Jean Plaidy - The Prince of Darkness

He sat sprawling in a chair, his legs stretched out before him, and regarded the tips of his boots. ‘Well, Hadwisa, it was not much, was it, this marriage of ours? You know why, do you not? We should never have married in the first place. The blood tie was too strong. Our lusty great-grandfather should have remained faithful to his wife and then, my dear Hadwisa, you would never have been born.’

She bowed her head. She did not want him to see the hopeful lights which she knew must be shining from her eyes.

‘When I married you,’ he went on, ‘I was but the brother of a king. It seemed possible that Richard would have sons whom the people would say came before a younger brother. So I was allowed to marry you who, though of some royal blood, had come by it in a dubious manner.’

‘I was rich,’ she reminded him sharply.

‘There you have a point,’ he said. ‘Our great-grandfather was generous to his bastards.’

‘It may have been that, like his grandson, he found they served him well, even more loyally perhaps than his legitimate sons.’

She had some spirit after all.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘perforce they must. They would fare ill if they did not. A legitimate son has rights which a bastard would have to toady for.’

‘I cannot believe that my grandfather ever did that. By what I hear of him he was a most noble gentleman and the King was well aware of it.’

John made an impatient gesture. ‘I have not come here to talk of the merits of bastards,’ he said. ‘Hadwisa, you have come to great honour. Some might say you are a queen.’

‘Is not the wife of the King a queen?’

‘If he decides that she is. You remember you were never at Court. You were never beside me when I travelled. You were not crowned with me at my coronation. It is the custom for a queen to be crowned with her husband. Does this give you some idea of what is in my mind?’

He could see her heart beating wildly under her bodice. With hope, he believed. Oh yes, she wanted to be rid of him. She loathed him. She might easily have tried to poison him if she had had the courage. She had hated those occasions when he had turned his attentions on her even more than he realised. He would love to torment her now but he was too impatient to be rid of her.

‘The fact is, Hadwisa,’ he said, ‘that you have not given me a child. I have been married to you for ten years and although I admit you have not had so many opportunities, there have yet been some. I am a king. I must have an heir. So since you cannot give it to me there is only one alternative left to me. I must try elsewhere.’

‘You want to declare our marriage no marriage,’ she said calmly.

‘Failing that, there could be a divorce.’

‘There would be no difficulty,’ she said eagerly. ‘The Archbishop of Canterbury was much against our marriage.’

‘Oh yes, old Baldwin. He ranted, did he not? The blood tie is there, Hadwisa.’

‘Then you should marry again and perhaps this time you will get heirs.’

She was thinking: I pity your bride. But her relief must necessarily be stronger than her pity.

‘This is what I have come to tell you. I believe there will be no difficulty in releasing me from this marriage. I have already set matters in motion. I have chosen three bishops from Normandy and three from Aquitaine. I have no doubt what their verdict will be. The Pope will not interfere unless you raise a voice against it.’

She said, almost breathlessly, ‘You may rely on me. I shall raise no voice against it. I shall be happy with the conclusion you have come to.’

‘Then all is well,’ he said.

He stood up and looked about the room. He had had a little sport here, but not much. He had quickly tired of her terror.

‘Goodbye, Hadwisa,’ he said.

‘Goodbye, John,’ she replied in a subdued voice and never had she been so happy to say goodbye to anyone before.

He rode from the castle in high good humour.

Isabella, Isabella, he was thinking. I shall soon have you.

It must not be too obvious. He must wait for the verdict of the bishops. He had enjoyed explaining to them in a sanctimonious manner. ‘I have given this matter great thought. Hadwisa of Gloucester has been a good wife to me and I hesitate to put her from me. If I did not think it was the will of God …’

They had looked at him a little suspiciously then and he knew he had gone too far, so he had continued: ‘I must confess that it is the succession which is uppermost in my mind. I need a son. The country needs an heir. I want to do my duty to my people.’

They considered a while but not for long. It was good that the King should end his unfruitful marriage. It was true that when a king had a son it was the best thing possible for that son to follow his father to the throne. If there was no direct heir there was invariably conflict. It had happened so recently with John and Arthur.

The bishops decided – all six of them – that it would be good for John’s subjects if he married a wife who could give him an heir.

John was a free man and the Pope, after all the fuss there had been when he had married Hadwisa and the fact that they had been forbidden by the Church to live together, could not but agree. The only point which could have made him hesitate was if Hadwisa herself had raised an objection.

John was content. There was no fear of that.

He now amused himself by pretending to look round for a bride. He did not want anyone to know that he had found her already. He was going to discover when the time was ripe what a good thing it would be for him to marry Isabella of Angoulême.

In the meantime he discussed the possibility of his remarriage with William Marshal.

‘Richard did well by marrying Berengaria of Navarre,’ he said. ‘Navarre has been a good friend to our house. I would wish to preserve that friendship.’

William Marshal agreed that it was wise to do so.

‘But Navarre is threatened by Castile and Aragon because they are allies of the King of France. Now I have thought what a good policy it would be to use Portugal as an ally, which could be achieved.’

‘I see,’ said William Marshal, ‘you are thinking of the Portuguese King’s daughter. She is marriageable. It is an excellent idea. We should send envoys at once to Portugal.’

‘Let it be done without delay,’ said John.

So it was; and when he was alone he laughed heartily to consider the excitement in the Portuguese Court at the prospect of alliance with the King of England who owned large dominions on the Continent.

‘No, my Princess of Portugal,’ he whispered. ‘I am not for you, and you are not for me. There is only one who will do for me. Isabella.’

It was some years before John had seen her in the forest that Isabella had become betrothed to Hugh de Lusignan. She would never forget the day when her parents had sent for her and explained that a husband had been found for her, and his family wanted her to go to them that she might be educated in the manner expected of a Lusignan and grow to love her husband before she became his wife.

At that time Isabella had known very little of the world outside the Angoumois over which her parents ruled. In some measure she ruled them. That she was beautiful in no ordinary way had quickly become obvious to her. She heard it whispered; she saw it in people’s eyes when they looked at her; in fact she was always a little shocked if people failed to react to her beauty which they did only on rare occasions. Perhaps some old bishop would look upon her just as though she were an ordinary child. Poor old thing, she would think, I suppose he’s half blind.

She never lost a chance of looking at her reflection. It delighted her even when she was very young. Those beautiful long eyes with the thick black lashes; eyes that were of a blue so deep that it was almost violet; her thick dark hair was a cloud about the perfect oval of her face. She had been born a beauty and would remain one to the end of her days.

It was natural that there should be a certain imperiousness about her. Her mother used to say to her: ‘Never forget that you are descended from the kings of France and the French Court is the most elegant and most intellectual in the world.’

Naturally her mother would think so because she was the daughter of Peter de Courtenay, who was a young son of King Louis VI of France. Isabella knew that her mother considered herself of higher social standing than her father. He, however, being Count of Angoulême, was a man of influence and because she was their only child she was of great importance to them.

When she was very young Isabella learned that they had hoped for a son; she was very glad that they were unable to get one because she knew that if they had she would have been of less importance to them, and one thing Isabella hated was not to be the centre of attraction.

She believed that at the Court of Angoulême she was the most important figure even though she was only a little girl. Her mother watched over her with the greatest care; her father gave instructions to her attendants and governesses that she was never to be left alone. That was a nuisance, but because it meant they were so anxious for her she accepted it and would have been put out to see it slackened.

She worked hard in the schoolroom because she had a natural aptitude for learning and she liked everyone to know how clever she was. She wanted to be first in everything. There was no doubt that she was the most beautiful child any of them had ever seen; but she wanted also to be the cleverest. True, she had to work a little harder to achieve that, but she was purposeful and made a point of getting what she wanted.