The Courts of Love: The Story of Eleanor of Aquitaine Read online

  Henry went first to Normandy and then came on to Anjou.

  It was wonderful to see him. We embraced fiercely and gave way to all the longing of the past months. Our desire for each other had not abated; rather had it intensified after our absence.

  He was delighted with little William. Here was another side to his nature. I was amazed to see how tenderly he picked up the child and lifted him high in the air ... laughing happily. It was wonderful to see him thus.

  He was very eager to tell me what was happening. That was really what was uppermost in his mind.

  He had had the most amazing good fortune. It really did seem as though God were on his side.

  “I landed at Wareham,” he said, “which is on the coast of England, with 140 men-at-arms and 3,000 infantry. I went straight to Bristol. Farsighted men have seen that Stephen is not good for the country. He is affable and charming, but affability and charm do not necessarily make good rule. A king has to be strong ... and it is being seen what is happening to the country over the years of this man’s rule.”

  “There must have been a great deal of disruption when your mother was at war with Stephen,” I said.

  “It is not good for the country. In my grandfather’s day, England prospered. The English are seeing what a difference a strong ruler makes. My great-grandfather, the Conqueror, and my grandfather, King Henry, were strong; they introduced good laws which the people obeyed. There is anarchy throughout the country now because of Stephen’s soft rule. And there are those who believe in me. They know that I am made of the same stuff as the Conqueror and King Henry, and they are right, by God. So they acclaimed me at Bristol. They were for ousting Stephen and making me their King.”

  “This is most heartening.”

  “You have not heard all. We marched to Malmesbury and laid siege to the castle. We took the outer fortifications with speed, but the keep was too strong so we had to fall back on the siege. Stephen was by this time alerted and he came with his army to the relief of Malmesbury Castle. Now listen to this. This is like Divine Providence. There is a little river there, the Avon. It became so swollen that Stephen could not cross it. The rain started to fall in torrents; the wind was strong and it drove the rain right into the faces of Stephen’s men while we had it on our backs. They simply could not march forward or even stay where they were. Stephen is not the most resourceful of commanders. To him there was only one thing to do. He turned his army around and marched back to London. So the castle fell into our hands.”

  “What great good fortune.”

  “It was a sign.”

  “I did not know you believed in such things.”

  “I do when they are in my favor.”

  I laughed with him. It was so good to have him back.

  “What then?” I asked.

  “We had to go to Wallingford. That was one of the main purposes of our visit to England. Brian FitzCount of Wallingford has been a loyal supporter of mine for years. He was my mother’s, and when she retired and left the field to Stephen and there was comparative peace in the country, he carried on the war ... he and a few others. He has been doing good work for me, and Stephen’s men had reached the stage when they were besieging him in his castle. He sent word to me that he needed help; I had to go to his aid. So after our success at Malmesbury we marched to Wallingford.”

  “Looking for further help from Heaven?”

  “If we needed it, yes. I knew that on equal terms we were a good match for Stephen. He might have an army but an army needs a commander, and I did not think Stephen had much heart for the battle.”

  “He sounds like Louis.”

  “Not quite like that, but nevertheless he is not a man designed for war. The two armies faced each other. Our men were ready for the fight. But to my amazement word was brought to my camp that Stephen wished to parley with me. So we met face to face. He had his advisers with him and I had mine. There was a strong feeling that a battle when we might be killed and our armies decimated could do no good to the country. We were both being rash. It might well be that some compromise could be worked out. Why did we not agree to a truce while we both considered our rival claims, and perhaps some solution could be found? To tell the truth, I was not averse to a little respite, and I certainly got the best of the bargain, for Stephen agreed to withdraw his garrison from Wallingford and raise the siege. So I had achieved what I wanted without a battle.

  “Now this is where he had another sign from Heaven. Eustace has always been a fool. As ineffectual as his father, he lacked his charm and his goodness. That is something for which we have to be grateful. He was furious when he heard of the truce. He thought his father was playing into my hands. He has always been jealous of me. I am sorry for Stephen. He has two sons—Eustace one of them and the other young William who is without ambition and would not take the crown if it were handed to him. Eustace is—or was—the only bar to the throne. But for him it could have come to me naturally.

  “Now listen. Eustace went off on a little war of his own, ravaging the countryside and the castles of all those whom he suspected of being favorable to me. His little adventure took him to Cambridgeshire, where he began plundering the lands which belonged to the monastery at Bury St. Edmunds. The monks naturally protested. He then went to the monastery itself and demanded that the monks give him the treasure that he might pay his soldiers. They replied that they would offer him hospitality, as it was the rule of the monastery to give that to all travelers, but they had no intention of parting with their treasure. Eustace demanded of them whether they knew who he was. He was the son of the King—their King-to-be. If they did not hand over the treasure he would plunder their harvest and the corn should be taken to his castle. The monks quietly bowed their heads and he believed they would give up their treasure. They said they would prepare a meal for him which they did.

  “But scarcely had Eustace taken a mouthful of the dish of eels which they set before him than he fell writhing to the floor. He was dead within an hour.”

  “It does look like Providence.”

  “Those monks have done a great service to their country. Eustace is no more. William does not want the crown. You see?”

  “And Stephen?”

  “I could find it in my heart to be sorry for him. He is a mild man. He lost his wife recently and she meant a good deal to him. And now he has lost his elder son and heir. Perhaps the reason why he felt he must go on fighting was to retain the throne for Eustace.”

  “So the way is clear. But there is still Stephen.”

  “We have had a meeting. This is an end of war. He has named me his heir and is very affectionate toward me. He is to be King of England until his death, and then I shall be accepted as his natural heir.”

  “It is wonderful ... but he could live for ten years.” He nodded gloomily. “Heaven has been kind to you so far.”

  “There is a great deal to be done in England. It has been ill-governed since the death of my grandfather. I am to have a say in affairs while Stephen lives. He will listen to me.”

  “A great task awaits you. Let us hope you will not have to wait too long. And now you will stay here with your wife and son?”

  “I must go to Rouen,” he said. “I have business there.”

  “You are surely not going away again!”

  “I must. I shall shortly be going back. Why do you not join me in Rouen? My mother wishes to know you. She will want to see the child.”

  I was overjoyed. So we were not to be parted so soon. And one day I should be beside him when he claimed the crown of England.

  Henry had gone to Rouen and I was to follow as soon as I could make arrangements to do so. I was very excited and faintly apprehensive at the prospect of meeting my notorious mother-in-law, Matilda. I remembered another mother-in-law, Adelaide of Savoy. I had been only a very young girl when I had first been confronted by her and she had greatly resented me. She had deplored the influence I had had over Louis and we had been enemies from the day
we met. It was true the final victory had been mine and she was the one who had found it expedient to leave Court. Matilda, I felt, would be quite a different proposition.

  I both longed and dreaded to meet her.

  I was very much aware of the strong bond between Henry and Matilda. He admired her immensely; he liked to hear her opinions, and I knew he took her advice now and then. I felt she would be almost like a rival, and if I was prepared to resent her, how did she feel about me?

  I was extremely anxious when we stood face to face, but almost immediately I began to feel more at ease. She was very handsome still; she must have been about fifty at this time; and there was great dignity about her. I drew myself up to my full height, determined to let her see that I was a match for her. I need not have done so. Her shrewd eyes surveyed me with approval, and suddenly it struck me that we were two of a kind. We understood each other, and that meant we appreciated each other.

  A certain hauteur disappeared and she took my hands and smiled at me.

  She said: “You are a beautiful woman. I am glad for Henry.”

  Then she kissed me.

  Henry was watching us and I was delighted to see how pleased he was by the rapport between his mother and me.

  She had arranged that there should be a great welcome for us at the castle.

  Those were happy days with Henry, basking in his approval because his mother liked me, showing my son to his grandmother and enjoying the delights of family life. It would not be for long though. Henry would never stay in one place. His dominions were too far flung. There was trouble from one of the vassals. There were always rebels seizing opportunities for making trouble.

  Henry was at this time deeply immersed in the affairs of England, for when Stephen had sworn that he should have the throne after him, he had made him co-ruler, so that Henry needed to know exactly what was going on, and was indeed preparing for the time when he would be King. Stephen knew that his own rule had been weak, and Henry was trying to remedy that. Not that he could do a great deal until the crown was actually his, but his mind teemed with possibilities. Messengers were constantly going back and forth between Henry and Stephen. Therefore to hear of trouble in those dominions over which he already had sway infuriated him.

  It was at this time that I saw him in one of those rages which amazed and alarmed me and which later I was to dread. I really believed the story of the devil woman who was the ancestress of the Counts of Anjou when I saw him writhing on the floor, his ruddy face purple, his eyes bulging, shouting blasphemies and rolling about biting the rushes. He was like a man possessed.

  I really thought he had gone mad.

  Fortunately Matilda explained to me.

  “He has these fits of temper,” she said. “He always has had. He is so enraged that he has to give vent to his feelings.”

  “He is wasting his energy.”

  “He has plenty to spare. He will recover quickly and take action. Then he will give all his energy to teaching these men a lesson.”

  I remembered the walls of Limoges. There was yet something else I had to learn of him.

  Matilda was right. In a short time the fit was over; his energy was unimpaired. Within a few hours he had gathered together his men and was riding off to deal with the recalcitrant rebel.

  Matilda and I were often together. She heartily approved of the marriage. She was without sentimentality and I doubted she would have welcomed me into the family circle but for my possessions. But she liked my good looks and good health.

  “You will have many children,” she prophesied.

  “One needs opportunities,” I reminded her. “I have never had a surfeit of those.”

  “Henry has the energy of ten men and you, my dear, are no frail flower. There will come a time when you and he will be together more often, although of course a king is always roaming far and wide if he looks after his country as he should. There is lusty blood on both sides of Henry’s family and on yours too if I have heard aright. It will be one of the happiest days of my life when I see Henry on the throne of England.”

  “There may be many years before that comes to pass.”

  “Who knows?” said Matilda.

  I was very amused to hear that Louis had married again. His bride was Constance of Castile. Poor Louis, one thing I could be sure of—he would be a reluctant bridegroom.

  I wished him luck and I wondered what Constance would be like, and how she would relish those nights in a cold bed while he was on his knees praying ... for what? Courage to approach his wife? I could never feel anything but a mild and slightly contemptuous affection for Louis.

  Matilda and I grew close during that period. She liked to talk of the past. I recalled mine, too—life at the Courts of Love, marriage with Louis, my adventures in the Holy Land. We had both lived dangerously.

  I learned much about her and grew fond of her, but I could see clearly why the people of England had rejected her. Her life was a lesson to us all—but then I suppose most people’s lives are.

  She talked vividly of herself and I think she was glad to have an audience of a kindred spirit. She made me see how alarmed she must have been when, at the age of five, she was told that she was going to Germany. What effect would that have had on a child of her age to be told that she was going to be sent away from her home and all that was familiar to her, to be the wife of a great man—an Emperor who was thirty years older than she?

  “I was lucky,” she said. “Like you, I had good looks. What a boon they can be! Henry, my husband, was a kindly man and he liked the look of me from the start. But he sent all my English attendants away—they always do. They want to make you one of them. So I was German, my upbringing, my outlook. I spoke in German; I thought in German; I was the little German my husband intended me to be. But the English do not like the German ways, it seems. I was crowned almost as soon as I arrived—that was when I was betrothed to Henry. I remember how the Archbishop of Trier held me reverently in his arms while the Archbishop of Cologne put the crown on my head. And when I was twelve years old Henry married me and once again I was crowned. He was kind to me; he seemed to me a very old man. Thirty years is a great deal—particularly when one is very young. But I was happy with him, and it was a great blow when he died.”

  “Were you with him when he died?”

  “Yes, I was. It was in Utrecht. He wanted me at his bedside when he was dying and he put the scepter in my hands. He wanted everyone to know that he left his dominions to me. How strange it is that one is so greatly loved at certain times of one’s life and then ... the whole world turns cold toward one.”

  “You have your son Henry,” I reminded her.

  “Yes, we are close, my son and I. I want for him all that I have missed.”

  “And it seems he is going to get it.”

  “I have never doubted that he would succeed. He is made for distinction.”

  We could agree on that.

  “Tell me of your marriage to Geoffrey of Anjou,” I said.

  Her face hardened. “How I hated him! And he hated me, too. How different he was from my Emperor. I thought I should be loved in England as I had been in Germany. My father made the barons swear fealty to me. He was afraid, of course, that as I was a woman there might be a dispute about my taking the throne when he was gone.”

  “And he was right.”

  “I was furious when he married me to Geoffrey of Anjou.”

  “Could you not have refused?”

  “You did not know my father.” A gleam of admiration came into her eyes. “He was quite different from Stephen. That is why Stephen shows up as such a weakling. There was nothing weak about King Henry. He was determined to have a law-abiding country and he had one. He made stern rules. He had to, after Rufus who was no good at all and undid a good deal of the work which his father, the Conqueror, had set in motion. It is very important for a country to have a strong King.”

  I nodded vigorously, thinking what had happened in France because
of a mischievous pig.

  “I protested,” she went on. “But it was no good. And they sent me to Anjou. I hated him on sight. He was a boy of fifteen.”

  “He was exceptionally handsome.”

  “I did not care if he were Adonis. I had no wish to marry a foolish boy. It was an indignity. Ten years younger than I. I was not a little girl anymore. I was a young woman. I had been an Empress. I had been treated with the utmost respect by my husband and all those about me. In fact, they had implored me not to leave Germany. I could have stayed there. I was their Empress.”

  “I think I should have done so.”

  “My father would have insisted that I return. You cannot know the power of that man. But even he realized the marriage was a mistake. He might have made Geoffrey marry me but he could not make us live together. We quarreled all the time. He hated me as much as I hated him. He drove me out of Anjou and I went to Rouen and then to England, but for political reasons we had to be together again. I realized the need for heirs and so did he, and in spite of our dislike for each other we lived together, quarreling incessantly, of course, but at least giving us the chance to produce a child. I have never regretted that.”

  “It gave you Henry.”

  “And he has been the most important person in my life ever since.”

  “What of the other children?”

  “Geoffrey was born a year after Henry. You have already heard of him.”

  “Yes, it was his idea to capture me and force me to marry him, but that was just after my divorce from Louis.”

  “He will never succeed in anything. And then there is William. But for me, Henry is the one.”

  “For us both,” I said.

  “I realize that he has married a woman who is worthy of him.”

  “It makes me happy that you should approve of the match,” I said honestly.

  “I could do no other. I would not be so foolish as to say that your lands do not count. They do ... enormously. You have made him mightier. He now owns more of France than the King of that country. That is through you. And now, of course, there is England.”