Passage to Pontefract Read online

  So it was war again.

  In the household of Lionel and his wife Elizabeth was a young man who interested Blanche. He was about the same age as her husband – bright-eyed, intelligent; seeming different from other pages. He was in favour with Elizabeth and Lionel and looked quite elegant in his parti-coloured breeches of red and black – the fashionable colours at the moment. He even had a silk paltok, the new kind of coat which was very elegant.

  Blanche would find his eyes on her whenever he was near. She was amused and asked him why he stared at her.

  He told her that he had never in his life seen anyone as beautiful as she was.

  Such a comment might have been impertinent from one in his lowly position but it was given with an air of dignity and Blanche graciously accepted it.

  She asked her sister-in-law who the young page was and Elizabeth laughed and said, ‘Oh, he is an interesting boy. He writes clever verses. Both Lionel and I encourage him. He is the son of a vintner who distinguished himself in the wars. His name is Geoffrey Chaucer.’

  Blanche found herself watching for the young man and she always had a smile for him when they met.

  His admiration gratified her. There were plenty to admire her of course, but there was something rather unusual about the young page.

  In due course the army left and Blanche must say farewell to her husband.

  The Queen was sad. She hated these wars. ‘Would to God the King had never got it into his head that he had a claim to the throne of France,’ she confided to Blanche. ‘How much happier we should all be if there were not this continual fighting. I never sleep peacefully when the King is away because when he is he is always engaged in battle. My dear Blanche, you will condole with me for alas, John is with him.’

  They were great friends and had been all Blanche’s life for Blanche had spent a large part of her early life in Philippa’s household. Children loved the Queen; she was the natural mother and even those who were not her own children had a share of her affection.

  ‘When they go away,’ Philippa mourned, ‘we can never be sure when they will come back. It may be a year or more.’

  ‘I hope by the time John returns that our child will be born and oh how fervently I hope that it will be a boy.’

  ‘My dear child, you must not hope too much. It is better to wait patiently and see what God sends you. If it is a girl don’t fret. You are both so young. You have time to get boys.’

  ‘John longs for a boy.’

  ‘John would. I sometimes think he is the most ambitious of my sons. And Lionel is the happiest because he is content with his lot. He was born in Antwerp. You see his father had started the war against France even then and I was with him. Oh this war, will it never end! But let us talk of happier things than war. I trust you are resting when you feel tired. I have some fine silk which I will give you for some of the baby’s garments.’

  The company of Queen Philippa was certainly comforting. Blanche needed that comfort when her child was born, for the longed-for son was denied her. It was a little girl they brought and laid in her arms.

  For herself she would have been content. But she thought what John’s disappointment would be when he heard that she had not given him the boy he longed for.

  Blanche wanted to call her Philippa after the Queen and Philippa was delighted that the child should be so named.

  * * *

  By May of the next year the army had returned to England. There was talk of a divine interference which had changed the King’s attitude towards France. He had marched to Paris and believed that victory was close. The French had offered terms for peace which Edward would not accept. He had continued to ravage the country and was so doing when suddenly a terrible storm of hail, lightning and thunder had descended upon him. Rumour had it that six thousand men and horses had been killed by the elements which had only abated when the King had lifted his arms to Heaven and sworn that if God would stop pouring his wrath from the Heavens he would accept the terms for peace which the French were offering. It was like a miracle, said rumour. The storm had ceased, and Edward prepared to return to England. King Jean of France was released after four years of imprisonment and Edward declared he would accept the ransom which had been offered.

  ‘Peace for a while,’ said the Queen. ‘We must be grateful for it even though it may not last.’

  So home came the warriors and when John of Gaunt was introduced to his little daughter, he hid the chagrin he felt on account of her sex. His delight in his marriage persisted, and it was not long before Blanche was pregnant once more and this time John was convinced that they would have a boy.

  Great was his joy when a boy was born to them.

  ‘Let us call him John after his father,’ said Blanche. So John the child became.

  Alas, fate was cruel. Only a few weeks after his birth the child sickened and all the efforts of the royal physicians could not save him.

  John lapsed into gloom and even Blanche found it difficult to rouse him from his melancholy.

  ‘We shall have a boy,’ she assured him. ‘I know it. I shall not rest content until I have given you the son you long for.’

  He kissed her and tried to hide his disappointment.

  Fate had been unkind to him, he thought. First giving him an overweening ambition and making him the fourth son and then giving him a daughter and when a son was born to him taking the child away.

  But fate was full of tricks and that year was to bring great change into his life.

  Some years before a terrible pestilence had swept through Europe enveloping England. Thousands had died of it and it had been spoken of with dread even after it no longer raged.

  Very few who developed the plague ever survived. When it attacked, a discoloured swelling would be perceived under the armpits. These would be followed very quickly by more swellings and in a few hours the sufferer would be dead. So infectious was the plague that it could be caught by coming near to the body of someone who had died by it. It had spread through the country like a hurricane, impoverishing it, wiping out the population in its thousands. It was only when ships had ceased to call at the ports and grass grew among the cobbles of the streets that it had subsided and then had come the terrible reckoning, when there were few left to till the fields and to carry on the country’s business.

  The Black Death would be talked of until the end of time.

  And now it had returned.

  However something had been learned from the previous visitation. The plague had struck its cruellest blows in the towns where people lived close together, and those who could left them for the country. A careful watch was made so that no people from abroad should enter the country if there had been plague on their ships.

  John and Blanche were with the court at Windsor when the news was brought. Blanche could not believe it was true. She was stunned by her grief. Her father Duke Henry of Lancaster had taken the sickness and died.

  John tried to comfort her. He knew how devoted she had been to her father, but all the time he was thinking: Lancaster is dead. The richest man next to the King, and his daughters are his heirs. That vast fortune will be divided between Blanche and Matilda.

  He, the impecunious fourth son of a King, would be one of the richest men in the Kingdom, and riches meant power. Was this Fate’s way of compensating him for the loss of his son?

  He could not talk of this to Blanche. It would shock her beyond belief. Dear Blanche! She was good and noble and he loved her dearly, but she did not understand ambition and particularly his.

  Marie would have understood as would one other – Isolda.

  He had always cared for Isolda. He had made sure that she would be well provided for. He had kept her in the household. It was strange that an ambitious man should find comfort with an old Flemish woman. But she understood him; she had nurtured him; perhaps it was she who had first sown the seeds in the heart of her little king.

  ‘My dear one,’ she said when he called on her, �
�your father-in-law is dead. Your wife will be a very rich woman now.’

  ‘She shares with her sister. When I think of what would be hers if she were an only child …’

  Isolda laughed. ‘It is like you to want it all. And rightly so. If I had my way everything you ask should be yours.’

  ‘Everyone is not as kind to me as you are, Isolda.’

  ‘You were always my little king. And the Lady Blanche must share. It is a pity. But still there will be great riches for you. What of his title? Duke of Lancaster eh.’

  ‘That would die with him. There will be the earldom though.’

  ‘And I doubt not if it came your way your father would make a duke of you.’

  ‘There is Matilda. She is the elder.’

  ‘A pity … a pity … And a lady who will claim to the last penny I doubt not.’

  ‘I think Matilda will want all that is hers.’

  ‘But she has no heirs, my king.’

  John shook his head.

  ‘Who knows …’ said Isolda.

  ‘It is strange so soon after the death of my son …’

  ‘Fate will be good to you. I promise you. I can see the crown there … I always have.’

  ‘Is it true, Isolda, that you have the powers?’

  She laughed. ‘Those of us who have them are never sure. It is only the charlatans who know so much and invent so much more. But in my heart and in my bones I know there is a crown and it is close to you.’

  ‘Perhaps a son …’

  ‘You will have a son. A great son. I promise you.’

  She took his hand and kissed it. ‘I shall watch and pray and work for you.’

  ‘God bless you, Isolda. May all my dreams and hopes come to naught if I ever forsake you.’

  She comforted him, Isolda did. She was the only one to whom he dared open his heart.

  * * *

  The greatest blow of all to John’s schemes fell that very year when his father-in-law’s death had made him one of the richest men in the country.

  Joan of Kent returned to England. Joan, who had scandalised the court by her frivolous behaviour in living with Sir Thomas Holland while she was betrothed to the Earl of Salisbury, had become a widow.

  Joan was beautiful. In her youth she had been known as the Fair Maid of Kent. The Black Prince had been enamoured of her but in such a desultory way that it had obviously rendered the Fair Maid so impatient that she had turned elsewhere. She was voluptuous and flighty, she liked to be the centre of admiration and of course she had once had hopes of marrying the Prince and being the next Queen of England.

  This would have been acceptable because she was royal, her father being Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent and the son of Edward the First.

  But Joan had married Sir Thomas Holland and had sons by him. Holland had done well by the marriage. He seemed contented with Joan as a wife as she did with him as a husband, and Holland had recently assumed the title of Earl of Kent which had come through his wife. He had been made governor of the Fort of Creyk and the pair had lived very happily in Normandy. Now he was dead and Joan with her boys had come to England.

  She was thirty-three years of age – young enough of course to marry again. She was still beautiful, though she had lost her willowy figure and was a plump matron now, but it seemed she was as fascinating as ever.

  John received the news from the Queen who was half delighted, half apprehensive.

  ‘Your brother has married,’ she told John. ‘It has surprised us all.’

  ‘Married. Which … brother?’

  ‘Edward of course. I think he was always attracted by her and now she has overcome his objections to marriage and it has already taken place in secret if you please.’

  ‘My dear lady mother, pray tell me of whom you speak.’

  ‘I speak of the Prince of Wales and his wife of Kent.’

  ‘Joan! She is so recently widowed.’

  ‘I know but she was never one to let the grass grow under her feet.’

  ‘I thought there was talk of her marrying Sir Bernard de Brocas, that knight of Gascony. He is deeply enamoured of her, I believe, and it seemed most suitable.’

  ‘Suitable indeed but not good enough for Joan. Edward approached her about de Brocas and she made it very clear that she would take none but himself and then he realised that that was what he wanted and was the reason for his remaining unmarried all this time. They are deeply in love.’

  ‘And what says the King?’

  ‘He was uneasy at first. He thinks Joan over flighty and of course – though pray God it will be many years yet – she will be the next Queen of England.’

  John was silent. Dreams were disintegrating before his eyes. They will have children, he thought. She has already shown herself fertile with Holland. There will be her sons to stand between me and the crown. And first Edward himself. Who would have believed that life could deal him such blows! After making him a rich man it had then made well nigh impossible the greatest dream of all.

  There was nothing to do but accept the position. The Black Prince was married at last and to his sweetheart of years ago. Neither of them was in their first youth but there were a few years ahead for childbearing. How could fate be so cruel!

  Of course there was some delay. But Joan and the Prince snapped their fingers at ceremonies. At least Joan did and Edward followed her. But in due course the papal dispensation arrived and in October the espousals were celebrated at Lambeth by the Archbishop of Canterbury. That Christmas Joan and Edward entertained the entire royal family at their home in Berkhamsted; and the people from the surrounding country joined in the festivities. It was a great occasion, the marriage of the Black Prince, which was all the more to be enjoyed because it had been delayed so long.

  After Christmas great preparations were afoot for the Prince and his family to leave for France. The King had made him Prince of Aquitaine and Gascony and he was to set out with his wife and entourage for Bordeaux.

  * * *

  During that very month when Edward and Joan sailed for Bordeaux, Matilda, Blanche’s sister, arrived in England to take possession of her inheritance.

  She had not been more than a few weeks in England when she caught the plague and within a day or so was dead.

  Blanche was now her father’s sole heiress and the entire Lancastrian fortune, by courtesy of her marriage, was in the hands of John of Gaunt.

  He reflected with Isolda on the strangeness of fate which seemed determined to shower blessings on him with one hand and take them away with the other.

  So there he was rich beyond his dreams but his path to the throne it seemed blocked for ever by Edward’s marriage to the lusty Joan.

  He considered the situation with Isolda. Joan was two years older than her husband; but she had already borne five children and could bear Edward sons. Once she did that – one or two boys … that would be the death knell of his hopes.

  ‘The greatest man in the kingdom …’ crooned Isolda.

  ‘Next to the King and my brother of Wales. There is also Lionel.’

  He was in possession of the earldom of Richmond, of Derby, Leicester and of course Lancaster. His father, delighted at the turn of events, rejoicing in his foresight in arranging the match with Blanche of Lancaster, decided to make him a Duke, and one dull November day John knelt before his father and was girded with the sword, and the cap was set on his head while he was proclaimed a Duke – Duke of Lancaster.

  More than ever he longed for a son but when Blanche was next brought to bed, she was delivered of a daughter. He could have wept with mortification, though he kept his disappointment from Blanche.

  They called the girl Elizabeth and he loved her even as he loved her elder sister Philippa, but he went on longing for a boy.

  His bitterness was great when news came from Aquitaine that Joan had produced a fine boy. There was great rejoicing throughout the court and the country. It was fitting that the Black Prince should give the country an heir who
would be exactly like himself. They christened the boy Edward. There was a feeling that that was a kingly name. People forgot that there had been one Edward – the Second – who had been slightly less than kingly. The Prince was there to step into his father’s shoes, already loved and revered by the people – and he had not disappointed them. There was another Edward and a little one in his cradle to grow up in the light of his father’s wisdom – a little king in the making.

  John curbed his disappointment. He would have hated Blanche to know his feelings. His love for her was idealised, as was hers for him.

  He could talk to Isolda about the new turn of events, but she continued to look wise – almost as though she were some soothsayer who could see into the future. He half believed that she feigned this for his pleasure; but sometimes he felt that she had some insight and she continued to insist that there was a crown close to him.

  Blanche was once more pregnant. So was Joan of Kent.

  * * *

  The King was in close conversation with his son and on the table before him lay letters from Bordeaux.

  ‘Your brother is eager that you should join him,’ said Edward, ‘and I am sure when you know the reason you will be eager to do so. The King of Castile is at Bordeaux.’

  John knew that there was trouble in Castile, because Henry of Trastamare, Pedro’s bastard brother, had for some time believed he had a right to the throne and would rule better than Pedro.

  ‘Henry of Trastamare now reigns in Castile and Pedro is asking our help to regain his throne,’ went on the King.

  ‘Is it any quarrel of ours?’ asked John.

  ‘Your brother believes and I with him that it is no good thing for bastards to depose legitimate heirs. Moreover Pedro has promised to make little Edward King of Galicia and to reward well those who help him.’

  ‘If he can be trusted that seems fair enough.’

  ‘I am sure your brother agrees with that. He asks that you join him there. My dear son, it is my wish that you make preparations to leave without delay.’