CHAPTER XII
1
AN incident which occurred many years after the founding of the Order of the Garter gives the best possible picture of the royal household, and so it may be inserted at this point.
The second great battle of the Hundred Years’ War, Poictiers, was fought and won in 1356 by the Black Prince. Philip had died and had been succeeded by his son John. The new king was unfortunate enough to be unhorsed and taken prisoner. He was carried to England and taken on a great white horse through the streets of London to the Tower. With the defeated king was his fourth son, Philip, a boy of fourteen, who had fought beside his father, and had been almost as hard to subdue as the king himself. The fierceness of the boy’s temper was demonstrated the first day of their arrival in London.
The evening meal in the Tower was an event of considerable magnificence. The captive King of Scotland was there and all the leading nobility of the island kingdom. Candlesticks of gold and silver lighted the hall, and the tables were covered with standing cups and flagons and ewers of extraordinary size and beauty. The English king, in fact, had been determined to dazzle the eyes of his fellow king and involuntary guest. The French monarch was seated between Edward and Queen Philippa and the boy was a short distance away.
The young prince was in a mood of smoldering resentment and for the most part kept his eyes on the table in front of him, having little or nothing to say and taking small interest in the rich food served.
It was an evidence of Edward’s pride that he kept one of the best tables in Europe; and, incidentally, it was one of the reasons why he was always so deeply in debt. It cost a pretty fortune to supply the food which the lavish king demanded, particularly for occasions such as this. Much of the supplies had to be brought from foreign countries. All the spices of the East were to be found at the royal board: marjoram, galingal, thyme, basil, coriander, fennel, cloves, and cinnamon. In France the quince had been cultivated to the point where it was regarded as the best of all delicacies, and the state had adopted the practice of giving boxes of the best varieties (some came from Portugal, some from Orleans) to all visitors of note at the point of entry into the country. Edward had often been the beneficiary of this clever custom and had acquired such a taste for the fruit that he had arranged to have boxes sent across the Channel regularly for his use. There they were, in flat silver dishes, quite close to the hand of the melancholy young prince if he desired to indulge in them.
In addition there were apricots from Armenia, plums from Syria, cherries from Cerasus, nuts from the Hellespont, and all the fine fruits of the Far East: pomegranates, figs, and dates.
It is possible also that the thistle was served, for it had become one of the choicest of vegetables; not, however, the common thistle but a rare variety which later was further cultivated and became the artichoke. The bread was French, the white bread of Chailly which Edward had been served on his sojournings in France and which he liked so much that now he used it exclusively. Much to the chagrin, it may be said, of the bakers of London; who, stubborn fellows, believed that the kind they made was at least as good.
This, then, was a meal which would appeal to the palate of even the most fastidious of guests. But the son of the captive king had no appetite. As already stated, he sat in an unhappy silence and refused the dishes offered to him. Suddenly, however, he jumped up from his chair and soundly cuffed the official cup-bearer of King Edward, a member of the English aristocracy.
“Knave!” cried the boy. “You have served wine to the King of England before the King of France!”
An uneasy silence fell over the large company at table. This was indeed a contretemps, not covered by any known law of etiquette. Someone seems to have remarked that this was England, where the King of England was supreme; that the King of France was there in the capacity of prisoner and guest.
“It is true that my father, the King of France,” declared the boy, “is a prisoner. He has been unfortunate. But he is still the King of France and the liege lord of the King of England, who has sworn fealty to him!”
King Edward handled the situation with good humor and diplomacy. He smiled at the boy and said that indeed his father had been the victim of misfortune, for he had fought bravely and well. But, pursued Edward, it had to be recognized that they were in a somewhat unusual position. What did the recognized laws of etiquette have to say about it? The last question was addressed to Queen Philippa, who regarded the boy kindly before answering that this was indeed a matter which would have to be studied. The young prince returned to his seat and a hum of relieved conversation rose from the crowded tables. It was felt, quite properly, that the royal couple had shown much tact in their attitude.
It required quite as much tact always to handle this fiery French princeling. He did not get along very well with the Black Prince and once engaged in a bitter dispute with him over a game of chess. Again the king and queen acted as mediators and declared in favor of the visitor.
This self-willed young man became regent of France years later. As regent he ruled vigorously and well; he was undoubtedly of the stuff of kings.
2
The inference might be drawn from the above that the royal couple were amiable and prepared to go to great lengths to set a guest at ease. Another lesson to be drawn from the incident is the extravagance of the court and the lavish scale on which everything was done.
The sun was warm and the sky was clear over the royal palace at Woodstock many years before this, on June 16, 1332, to be exact. When the word was carried to the young king that his wife had been delivered of a second child, a girl, he was so delighted that he indulged in an extravaganza of spending. The child showed every indication of great beauty and he gave her the name of Isabella, after his own mother, who had been for a very brief time in seclusion at Castle Rising. Then he proceeded to make sure that the small Isabella would start in life on a scale fitting her rank and potential beauty. One cradle was not enough for her, she must have one for daily use and one for state occasions. The state cradle cost sixteen pounds, being elaborately gilded and decorated with the escutcheons of England and Hainaut. This did not include the coverlet, which was made of nearly a thousand skins.
The child was placed in the care of William St. Maur and his lady, who already had the Black Prince in their charge. Their pension was raised to twenty-five pounds a year, a truly stupendous salary. Even a little maidservant, whose name seems to have been Joanna Gaunbun and who was appointed as official rocker of the said cradles, was allotted the sum of ten pounds a year. To understand the absurd liberality of these arrangements, it is only necessary to point out that twelve years later that genius in stone design named William of Wynford was creating the dignified beauty of St. George’s Chapel at Windsor on a yearly stipend in the neighborhood of two pounds a year.
Edward’s exuberance could not be controlled. He decided that the relevaille of the queen, her first appearance after the birth of the child, was to be notable. Philippa welcomed the members of the court in a state bed with a coverlet of green velvet and wearing a purple velvet robe embroidered with pearls. New costumes in keeping with that of the queen had been provided for her ladies-in-waiting, and even the humblest of her household servants were wearing new livery. When it is revealed that the queen’s household had grown to a total of one hundred and sixty, it will be realized that the quiet little Dutch bride had at that early stage begun to fall in with the ostentatious habits of her royal spouse.
The child was no more than a month old when the king appointed a tailor named John Bromley to engage exclusively in making her clothes. The idea that children should be provided with clothing especially suited to their needs had not yet occurred to anyone and would not for a very long time; with the result that the poor little creatures were subjected to all the discomforts that their elders inflicted on themselves, being trussed up tightly, and belted in, and put to the inconvenience of “points.” For the occasion of the queen’s “uprising,” Master Bromley had the infant looking like a miniature of the queen in a silk dress with garnitures and trimmings of costly fur.
The next year a second daughter was born in the Tower and named Joanna, and again the lavish hand of the king was evident in the steps taken for her care and upbringing. The child was placed in the hands of the Countess of Pembroke, who received for her services the manor of Strode in Kent. An elaborate household was maintained for the two small children, including two chaplains, squires, clerks of this and that, a chief cook, a valet of the larder and kitchen, a valet of hall and chamber, a water carrier, a candlemaker, a porter, and numerous attendants of low degree known as sub-damsels.
In spite of all the things in Edward’s favor—his good looks, his ability, his energy (he was such an early riser that he might have been called the wakecock king), and later his great successes—he was not a popular ruler. It began with his extravagance and the freedom he allowed his people on royal processionals to raid the countryside. Later his continuous demands on Parliament for a fifteenth, a tenth, a fifth of national revenue embittered even the dullest yokel without a farthing to his name. The population grew very tired of the ever-rising cost of his victories and his defeats.
As the years rolled on and the size of the royal family increased, the court became increasingly ostentatious. The lavish habits of Edward reached their highest point when he indulged in his greatest luxury, the formation of the Order of the Garter. The tournaments attracted contestants from all parts of Europe, all of whom had to be received as guests and made the recipients of costly gifts. Things became even worse toward the later part of the reign when ladies were admitted and costly robes of furred cloth with ermine trimmings had to be provided for them.
Edward was a generous giver, which is commendable in itself but not when carried to such extremes. Princess Isabella grew up to be quite as carefree a spender as her father. She had been given a handsome income, but it never sufficed. She would run into debt and then have to get loans, giving her jewelry or her wardrobe as security. For want of money she always owed wages to her servants and even borrowed from them. Once she pledged her jewels to the royal treasurer and the chamberlain of the Exchequer. Either they told the king or he noticed she was not wearing them. It is said that on this occasion he rebuked her severely.
Nothing did any good. The lovely and generous princess, like her handsome and outgiving father, always spent a great deal more than she had. To give her more only increased her difficulties.
3
Edward had no success in making brilliant matches for his daughters. This was regarded as very strange, for the star of England was in the ascendant and the girls were beautiful, gay, and pleasant of disposition. The fault probably lay in Edward’s method. In diplomacy he was devious, and the reigning heads of Europe had come to know that he could not be trusted. If he sought a husband for one of his lovely daughters in Spain, it could be taken for granted that he was also negotiating in other quarters.
Isabella was first affianced to Louis, the son of the Count of Flanders, to cement the alliance with the Low Countries. She was jilted by the young man, whose sympathies lay entirely with France, particularly as he had seen his father slain on the field of Crécy. He ran away to the French court and later was married to Margaret of Brabant. Isabella did not seem at all disturbed because she had in the meantime conceived a liking for one Bernard Ezi, son of the lord of Albret in Gascony. She was even ready to go to Gascony for the ceremony and had a wedding gown prepared of rich India silk, trimmed with ermine and embroidered with seven ounces of gold thread. Perhaps some quarrel developed between the young couple before the time came for the ships to leave; at any rate, the match was broken off, at the solicitation of the bride. The poor bridegroom-elect was so stricken with grief that he relinquished all his property rights to his younger brother and retired into a monastery. He had been sincerely in love with the gay princess.
Finally, when the charming but capricious Isabella had reached the age of thirty-three, she fell deeply, completely, irrevocably in love with a handsome French nobleman of twenty-four, Ingelram de Coucy, who was in England as a hostage. Although he belonged to the lesser Gallic nobility, the young man regarded himself as of the first importance, a trait which had persisted in his family for generations. The motto of the family, in fact, was an open demonstration of their pride:
King, duke, prince nor earl am I;
I am the Lord of Coucy.
Fortunately, or unfortunately as things turned out for the fair Isabella, the young man was as much in love with her as she was with him; and with much persistence they succeeded in winning the consent of the royal parents. They were married at Windsor Castle and the king, characteristically, gave his daughter as brilliant a marriage as though she were wedding the most exalted monarch in the world. On the morning of the ceremony Isabella was presented with jewelry to the value of £2,370. At the wedding feast her father assembled all the best minstrels he could summon and with a lordly gesture paid them a truly colossal figure for their services, one hundred pounds.
Isabella was pleased to find that the lords of Coucy lived in a feudal state quite in keeping with their inordinate pride. The castle of Coucy had a grand staircase twenty-two feet in width, which led to many galleries where the family had their living apartments. There were double walls about the structure with ten ramparts and four bastions, and a donjon tower 176 feet high and 305 feet in circumference. They lived with all the pomp of kings.
The marriage was a success at first. Isabella, who had retained most of her good looks and slender proportions, presented her youthful bridegroom with two daughters, Mary and Philippa. In course of time, however, the pride of the lord of Coucy, who had been given the title of Count of Bedford in England and very extensive estates, rebelled at serving a foreign monarch. As a substitute measure he thought of joining the great Hawkwood in Italy, but this did not accomplish his purpose. The couple parted, to enable him to renew his homage to the King of France. Isabella returned to England and died, it was believed, of a broken heart. Extravagant to the end, she left debts which had to be paid by the crown.
When the second daughter, Joanna, was two years old, Edward arranged to marry her to Frederick, the eldest son of Duke Otho of Austria, and at the age of five she was taken to the Austrian court to be raised.
The poor little princess was caught in a difficult position at the Austrian court, for Duke Otho died and his brother, Albert, who became guardian, was favorably disposed to France. The child, who was now six years old, had the good sense and courage to send secret messages to her father, telling him that she was practically a prisoner. Edward had to make three formal demands before the child was returned to her own family. A journey of fifty days brought her to Ghent, where her mother was staying, and she arrived just in time to help celebrate the arrival of another son in the family. The boy was named John and became the famous and controversial John of Gaunt.
Joanna was thirteen when it was finally decided that she was to marry Pedro, the heir to the throne of Castile. A Spanish ambassador was sent to England to see her and decide whether she would make a suitable bride for the Castilian heir. The princess had her full share of the Plantagenet beauty and was, moreover, the favorite of the royal parents, so the report was an affirmative one. On January 9, a time of rough weather and stormy seas, the nuptial party set sail. When they reached Gascony, the Black Death was raging there and the princess was hurriedly removed to the small village of Loremo, where it was believed she would be safe from contagion. The plague spread, however, and the princess was the first victim.
She was deeply mourned by her parents, but it may have been that her early death saved her much grief and suffering. The prince she was to have married developed into the most depraved of men and won for himself the name in history of Pedro the Cruel.
The young claimant to the dukedom of Brittany, John de Montfort, was raised at the English court while the struggle over the succession raged in his homeland. It was understood from the beginning that he was to marry Mary, the fourth English princess (the third, Blanche, had died in infancy), and fortunately they became sincerely attached. Edward was trying a new policy with his family at this stage, one of austerity, and the little Mary was allowed no more than twenty marks a year as her allowance. This did not disturb her at all, for she was a quiet and gentle child and did not like to travel around as her older sisters had done.
John de Montfort was a handsome and vigorous fellow and in due course became duke, but not in time for Mary to share the honor with him. They were married at Woodstock before the issue of the succession was settled, and after seven happy months the bride died of a form of sleeping sickness.
The fifth daughter, Margaret, was married to a commoner, John, the son and heir of Lawrence Hastings, Earl of Pembroke. It was a love match and she was very happy for the brief time it lasted. The princess died after two years of married life at the English court.