Four Sisters, All Queens (60 page)

A Parliament Gone Mad

Oxford, 1258

Thirty-five years old

S
HE TRIES NOT
to stare as Uncle Thomas picks at his meal of songbirds that are admittedly scrawny but, to a hungry queen, mouthwatering.

“I am a broken man, Eléonore,” he says, pushing his cold meat around in its congealed brown sauce. “My captors tortured me most cruelly. The brutality of humans! It has left me little appetite for ruling them.”

“Or for food,” she says. She wonders what the servants will do with his leftovers. In the past, they would have given them to the dogs, but the dogs are not as fortunate these days. These days, they get only the bones, and the servants are the ones licking their masters’ plates.

“I have tasted little meat these past weeks.” She hears the note of accusation in her voice, but cannot help it.

“One grows accustomed to hunger.” He passes his trencher to her and she falls upon his leavings as if she were that poor, deprived dog. “This famine has been hard on you,” he says when she has finished.

She laughs self-consciously as she savors the last bite of sauce-soaked
trencher. “At least I have finally taken off the weight I gained with Katharine.” Three years on this Earth and not a trace of her left, now.

“My dear, when did she die? Six months ago? Yet you continue to mourn.”

“She was the joy of our lives.” Eléonore accepts his handkerchief and wipes away her tears. “You would have loved her. Everyone did.”

“The servants who settled me into these chambers remarked that the palace has been cheerless since she died. They sounded disapproving.”

“Should I fret over the opinions of servants? Really, uncle.”

“Your subjects’ opinions do matter.”

“When they’ve walked in my shoes, I will gladly listen to their opinions.”

“Only a few ever wear such privileged shoes. Are the rest unimportant?”

“What do they know about administering a kingdom?” She stands, knocking her chair aside. “I am besieged by critics, all of them ignorant.”

Simon de Montfort has turned his personal grudge against her and Henry into a public vendetta. He criticizes their “excesses” at every meeting of the barons’ council, and rails against the favors given to “foreigners”—not only the Lusignans, but the house of Savoy, as well. Never mind that her uncles have benefited England in countless ways. Uncle Peter raised funds to quell the Gascony uprisings and negotiated Edward’s marriage to Eleanor of Castille. And now Uncle Thomas, rescued from his imprisonment, can at last pay the sum needed to place Edmund on the Sicilian throne. If Richard becomes the next Holy Roman Emperor, England will be the world’s most powerful kingdom—far greater than France. And all because of her “alien” uncles.

Simon, however, cares only about his lands, his castles, and his legacy to his sons. Henry will never have a day’s peace, he swears, until he gives to the Montforts the money and lands they claim. Never mind that others claim them, too.

“Now he complains because Henry gave to the pope the tax he collected for his campaign in Outremer,” she says. “We thought the idea most excellent. We won’t need to tax the barons, now, for the Sicilian campaign.”

“But the barons are unappreciative?”

“We do not know what they think,” Henry says as he sweeps in, followed by his usual entourage: William de Valence, Uncle Peter, John Maunsell, and Edward, bleary-eyed again. “But, after today, we do know what Simon thinks.”

Eléonore stands to embrace her son, whom she has not seen in weeks. He has been in Wales, showing off his castles to his bride.

“Simon thinks the world revolves around him,” Eléonore says. And then, whispering, “Are you getting enough sleep, Edward?” He winces and turns his bleary eyes away. How she would love to separate him from those wild youths he carouses with these days: the reckless Henry of Almain; Simon de Montfort’s cruel sons; his lazy Lusignan cousins; the violent sons of the Marcher barons.

“Montfort wishes the world revolved around him.” John Maunsell paces the floor while Henry sits on the bed and the others, including Eléonore, take chairs.

“He is working diligently to ensure that others think it does,” Henry snaps.

“He is arranging secret meetings with the barons, I hear,” Peter says. “They are drawing up a charter.”

William snorts. “A charter? That was tried with King John, wasn’t it? I don’t know why they think it would succeed with us.”

Uncle Peter leans to murmur in her ear:
We must talk
.

“King John had to ask the barons’ permission before levying new taxes or fees,” he says aloud. “Simon would require the same of King Henry.”

“How can anyone rule a kingdom if they must continually beg for funding?” Eléonore says. “What if an emergency occurred?”

“Such as in Wales,” Edward says. “Mother, the Welsh have overrun my castles in Gwynedd. Deganwy is stripped to the walls, everything gone—the paintings, the tapestries, even the candlesticks.”

“Savages,” Eléonore says. “If not for you, dear, I would have urged your father to divest England of Wales. After all our attempts to civilize them, the people are still heathens.” They are like small and bony fish: too troublesome to bother with, they are best thrown back into the sea.

“Llywelyn calls himself Prince of Wales,” Edward says. “He struts about like a cock with full reign of the coop—and asserts himself on our lands.”

“A prince! Was his father a king, then? Of what—London Tower?” She rolls her eyes. Gruffydd ap Llywelyn was never king of anything; his brother ruled a small portion of Wales while Gruffydd languished in the Tower until he fell to his death from a window.

“Llywelyn would appreciate your notion to abandon Wales,” William says, sending Edward a pointed glance.

“Of course I spoke in haste,” Eléonore says. “Those lands belong to Edward. Think of the example it would set if we let them go.”

“The Gascons would take note,” John Maunsell says.

“God forbid it,” Henry says. “I have never known a people so resistant to rule.”

“The solution is simple. We must crush Llywelyn,” Eléonore says.

A stunned silence follows. “The king had thought to negotiate, my lady,” Maunsell says.

“Negotiate? Destroy him, I say. Llywelyn is too ambitious to be trusted.”

Edward springs up in his chair as if he has just awakened. “I have made the same argument, Mother.” Mother. How cold the word sounds. “Mama” is more affectionate, but speaking English is the fashion—in spite of its harshness to the ear. “I’ve been begging Father to let me fight. I’ll show Llywelyn who is prince.”

“Yes, yes, we must invade Wales,” Henry grumbles, hating as he does to be challenged or corrected—especially by Edward. And by Eléonore.

“Invade Wales! What a brilliant idea, Henry,” she says. The others nod. But how, Maunsell asks, will they pay for an invasion?

A discussion ensues: What remains in the treasury? (Almost nothing.) Can they levy scutages from men who pledged to take the cross, then did not go? (Richard has already collected from all who pledged, and from many, Eléonore suspects, who did not.) When did Henry last raid the Jews? (Too recently to profit from another raid.) Can the clergy be forced to pay? (They have already given fifty-two thousand pounds for the war in Sicily.)

Henry covers his face with his hands. “Wales is lost.”

“Thousands spent to gain Sicily for Edmund, and nothing left for Edward?” William says, frowning at Eléonore. “I thought a mother loved her eldest child the most.”

“That may have been true of your mother,” Eléonore retorts, “but I love all my children with all my heart.”

She goes to the bed and places her hands on Henry’s shoulders, blocking his view of his smirking brother and his glowering son.

“Not everyone in this kingdom feels as Simon does. The barons of the Marches will support a war in Wales once they realize their holdings are in danger. The Earl of Gloucester will insist that we invade.”

“But the barons of the Marches are not here.” Henry drops his hands; his face droops.

“Why not summon them? And the other barons, too.”

“Call a council of the Marcher lords?”

“Call the full Parliament into session. Henry, we must eradicate this so-called ‘prince.’ If not, he will return to threaten us again. But we will need money, for knights and weapons and armor and food—”

“I’m sure we all know the price of war,” William says.

“Here’s what you do,” she says to Henry. “Call a grand meeting, not just of the barons but of your friends, too. Invite King Louis. Invite Alexander from Scotland. We’ll talk about the Welsh problem, and what to do about it. Before it ends, the barons will declare war against Llywelyn—and they will think doing so was their idea.”

H
ENRY’S HANDS TREMBLE
. His beard quivers. His voice, however, rings like a great bell across the tiled floor and through the high arches of Oxford, up through the ceiling to the Lord God and his angels.

“This is an insult,” he roars. “How dare you humiliate us with your petty complaints and your foolish demands, when the future of England hangs in the balance? Wales is on the brink, and all you can do is push your ludicrous charter at me.”

“We are squeezed dry by your follies,” Simon cries. “You have drained our lifeblood to pour it over Gascony, Scotland, Sicily, and now Wales!” The hall fills with shouts.

Eléonore leaps to her feet. “Do you think we preferred to wage a seven year war in Gascony? Lord Leicester, you of all people know what a formidable challenge we faced there. And we have made peace with Scotland after years of strife.”

“You have thrown pound after pound down the bottomless hole that is Sicily, and for what?”

“For England,” Eléonore says. “The more territory we command, the greater our position in the world. We all gain.”

“The pope gains,” Simon says. He turns to the barons. “And gains, and gains, and gains. At our expense!” They begin to shout again.

“Sicily has cost you nothing,” Henry roars.

“Our parishes paid, and paid dearly,” Gloucester says. “And we all contributed to the fund for your so-called expedition to Outremer—which is, apparently, not going to occur.”

“We are grateful that Pope Alexander agreed to use that money for the Sicilian fight.”

“Our money!” Simon shouts. “Wrested from us by corrupt bailiffs and cruel sheriffs—under royal authority. Funds we gave to fight the heathens and Turks—but now used for what task? To kill Christian men in Sicily.”

“It is an outrage!” the Earl of Norfolk bellows. “We demand a change. We demand that you sign these provisions.”

“For God’s sake, we are administering a kingdom!” Eléonore cries out. “How will we ever accomplish anything under these terms?” A council of twenty-four barons to tell them what they may do, and when, and how? A committee to appoint Henry’s most important staff—chancellor, treasurer, steward? What tasks, Eléonore wonders, will remain for her and Henry?

Has the Parliament gone mad? She was not prepared for these restrictions. She and Uncle Peter, working late at night, fashioned language for the charter that would eject the Lusignans from England. The necessity of this is clear to her: Although Henry cannot—or will not—admit it, William de Valence and his brothers have caused nothing but harm. William has alienated Simon, whom, as she suspected, is proving to be a formidable foe. Although still waiting to be appointed archbishop of Westminster, Aymer acts as though he were king of the world, attacking anyone who challenges him. But Henry shrugs off every complaint.

He is blind where his brothers are concerned. He denies they are influencing Edward against her.
I thought a mother loved her eldest child the most,
William said in his sneering tone. And in front of Edward, in front of everyone! As if, with Isabella of Angoulême for a mother, he knew anything about a mother’s love. Yet his tactics are succeeding. Edward has become sullen toward her, and he argues more and more vehemently with Henry. The Lusignans must go, and soon.

With these new demands attached to the charter, however, Eléonore wonders if she and Peter have betrayed the Crown. Henry is so angry at Peter for joining the opposition that he will not speak to him. Eléonore dare not inform him of her uncle’s true motive, which is to rid her of the Lusignan problem. She feigns outrage, too, and keeps her distance from Uncle Peter—in public.