The Agincourt Bride (26 page)

Every aspect of Catherine’s portrait was supervised by Burgundy, starting with the choice of artist, Maître Henri Bellchose, who had painted the duke’s likeness the previous year. Although it was August and searingly hot, he was adamant that Catherine should be pictured in full court regalia, complete with heavy gold coronet and ermine-trimmed mantle. Stressing the need for haste he also insisted the sittings were long and so for days on end she emerged from them prostrate with the heat. I thought the resulting portrait showed the strain she was under, depicting a lady who, although beautiful, looked considerably older than Catherine’s sixteen years. It was displayed for several days in the king’s hall before the Bishop of Beauvais carried it off to a meeting with King Henry, who was still besieging Rouen as the climax of his conquest of Normandy.

‘Very convenient, him being only fifty leagues away,’ remarked Catherine with cynical irony. ‘They are going to arrange my marriage to the sound of English guns dismantling the walls of one of my father’s most loyal and beautiful cities.’

But the walls of Rouen held; there was no treaty and no marriage. King Henry insisted that King Charles’ signature on any document must be counter-signed by Dauphin Charles, publicly declaring Burgundy ‘not eligible to dispose of the inheritances of France’.

To impart this news to us, Catherine had dismissed her unwelcome posse of Burgundian ladies, pretending to go to her bedchamber and instead climbed the stair with Agnes to find me and Alys eating supper by our own hearth. Her visit took us by surprise because she had not done this for many months. She did not, as hitherto, take a seat beside Alys on the bench, leaving that place to Agnes and instead letting me install her in Jean-Michel’s old chair.

‘You could have heard a pin drop in the great hall while the herald read King Henry’s response to the treaty proposals,’ Catherine began. ‘I did not know whether to laugh or cry, especially when it came to the bit about Burgundy’s ineligibility to sign. I have never seen the duke’s expression so black. I thought he might have an apoplexy. Obviously my portrait made no difference whatsoever. King Henry intends to take what he deems to be his by force of arms.’ She shook her head at my offer of a cup of wine. ‘Meanwhile, the duke has announced that the court is to move to Pontoise. He says it is to avoid the plague in Paris. I have not heard of any plague, have you, Mette?’

‘No I have not, although there are always rumours of some epidemic or other. Pontoise is nearer to Rouen, of course, but if he is intending to attack the English, why is he taking the whole court?’

‘Because he is not going to attack the English – he is going to double-deal as usual,’ she replied. ‘Burgundy will do what he is best at – playing two sides against the middle – and guess who is the scapegoat, tethered between the howling wolves?’ She paused for a moment, staring into the fire before continuing her tale of affairs at court.

‘The queen told me today that Charles has also offered my hand in marriage to King Henry, as part of
his
peace negotiations. Well, good for Charles! I prefer to be offered to the enemy by my brother than by Burgundy. However, my scheming mother believes
she
can save the whole situation by bringing the lost sheep back to the fold. To that end, Marie of Anjou is to be allowed to go to Charles in order to persuade him to return to his father. I think the Queen believes we can all be one big happy family – herself, Burgundy, Charles, King Henry and me. Sometimes I am not certain which of my parents is the crazier! How can she not know that Charles would rather throw himself on his sword than come within fifty miles of Jean of Burgundy?’

Perhaps it was her own powerlessness in the midst of this political turmoil that led Catherine to begin her practice of writing letters to her brother. I was not aware that she was doing this until many years later, although once or twice I spied her pushing folded papers into a concealed compartment in the base of her travelling altar and locking it with a small silver key, which she kept on a neck-chain hidden under her chemise. Sadly, as all court couriers were in the employ of Burgundy and her companions and servants were closely watched, there could never have been an opportunity for her to send a letter, especially to the outlaw, traitor and bastard that the new Council of Regency had decreed her brother to be.

From the Princess Royal, Catherine of Valois, Daughter of France,

To my dear and well beloved brother Charles, Dauphin of Viennois,

I am resolved to write down everything I can of events following your departure from the Hôtel de St Pol, so that when you are come to your inheritance, that is to the throne and crown of France, you will be fully appraised of the crimes and atrocities perpetrated on the king, his court and the people of Paris by Jean, Duke of Burgundy, his affinity and accomplices.

Among these the murder by lynching of the king’s chief ministers, including Constable Armagnac and the grand master and other officials of the royal household.

Our mother the queen has signed the decree declaring you illegitimate and stripping you of the dauphincy, though such an infamy also makes her a traitor and an adulterer. The devil duke has her in his power, it is said, because you failed to go to her aid when she was imprisoned at Tours on charge of treason. These are dreadful times when ties of blood unravel and I hope and pray that will never happen between us.

It has come to my knowledge that your ministers have proposed a peace treaty with Henry of England, to be cemented by a marriage between him and me. How willingly I would agree to such an arrangement if at the same time it removed the Duke of Burgundy from the King’s side and established you as the rightful dauphin and Regent of France.

I thank God that Marie has at last been allowed to come to you, but you should know that she suffered great humiliation at the hands of the duke. Meanwhile, for me the humiliation continues. The duke has no regard for Christian morals and constantly plagues me with lewd insinuations.

I cannot be sure when or if I will be able to send this and future letters, but at least they will serve to chronicle the grisly circumstances presently surrounding

Your loving sister,

Catherine

Written at the Hotel de St Pol, Paris, this day Monday the 25
^th
of July 1418.

Burgundy’s Reign of Terror

1418–20

A
t thirty-two years of age, I had never slept a night outside the walls of Paris, but during the next two and a half years we – that is Catherine and her little entourage – became like nomads, constantly on the move. Despite some apprehension about travelling into the unknown, it felt good to leave Paris – good to leave the fear and the rivalries and the danger in the streets.

Pontoise was one of a score of royal castles built to defend the city approaches. It lay on the road to Rouen, in an area of forest and farmland called the Vexin. In good weather one man on a horse could reach it in a few hours, but moving the whole court was a different matter and our journey took two long days. Alys and I travelled on an oxcart laden with chests full of clothing and linen and this cart was followed by several more containing bedding, hangings and furniture, including the prie-dieu and Catherine’s precious altar with its triptych of the Virgin and Child. Her bed, dismantled and stacked, travelled on a cart of its own.

‘Do they have no furniture at Pontoise?’ I grumbled to the clerk of the household who came to supervise this exodus.

‘None suitable for a princess,’ he responded testily, all the while scratching an inventory on a long roll of parchment. ‘You had best get used to packing and unpacking, for his grace of Burgundy thinks that the royal family should be seen more outside Paris.’

With the duke prominently at their side no doubt, I thought sourly. Watching the clerk make his inventory, I decided it might be prudent to make one myself when the carts were unloaded in Pontoise. If anything went astray, I wanted to be the first to know about it.

Catherine left Paris several days before us, travelling down the Seine by barge with the queen. Agnes went with her, as well as her four new Burgundian ladies-in-waiting who Catherine had already secretly christened ‘the Flanders mares’. En route they were to stay at Poissy abbey, the convent where Catherine and Agnes had been educated and where Catherine’s older sister Marie, who had been enclosed there for twenty years, was due to be installed as the new abbess. There being no place for men on such an occasion, the Duke of Burgundy escorted the king separately by barge to Pontoise.

As we trundled laboriously through open country with the city vanishing behind us, I was relieved that Catherine was not travelling with us. From her barge I hoped she would not be able to see, as we did, league after league of weed-choked fields, burned-out villages and fire-blackened orchards. It was like travelling through purgatory. Tales had been reaching us for years of successive armies tramping over the Île de France causing havoc and devastation, and now we could see the evidence with our own eyes; one abandoned village after another with empty hovels falling to ruin around the walls of crumbling, roofless churches.

On the second day our way passed through thick forest and the road was narrow, leaving no room to avoid the deep ruts, baked like stone in the August sun. Alys and I were soon so bruised and battered from clinging to the bucking oxcart, that we decided to get down and walk. In the shade of the trees it was much cooler and happily it afforded us the chance to talk freely to each other without being overheard.

Luc had remained with the royal hounds in the kennel at the Hôtel de St Pol and Alys fretted about his safety. ‘He is a bit of a dauphinist at heart. That is why I wonder if he will be all right, although he does know he has to keep very quiet about it.’

‘I did not know he had any particular loyalties – apart from to us, of course,’ I said faintly.

‘That is another thing,’ Alys went on. ‘I think that whoever the princess marries, Luc is more likely to want to go and join the dauphin than come with us. He thinks that if the dauphin arranges a marriage to King Henry that is one thing, but if the Duke of Burgundy arranges it, it will be a betrayal.’

I walked in silence for a while, brow knitted. I hardly dared to ask my next question. ‘What about you, Alys. Are you having second thoughts?’

She turned to me with a smile that lit up her brown eyes and a lump came to my throat as I suddenly saw how much she resembled her father. ‘No, Ma. I will stick with you – and the princess of course. Luc will go his own way.’

With a little difficulty I returned Alys’ smile and tucked my arm in hers. I thought of myself at her age, unrepentantly pregnant and heedless of what the future held. She seemed so much steadier, less foolish. ‘We will have to wait and see. I hope one day you will find a man who will want you to go his way.’

‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘But at least I will have a choice. I wouldn’t like to be the princess – handed over like a prize filly – even if I was wearing fine silks and jewels and marrying a king.’

I laughed at that and jokingly pulled her coif down over her face with my free hand. ‘Oh, Alys, Alys,’ I teased, ‘you are such a little
bourgeoise
– with a mind of your own. No king would know what to do with you!’

When we reached Pontoise the sun was burning like a brazier on the horizon, dramatically illuminating our first glimpse of the castle, a mighty fortress built high on a rocky outcrop over the River Oise. To reach it we had to cross a stone bridge and pass through the town, a prosperous-looking habitation tucked protectively behind stout walls and boasting several market places and a scattering of stone churches. Our driver told me there had been a fortification at that point since ancient times, guarding the river-crossing. ‘They say the present castle is built on the vaults of a much older one,’ he added. ‘It sounds risky to me, but it looks solid enough.’