Blood Royal. Vanora Bennett
jiggling along from one inn to the next, through dreary English villages, over potholed roads. The French visitors had gone from Dover to London, where they’d been told the King of England had left for Winchester. The Archbishop of Bourges’ pink-and-white face had gone red at the news, but he knew his duty. They’d turned right around and followed the King south.
They’d had to wait an hour at the gate at Winchester, watched by curious, speculative eyes. There was a lot of traffic leaving the city. The gatemen were letting out cart after cart, loaded with arrows and longbows, tents and lances. They wouldn’t let the Frenchmen in until the carts were all gone. ‘Where is all that going?’ Jean de Castel had asked a gateman; his English was good enough to talk to townspeople. The man laughed roughly. ‘To Southampton,’ he said, with rude good humour; ‘like the King, once he’s done with you lot.’
The King of England was staying in the palace of his uncle, Bishop Beaufort. The leading French ambassadors were put up there too, but there was no room for the retinues; the palace was too full of men-at-arms, obviously preparing for war on France.
Jean found a bed at an inn. There was a green outside. He watched the evening archery practice: all those undernourished yeomen deforming their skinny bodies, struggling to pull back the hundred-pound weight of the string, twisting and crunching their backs. They never healed. They lived with the pain of their bows. They had to. Archery practice was the law in England. Then he watched the men who’d been practising go marching out of town, in the direction of the coast. ‘Off to Southampton?’ he asked. They roared cheerfully back. Of course they were going to Southampton. The innkeeper wouldn’t talk to him, but after an hour sitting quietly in the inn, listening to what people were talking about all around him, Jean knew enough to be sure that six thousand men-at-arms and fifty thousand archers would be taking ships from Southampton any day.
When he rejoined his party at the palace, Jean found them as shocked as he was. They had been greeted by Henry of England’s uncle, Henry Beaufort, the Bishop of Winchester. Bishop Beaufort’s welcoming words had consisted of no more than a brusque warning: ‘You have to finish your business and leave before the end of the week.’
The French delegation was trapped in its futile peacekeeping role. The Archbishop of Bourges’ sermon that night was, ‘Peace to you and your house.’ But Henry of England – who turned out to be tall and wiry and mouse-coloured, with big girlish eyes fringed with long eyelashes set in a hard, bony frame – sat through the speech blank-faced, drumming his fingers against his book of hours.
The gathering in the council chamber the next day was no warmer.
Henry of England didn’t come. Bishop Beaufort (who also had big, odd, knobbly Lancaster features in a pinched face) presided. He strode in at the head of a bristling train of guards. He didn’t bother overmuch with pleasantries. In a voice as thin and hard as his face, he set out a new list of impossible demands. England wanted its differences with France settled by the end of the summer. That was the cut-off point for France to hand over all the lands England wanted. Princess Catherine, a treasure trove of jewels, and 600,000 crowns, were also to be delivered to Calais by Michaelmas.
Bishop Beaufort was a calm negotiator. He sat down and examined his nails when he’d finished. He pretended not to hear the murmurs of dismay from around the table. He only shook his head and let a contemptuous little smile play on his lips when Bourges tried to make the Bishop of Lisieux explain why that would be quite impossible; when Lisieux deflected the question to the Count of Vendome; when Vendome turned to the Baron of Ivry; when Ivry muttered, ‘Braquemont?’, and finally, when Gontier Col indicated Jean and wheedled, wringing his hands, ‘My lord Bishop, my colleague Jean de Castel is best placed to explain some of the technical difficulties …’
The eyes all fixed on Jean. I’m no one; why leave it to me? he thought, with a mixture of despair and panic, hating his superiors for their cowardice. Trying to stop his gut churning, he put suddenly damp hands on the table to keep them still, and stood up. It was important not to show fear.
He bowed his head, and suddenly, mercifully, was so sick of the lot of them, French and English alike, that it became easy to tell the truth. ‘My lord Bishop, Michaelmas is less than three months away,’ he said baldly. ‘The French government couldn’t hope to lay hands on enough gold to mint the coins you want, if you insist on September.’
He sat down. There was another anxious little flurry from the rest of his delegation. Hands fluttered; heads cringed. He kept his eyes fixed on his white fingers. ‘My lord Bishop,’ he heard Bourges murmur, ‘my young colleague overstates the position, I fear. Naturally we would be able … but, of course, difficulties … undeniable. Yes indeed. Difficulties.’
Bishop Beaufort bared his teeth. He got up. So did his men-at-arms. ‘My master has heard a lot about difficulties,’ he said. ‘All our talks seem to end with this word, difficulties. You can talk to him about your difficulties at council this evening, if you like. But it’s time you realised that making peace requires you to find ways to overcome your difficulties.’ He swept out.
‘You said the wrong thing,’ the Archbishop told Jean, with the glaring-eyed anger that the weak reserve for those they know to be weaker. Jean pursed his lips. So it was to be his fault now?
At six in the evening, they were called back into the crowded hall. The King was there this time. Henry of England still didn’t speak. He just kept drumming his fingers and staring at the French.
Archbishop Chichele of Canterbury read out a memorandum in Latin. It described Henry of England’s many attempts to negotiate. It said he’d been kept from his French heritage for too long. It accused the King of France of being unwilling to search for fair peace. It said Henry of England, ‘injured by French duplicity’, would now be ‘obliged’ to search for his rights in another way.
As soon as Chichele had finished reading, Henry of England got up and left the room, followed by his senior advisers, followed by the small fry. There were no more speculative, knowing glances between English and French. All the English were looking away. With dread, Jean de Castel realised that those averted English eyes marked the end of diplomacy and the beginning of war.
Henry of England wrote one more reproachful letter to the King of France. From Southampton, he offered King Charles 50,000 crowns off Catherine’s bride price, if the French King would only give up his unreasonable resistance to peace. Then Henry of England set sail for France, to make war.
The embassy to England was back in Paris by the time the King of France received the letter. The besieged port of Harfleur was already almost in English hands, and when it fell it would lay open a great chunk of northern France to the invader: Normandy, Rouen, and the Seine river-supply route all the way to Paris. The Archbishop of Bourges was shaking his venerable head at the letter.
‘Well, what am I to reply?’ King Charles said helplessly, and the ambassadors shook their heads and murmured. The King’s hands were shaking; the letter was fluttering, ready to drop from them.
Jean de Castel spoke up from the back. His heart was racing.
‘Don’t trust a word he says, my lord,’ he said, and the King’s eyes fixed beseechingly on him. ‘He doesn’t want to marry your daughter. He wants to conquer your country. He is not a man of peace.’
The King of France’s reply to Henry of England was as gentle as ever, agreeing on the need for peace. But Jean de Castel was pleased to see that the final draft of the letter, sent only after the distressed King had briefly fallen ill again, still contained one drop of acid he hoped his words had inspired. Where the King had addressed Henry of England’s demand for the Princess, he had written: ‘It does not appear that the means you have adopted are proper, honourable or usual in such a case.’
Catherine’s mother organised a ball to celebrate the return to court of the noblemen united under the Count of Armagnac – the Orleans faction – after their summer campaigning to contain the Duke of Burgundy. There would be no more festivities: after this one ball, the princes would be off to defend France against the English invader. So Isabeau threw herself into the evening with gusto,