will be obedient to his laws and assist him in the preservation of peace and justice.’

  The new King was hailed with enthusiasm.

  Eleanor had done her work well; and when news was brought to her that Richard had arrived in England she hastened back to Winchester to be ready to receive him.

  * * *

  She had assembled all the nobility in Winchester. Perhaps the most important was Ranulph de Glanville who had been her custodian in the castle during the years of her imprisonment. She bore him no ill will; he had always treated her with due respect and the fact that he had guarded against her escape meant that he was obeying his master. As the chief Justiciar of England and a man of immense talents Eleanor believed that his support would be of help to the new King.

  Each day people were thronging into Winchester as Richard’s arrival grew imminent. Eleanor was not sure whether her son John would come with his brother. They had been in Normandy together but it was possible that they might take different routes home. This proved to be the case.

  What a wonderful moment it was for the Queen when she beheld her beloved son riding at the head of his entourage, a magnificent sight, enough to delight any mother’s eyes.

  The meeting was an emotional one and when Richard embraced her she knew that this was one of the happiest moments of her life. She was free after more than sixteen years of captivity; her son – the best loved of her children – was King of England and his first thoughts on coming to the crown were for her. She loved dearly and was loved with equal fervour.

  ‘Mother!’ he cried.

  ‘My son, my King,’ she answered, her voice shaken with emotion.

  There could be no doubt of his kingliness. He excelled in all manly pastimes. It had been so since the days of his boyhood. He was very tall, having the long arms and legs of his Norman ancestors as well as their blonde good looks; his hair was auburn, his eyes deep blue and he had more than mere good looks; his grace of carriage, his kingly air were unsurpassed, and in any company of men he would have been selected as the King.

  She was weak with pride – she who was usually so strong and rarely a prey for her emotions! This was the son whom she had reared and she had recognised his superior qualities from his babyhood; they had been the allies and had stood together against his father and the bastard Geoffrey who had been brought into the royal nursery. He had been her boy from the day he was born and the bond, she fervently prayed, would be severed only by death.

  ‘How my heart rejoices to see you here,’ she said.

  ‘There was much to be done across the sea before I could come.’

  ‘Your subjects have been prepared to welcome you.’

  ‘Mother, I know you have done good work for me.’

  ‘I trust I shall never do aught but good work for you, my son.’

  He scowled when Ranulph de Glanville approached to pay the homage, which he received coldly. Eleanor smiled realising that Richard was thinking of this man as his mother’s jailer. She must make him understand the importance of Glanville. He must not make an enemy of such a man. There would be much of which she must warn him, and she hoped he loved her enough to let her guide him.

  ‘Let us make our way to the castle,’ she said. ‘There shall be such feasting and revelry as is becoming to the arrival of the King.’

  ‘There is much we must talk of.’

  ‘Much indeed.’

  ‘How it rejoices me that you are here beside me. It will lighten my lot. You will care for matters here while I am away.’

  Her happiness was tinged with apprehension. When he was away? But of course he would have to be away. His dominions were widely spread. That must be what he meant.

  She dismissed her fears and gave herself up to the pleasure of seeing homage done to him as he entered the castle. How nobly he accepted it! She noticed how people looked at him.

  There never could have been a man who looked so much a king.

  * * *

  To be alone with him, to talk to him of secret matters, to share his confidences, that was a great joy to her.

  ‘Your coronation must take place immediately,’ she advised. ‘Once a king is crowned he is in truth a king; before that ...’ She lifted her shoulders.

  ‘I have decided it shall be on the third day of September.’

  ‘Isn’t that an unlucky day?’

  He laughed aloud. ‘Mother, I take no heed of these superstitions.’

  ‘Others may.’

  ‘Then let them. I shall pass into London on the first day of the month, and there I shall be crowned King.’

  ‘So be it,’ she said. ‘The important point is that the ceremony takes place without delay. Richard, I must speak to you of Alice. She is here.’

  ‘In this castle?’

  ‘Under restraint. I thought that as I had suffered it so long it would do her no harm to have a little taste of it.’

  He nodded but he was frowning. ‘What must be done with her? I’ll not have her.’

  ‘We must not forget that her brother is the King of France.’

  A shadow passed across his face. How did he feel about Philip now? There was no doubt that they had once been very close friends. Was that due to love or expediency on Richard’s part? He had once needed the friendship of the King of France when his own father was his enemy. Now that he was King of England – and all Kings of England must be wary of Kings of France – had his feelings changed? The one time friend ... lover ... was he now a deadly rival?

  ‘I care not who her brother is,’ said Richard, ‘I’ll have none of my father’s cast-offs.’

  ‘Your father never cast her off. He was faithful to the end they say ... faithful in his way that was. No doubt he sported merrily when she was far away but, as with Rosamund Clifford, he visited her in great amity over many years.’

  ‘My father is dead now, Mother; let us forget his habits. The fact remains that I’ll have none of Alice.’

  ‘She will have to go back to France. She will not like it. She has been in England for twenty-two years.’

  ‘Nevertheless she must go.’

  ‘Yet you will marry. It will be expected of you.’

  ‘I have a bride in mind. Berengaria, daughter of the King of Navarre, he whom they call Sancho the Wise. We know each other, for I met her when I was taken to her father’s court by her brother who is known as Sancho the Strong to distinguish him from his father. We have even talked of marriage but Alice of course stood in my way.’

  ‘That girl and your father have a lot to answer for. Though I doubt we should blame Alice; she is a feather in the wind blown this way and that.’

  ‘Then, by God’s mercy, let us blow her back to France.’

  ‘What will Philip say when he finds his sister sent back to him?’

  ‘What can he say of a sister who lived with the man who was to be her father-in-law and bore him a child?’ Richard clenched his fists and cried: ‘My God, when I think of his taking her from me, using her as he did and all the time deceiving me ...’

  ‘It is done with. As you remind me, he is dead. He can do you no more harm. You are the King now, Richard. You can go with a good conscience to Berengaria.’

  ‘If there is to be a marriage this is the one I want. I feel firm friendship with Sancho. Remember it was he who pleaded with my father concerning you when I requested him to. It was
due to him that your imprisonment was less rigorous than it might have been.’

  ‘Yes, I remember well the good he did me.’

  ‘For this reason and because I could trust no other with such a task I want you to go to the Court of Navarre and to bring Berengaria – not to me ... for I cannot ask for her hand until I am seen to be free from Alice. But I wish her to be taken where she can wait until I am free.’

  ‘It shall be so,’ said Eleanor. ‘But first there must be your coronation. What of your brother John?’

  ‘I left him in Normandy. He was to sail from Barfleur. He hoped to land at Dover.’

  Eleanor nodded. ‘It will be well for him to be here.’ She looked steadily at Richard. ‘It is unfortunate that your father should have made so much of him. I could never understand why he did that.’

  ‘It was to spite me,’ retorted Richard vehemently. ‘You know how he hated me.’

  ‘I could never understand that in him either. You ... all that a king should be, surely a son of whom any father should be proud ...’ She laughed. ‘You always took my side against him, Richard. Even in those early nursery days. Perhaps you forfeited his goodwill in so doing.’

  ‘It seems so, but I have no qualms about John. He knows I have first claim to the crown. I shall give him honours, treat him with dignity and respect. He must understand that he can never be King except in the event of my failing to get an heir.’

  ‘Yes, we must make him realise that. It would seem to me that he finds greater interest in his dissolute companions than he would in governing a kingdom.’

  ‘’Tis better to keep him so. What of Ranulph de Glanville?’

  ‘I doubt not that he will serve you as he served your father.’

  ‘I like not one who was your jailer.’

  ‘A task which was forced on him. He could not disobey your father, you know.’

  ‘Yet a man who has humiliated you, my mother !’

  She smiled at him tenderly.

  ‘We must not allow such matters to cloud our judgements, my son. He has been in charge of the treasure vaults at Winchester. It would not be well that he should withhold any secrets of those vaults from you.’

  Richard narrowed his eyes. ‘I shall find it difficult to give my friendship to a man who acted so to you.’

  ‘I can forgive him. I shall not think of any past wrongs I have suffered, but only what good may come to you. You must take him into your service. You need good servants.’

  ‘More than most,’ he admitted, ‘for I shall need to leave the country in good hands. I have pledged myself to take part in the Holy War as you know ...’

  ‘But now that you are King will that be possible?’

  ‘I could never come to terms with my conscience if I broke my vow.’

  ‘You have a kingdom to rule now, Richard. Does not your duty lie with that?’

  ‘Philip and I must go to the Holy Land together.’

  ‘So ... that friendship still stands.’

  ‘We shall see,’ said Richard. ‘In all events I intend to honour my obligations to my father’s son Geoffrey.’

  ‘The bastard!’ cried Eleanor.

  ‘He was with my father at the end.’

  ‘For what he could get.’

  ‘Nay, Mother, I think not. Geoffrey served him well and was with him when all others had deserted him. John had left him. They say that broke his heart and that when he heard that John’s name was at the head of the list of those lords who had turned against him he had no will to live. It was his last wish that Geoffrey should not suffer for his fidelity. Nor shall he.’

  ‘Nay, Richard, he would take your throne from you if he had a chance.’

  ‘You do not know him, Mother. You hated him because he was living evidence of my father’s infidelity to you, but that is no fault of Geoffrey’s. He was loyal to my father to the end when there was nothing to gain and everything to lose from it. As was William the Marshal. I shall always honour such men.’

  ‘But Richard, this whore’s son ...’

  ‘Is my half-brother. I beg you, put him from your mind, for mine is made up concerning him. My father wished him to have the Archbishopric of York and that I shall bestow on him.’

  ‘It is a mistake,’ said the Queen.

  ‘It is my intention,’ replied Richard; she saw the stubborn line of his lips and knew that it was no use trying to dissuade him.

  Lest she should think that this was due to a softness in him he told her of his treatment of Stephen of Tours, the Seneschal of Anjou, who had been treasurer of the late King’s overseas dominions.

  ‘He refused to yield to me my father’s treasure so I threw him into a dungeon and loaded him with chains. Such treatment soon set him begging forgiveness and what was more important rendering unto me all my father’s possessions. Never fear, Mother, I shall be strong. No man shall delude me with his sly behaviour, but there are some men who are bright stars in any kingly crown – those who can be trusted to serve their king with honour – and if that service was given to my father because he was the King and now is offered me, I shall take it.’

  He took her hand and kissed it. Although he would go his own way, he was telling her he would listen to her; but if he did not agree with her advice he would not take it.

  In her heart she would not have had him otherwise.

  ‘We must now give our thoughts to your coronation,’ she said. ‘There must be no delay in that. John will soon be with us.’

  ‘He must be at my coronation. I want him to know that if he is a loyal brother to me then the future lies bright before him.’

  ‘He will be with us soon,’ said Eleanor. ‘I long to see my youngest son. Rest assured, dear Richard, that I will impress on him the need to serve you well.’

  ‘I know it,’ said Richard; and in spite of the fact that she deeply resented his showing favour to her husband’s bastard Geoffrey, there was complete accord between them.

  * * *

  John had watched his brother embark at Barfleur. ‘It would be well for us to travel separately,’ Richard had said.

  The meaning of those words was evident. They were the two remaining sons of the dead King. If they were both to become victims of the sea – which they could well do if they travelled in the same ship – the next heir would be a boy, no more than a baby, the son of their dead brother, Geoffrey of Brittany. Little Arthur was of no age to govern.

  A dark mood seized John as he watched his brother’s ship sail away. This was not what his father had intended. He, John, had been promised England. He longed to be a king ... and King of England.

  He would never forget that when he had been born his father had nicknamed him John Lackland – Jean sans Terre. That was because his elder brothers had prior claims to his father’s possessions and even a great king with overseas dominions could not comfortably provide for so many sons. His brother William had died before he was born, but that had still left Henry, Richard and Geoffrey. Henry and Geoffrey were now dead. So only the two of them remained – Richard and himself.

  How secretly he had exulted over the bad blood between his father and Richard! That had seemed to make the way clear for him; and his father had talked to him often of his inheritance. Now this elder powerful brother, known throughout Europe as one of the greatest fighters of his time, claimed the throne. Their mother stood for him and so did the people. What could he do to prevent Richard’s becoming King?

  The maddening part about it was that Richard would now marry and if he did and there was a child that would be the end of John’s hopes.

  Once he had been promised a crown as King of Ireland. How delighted he had been then, but when his father had sent him to Ireland there had been trouble. He and his young followers had ridiculed the Irish whose manners seemed so odd compared with their own; the girls were pretty though and being young and full of high spirits they had made good sport with them; but the Irish had resented the rape of their land and their women and John had been r
ecalled. His father had been lenient with him, doting on him until the end. He had sent for a crown of peacock feathers set in gold from the Pope with his consent to make John King of Ireland. What ill fortune had been his! Trouble in Normandy (when was there not trouble in Normandy?) had intervened to prevent the ceremony and he had never received the crown.

  He cursed the ill fortune which had made him a younger son, but he had had the foresight to know when to leave his father. In fact he had never cared a jot for the old man; he had deceived him all along, and he had gone over to Richard before his father died; and for this reason Richard was now accepting him as his good brother and ally.

  He laughed slyly, thinking of his elder brother. Richard Yea and Nay. That was good. He was predictable. There was little guile in Richard. To Richard an enemy was an enemy, a friend a friend. Richard said No and meant No. He was frank and open. But he could be ruthless and when his anger was aroused against an enemy none could be more cruel. But he had what he called a sense of honour and this would not permit him to dissemble, which made it easy for such as John to know how to act towards him.

  Now John must pay homage to the new King; he must make his brother believe that he would be loyal to him; and so must he be – until the opportunity arose to be otherwise.

  He was young yet – twenty-two years of age; Richard was ten years older. There had been rumours about certain debaucheries in which Richard had indulged. Sometimes women were concerned in them; but did Richard really care for women? John was unsure. There had been rumours about Philip when Richard was in France; but then a man could spare the time from those he loved to get a child, particularly when that man was king and the child could be the next King of England. It was amusing that Richard’s betrothed was the Princess Alice who had been their father’s mistress. He could hardly marry her; and the fact that he was betrothed to her would naturally mean some delay before he could marry anyone else. Delay was to be welcomed; for who knew, in the life of such a fighter, when an arrow or some such weapon might not put a speedy end to that life.