Виктория Холт - The Hammer of the Scots

It was a good plan to have the children riding with them. There was nothing that appealed to humble people like children. He could see too that they liked the Queen. It was to her advantage that they had so disliked the previous one that they were inclined to think any successor was preferable; but there was something about Eleanor’s gentle demeanour and her obvious care for her children which entirely won their hearts.

The scene was set fair. He was sure of it. And it was for them to keep it thus.

Everywhere there were cheers and flowers strewn in their paths.

‘Long live the King! Long live the Queen.’ It was music in his ears.

He could not suppress a sly smile when his mother passed in the procession and an almost sullen silence fell on the crowd. Dear lady, he thought indulgently, she could never see that the people blamed her for everything that had gone wrong because she would bring her poor relations into the country. She could so easily have won their approval. But she simply had not bothered to do so. He loved her tenderly. He remembered her maternal care for him and her passionate devotion to her family; yet at the same time his reason had always told him that she had brought her unpopularity on herself. He remembered that time when the Londoners had pelted the barge, in which she was trying to escape, with refuse and heavy stones in the hope of drowning her. None of the family had ever forgiven the Londoners for that; and yet he understood their reasons. Beloved mother, she was so clever in so many ways, but she could never understand that kings and queens must have the approval of their subjects if they are going to stay safe on the throne.

They halted at the Castle of Tunbridge where Gilbert de Clare, called the Red on account of the colour of his hair, was waiting to receive the royal party and declare his fealty to the King.

Edward welcomed this, for Gilbert the Red was a good man to have on his side. A forthright man, Gilbert had never been afraid to make his opinions known, and therefore to be welcomed by him added to that sense of security which the greetings of the people had given Edward.

The Queen Mother was less pleased. She had thought they should not have stayed at Tonbridge. ‘There is a man who cannot be trusted,’ she had said to Edward. ‘He was not a good friend to your father. Now is the time to show men like Gilbert de Clare that it will go ill with them if they are disloyal to their King.’

‘My lady mother,’ said Edward courteously, ‘I know this man’s mind. He will be on whatever side he wishes and nothing would change that. If he dislikes my deeds he will be against me as he was against my father. He has now sworn fealty to me, which means that he is ready to support me.’

‘Providing he gets his way.’

‘’Tis not his way or my way, it is a matter of how the country is governed.’

‘And you will let him have a say in that and tell you what to do?’

‘Certainly he and the other barons must have a say. That is the way the people wish it to be. But rest assured, dear lady, that it shall be my will that is done – though it may be I have to persuade my subjects to accept it.’

‘They should obey unquestioningly.’

‘That is something they have never done. A king cannot prevent the humblest peasant from questioning if only in his mind.’

‘Peasants, dear son, do not possess minds.’

‘Ah, dear mother, let us not make the mistake of underestimating the people. We have seen what disastrous effects that can have.’

‘Your father never considered the people.’

‘There is truth in that and let us face it – he came near to losing his crown.’

‘Oh, how can you speak of your father thus!’

He put his arm about her. ‘We loved him dearly,’ he said, ‘but our love did not prevent the disasters of civil war. I am determined that that shall never happen in my reign. This is as strong an arm as ever wielded a sword, dear mother, but my heart and my brain will tell me when it must sheath that sword.’

The Queen Mother looked at her son with trepidation. She felt that her rule was coming to an end.

There was feasting fitting for the occasion in the great hall at Tonbridge. Gilbert de Clare sat beside the King and expressed his pleasure in his return. This was an honest expression of his feelings, for Gilbert was not a man for pretence. Like all sensible men, he wanted to see the country at peace with itself, for only then could prosperity come. He was three or four years younger than Edward and had become the most powerful of the barons. There had been a time when he had supported Simon de Montfort against the royal party, but he was a man who would not hesitate to change sides.

He would always prefer to support the King. Moreover there was a family connection. Twenty years before when the King’s half-brothers and sisters had invaded the country to see what advantages they could get, Henry had decided that he would be a good husband for his kinswoman, Alice of Angoulême. Gilbert had been not quite ten years old at the time and had had no say in the matter. The marriage had been quite unsatisfactory.

Now as they drank wine together and listened to the minstrels who sang for the pleasure of the company Gilbert contemplated the happiness of the King and his Queen and his eyes grew a little wistful – a fact which was not lost on the King.

‘I trust we shall now enjoy a period of peace,’ said Gilbert. ‘The barons are hopeful.’

‘I shall do my best to see that their hopes are fulfilled, for I believe they want the prosperity of the country as much as I do myself.’

‘It is what the barons have always wished for, my lord.’

A reminder of Gilbert’s honesty. He was not going to pretend to please the King and pander to some mistaken notion that the dead must be praised and that Henry was a saint. Henry had brought his troubles on himself and as he was King those were the country’s troubles. Gilbert implied that the barons would be behind the new King while the new King acted wisely and for the good of his country.

As that was exactly what Edward intended to do he did not resent Gilbert’s attitude.

‘This is indeed a happy augury,’ went on Gilbert. ‘You have your crusade behind you. The people like a crusader king as long as his crusade is in the past and they cannot be taxed to pay for it while their king goes off and leaves his country in hands other than his own. So they like a crusader king who has proved himself in advance to be a great warrior and if that king has a loving wife and a family it pleases them. That is a great boon to a man.’

‘Forgive me, my friend,’ said the King, ‘but do I sense that you are not happy on that score?’

‘I will tell you this, my lord: if I could rid myself of Alice and take another wife, gladly would I do so. She comes from an overbearing family. Your grandmother was a wild woman, sire, and when she was Queen of England had power even over King John for long after their marriage, but when she married Hugh de Lusignan she bred a race of harpies.’

Edward smiled faintly. Gilbert’s wife, Alice of Angoulême, was the niece of Alice of Lusignan who was Henry III’s half-sister.

‘You speak of my family, sir.’

‘And my own since I married into it. But truth is truth, and you, my lord, will be the first to recognise it as such.’

‘So you would divorce your wife and the Pope is proving intransigent, I’ll swear.’

‘You have guessed it. How easy it is to be trapped into marriage. I was a boy of ten. What can a boy of that age do but obey the wishes of his elders, and there he is saddled with a wife for the rest of his life.’

Edward laughed. His wife had been chosen for him, and yet had he had a chance to choose from the whole world he would have picked her. He was lucky. He must be sympathetic with poor Gilbert.