Текст книги "The Plantagenet Prelude "

Автор книги: Jean Plaidy

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Eleonore rode out of Paris beside her husband ready for the siege which would bring Toulouse into their hands.

Eleonore was busy with plans; she had already traced the relation between Raoul and his wife. If one went back far enough there were always blood ties. She had set the bishops working on it and they knew that if they did not find what she wished them to they would incur her displeasure.

Louis had really very little heart for war. He hated death, nor did he wish to punish his people. When he had been victorious at Orleans he had granted his rebellious subjects what they had asked for, and had stopped what he considered the cruel law of cutting off people’s fingers if they did not pay their debts. Of what use was that, he had demanded, when they need their hands intact to work to pay off their debts?

The thought of innocent people’s suffering worried him; but what could he do? Eleonore insisted that Toulouse was hers and therefore his, and she could not forget the insolence of Theobald of Champagne.

‘Are we going to allow our subjects to treat us thus?’ she had demanded. ‘If so we are no rulers.’

He had had to agree with her; he always had to agree with her. So here he was marching on Toulouse.

Into the rich country they went. Louis’s spirits were revived. Of course he would like to add these fertile provinces to his kingdom. Eleonore’s eyes glowed. He wondered whether it was the sight of the land which made them so bright and eager, or the fulfilment of revenge. She was so sure that ere long Toulouse would be theirs. She would have subdued not only the Count of Toulouse who had refused to hand back that to which he had no right, but also the insolent Theobald. And when he heard that his sister was to be divorced from the Count of Vermandois he would be doubly humiliated!

He would see what it meant to defy the Queen of France – and so would others. It would be a lesson.

Alas, for Louis and Eleonore. Toulouse was well defended, and it soon became clear to Louis that even those who had rallied to his banner had no heart for the fight.

As he encamped outside the castle occupied by Raymond Saint-Gilles, group after group of his followers reminded him that they had agreed to fight with him for only a specified time. Time was running out and they must return to their estates.

Louis was disturbed.

‘Command them to stay!’ cried Eleonore.

But Louis had given his word. He was not a man to break that. He must stand out against Eleonore for the sake of his honour.

Thus it was the King found himself before the castle with scarcely any supporters, and it was either a case of retreat or ignominious defeat. As it was he must retire in humiliation.

There was nothing for it but to return to Paris and shelve the conquest of Toulouse, until the King and Queen could find some means of bringing it to the Crown.

Such a situation was galling to the Queen. She imagined Saint-Gilles and Theobald of Champagne sneering at the royal ineptitude.

She must be revenged and the first blow should be struck through Theobald’s sister. Her bishops had found that there was a blood relationship between Raoul and his wife.

Therefore the marriage was no true marriage and Raoul was free to marry again.

‘It is a good thing,’ said the Queen to the King, ‘that your cousin should marry with my sister.’

The Count of Champagne was amazed one day to see his sister with a few of her attendants ride into the courtyard of his castle. He hastened down to meet her.

‘Why Eleonore,’ he cried, ‘what brings you here?’

For a moment she could not answer him. She threw herself into his arms and clung to him.

‘I did not know where to go.’

‘Where is your husband?’

‘I have no husband.’

‘Come into the castle,’ said Theobald. ‘Tell me what this means. Raoul is dead?’

‘Nay,’ she answered. ‘It is simply that he is no longer my husband.’

‘But this makes nonsense. You were married to him. I myself attended the ceremony. Come, sister, you must calm yourself.’

He took her to his private chamber and she poured out her story. A blood tie had been discovered that meant her marriage to Raoul was not valid. She was not married to Raoul; had never been married and the ceremony she had gone through with Raoul was no true one at all. Moreover Raoul had married someone else. There had been a grand wedding and the King and Queen had attended.

‘Who was the bride?’ asked Theobald blankly.

‘The lady Petronelle.’

‘What! The Queen’s sister?’

‘Indeed yes, the Queen’s sister.’

‘This is monstrous. It is a plot.’

Eleonore nodded sadly.

Theobald was furious. It was not only the dishonour to his sister that he raged against; it was an insult to his family.

The Queen had arranged this he knew. She had insisted that the bishops prove the marriage invalid and they had done so on pain of her displeasure. And why had she contrived this? To be revenged on him. Because he had refused to support her and the King over the annexation of Toulouse, she had arranged for his sister’s dishonour.

‘I will not endure this,’ he said. ‘This day I will send a messenger to Rome. I shall put my case before the Pope and it will be proved that this was a plot to discredit me through you, sister.’

‘And you think the Pope will not agree to the dissolution of the marriage?’

‘How can he? The reasons put forward are groundless. I will make Raoul take you back. I will prove that his marriage to Petronelle was no marriage. She will be the one to suffer dishonour, not you, my sister.’

‘Raoul was eager to go to his new wife, I know.’

‘He will be begging to come back to you when I have the Pope’s word.’ Theobald was not a man to delay when action was necessary.

He asked the advice of Bernard of Clairvaux who suggested that he take his case immediately to Rome with an account of the wrong done to his sister.

Petronelle was content with her marriage. She glowed with satisfaction. Watching her Eleonore felt a little discontented with her own. True it had brought her the crown of France and she would not have missed that for anything, but she did wish it had brought her a man like Raoul instead of a monk like Louis.

She must get an heir. The country needed an heir and so did she. The purpose of marriage for such as herself was the procreation of children. She could not endure that she should fail in anything.

She was in a mood of discontent when the messenger arrived from Rome.

He brought letters for the King and the Count of Vermandois.

Eleonore made a point of being with Louis when he read his. They were very much to the point. The Pope found that there had been a miscarriage of justice. The Count of Vermandois had put away his true wife on the instigation of the Queen and the bishops and married the Queen’s sister.

The Pope could find no just cause why the marriage of the Count of Vermandois and the sister of the Count of Champagne was not legal. The Count of Vermandois was excommunicated and ordered to put away the woman with whom he was now living and return to his wife.

Eleonore was furious.

‘This is an insult to my sister,’ she cried. ‘Does His Holiness realise that? The sister of the Queen of France..!’

Louis said mildly, ‘My dearest, we should never have allowed Raoul to put away his wife.’

‘His wife! That was no true marriage. They are too closely related.’

The King looked at her sadly.

‘You have allowed your love for your sister to blind you,’ he said. ‘Petronelle should have looked elsewhere for a husband.’

‘He is her husband. She has lived openly with him. Do you realise what this means? Who will want to marry her now?’

‘Many I think would wish for an alliance with the sister of the Queen of France.’

‘I’ll not endure this insolence.’

‘This is the edict of the Pope, my love.’

‘You know who has done this. It is Theobald. He was determined to flout us. I’ll not rest until I have driven him from Champagne.’

‘Champagne is his, my dear. It is independent of France.’

The Queen narrowed her eyes. ‘Louis, sometimes I think you do not love me.’

‘You cannot doubt that I do.’

‘Yet you allow me to be insulted.’

‘Theobald has done only what any brother would have done. He has tried to preserve his sister’s honour.’

‘And what of my sister’s honour?’

‘It was unwise to marry her to my cousin.’

‘Unwise! He had no wife, his marriage to Theobald’s sister being invalid. Why shouldn’t they, who had been lovers, sanctify their union!’

‘Because he already had a wife.’

‘He had not, I tell you. The marriage was illegal. He is married to Petronel a and we are going to teach Theobald a lesson.’

‘How so?’

‘We shall invade his lands. We shall raze his castles to the ground. I tell you we will be revenged on Theobald.’

‘We should have no support.’

‘Then we will do it without support. I have my loyal subjects of Aquitaine. They would follow me wherever I wished to go.’

‘Nay, Eleonore, let us not go rashly into war.’

Her eyes blazed at him. He was a weakling, a monk, and they had married him to her! He had little to give her but her crown.

And he was going to obey her.

She was determined they were going to war. They were going to ravage the lands of Champagne and teach its disobedient Count a lesson. She was frustrated, married to a man who could not satisfy her intense longings. She had her crown from him but had grown accustomed to that now, and she wanted a strong man whom she could find some pleasure in subduing. Louis was too easily managed although in this matter of war he was proving obstinate. It would not be for long; she would make him agree shortly and there was a certain stimulation in urging him. She enjoyed the battle with him while his repulsion to war infuriated her.

Petronelle and Raoul were smugly content with each other; and she was determined that they should remain together. She was not going to give way.

Meanwhile she badgered Louis. Was he a coward? Was he going to allow little rulers of small provinces to outwit him? Would he stand by and see the sister of his wife dishonoured? It was tantamount to dishonouring his wife.

Louis implored her to be patient, and then another matter arose which demanded his attention.

The Archbishopric of Bourges had fallen vacant and Eleonore and Louis had chosen the man who was to fill the post. He was ideal, being a friend of theirs. Then to their consternation a message came from the Pope that he had chosen Pierre de la Châtre for the office.

‘How dare he interfere in matters which concern us and us only!’demanded the Queen.

Louis supported her. He was the King. It was for him to say who should be his Archbishop.

‘Not so,’ retorted the Pope. ‘I have appointed Pierre de la Châtre and none other shall have it.’

Louis, prompted by Eleonore, replied that as long as he lived de la Châtre should not enter Bourges.

Then the Pope made a remark which when reported to Louis raised his anger.

‘The King of France is a child,’ said the Pope. ‘He must get schooling and be kept from bad habits.’

‘You see,’ cried Eleonore when this was reported, ‘they have no respect for you. It is because you allow people to insult you. You have been over-lenient. Look at Theobald of Champagne. If you had marched into his country and laid it waste the Pope would not have spoken to you as though you were a schoolboy.’

Louis was silent for a few moments then he burst out: ‘It would have meant war. Killing brings such suffering to innocent people.’

‘A fine way for a king to talk,’ commented Eleonore scornfully.

Theobald played right into her hands by supporting the Pope’s choice and letting it be known.

Eleonore was furious. ‘What now?’ she cried. ‘Will you stand by and allow this?’

Louis knew that he could not, and when the Pope excommunicated him he knew that he had to take action.

He prepared to march on Champagne in order to subdue the Count who had dared take sides against his King.

Eleonore rode out of Paris beside her reluctant husband.

There was to be war with Champagne and Louis knew that such conflicts enriched no one but the soldiers who plundered and pillaged while innocent people suffered.

The Queen however was adamant and he had after much persuasion agreed that Theobald must be taught a lesson.

It was not a very impressive army that marched into Champagne. Many wandering adventurers joined it, and because it was not very large the King was glad to welcome any who followed him, even though he knew they were out for the spoils which would come their way.

As they marched deeper into the terrain of the man the Queen detested, the rougher elements of the army plundered the villages against the King’s order. Louis heard the cries of protesting villagers who sought to protect their crops, their houses and their family. He saw his rough soldiery ordering the villagers from their houses, ill treating the women, raping, feasting, drinking and acting in a manner of which he had heard much and which had made him hate the thought of war.

He endeavoured to stop their cruelties; they did not heed him.

Eleonore regarded him with contempt. What sort of a king was he whom men would not obey and who shuddered at the prospect of war? She could only remember that this was the enemy’s country. She exulted over the burning land.

This would teach Theobald what it meant to flout his King because if that King was weak his Queen was not.

They had reached the walled city of Vitry.

There was little defence offered and in a short time the King’s men were in the streets killing, pillaging, shedding the blood of its inhabitants. The old and the maimed and the women and the children ran screaming before the soldiers and barricaded themselves into the wooden church.

‘Enough, enough,’ cried Louis. But his command was not heeded.

His followers had come to pillage and murder and they could not be restrained. There then occurred a terrible incident which was to haunt the King for the rest of his days.

Inside the church the children clung to their mothers, and mothers begged for the safety of their little ones. The King’s men knew no pity. They did not attempt to break into the church. They merely set it on fire.

As the flames enveloped it and the thick black smoke filled the air the cries of the innocent could be heard calling curses on their murderers and screaming for mercy.

‘Have done. Have done,’ pleaded Louis but they would not listen to him. In any case it was too late. In that burning church were thirteen hundred innocent people and they were all burned to death.

In his tent Louis lay staring blankly before him. Eleonore lay beside him.

‘I can hear their screaming,’ he said.

She answered: ‘There is no sound now. They are all dead.’

‘All dead!’ he cried. ‘Those innocent people. Holy Mother of God help me! I shall never be able to escape from the sound of their cries.’

‘They should have denounced their lord. They should have sworn allegiance to you.’

‘They were innocent people. What did they know of our quarrel?’

‘You must try to sleep.’

‘To sleep. If I do, I dream. I can smell the smoke. I shall never be free of it. How the wood crackled!’

‘It was old and dry,’ she said.

‘And little children...They called curses on us. Imagine a mother...with her little ones.’

‘It is war,’ said Eleonore. ‘It is not wise to brood on these things.’

But Louis could not stop brooding.

He could not go on, he declared.

‘To give in now would be victory for Theobald,’ Eleonore reminded him.

‘I can’t help it,’ cried Louis. ‘I am sick of war and killing.’

‘You should never have been a king.’

‘You speak truth. My heart is in the Church.’

‘Which is no place for a king’s heart to be.’

‘Sometimes I think I should have refused to take the crown.’

‘How could you, the King’s son, have done that?’

‘Sometimes I think God is not pleased with me. We have been six years married and have no child.’

‘It is a long time to wait,’ agreed Eleonore.

‘Is there something we have done...or not done? Have I displeased God in some way?’ The King shivered. ‘I feel in my heart that whatever we did before the burning of Vitry was nothing compared with that great sin.’

‘Stop thinking of it.’

‘I can’t, I can’t,’ moaned the King.

She knew that he would be useless to command an army in his present state.

‘We should return to Paris,’ she said.

He was eager to agree. ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Disband the army. Go back. Cal off the war.’

‘That would be folly. The army will stay here. We shall return. State duties call you to Paris. There you will rest and forget Vitry. You will learn that it is what must be expected in war.’

The war continued. Louis was heartily sick of it but Eleonore would not allow Theobald to have the chance to say the King had been forced to retire from the field.

The King’s ministers begged him to consider what good there was in continuing. Louis would have agreed but he dared not face Eleonore’s wrath.

He could not understand his feeling for her. It was as though he were under a spell. Whatever he might promise to do, when she showed her contempt for his weakness he always gave way to her.

The Abbot of Clairvaux, who had prophesied the death of Louis’s brother Philippe, had become known as a worker of miracles. He had ranged himself against Louis and Eleonore, and came to the court to ask the King to agree to a peace.

Eleonore would not hear of this.

She faced the Abbot and explained to him that to agree to a peace would be to dishonour her own sister, and although this was but one of the causes which had made it necessary for Louis to make war, it was a very important one.

‘Such a war,’ the Abbot told her, ‘is displeasing to God.

Has that not been made clear? God has turned his face from your endeavours. The King suffers deep remorse. He has done so since the burning of Vitry.’

‘And before that,’ said Eleonore bitterly. ‘He has rendered me childless. You, who are said to have the power to make miracles, could perhaps work this one for me if you would.’

The Abbot was thoughtful. ‘Whether you should have the blessing of a child is in the hands of God.’

‘So is all that happens. Yet you have worked miracles, they say. Why do you not work one now?’

‘I could do nothing in this matter.’

‘You mean you will not help me?’

‘If you had a child you would doubtless change your life. Perhaps you need a child.’

‘I need a child,’ said Eleonore. ‘Not only because my son will be the heir to France, but because I long for a child of my own.’

The Abbot nodded.

She caught his arm. ‘You will do this for me?’

‘My lady, I cannot. It is in the hands of God.’

‘If I persuaded the King to stop the war, to call a truce...’

‘If you did that it might be that God would be more ready to listen to your prayers.’

‘I would do anything to get a child.’

‘Then pray with me, but first humble yourself before God. You cannot do that with the sin of war upon you.’

‘If there was peace you would work the miracle?’

‘If there were peace I should be able to ask God to grant your request.’

‘I will speak to the King,’ she said.

She did and the result was that there was peace between Theobald and Louis.

To Eleonore’s great joy she was pregnant. She was sure that Bernard had worked the miracle. All these years and no sign of a child, and now the union would be fruitful.

She had softened a little. She was planning for the child as a humble mother might have done. The songs she sang were of a different nature. The members of the court marveled.

In due course the child was born. A girl.

She was not disappointed. Like all rulers Louis had hoped for a son; yet, she demanded of her ladies, why should there be this overwhelming adoration of the male? ‘I was my father’s heiress although I was a woman,’ she reminded them. ‘Why should the King and I be sad because we have a daughter?’

The Salic law prevailed in France. This meant that no woman could rule. The crown would go to the next male heir. This law was all against Eleonore’s principles and she promised herself that she would not allow it to persist. Her daughter was but a baby yet and there was time enough to think of her future.

She was christened Marie and for more than a year after her birth Eleonore was content to play the devoted mother.

Life had become monotonous. Little Marie was past two years old. Eleonore was devoted to her but naturally the child was often in the company of her nurses. Eleonore continued to hold court. The songs had become more voluptuous again; they stressed the sorrows of unrequited passion and the joys of shared love.

Petronelle was her constant companion; Eleonore watched with smouldering eyes her sister and her husband together. What a passionate affair that had been! Something, sighed Eleonore, which was denied me.

She had at first been fond of Louis. He had been so overcome at the sight of her and was so devoted to her that she had developed quite an affection for him. It was not in her passionate nature to be contented with that. Louis might be her slave and it pleased her that he should be, but his piety bored her, and what was hardest of all to endure was his remorse.

He took a great interest in the Church and was constantly taking part in some ritual. He would return from such occasions glowing with satisfaction but it would not be long before he was sunk in melancholy.

He could not forget the sound of crackling flames and the screams of the aged and innocent as they had burned to death. The town itself had now become known as Vitry-the-Burned.

He would pace up and down their bedchamber while Eleonore watched him from their bed.

She knew that he would not be seeing her, seductively inviting with her long hair loose about her naked shoulders as she might be. He would be seeing the pitiless faces of men intent on murder; and when she spoke to him he would hear instead those cries for mercy.

How many times had she told him: ‘It was an act of war and best forgotten.’ And he declared: ‘To my dying day I shall never forget. Remember, Eleonore, all that was done was done in my name.’

‘You did your best to stop it. They heeded you not.’ Her lips curled. What a weakling he was! His men intent on murder did not obey him! And he permitted this.

He should have been a monk. She was weary of him. She wished they had married her to a man. Yet he was the King of France and marriage to him made her a queen. But she was also Eleonore of Aquitaine. She was never going to forget that.

So she listened to him wandering on in his maudlin way and she knew that she would not go on forever living as she was at this time. Her adventurous spirits were in revolt. She had made a brilliant marriage; she was a mother. But for her that was not enough. She was reaching for adventure.

The opportunity came from an unexpected quarter.

For many years men had sought to expiate their sins by making pilgrimages to Jerusalem. They had believed that by undertaking an arduous journey, which often resulted in death, they showed their complete acceptance of the Christian faith and their desire for repentance. They believed that in this way they could be forgiven a life of wickedness. There had been many examples of men who had undertaken this pilgrimage. Robert the Magnificent, father of William the Conqueror, had been one. He had died during the journey leaving his son but a child, unprotected from his enemies, but it was believed that he had expiated a lifetime’s sins by this gesture.

But while it was considered a Christian act to make a pilgrimage, how much greater grace could be won by taking part in a Holy War to drive the infidel from Jerusalem.

Ever since the seventh century Jerusalem had been in the possession of the Mussulmans, khalifs of Egypt or Persia. There was conflict between Christianity and Islamism, and at the beginning of the eleventh century the persecution of Christians in the Holy Land was at its most intense. All Christians living in Jerusalem were commanded to wear a wooden cross about their necks. As these weighed five pounds they were a considerable encumbrance. Christians were not allowed to ride on horses; they might only travel on mules and asses. For the smallest disobedience they were put to death often in the cruellest manner. Their leader had suffered crucifixion; therefore that seemed a suitable punishment for those who followed him.

Pilgrims who made the journey to and from Jerusalem came back with stories of the terrible degradation that Christians were being made to suffer. Indignation came to a head when a certain French monk returned from a visit to Jerusalem. He became known as Peter the Hermit. Of small stature and almost fragile frame, his glowing spirit of determination was apparent to all who beheld him. It was his mission, he believed, to bring the Holy City into Christian hands. He traveled all over Europe, barefooted, clad in an old wool en tunic and serge cloak; living on what he could find by the wayside and what was given him; and he roused the indignation of the whole of Europe over the need to free Jerusalem from the infidel.

It happened that in the year 1095 Pope Urban I was at Clermont in Auvergne presiding over a gathering of archbishops, bishops, abbots and other members of the clergy. People from all over Europe had come to hear him speak; Urban had been very impressed by the mission which Peter the Hermit had been carrying out and asked him to come to him. On the steps of the church, in the presence of the Pope, Peter told the assembly of the fate meted out to Christians in the Holy Land by the ruthless infidels who were eager to eliminate Christianity.

Peter, his dedication burning fiercely for now he saw the fulfilment of his dream, talked of the insults heaped on Christians, of the hideous deaths they were made to suffer and that he believed God had inspired him with a mission which was to bring back Jerusalem to Christianity.

The crowd was silent for a few seconds after he had finished speaking and then broke into loud cries of ‘Save Jerusalem. Save the Holy Land.’

Then Pope Urban raised his hand to ask for silence.

‘That royal city,’ he said, ‘which the Redeemer of the human race honoured and made illustrious by his coming and hallowed by his passion, demands deliverance. It looks to you, men of France, men from beyond the mountains, nations chosen and beloved by God, you the heirs of Charlemagne, from you, above all, Jerusalem asks for help.

God will give glory to your arms. Take then the road to Jerusalem for the remission of your sins, and depart assured of the imperishable glory which awaits you in the Kingdom of Heaven.’

Again that hushed silence; then from a thousand throats there had risen the cry: ‘God wills it.’

‘Aye,’ the Pope had cried, ‘God wills it. If God was not in your souls you would not have answered as one man thus.

Let this be your battle cry as you go forth against the Infidel.

“God wills it.”’

The air had been filled with people’s shouting as with one voice: ‘God wills it.’

The Pope had held up his hands for silence.

‘Whosoever has a wish to enter in this pilgrimage, must wear upon his crown or on his chest the cross of the Lord.’

Peter the Hermit watched with glowing eyes. His mission was accomplished. The crusades had begun.

Since that memorable occasion there had been many a battle between Christians and Mussulmans; and it was at this time, when Louis was so troubled by his conscience and could not get the cries from Vitry-the-Burned out of his mind, and the Queen had realised that her vitality was being frustrated, that there was a great revival of anger against the Mussulmans and a desire to win back Jerusalem to Christianity.

Bernard of Clairvaux was deeply concerned by what was happening in Jerusalem. He came to the King and talked with him.

‘Here is a sorry state of affairs,’ he said. ‘God will be both sorrowful and angry. It is many years since the first crusade and we are no nearer to our purpose. Atrocities are being committed on our pilgrims. It is time the Christian world revolted against its enemies.’

Louis was immediately interested. He was burdened with sin; he longed to expiate those sins and to have an opportunity to show his repentance.

Bernard nodded. ‘Vitry-the-Burned hangs heavy on your conscience, my lord. It should never have happened. There should never have been a campaign against Theobald of Champagne.’

‘I know it now.’

‘In the first place,’ said Bernard, who was determined not to let the King escape lightly, ‘you should not have opposed Pierre de la Châtre. You should have recognised the authority of the Pope.’

It was Eleonore who had been the prime mover in this affair as in all other matters. Bernard knew it but he did not mention it. The King was in a penitent mood. Let him take the blame.

‘It was wrong to insist on the Comte de Vermandois’s putting away his wife and marrying the Queen’s sister. It was wrong to take the war into Champagne. For these you have been punished, for you will never be able to forget the burning of the church of Vitry.’

‘It’s true,’ groaned the King.

‘You need to sue for mercy. You need to make one great gesture. Why should you not lead a campaign to the Holy City?’

‘I! What of my kingdom?’

‘There are those who could care for it while you are away.’

‘Leave my kingdom! Lead a crusade!’

‘Others have done this before you. So they have appeased God and won forgiveness.’

The King stared before him. More war! He hated war.

And yet his sins lay heavy on him.

Bernard raised his fanatical eyes to heaven. ‘I, my lord, will not turn my back on my duty. I would I were a young man and I would lead the crusade. God has declined to give me that honour. It is my duty to set before others where their duties lie. I want there to be three great assemblies, one at Bourges, another at Vézelai and another at Estampes. You will be there to give them your support. Think on this matter seriously. Only by pleasing God in this way will he forgive you for what happened at Vitry-the-Burned.’

He did not tell Eleonore immediately. He feared her derision. He went to his good friend and adviser the Abbé Suger.

The Abbé was appaled. ‘To leave France, leave your kingdom. But your duty lies here!’

‘Not as I see it. I have sinned.’