The Plantagenet Prelude - Plaidy Jean (книги серия книги читать бесплатно полностью .TXT) 📗

‘We will make for Anjou,’ she said. ‘There we shall be safe for that is the Count of Anjou’s land, and the Count of Anjou is the Duke of Normandy and were I to fall into his hands it would be with the greatest of pleasure for he is the man I am going to marry.’

So they made for Anjou and as they crossed into it she was exultant.

Her complacency was short-lived. As they crossed the meadows they saw a rider in the distance, a young man who begged to speak to the Queen.

He told her he had been in the employ of Henry Plantagenet, now Duke of Normandy, and had been passed into the service of Henry’s young brother, Geoffrey Plantagenet.

‘My lady,’ he said, ‘I still serve the Duke of Normandy and so I come to tell you that four miles ahead lies an ambush.

Geoffrey Plantagenet plans to abduct you, to take you to his castle, and to keep you there until you promise to marry him. He hates his brother because he has inherited much while he has but three castles in Anjou.’

Eleonore laughed aloud.

‘Take this young man,’ she said, ‘give him food and from henceforth he shall serve me. I promise you, my good fellow, that ere long you shall find yourself in the service of the Duke of Normandy for any who serves me will serve him also. We will now change course. We will leave Anjou and go south to Aquitaine. We will ride to Poitiers and I promise you it will not be long before we have reached my city.’

Warily they rode. There had been two indications of what ambitious men would attempt to win the hand of an heiress.

‘None shall take by force what is mine to give,’ said Eleonore.

They came to her city of Poitiers and she took up her lodging in the chateau; there she sent a messenger to Henry to tell him that she would await him there and when he came they would be married without delay.

How long the waiting seemed and yet she knew he came with all speed! It was necessary for them to marry quickly and that no hint of who her bridegroom was to be should reach Louis’s ears. As Duchess of Aquitaine she was his vassal and he had the right to forbid her to marry a man of whom he did not approve, and it would not be only Louis who disapproved of a match between Normandy and Aquitaine.

At length he came. She was in the courtyard waiting to greet him. With great joy they embraced and eagerly discussed the arrangements for the wedding which must take place without delay. They would not wait for the ceremony of course, although each realised the importance of it. They had been lovers before and were impatient for each other.

The wedding was to take place on Whit Sunday and it would not be celebrated with the pomp which had accompanied that of Eleonore to the King of France for it was most important for it to take place before anyone could stop it.

However spies had already conveyed to Louis that Henry of Normandy had joined Eleonore in Poitiers and that arrangements were going on to celebrate their marriage.

Louis was furious. Not only was he jealous of Eleonore’s obsession with young Henry, but if Aquitaine and Normandy were joined by the marriage of these two, then Henry of Normandy would be the most powerful man in the country.

He demanded that his vassal, Henry of Normandy, come to Paris immediately. That was a summons which Henry could only ignore.

Instead of obeying the King he went to the cathedral with Eleonore and there, on that warm Whit Sunday, Eleonore of Aquitaine became the bride of Henry of Normandy.

Chapter V

QUEEN OF ENGLAND

Rarely had Louis’s passions been so strongly aroused as when he heard of the marriage of Eleonore and Henry. In the first place he could not endure to think of her with that young virile man. Henry of Normandy was uncouth; he might be learned, but he was rough in manners and Eleonore had always been so fastidious. What was the attraction? He knew. It was that overwhelming sensuality in her which had both fascinated and yet appalled him.

There was more to it than mere jealousy. There was the political implication.

Henry of Normandy had now become the most powerful man in France. Apart from Normandy he would now be in control of Aquitaine, Maine and Anjou; which meant that he possessed more land than anyone in France, not excluding the King.

Louis’s ministers deplored the divorce and its consequences. They implied that they had told him so and he should never have agreed to let Eleonore go. Only a few weeks after the separation and she had changed the face of France, geographically and political y! Henry had a touch of his great-grandfather in him which was recognised by many. He was undoubtedly a chip off the old conquering block. It was as though William the Conqueror was reborn.

If he got control of England, which seemed likely, and was in possession of so large a slice of France, what power would be his? And there could be no doubt that he would know how to exploit it.

Louis discussed the matter at length with his counsellors.

Men such as Henry of Normandy had many enemies. There was his brother for one. Geoffrey of Anjou was incensed because his father had left him only three castles. It was true that there had been a proviso in his father’s will that if and when Henry became King of England, Anjou was to be passed over to Geoffrey, but knowing Henry, Geoffrey rather doubted this would come to pass. Henry had always been too fond of his possessions to give anything up. If Geoffrey was ever going to gain possession of Anjou he felt he must do it now before Henry had the might of England behind him to help him hold it.

There was one other who feared Henry and that was Eustace, the son of Stephen. Because his father was the King, Eustace rather naturally believed that on his death he should take the crown. Matilda had found it impossible to

wrest that desirable object from Stephen so why should her son become King on Stephen’s death? That Matilda had the first right to the throne mattered not to Eustace. He was determined to fight for it.

As Louis’s ministers pointed out, here were two stalwart allies, both with grievances against Henry and much to gain.

Let there be an alliance between them and surely if they stood together against Henry they would have a fair chance of victory.

Louis called a meeting and plans were discussed. Both Eustace and Geoffrey were exultant at the thought of having their revenge on Henry. They hated him fiercely for Henry, with his careless ways, his rather crude manners and his innate knowledge that he was going to make a mark on the world, aroused their bitter envy.

In the family circle Geoffrey had always been obliged to take second place to his elder brother. It had been clear that Henry was his father’s favourite, and his mother, whose tongue and tempers they all tried to escape, had a devotion for Henry which seemed alien to her fierce headstrong egotistical nature. It seemed as though she had transferred all her hopes and ambitions – and they had been monumental – to her eldest son. Geoffrey had always lived in Henry’s shadow and he hated him for it.

Eustace hated Henry of Normandy with an equal fervour.

If Geoffrey was a weak man, Eustace was not. He had fierce passions; he longed for power and often he despised his father for his weakness. Eustace was such that he would have stopped at nothing to reach his goal. He was violent and his desire for power was much greater than any qualities he possessed to attain and hold it.

These were the chief allies whom Louis drew to him. As a further gesture he offered his sister Constance to Eustace as a bride.

‘It is fitting,’ said Louis, ‘that the sister of the King of France should in time be the Queen of England.’