Never had I wished so much that I had been born in humbler circumstances. If I were but a humble noblewoman coming home to her child, I could find some contentment. Why did people crave for crowns? As far as I could see, they brought nothing but unhappiness.

As soon as I stepped on English soil, the ceremonies began again.

Waiting on the shore were fifteen bishops and numerous abbots in their miters and vestments; and the solemn procession set out for Blackheath.

The funeral took place on a dark November day when Henry was buried in the Chapel of the Confessor in Westminster Abbey. It was more than three months since his death and I still could not get accustomed to the fact that I would not see him again.

I had ordered that a statue should be made in silver plate with a head of pure silver gilt and set on his tomb with an inscription to say it came from me.

And when it was over, I did what I had been longing to do for some time. I went down to Windsor to see the new King of England, who was not quite one year old.

TRUE LOVE

It was more than three months since Henry had died when I arrived in Windsor. Guillemote and my ladies were overcome with emotion. We embraced each other joyfully. Guillemote said: “He is well. He is waiting for you.”

I ran up the stairs with the ladies behind me. I threw open the door and beheld my son. He was seated on the floor playing with a silver whistle, and in that moment the loss of my husband and my concern for the future were forgotten. I ran to him and knelt beside him. He regarded me solemnly, and my happiness was tinged with sadness because he did not recognize me. I was a stranger to him, and he was not sure what I was doing in his nursery.

I seized him in my arms. “Henry,” I cried, “little Henry…this is your mother come to you.”

He drew himself away, frowning; then he looked around him and, seeing Guillemote standing there, he gave a little crow of triumph and held out his arms to her.

She picked him up. “There, my precious. ’Tis your mother who loves you and is waiting to tell you so.”

He turned his head slightly and regarded me with suspicion.

Guillemote sat down and beckoned me to sit beside her.

“There,” she crooned and placed him on my lap. She knelt down beside us and I noticed how he clung to her hand.

“Poor little mite,” she went on. “He does not know his mother. It is so long, my lady, and he is very little. It will come. He learns quickly, our little one.”

Henry did learn quickly. In less than ten minutes he had accepted me. He had made up his mind that I meant no harm. I was a friend of his dear Guillemote, and if she accepted me, so would he.

I wondered if I should ever equal her in his affections, and I was filled with resentment against a fate which separated a mother from her baby.

I was greatly relieved to be at Windsor again with my ladies around me. How relaxing it was to be able to talk without considering one’s words first.

“It is so good to be with you again,” I told them. “I hope we shall be left in peace for a while.”

“My lady,” said Agnes, “you will make your own decisions. You are the Queen Mother now. It will be different from being Queen. There will not be so many duties.”

Joanna Troutbeck took my hand and kissed it. “We felt for you so much,” she said. “When we heard the news, we wished that we were with you.”

“It was so sudden…such a shock,” I told them. “Who would have thought that Henry could…just die like that?”

“He seemed different from other men…immortal,” said Agnes.

“And now he is proved to be as all men are. They must go when they are called.”

“We will do anything …” said Joanna Belknap.

“We want to help all we can,” they told me.

“I thank God I have my baby. Do you think they will take him from me?”

“If they try to, you must protest.”

“He is the King…and kings are the property of the State, they say. Oh, how I wish he were not a king! When I think of that little head weighed down by a crown …”

“Doubtless,” said Agnes, “he will hold it dear. Most men do.”

“It was a crown which killed his father…or the determination to hunt for it.”

They looked at me in amazement; and I went on, “Oh yes, he was killed in war as much as any man. Had he not wasted his youth and strength on the battlefield, he would be alive today.”

There was a brief silence and I thought: I must not talk thus. I have come here to forget…to be with my child…to make a new life.

I went on: “You must tell me what has been happening while I have been away.”

“The biggest news is the marriage of the Duke of Gloucester,” said Joanna Troutbeck.

“Is that so?”

“To the Lady Jacqueline of Bavaria.”

“But I thought she was married to the Duke of Brabant. How can she therefore marry the Duke of Gloucester?”

“The marriage was annulled. Or so she claims. The anti-Pope obliged and she was free. So she has married Duke Humphrey.”

“There will be trouble surely?”

“It would seem that neither of them cares very much for that.”

“But Brabant is the cousin of the Duke of Burgundy. They are connections of mine. As for Jacqueline, she was once my sister-in-law.”

“They are snapping their fingers at all those who object,” said Agnes. “The Duke of Bedford, we have heard, is furiously angry. Burgundy is not the man to brook interference and he naturally had his eyes on Jacqueline’s possessions. The Duke of Bedford fears he may lose Burgundy as an ally through this. There is a great deal of gossip about it at Court.”

“They have been very rash,” I said. “Are they very much in love?”

“As was said before, I think the Duke is very much in love with Hainault, Zealand, Holland and Friesland,” said Joanna Troutbeck.

“And Jacqueline?” I asked.

“She is in love with the belief that he, as her husband, will fight with her to get her possessions back.”

“So it is a love match between them both and these possessions rather than that of Jacqueline and Humphrey for each other?”

“Well,” said the cynical Joanna Troutbeck. “Is it not for such reasons that marriages are often made?”

I nodded sadly. “As mine was. Was I not fortunate to marry a man like Henry?”

“And he to marry you, my lady.”

“Yes, it was a good marriage. We were happy together…when we were together.”

They began to talk of other matters. I could imagine their whispering to each other when I was not there as to how they could turn my mind from those happy days I had spent with Henry and stop my repining.

· · ·

I had not been in England more than a week or so when messengers arrived from France. I knew they brought news of some calamity, and waited with trepidation for what they had to tell me.

They hesitated for a little while until I begged them to speak. Then one of them said: “It is the King, your father, my lady.”

“My father? What of my father?” He had been a source of anxiety for so long. What more could there be to fear?

“He is dead, my lady.”

I was silent, thinking of my first glimpse of him when I was a child. Vividly I remembered the wild-eyed man who thought he was made of glass. I could remember the bleak despair in his eyes.

“The people of Paris mourn him deeply.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“And now he has gone to his rest, my lady, the rest for which he had so much longed.”

“So…he was in Paris?”

“Yes, my lady. The people cheered him when he came to the city. It warmed his heart to hear the shouts of ‘Noël.’ The people always loved him…even when he could not come among them…even when he was shut away from them.”

Love and pity were very close, I thought.

“He lay in state, my lady, for three days…his face uncovered that all might take a last look at him. He was in the Hôtel de St.-Paul, and crowds went in most devotedly to pay their last respects to him.”

“Yes,” I murmured. “He was well loved.”

“You should have heard the prayers, my lady. The people knew him for a good man. He was sadly afflicted. They said how different the fate of France might have been if he had been well enough to lead the country. They prayed to God for the soul of their dear prince. They said they would never again see one as good as he was. ‘Now it is all wars and trouble,’ they said. ‘Prince, go to your rest. We must remain to our tribulations and sorrows.’ They likened their plight to that of the children of Israel in captivity in Babylon.”

I listened impassively; and suddenly they were covered with embarrassment. They had been thinking of me solely as my father’s daughter and then had realized that I was the conqueror’s widow. I had left my own country and adopted his. It was an awkward situation in which they found themselves. They would have liked to say more, I knew, but they had said as much as they dared.

“How did he die?” I asked. “Was he at peace at the end?”

“They say so, my lady. They say he welcomed death with open arms. He was tired of life. Fate had illused him.”

I thought: Yes, he had always wanted to go. There was nothing for him here but those long periods of darkness followed by brief lucid periods when he would know that it was during his reign that France had been lost, and his own son, the Dauphin, had been deprived of his inheritance. He had had to stand aside and see another proclaimed King of France. What did they think of me? Where was my place in all this? My little son was usurping the rights of the Dauphin.