The She Wolf of France (36 page)

And how splendidly insolent Piers had been; it was an insolence that delighted Edward. No king would have dared treat his great barons as his favourite did.

`Do you remember, Crouchback, how he used to call the Earl
of Gloucester a bastard? And how he, used to shout to the Earl of
Warwick "Go and lie down, you black dog!" '

`And how he insulted my brother' by calling him a cuckold,
which Thomas never forgave him, because it was true.'

Piers had been frightened of nothing. He had pillaged the
Queen's jewels and thrown insults about as others distribute
alms, because he was sure of the love of his king. He had had a
greater effrontery than anyone in the world. Moreover, he had
used his imagination in his diversions: he had stripped his pages
who lived
within the formidable castle that raised its red fortifications to the winter sky.

For Kenilworth had been built of a stone the colour of dried blood. It was one of those fabulous castles, dating back to the century after the Conquest, when a handful of Normans, the companions of William, had had to overawe a whole population with these huge fortresses built on hills.

The keep of Kenilworth, square and immensely high, reminded travellers from the Orient of the pylons of Egyptian temples.

The proportions of this enormous building were so great that large rooms were contained merely within the thickness of the walls; but the keep, on the other hand, could be entered only by a narrow staircase in which two people could barely wall; abreast. Its red steps led to a door protected by a portcullis on the first floor. Within was a garden, or rather a grassy court, of some sixty feet square, open to the sky, but entirely contained within the keep.42

No military building could have been better conceived to withstand a siege. If the invader succeeded in breaching the outer wall, the defenders took refuge in the castle itself, behind a moat; and if the inner wall was breached, then the defenders would abandon the usual living-quarters, the great hall, the kitchens, the lords' chambers, the chapel, to the enemy, and retire into the keep built round the well of the green court which was sheltered by an enormous thickness of wall.

The King was living there as a prisoner. He knew Kenilworth well, for it had belonged to Thomas of Lancaster and had once served as a rallying centre for the rebellious barons. After Thomas had been beheaded, Edward had seized the castle and had lived in it himself during the winter of 1323, before giving it back to Henry Crouchback the following year, when he had returned to him all the Lancaster estates.

Henry III, Edward's grandfather, had in the past besieged Kenilworth for six months to recover it from the son of his brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort; and it was not to the military that it had fallen,-but to famine, plague and excommunication.

At the beginning of the reign of Edward I, Roger Mortimer of Chirk, who had so recently died in prison, had been its constable, in the name of the first Earl of Lancaster, and had given his famous, tournaments' there. One of the towers on the outer wall, to Edward's exasperation, bore the name of Mortimer Tower. It
stood there, a mockery and a defiance, in the centre of his daily view.

But King Edward II had still other memories of the district. Only four miles to the south, in Warwick Castle, whose white keep was visible from the summit of Kenilworth's red keep, Gaveston, his first lover, had been put to death by the barons. Had this neighbourhood changed the tenor of the King's thoughts? Edward seemed to have forgotten Hugh Despenser completely; on the other hand, he was obsessed by the memory of Piers Gaveston, and talked of him unceasingly to his jailer, Henry of Lancaster.

Never had Edward and his Cousin Crouchback lived so close together for so' long, nor in such isolation. Never had Edward confided so much to the eldest member of his family. He had moments of considerable lucidity in Which he judged himself dispassionately, and this sometimes astonished Lancaster, and touched him too. Lancaster was beginning to understand many things which seemed incomprehensible to the people of England.

It was Gaveston, Edward admitted, who had been responsible for, or at least the origin of, his first errors and of the deplorable path his life had taken.

`He loved me so much,' said the prisoner King; `and at that time, young as I was, I was ready to believe anything and to trust myself entirely to so great a love.'

And even now he could not help being moved by the memory of the charm of that little Gascon knight who had risen from nothing,, `a mushroom sprouting in a night,' as the barons said, and whom he had made Earl of Cornwall to the disgust of all the great lords of the realm:

`He wanted it so much!' Edward said.

And how splendidly insolent Piers had been; it was an insolence that delighted Edward. No king Would have dared treat his great barons as his favourite did.

`Do you remember, Crouchback, how he used to call the Earl of Gloucester a bastard? And how he, used to shout to the Earl of Warwick: "Go and lie down, you black dog!"'

`And how he insulted my brother by calling him a cuckold, which Thomas never forgave him, because it was true.'

Piers had been frightened of nothing. He had pillaged the Queen's jewels and thrown insults about as others distribute alms, because he was sure of the love of his king. He had had a greater effrontery than anyone in the world. Moreover, he had used his imagination in his diversions: he had stripped his pages
naked loaded their arms with pearl
s, rouged their lips, allowed
them no more than a leafy frond for modest concealment, and had organized erotic pursuits through the woods. And then there had been his escapades in the low districts in the Port of London, where he wrestled with the porters, for the fellow was strong, too. Oh, what splendid youthful years he had given the King!

`I thought I'd find all that again in Hugh, but my imagination endowed him with more than was there. You see, Crouchback, what made Hugh so different
from
Piers was the fact that he really did come from a family of great barons and he couldn't forget it. But had I not known Piers, I'm sure I should have been a very different King.'

During the interminable winter evenings; between games of chess, Henry Crouchback, his hair falling over his right shoulder, listened to the Kings confessions. His
reverses,
the collapse of his power and his captivity had suddenly aged him; his athletic body seemed to have grown soft and his face become puffy, in particular th
e eyelids. And yet, such as he
was, Edward still preserved a certain charm. He needed to be loved; that had been the great misfortune of his life. How sad it was that his loves had been so wicked and that he had sought consolation and loyalty from such evil hearts.

Crouchback had advised Edward to go to appear before his Parliament, but in vain. This weak King could show strength only in stubborn refusal.

`I know very well I've lost my throne, Henry,' he replied, `but I shall not abdicate.'

Carried on a cushion, the crown and sceptre of England were moving slowly upwards, step by step, in the narrow staircase of the keep of Kenilworth. Behind, the mitres swayed and the jewels in the croziers glittered in the half-light The bishops, raising their embroidered robes above their ankles, were slowly hoisting themselves up the tower.

The King, seated on a chair which, because it was the only one, created something of the effect of a throne, was waiting at the end of the great hall, his head resting on his hand, his body bowed, between two of the pillars that supported the great arches which resembled those of a cathedral. Everything here was of colossal proportions. The pale January day, which entered through the high, narrow windows, was like twilight.

The Earl of Lancaster, with his head askew, was standing beside his cousin together with three attendants, who were not
even the King's. The red walls, the red pillars and the red arches composed a tragic background for the end of a reign.

When Edward saw the crown and sceptre, which had been brought
to him like this twenty years
ago under the vaults of Westminster, appearing through the open double doors and advancing towards him across the huge spaces of the hall, he sat upright in his chair and his chin began quivering a little. He turned to look at his cousin of Lancaster, as if in search of his support, but Crouchback looked away, for this dumb entreaty was intolerable.

Then Orleton was standing before the King, Orleton whose every appearance for several weeks past had meant for Edward the forfeit of some part of his power. The King looked at the other bishops and at the Great Chamberlain; he made an effort to maintain his dignity and asked: `What have you to say to me, my lords?'

But the pale lips amid the blond beard could barely frame the words.

The Bishop of Winchester read the message by which Parliament summoned the King to sign his abdication together with a renunciation of homage from his vassals, to agree to the choice of his son, and to deliver up to the envoys the ritual insignia of sovereignty.

When the Bishop of Winchester had done, Edward was silent for a long moment. His whole attention seemed fixed on the crown. He was suffering, and his pain was so clearly physical, so profoundly marked on his features, that one might have doubted whether he was even thinking at all. Nevertheless, he said: `You have the crown in your hands, my lords, and you have me at your mercy. Do therefore as you please, but you shall not do it with my consent.'

Then Adam Orleton took a step forward and said: `Sire Edward, the people of England no longer want you for King and their Parliament has sent us to declare it to you. But Parliament accepts as King your eldest son, the Duke of Aquitaine, whom I have presented to it; but your son is not willing to accept the crown except with your consent. If you are therefore wilful in your refusal, the people will be free to choose and may well elect as their sovereign prince someone among the great men of the realm who most pleases them, and that king may not be of your lineage. You have brought too much trouble on the realm; and after all the harm you have done it, this is the one thing you can still do to give it peace.'

Once-again Edward looked at Lancaster. In spite of the faintness he felt, the King had understood the warning contained in the Bishop's words. If he, did not agree to abdicate, Parliament, in its need to find a king,, would certainly choose the leader of the rebellion, Roger Mortimer, who already possessed the Queen's heart. The King's face had taken on a curious and alarming hue; his chin was still quivering; his nostrils looked pinched.

`My Lord Orleton is right,' said Crouchback. `You must abdicate, Cousin, to bring peace back to England and so that the Plantagenets may continue to reign.'

Then Edward, who seemed incapable of speech, signed to them to bring the crown near and he bowed his head as if he wished to wear it for a last time.

The bishops looked at each other, knowing neither what to do nor how to do it, for this unexpected ceremony had no precedent in royal ritual. But the King's head was bowing lower and lower towards his knees.

`He's swooned!' suddenly cried Archdeacon Chandos who was carrying the cushion with the emblems of sovereignty.

Crouchback and Orleton hurried to the fainting Edward and caught him as his head was about to strike the flagstones.

They put him back in 'his chair, slapped his cheeks, and sent hurriedly for vinegar. At last he drew a deep breath, opened his eyes, looked about him, and then suddenly began to weep. The mysterious power with which the anointing and the mystic rites of the coronation imbue kings, and sometimes only to serve disastrous tendencies, had withdrawn itself from him. It was as if he had been exorcized of the quality of sovereignty.

He was heard to speak through his tears.

`I know, my lords, I know that it is through my own fault that I have fallen int
o such great misery, and I must
resign myself to bear it. But I cannot help feeling a great sorrow at all this hatred from my people, whom I have never hated. I have offended you, I have not acted well. You are good, my lords, very good to preserve your devotion to my eldest son, to continue to love him and to want him for King. I shall therefore do as you wish. I renounce before you all my rights over the realm; I release all my vassals from the homage they have paid me and ask their pardon. Come near...'

And once again he signed for the emblems of sovereignty to be brought to him. He took hold of the sceptre, and his arm dropped as if he had forgotten how much it weighed; he, gave it
to the Bishop of Winchester, saying: `Forgive, my lord, forgive the wrongs I have done you.'

He extended his long
white hands towards the cushion, raised the crown, p
ut his lips to it as if it were
a paten, and then, handing it to Adam Orleton, he said: `Take it, my lord, to crown my son. And forgive me for the wrongs and injustices I have done you. May my people forgive me in my present misery. My lords, pray for me who am now nothing.'

Everyone was struck by the nobility of his words. Edward showed himself to be a king only at the moment he was ceasing to be one.

Then Sir William Blount, the Great Chamberlain, emerged from the shadows of the pillars, advanced between Edward and the bishops, and broke across his knee the carved staff, which was the insignia of his office, to mark the fact that a reign was over, as he would have done before the body of a dead king that had been placed in its tomb.

6. The camp-kettle war