The Traitor's Wife Page 23

  “Hugh was dead wrong,” Gladys said heavily. “They say they have hundreds of men at arms and thousands of foot soldiers, all of them looting what they can carry off and burning what they can't.”

  Eleanor was surprised to hear her own voice so flat. “Who are they?”

  Gladys put her arm around Eleanor. “Your brothers-in-law, Audley and Damory. Roger Mortimer of Wigmore and his old uncle. Hereford. Mowbray. Lord Berkeley. Sir John Maltravers. Many others whose names I don't know.”

  From a distance the chamberlain's voice called, “Lady Despenser! The children are in the carts, ready to go. Are you?”

  Eleanor stared at the fastenings of the cloak Gladys threw over her as if she had never seen them before. “Yes,” she said dazedly.

  Several days later, dirty, exhausted, and aching all over, Eleanor and her household arrived at Westminster. Though no one appeared to have been pursuing them, they had not dared to go east at a more leisurely pace, their progress already being slowed by the children's needs. Save to feed them and to rest for a few hours at nightfall, they had not stopped.

  “Eleanor! Thank God you are safe.” Hugh held her tightly, then pulled back to survey the children, covered with dust from the road. He kissed them one by one. “What poor little ragamuffins. Are they all right?”

  “They are fine. They are merely bewildered, like I am. How did it come to this, Hugh?”

  Hugh shook his head. “We underestimated the whoresons, didn't we? But let us go to the king now, love. He has much to say to us.”

  In his chamber, the king sat with Hugh the elder, Pembroke, and Arundel. Eleanor was shocked at her father-in-law's appearance. Though he had long since lost most of the hair on his head, he had otherwise escaped the ravages of age—he was close to sixty—and could have passed for a man ten years younger. No more. He looked weary and stooped and chilled as he sat by the fire, but he managed a smile when Eleanor entered the room. “Daughter.”

  Edward said quietly, “Seeing as you have no home at the moment, Niece, this shall be your home now.”

  “No home?”

  “They are still ravaging our lands,” said Hugh the elder, looking out the window. “Killing our men, imprisoning others, burning, looting. We cannot possibly return to them at this time.” He looked at Hugh. “This is your doing, boy. Are you satisfied?”

  “Father, I have said—”

  “You have expressed your regret, very well indeed. But what of my lands, that my grandfather saved from forfeiture in King Henry's time to give to my mother?”

  “Good God, Father, we shall get them back! The damage can be fixed! New livestock can be bought, new crops planted—”

  “And what good will that do us in exile?”

  Pembroke coughed. “One hopes it will not come to that.” He turned away from the Despensers to the king. “Your grace, I know you and the Lords Despenser want revenge. Pray forbear. Your grace has not the men at present to fight, and a full-scale war would devastate England. We are only now beginning to recover from the famine, the Scottish wars.”

  “Then what is your advice?”

  “Summon Parliament, let the barons' grievances be aired in the manner of civilized men. At worst, it will buy you time.”

  “There is sense in what you say,” admitted Edward. He looked toward the window seat where Eleanor sat. “I will summon my council and discuss the matter further. Hugh, look to my niece. The poor lass is crying her heart out.”

  Eleanor swatted a fly as the queen grimaced her way through a contraction. The pain passing, she grumbled, “Really, Lady Despenser! Cannot something be done about this leak?”

  With singularly ill timing, the queen's labor had coincided with a heavy rainstorm and with the roof in her chamber springing a leak. “Not without bringing some men in here, your grace, and I am not sure who would find that more disagreeable, you or they. But we could certainly move you to a more suitable chamber, and it seems as if there would be plenty of time to do so.” She swatted again. “Maybe one with fewer flies.”

  The queen shook her head. “I intend to give birth in my own chamber, not in borrowed lodgings. Really, Eleanor, this is your husband's fault, you know. If he were not so stingy with the king's money, save when his own self is concerned, this leak would not have sprung.”

  Eleanor counted to ten, then to twenty. “The king is well pleased with my husband's work as his chamberlain, your grace, and it seems we are quite comfortable here except for the leak. They will occur in a building this old. But what if we moved your bed a foot or two? Then this bucket would catch the leak, and you would be well out of harm's way.”

  “Very well.”

  Eleanor had not wanted to attend the queen in her childbirth, but as the alternative was sitting in her chamber worrying, she had agreed to accompany her to the Tower, where Isabella regularly held forth on the shortcomings of Eleanor's husband. The king, following the advice of Pembroke, had summoned Parliament to meet on July 15, but the opposition—all carrying royal standards—had continued to devastate the Despensers' estates throughout May and June. Soon they would be on their way to London, and rumor had it—as the elder Despenser had predicted—that the king's opponents would be content with nothing less than the Despensers' exile.

  Leaky ceiling and all, a few hours after this exchange between Eleanor and the queen, on July 5, 1321, the queen gave birth to another girl. Edward gave Isabella the usual gift and pronounced the child's name—Joan, after both Isabella's mother and Edward's favorite sister—but the poor infant girl went otherwise quite unheralded in the weeks that followed.

  Lancaster and a group of barons and knights had held a meeting at Dunstable at the end of June. The king had sent his steward, Bartholomew Badlesmere, to the assembly to urge that the destruction of the Despensers' lands cease and that the lords present their grievances before Parliament in the manner of civilized men, but Badlesmere instead had joined the king's opponents. After that meeting, the attendees had gone on to loot more Despenser lands, including Hugh the elder's beloved Loughborough. Eleanor had never seen her father-in-law so dejected as when the news came to him. Immediately afterward he departed the court to go to Canterbury, where he planned to pay a pilgrimage visit to Becket's shrine and await developments in the royal castle nearby.

  Hugh the younger, cast down at his father's lingering anger at him, had stayed in London with the king, but with the opening of Parliament had deemed it prudent to reside on a boat, where he cruised up and down the Thames by day and visited the king and Eleanor at night when feasible.

  With the king preoccupied, the queen ensconced in her (now dry) chamber following the birth of Joan, and the two Hughs absent, Eleanor, having been replaced in the queen's chamber by Joan of Bar, found herself relying on her son Hugh and the king's bastard son, Adam, for news. Hugh, now thirteen, and Adam, now fifteen, were the best of friends. Adam had spent most of his childhood at Langley, with a tutor, while Edward pondered his future. He had been inclined to have the boy enter the Church, where other royal bastards had flourished in the past, but Adam's own inclinations tended toward knighthood. For several years, he, like Hugh, had been a squire in the king's household. In a few years, Edward would find him a suitable wife.

  When their duties were over, Hugh and Adam liked nothing better than to roam the city, dressed nondescriptly so as not to attract the attention of robbers. It was to their wanderings that Eleanor owed the news that came to her at the end of July.

  “My uncles Audley and Damory have finally come to London,” said Hugh in his mother's chamber at Westminster, where Eleanor spent most of her time these days. She had thought it wise not to show herself much in the great hall. “So have Roger Mortimer and the Earl of Hereford.”

  “Lord Mortimer is lodging at Clerkenwell,” said Adam. “The Earl of Hereford is at Holborn. Lord Damory is at the New Temple, and Lord Audley is at Smithfield. They entered the town today, all wearing green tunics with yellow quarters on the right arm with
my father's insignia on them. To pretend that they are loyal to him, Father says.”

  Adam's voice swelled with pride when he said, “Father,” and Eleanor once again thought it a great pity that the king's eldest son should have been born a bastard. As the king himself had derived so little pleasure from his role, however, perhaps Adam was better off for it. Her mind was too much on this news, though, to consider Adam further. “So they have come at last to London. Are they armed?”

  “To the hilt,” said Hugh.

  “Good God, Hugh! I hope they did not recognize you boys.”

  “Not in what we were wearing.” Adam grinned. “We sat in a tavern with a bunch of them for two hours, and they paid us no mind.” He paused. “Lady Despenser, we heard that they want the exile of Lord Despenser and his father. Do you think that could happen?”

  “I pray not, Adam.”

  “But it happened earlier with my father's friend Gaveston.”

  Hugh's usually cheerful face turned somber. He was growing up, Eleanor reflected sadly. Just yesterday, she had caught him eyeing the king's laundress as if the rather blowsy woman were Venus herself, and he was itching, he'd informed Adam the day before, to go fight the Scots. Eleanor prayed nightly that the truce stayed in effect. “Gaveston died, Mama. Didn't he?”

  “Yes. But the situation is much different. The king and Gaveston relied on the earls' word that Gaveston would be safe with them. They broke that word, and he had been left with no means of resistance. Knowing that, your father is staying well away from his enemies, and he has soldiers on that boat with him.”

  “If he goes into exile, will we go with him?”

  Eleanor had asked Hugh that very question, but Hugh had only shrugged. “We'll deal with that when it becomes necessary, and I hope it will not,” he had said. Now Eleanor echoed her husband. “There is no point in worrying about this now, Hugh. Now that they are here for Parliament, some just agreement will surely be reached.”

  Pembroke had enjoyed a few weeks with his new bride in France, which was fortunate, for as soon as the newlyweds arrived in England, Pembroke was summoned to court to negotiate between the king and his opponents. As the barons were threatening to burn London from Charing Cross to Westminster, and were even threatening the king with deposition, Pembroke's services seemed sorely needed. The Archbishop of Canterbury, and a host of bishops, had already tried to break the stalemate, and might as well have been talking to two sets of walls.

  “This must end, your grace.” Pembroke took a deep breath. Although his sympathies edged closer to the side of the king's opponents than to that of the king and the Despensers, his own father and uncles, half brothers to Henry III, had been deeply unpopular in England themselves at times, and he could understand the king's stubborn refusal to give way to the barons. Yet this could not go on. Nothing was getting accomplished; already in May a delegation from Gascony had gone home, unheard, after spending three weeks seeking an audience with the king, Hugh the younger, or himself, all of whom were too preoccupied with this crisis to see them. “You will lose your kingdom at this rate. Have you the money to fight these men now? You know you don't, not the money or the men.”

  “Hugh has been the epitome of loyalty to me.” Pembroke shifted uneasily. During the barons' meetings, Bartholomew Badlesmere, with a convert's enthusiasm, had produced a document in which he claimed that Hugh had declared that homage was owed to the crown but not necessarily to the person who wore it. The Bishop of Rochester had denounced the document as a forgery, and Pembroke suspected he was correct. Yet the charge had stuck. “He has never wavered from my side, neither he nor his father. Why should I send them off to please these men?”

  “It is for the common good, your grace. With them gone England can yet be united and strong, and you will reign in power and glory.”

  “And without the man I hold dearest in the world.” The king looked out upon the Thames. “There he sails as we speak, Pembroke.”

  “For God's sake, man, consider! They have threatened you with deposition. They may have the numbers and the men to do it. Think of your successor, a mere boy of nine. You will be handing the government over to Lancaster, you know. He would be worse than Des—your grace, you must not for any living soul lose your kingdom. He perishes on the rocks who loves another more than himself! I can say no more, your grace. If you are not convinced, you never will be, and you will suffer the consequences.” He added deferentially, “I fear.”

  From a corner in the room, skirts rustled. Both the king and Pembroke had forgotten about the queen, who with the infant Joan had arrived at Westminster from the Tower only a day or so before. She stood and walked a few paces over to the king, only to drop at his feet. “Your grace, I beg that you listen to the good Earl of Pembroke. Would you risk your crown, your child's crown, for this man who is so unworthy of you? Your grace, I have been your faithful queen and consort, borne you four thriving children, supported you in all. And now I am asking you only one thing. Banish them! 'Tis for the good of the realm, my lord. I have come to love this England of yours. If you cannot do it for my sake, do it for hers.” The queen bent her head and kissed the king's robe.

  Pembroke, astonished at this impassioned speech, sank to his knees also. Looking at their downturned heads, the king felt a strange mixture of annoyance, admiration, and weariness. Weariness predominated. He raised them to their feet. “Pembroke, have the Archbishop of Canterbury summon the barons here forthwith.”

  As a squire in the king's household, on August 14, 1321, Adam had every right to be in the great hall at Westminster where the leaders of the Church, the earls, and the barons had assembled, although his friend Hugh le Despenser had been advised to keep distant of the proceedings.

  The group dropped collectively to its knees as the king entered, flanked by Pembroke and the Earl of Richmond. In response to an impatient gesture by the king, the magnates arose and waited for the king to speak. They did not have to wait long. In a cold, clipped voice, the king said, “Out of necessity, and at the urging of the great men of the realm and my beloved queen, I have agreed to the exile of the Hugh le Despensers, father and son.”

  He turned and walked out of the room. After a few minutes Adam slipped out also. Someone, he thought, should tell his cousin Lady Despenser of the news.

  “You wished to speak with me, my lady?”

  Though Adam had hastened to Eleanor with his news, he had been forestalled by the king himself, who had told Eleanor in the gentlest possible manner. “Yes, your grace. Why did you urge the king to exile my husband and his father?”

  The queen stared at Eleanor coolly. “You are rather presumptuous, particularly in light of your husband's position. It is not for me to justify my actions to you. But to satisfy your curiosity, I believed it was for the good of the realm.”

  “My husband and my father-in-law have always been loyal to the king. Who has been more loyal than they? How will the realm be served by exiling them?”

  “You seem to have forgotten, my lady, that your husband brought this on himself. His greed has made him many enemies in the March.”

  “That was between him and them. That is no cause to exile him, to take him away from the land of his birth! Where will he go?”

  “That is his concern, isn't it?” The queen lifted her hand in dismissal. “Under the circumstances, it would not be mutually beneficial for you to continue to attend me, I gather, but you and your children may certainly stay at court if you choose.”

  “With all respect, your grace, it is my uncle who shall determine whether we may stay at court, not you.” She curtseyed and backed out of the room.

  Parliament dispersed on August 22, having drawn up an enormously long indictment against Hugh in which he was charged with some things that were true, such as taking Hugh d'Audley's lands and having Llywelyn Bren executed, some things that were false, such as having declared that allegiance was not due to a king who did not guide himself by reason, and some things that were deba
table, such as having guided and counseled the king evilly. The Despensers had until August 29 to leave England from the port of Dover. Those who had attacked their lands and the people on and near them were given full pardons.

  The day after Parliament disbanded, the king and Eleanor walked to his cottage of Burgoyne, where a man dressed in seaman's garb awaited them. “Hugh!”

  The king, who longed to embrace Hugh as much as Eleanor did, tactfully stepped into another chamber. At last husband and wife drew apart, and Eleanor asked, “Hugh, where shall we go? I understand that your father left for France as soon as the messenger brought him the news. Shall we join him?”

  “Let the king come in here again, my love, and we shall discuss our plans.”

  Edward entered the room on cue. “My dear niece, we have been thinking about this matter, and we think it best that you and the children stay in England for now.”

  “Not here, without Hugh!”

  “It is only for a short time, my love.”

  “A short time? You have been exiled! Good God, Hugh, you are not thinking of coming back like Gaveston, are you? They killed him!”

  “Which I have not forgotten for a moment,” Edward said, staring out a window. “My brother Piers came back ill-advisedly. We had no plans; we trusted in the honor of men who had none. With Hugh it shall be different. He will not come back until it is safe to come back, and when it is, it will be a black day for our enemies.”

  “Until that day comes to pass,” Hugh said, “you and our children are safest here. Don't fear, my love. We shall be reunited soon, forever, and in England.”

  Eleanor shook her head. “I understand none of this and like none of it, but you must know best. But Hugh, where shall you go?”

  Hugh smiled. “Ned—the king, that is—intends to put me under the protection of the men of the Cinque Ports. I have developed a taste for this seafaring life.”

  October 1321 to March 1322