The Conquering Family (9 page)

But the people of England did not know of this change in the character of the notorious Queen Eleanor, nor were they able to look into the future and see her as a wise and tolerant old woman trying to keep her sons in the path of good kingship. They had been shocked by the circumstances of the marriage and they watched for her arrival with not a little dread, as well as the most intense curiosity.

The royal couple landed at a small fishing village on the Sussex coast early in December, having waited a month for favorable winds. A dismal rain was falling and they took to horse at once to reach more comfortable quarters for the night. There was, of course, a large crowd in the village to see the young King and his wicked wife as they cantered through. Henry looked rather savage, setting the pace in the van of the party, his head in a hood, his silver spurs jingling as he urged his mount forward. All they could see of Eleanor was a pair of dark eyes in a face of ivory pallor. She was wearing a barbette, a close-fitting cover for the head with a strap under the chin; the first seen in England, without a doubt. Despite the very bad opinion they had of her, they cheered her as she rode past them. If the smile with which she acknowledged this welcome was somewhat casual and wintry, it must be borne in mind that her first sight of England was proving a most depressing one and that she
undoubtedly was thinking of the blue waters of Biscay rolling in to smooth white shingle and above this a palace wide open to the sun.

The first real look that England had of her was at the coronation. Henry rushed it along, being in a furious impatience to get at the neglected tasks of government, and it was held a fortnight after their arrival at Westminster, on a Sunday, in fact, December 19.

The sun had sulked since the advent of the royal party, but on this most important of days it came out and shone in splendid vigor. If Henry had entertained any fears of opposition, they were quickly dispelled, for all the nobility came to the Court of Claims held by the steward with their petitions of right to perform certain parts in the ceremony. The Earl of Chester was on hand to carry the sword
Curtana
. The head of the house of Bohun arrived to officiate as constable. The current incumbent of the manor of Addington, Bartholomew de Chesney, was seeing to it that a fine dish of dilligrout was being prepared for the coronation feast. Of ill will or signs of a preference for the surviving son of Stephen, not a trace.

All medieval coronations were intensely colorful, and this one, in spite of the haste with which it had been arranged, was one of the most spectacular. The sanctuary seekers who at all times infested the grounds and the chapels of Westminster (sometimes there were as many as a hundred assorted thieves and murderers defying the law within the abbey) had been forcibly rounded up and locked into a single chapel on the east side, where they sat in a glum silence, some bristling with insolence, some sunk in hangdog despair. This gave more room in the limited space between the White-Hall and the great church, and it seemed as though all London was packed therein, pushing and shouldering and standing on tiptoe.

The nobles headed the procession, carrying the regalia: the cross of Alfred, the scepter, the orb, the four swords, St. Edward’s staff, the ring of the Confessor, and the crown. There was a story about the ring which everyone believed and which made the spectators crane their necks to get a glimpse of it. The Confessor had given it to an old man who asked him for alms, and more than a century afterward two weary and hungry English pilgrims in the Holy Land had it returned to them by a strange patriarch who said to them, “I am Johan Theuangelyst.” The crown was a new one, a circlet of gold with four strawberry leaves between which were pearls and precious stones.

Next in line were the churchmen, the bishops and abbots and priors, all in full vestment and lending a note of solemnity. The lesser nobility followed, walking slowly along the blue cloth which had been stretched from the White-Hall to the western entrance of the abbey, wearing richly colored garments, brocaded and furred and jeweled, their coronets sparkling in the welcome sun.

There followed lesser men: plain knights, aldermen, portreeves, wealthy merchants. There was little interest in this part of the procession,
for all eyes were fixed on the White-Hall entrance where the coronation canopy had appeared, held by knights in armor at each corner, under which the Sang and his Queen would walk to the crowning. The resonant chords of the organ and the chant of monkish voices coming from the interior of the abbey seemed to swell to higher volume when the royal couple appeared and came slowly up the blue walk under the golden tasseling and jeweled bands of the canopy.

The young King wore his short Angevin cloak, the novelty of which might have caused amusement if first seen on a lesser man. He looked kingly enough, tall and strong and hard, and, as he was not at peace at such moments, with no hint of sweetness in his eyes. They liked him, the pushing and struggling Londoners, having no desire left for amiability and easy charm in their rulers.

The Queen was in white and gold, her head uncovered and her hair in four plaits, as the fashion of the moment demanded. She looked radiant and as beautiful as the first time she had been crowned, which was nearly seventeen years before. English eyes were well accustomed to feminine beauty but mostly of the fair and rose-cheeked variety. They were not accustomed to the soft duskiness of hair, the ivory luster of brow and cheek, the sparkling brown of eye of this Queen from the south. They paid tribute to her loveliness at once, glad she was not what they had expected, cold and brilliant and disdainful. Perhaps the jostling crowds, stretching their necks for a closer look at her, were a little proud that their burly young King had taken her away from her foreign suitors.

Her coronation robes must be described: a kirtle of white, closely form-fitting to the waist and with tight sleeves, over this a pelisse of gold bordered with fur, the sleeves lined with ermine and so gracefully bell-shaped that they allowed the white of the kirtle to show beneath. The wide rustling skirt of white had a train (another innovation she had brought with her), carried by two pages fairly strutting with importance. There was none of the almost barbaric splendor about it which was a part of the times, but it was a courageous costume for a woman of thirty-three who wanted to take ten years off her age in order to look as young as her husband. Her maids, needless to state, had worked long and earnestly over her face before she donned the gold and white, kneading the first pucker of fine lines around her eyes, removing as far as possible the traces of encroachment by lovely woman’s worst enemy, time. They seem to have succeeded.

What thoughts fill the heads of monarchs when they stand up for the ceremony which seals the relationship between themselves and their subjects is a matter, naturally, of temperament and mentality. As Henry sat on the faldstool for the sermon and litany and then later, when he had taken possession of the coronation chair on the high platform raised for the purpose in the upper part of the chancel and heard Theobald proclaim
Si ipsi consentire vellent
, he was not thinking of the meaning of this, that he was assuming the crown with the consent of the people. More likely his thoughts had leaped far ahead to a more important crowning, perhaps, and the conferring of a much greater title than King of England. Eleanor’s thoughts may have been keeping him company in this glimpse of future greatness. More certainly, however, she kept in
her
mind some realization of the glaring errors of the past, of the need to make this a lasting marriage.

Immediately after the coronation Henry set about crushing all traces of disaffection which existed in the country. He settled the pretensions of the Count of Aumale, who had been ruling the north with a high hand, and of the lords of Hereford and Wigmore in the west. The youthful King of Scotland, another Malcolm, paid homage to him and restored Northumberland and Cumberland, which had been appropriated during the civil war. He invaded Wales and forced Rhys-ap-Grythyff to give hostages for peaceful behavior. In a short space of time all England was brought to acceptance of his rule. In gratitude for his uninterrupted successes, Henry took Eleanor to Worcester Cathedral, and on the shrine of St. Wulfstan they laid down their crowns, swearing never to wear them again.

This act was one of considerable significance. Renunciation of the showiest aspect of kingship was not in keeping with the spirit of the times, but it was a first step to something which occurred later, the crowning of their eldest son while Henry himself was alive. Henry, who gave up nothing willingly, was already thinking of the English throne as a steppingstone. Of still greater significance, however, was the fact that the crowns had been laid on the shrine of the only English prelate retained by the Conqueror, saintly old Wulfstan. The best of the many stories told of him was that, when William’s Norman archbishop Lanfranc had demanded of him his pastoral staff in token of resignation, the old man said he had received the staff from his master Edward and would gladly give it back to him. Advancing to the Confessor’s tomb, he said, “Take this, my master, and deliver it to whom thou wilt.” He placed the staff on the tomb, bowed, and began to rid himself of his episcopal robes. The staff, however, was firmly embedded in the stone when Lanfranc tried to pick it up. It remained there until Wulfstan himself stretched out a hand, when it yielded itself into his grasp. They did not interfere with such a doer of miracles after that.

That Henry and his bride, who was already beginning to have a little popularity, went to this shrine for the purpose was the surest indication of what was happening in England. The two races were beginning to merge; Norman was wedding Saxon, and Saxon Norman; both were inclined
to think of themselves as Englishmen and to use the term. So far it was no more than a beginning, but the evidences were unmistakable.

It has been said already that Eleanor gave her husband eight children. The second was a boy, born soon after the death of the sickly little William, who had escaped the stigma of illegitimacy by such a narrow margin. The new son was called Henry, and he was healthy and strong. His father conceived for him a love which nothing could break, not even the boy’s early assumption of the role of Absalom. The sweetness in the King’s eyes was apparent to everyone when little Henry was about. The King was an indulgent and affectionate father to all his children, but his own namesake remained the favorite through all the stresses of the bitter years ahead.

A daughter was born next. She was named Matilda, inevitably, and in course of time she was married to Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony. This fine knight had been given his nickname because of his amazing personal bravery and strength, but he seemed to lack political sense. At any rate, he set himself up against his cousin Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor, and twice that great juggernaut rolled him right out of his dominions. This made it necessary for him to seek refuge in England with his young consort and their growing brood of children. Finally, after Matilda had shared many vicissitudes, the Lion agreed to settle down in Brunswick and give up any attempts at ruling. Matilda was a second wife, but she seems to have been happy with her unruly spouse and brought five sons and a daughter into the world.

Then came a great, handsome boy who was named Richard. If the gods and the heroes of legend still inhabited Valhalla, there must have been much stamping of feet and boisterous drinking of toasts when this infant found his breath and uttered his first cry. Little Richard was his mother’s favorite, and her love deepened as he grew into big Richard and finally became a tall and inordinately strong man with yellow curly hair and flashing blue eyes: the famous Coeur de Lion, who soon put Henry the Lion in the shade; Richard Yea and Nay, most fabulous of Crusaders, whose memory by the name of Melech-Ric was used to frighten Saracen babies into obedience for centuries after. “My Richard!” his mother called him proudly when he lorded it over other boys and when he grew up and crashed all opposition down in the tilting grounds. All the passion of her nature went into her worship of this golden son. It was to become one of the causes of bitter family troubles later.

Next was a daughter named Joanna, who became the Queen of William II of Sicily and went with Richard and his bride Berengaria to the
Crusades. A son followed, who was given the name of Geoffrey and who married the heiress of Brittany. The seventh child was a daughter named Eleanor, who married the King of Castile, reputedly the wealthiest man in the world. The importance England had assumed in the eyes of the world may be judged by the fine matches each of Henry’s daughters made. Every monarch in Europe wanted an English bride and the share she might bring him in the fast-rising power of the three lions.

The last child was a son, who differed from the other boys in having a dark cast of countenance and rather fine features, and who tended to a slight degree of fattishness. He was christened John, and of all men born of woman he least deserved the name of the gentle and holy companion of Christ.

With the exception of the unfortunate infant William, sleeping now at the feet of his great-grandfather, Henry I, they were all healthy and handsome children, full of their father’s strength and will, blessed with something of their mother’s beauty and charm.

It had been an axiom that a wife who gave her husband sons was a good wife. Eleanor, the notorious beauty, the woman put away by Louis of France, was, then, a good wife to Henry.

The boy born to the Brakespeare family in the village of Abbots Langley, which lies close to St. Albans in Hertfordshire, was named Nicholas and he was a fine child from all accounts. A later description makes him “elegant in person, pleasant in countenance, prudent in conversation.” Any young man answering to that description in those days had his feet set in the direction of prosperity and even greatness. At first, however, there seemed some doubt of it in the case of young Nicholas Brakespeare. He was rejected when he applied for admission to the Benedictine monastery at St. Albans, one of the largest and richest and most influential in the country. This circumstance, which seemed most unfortunate to his parents and relatives, proved to be the most favorable thing which could have happened to him. He went to France and studied at Paris before taking holy orders at St. Rufus. Advancing to abbot there, he came under the notice of Pope Eugenius III and was summoned to Rome, where he filled various important posts. He became the second English cardinal, the first to receive that honor being Robert Pulleyn, who is sometimes called the father of Oxford University.