Anne O'Brien – The Uncrowned Queen (страница 2)

‘Her Majesty should be crowned with all due process, Sire,’ Archbishop Meopham reproved, glancing over to where Mortimer, arms folded across his chest, was keeping a jaundiced eye on the proceedings.

‘Her Majesty should have been crowned two years ago,’ Edward retorted. ‘Now her health is under strain.’

The Archbishop lowered his voice. ‘But the Lord Mortimer wishes the full ceremony, Sire, to honour the Lady.’

More like to honour Mortimer! I could see the thought dance in Edward’s eyes as he stared at the Archbishop, but not a word of it passed his lips. This was neither the time nor the place for so formidable a level of confrontation. ‘My wife will be honoured when the holy oil touches her brow,’ Edward stated. ‘The length of the ceremony is irrelevant. I wish it to be cut short.’

‘But, Sire …’ The cleric cast another furtive glance towards Lord Mortimer.

And at last the edge of temper rumbled. ‘I am your liege lord, Meopham. If you are wise, if you have an eye to your future in this kingdom, you will obey me. Affairs will not always be as they are today. The humiliations of the past can be tolerated no longer. Do you understand me?’

The Archbishop, pierced by Edward’s stare, understood all too well, the warning and the promise. He swallowed hard and bowed.

‘Yes, Sire. Indeed I do. It will be as you desire.’

And so it was. It must have been the fastest coronation in history. Mortimer glowered, Isabella plucked irritably at her ermine, Kent stood throughout with his hand on his sword-hilt, but I was duly anointed, crowned and feasted almost before I could change my garments yet again for cloth of gold and a miniver cloak. And as the crown was placed on my head, I knew. Here, in this one small wielding of royal power, in this oblique statement of future intent, was my first real intimation of the King who would emerge from the shadow of the furious, frustrated young man who had come to Hainault three years before to wed my lovely elder sister, and who had got me instead.

CHAPTER ONE

My coronation complete to everyone’s satisfaction, I managed the briefest of celebratory tours so that the people of Windsor, Guildford and Winchester might see their new and bourgeoning Queen, before Edward insisted that it was time I was restored to the peace of Woodstock. Isabella was not sorry. It would mean less financial outlay on my behalf. Mortimer had his thoughts turned to a persistent rumour that Kent was massing an army of mercenaries to challenge him for power. And Edward? Edward was merely caught in a snare between the two, struggling to keep a foothold in a morass of treason and counter-treason. As for my own thoughts, I was not reluctant to return to Woodstock – days spent in the self-absorbed company of Isabella and Mortimer were wearing – except that my time with Edward was now drawing to a close. Edward would leave me to return to Westminster with Mortimer, and I would take to my chamber to await the birth of my first child.

Our arrival at the gracious old palace of Woodstock proved to be an edgy occasion.

‘I have a pressing need of money,’ I said to Edward, keeping a firm hold of his sleeve as soon as he had helped me to alight from my well-cushioned litter. Queen Isabella was already summoning him to follow her, to give his royal assent to any number of charters that would bring gold into the royal coffers – none of it, unfortunately, to be spent on me. ‘I need it desperately, unless you want your new Queen to be even deeper in debt that she is already.’

My ankles were swollen, my eyes heavy from lack of sleep, making me unusually irritable. I did not wish to part from Edward with dissension between us, but as I saw it I had no choice. I could barely scrape together two silver pennies.

‘It’s bad, is it?’ His eyes were sharp on my face, reading there all that I could not say in public, his hand supportive beneath my arm.

‘I may be God’s recently anointed,’ I pointed out, rather waspishly, ‘but I am in effect no better than a beggar in the gutter. My servants stay with me out of loyalty only.’ It was difficult to hide my bitterness.

Edward nodded. He understood all too well. Of course he did. The humiliations of the past can be tolerated no longer, he had said in the Abbey. How clear the humiliations, the constant degradation that dragged us both down, had become to me since I had arrived in this unhappy, tension-ridden kingdom. I lived under Isabella’s control with no household of my own, my dower fallen into her hands so that I had no money for my own needs. Reluctant to release power or status, she had resisted my crowning until my advanced pregnancy became an embarrassment. An heir born and the Queen not even crowned? I detested the constraints, the sweeping aside of my consequence, but for Edward, the lawfully anointed King, it had been so much worse. He had been King now for three years, since his father’s reported death in Berkeley castle, but the grip on England’s crown and throne was as much Mortimer’s as it had ever been. It was Mortimer who decided that Edward must abandon English powers in Scotland. It was Mortimer who discussed English policy of war in France. It was Mortimer who dispensed patronage and earldoms with open-handed generosity to those loyal to him, while Edward was kept chained and impotent, without the means to retaliate.

Some days my heart bled for him. The day he was forced to put his hand to the shameful peace with Scotland, at Mortimer’s insistence, and so lose a part of his inheritance, was a black day indeed. Edward did it, his face engraved in stone. Only I knew the cry for vengeance deep in his soul.

Did Edward never speak out against such illegal appropriation of royal power? Did he never demand his rightful position? Oh, he did – but who was there to hear? Mortimer had England’s money and England’s army in his thrall. Who was there to fight for Edward, when those who did not actively support Mortimer still feared him as they feared the Devil himself?

‘I don’t have the money to pay my servants,’ I hissed, ‘and …’

‘… and Isabella, of course, will not give you any,’ Edward completed my accusation.

I raised my brows in reply. In the terms of my marriage, Isabella had promised to provide me with an appropriate dowry, assigning to me lands and rents from her own dower worth three thousand pounds. I had never seen one gold coin of it. The land and the income remained firmly in Isabella’s hands and I lived on her charity when she saw fit to dispense it.

‘Come with me,’ Edward took my hand in his. ‘You can put your case and I’ll support it. I’m sorry.’ He hid his outrage well as he raised my fingers to his lips in a neat little gesture of affection. ‘It’s the best I can do.’

We followed Isabella into her accommodations. I tried not to resent their magnificence, the colossal amounts that had been spent on tapestries and furnishings and gleaming furniture. It was truly a room fit for a Queen. My own inadequate chambers paled into insignificance, making my lack even more painful. And there in the centre, a rare gem in a gleaming setting, a coffer open before her, was Dowager Queen Isabella. What a remarkably handsome woman she was, as finely carved and without blemish as one of our priceless ivory statues in Hainault. Her hair was silver fair, her skin finely textured and, looking up as we entered, she spoke in a cold, diamond-clear voice.

‘There is no need for your wife to be present, Edward. All I need is your signature.’

‘She does need to be here,’ Edward replied. ‘Philippa needs money, madam.’

‘I expect she does.’

Isabella looked me up and down from my dusty veil and crispinette – neither in the first rank of fashion – to my disappearing waistline. She rarely looked at me. To do her justice, she did not actively dislike me. She did not treat me with any degree of cruelty, unless neglect in itself be a form of cruelty. She simply ignored me, a thing of no importance now that my hand in marriage had brought the wherewithal to enable her to wrest the crown from her husband, the old king. I was no longer useful except to breed and provide a future heir. I had simply to fend for myself.

‘Tell my mother what you lack, Philippa,’ Edward ordered, his hand firm around mine.

I needed no second invitation, although I was not hopeful. ‘It is for my birthing chambers, my lady’ I said baldly.

I should have had a splendid suite of rooms already prepared for me, where I would stay for the birth of my child and for the requisite month afterwards until I was churched, cushioned from the rest of the world in the full panoply of royal luxury. There I should, by tradition, be welcomed with wine and spices, music and celebration, all in anticipation of the coming event. As it was, I would be lucky to pay for bread and small beer and a single lute player.

‘What do you need?’ Isabella was already preoccupied in opening a large sealed document, perusing its contents.

‘I need money to pay those who will care for my baby. Martha who will rock the child’s crib. Joan who I have employed as a wet nurse. My valet Thomas who will fetch and carry to my door,’