ISABEL OF ANGOULÊME
It was not, as has been mentioned, under the very happiest auspices that
King John, in the autumn of 1200, celebrated his marriage with Isabel of
Angoulême, at Bordeaux, when he was rather more than double her age, and
with a reputation and temper decidedly the worse for the wear.
Isabel, however, had just the kind of imagination to be dazzled by the
brilliancy of her position as wife of a man on whose head had been
placed, not only the crown of England, but the coronal of golden roses
which formed the ducal diadem of Normandy, and who, moreover, was heir
to the provinces over which the old Counts of Anjou and the old Dukes of
Guienne had reigned with power and authority. At first, therefore, she
was highly gratified with the fortunate accident which had thrown her in
King John’s way, and substituted him, as a husband, in the place of the
Count de la Marche; and, after the royal pair came to England, matters
went pleasantly enough for years, so far as could be judged by
appearances, and Isabel became the mother of two sons and three
daughters--Henry, the eldest of her children, being a native of
Winchester, where he first saw the light in 1207, while his father was
pursued by the enmity of the Pope, and threatened by the hostility of
the French king and the Anglo-Norman barons.
So far life went smoothly enough, to all appearance, with the King and
Queen of England. But ere long their domestic affairs assumed a much
less satisfactory aspect. In fact, Isabel did not find her position
quite the bed of roses she had probably anticipated when she consented,
for the sake of a crown, to give the Count de la Marche the slip. With a
temper which became worse under the influence of trials and reverses,
John not only proved a very disagreeable companion to the young lady
whom he had carried off, so much to the mortification of the Continental
magnate to whom she was betrothed, but he involved himself with women of
various ranks, whose memories are still preserved in chronicle or
tradition--from Constance, Countess of Chester, to the miller’s wife of
Charlton, whose frailty is annually commemorated by the Horn Fair, at
the Feast of St. Luke--in a series of vagrant amours, which, besides
being of a scandalous kind, could not fail to wound the queen’s vanity
and alienate her regard. Moreover, the splendour which had tempted her
was fast disappearing. The coronal of Normandy was gone; the crown of
England was in great danger of following. It really must have seemed
that the glory was departing from the House of Plantagenet; and, after
many musings and reflections, Isabel, doubtless, began to think very
pensively of the sacrifice she had made to unite her fate with one who
showed so little respect for her feelings. Unfortunately, she was not a
woman to act with much discretion and dignity in very trying
circumstances; and the serious domestic quarrels of John and Isabel gave
rise to rumours and stories which were far from raising the king’s
character for humanity, or the queen’s reputation as a wife, in the
opinion of the world. “His queen,” says the chronicler, speaking of
John, “hates him, and is hated by him, she being an evil-minded woman,
often found guilty of crimes, upon which the king seized her paramours,
and had them strangled with a rope on her bed.”
It is to be hoped, for Isabel’s sake, that this story was merely the
invention of an enemy. But little doubt can be entertained that the
domestic quarrels were serious. Indeed, during the year when John
submitted to Rome, matters reached such a stage between the royal pair,
that the queen, then twenty-seven years of age, was consigned to the
castle of Gloucester, and there kept, by command of her husband, in safe
custody as a captive. A reconciliation, however, did take place, and
there was some prospect of a better state of feeling in future. But when
the scandal about John and Maude, the daughter of Robert Fitzwalter,
reached the queen’s ears, the matrimonial feud was renewed; and Isabel,
almost frantic with jealous rage, declined to see her husband’s face.
Subsequently, however, a second reconciliation was brought about; and,
after some correspondence, a meeting between the king and queen had been
appointed to take place, when the sudden seizure of London by the
confederate barons threw all John’s plans into confusion, and forced him
not only to postpone his visit to Isabel till a more convenient season,
but to take measures for her security, lest she and her son, Prince
Henry, should fall into the hands of the barons, and be used as
instruments to complete his ruin.
It was at Savernake that Isabel was residing while the barons assembled
at Stamford, and marched, by Brackley, and Northampton, and Bedford, to
London. Only vague and indistinct intelligence as to their movements
reached her in her retreat; and, buoyed up by the king’s confident
assurance that he would crush any attempts at insurrection, she
delighted her soul with visions of reigning as a queen in reality, and
occupied her time with repairing the palace of Savernake, and appears to
have meditated housekeeping on a very extensive scale, since she added
kitchens with fires for roasting oxen whole. It was not pleasant to be
disturbed in the midst of such projects by news that her husband’s crown
was at stake; and, when Isabel had been conveyed home after her fright
and her escape, and sufficiently restored to be informed that a knight
and squire sent by the king were awaiting an audience to deliver a
message, she felt instinctively that something was wrong; she wrung her
hands, and exclaimed to her ladies--
“My heart misgives me; I fear me they bring tidings of woe.”
But, at the same time, her impatience to know all made her anxious to
receive them without delay; and, having arrayed herself so as to appear
to the best advantage--for her vanity as woman was quite as strong as
her ambition as queen--she ordered them to be conducted to her presence.
It was in a spacious chamber, royally adorned after the fashion of the
age, and magnificent, according to the ideas of that generation, that
Isabel of Angoulême, seated on an elevated chair resembling a throne,
with two of her ladies behind her, received the knight and the squire.
Her taste was displayed in her dress, which was such as to set off her
natural charms. She wore a green robe, lined with sarcenet, and girdled
round the waist with a belt sparkling with precious stones, and a collar
of gold round her neck, which was graceful as the swan’s, and her hair,
not concealed, as that of ladies then usually was, with kerchief or
veil, but inclosed in a caul of golden network, and ornamented with an
elegant chaplet. Her bearing was majestic in the extreme, and as she sat
formally waiting their coming, she looked every inch a queen. But no
sooner did Collingham approach, and bend his knee, than she stared as if
she had seen a ghost, and fluttered perceptibly.
“William de Collingham!” said she, after a pause, during which she
seemed to examine her boots, which were curiously embroidered in circles
round the ankles, “I deem that you were in exile or----”
“Or dead, you would have added, madam,” said Collingham, smiling.
“However, I am alive and in England, as you perceive, and, let me add,
wholly at your service.”
Isabel’s colour went and came so as to make Oliver Icingla look and
wonder; but the knight took no notice of her agitation. As if to relieve
her from the embarrassment which she appeared to feel, he drew forth the
king’s letter, and, with great respect, presented it on bended knee.
Isabel took it, tore it open, ran her eye over the contents, and uttered
a cry of disappointment.
“Alas! alas!” exclaimed she, looking the picture of distress, “I have
been deluding myself with the hope of receiving a far different message.
It was but yesterday, as it seems to me, that my lord the king wrote
these words:--‘I have now made peace with Philip of France, and I have
the means of putting mine enemies under my feet, and making myself both
king and lord in England;’” and, as Isabel repeated the words used by
the king, she wept, and looked so lovely in tears that both the knight
and squire were deeply moved.
“Madam,” said Collingham in a voice expressive of sympathy, “be not cast
down by adversity, but take comfort. Fortune is much given to change.
To-day she favours the king’s enemies; to-morrow she may declare for the
king. But anyhow, royal lady, it is best to meet the future with a brave
heart; and, for the present, the king deems it expedient that your
safety and the safety of your son should be insured by a removal to
Gloucester, which is a strong and loyal city, and to which I have orders
to conduct you; so that, tide what may, you may feel that you and the
prince are secure against the king’s enemies and your own.”
“Gloucester is a place associated in my mind with no pleasant memories,”
said the queen with a sigh; “but it is vain to strive against fate, and
I submit. I will be prepared to set out on the morrow, sir knight. Oh,
vanity of vanities!” exclaimed she, sighing more deeply; “all is vanity
and vexation of spirit.”
And, sinking back in her chair, Isabel of Angoulême looked the picture
of disappointment.
Next day Isabel of Angoulême and her son, Prince Henry, left Savernake
under the escort of William de Collingham and Oliver Icingla, and
journeyed by rapid stages to Gloucester, a city so strongly fortified
and garrisoned that the queen might, within its walls, congratulate
herself on the fact that there at least she was, in some degree, secure
against any attempts on the part of the baronial party to interfere with
her personal liberty, or any attempt on their part to get possession of
her son.