Queens Consort (46 page)

In 1355, Philippa gave birth to her last child, Thomas, at Woodstock. Margaret and John were married in 1358, Margaret, aged twelve, to the Earl of Pembroke and John to Blanche of Lancaster. John’s bride, also twelve, would eventually bring him the Lancaster estates of her father, the first Duke, upon which wealth he would found his dynasty. (Blanche’s father, Henry, and his elder brother Thomas of Lancaster, were the sons of Edward I’s younger brother Edmund.) Isabella was still single at the advanced age of thirty. She gave Blanche a wedding gift of silver buckles worth thirty pounds but characteristically neglected to pay for them. Soon afterwards, Edward and his four elder sons sailed for France, this time leaving Thomas as Guardian of the Realm. Philippa’s particular concern during this period was a French invasion, as Edward had attempted to muster practically every able-bodied man in England. She had King Jean removed to the Tower, garrisoned the castles at Pevensey, Old Sarum and Marlborough and ordered beacon fires to be prepared along the coast. One party of invaders did land at Wmchelsea, where they managed some burning and pillaging before being driven off

Deaths and weddings continued to mark the following years. Mary married the Duke of Brittany in 1360, but less than a year later was buried at Abingdon Abbey next to her sister Margaret, Countess of Pembroke. Joan of Scotland, Maud of Hainault and Lionel’s wife Elizabeth of Clarence succumbed in 1362. Two further weddings brightened Philippa’s grief, though neither was the splendid royal match she and Edward had hoped for. In 1361, the Black Prince secretly married his cousin, Joan of Kent, daughter of the Earl of Kent, Marguerite’s son Edmund, who had been executed by Isabella and Roger Mortimer. Joan, whom Froissart called ‘the most beautiful woman in all England’, had grown up in Philippa’s care, and apparently the Black Prince had always been attracted to her. However, she had a dubious marital history. Aged twelve she had been married to Thomas Holland without the permission of her guardian,
Edward III. When Holland departed on crusade she was married again to William Montacute, heir to the Earl of Salisbury. When Holland returned, he quite reasonably asked for his wife back, and after much scandal the second union was annulled in 1349. Joan and Thomas went on to have four children together, but shortly after Thomas became Earl of Kent, in right of his wife, in 1360, he died, and with somewhat indecent haste his widow married her childhood sweetheart. The ceremony was declared invalid, as the couple were related within the prohibited degrees, but when the Black Prince refused to abandon his bride the King, against his better judgement, had to arrange for a swift dispensation and a public remarriage at Windsor, which he was too furious to attend.

So Joan might have been beautiful, but obviously she was no royal virgin, and her past history, not to mention her negligible diplomatic connections, made her a shabby choice for the next queen of England. Philippa, though, seems to have been content that her son was happy. She did attend the wedding, along with Isabella and Joan of Scotland. The Prince and Princess of Wales removed themselves from Edward’s bad temper by leaving the next year to govern Aquitaine, where Joan gave birth to two sons, Edward, who died young, and Richard of Bordeaux, Edward III’s eventual heir.

To Philippa’s evident satisfaction, her only living daughter Isabella was finally married off three years later, to Enguerrand de Coucy, a grandson of the Duke of Austria. Again, it was not a brilliant match, but Edward, ever-indulgent where Isabella was concerned, made the best of it and created De Coucy Earl of Bedford and Knight of the Garter. Isabella received a dowry of 4,000 pounds and 300 pounds-worth of jewels, and De Coucy an annuity of 300 marks. After Isabella’s first child, a daughter named Mary, was born in France in 1265, she and her mother, who had been on frosty terms for so long, grew closer. Isabella came back to England for her second lying-in, at which Philippa assisted, and the child, born at Eltham in 1367, was named for her grandmother.

Another namesake, Philippa of Clarence, Lionel’s daughter with Elizabeth de Burgh, married the Earl of March, Roger Mortimer’s great-grandson. Edward had revoked the attainder against the family in 1354, and Philippa’s union was to prove of crucial dynastic significance in the fifteenth century. Lionel himself was back on the matrimonial market, and in June 1368 he travelled to Italy as the betrothed of Violante Visconti, the daughter of the immensely rich Duke of Milan. Their wedding, in the city’s pink marble cathedral, was one of the social events of the century. Unfortunately, Lionel enjoyed la dolce vita too much, and died in October
at Alba, having ‘addicted himself … to untimely banquetings’,
¹¹

Philippa had remained active well into middle age. She dislocated her shoulder hunting at Cosham two years after Thomas’s birth and during Edward’s absences moved constantly between the royal palaces of the south-east, but Lionel’s death seemed to break her spirit. She had already suffered an attack of dropsy in 1367, and was now increasingly unwell. Yet she continued to support her husband with her Hainault connections, writing to her nephew Albert and sending him a gift of jewellery that had belonged to Maud of Hainault as a sweetener to his support for Edward in yet another assault on the French. She also wrote and sent gifts to the King of Cyprus. John of Gaunt left for Paris in early summer, while Philippa lay ill at Windsor, and on 15 August 1369 she died, with Edward and Thomas beside her.

Froissart’s description of her death is worth quoting at length, as despite his tendency to embroider, it reflects something of the way in which Philippa was perceived:

When the good Lady perceived her end approaching she called to the King and extending her hand from under the bedclothes, put it into the right hand of the King, who was very sorrowful at heart, and thus spoke. ‘We have enjoyed our union in happiness peace and prosperity, I entreat therefore of you on our separation that you will grant me three requests.’ The King with sighs and tears replied ‘My Lady, ask, whatever you request shall be granted.’ ‘My Lord, I beg you will acquit me of whatever engagements I have entered into with merchants for their wares as well on this as on the other side of the sea. I beseech you also to fulfil whatever gifts or legacies I may have left to churches here or on the continent where I have paid my devotions as well as what I may have left to those of both sexes who have been in my service. Thirdly, I entreat that when it shall please God to call you hence you will not choose any other sepulchre than mine and will lie by my side in the sepulchre at Westminster.’ The King in tears replied, ‘Lady, I grant them!’ Soon after the good Lady made the sign of the Cross on her breast and having recommended to God the King and her youngest son Thomas, who was present, gave up her spirit, which I firmly believe was caught by the Holy Angels and carried to glory in Heaven for she had never done anything by thought or deed which could endanger her losing it.

Presumably Froissart did not mean to be comic, but it is typical that Philippa’s first dying thought should be of her debts.

CHAPTER 13

ANNE OF BOHEMIA AND ISABELLE OF FRANCE

‘The Little Queens’

W
hen the Black Prince and his family returned to England in 1371, Joan of Kent still had reason to hope that she would be the next queen of England. The Maid of Kent was in truth more fat than fair these days, and her ailing husband was a decrepit shadow of his former gallant self, but the aura of glamour surrounding the couple persisted in the face of reality. As Princess of Wales, Joan could expect to be the first lady at court now that Philippa was gone, but the Queen’s death had provoked a slump in standards for the most chivalrous of kings and Edward, now ill and often confused, was very publicly in the clutches of his mistress, Alice Perrers. Philippa had turned a blind — and, in the light of her incessant pregnancies, perhaps rather relieved — eye to her husband’s infidelities in the past, but Alice Perrers was different. The relationship had begun in 1364, and two years later Alice was installed as a maid of the Queen’s bedchamber, which suggests that either Philippa sanctioned the liaison, or Edward simply no longer cared about his wife’s dignity. If the hostile
St Albans Chronicle
is to be believed, the latter would appear to have been the case, as Alice was reported to be the daughter of a tiler and a maidservant, hardly a suitable background for such a prestigious position. More probably she was the daughter of Sir Richard Perrers, a Hertfordshire member of Parliament, but this was still a very modest rank, and it could only have been galling for Joan to find Alice taking very public precedence in Edward’s court. Even more incomprehensible, to a legendary beauty, was the fact that Alice was famously ugly, though even
The St Albans Chronicle
conceded she was intelligent. The Prince and Princess ofWales were to spend the next six years living in semi-retirement at Kennington and Berkhamsted, largely because of the Prince’s poor health, but conceivably also because Joan was appalled by the degenerate atmosphere that now prevailed at Edward’s once glorious court.

To a far greater extent than Henry II’s ‘Fair Rosamund’, Alice Perrers was the first mistress of an English king to enjoy a semi-official position. She acquired manors in seventeen counties, valuable property in London and the castle of Egremont — and, inevitably, a reputation for being grasping and litigious. In a dispute over St Albans Abbey involving her likely father, Sir Richard, she was accused of threatening the judges, but she was clearly a capable manager, going to law to defend her holdings until her death in 1400 and dealing with such prestigious figures as William of Wykeham and John of Gaunt. The King was sufficiently in love to overturn Philippa’s bequest of jewels and goods to her lady Euphemia de Heselarton and make them over to Alice, and he had no qualms about appearing with her in public, as at a Smithfield tournament in 1374, when she rode next to him in the royal chariot, got up as ‘the Lady of the Sun’. She became a great crony of Philippa’s daughter Isabella, whose husband had by now been mislaid, and together they took the leading female roles in court ceremonial, to general disgust.

Any plans Joan may have had for putting La Perrers in her place suffered a setback when the Black Prince died in 1376. Life had proved a miserable disappointment for the young warrior who had shown such magnificent promise, and although, in his broken state, he may have been an ineffective king, the succession now depended on the vulnerable figure of the nine-year-old Richard of Bordeaux. As Queen Mother-in-waiting, Joan could now anticipate a position of considerable power, and this was reflected in the grants made to her after her husband’s death which, along with her own holdings in Kent, provided her with an income nearly equivalent to that of a dowager queen. Almost at once, Joan found herself involved in political controversy. The Black Prince’s death occurred as Parliament was sitting, with John of Gaunt representing the elderly King. Parliament had taken measures to correct the sorry state of national affairs, impeaching several members of the royal household for financial corruption and demanding that Alice Perrers be exiled and her property sequestered. Prominent among the reformers were the Speaker, Peter de la Mare, and the bishop of Winchester, William of Wykeham. There was much anxiety as to the security of the succession, as it was feared that Gaunt might try to take the crown for himself. Those fears were confirmed when Gaunt, on his own authority, declared the 1376 proceedings void and recalled Alice Perrers. De la Mare was imprisoned and the bishop had his revenues confiscated and was forbidden to approach within twenty miles of London.

When Parliament was reconvened in January 1377, riots broke out.
Gaunt and the Earl of Northumberland escaped by boat to Joan’s house at Kennington. Joan sent three envoys, including her son’s tutor Sir Simon Burley, to negotiate with the Londoners, but they would be satisfied only by an audience with the King himself. William of Wykeham was not too proud to bargain with an adulteress, and paid Alice Perrers to conspire behind Gaunt’s back for the restoration of his income. Triumphant, she remained at court for the last few months of her lover’s life. Avaricious to the end, when Edward III died at Havering on 21 June 1377, his mistress was accused of pulling the rings from his fingers before his body was cold.

Joan and Richard were at Kingston-on-Thames as Edward lay dying. The Londoners showed their allegiance to his heir Richard by sending a deputation to Kingston before the King expired, signalling their intentions in advance to Gaunt who, if he had ever been minded to try for the crown, now had to accept that this would be impossible. The passing of the man Froissart called the greatest English king since Arthur was overshadowed by the swift preparations for his grandson’s coronation and, on 16 July, Richard was crowned at Westminster. Almost immediately, Joan began to make arrangements for the boy king’s marriage. One of the first offers came from the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV, who proposed the hand of his eleven-year-old daughter Anne, but Joan was also considering princesses of France, Navarre and Scotland as well as the daughter of the Visconti Duke ofMilan.

In 1378, the successive elections of two rival popes affected the direction ofEnglish matrimonial policy. Urban VI, at Rome, had the support of the Italian, German and English rulers, while Clement VII, in Avignon, was championed by the French, Scots and Castilians. Urban’s support was geographically disparate, and he planned to consolidate it through an alliance between the King of England and the imperial house. Urban’s envoy, the bishop of Ravenna, Pileo de Prata, visited Charles IV’s son Wenzel (known as the King of Bohemia), in Prague to advise on the advantages of a marriage between Richard and his sister, and Wenzel duly wrote to the King to affirm their holy duty in reuniting Christendom. Richard’s envoys, at that time in Milan discussing the possible betrothal to the Duke’s daughter, were now sent to Prague, but the talks were delayed when they were kidnapped on their return journey and detained abroad until their ransom was paid. Negotiations finally resumed in June 1380, and it was not until January the following year that the English and imperial representatives met. On 2 May, a month after the imperial envoys, under the Duke of Teschen, had been received by John of Gaunt at the
Savoy, Richard was able to agree to the treaty for his marriage with Anne of Bohemia.