On the March, Winter 1424
On the March, Winter
WE TAKE THE road through Artois to Thérouanne and then to Béthune, riding through Philip of Burgundy’s rolling rich lands.
Jacqueline rides up and down the ranks, making sure that the soldiers are not breaking away to trespass on the broad fields.
It is essential that Philip has no grounds for complaint as we cross this good farming land, the source of his massive fortune.
The valleys are thick with forests, and every now and then we have to halt to let a well-laden cart of timber go by.
They only farm the higher lands, one long field running into another, with no hedgerows like England.
They breed fat golden cows who carry clanking bells around their necks and are herded out of the wheatfields by children with sticks and bags of stones.
Even the highest fields are laid to grain; they grow wheat, rye, and barley for brewing their famous ales.
Now, in the cold months, the fields are resting and the animals can graze where they want, the cowherds idling behind them.
Under Jacqueline’s keen watch, the soldiers obey the Earl Marshal and keep good order.
The duke rides in front, his red cap on his head, his standard flying above him: two quarters the gold fleur-delys of France on blue, two quarters the three gold lions of England on red.
He wears blue and red too – a blue cape and red leather riding breeches.
As Jacqueline goes up and down the line of the march, watching the men, he and I ride companionably side by side.
She is brilliant with the men, with her subjects, and with her equals; she is a great leader, and I will watch her and learn from her.
But she knows no more than a child how to manage a husband. I will do that for her.
‘Are you feeling better today, Your Grace?’ I ask solicitously.
He grimaces. ‘A little. But I would have to ride even if it were ten times worse. How are you? Not frightened?’
‘I am more accustomed now,’ I say. ‘And she’s a good horse.’
‘I know that you didn’t want to come,’ he says gently. ‘I told my lady that you shouldn’t be forced.’ He has a way of making everyone he meets feel that they are special. He is particularly charming to his wife’s servants – as if he wants them to prefer him.
‘What a court you will make at Mons,’ I say, glancing up at him, riding high on his bigger horse. ‘You will be grander than Philip of Burgundy himself.’
He brightens at the thought of it. ‘I’ve always wanted to make a really beautiful palace,’ he says.
‘A centre for artists and poets and musicians. And the sciences – we will have alchemists and astron-omers. I shall make a library and a room for observing the stars. I shall have a forge and a distilling room. I shall make a centre of learning and scholarship.’
‘It’ll be wonderful,’ I assure him.
IT TAKES US more than a week to get to Hainault territory.
The first town is Bouchain, a favourite of Jacqueline’s father, and then we march in good order, with Jacqueline’s standard of red and black rampant lions going before us, to the prosperous town of Valenciennes.
The gates are closed, though it is long before curfew.
The citizens are on the walls of the town, looking down on their countess and her English husband; the watch is drawn up in ranks in front of the gate but behind the closed portcullis.
We can see them through the bars: about two dozen middle-aged men, stolid-faced, slightly anxious, the mayor of their town before them, with the great key to the gate in his hand.
‘Good day, my lord mayor. What’s the meaning of this?’ my lady asks them pleasantly in Flemish. Both her husband the duke and his commander the Earl Marshal can understand nothing but have to wait for a translation, looking from her to the burghers of Valenciennes.
The mayor looks at our force: nearly three thousand men, enough to raze the little town to dust. Our men ground their pikes and wait with silent menace.
‘Now, now – you gave me refuge when I fled from the false man who claimed to be my husband,’ Jacqueline reminds them, smiling.
‘I promised you then, I would come back and free you from him, as I have freed myself. Now, here I am! I have married – this time, the marriage is a good one – and this is my husband, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, Protector of England, commander of the armies of the great Henry V.’
She glances at him. ‘Smile and bow,’ she prompts him quickly in English.
She turns back to the town gate and the waiting townsmen as Duke Humphrey takes his hat from his head and smiles up at the merchants’ wives on the high walls.
‘My lord duke has brought his army, led by the Earl Marshal of England,’ she continues.
Now she speaks alternately in Flemish and English.
‘If my false husband John of Brabant tries to keep the lands he has taken from me, we are ready to give battle. But you know he will not defend himself. You know he is a weakling who will not dare face me. He will withdraw. And we come in peace.’
‘My lady,’ the mayor says in halting English, casting a nervous look at the duke and the army behind him, ‘we don’t doubt your rights. We know them. It’s just that we can’t admit such a force. No city like ours could.’
‘I have marched these men through Artois, and they didn’t break so much as a twig!’ Duke Humphrey exclaims.
Jacqueline shoots one hard glance at her husband, which says ‘hush’ as clearly as if she had hissed it.
‘I won’t inconvenience you,’ she says pleasantly to the townsmen.
‘My men will camp outside the town. But I will come in, and so will my personal guard and my officers.’ She corrects herself.
‘My lord husband must have his guards and officers. The men can stay outside. You will send out provisions to them, and we will pay you fairly.’
‘My lady, the ancient laws of the town ban armed forces or any leader of an armed force.’ The mayor looks embarrassed.
‘The council will not admit you. This is not my decision – I am their spokesman.’ He looks around, and the other councilmen nod miserably, in agreement.
‘We won’t admit John of Brabant either, if he ever requests entry,’ he says feebly. ‘You remember – we are a free town.’
I see her teeth grit as she forces herself to smile. ‘Very well,’ she says. ‘It’s a poor welcome, but we’ll go to Crespin.’
Duke Humphrey hawks in his throat and spits on the road.
Jacqueline turns to her husband and forces herself to smile. ‘We’ll go on to Crespin,’ she says. ‘Valenciennes is a rich town but fiercely independent; they’ll welcome us later, when they see we are here to bring peace.’
‘We should force an entry,’ he whispers furiously. ‘Set a siege and break down the gate. Teach them a lesson.’
I see her struggle not to snap at him. ‘No, I cannot show disrespect to an independent town,’ she explains carefully. ‘You don’t understand. Valenciennes is not like an English town. They have rights. As the countess, I respect the rights of a free town. Everyone knows that.’
‘I don’t know it!’ he crows.
She loses her temper then. ‘I know you don’t.’ She throws her words over her shoulder as she turns her horse away. ‘But I am the Countess of Hainault. And I am telling you.’
I DROP BACK to give the duke and duchess privacy for a furious low-voiced argument over a message which has come from the towns of Hainault, who offer the duke a small fortune to go back to England and leave their peaceful land in the hands of the claimant, John of Brabant.
Or they suggest he leaves Jacqueline to make an agreement with her former husband, or puts the claim in the hands of Philip of Burgundy, their powerful neighbour.
But, in any case – in every case – would the English duke please just take the money and go away?
Jacqueline is furious with her people for this offer, furious with her mother who is behind it. But she is most angry with her husband, who hears only the insult that the people of Hainault think they can buy him off, as if he is a common mercenary, and not a royal duke on a chivalric quest.
‘How dare they dismiss me like a hireling? How dare they insult me with money?’
She says nothing, but surely it is worse for her to have her own people pay her husband to leave? Are they not saying – as Margery Jourdemayne said – that this is a woman who chooses bad husbands? Jacqueline refuses to seem outraged; she looks determined, her jaw squared, her teeth gritted.
We stay one night at the abbey of Crespin, quartering the men in barns and storehouses in the little village, half a day’s march from Mons. It is colder than ever, and at dusk, there are dark clouds on the horizon and the moon comes up with a frost haze around it.
Jacqueline and I dine in her room, while the duke and John de Mowbray dine in the abbey hall with the officers.
‘How did you learn to command men?’ I ask her curiously. ‘How to speak to townsmen and burghers and servants and army officers – so they take you seriously, even though you are a woman?’
She thinks for a moment. ‘I don’t speak to them as if I were a woman, trying to please them,’ she says.
‘I speak to them as if I were a man, their equal. I speak as if I were my father, their lord. You have been taught to be pleasing – you’ve learned a woman’s skills.
I never had to. I was born for my inheritance; I was raised to be a lord.
’ She smiles at me. ‘Woman’s skills will catch you a husband,’ she concedes.
‘But if you are to run his house and his lands and lead his men, you’ll need to learn to be a lord too. ’
The servants come in to clear the plates and one of the scouts knocks on the door to report that a small train of horses with a mule litter is coming down the road from Mons.
‘Who can it be?’ The duke comes in on the heels of the messenger. ‘In a litter?’
‘My mother,’ she says through her teeth. ‘Turn out the guard. I’ll come down.’
She will not let me brush her hair or change her gown.
She pulls on a jacket, and she goes as she is, stuffing her tumbling chestnut hair under a hat, striding out in her riding boots.
There’s no time for me to change, but nobody is going to notice me with Dowager Duchess Margaret of Burgundy riding in to face her daughter Jacqueline Duchess of Gloucester and Countess of Hainault.
The duke orders the gates thrown open, and the officers form a guard of honour as the litter, drawn by a team of glossy black mules, comes in through the walls of the abbey and stops at the foot of the stone stairs.
Jacqueline comes out of the front door and slowly descends.
A few flakes of snow sparkle in the torch-light as the curtains of the litter are drawn back, and Jacqueline takes her mother’s extended hand and helps her alight.
I see the old lady wince as she straightens up and sinks into a curtsey to her daughter, and then Jacqueline kneels before the old lady to receive her blessing.
The dowager duchess was once a tall woman, but now she is bowed by age, her shoulders hunched. She is about fifty years old, dressed grandly, in a deep-crimson gown and travelling cloak. Her hair, underneath the headdress, is snowy white, her face hard, as if carved from seasoned teak.
Duke Humphrey steps forward, and the old lady scrutinises him and puts out a hand like a withered claw.
He takes it and bows respectfully and then introduces John de Mowbray.
He leads her down the guard, and she inspects them, bright-eyed, speaking to one or two, before he conducts her into the abbess’ private room behind the hall.
Jacqueline and her mother sit on hard wooden chairs either side of the fire; the duke stands beside his new mother-in-law, John de Mowbray beside Jacqueline. I stand behind my lady and watch the dowager trying to persuade Jacqueline not to enter the capital city of Mons.
‘No,’ Jacqueline says flatly to her mother. ‘I am reclaiming my lands; I am entering my city. You will not stop me.’
‘And I am not a man to be bought off with Judas silver,’ Duke Humphrey volunteers.
‘It was thirty thousand pounds, not thirty shillings,’ she throws over her shoulder and turns back to her daughter without waiting for his reply.
‘Very well, if you insist. I’ll come to Mons with you.
I know that you blamed me for your marriage and for supporting that fool John of Brabant, but I was only ever trying to do the best for my country—’
‘ My country,’ Jacqueline corrects her, quite unmoved.
‘Our country,’ the duke says.
The old lady gives a snort of laughter. ‘Very well. Your husband makes a claim, though it was my country before either of you were born. I’ll come with you to Mons, but you’ll leave your army outside the city walls.
We’re a country at peace; I can’t have your troops smashing into wine cellars and tearing through inns. ’
‘My army is under the strictest discipline of the Earl Marshal,’ the duke starts; and John de Mowbray bows.
‘Yes, yes,’ she says impatiently. ‘I am sure both of you are shining examples of chivalry. But I can’t take any risks with our capital city, d’you see? Now, I’m very tired. Daughter, take me to my room.’
Of course, there’s no room prepared for her. ‘You’ll have to sleep in my room,’ Jacqueline says coolly. ‘I was bedding with Eleanor. The two of us will sleep next door.’
The old lady finally notices me, since she is taking my bed. She looks me up and down, as if she is measuring an ell of Valenciennes lace, something very pretty and insubstantial. ‘No matter,’ she says.