Maurice Druon - The King Without a Kingdom

Ah! Here comes my palanquin … Would you prefer to return to the saddle? I think I will sleep a little so as to be refreshed upon arrival … But you understand now, Archambaud, why the Order of the Star rapidly came to almost nothing, and was spoken of less and less as the years went by.

HAVE YOU NOTICED, my nephew, that wherever we stop for the night, be it at Limoges, Nontron or elsewhere, everyone asks us for news of the King of Navarre, as if our kingdom’s fate depended on this prince? In truth, the situation in which we find ourselves is a strange one indeed. The King of Navarre is being held prisoner in an Artois castle by his cousin the King of France. The King of France is in turn being held prisoner in a Bordeaux house by his cousin, the heir to the throne of England. The dauphin, heir to the French throne, struggles with his restless bourgeoisie and his remonstrating Estates-General in Paris. And yet it is the King of Navarre that everyone seems to be worrying about. You heard the bishop himself say: ‘They said that the dauphin was a great friend of Monseigneur of Navarre. Isn’t he going to release him?’ Good Lord! I sincerely hope not. This young man has been well advised to do nothing of the sort thus far. And I am concerned about that attempted escape that the knights of the Navarre clan put together to deliver their leader. It failed; of that we should be thankful. But there is good reason to believe that they will soon try again.

Yes, yes, I learned a good many things during our stay in Limoges. And I am preparing to write to the pope about them as soon as we arrive in La Péruse this evening. If it was pure stupidity on the part of King John to lock up his Monseigneur of Navarre, it would be more pure stupidity on the part of the dauphin to release him today. I know of no greater meddler than the Charles they call the Bad; and they certainly couldn’t have done better if they’d tried, King John and he, through their feud, to throw France into its current misfortune. Do you know where his name comes from? From the very first months of his reign. He lost no time at all in earning it.

His mother, Louis Hutin’s daughter, died, as I was telling you the other day, during the autumn of ’49. In the summer of 1350 Charles went to be crowned in his capital city of Pamplona, where he had never once set foot in all the eighteen years since his birth in Évreux. Wanting to make himself known, he travelled the length and breadth of his State, which required no great travelling, then he went to visit his neighbours and relations, his brother-in-law, the Count of Foix and of Béarn, the one who calls himself Phoebus, and his other brother-in-law, the King of Aragon, Peter the Ceremonious, and also the King of Castile.

Now, one day, back in Pamplona, he was crossing a bridge on horseback when he met a delegation of Navarrese noblemen who had come to the city to bring him their grievances, as he had allowed their rights and privileges to be flouted. When Charles refused to hear them, things began to get a little heated; the new king then ordered his soldiers to seize those who were shouting closest to him, and, saying that one must be prompt in dealing out punishment if one wishes to command respect, further ordered that they be hanged immediately on the trees nearby.

I have noticed that when a prince resorts to capital punishment too quickly he is often giving in to fits of panic. In this Charles was no exception, as I believe his words are braver than his deeds. These brutal hangings would plunge Navarre into mourning, and soon by common consent he had earned the right to be called el Malo by his subjects, the Bad. He didn’t delay in moving away from his kingdom, whose government he left to his youngest brother Louis, only fifteen at the time, preferring to return to the bustle of the French court accompanied by his other brother Philip.

So, you may say, how can the Navarrese contingent have become so powerful and thick on the ground when in Navarre itself the king is widely hated, and even opposed by many of the nobility? Heh! My nephew, it is because this contingent is mostly made up of Norman knights from the county of Évreux. And what really makes Charles of Navarre dangerous for the French crown, more than his possessions in the south of the kingdom, are the lands he holds, or that he held, near Paris, such as the seigniories of Mantes, Pacy, Meulan, or Nonancourt, which command access to the capital from the westerly quarter of the country.

That danger King John understood well, or was made to understand; and for once in his life he showed proof of some common sense, endeavouring to make amends and reach an understanding with his Navarrese cousin. By which bond could he best tie his cousin’s hands? By a marriage. And what marriage could one offer him that would bind him to the throne as tightly as the union that had, six months long, made his sister Blanche Queen of France? Why, marriage with the eldest of the daughters of the king himself, little Joan of Valois. She was only eight years old, but it was a match worth the wait before it could be consummated. For that matter, Charles of Navarre had no shortage of lady friends to help him bide his time. Amongst others a certain demoiselle 11Gracieuse … yes, that is her name, or the one she answers to … The bride, little Joan of Valois, was herself already a widow, as she had been married once before, at the age of three, to a relative of her mother’s that God wasn’t long in taking back.

In Avignon, we looked favourably upon this betrothal, which seemed to us a strong enough bond to secure peace. This was because the contract resolved all the outstanding business between the two branches of the French royal family. First of all, the matter of the Count of Angoulême, betrothed for such a long time already to Charles’s mother, in exchange for his relinquishing the counties of Brie and Champagne, and exchanging them in turn for Pontoise and Beaumont, but it was an arrangement that was never executed. In the new agreement, the initial agreement was reverted to; Navarre would get Angoumois as well as several major strongholds and castellanies 12that would make up the dowry. King John made a forthright show of his own power in showering his future son-in-law with gifts. ‘You shall have this, it is my will; I shall give you that, it is my word …’

Navarre joked in intimate circles about his new relationship with King John. ‘We were cousins by birth; at one time we were going to be brothers-in-law, but as his father married my sister instead, I ended up being his uncle; and now I am to become his son-in-law.’ But while negotiating the contract, he proved most effective in expanding his prize. No particular contribution was asked of him, beyond an advance: one hundred thousand écus 13that were owed by King John to Parisian merchants, and were by the good grace of Charles to be paid back. However, he did not have the necessary liquid assets, either; the sum was procured for him from Flemish bankers, with whom he consented to leave some of his jewellery as guarantee. It was an easier thing to do for the king’s son-in-law than for the king himself …

It was during this transaction, I realize now, that Navarre must have made contact with the Prevost Marcel … about whom I should also write to the pope, to alert his holiness to the man’s scheming, which at present is something of a cause for concern. But that is another matter …

The sum of one hundred thousand écus was acknowledged in the marriage contract as being due to Navarre; it was to be paid to him in instalments, beginning straight away. Furthermore, he was made knight of the Order of the Star, and was even led to believe that he might become constable, though he was barely twenty years old. The marriage was celebrated in great style and jubilation.