CHAPTER XIV
1
THROUGH Bohemia passed much of the trade from the East. Here also the shock of the Mongolian invasion had been shared with Poland and Hungary more than a century before. The English understood the importance of this country, so beautiful and fertile that it was sometimes called the Golden Road. But the Bohemians had no real knowledge of England. An island, small and fogbound, was their impression of the country where the conquering Plantagenets had reigned so long, but from which, strangely enough, there had emerged at intervals small armies capable of cutting the French forces to pieces, largely because of a death-dealing weapon known as the longbow. A king of Bohemia named John, who was blind, had been with the French at Crécy and had ridden into battle with his horse chained to the steeds of knights on each side. The bodies of all six, the three men and the three horses, had been found on the field later by the victorious English. A son of John’s named Wenceslaus (but not the Good King Wenceslaus of the Christmas carol) had succeeded. Changing his name to Charles, he became the Holy Roman Emperor and remained a firm friend of France. He was a shrewd and cautious man, preferring to gain his ends by conspiratorial methods; in appearance sallow, black-a-vised, and huddled of shoulder. He had been married four times and by the last of his wives had a daughter named Anne.
The little princess, who was only twelve when he died, does not seem to have taken after her Machiavellian father. She was fair of complexion and in figure rather tall, straight, and trim. She had a gift for winning affection.
Charles of Bohemia died in 1378 and his successor, much to his mortification, found it impossible to maintain the alliance with the French. The Christian world had been broken into two camps by the schism over the papacy. France, Spain and Scotland stood with Clement VII, who was called the anti-Pope, while England, Flanders, most of Italy, and all of Germany were ranged behind Urban VI. Even when Charles of France asked for Anne as a wife for his son, it had been necessary for Bohemia to refuse.
Early in 1379, before it was known that the French match had been broken off, the English council began to look over the field. Sir Simon Burley was in Milan to negotiate a marriage between Richard and Catherine, daughter of Bernabò Visconti. This move was not successful. Bernabò and other members of his family were at odds, with the result that his nephew Gian Galeazzo succeeded in poisoning him. Burley had warned Westminster that the proposed alliance would be a mistake and he is next reported at Prague where his mission was to foster a match between King Richard and the princess Anne.
He found the princess Anne gentle, bright, even intelligently educated. If not beautiful, she was clearly of “goodly person” and pleasing address. It seems certain that even at this initial stage the little princess and the courtly Englishman found themselves on good terms. He must have painted for her an enticing picture of the handsome boy king, for on his return to London he brought assurances of her personal willingness.
The next step seems to have been the arrival in England of Duke Primislaus of Saxony, an uncle of the princess. He had been sent by Anne’s mother, who still held the title of empress, to spy out the land, so to speak, and in particular to see if favorable financial terms could be arranged. Apparently the duke was well impressed, for he produced a letter from the empress which read in part: “I, Elizabeth, Roman empress, always Augusta, likewise queen of Bohemia, empower Duke Primislaus to treat with Richard king of England concerning the wedlock of that excellent virgin, the damsel Anne, born of us; and in our name to order and dispose and, as if our own soul were pledged, to swear to the fulfillment of every engagement.”
Things were now reaching solid ground. An English party, headed by the Earl of Kent and including “two others,” later identified as Michael de la Pole and Sir Simon Burley, set out for Bohemia. It did not require any further efforts on the part of Burley or his fellow ambassadors to obtain the consent of the daughter of the Caesars. Anne, in fact, wrote a letter to the council of England, saying she would become the wife of their king “with full and free will.”
The shrewd Bohemians, however, succeeded in driving a stiff bargain with the Englishmen, one which later created much dissatisfaction at home. There was to be no dowry and it was further stipulated that England should pay to Anne’s brother Wenceslaus, the new emperor, the sum of 10,000 marks. All expenses of her journey were to be borne by the country of the prospective bridegroom. It must have been that Richard’s advisers saw great advantages in an alliance which would help to cement relations with the great cities of Flanders and prevent the French king from driving a wedge between England and her profitable markets on the continent. Otherwise they would not have agreed to such conditions.
2
The Peasants’ Revolt made it necessary to postpone the wedding. The English ambassadors remained in Prague and so missed the opportunity of playing a part in that dramatic page in English history. Belated reports reached them and it may be taken for granted that Sir Simon Burley missed no chance to let the anxious princess know of the remarkable role her intended husband had played. The delay had one advantage. It gave the little Anne a chance to achieve her fifteenth birthday, the earliest age at which her family would part with her.
It was a large and picturesque party which set out. The Duke of Saxony and his duchess were in charge and there was a long train of Czech knights and ladies in waiting, as well as a very large number of servants, for the practical Bohemians were not yet convinced that the country to which their princess was being taken was quite civilized enough to provide properly for her comfort and well-being. They left under another, and greater, cloud of apprehension. The agents they maintained in France (espionage was as fine an art then as it is today, even perhaps a shade more subtle) had discovered that Charles V of France was in no mood to let Anne reach England. He was planning to patrol the waters of the Channel with a fleet of battleships, under stern orders to secure possession of the person of the princess and send her to his court.
The French king, as already explained, had wanted Anne as a wife for his eldest son, a boy of eleven years. Even though that plan had fallen through, he was bitterly determined that she was not to become the bride of Richard of England. Such a match would completely upset his plans to weaken the relationship between the island kingdom and the wealthy cities of Flanders. By the time the nuptial party reached Brussels, where the bride was to visit her uncle and aunt of Brabant, the French fleet, stripped for action and in fighting mood, was plying up and down the coast and preventing any ships from crossing the Channel. No steps had been taken to clear the path, for there was not an English sail on the horizon.
Under the circumstances, Anne’s uncle Wenceslaus sent two envoys to Paris, the lords of Rousselaus and Bousquetion, to protest the French action. King Charles, it developed, was quite ill when they arrived. He had been an able ruler and had been responsible for the recovery of much French territory in the preceding ten years. But, with death staring him in the face, the need to continue rigid diplomatic measures grew less and less urgent. He listened to the Flemish ambassadors without making much effort to combat their views. Finally he gave vent to a deep sigh.
“So be it,” he said. “I shall order my vessels back to port. I do this out of love for my cousin Anne. Not,” he added, with a resurgence of his old fire, “out of regard or consideration for the King of England.”
He died on September 16 while the bridal party still lingered at Brussels.
As soon as word arrived that the coast was clear, the final stages of the journey were begun. Escorted by a large company of her own countrymen, including one hundred men-at-arms, they traveled down toward the waters which separated the Low Countries from England. There was a short delay at Bruges because the Earl of Flanders had arranged entertainments which lasted three days. At Gravelines an English escort awaited them, made up of 500 spears and an equal number of those most dreaded of battle troops, the English archers. They progressed to Calais where, at last, an English fleet awaited them. The order of things on the Strait of Dover had been reversed. The French flag no longer flew on any craft within sight, but the leopards of England were everywhere.
They had to wait for favorable winds but finally, on the morning of Wednesday, December 18, the daughter of the Caesars was escorted up a gangplank covered with velvet and ankle deep with English roses. The convoy reached Dover the same day.
A most strange and tragic occurrence followed the safe landing of the princess. She had no sooner set foot on English soil than the waters of the Strait were so violently agitated that all the ships were tossed about in the wildest confusion. Some collided and were so badly damaged that they sank, including the one on which she had sailed. The frightened princess saw it go down under the rush of waters.
This unusual convulsion of nature did not lend itself to any reasonable explanation. There had been little wind, not enough certainly to create such havoc. The angry waves soon subsided, although the flow of waters between Dover and Calais continued to carry all traffic before it. Mariners had no explanation to give. Never had they seen the like before. Scientists thought of many possible reasons but none of them was in any sense acceptable. It was even believed by the populace that a huge sea serpent had made its way through the Strait and had agitated the waters with the lash of a mighty tail.
All agreed on one point, that it was an omen. But was it an omen of good fortune or of bad?
3
Despite the enthusiasm with which the young princess was received in England and the warm liking for her which developed at once, there has been a general tendency to deny her a share of beauty. This has been due, apparently, to the lack of any mention of personal pulchritude in the exchange of official letters prior to the final settlement. Richard, it was therein stated, was requesting her hand because of her nobility of birth and her gentleness of character. There is also the evidence of the only likeness of her in existence, the monument in Westminster Abbey. It should be pointed out that the art of the portrait painter was not successfully practiced in England through the Middle Ages. So pedestrian were the efforts of those who chiseled out of stone the figures on the tombs of monarchs of the day and their wives that it is unfair to draw any conclusions from them. The tools of the sculptors seemed to fall into a groove and the poor ladies have come down to posterity in one familiar guise: eyes reasonably far apart, noses long and thin, mouths tiny and compressed, chins rounded. Isabella, the French princess whose voluptuous charms created so much havoc, is depicted as of strong character but with no hint of her fatal beauty. Edward I’s beloved Eleanor of Castile looks sly. Isabella of Angoulême, wife of the infamous John and widely acclaimed the most lovely woman in Europe, is given a bumpkin fullness of face. Even Adelicia of Louvain, the snow-white princess who became Henry I’s second wife, appears pudgy and spinsterish. On the other hand, poor Berengaria, neglected wife of the mighty Richard Coeur de Lion, who was never considered a beauty, is made to appear bright and vivacious and decidedly pretty in a dark-eyed way.
To criticize the young king’s fifteen-year-old bride on such grounds seems unfair. Richard conceived an immediate liking for her, one which grew with the years and became an infatuation. Even if Anne could not be called beautiful in a classic sense, she possessed a charm and grace which more than compensated.
After three days of rest at Dover, the bridal party took horse for Canterbury. This provided the first opportunity for the display of an innovation which would be accepted by all the ladies of England and would remain in common usage for a matter of six centuries. The princess rode sidesaddle.
Up to this time, ladies had ridden astride. No efforts seem to have been made to lend any grace or comfort to this means of travel. The ladies tucked their skirts up behind them and encased their legs and feet in detached garments somewhat on the order of shawls, invariably arriving at their destination in a rumpled and exhausted condition. There was immediate curiosity when it was seen that the princess sat sideways on an entirely new kind of equipment. A rest was suspended from the right of the saddle, which was large enough to accommodate both feet of the rider. Anne allowed only her right foot to touch the rest, and that lightly, while her left knee was raised gracefully above the level of the saddle. English ladies accepted this new and very feminine idea almost immediately and for long centuries continued to ride and hunt and hawk in this less secure but more ladylike position, until in the fullness of time they attained the emancipation of riding trousers.
Another innovation was noticed as soon as the princess was escorted decorously into Canterbury. She was wearing the great horned headgear that was in general use on the continent. Nothing good could be said of this absurdity except that the style had been conceived in France and accepted everywhere. It stood two feet in height and had a corresponding width, the material being suspended on wires. It made the wearers look like birds of prey, but again the ladies of England, determined not to appear old-fashioned, fell into line. Later they accepted the even more exaggerated hennin.
John of Gaunt had been forced to reconcile himself to a new perspective by what happened during the Peasants’ Revolt. The hatred for him which had been displayed by the yeomen in arms had been an eye opener. He had been aware before that he lacked the good will of the Londoners and had brushed it aside with lofty pride, but the rage and thoroughness with which Wat the Tyler’s men had destroyed his beautiful and most prized possession, the Savoy, had made him realize, perhaps for the first time, that his unpopularity was deep and widespread. He had remained in Scotland after the rebellion subsided in the hope of quelling the tension there and he had even found it advisable to ask Richard for a safe conduct to use in returning to London.
Under ordinary circumstances he would have acted as the king’s deputy in welcoming the princess when her train arrived at Canterbury. His concern over the hostility of the public was such that he decided not to go, and the youngest of the royal uncles, Thomas of Woodstock, went to the cathedral city in his stead.
Thomas of Woodstock had shown no trace of liking for Richard from the first. He was a man of furious pride and a degree of self-esteem which made him resent the occupation of the throne by a boy who seemed to him weak and effeminate. However, he carried out his duties as the representative of the royal family by receiving the princess with the customary warmth and courtesy. This attitude was not maintained long, however, for he was soon back to his more familiar role as personal faultfinder.
London had not had time to recover from the terrors of the occupation. The face of the city still wore, like pockmarks, the blackened gaps opened by the fires. Never before had there been so many rotting heads raised above London Bridge. Perhaps it was a natural reaction from so much fear that the citizens now showed great warmth and ostentation in welcoming the girl queen. They met the escorting train at Blackheath, which had been cleared of all traces of the peasant occupation and would never again seem to echo with the voice of John Ball. The worthy burghers were out in great numbers and were giving a display of wealth which must have reassured the attendants of Anne who had more than half expected to find England barbarous and lacking in culture. The men of the guilds rode spirited steeds, their beards were oiled and curled, their cloaks were of velvet and cloth of gold, their hats were heavy with bobbing plumes. The goldsmiths alone were out to the number of seven score, and the other wealthy companies were equally well represented.
The streets of London blazed with flags, there were decorated booths at all crossings, and fountains ran with wine. Beautiful girls showered bouquets on the young couple and danced in front of their horses, strewing the path with yellow flowers like florins.
The cheeks of the little princess were pink with excitement as she rode beside the handsome king and she must have been thinking that all her dreams were coming true. It would be easy to love her royal husband and to respect and like the people among whom she would spend the balance of her life.
The wedding took place on January 14 at St. Stephen’s Chapel in Westminster and her coronation followed in eight days, both events being conducted with great pomp and circumstance. In the meantime, Anne’s Bohemian escort had returned to the continent, leaving only her immediate attendants and her personal servants, still a considerable train.
The little queen was made a member of the Order of the Garter, wearing a robe of violet and a hood lined with scarlet silk. Even in such fine raiment she was dimmed by the grandeur of Richard who wore his famous coat sparkling with jewels, which was reputed to have cost 30,000 marks. The king did not seem at all perturbed that to pay the costs of the ceremonies it had been necessary to pawn the jewels of Aquitaine, which had belonged to the Crown since Eleanor of that rich duchy had married Henry II, the first of the English Plantagenets. He was completely his grandfather in this respect. The revenues of the Crown were to be spent as lavishly as he might desire.
Anne was too happy to feel any regrets that her royal spouse outshone her. Was it not, after all, a law of nature that the male bird had the richest colors and the most spectacular plumes? From the very beginning Anne was a perfect wife. She wanted Richard to be happy and her attitude was always one of complaisance and agreement.
As she understood three languages, as well as a smattering of English, she was undoubtedly the most learned member to join the Order of the Garter.
4
The new queen seems to have reached a quick and cordial understanding with the queen mother. The latter had as good reason for jealousy as any mother-in-law, for up to this point she had been holding Richard in leading strings and her influence had been manifest in everything. Not only did she face the certainty of slipping back to second place but a third of the income from the princedom of Wales, which had been set aside for her maintenance when the Black Prince died, had to be diverted to the holdings of the new queen. Not that Joan would feel the loss to any extent. She had been a very wealthy widow when she married Richard’s father and her estates had steadily increased. In addition to the royal castle of Wallingford, which had been assigned to her, she owned manors in twenty-six counties and so, whenever she went on her travels, she could sleep every night in a home of her own.
One emerges from a study of the part the once Fair Maid played in the history of the period with a feeling that she has been underrated. When she was left a widow by the death of her first husband, she decided that the admiration which the Black Prince had felt for her when she was as pretty and vivacious as a butterfly in the royal court could be fanned into a flame now that he was world famous and had reached his middle years without allowing himself to be married for state reasons. Her campaign was masterly. She had to catch him off balance (to use a modern phrase) in order to wring a proposal from him. History does not offer a more romantic comedy than the way she led him step by step to a declaration. Once that aloof and self-centered idol of the people had found himself in the bonds of matrimony, she proceeded to make him a good wife. He was kept reasonably contented during his last difficult years.
She has been described as une dame de gran pris, qe belle fuist, pleasante et sage. Certainly she was pleasant and wise in the most difficult situation she and her son Richard faced, the relationship with John of Gaunt. She realized from the first that it behooved them to keep the peace with that wealthy and powerful member of the royal family. During a turbulent period immediately before Edward III died, the citizens of London had tried to capture John and he had sought sanctuary in the royal palace of Kennington. The lady Joan concealed him from the angry mobs and sent out three knights to make peace with them, one of them being Sir Simon Burley. After Richard was raised to the throne, she made many trips to Pontefract, John’s great fortress in the north, to patch up family differences. This entailed endless journeying in that lumbering, jolting coach which has already been described. It has been assumed that one of her reasons for doing this was that John of Gaunt was generally believed to be using his immense influence to save John Wycliffe from clerical reprisal. It has never been decided how far the queen mother inclined to agreement with Lollard teachings but there was enough smoke to hint at hidden fire. To hold deep convictions on religious questions was a most unusual thing for a woman of high rank. If it were true that she accepted the views of the man of Lutterworth, it would indeed be proof that she had depths of character seldom suspected.
It may also have been that this constituted an undivulged bond between the two women. Anne’s father had been an enlightened ruler and among the many steps he had taken to raise Prague to a prominent place among European capitals had been the establishment of a university there. This institution had been liberal from the first. When Anne was growing up, she could not have failed to come under the influence of the leaven of religious unrest in Bohemia. It is stated that some of the queen’s entourage carried back with them an acquaintance with Wycliffe’s teachings. Certainly Jan Huss, the great Bohemian leader, acknowledged openly that he had followed the lead of Wycliffe. The young queen never expressed any such leanings, however.
Anne’s compassion had been aroused by the fury with which the peasants were being made to pay for their effort to shake off the bonds of villeinage. It was due to her intercession that an amnesty was granted, soon after her coronation, to such prisoners as still remained in the toils of the law.
It was because of this that the people began to call her Good Queen Anne.